Ex-wife and mother of 2 kids left me for a co-worker and in serious relationship

[MJJean]

As much of what you've said in your posts in this thread simply don't add up, after a little research from your previous posts it's beginning to come together now why you're so casual about the topic of infidelity in a marriage. Not all of us were FWB's with our former spouses and involved in accidental pregnancies due to birth control failure. While I respect your perspective, you came from a marriage had no connection from the start. Many of us were actually happily married to our spouses. The dismissive nature, while understandable, in YOUR situation does not equate to the same of two people knowingly taking vows to each other on their wedding day.

 

Many of us were happily married to our spouses, who, unbeknownst to us, left the marriage for reasons that had little to do with us. Your replies don't make sense because the situations are entirely different.

 

I well understand what it's like to be happily married. I have been happily marrried for 14 years come December.

 

The thing you are still not able to grasp is that your wife was/is not you.

 

YOU were happily married. SHE was not. YOU felt connection. SHE had detached. YOU loved your wife. SHE was already in love with another man.

 

The reason you cant understand is because you still fail to realize that she was already over you and emotionally moved on before you even realized there was something wrong.

[aileD]

I well understand what it's like to be happily married. I have been happily marrried for 14 years come December.

 

The thing you are still not able to grasp is that your wife was/is not you.

 

YOU were happily married. SHE was not. YOU felt connection. SHE had detached. YOU loved your wife. SHE was already in love with another man.

 

The reason you cant understand is because you still fail to realize that she was already over you and emotionally moved on before you even realized there was something wrong.

 

 

Quoted for truth. Same thing happened to me. I was oblivious. He had already checked out

[Lion Heart]

Quoted for truth. Same thing happened to me. I was oblivious. He had already checked out

 

IMHO Quoted for PARTIAL truth.

 

The perspective shared by some, especially cheating spouses, lacks empathy and ofcourse shifts blame onto the victim(s) of infidelity.

 

Why blame the victim. Bullies do this. Cheaters do this. Thank goodness SOME former cheating people may appear not to, maybe not for very long if they woke up to themselves fully.

 

HAVING sex outside the marraige is ALL ON THE CHEATING SPOUSE. To sit and shift blame onto the faithful spouse (lol) in ANY forms is only blame shifting.

 

Sure there may have been "issues in the M" but in all reality it's ALWAYS issues the CHEATING SPOUSE had or indeed has.

 

UNLESS the faithful spouse physically FORCED their cheating spouse to engage in sexual acts then hey it's at the very worst completely ignorant and unintelligent to blame the BSs.

 

"Poor coping strategies" is what this exVWH was told he had. IT was way worse than that.

 

The BASE VALUE of truth is WHAT'S MISSING.

Dishonesty, deception, omitting truths and all the rest is what cheating spouses engage in WHEN they are having affairs unbeknownst to their faithful spouse.

 

So WHO'S fault is this? Again that level of Dishonesty is ALL on the WS.

 

Plus I'm yet to see "a perfect marraige", many survive decades with no infidelity. With problems bigger than those claims of hardships endured by the WS. They forget there were two people in that M.

 

So to SD82 who IS the victim.

Loss of M.

Loss of WW - he'll come to know is a boon not a loss.

Loss of FAMILY and opportunities to be the father he was.

 

The injustices suffered by people in THESE cases is something they may need help to overcome.

 

With determined efforts and FOCUS one can overcome these losses to live an extremely fulfilling and rich life. To understand primarily that it's GRIEF one faces is a starting point. Allowing yourself to grieve is vitally important.

 

Be good to yourself SD82.

Completely ignore the WW. She's not worth anything of yours. Most especially not your THOUGHTS or space in your mind.

 

Whilst completing the final steps of D, a gut feeling of grief re-emerged for me. In reality I was grieving for what I THOUGHT I had. No what I did have. Which was simply a cancer to my family (the other 7 of us) and by D I am cutting the cancer out of our family. Cutting out the evil tentacles set on ruining us all. Cutting out the greed. Theiving of time, money and energy. PROTECTING myself from sexually transmitted diseases!

 

TRULY BREAKING FREE and that feeling is AMAZING.

 

I pray you get to the WONDERFUL space I'm feeling now.

To know that ALL that pain I felt. Trauma I endured and grief I'll recover from WAS all worth it SINCE I NOW KNOW THE truth. :-))

 

Best wishes

Lion Heart

[MJJean]

I don't think anyone here is or was blameshfting anything onto the OP.

 

What I said, and AileD agree with, was that there are two very distinct points of view in a marriage.

 

HIS perception was that they had a happy marriage, loved each other, and shared a connection.

 

HER perception, based on events described by OP, was that the marriage was unhappy, she stopped being in love with him, and felt little or no connection.

 

No one said that the infidelity was OP's fault in any way. What we said was that, if he wants to understand, he needs to accept that his exW had a very different view of the marriage and was making her choices based on that very different view.

 

In a nutshell, what I have been trying to explain is that HE thinks she "threw a grenade" into a happy marriage and blew it to smithereens. This perplexes him. He doesn't understand why she threw the grenade. The answer is that, from her point of view, she wasn't throwing a grenade into a happy marriage. In her mind, she wasn't destroying her life, she was fixing it.

 

This whole bit isn't about right and wrong or blame, it's about understanding other points of view and how those different views lead others to make choices we don't understand.

[Cephalopod]

I don't think anyone here is or was blameshfting anything onto the OP.

 

What I said, and AileD agree with, was that there are two very distinct points of view in a marriage.

 

HIS perception was that they had a happy marriage, loved each other, and shared a connection.

 

HER perception, based on events described by OP, was that the marriage was unhappy, she stopped being in love with him, and felt little or no connection.

 

No one said that the infidelity was OP's fault in any way. What we said was that, if he wants to understand, he needs to accept that his exW had a very different view of the marriage and was making her choices based on that very different view.

 

In a nutshell, what I have been trying to explain is that HE thinks she "threw a grenade" into a happy marriage and blew it to smithereens. This perplexes him. He doesn't understand why she threw the grenade. The answer is that, from her point of view, she wasn't throwing a grenade into a happy marriage. In her mind, she wasn't destroying her life, she was fixing it.

 

This whole bit isn't about right and wrong or blame, it's about understanding other points of view and how those different views lead others to make choices we don't understand.

 

So her inability to communicate her unhappiness to him is his fault? Why didn't she come to him long ago when she felt her love for him fading? Women are supposed to be so much better at communicating than men. Why didn't she communicate and let him know that the marriage was in trouble, instead of just ghosting him. Like a coward would do... slinking away emotionally.

[MJJean]

So her inability to communicate her unhappiness to him is his fault? Why didn't she come to him long ago when she felt her love for him fading? Women are supposed to be so much better at communicating than men. Why didn't she communicate and let him know that the marriage was in trouble, instead of just ghosting him. Like a coward would do... slinking away emotionally.

 

We don't know she didn't. As I said in a previous post regarding communication, just because the message was sent doesn't mean it was received and understood.

[aileD]

So her inability to communicate her unhappiness to him is his fault? Why didn't she come to him long ago when she felt her love for him fading? Women are supposed to be so much better at communicating than men. Why didn't she communicate and let him know that the marriage was in trouble, instead of just ghosting him. Like a coward would do... slinking away emotionally.

 

No one is laying blame on her. Sometimes thing happen and this happened--like someone said....two different perspectives. I think when one spouse "checks out" what happens is they become indifferent, they rewrite history, in their minds there is nothing and they often convince themselves the BS feels the same way. My husband truly did not think I loved him or even liked him anymore. He thought i tolerated him and thought that I would be happy to be rid of him.

 

That wasn't true and he saw that after but he had already in his mind moved on from me.

 

That does not make it ok to cheat snd it's not an excuse to cheat. He is still 100% at fault.

 

But that's how he felt at the time.

[Cephalopod]

I'm laying the blame on her. She's a coward.

[road]

I don't remember the story here but I am not going to read 83 posts. There is no need to figure out who is to blame. Reason is that there is no justification to have an affair.

[MJJean]

I'm laying the blame on her. She's a coward.

 

I think AileD flipped her pronouns. If you read the whole post, that looks to be what happened.

 

And I agree, she should have had the courage to tell OP the marriage was over before she began dating OM.

 

I don't remember the story here but I am not going to read 83 posts. There is no need to figure out who is to blame. Reason is that there is no justification to have an affair.

 

LSS, OP's wife had an affair and left him for OM. They have been together for about a year and there has been talk of them possibly marrying. OP was trying to understand WTH was/is going on in her head and how she is/was thinking.

[howtoproceed]

What's the difference between emotionally checking out and being in a fog?

If a wife is emotionally checked out, even if she isn't have an affair, I think she is basically walking around in a fog. This whole points of view is nonsense. Its what my mom just told me in order to convince me to stay with my wife - basically for the sake of the kids. I guess I'm old school. If wife is not happy, wife should get a divorce otherwise wife is a cake-eater.

[Cephalopod]

What's the difference between emotionally checking out and being in a fog?

If a wife is emotionally checked out, even if she isn't have an affair, I think she is basically walking around in a fog. This whole points of view is nonsense. Its what my mom just told me in order to convince me to stay with my wife - basically for the sake of the kids. I guess I'm old school. If wife is not happy, wife should get a divorce otherwise wife is a cake-eater.

 

BecUse she wants you to be the bad guy. If you file for divorce, you get the blame for the demise of the marriage.

 

Well, maybe for your sake you need to be the bad guy.

[Striver]

I've been divorced about a year and three months and have had some issues with contact recently so I'll share. Don't know how much help it will be.

 

I have had to do some parent teacher conferences with the ex and they didn't go well for me because I'm just at the point where I can't stand to be in the same room with her. It used to be better, so mostly it's me and just my emotional deterioration or whatever.

 

Background. June of 2014 the ex comes to me and says she's been unhappy for the past year. Year singular. Not years. Upon reflection she'd acted weird during that time but before that time she'd been how she'd normally been in the marriage. So it was just a year.

 

For nine months of that time she'd been in contact with the man she left me for. She knew him before we ever met. I confronted her and she said that when we married it was a choice between him and me and she chose me (at the time anyway.)

 

I had met him at the time, before we married. He was in the process of breaking up with a long term girlfriend because of his refusal to marry or have kids with her. That woman found another guy, moved out of state, and started her family.

 

I have a couple of sources for my anger. Finances are admittedly part of it. I have an above average income, but child support for three kids is a lot. I have decent custody, not 50-50 though. My ex has not worked since our first child was born, still does not. Moved out of our house, into super nice new house with the man she left me for. Parents have a lot of money, have paid whatever bills she wants.

 

It's hard for me to not believe that she married me with the idea she could leave me for this other guy at any time should she so choose. The guy was a commitmentphobe, wouldn't marry or have kids with her. I would do that with her. She is chronically impatient to get whatever she wants.

 

Basically she used me as a stud service and tossed me aside when she so chose. Someone mentioned remembering the years you had with the person. I don't have any good memories any more. I think she lied to me from Day One. And there she is, basically making no sacrifices whatsoever. None at all. Why wouldn't she do what she did to me, she got exactly what she wanted.

 

The morals and my finances are the cause of my resentment. I don't come from money, was a good man to her, kind to her. She has all sorts of money coming to her from parents and grandparents. And yet she had to be more greedy, had to take advantage of me financially.

 

So I've gotten to the point where I just can't stand her. Can't stand the morals, can't stand the fact that she made my life so insecure. I had my kids late, so I'll be paying support right up until retirement age. I won't have any chance to recover.

 

I have dated, am seeing someone for a while now. It's alright. I don't feel it's ever going to be the same for me. I'll do what I have to do to survive.

 

I am never going to accept the guy she is with now. Fortunately he has not come to kids events to date. Fortunately my ex does feel some degree of guilt for her actions.

 

I wish I had better words for you. A man or woman can only take so much. My spirit rebels against her. Good luck with your situation.

[MJJean]

I've been divorced about a year and three months and have had some issues with contact recently so I'll share. Don't know how much help it will be.

 

I'll share, too, even though I don't know how much help it will be.

 

A few days ago, my DH was inside a pizza place getting our order and I was in the car with the kids. It was nice so I had the windows down. A lady walks out of the pizza place on the phone and talking rather loudly. I heard her say "And I told him, we've been together 5 years and if I don't get a ring by this Christmas, it's over!"

 

A woman at my church became pregnant. She'd been living with the father and we naturally started asking if they were going to get married. She said "Oh yes! I am NOT a long term girlfriend!"

 

Wanting marriage and family is a major life goal and lifestyle choice. In a romantic relationship, it's a major compatibility issue.

 

Point is, if a woman wants marriage and a family, she has to recognize when a man she is involved with either doesn't want a marriage and family in general or if he doesn't want marriage and family with her in particular. At that point, she must decide if she will stay with him and abandon her dream of marriage and family or find another partner who is more compatible.

 

Your wife chose to leave her ex so that she could have marriage and a family. She probably honestly believed she could "get over" her feelings for him and have a successful marriage to you because you shared similar life goals. She overestimated her ability to override her emotions for the long term.

 

If you don't want to interact with her, you can request a separate parent teacher conference. A lot of divorced parents do separate conferences.

[Striver]

Your wife chose to leave her ex so that she could have marriage and a family. She probably honestly believed she could "get over" her feelings for him and have a successful marriage to you because you shared similar life goals. She overestimated her ability to override her emotions for the long term.

 

If you don't want to interact with her, you can request a separate parent teacher conference. A lot of divorced parents do separate conferences.

 

I might have to do the separate conferences. Didn't use to be a problem before but as I said it's kind of getting worse for me. Maybe I had more hope in the past and that is gone now.

 

I did not have a lot of direct experience with divorce, did not know a lot of people who are divorced. I got into the manosphere some and I will say that some of the cliches about women exist for a reason.

 

My ex acted like the cliche. Date the "bad boys"/unavailable men until the late 20s, then enter marriage mode and look for the good guy to start the family with. Then get bored in the late 30s and ditch the husband.

 

Really she would have done the same thing to a hundred other guys. I never mattered. There will always be a distance between me and the short term or long term girlfriends now. Maybe that will work better, maybe that's what women need, to know men know they're capable of acting like garbage.

 

It's not like I believed in soul mates before, I always knew there could be other people. I just expected some regard for the parent of one's children. Didn't get it, it meant nothing to her.

[Mr. Lucky]

I wish I had better words for you. A man or woman can only take so much. My spirit rebels against her. Good luck with your situation.

 

Long term, you're only punishing yourself. As you've clearly pointed out, she ain't worth it. By effectively making her a part of your life going forward, you're carrying a lot of unnecessary weight with no reward.

 

Let it go...

 

Mr. Lucky

[SingleDad82]

So I got some big news this weekend.. She called to tell me she's marrying him.. which is interesting because we've only been divorced since June.. it makes me wonder what my kids are in store for.. I really hate the thought of this douche living with my children..

[Mr. Lucky]

She called to tell me she's marrying him.. which is interesting because we've only been divorced since June..

 

You might take some comfort in considering her track record regarding commitment and relationships...

 

Mr. Lucky

[Cephalopod]

At least she had the courtesy to call you and let you know....I guess...

[tinkerbell16]

So I got some big news this weekend.. She called to tell me she's marrying him.. which is interesting because we've only been divorced since June.. it makes me wonder what my kids are in store for.. I really hate the thought of this douche living with my children..

 

It's a gift... she is his problem now

[JustJoe]

Yep go as dark as you can. Texts only. Stop meeting face to face.

 

If you have the ability, get into counseling and more specifically, if your insurance will cover it, get into counseling with a therapist who treats for PTSD.

 

Look into EDMR therapy. I have heard that does wonders.

 

If you are having problems sleeping, go to your doctor and be honest and up front with him on what is happening. Tell him you are having trouble sleeping, and that you might need a sleep aid.

 

Sleep, a good diet and exercise will help you get through this.

This post is ridiculous. this isn't a game or a spy movie, it is the op's life and his kids future. If the OP does this, how will it impact his lids lives? People should think before they post.

[JustJoe]

OP, the most important issue you have, is to be the best co-parent you can be, and to give your kids a loving, organized and structured life. That is what young kids need most. Your interactions with your ex, need to be cordial, correct, and impersonal. Treat her like the nanny. Forget about her as a woman and him as a man, they are the hired help that help you raise your kids, nothing more than that. Any conversation should only concern the kids, no casual talk about each other , only about the kids. If you take this attitude, you will be giving your kids a good life, showing your ex that you are over her, and cementing your status as the father.

Edited December 3, 2016 by JustJoe

[JustJoe]

Remember that if you are seeking revenge, or to punish her for her cheating, the ones who will be harmed the most will be the kids.

[minimariah]

If you take this attitude, you will be giving your kids a good life, showing your ex that you are over her, and cementing your status as the father.

 

unfortunately -- it's really not that simple. at all. he needs access to his children: 50% would be IDEAL. he won't cement his status as the father by being kind to the ex; he'll cement his status by being THERE for the children and actively raising them, participating in every aspect of their lives, decision making and so on. dealing with an X is always heard... now, being cheated on sucks. being cheated on, dumped for that person, forced to watch that person interact and build a relationship with YOUR children? now that SUPER SUCKS. it sucks so much that minimum contact with parallel parenting seems like a great idea for now - when the OP is ready... he'll decide how to handle it.

 

therapy is a must, if the OP can afford it.

[Cephalopod]

This post is ridiculous. this isn't a game or a spy movie, it is the op's life and his kids future. If the OP does this, how will it impact his lids lives? People should think before they post.

 

What the **** are you talking about?