Wife's emotional affair with ex

[Turning point]

After reading your 'letter' and subsequent posts I'm going to suggest that you do in fact, proceed with divorce and provide a generous settlement for your ex and child.

 

I don't think your perspective on what happened to your marriage is an accurate or healthy accounting and you should seek some IC to get clarity on that. There is a side to this story that you have never heard yet, it is woven into the fabric of your letter and subsequent posts.

 

Whatever escape she subsequently found with the OM is unfortunate but an unlikely source of this relationship's demise. Until you let go of that you're not going to see the real her, the real history, and especially the real you.

 

Best wishes going forward.

[pepperbird]

I think I may have misunderstood something. In a previous post (#63) you mentioned that you had threatened divorce, pushed her and broke her. If this is the case, was it before or after she started her emotional affair?

 

 

 

I hope I am misunderstanding this part of your thread, because if I am, my sympathy for you is nil. I also have zero sympathy for her.

 

I also have a feeling there is a whole lot more to this story than we'll ever know. That's your business, but it does seem like there is a lot of the story being left out.

[pepperbird]

 

I hope I am misunderstanding this part of your thread, because if I am, my sympathy for you is nil. I also have zero sympathy for her.

 

 

 

This should have read that I don't have a lot of sympathy for someone who would threaten divorce, push his wife to a place where she feels broken and basically has her "fix herself" to suit him.

That doesn't condone cheating ( nothing does), but if a BS is waffling about reconciling, they need to realize that, for it to work, it's can't forever be about what the WS did. Of course, that is top priority, but one of the questions a BS has to ask themselves before deciding to reconcile is whether or not they feel there is any chnace they will ever be able to reach a place with their WS that they can forgive them and address issues in their marriage.

 

 

It's a sucky place to be ( BTDT) , but it is what it is.

[emotionallybroken9]

Hey all. OOF, lots of hostile energy ☹ I’ll get to answering people ?

@S2B I made sure I won’t be having anymore babies ?

 

@Turning Point I was born and raised in the middle east. I came to North America at 12 years old. I was still super duper muslim until about my 20’s, when I started wavering. At 23 I lost my virginity to my first serious girlfriend. I loved sex. I was super insecure since Islam really controls what you're supposed to know, feel, and think.

 

Considering my background and how I was raised, I can forgive my past self for that. I broke up with her when I was 24, which is when I went overseas (Asia) to work. I was young, inexperienced, lost my faith, first time in my life living alone, and had to only depend on myself for money. A LOT of firsts, all happening at the same time. The middle east doesn’t AT ALL prepare us for the freedoms that the western world enjoys, so imagine me being my own role model, with other western 2X year olds and the craziness of fornication in Asia. A recipe for disaster.

 

I met my wife in 2010, and married in 2011. In the middle of 2011, when we moved in together and she began changing to a reclusive negative, and to be fair I was also young and adjusting to living with another adult for the first time, the relationship was just not as positive as I could stand. My happiness was affected. I told her I don’t want to be with her anymore because this is a horrible way for both of us to live. She begged and pleaded on her knees, and SHE pointed out what was wrong on her side. She promised change without me saying anything, so I believed her. I was young and was in pain at losing my then wife. I didn’t threaten her so she would change. I just told her I wanted out. SHE changed my mind.

 

The NC and current separation is just a coincidence of summer plans that were made PRIOR to DDay. Just timed out that she’d go visit her folks with our daughter for about 2 months. I wanted NC to figure out what it is that I want, and for her to figure out what she wants. I’m doing my best. IC asked me what I want, and I answered him the same: I don't know, because this is a first time for me to want things for just me without considering others in the equation. I'm working hard on figuring it out, hence the NC.

 

You said there’s a side to the story that you haven’t heard, but I’m not sure what side you’d like. I’ve asked her to make her own thread on this website to talk with the fine folks on here. She doesn’t blame me for the demise of the relationship, not at all. She recognizes how hard I’ve been trying for all those years, and has admitted that she never recovered from the first time (in 2011) that I wanted to leave. I’ve asked for divorce maybe 2 or 3 times after that, with years in between, and each time it was for me to not be miserable anymore, to which she would offer the same thing, change a little, then return to misery.

 

@pepperbird I told her I don’t want to be with her anymore because this is a horrible way for both of us to live. She begged and pleaded on her knees, and SHE pointed out what was wrong on her side. She promised change without me saying anything, so I believed her. She did change for a while, but patterns repeat. But I was also changing myself because it takes two people to make it work, right?. What I had never known was that she was emotionally checked out. I even learned that term online years into the marriage as I was never endingly working on myself. I only learned that she had checked out after DDay.

 

If there’s more to the story or you want to know, please just ask. I’m an open book ? I’m working hard on being happy and figuring out what I want for ME in my life. I would never want to drag someone along, or take them on as a white knight ever again.

 

I believe there’s a chance for recon, and I’ve already forgiven her for her actions. All humans make mistakes. It’s what she does AFTER, that’s the issue. I know how much work it takes to be in a marriage, and to work on yourself… over 3333 days of work and counting, heh. Not saying that's how long it'll take her, but that's how long I've been working on myself.

Right now, it seems to me that we will both be okay living parallel lives because of our daughter. That’s how I’m moving forward. I’ve tried for our marriage for 7 years. It’s now up to her for fight for it or not. I'm receptive to either option. I don't know what it would take to get me back, but that's why I'm here. Being open is the start, right? Forgiving her is the other start, yeah? IC is yet another one.

 

I’ve been to IC and told him the exact same things I’ve typed here. I don’t know what I want. But I know what I don’t want, which is to be in a dead relationship again, or one where the woman is with me because of my resources.

 

Please, please believe that I’m a good guy. My background gave me such a bad start into dating and relationships. My only role models were TV, Internet, and friends around my age. I don’t want to have a muslim marriage, where the man is #1 and woman is a server to him.

 

Ask any questions, as I have nothing to hide. I’m being as honest as the internet allows me to be, because I want to have a good life before I die. It would be smoother if we were all in a room, but we gotta use this platform as best as we can.

 

I’m 33… she’s 36. We can both start over in new relationships, or with each other. I don’t want sex from her if it’s to just win me back, that’s gross. I stopped taking hopium. Now I'm just living life.

 

So ask away friends, and help me be the best version of me that I can be. IC will also help. I have an appointment next week, and next, and next ?

[S2B]

Words are just words. Action shows change. She hasn’t changed.

 

She just gives more of the same behavior with lies (words).

 

That’s why you should just divorce her.

 

She doesn’t know how to be monogamous.

[emotionallybroken9]

@S2B Ah, I think there's a misunderstanding.

 

Where we live, the government will NOT let me get a divorce until 9 months of separation have occurred. I think you guys thought I'm not divorcing and just separating. No no, the government won't let me! After 9 months of separation, then I can apply for the divorce. Sorry for the confusion >.<

 

It's now been 30 days of separation, so another 240 days to go before I can get a divorce. The government says that's how long she has to change my mind and for us to work it out. I'm not going to allow her to move back in. Only our daughter.

 

Hope this clarifies things about divorce and separation. By the way, if this government rule wasn't in place, then we'd have been divorced in March (DDay).

Edited June 26, 2019 by emotionallybroken9

[JuneL]

I just read the whole thread. One thing that stood out is that you are extremely emotionally needy; unfortunately, that’s not an attractive trait, especially for a man. Your wife probably just wanted some excitement in the form of this OM fantasy, even though she’s not serious or interested in real commitment with him.

 

I highly recommend that you read Sofie2013’s threads from a few years ago. Hers is the only successful story involving infidelity on here, in my personal views.

[emotionallybroken9]

I just read the whole thread. One thing that stood out is that you are extremely emotionally needy; unfortunately, that’s not an attractive trait, especially for a man. Your wife probably just wanted some excitement in the form of this OM fantasy, even though she’s not serious or interested in real commitment with him.

 

I highly recommend that you read Sofie2013’s threads from a few years ago. Hers is the only successful story involving infidelity on here, in my personal views.

 

Yup, this isn't new for me. I grew up not getting emotional love from family, then in this relationship I didn't get it for for almost 8 years. I tried hard, but it's kind of difficult to heal yourself without ANY emotional love. I was married in an emotionally dead relationship, and I wasn't getting any from family. I was robbed of any emotional love, and was restricted by the laws of marriage, so... what was I to do? Become a robot? No. This is why I wanted to divorce 3 times over the span of 9 years together. SHE kept begging me to stay and fed me some love then took it away.

 

Now I have no daughter, no wife, and still that same family that doesn't give emotional love. But at least I know I'm no longer trapped, so I'll be able to find that emotional connection somewhere in the future.

 

Have you been in a dead bedroom relationship with an emotionally checked out partner for almost 8 years? With a child in the picture?It's like being in the desert and someone puts a glass of water behind a glass wall that opens at extremely random intervals. It's the only water in the whole desert that you can have access to. Turns out there was more water, just hidden away from me.

 

Don't attack me without being empathetic/sympathetic. Dont act like I did nothing about this for my entire relationship. You read the thread and you attack me still? Seriously? What parts did you skim over? Jeez.

 

Edit: Oh, I remember you, the one that tells people to not share their opinions. Guess this is expected then. Carry on.

Edited June 28, 2019 by emotionallybroken9

[JuneL]

I wasn’t trying to attack you; it was merely an observation. It’s very hard to deal with a partner that’s so emotionally needy. If you were prepared to walk out of the marriage THREE times in the past already, you should do the same this time. Like another poster pointed out, paradoxically, you can’t truly win your wife’s heart without the dignity to think and act like it’s okay to walk away.

 

For the record, I did NOT ask you to not share your opinions in Rainbow’s thread. I just reminded you to read her backstory, as hers was a very different one.

Edited June 28, 2019 by JuneL

[emotionallybroken9]

33%. That’s how much of my life is about to be destroyed. The fact that you think it’s an easy “logical” decision to make it alarming. To just walk away from a wife and daughter, just like that, it’s really disheartening to hear another human think it’s just that easy a decision to make.

 

33%. My childhood was 33%. My school years were he next 33%. And my adulthood is the last 33%.

 

Do you think it’s easy to just walk away from a daughter that you love, and a wife that you love? Just to say, “yup, this ain’t working, I’m out”? Really? This forum solely exists to help the people that are about to rip away a giant portion of their lives.

 

I’m about to lose 10 years of my life. 10. I’m only 33. The fact you think it’s easy to walk away from this, or to just use “logic” when I’m going through this for the first time in my life, is really alarming.

 

I don’t mind you posting, but I don’t think you’ve had to make a decision to throw away 33% of your life AND a child that you raised with love and tenderness for 5 years and counting.

 

33% of my life is about to be ripped away, so you’ll have to excuse me for wanting to make sense of it all. I didn’t have a conventional North American upbringing. I didn’t have the luxury of having any role models to teach me and show me love. So excuse me for wanting to feel an emotional connection to the woman that I’ve been with for a decade and raised a child with for 5 years + 1 year of pregnancy.

 

Seriously, how can you so be detached from the massive effects these decisions will cause? I don’t get it. Please tell me you lost your child(ren) and spouse of 10 years just like that. Please teach me how to ignore all the feelings and memories that you’ve developed for a decade. Please help me get through ripping away 33% of my my 33 year old life so easily.

 

I tried to read your threads, but they’re all just opinions. Connect with me as a person. I don’t need another counsellor, as I have one and will be with them again next week. I need support. I’ve never been in this position, which is why I post here.

 

Tell me how you handled losing your child and wife of a decade in one fool swoop, and walked away unscathed enough to make such cold posts to others. To tell them to “zip it.” I want to know because I want to be not depressed anymore. Please, tell me your secret.

[S2B]

I started over when I had been married half my life - so 50% - I was 48 years old then.

 

And it was worth it... because I no longer had to wonder when he was doing me wrong! No more wondering when he was cheating and spending tons of money on his OW.

 

And I didn’t lose my kids! They still spend tons of time with me 15 years later - they are adults now and I don’t have anyone messing up my relationship with them anymore!

 

You don’t lose your daughter... you go on and be her Father. Every child needs parents who show them they are loved beyond measure - no matter if they are married or not.

[JuneL]

When you threatened divorce those 3 times, did you not have the same fear of losing something?

 

p.s. To tell them to “zip it.”

^^^ Are you sure you didn’t mix me up with someone else?

Edited June 29, 2019 by JuneL

[emotionallybroken9]

For the zip it comment, may haps, and I apologize for that. I really do. My bad.

 

For the divorce 3 times. I’ve never had a girlfriend that I broke up with. It was my first time to make a decision that hard. If I go back in time, I wouldn’t have attempted divorce. I would’ve spoken to her. Asked what was going on. I would’ve never attempted divorce unless it was absolutely necessary. It wasn’t necessary back then. I just didn’t recognize the signs of her being insecure, or ME being insecure. I didn’t recognize that she was also young and struggling to the adjustment of being lonely or depressed. But I was 25 years old, 27, 29.

 

Maybe people with breaking up experience or who’ve developed those tools would’ve handled things better, but I was an Arab in a mixed relationship with a woman that he loved but tried to stop the hurt.

 

The tools I have NOW? It’s night and day. Because of my first attempt, I started reading articles, books, watching videos, learning how to be a better person, not just a better husband. It takes a lot, especially when I didn’t have a single positive male role model in my life.

 

Have you looked at typical marriages of the past? Now? And have you seen Muslim marriages? I was thrown into the world of sex, drugs, employment, without any background information. I had to make it up as I went along. Hell, I had to LEARN how to make friends at 24, since all my friends in the past were either classmates or neighbors introduced to me by my family.

 

So yeah, if I could go back, I wouldn’t have even come close to asking her for divorce. It didn’t need it. I should’ve talked to her. I should’ve figured out what was wrong. I should never have dropped the “divorce” bomb so lightly, just because she was lonely/insecure. But that’s heindsight. It’s pretty much why I easily said “ok” when she just promised she would change. I didn’t threaten her to change, and ironically I was the one to change the most because of those attempts.

 

Now? I’m facing yet another point in my life where I’m growing and changing. I hate that I have to change using the catalyst of being cheated on, but I’m trying my best to “make it up as I go along.” Life isn’t easy when you have to be your own role model in every aspect of life. It sucks. I hope I can be there for my daughter, to guide her and teach her how to try to live life. How to learn and grow, not just follow blindly. How to love and expect love, not just give and try to fix everything. I don’t know of any well adjusted people in their 20s, especially the people in Asia. Like a f()ckfest of bad decisions over there in the foreigner community. I’m surprised we even made it out like we did, but that’s the power of learning.

 

I know you’re trying to help in your own way, but it comes up compassionless during a time I’m at my very lowest and most damaged. Just adds hurt on top my hurt. But I understand, and keep trying to talk, and I hope you can see me a little bit more clearly. I appreciate your opinions and words, even when they’re jagged, heh.

[emotionallybroken9]

Thanks s2b. It’s my first time so it’s really scary and depressing to realize I won’t wake up to her being under the same roof as me. To not get an endless supply of hugs, kisses, and laughter. To not hear her angry voice or sad cries and be there for her. I never imagined my world without her in my life everyday until she flies he nest. It feels like she’s being dragged out of my reach before the right time. I know it’ll be okay. I want to believe it. I just didn’t want the quality of life that we had to suffer as much as it will. But I guess I don’t know the future, so maybe it’ll be better. Who knows, right? I mean, I had no idea what was going on about me, and about my wife cheating. Guess I can only just try to be the best in whatever the circumstance. Adulting really sucks :’(

[merrmeade]

So just so you know, I’m making this more effective (for you I hope) by

1) learning everything about your situation in this one sitting;

2) sharing the ‘high contrast’ items from beginning to end;

3) giving you a universe-wide SHOUT OUT for your ohhhhhh-so-satisfying explosion of outrage in reaction to The Diary discovery.

 

Also here is a sincere, heartfelt virtual HUG of understanding, sympathy and just, man, KUDOS for the best, most authentic and cathartic (and maybe perfect) on-the-spot TESTIMONIAL to your red-hot moment of discovery. You’ll understand later, but this is the resolution that most of us didn’t get.

 

You know, I’m actually jealous. I keep being reminded of what would’ve been had I not fked up my effort to retrieve deleted messages from Time Machine. I was in over my head having been thrust into computer sleuthing by someone else’s treachery and ended up DELETING all the folders with his mobile phone backups forever. All I ever SAW with my own eyes was “When are you coming?” and “Why so long?” — words of genuine longing for another woman (who happened to be my brother’s wife), words that changed my life forever but were surely far more incriminating in those deleted messages. I was without enough concrete — such as a diary — to convince me not to believe his bullsh*t. This is the same old same old bullsh*t that everybody coming here reports and wants to believe until our brains actually process the reality that our “spouses” are not now, and never were, like us or even like the person we thought they were and are even, in fact, so, so much worse.

 

They are actual con artists with the circumstances, training, and sense of entitlement required to perform the ultimate con. They are perfectly situated and and adept at rationalization. They feel entitled to commit fraud. They can exploit their partners’ weaknesses with impunity, and reinvent their circumstances to make themselves the victim. They exaggerate vulnerabilities, issues, mistakes, losses related to the partner they’re betraying and to the relationship without a moment of reflection or interest in honesty, humility or empathy.

 

It’s really just us betrayeds getting mindfked AGAIN. They do it because they CAN and we help them. Hell, I used to give him the words. He didn’t even need to articulated his own excuses. And I’m sure you know what I’m talking about. This is when you say you want to protect both of you, for example, not realizing the disdain and contempt she will show you the next time she writes or speaks about you.

 

Nevermind the high contrast evidence I was going to highlight. This is already too long but you can reread some day and see what I mean.

 

OMG: This is your watershed moment and you are a herald. Be royally, gloriously pissed and hang on to that outrage. It is real and it is your lifeline. Through that, you will be free.

[merrmeade]

Guess I should add a few words of explanation because invariably somebody reads such red-hot vitriole to be a contradiction if you’re reconciled. Well, it’s not and it’s irrelevant here. How we resolve our spouses’ affairs is ours and THAT is the true reconciliation regardless of the physical circumstances. We have to answer to ourselves and are under no obligation whatsoever to make others understand.

 

So that said, I still say to you again:

 

BE PISSED and BE FREE.

Edited June 30, 2019 by merrmeade

[emotionallybroken9]

Thank you MM. Yes those words that we say to them to protect them and our family, to be turned around and used against me, yes I know them well. I'm going to use my anger to continue to better my life.

 

I just reached the top 4.78% of players in my favourite game, which gave me a super high and my first smile in a while! I've just now finished the housework that was left to do at home while I was working and being dad and husband. This also is giving me a mini-high.

 

The more truth I get, the better I feel as well, even though it's like a giant wave of pain. It eventually withdraws, but the impact is always painful.

 

With your help and this community, and with IC, my brother, and being the healthiest I've ever been in over a decade, I can finally begin to see some form of light.

 

I can feel hopium still in the gut of my stomach, but I shove it away by moving forward with what i KNOW is best for me. Stupid body.

 

I'm still pissed, but at least it's fueling me to a better future.

 

/hug. I'd kill for a real hug right now though, heh. I bet the hug of another BS would feel so sweet right now. <3

 

God, can't believe I'm sober NOW. Don't even want to touch drugs or alcohol to forget anymore. Never again. Just rageahol and exercise for me. Hopefully my baby girl's hugs will help too, heh.

 

I mean, damn, 9 months of knowing you're doing something wrong and still use me and my HARD earned money. Being used is the god damn worst!