All on d day when I confronted my wife.
"What did you expect me to do?"
"He's a GREAT guy!"
And the coupe de grâce when I asked, "Are you coming home now?"
"No. I'm going to stay here and enjoy my evening."
That last one cut me DEEP and will almost certainly haunt me for the rest of my life. The piece of shit lives with his mom, which is where they were when I went to confront her. I considered going home to get my gun, returning there, and putting a round into that "great guy." In a darker moment, I even thought about using it on myself.
What stopped me? Aside from not wanting to spend my life in prison or die, I couldn’t bear to traumatize my dogs. My dogs. They were hovering over me, laying close, and visibly anxious because they sensed something was wrong. I eventually calmed down and tried to sleep alone in my bed that night, but sleep eluded me. She came home early the next morning, and thus began the arduous journey of painful "pick me" dancing, weak attempts at blame shifting, and trickle truth for the next two weeks. It wasn’t until I came to my senses and regained my composure that I started making appointments with multiple divorce lawyers. This was before I found this site, which I wish I had discovered sooner; I would have avoided the humiliation of the "pick me" dance altogether.
That changed everything almost instantly. I firmly believe in the often-shared advice to avoid playing the "pick me" game, to utilize the "180," and to consider divorce as a viable option. This isn’t about manipulating your wayward spouse; it’s about YOU. Once I accepted that divorce was genuinely a path I was prepared to take, it felt incredibly freeing. Yes, it was sad, depressing, and devastating, but also liberating. It empowered me to know that I could choose this path and follow through with it. Even if she didn’t come around and break free from her fog, I understood I had made the best decision for myself. I took steps to prioritize my well-being and escape the cycle of infidelity, one way or another.
It put me back in the driver's seat and shifted the power dynamic away from her. In our case, it shocked her out of the fog; she realized what a mistake she was about to make and recognized the value of what she was risking. She was trading down and on the verge of losing a man who, despite our many problems, genuinely loved her and had been there for her through thick and thin for the last 27 years. Over the past several months, she’s been trying to convince me not to leave, and while I haven't, she now understands that I’m dead serious about it. Six months later, we’re not out of the woods yet, but I paused divorce proceedings to give her a chance to prove why I should stay. She’s been working hard to do so, and I’ve also made significant changes. Right now, things are going as well as one could hope for in terms of R, but she knows I won’t accept anything less than complete honesty, transparency, and her 100% commitment to repairing the damage she’s caused.
[This message edited by Pogre at 5:34 PM, Saturday, October 4th]
