I posted about two weeks ago and I have tried to keep talking to my W about her wanting 6 months to find herself and see other people. I had asked her to give our marriage six months so we could see if we could work things out. I have tried to discuss our situation with her and she now is coming off the sites.She has said that she is not ready but she has seen my health being effected and she is going to try. When she is telling her "friends" she is leaving the singles sites she tells them that she has "great doubts" about us making it and that she needs her space and if I question where she has been or check up on her she will leave. She also met this morning for a walk with a married man with 5 kids she has already had s.x with back in February. As she is telling her "friends" good bye she is giving them her email and IM information. As I am writing this I'm getting more and more angry. I DON'T need anybody's PITY. She shows no remorse for what she has done and puts the blame on me for not meeting her emotional needs for 20 years. I showed her our wedding vows and the ONLY promise in the whole ceremony was to "faithful to each other and only each other". I did that she did not. If anybody has seen Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid there is a scene where they are pinned against a ledge and they are out of ammo and the only way out is to jump off a high cliff into a raging river full of rocks. Robert Redford said he can't jump because he can't swim. Paul Newmans response, " Don't worry Kid the fall will probably kill you" That's how I feel I know once I jump I can't turn back. But the question is why would I want to? I am afraid of the unknown and how this will effect everybody. As I was typing this I was talking to a friend and I told him that through all of this I just want to protect everybody and he said "you only protect those who want to be protected". I need to find out who wants or needs to be protected and she is not one of them. I guess I need to dig deep and make a jump and hope the tide is in and I miss the rocks! If anybody can tell me their story of when the jumped and how it was I would be most appreciative.

Thanks for listening,
Dave

>>"Don't worry Kid the fall will probably kill you"<<

Luckily, as it turned out, Butch and Sundance not only survived the fall, they survived their swim in the river as well. The word they shouted on the way down probably helped.

Here's a brief version of the story of when I decided to jump.

For almost three years, I struggled to make sense of what had happened to my marriage, to my (then) wife, and to me (trying to make sense of things is the way that I tend to deal with problems; I don't make big decisions quickly; once I make a big decision, I don't spend much time on regret).

During those three years, I slowly became aware of the impact on me of my (then) wife's affair. I also slowly became aware of the impact on me of her post-affair behavior. I realized that her behavior was doing alot of damage to me. I was willing to do almost anything to protect my family but I also began to realize that the damage to me was having an effect on my two, teenaged sons. I slowly became aware that by continuing to live with her, I was in effect saying that I accepted her behavior. My mouth said "I cannot accept this" but my behavior said "this is okay with me".

During those three years, I slowly became aware that the changes that I was making in my behavior didn't seem to be having much effect on my marriage. To me, it felt as though I was twisting myself into unrecognizable shapes in an effort to "fix" our marriage. It seemed to me that my (then) wife was making little effort or no effort. Eventually, I concluded that by working so hard to try to "fix" my marriage myself, without expecting much help from her, I was making the problem worse, not better.

>>She shows no remorse for what she has done and puts the blame on me for not meeting her emotional needs for 20 years<<

That's very similar to the situation that I was faced with. By waiting for three years before I "jumped" I found out whether (a) I could continue to live with a wife who believed that I was somehow responsible for her affair (without destroying myeself) and (b) whether her view of the "cause" of her affair would change.

It is very difficult for me to describe the most important changes in me that set the stage for me to jump. Those changes have something to do with my emotional state. After I confronted my (then) wife about her affair I was devastated, confused, vulnerable, indecisive, anxious, depressed. It was by far the most traumatic experience of my life and I've been recovering from it for the past 6 years. One thing that had to happen before I could make a decision was that I needed to gather information. I need to gain some clarity about what had happened, what was happening, and what my role was. But, all of the information in the world wouldn't have made any difference if emotionally, I wasn't ready.

Quinn