Memeticist wrote:
for my money, getting the test then getting the hell out of there fast is your best bet. Even if you are the kid's father, weekend visits and regular phone calls are enough while you avoid the girl.
tl;dr My ex wife cheated on me after 5 years of being a b***h, i treated her like crap for 3 years to make her a better person and now we still live together (and will for another 2~ years) while she saves up for her new life.
Anecdote: I was married for 5 years and offered my partner everything, blinded by love I didn't realize how badly I had it when she assumed 0 responsibility for her own happiness. I urged her to go to school (I offered to pay for it) or get a job to help her make friends and establish some kind of life for herself and she refused, then she'd complain of how lonely and bored she was. After I left military service we moved into a temporary situation with a male roomate that she decided to cheat on me with.
I immediately made the decision to forgive her, explained that once I'd had the chance to get a grip on things I'd need the full story and we'd have to talk. When we did talk she explained she "deserved" to cheat on me because of things that happened before we married and "how poorly I treated her." I worked 50+ hours a week on a rotating schedule Noon to night, night to morning for 4 years, I supported us entirely and purchased her a car she could learn to drive in. I was always with her, I took her everywhere, introduced her to my friends in the hope she'd make some kind of social connection. Apparently, only doing some of the chores myself and not dragging her by the hair into the driver seat and forcefeeding her the skill of driving constituted the ultimate failure to fulfill her needs. I digress.
It took 6 months to finally get her to admit the entirety of what she did (but by then I couldn't really trust her). It was another 6 before she could admit what she'd done was entirely unjustified and during all of this she would throw my efforts to comfort her in my face (that's right, I, the victim of betrayal was comforting my betrayer because I was the only person within 6000 miles that gave a rat's ass about her). After a year she realized just how wonderful I had been because after a year of being lied to and told she "was glad it happened because it brought to light the problems in our relationship" (which it did, just not in the way she meant) I transformed into a walking victimization robot. I destroyed the narcissistic, spoiled thing she called a personality with constant references to her indiscretion and repeated infidelity on my own part, first with her "friend" then with a later roommate, citing it as justified because I couldn't get any validation as a man from a woman that had chosen to betray me as she had. Every time she complained I would thrust her own violation of my trust back in her face while mitigating my own transgressions because I was being honest about what I was doing. Every time she wanted to leave I told her to go, but pointed out that being the one to make a mistake and then just leave to avoid the fallout made her even more of a piece of trash than the betrayal itself, I also pointed out she'd have nowhere to go besides her family's home, a family that would judge her even more harshly than I. It was like emotionally flaying her alive and it forced the pulsating broken remains of her self to grow new adult tissues. i hated the person I became but I became that guy because I knew it would draw her to me, and I loved her so much that was all I wanted.
Now, 3 years later, she's amazing, a truly wonderful person that will never make that kind of a mistake again, but I can't be with her as a husband because I can't stand to look at her as a wife. i love her like I always have, i can't think of another person I want to keep in my life, but I can't be married to her. As a wife she's a cheating whore who's mouth drools lies. As a friend she's just the best. As an added complication she's confident she will never find love again. I may have accidently inflicted a case of stockholme syndrome on her (I never physically restrained her or forced her to do anything through violence or coercion, I simply refused to buy a plane ticket), then again, the few serious relationships I've had besides her have resulted in the girls being pretty hung up on me for a while afterward (they usually move on to another guy quickly but continue to have "feelings for me" long after we part ways).
So now we share a tiny apartment with our cats, I take care of the bulk of the financial responsibilities, she takes care of the rest and keeps the place clean and works so she can save up enough to to have a good start when she moves out in a couple of years. This is a whole lot of complication for trying to forgive. Just walk away and let the forgiveness be conditional upon her absence.
I don't know how you tolerated that behavior, stayed in the relationship, and now live with her in a similar situation.... I am sorry for you but this is the reality of many american men today, it is a sad sad sad day for men.
16 Mar 2011, 7:10 pm
