The difference is, a) it’s the cheater who came for advice, not the person who’s being cheated on, and b) the OP hasn’t ignored a marriage counselor, he hasn’t even tried counseling.
I’m sure even in your current emotional state you can see the differences in the two situations.
And these same people would have exploded if I’d tried to come here for advice about my polyamorous relationship, I think. “You’ve got to choose one or the other, you can’t be with both of them!” “Uh, you’re not getting this whole ‘polyamory’ idea, are you?”
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There have been a lot of threads discussing polyamory. Mostly we understand the difference between open and consenting and sneaking around behind your partner’s back.
It sounds like to me that OP decided that his marriage was over when he decided to enter into the affair. Sure he can change his mind, but it doesn’t sound like he will.
My advice, is to preserve his integrity as much as he can, he should do the following in order:
Hire an attorney to advise him about the ins and outs of all of the issues with getting a divorce in his particular state. Let his attorney advise him on the impacts of the affair, etc.
Advise his wife that he intends to file for divorce, articulating his reasons why. Advise her the manner in which he would like have custody of the kids, initial financial settlements, etc.
He should move out of the home.
Get on with life. There is life after divorce. It is a difficult time. It is normal to grieve and feel like a failure…but life does get better, and kids respond better with happy parents than non-happy parents.
Continuing the affair, without moving to end his marriage lacks integrity, and will eventually come out. Your children will likely learn about it as well, probably not now, but later in life. And you owe it to your wife to get out and let her move on with her life as well. Some of her depression (armchair diagnosis) may stem from her dissatisfaction with the relationship.
A lot of attention being focused on the OP’s wife being boring, passionless and so on. But let’s not forget the OP’s opinion of himself.
Given the information presented by the OP, it seems obvious that this wife doesn’t deserve him. Alternately, his new lady friend sounds awesome!
Wow - he found himself a keeper! Good thing they are soul mates!
Or - is the information as presented by the OP perhaps skewed a little in favor of him justifying his infidelity to his wife? Some people might be skeptical that he really was the model husband who finally met his wonder woman - if only this boring oafish wife-woman wasn’t complicating things.
For my part I think he should look up a divorce lawyer if he is so done with his marriage. But I also think he should do the right thing and table his current infidelity - if nothing else but for the responsibility he owes his children as a father. He’ll have plenty more time to fuck people once he’s divorced.
I agree that it happens. And I’ve said it’s not a deal breaker. When you are in love with someone you see past the outward flaws. When you fall out of love, for whatever reasons, it makes it harder to see past them.
We’ll just have to agree to disagree about “falling out of love”.
I do. A lot of Saturdays I’ll watch the kids while she goes out for part or all of the day. Every now and then I’ll convince her to take a weekend at her mom’s house and leave the kids with me.
A whole other issue is that she has no friends. I mean, none. She has no one that she’ll go out for coffee with, or go out to dinner with, talk/text with, or whatever. She has acquaintances through the kids, but that’s about it. Every blue moon she’ll go out to a group thing.
It’s a problem, and I’ve tried to help her address her introverted tendencies. But she doesn’t make any effort whatsoever. It’s a problem that contributes to and is tied to her negative attitude and general personality.
For those that are being hard on the wife for not trying, we have not heard her side.
What if she really is truly overwhelmed with the child care? Even if the OP helps and is a good father, that does not mean that she gets enough time to take care of herself.
He gets to go to work. He gets to have conversations with adults. He gets enough quiet time to hear himself think. He gets to pee by himself. Does she???
Relationships are so complex that I would not presume to have enough information to judge either of them.
What if the negotation for more affection looks like this: They are standing some distance apart and he is asking her to come a few feet closer. Now, what if it turns out shes actually standing a few miles away?
Edit: fyi I was typing this before I saw post 168.
"Next begins a repeated internal dialogue of rationalizations, over and over again in their minds. The Wayward Spouse needs to rationalize with themselves in order to cover up and minimise their feelings of guilt. They may convince themselves that their marriage was already bad and that it had been for a long time, that their spouse doesn’t really love them, and that the affair partner must truly be their “soul-mate” because he/she is the only one who understands them. They may tell themselves, and the Betrayed Spouse, that the Betrayed Spouse is “better off without them.” Frequently this rationalization leads to inventing reasons for having the affair in the first place, including that the affair is like “therapy,” something they do for themselves. They say it makes them a better, happier spouse — “If I am happier, then how could that be bad for my marriage/family/spouse?”
After a short time, they cease to think of anyone else’s feelings — not parents, not spouses, not children, not friends — only their feelings and the feelings of their Affair Partner. To a foggy Wayward, the Other Person is without flaws, weaknesses or selfishness. Soon the cheating spouse begins to believe the lies they’ve been telling themselves. They, therefore, act accordingly, treating their spouse with anger and hostility, and their affair partner in a loving and affectionate way. Despite all of this, the Wayward might not want out of the marriage. They enjoy the familial comfort of home, with the added excitement of the affair. It is as if they become addicted to the affair, needing the constant high it brings, no matter the total disregard for the Betrayed."
OP, we get that you have a multitude of complaints about your wife - but consider checking the infidelity and then resolving those issues one way or another.
I know this might sound strange, but in my case it was my ex who wanted to go to counseling. I was surprised because I didn’t think there was anything seriously wrong in our marriage (and she wanted to go after we’d been married six months), but she mentioned some vague “communication issues”, and I figured if she was willing to take a step like that there must be something wrong. After the marriage ended I realized that the “something wrong” was the fact that she was having an affair and she really had no intention of making counseling work. In fact, she was hoping that I wouldn’t go to counseling at all, but once I called her bluff on that she tried everything to paint our marriage as irretriveably broken, that while the counselor’s intention was good she couldn’t follow her suggestions, etc…all the while never mentioning the one thing that really was broken in our marriage. And so marriage counseling didn’t work for us.
I say this, not because of my “current emotional state” (which is what? Happily married to a lovely woman with two wonderful kids?) but because the constant drumbeat of “see a counselor, see a counselor” ignores two big problems: firstly, counseling only works if both parties want to go; and secondly, counseling only works when both parties are willing to work at it. I just haven’t seen any evidence that either party in the OP marriage would be willing to go to and work at counseling: the OP because he’s too happy with his affair to put any real effort into fixing his marriage, and the OP’s wife because she has already rejected doing so many of the things that a counselor would suggest.
Ironically, I think if counseling could save this marriage, there would have been no reason for this OP or thread at all–because the OP and his wife would have already gone to a counselor instead of the OP relating his issues here. I don’t think the OP is under any illusions that admitting to an ongoing affair is going to win him too many fans here. So I’m going to then, turn this question back to the OP. Do you, ThePretender919, think that your wife would go to counseling? If she did agree, would you leave your lover and go to counseling with her?
Not necessarily, a marriage counselor can also help determine the terms for breakup, be there as each party deals with a failed marriage, and helps with the issues when a couple with kids breaks up.
In this case - for me its the kids - and they are little kids. There is absolutely no way that his behavior is not absolutely shitty to the kids. His wife - she’s participated in this mess - but the kids haven’t. And yet, they are getting the blame - for the lack of affection, for the lack of energy, for the weight gain. He indirectly blames them, and when the marriage breaks up for the stated reasons, she will indirectly blame them as well. For a three year old, this isn’t “Dad can’t keep it in his pants” or “my poor father wasn’t happy with my mother, but his new wife makes him happy so I’m happy for him.” A three year old is going to internalize “its my fault Mommy and Daddy don’t live together.” A six year old is old enough to get “mommy got fat because she had babies and Daddy didn’t like her anymore.”
Assuming the issues with the marriage are normal interpersonal ones between Mom and Dad - not physical or emotional abuse, not drug use, not gambling addiction - but things that grown ups should be able to deal with without it impacting the kids (and while not having an affectionate marriage is something kids will notice, adults should be able to keep from treating each other with contempt) - divorce is a shitty thing to do to kids because your wife doesn’t put out.
BigT was quoting me and just stuffed up the quote function. If you’d read the thread, you would have noted my post. If you’d read the entirety of BigT’s response without kneejerking over the first lines, you’d have seen he was challenging my opinion. :rolleyes:
I don’t disagree with you, but I still want the OP to see a counselor for two reasons. He and/or his wife may be in the grip of some midlife crisis, bout of depression or something else that’s distorting their ability to deal with the problems in their marriage.
But most importantly because they have kids, and it looks like the OP is about to drop a giant, messy f-bomb on their lives. A third-party might help ease that just a little.
I know one person whose relationship turning point was when they went to couples counseling, and, after the first session and individual interviews, the counselor basically said straight-out that she wouldn’t keep counseling them unless the one person got treatment for depression.
(The person did, and the couple is still together last I knew).
Who knows where the OP really is emotionally, but they may want to consider that, generally, people don’t really rationally choose to sit around the house alone without friends or a loving spouse; and that there are things that can help overcome that kind of depression.
Obviously going to a counselor isn’t giong to save the marriage. Often times “we’ve seen a marriage counselor and it didn’t work” is just a checkbox to fill in on your way to a divorce.
But if they’re on their way to a divorce anyway, what’s wrong with that? Yes, it takes two people willing to work to preserve the marriage. Are we sure that the wife isn’t willing? Are we sure the husband isn’t willing? From what the OP says, neither is willing to work to preserve the marriage, and so the marriage will end. But maybe he’s not painting an accurate picture. Or maybe with a third party calling both actors on their bullshit, they might both manage to end their bullshit somehow. It could happen.
A marriage counselor can help both parties see if the marriage is worth preserving or not, or if only one party wants to preserve the marriage, help explain to the one who wants to preserve the marriage that it won’t work. A marriage counselor can and often does morph into a divorce counselor. Or not, sometimes marriage counselors see their role to be the advocate for the one in the marriage they empathize the most with. So go see a lonely female marriage counselor and she’ll team up with your wife to blame you for everything, or maybe you’ll get lucky and find a bored male counselor who’ll team up with you to blame your wife for everything. Or maybe you’ll find a decent one. It could happen.