SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Tomorrow I will exchange and complete on my new house, over the next few days I will slowly move out - but why slowly?

Well essentially we get on great, we don’t argue, I don’t ram her A down her throat and we enjoy each other’s company.

We have children who live in the same house and we are both showing them that we can be amicable or more than amicable

She has agreed to almost every single request I have made, we have without conflict agreed who will keep what, take what and where the kids will spend their time.

She has bought me gifts to furnish my new home and I have taken care of jobs that needed doing here in advance of my leaving this house (my kids primary abode) so she doesn’t have to worry about them

So how is this all possible - I don’t see a single other instance of this situation on SI, we are like a couple who have R’d without the R

Neither of us want what is happening but she could not deliver what I asked for and I cannot give her what she wants

My needs - NC / truth (she works with AP and doesn’t want to talk about the A so no IC and no timelines etc for me)

Her needs - Pretend it never happened just move on and be better to each other.

I have been going over and over this in my head, can we stay friends, should we stay friends - and ultimately I come to the same points

We are parents and have to coparent

If I had to exclude anyone who has cheated from my life that would be a lot of people and many who I am close to and rely on inc my best friend for life and father but many many others so what sense does it make to treat WGF any different? - would I be cutting my nose off to spite my face - she is facing the consequences of her choices by having to support herself financially and despite what I expected she is not blaming that on me for initiating separation. She is for the most part accepting responsibility for the outcome of her choices.

Is this the calm before the storm?

Are the any precedents for this situation here on SI?

TIA TD

Is your D process in progress already? You claim that you're amicable but only because you entertain her. She never gave in to any of your requests despite asking it from her. So there's nothing amicable on that. There's still a lot of animosity going on from my point of view.

She's still getting away with her A until now. She didn't initiate NC, didn't disclose the A, didn't provide timeline and everything. She's not even trying to work on R, she just acts like nothing has happened.

Maybe she's just trying to act nicely and see if you give in to her instead which will make you the loser of the story.

You should initiate full NC and only talk with regards to the kids.

Good luck!

You are setting an amazing g example for your children.

You can choose to be her friend —.nothing wrong with that. If it works it works. To each his own.

Friends share what’s going on in their lives, including romantically. Are you ready for that? Especially if it ends up being with her AP? Maybe settle for being friendly coparents for a few years.

Where are you in the process? If you haven't filed yet, be prepared for things to change once the process gets underway. Once you start advocating for yourself, things can change in a hurry.

Everything would have been fine with my WS if I had just let him 100% have his way. But that wasn't going to happen. I needed (and did) advocate for myself. He (as a diagnosed NPD) saw this as a huge negative and went nuclear. The judge smacked him with an immediate 5-figure settlement to me because of his 2 years of being a jackwagon.

Just be prepared. If this lasts and you can get out of your marriage reasonably and parent amicably, you are way, WAY ahead of the game.

Cat

@beb252

No D for us as we never got married. I think what you are asking me to do is punish WGF and my children for something that cannot be undone. To dig deep and find within myself some ability to create animosity where there is non and become someone I am not. I do appreciate the input and I try not to be naive with respect to how this will pan out but I don’t see the value of adding conflict where it currently doesn’t exist

@the1stwife

Thankyou I truly hope that is the case.

@asc

Yup - of course this is something that the 2 of us have to deal with eventually. It won’t be with AP of that I am 99.99999% certain

Agree with The1stWife. Just do you. If it works for you and your WGF so be it.

@catwoman

As mentioned above - no divorce process for us - no alimony - and 50/50 custody agreed

We have amicably sold the existing house (to WGF) at market rate and split the equity 50/50 (this is done)

We have told the kids why and WGF took full responsibility

Our families know and WGF has individually sat in front of each of them and apologise

She has accepted her responsibility in S better than she did in R

TD,

I would consider you guys a real rarity in separating over an affair. It can go down really, REALLY badly.

As others have cautioned, a friendship may or may not be in your best interest, particularly when one or both of you have moved on and are dating/seeing other people. But hey, the only people you need to please are yourselves, and if it works and you're both content . . . well, have at it.

Cat

@catwoman

Oh I’ve had my moments. I would not wish the trauma of infidelity on anyone. The post Dday gaslighting and mindmovies almost ended me but I came through them.

I’m just over 18 months out now and 3 months since we agreed to S and most of my recovery happened in those last 3 months, not trying to squeeze myself into R and accept things I wasn’t okay with.

I hope we will both be able to detach enough for when life 2.0 really gets underway for either of us.

Well, first off... congratulations!

By the sound of it, you are experiencing a divorce between two polite people who recognize that having an amicable divorce is cheaper and easier... and most importantly... the best for the children.

As far as why this is rare on SI?

I have three thoughts:

(1) SI is a support website and divorces like yours (so far) do not need a lot of support. I joined SI around 5 years ago. Many of my former SI friends quickly got divorced and moved on with their lives and they no longer participate here, presumably because they don't need it.

(2) Wayward spouses are more likely to selfish/narcissistic. These are some of the traits that lead to awful, miserable divorces.

(3) Betrayed spouses, even if they are not selfish/narcissistic, tend to be bitter/angry about the affair(s) and the "unfairness" of a divorce.

There is also a math issue. There are two people in a divorce but it only takes one "bad apple" to make a divorce high conflict.

In hindsight, I did a pretty good job of not being a bitter/angry betrayed spouse after we decided to get divorced. My xWW, however, decided that she wanted EVERYTHING from our marriage, past/present/future.

Finally, most people don't find the laws/regulations on divorce to be equitable and fair. Some of this is selfishness, but some of this is legitimate.

For example, my GF just finished with her divorce. She received about $100,000 in inheritance 10 years ago from her grandfather's estate; that money was used to send her then-husband to school so that he could become a therapist. Because the money is spent and gone, there is no legal protection for her. She feels like this is unfair and most people would agree (I think), but the law provides no protection for her.

My advice to you is to keep your divorce as amicable as you can. It will take work and effort and biting your tongue at times.

Personally, I'm not so good at biting my tongue. I'm a little lucky because my xWW and her attorney are so psychopathic that my snark did not really affect our divorce... but my GF has had to carefully navigate her divorce to prevent it from "blowing up" on numerous occasions. Even then, she almost was forced to do that this week, when her exH was trying to manipulate custody (and child support) of their two kids in a way that was ridiculous (especially considering that he is a raging alcoholic -- the type that couldn't be bothered to spend time with his sons on Father's Day because he was too hungover).

@barcher

If we were married and she had any leg to stand on things may be different. We’ll never know.

As it’s stands we havnt had to involve a single solicitor except with respect to the house sale and purchase.

My pension is safe -

she has had to triple her hours to cover her own mortgage once I leave next week. I have given her time to achieve that because it made no sense to me to make that difficult, and because I care for her and the kids welfare.

I can’t turn off 26 years affection overnight.

I was in limbo for several years, so I was able to compartmentalize a bit and be fairly well detached mentally by the time divorce actually came. As part of limbo, I was able to keep up appearances of a faux friendship, and since he’s conflict-avoidant and lazy (I had to kick him out because he couldn’t be bothered to find a place until I made him go), this was plenty for him to stay happy and friendly.

Conflict-avoidant and lazy worked for me, because it allowed me to draft up all the agreements, which he was quite certain would be fair, because we were still friendly and surely I wouldn’t screw him, right? I willingly admit I skewed it in my favor in subtle, long-term ways (eg no retirement split), but to him, superficially, it seemed reasonable enough, so he couldn’t be bothered to put in any effort otherwise. I let him more or less take nearly any items he wanted, to further the impression. I ended up with a default divorce, even. He was thrilled that he didn’t even have to bother to show up to court for the final hearing.

So as far as he was concerned, we were friends, because I made everything easy and painless and he didn’t have to confront any problems. And consequently, since he’s a plumber, he’s helped out with a few snags afterwards, and the “friendship” has just slowly fizzled away while we’re both busy with our own lives. At this point, I’m far enough out, and the kids are old enough, that the rare times we see each other or interact are pretty fine, unremarkable, and I really don’t think about him much anymore. He got remarried recently, and I think the kids were nervous to tell me it was happening, but I honestly just shrugged about it.

Conventional wisdom works for most folks, but it’s definitely not the only way to go. You do what’s best for your kids, you, and your situation.

I can’t turn off 26 years affection overnight.

I understand *fully*.

I don't hate my xWW, no matter how nasty she is (or has become).

And it's best for your kids if you can keep things amicable.

To be clear, I admire you for what you are doing.

I am divorced with kids from my first husband. We had a pretty amicable divorce. We coparent and get along well most of the time.

We tried being friends in the beginning but it was really blurring some lines. Once you don't live together anymore and you are being all nicey nice it can seem like "huh, maybe we could work this out". It is easy for your ex to not let you down once you don't expect anything from them. Just a word of caution :)

What we have settled on really is that we are friendly with each other. We chat when we see each other. I have stayed close with his mother and he has stayed close with my parents.

In the beginning we tried to do holidays together but now we just split the days. We live close to each other. I get Christmas morning he gets Christmas dinner. The combining of the holidays was a nightmare I wish we had never started.

There's nothing wrong with how you're handling things. But understand that things CAN and WILL change once new partners enter the picture. When you are ready to date again, you will need to back off of the friendship because your future girlfriend will be rightly not okay with how close you are to XWGF. Enjoy this while it lasts and plan to accept it when circumstances change.

No D for us as we never got married. I think what you are asking me to do is punish WGF and my children for something that cannot be undone. To dig deep and find within myself some ability to create animosity where there is non and become someone I am not. I do appreciate the input and I try not to be naive with respect to how this will pan out but I don’t see the value of adding conflict where it currently doesn’t exist

Gotcha!
So it seems like she's playing it too nicely for you, that's what I can see from your story. Just tread carefully then, don't fall in to the same trap twice.
All the best!

Thanks all for your inputs

Today is a sad day indeed

Very subdued mood in the house this morning

TD

At some point you will need to detach more just so the romantic bonds die fully. Until that happens neither of you will be able to have a healthy relationship with a new SO. You should be shooting for amicable co-parents. Working together for the kids but no longer investing in the other person's life outside of that. No happy chats about what each other's days were etc.

Thanks grubs

Makes perfect sense

Easier said than done I expect

I’m sitting here in WGFs house (our house till today) while WGF is at the office and I’m contemplating if I’ve made a massive mistake

I know the mistake wasn’t mine but I’m sure you get where I’m coming from. Were my expectations too much, should I have waited longer for her to “get it”, could I have gotten over this if I gave it more time etc

She’s been part of my life now for 28 years - 26 years as a couple. That’s more than 50% of my life. My kids have always lived here, no where else.

This is all so f****d up 😭

And breathe

TD