[readytofixmyselffirst]

You state that you don't believe in GOD yet you and your friend kept your sexual affair a secret. Adam and Eve hid themselves out of shame...

What is the point in quoting Adam and Eve to somebody who has made it clear that they don't believe in God?

Because it is about realization of sin, not belief in GOD and I would still expect someone to understand that the words were not written to convert your beliefs but to see the connection.

We crossed paths in our posts:

Whatever has happened in my life, good or bad, has been a result of my own actions and choices. I have nobody to blame but myself. If I have not made that sufficiently clear in my earlier posts then I'm taking the opportunity to do so now.

I appreciate and respect those words and have the faith that you are writing the truth.

[Moving Forward]

WK,
Thank you for posting here - it takes some courage to do so - everyone here is learning to live with the actions of their husband or wife who has left (often with another person to go to) and often in the face of devastating dishonesty and denial about the reasons for leaving etc. Most of the wives or husbands who have left their spouses on this site are not taking responsibilty for their actions.

I am a 'work in progress' - learning to live my new life to the fullest and protect my children from the fallout along with living my life today for a positive future tomorrow.

I would be interested in knowing how your circle of family and friends have behaved towards you (both) during these recent events in your life - have you had negative reactions or lost relationships as a result? How have your daughters dealt with this situation? Do you have any kind of relationship with your ex wife??

I am sorry if you have answered these questions elsewhere but I am constantly vigilent to the impact my exH's departure and subsequent marriage to his OW has on my 2 children! I believe wholeheartedly that MLC is rooted in abandonement (emotional or physical) and I worry for their emotional health in their mid life. I can only do so much but it is a constant marble which runs around my head....

Thank you

P

[Returned]

I have a question for wkramer.

If Anna some day becomes unhappy or dissatisfied with you, would you prefer that she confront you with her unhappiness, or that she get a secret lover?

[NoRegrets]

Based on what he has stated, I would think he'd want Anna to keep her new relationship a secret, for the children's sake. That way they could live in an intact home with both their mother and their father.

It's all about the children.

[wkramer]

Not everyones lives are the same.

You really would like to believe that would you.

The fact that everyone's lives are not the same is simply a statement of fact.

In your second marriage you wrote that you wrote your own vows to show commitment to each other. So, you did not have that same commitment when you entered into your first marriage?

At the time I thought I did. Obviously with hindsight I did not.

Again, viewed with hindsight, my first marriage was a mistake. I think I got married too young and I think that I gave into the not-so-subtle pressure being exerted by my ex-wifes Catholic parents. (Before you decide this is me blaming my ex parents in law let me agree that it was my own choice).

People evolve. Life is a learning experience. I'm not sure comparing the person I was in my early twenties when I got married the first time with the person I am now in their mid forties reveals very much.

I would really admire you a lot more if you simply wrote what you did was wrong, how you handled yourself was wrong, and that in this new relationship you can learn to live an honest and open life with this person.

What I did was wrong. Deceiving my wife, Anna's husband, my children, our friends, and our employer, was wrong.

We caused all those people pain and I regret that as I've made clear before.

What I don't regret is the outcome of my actions.

I know you don't read the bible or believe in GOD, but if your read the story of David, you might understand my words and limited wisdom. David committed adultery and even had the husband killed in battle. When confronted with his in, David asked for forgiveness and was forgiven. However, there were consequences for his actions and he paid dearly for his actions.

Please don't confuse an absence of belief in God with unfamiliarity with the bible.

I write this because you have inflicted pain on your daughters and your wife.

I'm aware of that.

I didn't want to live on a different continent to my daughters.

All your words you have written speak of protecting your interests and never do you write or speak of laying down your life for others. Once again the narcissist only sees through their eyes and feelings and therefore cannot understand or even empathize with another viewpoint.

Whilst your opinion that I am a narcissist is unlikely to be changed by anything I write I don't think it is unreasonable to expect that written words on a bulletin board are understood to be brief.

I thought that my daughters best interests were served, at that point in their education, by remaining in the country where they were currently being schooled.

I also thought that my daughters best interests were served by remaining in a home with two parents.

And of course I enjoyed their company and I wanted them to live on the same continent.

Is that better?

[StandandDeliver]

As far as I can see you don't actually have any questions to ask. You simply want to project all your own bad experiences and prejudices onto my relationship because it didn't begin in a way that you agree with.

Whilst this might win you plaudits from other posters it doesn't give you any insight into my life. Not everyones lives are the same.

Right. I don't have any major questions to ask. I am not projecting my bad experiences onto anyone, I am saying that affairs hurt people. Full stop. You say you are sorry about that, so on some level you must realise that is the case but you then contradict yourself by stating your wife didn't really care, if that is true what ARE you sorry about?

You clearly feel that your own personal "happiness" justifies hurting how many others? Just one person, or maybe some kids too, or maybe some extended family or old friends? Here is a question for you. Is hurting people truly ok if it is for "love"? Presumably you once loved your first wife too? So when love fades you can start hurting people in search of gratification and love? Hurting how many others? You said that you were truly sorry. Why be sorry if you did not hurt anyone? Nothing to be sorry for.

And what do you think of the opinion that some people hold that we are all internally responsible for our own happiness? So
placing the expectation of being "made happy" by someone else is dooming most relationships to failure.

I once read somewhere that marriages fail when  one or both partners see the PRIMARY role of marriage to make each other happy. Because life is such that the minute we experience a feeling of unhappiness, we then project the failure of our personal happiness onto the person who was supposed to be maintaining it for us, rather than looking at ourselves and how we treat others and engage with them and addressing other aspects of our lives.

Marriages succeed  (ie last a lifetime) where both partners see the PRIMARY role of marriage as a partnership towards creating a stable family unit, based on principles such as trust, honesty, kindness, compassion. Traits that can be passed onto children as a legacy for their own lives.

Of course, sex, love, intimacy, friendship and benefit of the doubt in hard times should be a part of that - maybe a big part, but these things can all be built upon and worked on if goals remain the same and are not self focused (what am I getting out of this, rather than what am I giving to this relationship) 

Anyway, I am not interested in plaudits from other posters, many of them may dislike most of the things I post on this forum for all I care. But you are right, I don't have a lot of questions. Just an opinion about the role of adultery in human relationships.
Thank God not all lives are the same, and honour and loyalty and promises still mean something to some people. 

[wkramer]

Because it is about realization of sin, not belief in GOD...

According to Wikipedia (hardly the most authoritative of sources but nonetheless) "A sin is an act that violates a known moral rule in a religion"

I don't agree that our relationship was ever sinful (because if you don't have a religion then how can you sin?). It was wrong but that's not exactly the same thing.

There's probably not much point in pursuing this much further. It might be more suited to a philosophy discussion board!

I appreciate and respect those words and have the faith that you are writing the truth.

I have no reason to do otherwise. If anything I've written helps a single person, or prevents them from turning their personal life into the chaos that mine once was, or makes them decide to do something to "fix" their marriage, then the time I've spent here will have been worth it.

In my opinion a problem with many sites like this is "groupthink". People might not like the answers I give but they will be an honest evaluation of what led me to where I am now.

[readytofixmyselffirst]

I don't agree that our relationship was ever sinful (because if you don't have a religion then how can you sin?).

Then I posted the definition of truth:
According to Wikipedia (hardly the most authoritative of sources but nonetheless)
Old Norse trú, "faith, word of honour; religious faith, belief"

So in the same vain, you do not believe in the truth either.

Something to ponder.

In my opinion a problem with many sites like this is "groupthink". People might not like the answers I give but they will be an honest evaluation of what led me to where I am now.

You are on a forum that is dedicated to people standing for their marriages, what would you expect? That is like going on a forum of people that cook and post "do you all live in a kitchen?"

[wkramer]

I would be interested in knowing how your circle of family and friends have behaved towards you (both) during these recent events in your life - have you had negative reactions or lost relationships as a result? How have your daughters dealt with this situation? Do you have any kind of relationship with your ex wife??

I have no surviving family so I can't answer the first question. My father liked my ex-wife and doted on our daughters so it's possible there might have been some reaction although knowing him as I did I doubt it.

Anna's parents have been very supportive. She told that she hadn't been happy in her marriage for some time and that there was somebody else involved. There was never any judgement about this and I have been welcomed into her family. They like me and I like them.

My ex-wife and I didn't really share friends so it wasn't like friends had to "pick a side". I kept my friends and she kept hers. None of mine have ever had a negative reaction and as far as i know the same is true for my ex-wife's friends.

My daughters from my first marriage are adults (22 and 21). Obviously when the news was broken to them there was an initial shock and the youngest had a negative reaction. That didn't last long and since then they've become friends.

I see my ex-wife semi-regularly (say 3 or 4 times a year) and we are reasonably friendly. In fact after we separated I discovered that I actually quite liked her and I've heard her tell jokes saying the same thing about me. She has met my current wife and they get along. I don't think they're ever going to be friends (that might be a bit too nice?) but they can interact together.

I suppose the only ongoing negative reaction is between Anna and her her ex-husband who despise each other.

I haven't seen my ex parents-in-law since we separated but to be perfectly honest we never liked each other anyway!

Perhaps this all sounds a bit too nice and as a consequence is probably not very helpful? Sorry about that!

[wkramer]

I have a question for wkramer.

If Anna some day becomes unhappy or dissatisfied with you, would you prefer that she confront you with her unhappiness, or that she get a secret lover?

We were both very aware of the fact that we had two failed marriages behind us and spent quite a lot of time discussing the things that went wrong in them.

One of the things that we had both experienced was that allowing small problems to stick around unresolved eventually turned them into big problems. So as a consequence we agreed upfront that honesty was going to be the foundation of our relationship.

So the answer to your question is that I would expect long before she became unhappy or dissatisfied she had discussed her feelings with me and we had agreed how to resolve the problem together.