[kikki]

Hi wkramer
Thanks for your patience and for your answers.
Am interested in why you set your blog up, and why you have continued it for so long? 
What does Anna make of it?  Do your ex wife and daughters know about your blog?  Just curious - thanks.

My blog is a small extract of my diaries that stretch back twenty-five or more years. I don't know where I got the habit of keeping a diary from.

Anna read the diaries when she was pregnant. It made her laugh and cry - sometimes both at the same time.

Neither my ex-wife or my daughters have read my blog.

wkramer - you enjoy writing your thoughts down, that is clear.  Thanks for answering my questions - still intrigued why the blog though? 
I'm not trying to be difficult  , as I would ask this question of any blogger.  Blogging is not something that I 'get'.
You must get something out of it, or else you wouldn't do it. 

I'm just intrigued as to what the 'something' is? Thanks

[honour]

Neither my ex-wife or my daughters have read my blog.

How do you know they haven't read your blog?

honour

[Trustandlove]

  Quote
(from RCR) ...and (of course) I wish you could have healed your marriage.

I really don't think I understand this wish. It was over in all but name. Both of us knew that. 

I think this really is it.  We all here believe in healing our marriages, in doing what it takes.  Not in doing "anything", but what it takes.  We have no way of knowing if your wife as well believed it was over, and our perspective is that many of our spouses try to tell us that we also know that, when we neither know nor believe any such thing. 

We resent being told that we know it's over, when in our cases it certainly is our spouses saying that to justify their choices. 

So it is hard for many to understand why you don't understand this wish, if that makes sense. 

In the end you made a choice.  We always have choices, even if it is easier to think that we don't, and even if those choices are between two crap alternatives.   

But it does give insight into the mindset, and I am not trying to take a cheap shot. 

[honour]

We have no way of knowing if your wife as well believed it was over, and our perspective is that many of our spouses try to tell us that we also know that, when we neither know nor believe any such thing. 

T&L, I totally agree. After BD, which was a bolt from the blue for me, W attempted to justify what she had done (adultery) by telling people we had grown apart. Well, if we had grown apart I would have appreciated being let in on the secret. If I had known I might have saved my breath and not told her how wonderful she was; how gorgeous she was; how proud we all were of her achievements while she was working abroad; I may have stopped giving her a kiss and waving good-bye with a smile each time she left for the airport; each Friday night when she returned from a trip abroad I may have stopped eagerly waiting on the station platform to give her a hug and kiss and carry her bag to the house; I may have stopped the meals at restaurants and making the most of our time together before she set off again each Monday; I may not have bothered with our twenty-seventh wedding anniversary; I may have stopped making love with her if I had known she was having sex with someone else. Still, there we are, that's married life when you have grown apart and "over in all but name".

honour

[wkramer]

Hi wkramer
Thanks for your patience and for your answers.
Am interested in why you set your blog up, and why you have continued it for so long? 
What does Anna make of it?  Do your ex wife and daughters know about your blog?  Just curious - thanks.

My blog is a small extract of my diaries that stretch back twenty-five or more years. I don't know where I got the habit of keeping a diary from.

Anna read the diaries when she was pregnant. It made her laugh and cry - sometimes both at the same time.

Neither my ex-wife or my daughters have read my blog.

wkramer - you enjoy writing your thoughts down, that is clear.  Thanks for answering my questions - still intrigued why the blog though? 
I'm not trying to be difficult  , as I would ask this question of any blogger.  Blogging is not something that I 'get'.
You must get something out of it, or else you wouldn't do it. 

I'm just intrigued as to what the 'something' is? Thanks

I suppose keeping a diary was the old-fashioned way of blogging although they were usually private. So if you understand why people keep a diary you're part of the way to understanding why people blog.

Truthfully? I don't know.

Validation? Forgiveness? Remorse? Understanding?

As I say I can't really tell you.

[wkramer]

Neither my ex-wife or my daughters have read my blog.

How do you know they haven't read your blog?

honour

Please allow me to rephrase this statement. I am as close to being sure as I can possibly be that neither my ex-wife or my daughters have read my blog.

(I think if any of them had they would have asked me about it. I'm positive my daughters would have done and I'm reasonably sure my ex-wife would have done)

[wkramer]

We have no way of knowing if your wife as well believed it was over, and our perspective is that many of our spouses try to tell us that we also know that, when we neither know nor believe any such thing.

I understand that. In my circumstances it was. However, as you say when so many of you have been told that when you "neither know nor believe any such thing", I understand that many of you will doubt what I say.

We resent being told that we know it's over, when in our cases it certainly is our spouses saying that to justify their choices. 

So it is hard for many to understand why you don't understand this wish, if that makes sense. 

It does make sense. All I can say is that our circumstances were very different to the circumstances that you describe.

In the end you made a choice.  We always have choices, even if it is easier to think that we don't, and even if those choices are between two crap alternatives.   

I couldn't agree more. Nobody held a gun to my head and forced me to do what I did. I chose to do it. And whilst I'm sure it's an unpopular point-of-view here I've never regretted it (although as I've said before I regret some of the repercussions of that choice).

...and I am not trying to take a cheap shot.

Thankyou for that (and to everybody else who has resisted the temptation to take a cheap shot).

[wkramer]

Still, there we are, that's married life when you have grown apart and "over in all but name".

What you describe is truly horrible and whilst it might be entirely meaningless, and undoubtedly hypocritical, you have my sympathy.

In my case the circumstances were nothing like what you have described. That doesn't excuse what either of us did but is supposed to go some way towards explaining the "over in all but name" remark.

[Moving Forward]

Hello wk,
have you had a look around the stories on here at all?

I wonder that's all and appreciate the fact that you return to answer the questions posted here. Not all affairs are a result of a Mid Life Crisis.

Thanks from a fellow diary writer!

P

I write as a divorced ex wife of a husband who had an affair and married his OW within 2 months of the divorce being final - so I am grateful to be able to have an insight of the 'other side' so to speak.....but my exH is DEFINITELY in MLC!!!

[wkramer]

have you had a look around the stories on here at all?

Yes I have although perhaps not as many as I should have read. I read maybe 8 to 10 different threads when I first came here. I can't say there was any method to my selection; I just read the ones that appeared on the front page.

Most of them just make me sad that people in MLC don't seek help, or therapy, or SOMETHING! I particularly don't like the abandonment of the children involved.  I don't think I ever realised quite how far-reaching the consequences of a MLC actually are. I'm slightly ashamed to admit that until I came here I only associated it with the joke version of buying a sports car.

(Incidentally I still want a particular model of sports car. However, since I've wanted one since I was about 12 years old I'm reasonably confident this is not a result of a mid life crisis).

Of course some of the other posts here make me feel like pondlife which is perhaps why I haven't read more widely. I have no doubt that getting screwed over is horrible but being the person on the other side of this equation, at least if you think about it, is not a nice place to be either. (And no I don't expect or deserve any sympathy!)

I also didn't read much more than I did because I found myself being slightly irritated by the repeated references to God (perhaps this is just a result of the American-centric nature of the website?). Having come to atheism quite late in life I now find references to God to generate a similar reaction to that given by an ex-smoker to those who still smoke. (That isn't me by the way - apart from a brief relapse I haven't smoked in twenty something years but some days I feel like I could quite happily mow down a pedestrian just to steal the cigarette from their hands!)

These are just my impressions based on a very small sample size. I sincerely apologise if I have misunderstood you all.

...and appreciate the fact that you return to answer the questions posted here.

Thanks. It is very nice of you to say so. I don't expect any of you to like me, or even understand me, but having come here I feel obligated to answer your questions.

Not all affairs are a result of a Mid Life Crisis.

Yes I know!

Thanks from a fellow diary writer!

There are so few of us left nowadays that it is a real pleasure to find somebody else! Do you know why you keep a diary? I think I know why I do. It is a useful way to order my thoughts and clarify my thinking.