Reconciliation And Regret: Wanting Out

But First

I am not proud of the decisions I made that you’re going to read about in the next few posts, but I wouldn’t be doing what I set out to do if I wasn’t honest with my writing. My goal here is not to look good. It’s to tell my story of this traumatic — at times, ugly — period of my life.

Also, this post marks a turning point in this series. Most of the other posts have been about what happened to me and were centered around my ex-wife’s actions. The main reason I started writing was to share what I’m going to start sharing now: the real start of my journey toward healing, discovering myself, and figuring out why I endured what I did and what lessons I needed to learn to heal myself so I wouldn’t let myself be put in that situation again. And so that any future heartbreak wouldn’t break me the way this one did.

This is part of a continuous story about finding that my wife was cheating on me and what happened after. If you want to see how the story started you can read about it in The Day I Discovered My Wife Was Cheating, see how it all imploded in The Third, and Last, Day I Discovered My Wife Was Cheating. How It All Ended, how we started reconciliation in How I Started (the first) Reconciliation with My Wife After She Cheated and Left Me For a Coworker, or anything in between by clicking my profile.

Reconciliation

It was July 4. A few days had passed since my ex-wife broke up with Donald and the sun was shining. We were a family again. It wasn’t like before, it wasn’t bad, but it was like dancing to a song you’ve heard a million times but with shoes that were three sizes too big. And on the wrong feet.

We spent the day between the community pool and the kitchen. Our nights were spent watching TV together after the kids went to bed. I was still hurt and paranoid about being cheated on and left the way she left me. My ex wasn’t the best at communicating feelings, or being open to talking about difficult situations, so we mostly saved those conversations for our weekly therapy appointment. I wanted to talk about them whenever we had a chance. There was so much to unpack. So much I wanted to know. But I knew I had to exercise patience so this situation didn’t implode … and possibly cause me not to get the answers I felt I needed about the affair before it might end.

Conflicted

I felt conflicted very early on. Looking back at my journal during that time, I wrote about the hurt and questioned why I was reconciling a lot. For context if you didn’t read the previous posts, Teresa was my girlfriend I met after my wife left me. Here’s one entry:

When [ex-wife] left me, it was like I was cruising in a boat, relaxing and staring up at the sky. Then suddenly, there was a splash of icy water and I was in the rocky ocean, trying to figure out where I was and what had happened. Through all the pandemonium, I was able to see my best friend looking back at me. She was the one who threw me over; and there was another man in the boat. He was there all along and I didn’t even notice. She saw my struggle, but instead of turning the boat around, she chose to drive it to his dock where she saw better opportunity. I eventually learned to swim and built my own boat where I can be happy. Teresa joined it. She has her own boat, but she became a partner in maintaining mine as well. And now I’m going to go back into [ex-wife’s] boat?

It’s hard to look at both relationships and breakups through a similar lens, but after [ex-wife] asked for divorce, I found myself missing the past. I missed all the good times and what could have been. But maybe I was mourning what I lost more than looking forward to what we could have? Or maybe I was mourning what could have been with the old [ex-wife], or the [ex-wife] I thought I married and not with the [ex-wife] I would have actually lived that future with. With Teresa, I find myself missing who she is today and who she can be for me in the future. With [ex-wife], I had a trial run, for lack of a better phrase. I went on vacation with her, raised kids with her, had hard times with her, bought a house, etc. I knew what it was like. With Teresa, I haven’t.

Am I sad because I lost my true partner or because I didn’t get to evaluate that life in the future? I am the type that likes to know all the context and possibilities before making a decision. Is that what’s happening now here? That part of the reason I’m feeling incomplete is because I don’t have all the data collected before making my decision?

Missing the Physical

The attraction was there though. Obviously, it had been there in the past, but I now realize that subconsciously it was bigger for me now that I had won her back from Donald. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t anxious to sleep with my ex-wife again. There’s probably the component of taking her back from Donald there, but I think having it pulled out from under me while we were still married a year ago because of Donald left me feeling thirsty for those moments again. We took it slow, mostly because of her decision. I was eager and have always had a high libido.

It was like my caveman instincts had taken over my thinking. The more I look back at this period of time, the more I realize I was trying to win myself over rather than trying to heal our marriage. My brain knew things weren’t right, but it was losing the battle.

Teresa Calls

A few weeks in, Teresa had called me and wanted to know if she should just move on or not. I thought that had been clear from our breakup. But due to either bad communication between us, my ex-wife not committing to actually reconciling until after I thought we had started and Teresa and I parted, wishful thinking, or likely some combination of all three, Teresa thought my ex-wife and I were giving reconciliation a timed test run of a couple weeks.

I told her that’s not what we were doing. I had to give this a try for the reasons I had stated. She, politely, but sternly, said that she got mixed up in a dysfunctional situation and was hurt because of this, but understood what I was doing and that she should just move on.

Now, this is one of the parts I alluded to earlier that I am not proud about. But hearing her say she should move on hurt me. I had been missing her like crazy. My brain knew it would be nearly impossible, if not impossible altogether to reconcile with my ex-wife. But it was still conflicted. Knowing Teresa was going to find somebody else was like a cold splash in the face. But I also knew, I had to know for sure. I had to be confident that I didn't want my marriage, was okay with my kids asking if I gave it my all when they got older, and was ready to deal with the ramifications it could have on my kids.

I wasn’t there yet.

I don’t remember how it came up in our therapy appointment, but I brought up Teresa somehow. My ex-wife asked me if I had been in contact and I answered honestly. I told her I shouldn’t have answered the call. She was upset because she had broken up with Donald and refrained from contacting him and I was breaking my promise.

And she was right.

And this still haunts me because I felt like I didn’t play the game cleanly.

A few weeks went by and I was focusing on our marriage and the kids. But my brain was winning the chess game now. It knew I didn’t want this situation. I was happier before. Without my ex-wife. I was happier with Teresa.

What the Hell am I Actually Doing?

That’s what I titled my journal entry in that summer. I wrote about how I felt like I was losing myself and becoming somebody I didn’t want to be so that I could be accepted by my ex-wife:

For the first time in a long time, or maybe even ever, I made my bed for no reason today. It’s an attempt to add another self-betterment practice in my life. Since starting with [ex-wife], I feel like I’ve given up on a lot of self betterment.

With Teresa, I felt like we grew together and spent time alone to encourage each other to grow. With [ex-wife], I feel more stagnant. Like if I were to do more on my own, it would be seen as ignoring her. I feel like I’m holding back. Holding back on pushing myself. Holding back on talking about us. Holding back on intimacy (why has it been three weeks and kissing is still too much to do?). Holding back on being with Teresa. I miss her. I felt like I grew more with her and I learned more about myself, the world, and being a better parent.

She Loves You, No! No! No!

One night, at my ex-wife’s house, she said that, if we move back in together, my bedroom set would go in the guest room and we’d use the set she bought in our room. I built my set with my own two hands the year before from raw lumber. And it was like the decision was obvious. I was already annoyed.

And then she told me she loved me.

The handful of seconds between that and my response felt like hours.

I told her I wasn’t sure how I felt. That I care about her and I love her, but not like when we were married. I told her I’m still sorting out those feelings. I think a part of me told her this so she didn’t feel as bad, but it didn’t work. She stormed off to bed crying and wanting to be alone. She said she wasn’t mad, but hurt and rejected. I got the silent treatment the entire next day. She barely acknowledged me, even when the boys were around. It brought me back to when they were younger and she would just ignore me when I talked to her. I found myself thinking, why am I with somebody who treats me this way? Is it because of the boys and our history?

Wanting Out, But Not Wanting to End It

At this point, I had thought things would either be amazing between my ex-wife and I or they would have blown up, but they were just okay. Which actually might be healthier than the other two alternatives. It wasn’t terrible. We wanted to be with each other, we had fun, we did talk and listen at times, and the family was doing great as a whole. My son’s behavioral issues at pre-school disappeared overnight. But I was conflicted. I thought my feelings for Teresa might wane as time went on, but they just got stronger. I missed her more and more every day and my sadness about missing out on the future with her started outweighing my excitement about the future with my ex-wife right now.

The thought of starting life over with my ex-wife again by combining finances, spending time at her family’s house, getting a house together, etc. scared me to death and made me want to run. If I ever were to get there, I knew I would need a lot more time than she did, which I was pretty sure would make one of us feel like we’re either not moving forward or feeling pressured. Again, it wasn’t terrible in the situation we were in, but it wasn’t great.

And the big issue, is that I was not ready to end things with Teresa when I did. I knew it, even though I didn’t want to acknowledge it.

There was a night around this time that we came close to having sex (we still had not got to this point). We sat next to each other on the couch and kissed. I pulled my ex-wife on top of me and we started grinding and kissing. Her shirt started to come off. It got hot and heavy fast and then she jumped off and told me that she was wondering how far to take this knowing I was conflicted about Teresa (I was open about this in therapy). I understood. But I also wanted to feel the intimacy between us again and get wrapped up together like we did when we were married. Before I was replaced. I wanted to see if the chemistry could even be there now. I wanted to feel special to her again.

But I didn’t want to break her heart. I felt like the farther we went, the farther my ex-wife was falling in love. Even if I wasn’t in love, I started to love her like a family member. And despite the hurt she caused me, the last thing I wanted was to hurt her. Months before, I would have loved to see her hurt. But I was different now. I felt sorry for her.

I felt like I just needed to end it, but I couldn’t pull the band aid off. Partially because of me, partly because of her, and partly because of the kids. I was scared of what the kids would think when we stop seeing each other so much. What might happen when they learned that they wouldn’t get mom and dad together after all. I still wanted to hang out with my ex-wife and the boys. I wanted family dinners. I couldn’t trust her with my heart. I trusted Teresa with it.

I Tried

On a Thursday night I told ex-wife that I thought we should take a step back from reconciliation and she wasn’t happy to hear this. She said I was giving up too early and that we had only had one date. She said she was trying and implied that I was not trying. I felt so unheard and unvalidated. She compared her relationship with Donald and what she learned to me and Teresa. They weren’t the same relationship.

I was still in it.

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