Q&A How Long Should I Wait before Filing for Divorce?

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Question: 

I am the betrayed spouse. We are 11 months out from D-Day and about 6 months out from "full disclosure." By full disclosure, my spouse has told me what he remembers but it isn't much. Almost everything that I know, I found out on my own. There have been several infidelities in our marriage and I was the betrayed spouse in every one. We have been married for almost eight years. We did the boot camp, EMSO, marriage counseling with our pastor and with a therapist, and another online course. My spouse is showing true remorse and has made some great changes. However, I don't care anymore. The last infidelity was the one that took my blinders off to the neglect and emotional abuse that I have suffered from in my marriage. I committed early on in recovery to stay the 18-24 months time frame to see if our marriage could be saved. It has been almost a year and I do not love or trust my husband anymore than I did after discovery. I don't see the trust or love coming back either. At what point would it be better to just throw in the towel and quit wasting our time? There is progress in my personal healing but for me, the marriage is dead.

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Time frame

When does the 18-24 months start when you’ve had 2 DDays? I learned of my husband’s long term (2+ year) affair, in which he filed for divorce with me unaware of the affair, almost 2 years ago, March 2016 by finding a very emotional Valentines card from her in his drawer. He immediately blamed me and kept contact for another 2 months. At the 9 month mark after discovery he relapsed and went back to her. We went to EMS Dec 2016 after the relapse but he trickled truthed, blamed and justified for another 18 months. At EMS he did not disclose everything.One year after first discovery, March 2017, (2nd DDay will be next month) he disclosed 4 other brief affairs, one just the previous month, which actually started before his relapse with his long term AP. I did HH after EMS. We did not complete EMS because he relapsed with his 4th AP. He finally took H4H in Nov and just completed it, at times I am hopeful but he still continues to blame shift and justify. On a week I needed him to stay home because of anniversary triggers he made plans for a guys trip without discussing it with me. He said he would cancel but I let him go as this friend had counciled other unfaithfuls. After he returned I was suspicious of something being off and found on his phone that he had taken our friend sailing on the boat he had 2 of his affairs and had also taken me on, the very reason I asked him to stay home on that anniversary date. I was again traumatized that he could be so insensitive to be on that boat again exactly one year later after all our work and his agreement he would never be on it again. We worked through this with the help of his H4H group leader. 2 weeks later I discovered by chance that he has leased this same boat for another season and hid it from me. Our sailing trip (I thought we were in a really good place then) and his last affair encounter on that boat were one week apart last January. He thinks I am overreacting that he just went on the boat again and that he leased it for another season. I’m at the point where I have such severe depression after 2 years I think it would be best if I file for divorce. I have been doing individual grief recovery (James and Friedman) with a therapist and we started seeing our fourth marriage counselor who uses imago. He says he has not had anymore affairs but the amount of justification, self centeredness and deception he is still displaying makes me feel I need him gone so I can truly recover. For the last 6 months most days I cannot even get out of bed. I am on Prozac and sleep 12+ hours a day. Since DDay I have had bouts of drinking more than normal which I am working on and my therapist knows of (I used to drink only sporadically socially and now sometimes drink 2-3 glasses of wine just to fall asleep, although I don’t seem to need to when my husband is gone). I know everyone has their own limits of trauma but after riding this roller coaster for 4 years (he was very verbally abusive and rejecting during his affair) I don’t think I can wait any longer for him to be truly healthy, transparent and aiding my recovery, he acts like everything is normal, happy go lucky. Each deception, especially going to a place where 2 affairs took place, even if it is not an actual affair seems to set my timeline back to zero. When does the timeline start, at last disclosure or last deception even if it’s not an affair? I don’t think I have the strength to go another 18-24 months hoping he’ll look at how his choices impact my recovery.

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I would highly recommend giving this a try.
 
-D, Texas