S/O Infidelity: Did you stay married?

[ha98ed14]

This is a S/O of the eyes open thread. *IF* you have gone through this, what was the outcome? Did you reconcile and stay married? It is possible to reconcile but go your separate ways while co-parenting?

If we follow the BTDT advice and never say never, then it seems reasonable to have a plan for that "what if...?" scenario.

Anonymous poll coming.

[lalasmama]

I need an "other".... We aren't together. We don't coparent. I don't hate him; in fact, we are still in contact, and friendly.

Before I get into the rest of it, please know that the choices I made were mine alone, and I don't judge anyone else for staying with their spouse after infidelity. What I say below is just what I told/felt myself. I am in NO WAY trying to say that someone else who chose a different path made a worse/better choice.

He didn't have a one-time affair... There was at least 4 that I remember clearly.... So, after being on-and-off for 10 years, I had to draw the line somewhere. I didn't want DD (a kindship foster child, so not his) to think that it was normal to be married and separated multiple times because of infidelity. My mom was aghast the first time she learned that he cheated. She was more aghast when I went back... and went back again. And again. I was totally dependent on him though; without him, I thought I was nothing. We were together, "for better or for worse, in sickness and in health". Funny, I just considered the "for worse" the infidelity. Ironically, I never gave thought to the fact of "in sickness and in health"; do you think he was anywhere to be found when I was sick? Of course not!

But when it was all said and done, I needed to know that DD would grow up seeing the proper way for a man to treat a woman. And she wasn't going to learn that if we were with XH (and then not with him, then with him, then not with him). At some point, she would have heard us arguing about the Flavor of the Month....

I decided I would rather her have a strong, independent mama than a mama who only feels "worthy" when the husband was around.

[JBaxter]

I have an EX husband. What does that tell you?