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Post by jerri on Feb 7, 2021 21:09:14 GMT -5
Do what Shamwow did and read her the letter out loud except do it in front of a therapist and tell her she must show, you have some very important news to share.
That therapist will be a huge buffer for a pissy attitude. How can it escalate with a therapist there. Just brace yourself, one thing the therapist will suspect is an ongoing affair. They expect an affair in sexless M's.
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Post by Apocrypha on Feb 8, 2021 14:56:40 GMT -5
I know this all seems a little crazy. I'm still married although it is hanging by a thread and I'm not sure what I am still hanging onto. Over a decade in a sexless marriage has been hell and my wife and I have both said we are "done" multiple times. I see the items I put on my bucket list and know if I stay in my marriage, none of those will ever happen. A lot of them are places I want to go or do with a partner (catch a Red Socks game at Fenway, which means a trip to Boston and bar hopping for a long weekend, fly to California and spend a week driving up the PCH, stopping at beaches, and small romantic hotels along the way), going back to Europe, etc. My new (old) friend and I compared bucket lists and we have some of the same items on ours (including the Socks game and weekend in Boston). We didn't share the lists in advance so this was totally a spontaneous match. We seem very compatible. Actually I know we are and I know, even though she's 500 miles away (which is a short plane flight as we are both outside major cities), we could make it work and would be willing to do what it takes so that we don't lose each other again. I know the correct answer is to stop all contact with her and resolve the marriage issues. If we divorce, I should wait to heal and then when I am ready go find her if she is still available. She has offered all of this (to stop the contact, to let me either fix or dissolve the marriage, to let me take time to heal). The problem is I don't want to stop talking to her because she is just such a fascinating person to talk to and I don't want to push her away because I'm afraid I am going to lose her again. However, she won't admit it, but on the off-chance I fix things with my wife, I know it would probably really hurt her which would really bother me. A couple points: 1. I've seen this happen a fair amount. A person is in a sexually unavailable relationship, goes to lengths to leave it, and then immediately rebuilds an identical dynamic by pursuing someone who is physically unavailable (AKA long distance 500 k away). I understand the spark you are feeling. It's easy to let it blaze right now because it's safe. In your case and your friend's case, you BOTH are in physically unavailable relationships and are seeking out an impossible situation. It lets you both enjoy the fantasy while protecting you from follow-through and consequences - such as actually pursuing a real invested intimate relationship with each other. You need to both get clear on what this is - it's an event - you both may - when you check out of whatever you are in now - connect with each other in the brief window in which you disengage - but this is not a relationship no matter how "worth it", it seems. If she's been single for a while, it likely won't be her heart that gets broken in this deal; it's yours, in thinking somehow it's going to happen whether or not you are married. Relationships and invested intimate lives are built not in events that happen at the end of a plane ride, but rather, in the moments in between, on a casual night with dinner, cuddling on the couch, an evening walk. It's the quiet moments - not the ones that require a ticket (though those are nice as well). You are describing a fwb. An affair. A muse. Someone you visit between partners and return to, but who you can't have. It doesn't mean your feelings lack meaning or are silly or aren't real. But to start at a place of long distance after just leaving a marriage? What's the point of constructing that kind of life? How will that compare to the person you meet who lives 25 min away? How will YOU compare with that person in her life? 2. As others have said, the third party doesn't actually figure in the math. The horse you are changing right now isn't swapping one partner for another (and who gets blamed then when she gets a local boyfriend?) - it's "married" vs "single". Building a single life, finding your place again - sounds like you've mostly got a good start on that. Keep that going and maybe talk to your therapist about why you'd seek out someone who is unavailable again? Work that out, figure out who you are. Make space for the life you want to have. 3. I don't think the right answer here is "work on your marriage". I think you have articulated clearly the status of your relationship with your wife and it's mutual. If you both agree on that, then together figure out the best way to retain the cooperative aspects of your household as you separate. Counsellors can help with that too - and might be better at it than trying to stick people back together when their aversion to each other is so high. I don't think you are going to get agreement on this with your partner right away. You likely will need to just start the process rolling. Note - I see you tried doing that by inviting her to your private office. That's YOUR territory. You need neutral ground to talk about this.
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Post by flyingsolo on Feb 8, 2021 16:30:47 GMT -5
Again thanks for all the input. I've spoken to my attorney who strongly disagrees with any sort of emotional reconciliation letter before a divorce is final, which I guessed she would. So, I will hold off on that for now. I do still want to try to talk to my wife to see if we really have a consensus that the marriage is over. I've never been able to drag any info out of her other than "We aren't lovers" and that she blames me for everything but believes I blame her. Honestly, the blame goes both ways. As least with a consensus we can hopefully find some common ground to be cooperative for our kids if nothing else. A long, drawn out legal battle does no good for anyone. Honestly, I think I could settle things pretty easily in a few hours of mediation if it were up to me and would be willing to make sure she is taken care of for the next seven years to allow our youngest to get through high school and into college. After that she is going to need to find employment, but she does have a skill set that would let her support herself in the workforce.
With regard to my long-distance friend, I agree it is a completely separate issue and I can't let that be the reason that I leave nor can I leave with the expectation that she and I will end up together as I do need time to heal and process the grief from the demise of my marriage. Honestly, we have only gotten emotionally close over the last month or so. My marriage was broken long before that. We have not seen each other in person in 25 years though we have connected on Zoom a few times. With regard to apocrypha's comments, I agree to a certain extent regarding a long-distance relationship. However, I also know there are ways to make it work. We both have the ability to work remotely if necessary to spend more time together. But we also have kids, careers, etc. If was meant to be, it will find a way to work itself out. If it wasn't, then I will look at it as a special moment in time where a special someone from my past and I reconnected 25 years later. First I have to process my marriage and where I go from here.
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Post by jerri on Feb 8, 2021 17:20:12 GMT -5
If there is mention of divorce anywhere in the letter delete it? Nothing causes more anxiety and will bite us in the butt. If I gathered correctly it looks like you are wanting her input before you divorce. Is she in this M for the long haul? Seems like it so far. The word "divorce is very threatening and why wouldn't someone agree to it or beat you to the punch with their own planning. You may be planning but so is she? My brother's ex threatened divorce and she wanted my brother to say, no don't! I will forever be married my damsel in distress! Instead he said, yes and she was livid! She said, that's it, I am done, I will never come back to you ...something to that effect. Possibly go over the letter with your therapist? Layout a plan of steps you think you will take to strengthen the marriage? Marriage Builders can help. Anything like that would look great in court, especially if she took the lead and beat you to court? It will help that you really tried to do something constructive before the divorce. Did your lawyer read it or is he thinking of his own interests? Why not get the book the Five Languages of Love and take the tests together or use the 17 areas Gottman Scale and take it together? If not for you. Maybe for someone else. Tell her you would like to...Blank intentions inserted. 1identity.care/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/2018GottmanScale4WEB.pdfif not disregard may be useful to someone else.
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Post by jim44444 on Feb 8, 2021 19:02:34 GMT -5
Just brace yourself, one thing the therapist will suspect is an ongoing affair. They expect an affair in sexless M's. Well, Duh! 😁
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Post by mirrororchid on Feb 8, 2021 19:52:27 GMT -5
... I do still want to try to talk to my wife to see if we really have a consensus that the marriage is over. I've never been able to drag any info out of her other than "We aren't lovers" and that she blames me for everything but believes I blame her. Honestly, the blame goes both ways... Everyone here said everything important. All I have is some encouragement to follow through. You tried to discuss the divorce four times. If you file paperwork, that doesn't make you divorced. You can still discuss it after you've filed and let whatever miracle is supposed to happen, happen. Her comment about "I've had four years to change." struck me as incomplete. If she'd finished she might've said, "and I'm convinced that I won't." Maybe you should have changed in some way, but her physical intimacy didn't budge. We know that much. There was a very concrete, empirical improvement that could have been attempted, that wasn't. I find it possible she is well aware of her part in the marriage dissolution and by never admitting it, she hopes to make your shame permanently bind you. You're doing everything you can to talk yourself out of it. What if she 's scared straight when the paperwork goes through? Maybe you need to be ready with the rock bottom requirements of what it would take for you to stay and how long you'll put up with failure. What is the minimum you'd accept, and do not low ball yourself. She needs a fair chance to win. No moving the goal posts on her later. Make your floor a good one, not a tolerable one. You're allowed to be wrong and find out nothing would have helped, but I get from your hesitance to pull this trigger that you're open to giving her one last chance. Make sure it's fair to you both. If I'm wrong, I'd totally get it.
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Post by jerri on Feb 8, 2021 20:05:16 GMT -5
Just brace yourself, one thing the therapist will suspect is an ongoing affair. They expect an affair in sexless M's. Well, Duh! 😁 You so funny, me love you! 💜💚💙❤
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Post by Apocrypha on Feb 9, 2021 0:45:15 GMT -5
I do still want to try to talk to my wife to see if we really have a consensus that the marriage is over. I've never been able to drag any info out of her other than "We aren't lovers" In your mind, are married people lovers? Should they be? In both your minds, when you both married each other, would you say you agreed that a marriage involved being lovers, among other things? What separates your present arrangement from amicable ex-spouses? What's marriage bringing to the table here? What this looks like to me is that she has already left the relationship a long time ago. You have this construct of a relationship - this lifestyle format in which the two of you formulate your futures, but it strikes me that when you said you looked at the milestones of your future, you really had trouble seeing her as being involved with those (and that she'd likely prevent you). You can slice this lengthwise or across, as a question of sexual intimacy or as a broad question of shared values and a belief in a future together - it seems to come out the same way each time. Yes. You can make a sexless marriage work, as well. By becoming celibate. Are you really going to move 500 miles from your kids right after separating? Where I live, most people negotiate proximity agreements, requiring each other to stay within the same school zone for convenience. I think you likely have it right when you say you will look at it as a special moment in time. Protect your heart - what I told you, cuts in both directions. What I mean is, she too is picking someone 500 miles away, who is married -someone unavailable. It wouldn't be the first time someone who suddenly became totally available post-marriage, no longer seemed so simple and undemanding. It's often the case that when affairs change tracks to become the primary relationship, that they become a totally different thing. I wish you happiness in whichever life you build- just hope you are able to leave room to build it.
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Post by shamwow on Feb 10, 2021 21:10:09 GMT -5
I know this all seems a little crazy. I'm still married although it is hanging by a thread and I'm not sure what I am still hanging onto. Over a decade in a sexless marriage has been hell and my wife and I have both said we are "done" multiple times. I see the items I put on my bucket list and know if I stay in my marriage, none of those will ever happen. A lot of them are places I want to go or do with a partner (catch a Red Socks game at Fenway, which means a trip to Boston and bar hopping for a long weekend, fly to California and spend a week driving up the PCH, stopping at beaches, and small romantic hotels along the way), going back to Europe, etc. My new (old) friend and I compared bucket lists and we have some of the same items on ours (including the Socks game and weekend in Boston). We didn't share the lists in advance so this was totally a spontaneous match. We seem very compatible. Actually I know we are and I know, even though she's 500 miles away (which is a short plane flight as we are both outside major cities), we could make it work and would be willing to do what it takes so that we don't lose each other again. I know the correct answer is to stop all contact with her and resolve the marriage issues. If we divorce, I should wait to heal and then when I am ready go find her if she is still available. She has offered all of this (to stop the contact, to let me either fix or dissolve the marriage, to let me take time to heal). The problem is I don't want to stop talking to her because she is just such a fascinating person to talk to and I don't want to push her away because I'm afraid I am going to lose her again. However, she won't admit it, but on the off-chance I fix things with my wife, I know it would probably really hurt her which would really bother me. A couple points: 1. I've seen this happen a fair amount. A person is in a sexually unavailable relationship, goes to lengths to leave it, and then immediately rebuilds an identical dynamic by pursuing someone who is physically unavailable (AKA long distance 500 k away). I understand the spark you are feeling. It's easy to let it blaze right now because it's safe. In your case and your friend's case, you BOTH are in physically unavailable relationships and are seeking out an impossible situation. It lets you both enjoy the fantasy while protecting you from follow-through and consequences - such as actually pursuing a real invested intimate relationship with each other. You need to both get clear on what this is - it's an event - you both may - when you check out of whatever you are in now - connect with each other in the brief window in which you disengage - but this is not a relationship no matter how "worth it", it seems. If she's been single for a while, it likely won't be her heart that gets broken in this deal; it's yours, in thinking somehow it's going to happen whether or not you are married. Relationships and invested intimate lives are built not in events that happen at the end of a plane ride, but rather, in the moments in between, on a casual night with dinner, cuddling on the couch, an evening walk. It's the quiet moments - not the ones that require a ticket (though those are nice as well). You are describing a fwb. An affair. A muse. Someone you visit between partners and return to, but who you can't have. It doesn't mean your feelings lack meaning or are silly or aren't real. But to start at a place of long distance after just leaving a marriage? What's the point of constructing that kind of life? How will that compare to the person you meet who lives 25 min away? How will YOU compare with that person in her life? 2. As others have said, the third party doesn't actually figure in the math. The horse you are changing right now isn't swapping one partner for another (and who gets blamed then when she gets a local boyfriend?) - it's "married" vs "single". Building a single life, finding your place again - sounds like you've mostly got a good start on that. Keep that going and maybe talk to your therapist about why you'd seek out someone who is unavailable again? Work that out, figure out who you are. Make space for the life you want to have. 3. I don't think the right answer here is "work on your marriage". I think you have articulated clearly the status of your relationship with your wife and it's mutual. If you both agree on that, then together figure out the best way to retain the cooperative aspects of your household as you separate. Counsellors can help with that too - and might be better at it than trying to stick people back together when their aversion to each other is so high. I don't think you are going to get agreement on this with your partner right away. You likely will need to just start the process rolling. Note - I see you tried doing that by inviting her to your private office. That's YOUR territory. You need neutral ground to talk about this. I can see where you are coming from on point number 1, but I (and ballofconfusion) would beg to differ. We met on this forum, became friends, and realized there was something else there. We wanted to see where it would lead. Unfortunately there was the small detail of her living in San Diego and me living in Houston (1,300 miles and two time zones apart) Between July of 2017 and December of 2019, we made 74 plane trips (around $16,500 in airfare) to see one another. Sometimes it was me travelling sometimes her, and sometimes both. Later, it was sometimes with our kids as we started blending our lives together. Once, it was to be with her mom as she was in the hospital. Adding the time together, we managed to be with each other 31.1 percent of the days (I kept a spreadsheet 😉). When we weren't together, we went to sleep over Skype, leaving it on all night. We often woke in the night when the other was having nightmares. Hell, once I even experienced an earthquake remotely from Houston. Now she is here in Houston, and we no longer have to commute on our big yellow bus (looking at you, Spirit Airlines). She and I are in the same bed at this very moment and she is reading what I type over my shoulder. Was this easy? Fuck no. We each had to change our lifestyles in a way that few would be willing to contemplate, let alone have the endurance to stick to. It was hard living out of a bag for a couple years straddling 2 time zones (even when not travelling). But not to sound cliche, nothing worth having is easy. You mention that this type of relationship is not "real" in context of the "little things" such as having coffee in the morning or the other mundane aspects of life. But the decision to share your life does not rely exclusively on physical proximity. In today's age, we likely spend more time communicating and bonding with people on our phones than face to face. Hell, I haven't seen many of my friends, family, and co workers face to face in over a year (looking at you Covid), but they are still "real" relationahips. It is also "real" even though BOC is still married (looking at you California courts). I will say this, though. Even though we travelled over 208,000 miles (did I mention I kept a spreadsheet), I was and am closer to BOC than in the 20 years of my SM. where I shared a bed (and presumably a life) with my ex. Distance relationships are hard as fuck. The majority of them are not successful. But I thought it was important to provide a counterpoint for a "real" relationship that has succeeded.
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Post by Handy on Feb 10, 2021 21:24:29 GMT -5
BOC and Shamwow, love forever!!
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Post by saarinista on Feb 10, 2021 22:01:49 GMT -5
A good percentage of close up relationships don't last forever, either. Look at all of us here. 🙄🤦🏻♀️
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Post by flyingsolo on Feb 11, 2021 8:03:57 GMT -5
Excellent points shamwow. I agree that no one endeavors to get into a long-distance relationship over a local one where you can see the person every day. In my particular case, I dated this woman for three years when I was in college. She was my “first” and we’ve always agreed that we were both just starting our careers and finding out who we were and where we wanted to go in life and the timing just wasn’t right for an “us” to grow at that point. Her parents had just gone through a divorce and she was dealing with a lot of trauma. We parted on very good terms. We both went on to other relationships, got married to other people, had kids and lived our lives for 25 years, but now we find ourselves talking again, easily for 3-5 hours at a time on Zoom and we both agree we could talk longer. Yes we are 500 miles away, but we are both in agreement that if we did end up together after the end of my marriage, that we would both do whatever necessary to make sure we always communicate and make and effort to make the long distance relationship work. We are in agreement if we ever lose the desire to make that effort, then it wasn’t meant to be. We are in agreement that we’d need to see physically each other every few weeks but there could be times we go a month or so depending on our work and parenting schedules. Your relationship with BOC gives me hope that this could work if we both want it to.
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Post by Apocrypha on Feb 11, 2021 10:21:43 GMT -5
Unfortunately there was the small detail of her living in San Diego and me living in Houston (1,300 miles and two time zones apart) Between July of 2017 and December of 2019, we made 74 plane trips (around $16,500 in airfare) to see one another. Sometimes it was me travelling sometimes her, and sometimes both. Later, it was sometimes with our kids as we started blending our lives together. [...] Now she is here in Houston, and we no longer have to commute on our big yellow bus (looking at you, Spirit Airlines). She and I are in the same bed at this very moment and she is reading what I type over my shoulder. Was this easy? Fuck no. We each had to change our lifestyles in a way that few would be willing to contemplate, let alone have the endurance to stick to. It was hard living out of a bag for a couple years straddling 2 time zones (even when not travelling). But not to sound cliche, nothing worth having is easy. That's a lovely story shamwow . It's possible that living in a metropolitan city (Toronto) in which love moves fast and is VERY competitive affects my view. Reading your account, to me, is like enjoying a lottery winner's happy story, or an entrepreneur's scrappy story about incredible investment, while remaining skeptical about the financial wisdom of lottery tickets as a general financial planning strategy. shamwow - Let's me clarify what I said in context - "real invested intimate relationship". This is a sexlesss marriage forum. I did not say the "relationship isn't real". There are many types of relationships. My relationship with my doctor, for example, is in many ways (to me), intimate. It is not romantic though. I have work relations that are important. My relationship with my co-parent ex-wife, is in some ways generally "intimate" - though not in the sense that we generally talk about in iliasm. Or, maybe it now is exactly asd we talk about on ILIASM, except I have no erotic expectation of her or the relationship format. My relationship with my ex-wife is "real". I have feelings about my ex-wife and about our interactions. It's just not a married relationship and does not appear to be headed in that direction, based on the manifest behavior and stated intentions quoted by the OP. Since being married, I've likely had two, major, invested relationships end (6 months to two years, invested, blending families) due to a distance amounting to about 1.5 hours from the city in which I live, and another (1 year) end due to my partner still being married to and living with her ex-spouse. All were "real" relationships. They were hard as fuck to manage and coordinate - and all three of them suffered greatly for the lack of physical presence in "downtime" and "in between moments" despite ample text time etc. I've seen similar things with some of the women I've dated (one suburbanite somehow was in a relationship with a guy from Scotland, across the ocean for a year, and visited him twice. The OP indicated he had kids and this was a factor in my general advice (is he going to move away from them?) - which is to caution that (as you clearly agree) - long distance relationships are very hard to coordinate, expensive, time consuming, and *competitive with people who are local*. I didn't say that there are no examples of them working. I did say that often people who somehow have engineered or tolerated an unavailable partner in their marriage, can have a tendency to seek out an identical unavailable partner and end up recreating a structurally similar relationship dynamic that they end up blaming on that partner. And often, people in this situation find each other attractive initially because of their baked in unavailability. Sometimes this is appropriate for the situation due to limited emotional bandwidth or career demands or just preferences. I didn't get the sense that this was the case with the OP here, but mileage may vary. In those cases, if the relationship has legs and the expectations for more of each other grow beyond the initial parameters, a select few of them might make a life decision and jump in together - but most will instead find that their thoughts turn to loneliness and resentment, and jealousy of their friends who have local relationships that seem easier. My wider point, in posting, is really about doing due diligence and "self-work" to look deeply into our own motivations and habits and how they contribute toward a dysfunctional relationship. We tend to be really good at pointing out our partners' flaws and the deficiencies of a relationship, whereas the work of examining our own contribution is often more challenging, especially because the contribution toward the dysfunction might actually lie outside of the interactions and general good feelings toward someone, and start with the choice of partner, situation, or format. Example: I fell in love with an unhappily married woman who was in a sexless marriage. At first, the demands on our relationship were light and always delightful, but over time, the obvious disadvantages became intolerable. If something bad happened in her life, I couldn't exactly go to her house and stay with her or send her flowers for example. But our mutual platonic friends could. While I recognized the trade-offs in a practical sense and we discussed - it didn't change the feeling to her that I was failing as a fully invested romantic partner - which is what she came to want from me as our feelings grew beyond the format of "an affair". We parted amicably and some months later she engaged in another affair with a great guy (a mutual friend), who I thought was really suited for her. He was also in an unhappy sexless marriage. It ended the same way - with her still in her sexless marriage and blaming him for his lack of availability as a full time partner once she felt comfortable with him. And then her husband surprised her with divorce papers and caught her flat-footed.
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Post by Apocrypha on Feb 11, 2021 10:38:49 GMT -5
We are in agreement that we’d need to see physically each other every few weeks but there could be times we go a month or so depending on our work and parenting schedules. Your relationship with BOC gives me hope that this could work if we both want it to. So, you have sex once a month for various periods, eh? This is a positive example? A lot of how you perceive your relationship depends really on: -what else is going on in your lives -what the competitive offers are -how synchronized you are during your own unavailable periods. What's going on in your lives? New parents with tiny windows of availability and a "practical view" of opportunities for physically intimate time, brand new divorcess - when I'm on the dating scene, I know that these kinds of situations present unique considerations that makes their longer term trajectory more uncertain than most. Where I live, a brand new separated person is likely to want to taste the rainbow, so to speak. They want variety of partners usually, either dating casually or doing rapid serial monogamy. Competitive offers Each of you are going about your lives in the world where you live and work. Synchronization This is a tough one and I've had relationships end because of it. What started with a similar set of avails between two sets of parents who had a high priority to align on quality time in narrow windows of one or two days a week, changed when the parenting schedule of one switched to two weeks on/off. That meant one was sitting alone for long periods of time, even though we saw each other just as much as before - maybe even more. Fondly missing me turned into loneliness and longing for companionship and activities during that time, and being an astoundingly attractive woman, there were constant competitive offers local to her.
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Post by worksforme2 on Feb 11, 2021 12:11:52 GMT -5
"Often people find each other attractive because of their baked in unavailability".---Apocrypha
When I 1st entered the post marriage dating market(6yrs ago) I got a lot of "Hi" or "Hello" messages from women who were considerable distances from me, anywhere from 100 to 500 miles. I often thought WTH is that all about. It wasn't until I brought this up in a post on EP that I got the explanation you just stated that I understood what was going on. The distance made me more attractive because it pretty much prevented anything real form developing and allowed the woman on the dating site to fantasize what "might be" to perfection instead of living the somewhat less perfect what is.
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