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lilflower1000 posted 5/21/2013 15:30 PM

My WS has been pretty darn wonderful since December. (D-day was 8-1-1012...False R 8-8-2012 'til 12-1-2012 I assume the affair started around 2-2012)
I still think about it daily, but thanks to his complete remorse, repair and openess, I am feeling somewhat better.
Honestly, I am a pretty forgiving person. I just need some sort oof half a** appology. After all, I forgave him and he is the one who took vows!I can forgive her too. I have written her a letter. I have not sent it yet. I just feel I need some sort of closure.
Have any of you written a letter to the OW? Has anyone gotten an appology? Should I send it? Here is what I wrote..

Congratulations on knowing more about MY marriage than I did. It must have felt good. I was absolutely blindsided when I found out about you and my husband. I never even suspected. Bravo! You are both talented liars! It takes a special kind of evil to lie to a woman about her marriage when you know she has six children to think of. I deserved to know what was going on.

While (WS) was off chasing rainbows and butterflies with you, I was stuck home in a living hell trying to keep my sanity while trying not to let the lives of my babies fall apart. He is not a child, if he was unhappy he should have told me so, tried to fix the problems, or left instead of lying and cheating.

I hope your life improves. I sincerely mean it for the sake of your three babies. You are a beautiful young girl, I know you were in the midst of trying to straighten up your life, get off drugs, regain custody of your kids etc when you met(WS). I pray that you will find a nice young guy with a future who truly has your best interest in mind. Don't sell yourself short. You deserve to be someone's one and only, not the one he sneaks around with and f*cks you on the side before going home to his wife

Believe me, if men are unhappy they LEAVE, they don't cheat. I hope you have learned this hard lesson. He left his first wife and I am sure if he was unhappy he would have no difficulty leaving me. I know he probably told you all kinds of lies about me and how miserable he was in order to get down your pants.

Obviously he was not that unhappy or he would be gone by now. Whenever I brought up divorce he cried like a baby. He tore up the divorce papers that I brought him TWICE while he was still seeing you. This confused the hell out of me. I was stuck not knowing which was up.

The next time you are approached by a married man, I hope you will think about the wife who is home taking care of his kids, making his supper each night, and cleaning his dirty underwear. There is a certain code of ethics between most women that includes staying away from other women’s husbands.

To me the worst thing was when you came to my home and tried to befriend my kids while I was out of town working. This is the one action that just about put me over the edge. You are a mom. How could you? My kids have been just about destroyed by this whole situation and you just rubbed their little noses in it.

I hope you are not still in the business of trying to destroy families. I hope you build a family of your own. I hope you never have to go through the pain that I have gone through. I know you could probably give two sh*ts about me, but I am a good person, and I did not deserve any of this. No woman (or man) does. My life is forever changed. I hope you will at least take the time to address this issue and possibly apologize for what happened between you and my husband. I know we all make mistakes, but it shows true character to own your mistakes and try to repair any damage that has been done through your actions.

Thank you for taking the time to read this,

[This message edited by lilflower1000 at 4:03 PM, May 21st (Tuesday)]

meplusfour posted 5/21/2013 17:25 PM

I understand why you would want an apology from OW. You are a principled person who would like some recognition from the OW regarding the damage and hurt that she has caused and is partially responsible for.

However, do not send this letter. OW will likely not apologize or even recognize the wrongness of her actions. I had similiar feelings and the same need for the OW to apologize to me, and I raised this issue with my therapist. My therapist (wise woman that she is) advised me not to send this letter because it would give OW the ability to affect my healing and a window into the state of my relationship with fWH. Do not give OW any power over you and allow her to reenter your life by giving her a letter to respond to.

Write as many letters as you would like to express your anger and frustration. Then take them and over a glass of wine, burn them and watch the letter turn to ashes. I have done this several times. I look at the ashes and remember that fWH has chosen me, our relationship and our family and OW is nothing but ashes. Seems corny but it helps me release my anger and hopefully, move on.

3kids30years posted 5/21/2013 17:26 PM

Hi lili -

I also wrote a letter to OW. I did not send it. It felt good to write what i felt, but I will never send the letter. I will not acknowledge her existence any longer. I am concentrating on my WH, my children and my M. I do not need an apology from OW. An email was sent to me just after NC - the apology was not sincere nor needed. OW is a conniving bitch.

WH thought she was a friend, friends don't f*ck each other, friends don't encourage you to leave your family. I wish I didn't ever have to see OW again, unfortunately, I do. Daughters are on the same soccer team. If OW has anything to say to me, I am not interested. I will not give any power to OW. She has taken enough. I have the power now, and I have my WH next to me. Nothing I can say, or she may say will change anything that happened.

You have written your letter. Now burn it. She doesn't deserve your time or effort.

ETA: Burn it while drinking a glass of wine - Love the mental picture.

((huggs))

[This message edited by 3kids30years at 5:28 PM, May 21st (Tuesday)]

SisterMilkshake posted 5/21/2013 17:42 PM

Great vent letter, lilflower, but please under no circumstances send this letter.

OW doesn't deserve to know anything about you. You are right when you say she doesn't give two shits about you. If you share your feelings with OW you are giving her power. She doesn't get to know how you feel. If she knows how she hurt you, she may just get off on it.

Remember, the WS mindset is a totally foreign thing to us. What makes sense to us, doesn't to the WS mindset. How we would think anyone must feel in any given situation (because that is how we would feel, ya know, like guilty), they don't.

Many OW's would get ego stroked getting a letter like this. It means they must be relevant. OW would get ego stroked because she may feel like you still consider her a threat and that she could have your WS back if she wanted.

Write all the letters you want, but do not send.

RidingHealingRd posted 5/21/2013 20:38 PM

No harm in writing the letter but I too would advise that you not send it.
And this is one reason why:

I know you could probably give two sh*ts about me,

She did not care about you when she engaged in an affair with you WH, she doesn't care now.

I would never, ever, ever, ever give AP the satisfaction. Move on with your life letting her think that she quickly became a nonentity.

lilflower1000 posted 5/21/2013 21:38 PM

Thanks guys...I actually shortened the letter a good bit. The origanal was about 2 full pages. It is therapeutic to write out my thoughts.
I'll get some wine this weekend and a nice fire on my back patio. We have an outdoor fireplace that would be perfect for this.

sri624 posted 5/21/2013 23:39 PM

hi there...i am glad you decided not to send the letter. i made the mistake of communicating with the ow and you know what...it accomplished nothing. you can never, ever believe the ow....she will never have your best interest....i know that the ow in our situation acted like she was my "friend' when it was discovered....throwing my wh under the bus...bad mouthing him..and of course telling me all the details of the affair. i soon learned that she was not concerned about me or my marriage. talking to her and giving her any attention only made her relevant...made her feel as though she had some importance in my marriage...or my healing. at the end of the day...she would have loved the chance to be back with him.

months later...she sent me a letter...out of "concern." i ignored her...and then a few days later she sent an anonymous letter to my husband at work. we didnt respond to any of her attempts at communication...and no contact sent a strong message.

dont give her the time of day....burn that letter.

BeyondBreaking posted 5/21/2013 23:39 PM

That is a HELL of a lot nicer than the letters I would sent.

I can't even write down the scathing words I would sent to DD's dad's OW.

To the women my fiancé talked to?
I would say simply, "I'm not sure if you were aware, but (WF) is in a relationship. He doesn't want to meet you, be your boyfriend, or sweep you off your feet. He wants something to look at while he plays with himself while I am not home.
You look like a nice person, and you should respect yourself. Sending pictures of your cooch to random strangers from craigslist is not only dangerous (giving out your phone number and texting men that you are home alone is just not smart), embarrassing (you could be talking to anybody- your boss, your friends, your father... And your pictures could be posted anywhere), and disrespectful (to the person you are sending them to, his family, and mostly yourself).
I encourage you to treat yourself much better."

BeyondBreaking posted 5/21/2013 23:40 PM

Shoot, I didn't mean to post yet.
bottom line, you shouldn't send the letter. Don't give her the satisfaction of knowing she is even on your mind.

sailorgirl posted 5/22/2013 08:29 AM

Have fun roasting your letter, lilflower! I wrote an OW letter on my laptop, and I edit it and add to it whenever I get the urge to contact her. I'm so glad I found SI and the wisdom here and never sent it.

I'd rather have OW thinking that she was just a little pebble on the long and beautiful path of our marriage.

sailorgirl posted 5/22/2013 08:29 AM

Have fun roasting your letter, lilflower! I wrote an OW letter on my laptop, and I edit it and add to it whenever I get the urge to contact her. I'm so glad I found SI and the wisdom here and never sent it.

I'd rather have OW thinking that she was just a little pebble on the long and beautiful path of our marriage.