SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

For not seeing this douchebag for who he really is.

The things I'm hearing about him now are making my skin crawl. Getting his sister hooked on pot again after she has had a drug problem all her life. Not helping his parents out at all financially even though he's been living with them for the past 7 months. He knows that they are struggling financially.

If I could kick my own ass I would.

Anyone else feel this foolish for not having seen through the bullshit?

Oh yeah. I'm there. STBXWW spent 17.5 years ignoring everything about me, while I convinced myself I was desperately in love with her.

Before we were married, when we were travelling in the car, she would sing "You Are My Sunshine" to me. She would hold hands at every opportunity, and loved kissing and cuddling. Once the band was on her hand, that all came to a grinding halt.

Now she's wooing OM in the same way. He is also a musician (like me), also has ADHD (like me), works in IT (like me), and has family issues (like me). Anyone see a pattern? He is, however, extremely unattractive (totally unlike me).

What's that saying about the definition of crazy? Doing the exact same thing but expecting different results.

So, yes, I was stupid. But she's fucking nuts!

Yep.

Absolutely.

He was always beneath me. I still don't understand why I settled.

I did love the way he 'loved' me though. There was a certain charm in his desperation. That part only lasted a few years and I wasted double that waiting for it to come back. In all honesty that is really the only thing I really liked about him.

He is a simpleton. A puddle is deeper. I mistook it for naiveté.

He has no genuine integrity. Its all for show. I believed the act.

He has poor impulse control - he is led by the emotion he is feeling at that moment. His lack of depth makes this possible. I couldn't ignore this one once I had a toddler to compare him to.

He only truly feels happy when being reckless. I attributed that to his Catholic upbringing. The self loathing runs far deeper than that.

I'm deeply embarrassed about having ever been his wife.

I cannot believe I had children with him.

The shocking thing is none of this is news to me. I knew it all well before DD. For that I feel foolish.

Hope is a devil of a thing.

I saw a quote here once about how women tend to fall in love with a man's potential. I know I certainly did.

Yes!!!!! I think I, too was in love with the "way he loved me" and I think he saw me as his emotional rescuer. I'd known him for years and never liked him because...NEWSFLASH!...he was an ASSHOLE to his brother who shared an apartment with him. His brother asked me one time what I thought of poopsmear and I said, "He's a nice looking guy, but I'd never date him. He's an asshole." The catch was, he was not an asshole to me because he had a crush on me.

Well, I dated someone else for a long time and poopsmear wasn't around me at all for over a year due to school/job stuff. 2 months after breaking up with my boyfriend, I ran into poopsmear who found out I was single and hit me HARD with the charm. I fell for it and within months it was getting bad. I should have listened to my original assessment of the guy. He was/is/always will be an ASSHOLE, lying, cheater, SOB.

I feel stupid. I hate him because of the crap he still continues to pull.

SBB -- so many times you say things that exactly how I feel!

While I do feel foolish for being duped, since I can't change the past, I try to focus on the present and future instead. But, yes, I hate that I ignored so many red flags and wore my rose-colored glasses for so long. There were other guys interested in me, but no one who pursued me as hard, and I thought my family and I could make up for what he'd suffered as a kid. Stupid old codependent me!

Yep SBB same here.

I am horribly embarrassed that I ever was involved with this guy.

That is the biggest reason for being in IC right now.

Ex even admits to being an asshole. It's like he's proud of it. He liked to say it. "I'm an asshole, everyone thinks so."

Wow, the red flags I ignored.

I need a lot of therapy to get over this asshole.

:::Raising hand and waving wildy::: Me, me, me, me!

I am the poster child for stupidity.

The red flags were waving wildly for years. I didn't see them, except in the rearview mirror.

It's affair season; I am really struggling with anger at myself. Rationally, I understand that I was young and naive and knew no better. I fell in love with a man like my (profoundly personality disordered) father---but nicer. At 16, when your male role model is a malignant narcissist, nice is important.

Even then, Mr. Trac-Fone was leading a double life. All of 3 months older than me, but his FOO required that he learned to lie and sneak and wear a mask in the cradle.

He peeled it partway off now and then, but I didn't see.

Only now, when I look back, I realize I saw more than I thought. I just had no way to frame it. I'm still working on that part! (It's hard to make sense of nonsense, so this is largely an exercise in accepting disorder.)

SBB, you took the words right out of my mouth. And he showed me first hand that water does indeed seek it's own level. He chose someone on his level to have his LTA with...

So I am getting off of this crazy train and divorcing him now--time to cut my losses.

I feel alot stupid for having any love left over for XH. Ugh.

Feel stupid for expecting him to break NC on holidays, bd's, anni's, etc. Never happens. Guess I'm stupid & crazy ...

I think an A and the aftermath always makes a BS feel stupid for not seeing what was right in front of their face all along. Damn rose-colored glasses!!!! We feel even stupider after we find out about the A and then try and R with a lying cheater who just keeps dragging us down with them. So yes, I feel stupid somedays. But I also know I was a loyal, lovable, hard working wife who did not deserve any of this. That always makes me feel better about myself when I feel stupid for falling for his charm and so called love.