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First let me make it clear this is not about wanting her character and is in no way about having a revenge affair.
And I have a feeling this might be a bit rambly so I apologize if this doesn't make any sense.

I feel like as the BS we are stuck in this never ending catch 22. For example, the OW is blonde and skinny. I have dark hair and I'm curvy. OW has fake boobs. I've had 3 ginormous babies who left their mark. But I will admit that there are times I look at myself and just know that I am a beautiful woman. Going to the gym the last 7 months and losing weight makes me feel like I'm trying to be like her. That me before can't compare. But if I don't go then me before was cheated on. Yes, I know it's all about him. I don't think it changes the fact that there was an aspect of comparison. Even if it was just because we are different. So I have to choose which way I want to feel bad over the other. I feel like she doesn't have that crap attached to being who she is. Wouldn't it be nice to be her (I don't mean literally)? She is who was chosen over the wife for being just the way she was. I also feel that while the logical/psychological stuff...it wasn't about you, only you can make you happy...is legit, it doesn't mean that a relationship is just about ONLY making yourself happy and thereby being healthy for your partner. I feel like that is a big component. But that we still want some of what the OW got. Being told that you're wonderful. Knowing that who you are makes someone want you. But the catch 22 is that that feeling is never going to be quite right. Maybe now the WS wants us. But at some point they didn't wholly want us. We will never get what the OW got. The argument can be made that it wasn't real. But I'm sure her feelings of feeling special where real. Eh...I guess I just feel like crap tonight because of some triggers and I needed to babble.

[This message edited by TattoodChinaDoll at 11:32 PM, September 25th (Wednesday)]

((((hugs))))

I often feel just the same way. It is disheartening and sad. Sometimes I feel like I'm always going to be second best. There will always be the knowledge that he picked her over me. Maybe not long term but for a time.

I can hear that. It sucks knowing that our spouse had the option of giving/sharing those things (attention, sensual energy, compliments, physical acts, etc) with us and chose to share them with someone else instead. It sucks. We want there to be some explanation or mechanism that points to a WS's weakness, and maybe there is, but maybe there just isn't a way to pretty up what actually happened.

(((hugs)))

It's also that feeling of wanting to be chosen and thinking, "yea! I was chosen over her. But wait, I didn't want to be chosen...I just wanted to be the one!" While she has that something extra over me.

I feel like this every day. For months before the affair I had been going to a therapist to work on my confidence. I was actually doing great until I found out about the EA. Since then I haven't been able to regain that confidence and spend way too much time feeling second best. I hate that OW got treated like a goddess while I was paying the bills, taking care of the kids, the house, and our animals, AND going to school full time. All she is is a party planner with one kid and he put her on a pedestal. I can't help but feel like I will never live up to her....

I pray every day that this feeling will pass but ever since the one year mark it has gotten worse. :(

Yes, I'm there with you. My baby was 4 months old when fwh cheated on me. I was going to the gym multiple times a week. I was in the 120's weight at 5'7... Something many women wished for. And yet I can't help but feel it wasn't enough. It wasn't about me. He says it wasn't. But she was young, no kids and fake boobs. It can't have been 'a non factor'. She got what was mine. What I EARNED. she didn't earn it. If it was available for free, while did I work so hard to earn it?? She was my opposite. Why was that enough?? There is no answer, but I ask myself everyday.

I want no part of what she got of my H. She got the absolute broken parts of him. She can have that, what I want now is what he is working on, the parts he is working on to make better. I have zero desire to ever be the person that allowed me to take so callously with no regard for myself or my H again.
There is no specialness or goodness in what happened, only brokenness.

I get that, I understand that, and I believe that idea/sentiment. I think what I'm trying to describe is probably a safety thing. Feeling safe to be who I was all along.

Eta: And this is also a rant about the catch 22 we find ourselves in with the choices that come out of this.

[This message edited by TattoodChinaDoll at 12:18 AM, September 26th (Thursday)]

TCD - I have struggled with this, too. But in the end I lost weight/got fit/healthy because I finally figured out what was holding me back from putting myself as a priority: Living with someone who was a self centered asshole carrying on a 2.5 year affair. As far as wanting to be the OW...I would never want to be someone who got ahead on her back, which is what appears to be the case with her (no college education but she has lands a prestigious job and doesn't have the resume for it - WTF? Even my brother's reaction was "You KNOW how she got that job!"). She looks like a porn star in a business suit, quite frankly. Plus I feel kind of sorry for the OW...SAWH lied to her as much if not more than he lied to me.

[This message edited by womaninflux at 12:25 AM, September 26th (Thursday)]

Don't get me wrong. I don't want to be her. I don't want the broken. I don't want the fake. I don't want to be a slut. And I don't want to be a total loser. It would just be nice to be able to make decisions without the taintedness (is that a word?) and without the doubt...like my losing weight example.

I don't like to say "what hurt my BH the most" because every bit of my Affair hurt the most. However, one especially painful aspect of the A that has come up with some regularity is the fact that I gave to my AP all the things that should have been my BH's. I talked to my AP (10,000+ text messages in 58 days!), I initiated sex, I shared emotions, I spent time, I dropped everything in my life to be with my AP. It hurts BH that I chose to give AP everything that BH had been asking for for years. And it doesn't help any that the A was so completely unnecessary and irrational that I can't fully explain it. No matter what I give him now, it isn't enough.

TCD,

I understand what you are going through with this. I went through a version of it for about 9 months. The difference is, I was determined to not ever compare myself to her, because she was a non entity in my book. Always has been. I had to fix it my mind. My mind was more the battlefield.

You are losing weight and going to the gym in spite of yourself, not because of yourself. Why?

I go because I do want to lose weight. Who doesn't really...whether its 5 or 50 pounds. But honestly, even though I have had the, I wish I was thinner so I could wear nice clothes or not be embarrassed in a bathing suit thoughts, no matter my size, it never bothered me immensely because I knew WH was attracted to me and loved me. I think I felt normal self esteem things but I really had no problem with what I looked like. Until DDay. This recent exercise/diet regimen was because of the miscarriage. My SIL helps run a 5k for The March of Dimes. She had 4 miscarriages before her oldest was born and she suggested I run it in memory of the baby while also knowing my money was going to help babies. I had to go to the gym to get in shape for it. And it's just that big catch 22. I do want to be healthy and lose weightl. But really I shouldn't have been there. I should have been pregnant that whole time. The run was 4 days after what would have been the due date. So each time I went I knew i would get this awesome result...only because my baby didnt make it. It would be nice to be able to go without feeling like I'm trying to not be who I am and trying to look like OW.

I am kinda confused. Did you start running because of the miscarriage or because you felt he did this because he wasn't attracted to you anymore?

because I knew WH was attracted to me and loved me

I remember feeling like this and the thing that got to me was not how she looked but how young she was. Nothing I could do about that. I couldn't be 20 yrs younger. No way around it.

I think sometimes unfortunately this is where being a madhatter gives me the unique perspective of knowing that what HL did had nothing to do with me. He didn't go after her because of a lack in me, or suddenly I turned him off and someone did it for him better. I could truly get that it was all about him and nothing to do with me.

I guess for me it's not about being the OW, it's about being BETTER than the OW. I have no doubts in my mind that, as a person, I AM better than her, it's that physical part that gets me. FWBF says that she was "about the same" physically, except she has fake boobs, while I have always been flat chested, and breastfeeding really did a number on them. There's absolutely nothing I can do to be better physically (I'm already a size 2) except be fake and buy myself some boobs, so I'm stuck. yeah, it sucks. Sorry you have to go through this, I know how you feel. I think about it every day, I look in the mirror and cry and hate myself.

It's not what you or the OW looks like. It's about what's broken in your SO and OW.
I still have trouble believing my H chose THAT.
By all measures I am better looking and have a better body. I am a decent and good person and I am educated.
Still he chose THAT!!
It doesn't make sense, but it happened. I still sometimes hate my physical appearance because of OW, but that is my issue - my insecurities in trying to justify why H went outside of our M.
Please don't give OW this hold over you. Believe that you are beautiful as you are.

TG - I mainly started running to lose weight for me. And the 5K gave me a reason to go. Before the miscarriage and for the year after DDay, the idea of going to the gym was a trigger because it reminded me I wasn't her. And it made me feel like I was just trying to be like her.

I understand exactly what you mean TCD. I have a hard time with this and it's something I am continually fighting.

At the time of the A my daughter (then 14yo) spent a day at my fWH's work and got to meet OW (didn't know that's who she was back then!) and came home going on and on about "B" that works with Dad "she is so lovely, so pretty and bubbly and she was so nice to me, I just LOVED her" Boy-oh-boy do those words of DD's come back to haunt me again and again now that I know the truth about "B". Add to this the fact that my fWH never chose me... you see, OW dumped him... he never suddenly came to his senses and chose me... rather, he came creeping back to me with his tail between his legs.

I'm left feeling that when fWH chose to have the affair with "lovely, pretty, bubbly B" he judged me and found me wanting. He preferred B. He did.

I have read all the stuff about it not being about me, about it being about fWH's brokenness, about how it could have been "anyone" he was just looking for validation etc etc. The bottom line is that, somewhere deep inside me, no matter how much I try to convince myself otherwise, there is a sad little voice that sometimes says "you were not pretty/thin/bubbly enough.. she was what he wanted."

It sucks.

I have also read that "it could have been anyone", but that's bs to me. I know FWBF well enough to know that he would not have cheated with someone who did not have a great body. It was about wanting to have sex with a hot chick. Hotter than me. Man, this is hard to deal with.

[This message edited by jost1125 at 7:51 PM, September 29th (Sunday)]