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Struggling3005 posted 11/3/2013 11:37 AM

Hi all. It's almost two months post DDay, and we have at this point, decided to stay together. My question is about my preoccupation with the OW. There were two, one of which lived in the apartment below us. I confronted her, said what I needed to say, and then we moved. As for the other one, she is young (19, WH and I are both 28) and lives out of state. However, she is all over social media sites and everything is public. I have confronted her as well, but for some reason I am literally obsessed with her personal life. I check her page regularly, I've even found her boyfriend's pages as well. I guess I'm curious as to how much of this is normal, and if it is normal, when should I start to be concerned?

I really want to make my marriage work, all pain and deceit aside. I'm afraid that I might be holding us back with my behaviors. Any words of wisdom or advice would be greatly appreciated.

painfulpast posted 11/3/2013 12:46 PM

Obsessing on OW is very normal. You want to know all about her. What she looks like, why she's special enough to risk your M for, is she hurting or is her life going on unaffected? Does she even know the damage she's caused? Does her boyfriend know? Etc, etc, etc.

That obsession fades over time, but it's very normal and can last quite a while. I'm 3 years out nearly, and I still occasionally look at her FB page. Mostly now to see if she's dropping hints for my H like she used to, but I do look.

It can hold you back because it brings that pain back to the surface and makes us raw and defensive, but my personal opinion is that we need to do what we need to do. I had an IC ask me why I looked, and if I thought things would be better if I stopped. He then suggested that I try to 'not look for a week'. This was about 7 months post DDay. I told him I wasn't going to not look, and I knew it wasn't good for me, and I didn't care so we could just work on me knowing that I'm doing that. He smiled and moved on. Obsessing about OW, the details of the A, the things that happened in the M during the A - all normal.

It's normal. You're normal.

Kelany posted 11/3/2013 12:48 PM

This is very normal and it does get better with time. I now only look maybe once a month or two. I used to look daily, several hours.

sisoon posted 11/3/2013 13:07 PM

First, at 2 months out, you're probably still in shock, reacting to the trauma of D-Day. Many of the things you do today are simply not the new you. You'll start to get control of yourself soon - maybe next week, maybe next month, maybe a couple of months - whatever it takes, lots of your behavior now is temporary.

Second, obsession with the ap is common. The fact that you know it could be a problem makes me think you'll stop within a reasonable amount of time. My guess is you should post about this again in 2-3 months, if you're still concerned - only because obsession might be, but probably isn't, a problem 4-6 months out.

You probably focus on ow so as to avoid feeling your own grief, rage, and/or fear from being betrayed. When you start to check up on ow, it might be beneficial in the long run to check your own feelings. My own experience was that focusing my anger on ow allowed me to hide my anger at my W - and after all, my beef was with my W, not with ow. It's highly probable that ow seduced my W, but that doesn't mean ow is to blame. After all, my W could have said 'No' at many points.

Healing comes from dealing with your own feelings, no matter what they are, and with your relationship with your H. WRT recovery and R, ow is really irrelevant.

Third, have you outed ow to her BF? He really deserves to know, if only to know that he needs STD testing. Alas, so do you and your H. (In truth, I just made my W get tested. Since she's negative for everything except HPV, I've skipped it - I just don't want my doc to think either my W or I have heated.)

Welcome to SI. Sorry you're here, but since you've been cheated on, I'm glad you found us. There's lots of support available here.

A note - It's up to you to choose what to do with the counsel you get from SIers. You'll get support here, whether you accept or reject the advice you get, and I don't think I've ever seen an 'I told you so'.

Marathonwaseasy posted 11/3/2013 13:07 PM

For my own sake and so she can't get to my kids through Facebook etc I've blocked OW from all social media sites for us all.
I feel better for it
I did not want to look at her face any more. Neither does fwh who doesn't really do social media anyway.
I did so want to message all her friends that she's a cheat and tag all her pictures accordingly but I rose above it

I guess it's normal as we are all doing it at this stage.

[This message edited by Marathonwaseasy at 1:10 PM, November 3rd (Sunday)]

Struggling3005 posted 11/3/2013 13:17 PM

Thank you for the responses, I'm glad to know its normal. I feel like I'm losing my mind during all of this.

Sisoon, i think you're right. I am channeling my anger and dealing with it this way, rather than really focusing on it and dealing with the true emotions. we've both been tested since finding out, thankfully.

I haven't told her boyfriend. Believe me, I really wanted to... But I wasn't sure if I should, if it was counter productive because it would keep it all going? Or if I shouldn't because my motives were not at all about that poor guy not knowing, only because I wanted to shatter her life.

heforgotme posted 11/3/2013 16:44 PM

I am literally obsessed with her

This stopped for me when I finally really embraced the concept that the A had nothing to do with me. It was all about him. And by extension it wasn't really about her either.

She could have been anyone.

Having said that, know that we all go through this phase and it's completely normal.

xo

Lillygirl2008 posted 11/4/2013 00:48 AM

I did the same thing looked at her page all the time stalked her kids pages googled her and got her friends relatives addresses phone numbers seen what her house looked like etc. I even made a fake Facebook to get her to add me so I could see her posts and pics so i could match dates and etc. then of course I Msged her and asked questions. That solved nothing because to some point she's lying. But I have been totally obsessed. I finally have been able to delete facebooks and cut it off because I feel I have as much of the truth and details I'm going to get. You just have to cut yourself off its hard but why waste your time adding more hurt. Focus on what's important and she is totally not!

Struggling3005 posted 11/5/2013 23:46 PM

Heforgotme, that's what my WH keeps saying to me, that it wasn't about HER. There wasn't/isn't anything special or better or wonderful about her. And there wasn't/isn't anything wrong with me, the issue is within him. I guess it's just hard for me to accept that. Especially when she's almost 10 years younger, and I'm currently pregnant and not feeling the least bit attractive.

Lillygirl, it's nice to know I'm not alone. And I know it solves nothing... I don't feel better after seeing her. I just can't help it.

WeHadItAll posted 11/6/2013 00:46 AM

Normal - totally normal, especially in these first months. It's good you recognize it, though, because this obsession is not something you want to get out of control.

In the first months after DDay, I was obsessed with research. My BF had erased almost all of their email exchanges, but I went into supers sleuth mode and found records from skype, old cell phones, facebook... I went to her FB page and her twitter feed and noted what she posted and commented and when... I put all this data into a timeline. At first it felt good - I was finally able to piece together a picture by myself that my BF couldn't or wouldn't show.

But after some time, the sleuthing and checking up on her yielded fewer and fewer insights. Soon I wasn't learning anything about the A, I was just straight stalking her. And it was a trigger for me, one that I seemed to be addicted to. I would check on her and then feel miserable.

So I scale back. I focus on myself, on our R, on the present. I know I'll slip back into checking up on her sometimes, but I'm trying to be careful not to let it take too much of my time and energy.