SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

moving forward.

Sorry to bother you but I'm kind of struggling right now. My DD18's best friend told me she saw stbx with a girl at a food court in a shopping center. He sat near her but DD18's friend ignored him. She said that he looked buffer and unhappy.

I don't know why I have tears. I don't think they are sad tears but angry tears? Like you blew up our lives for … nothing? You are jerking me around in the divorce proceedings for fun? So while I am taking care of our two teens with psychiatric issues, you are eating and shopping at the mall? You won't pay for anything for the kids but you can afford to eat out and shop? Is this tears of jealousy?

So please share with me how YOU reacted the first time you saw/heard about your WS in their new life. I have a lump in my throat and tears in my eyes and I don't know why.

(( Dmari))

I was very angry every time I heard something about the ex and his shiny new life. I think this is pretty common we are still angry about what we have lost and the hurdles we have to jump just to get through it and the mess we have been left to clean up in the wake of their destruction.

I promise one day you will reach indifference and no longer feel this way every time you hear something. Take it easy one day at a time. This too shall pass, we all have bad days. Tomorrow will be a better day try and focus on that.

((((dmari))))

The first few times sucked because I had built up stripper whore in my mind to be this exotic, intelligent, perfect being. At that point I was still thinking that he left me because of my inadequacies. So hearing about their awesome, sparkly life and comparing it with my struggles and pain hurt and set me back.

Eventually, I saw reality. Their life is not shiny and sparkly, it's sad and pathetic. Their personality disorders feed on each other. They are like Tantalus...the escape is in sight and they are continually seeking it without realizing they are actually trapped.

I do not want that life because it isn't really a life...it is the appearance of a life. There is no satisfaction, contentment, or peace in that life...there is just the drive for the next fix.

I will take the burden and joy of living an authentic life over the plastic sparkle that ex-shat has opted for.

I remember I was in a park with my kids because it was my day. A buddy of mine has a boat and he was with his son about to take a trip so he went to gas up in another state close to ours because it was cheaper. So I am happily playing with our children in the park and I get a text from him saying that he went to get gas and decided to get a bite to eat with his kid and ran into my wife on a date!!!!! He apologized and said she introduced him to her boyfriend! Then they left fast in her boyfriends boat!!! I can remember asking details of what he looked like how tall? Skinny? Fat ? Bald? How was the boat? How were they dressed? I tortured myself!!! My kids could see something was wrong , so I tried so hard not to break down. I took deep breaths, I tried not to cry from the pain so bad that I started vomiting and the kids got nervous and cried because they knew. My 9 year old knew. That day was tough. You are not alone. I am in a park with my kids on a weeknight and she is loving another!!! I gave up on trying to understand. I am sorry. Feel better stay strong.

hugs((dmari)) The first time I heard that he was seen with his gf was out shopping. a co-worker saw him and told me. up until that point he denied he had a gf. he said at first he was with his sister. I told him 'I did not know that you hold hands with your sister' he then fessed up. I was totally blindsided. I believed him when he said he would never see the ow again in his life because she 'ruined' his life. I was super upset, crying because I felt betrayed again. I honestly did not know that he was with anyone. I was devastated and actually went home from work early crying. I felt so alone. Everything I thought I knew since D-day was a lie again.

It was a few weeks after I moved out. I was on the phone with The Princess, talking about the kids, when she "let it slip" that she had been at the doctor's to get a prescription for birth control pills.

Because that was somehow relevant to our conversation, of course!

I tried not to show that it affected me, but I started sobbing right into the phone. Spent most of the rest of that day in tears too.

The good news is that it does get easier. When she was picking up the boys the other day, she "casually" mentioned to 13 that she used a ton of firewood on the weekend. She never wanted to hang around in the family room, or have a fire, with me - but is all about the romance with the sorry bastard she's using now.

It didn't phase me. I didn't give a shit. I saw her for the pathetic piece of shit that she is - still trying to hurt me when she can.

She still can hurt me, but this is one time she tried and failed - and it will continue to get better. It will happen for you too, friend.

Well, inasmuch as the problem was that she was already "moving on" while still married to me, and while we were supposedly in R from her first A, it was sort of a moot point for me.

After I discovered her setting up dates online, I was completely done, and she knew as much. She had too much pride to act remorseful in any way after that, and too little class and self respect to even be completely discreet...while she was still living in my house and looking for a job and a place to live.

Some of it was, in retrospect, probably intentional on her part. She'd do things like leave a hotel key from one of her hookups in her car when she knew I had to use it...other stuff was just stupid and careless, like the dozens of selfies in her lingerie she left on her iPad for our 4 year old DD to stumble across. Nice.

I guess it hurt a little, but here's my point: it helped me find closure and heal all the more quickly. She paid no rent on space in my head or my heart anymore, and in the 18 months since then, I've realized that while her being truly happy is probably unlikely in the long term (unless she ever decides to actually look at herself), her stability and contentment are very much in the best interests of our kids - and so that's what I wish for her.

I always remember something my sister told me early on in this whole business: the opposite of love is not hate...the opposite of love is indifference.

^^^

Nice post, jagged. I'm trying to get to where you seem to be. Not easy, though.

Thank you! I am truly touched. I have tears in my eyes as I read each of your post. Thank you for the reassurance that I won't always feel this way. Here I thought I WAS at indifference! Guess not!

Infidelity is traumatic. I feel every betrayal and lie after dday is a secondary trauma. Unless you've walked in these trenches, you really don't know.

Thank you so much for being there for me once again! Today I woke up and reminded myself of the abundance of blessings in my life … SI is on the top of that list!

Hearing anything about them is like having contact. Its a new hurt, dmari. Indifference doesn't mean never having feelings. I think it takes a few years to reach total indifference.

The girls told me their dad is taking them to Dreamworld (a water park in another state). It stung for a bit but then I remembered what a pain in the arse he was about outings, how he hates crowds etc. etc. I still feel sad that my girls are going without me.

Hearing anything about them is like having contact.

I never thought of this but it is true. Thank you SBB!

The first time I had someone tell me that they had run into my H with the OW was a few months after he had left me for her.

My friend at work sat me down on a Monday morning and gently told me because she didn't want me to be blindsided. She had seen them shopping for an engagement ring the day before.

I was devastated. We weren't even divorced yet, and the day he was shopping for her engagement ring was our 30th wedding anniversary.

The first time after we separated and a friend sent me pics to show me where he was living (he was hiding it) and the pics were of him, his whore, and their spawn taking a stroll together. Made me nauseous and I really wanted to puke...totally blindsided.

Pretty much with jagged here, after discovering what was at least 2 very inappropriate relationships 3 years ago, dealing with that agony, then a year ago dealing with the affair, it got real easy to get to who the heck cares. The only thing i have yet to go through are my kids telling me about the bf, but then both kids are older. Good riddance to poisonous people. Be glad to be moving on.

My parents told me that shiny new girlfriend's car was at his house overnight.

It didn't really phase me after all of the times that the whore spent at his house when we were separated.

They deserve each other. Jagoffs.

XH & OW worked on a movie together about 6 months before the A. It wasn't released for another 18 months. I found an email between them about how much fun they had going to the premiere. Meanwhile, it was around Christmas, and I was literally looking for somewhere to go to shoot myself. I'd see commercials for the movie every 20 minutes.

(((Dmari))) It sucks. It just takes forever to get to the place of unsuck/sucks less.

Thank you. Thank you so much. When I read your responses, I feel your hurt. It's a kind of pain that nobody can relate to unless they have experienced it. I reached out to IRL friends and family but they just don't get it like you guys do. They try but you know how it is.

I guess this was good practice for when I actually have to see them. We live on an island so chances are high we will one day bump in to each other.

I'm feeling better than yesterday so I feel thats good progress. I think I'm re-grieving my losses.

Tesla's post is pretty similar to my experience. When I first discovered the slunt OW, which was after he moved out, my self esteem was at a all time low. I truly thought she had to be a younger better version of me for him to have left us.

I purposely didnt look at FB or her sickening blog that I was alerted to, but i got hit anyway with some pretty hurtful info about them early on. The worst was that they went on an exotic vacation before I even filed for D. I was in shock. Then I heard that they were roaming around my building at work holding hands. Again, before my body was even cold. I was floored and so hurt. I honestly don't know how I got through those days.

Then, I started to hear other things that made it real clear that this was not a match made in heaven. They try to present a happy life, but it obviously sucks. There are lots of examples I could give of the suckiness that is them. For our purposes here, its enough to say that its clear to everyone that they suck. She's not a version of me. She doesn't even come close to a version of me. And he doesn't even come close to the version of the husband I thought I had. He's now as much of a non factor as he can be with still having to raise kids together. She will always be nothing.

The bottom line is that the sparkly facade is usually nothing more than desperate attempts on both of their parts to validate their vile behavior. As Sad in Az always points out, they don't stay together because it's xanadu. They stay together most times because they are clinging to a bad bad choice out of shame. If they don't at least put on the show, they let the rest of the world in on the secret that they left the best thing they will ever have for nothing.