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I was at a family gathering this weekend where I chatted with a cousin of mine whose wife cheated on him 12 years ago and left him to marry her AP. My cousin has since remarried (5 years ago) and seems happy with his new wife. I am not sure how we got on the topic (he does not know my story), but he made a comment about his xww that led me to think that the hurt and anger for him has not dissipated in the 12 years. It surprised me because I really saw him as someone who had moved on and fought hard through the adversities.

I hope you can tell him your situation eventually and learn how he has processed his own D from cheating, and to what extent and why the bitterness lingers.

I imagine I would keep some lingering sense of anger but at some point it can become corrosive.

It maybe depends on the day for your cousin. I can imagine that 12 years from d-day I will be pretty much healed. However, I can also see me being triggered by something 12 years post d-day. I might get angry or sad. Doesn't mean I am consumed by it and doesn't mean that is how I am most/all of the time.

My dear sister was killed in a car accident 16 years ago. I can now think of my dear sister without tears and sadness, most of the time. Every once in awhile, I will hear someone laugh or see someone who, out of the corner of my eye, looks like my sister. And I may tear up and even cry and feel melancholy and miss the hell out of her.

Point is, you can still feel emotions about things in the past without it being anything more than just that. A fleeting memory of the pain and emotions you felt at the time. It doesn't mean you are consumed or focused on it at all. KWIM?

What was the comment?

I was under the impression that if I got D, the pain would go away because the WH would be out of my life. But maybe not?

It has been 13 years since DDAY for me, and I am sick to death of feeling pain. I have felt better than I do now at times over the years, but right now, I am triggering and wondering why I stayed in this horrible marriage.

Maybe it hurts more because she left him to marry the AP?

I just wish I could take a Tylenol and the pain would magically go away.

it took my Mom 25 years to get past my dad's leaving her for his AP. She was bitter and didn't want us to have anything to do with him. She didn't come to our wedding because he was there...
Now, however, she's delirously happy. I need to ask her how she got there.

I would think that *this* will always hurt..at least on some level.

I don't think I will ever NOT hurt about this. I trusted my FWH..and loved him beyond measure. And he took that love and that trust and shit all over it.

Even if we R...even if he never cheats again and is a wonderful husband from this day forward...he will always be the man who shattered my heart.

That will always hurt.

Freebygrace...I don't think divorce will magically make the pain go away. But, I would think that healing from a divorce would be less difficult than trying to heal with a WS who didn't do everything they could have done to R in a healthy manner.

I think it really depends on how you go about healing yourself when you choose to D, it isn't just done and over with. You still have to heal. You have been hurt, betrayed, and broken by the one person in your life that was supposed to have your back.

That fundamentally changes your outlook on the world, and how you perceive things.
But you also have to heal it, and become stronger for it.

My MIL D'd my FIL after my H and I were married. He was a controlling man, who has multiple issues, including some OCD, and never allowed her to work when the boys were still at home. I suspect he cheated too. But My MIL, chose to be happy, and healed. My FIL was angry and bitter toward her for many years, I couldn't have them both at my house for events like the kids birthdays and so forth. He remarried within 2 years, and so did she. But he never once admitted, or owned all the crappy things he did to her. Now he is approaching 70, and I think he has let it go for the most part, but would still choose to not be around her, near her, for any event.

My point is how you heal and how you choose to live is up to you. Should you D it's up to you to either be angry and bitter about what he did, or look at it as a gift that you don't have to spend the rest of your life with someone who is so unworthy of your love and respect.

For me at least, it depends on which log i stoke my fire with. If I focus on the bad, the anger, her selfishness, and all that, I can get worked up. If I focus on forgiving and at the opportunities I have, then I'm better.

The trick fo rme is to stay focused on the right things. That is one reason I come here. We are not alone.