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WS often perceives what he thinks are people's good intentions, even when their actions show otherwise. Normally, you’d think that this would be a positive trait. And often it is. But I notice that it also shows that he can be too trusting of potentially dangerous people. Yesterday we were with our young kids (K and 2nd grader) at the beach. They were playing with another kid close to their age, but then another person started to join in. He looked to be about 17 years old and mentally off, not sure exactly how, but definitely off. The older kid was running with them, throwing sand, playing rough, growling (and why is he playing with little kids anyway?) and immediately my mama bear sense kicked in. I was very alert and kept a very close eye. I could see the parent of the other kid did too. I said something to my H and he was pretty nonchalant about it and shrugged it off, laughing even. Later, the older kid pushed the child my kids were playing under the waves in the ocean. The other parent called to his kid and told him to keep away from the older kid. At that point my H started to get it. But before, he didn’t, even when I alerted him. This concerns me and it’s not the first time I’ve noticed it. Since everything is filtered through the A lens these days, I see a relevance to that.

The first time I met OW I told my H that something was off about her. He didn’t see it. Even her then-H had said “don’t get sucked into her shit” to both of us. I ignored my gut and developed a friendship with her, even though I felt it was not quite right. While the A was going on, she invited herself to my house several times to hang out just the 3 of us (me, H, and her) and she asked me to babysit her kids (1 night after she had fucked H). These betrayals are probably the most painful part of the A to me. That H let her come in my house and piss all over me, which is exactly what she was doing. After Dday, H told me that she “felt nothing but empathy” for me during the A since she was my friend, and that she felt so bad about what they were doing. Of course I called bullshit. I mean, to actively seek out opportunities to sit with your AP and his wife over bottles of wine, while wifey cooked and washed dishes, and watches your kids? To me, that’s pretty vicious and sends a clear message. I am stuck on this. I know I have to get past it but every few weeks I get snagged, mulling and mulling—how could my H allow this? Did he really not see her motives? Did he get something out of it like she did? I feel like if he didn't, then why didn't he just keep OW away from me as best as he could?

We’ve discussed this a lot and he says that before and during the A he was very angry at me b/c he felt that I had emotionally abandoned the M, which I pretty much had. But he maintains that him allowing her into our house (instead of telling her not to come) was not an act of aggression toward me. He says he just didn’t see her actions as a power play at the time but he thought she was just trying to “hide in plain sight” by coming over. We weren’t that close of friends and her inviting herself to my house did not give me any further impression that she was just a friend. In fact, her behavior at my house was questionnable and I had said to my H after she left that I don’t feel like she is a good person or really my friend. He maintained the position of OW’s “empathy” for me for about 6 weeks after Dday, until our MC laughed in his face essentially (but not when I did). Now he sees that she was conniving and bullshitting.

Yesterday sitting on the beach watching my H’s reaction got me wondering whether it is possible that H was so blinded by OW’s words that he didn’t or wouldn’t see her aggression. Would seeing it be admitting to himself that he was being aggressive too, using her and the A as a passive aggressive way of directing his anger at me? H def has passive aggressive tendencies. I’ve seen emails between them in which she jokes about texting with me and he calls her gutsy. Like it was a turn on for them to be duping me. So he wasn’t entirely blind, was he?

I’m probably overthinking and this is probably doing nothing for my healing. I guess I’m just a little fearful of this personality trait of his. It doesn’t seem like it’s something that one can really change, since it’s not really behavior-based, but belief-based? IDK. If his gut isn’t going off about the 17 year old kid rough housing with my kindergartner I mean… I have no clue about what can be done about this or whether anything really needs to or should be done. H is trusting and that’s who he is? Or is there something deeper, like living in denial, going on? Maybe I’m overanalyzing. I guess it’s something to talk about in therapy?

[This message edited by veronique12 at 11:37 AM, June 9th (Monday)]

These betrayals are probably the most painful part of the A to me. That H let her come in my house and piss all over me, which is exactly what she was doing. After Dday, H told me that she “felt nothing but empathy” for me during the A since she was my friend, and that she felt so bad about what they were doing.

Oh V, I so get it. My H's AP came over, I fed her and her family, took a gym class with her and H when they were doing nothing but trying to impress each other. Men don't get the power thing with women -- he thinks that she was like him. . . kind of blindly stumbling into the affair. Um, no. She had me over during the affair when he was out of town to "help out." Really? Hell no. She was keeping an eye on me, and exerting a what tiny little bit of power she had in the world, over me, since I was in the dark.

My H is an engineer, and one of his favorite sayings is that he is "taking it at face value." Well guess what? There are deceptive, manipulative people in this world. He seems to see it in his work life, but he works with mainly men. Just the fact that this friend was willing to email him "secretly" should have been a huge, fucking red flag. However, he knew he wasn't being honest either early on -- he just didn't know where it would/could go. Hard, hard lesson learned.

Oh, and one of my favorite lines from the affair:

Mr Bionicgal: I feel terrible about what we are doing; I love Bionicgal.

AP: I love Bionicgal too!

[This message edited by bionicgal at 11:47 AM, June 9th (Monday)]

It must be maddening for you to imagine that conversation between Mr. BG and AP. H had one like that, but instead he said he cared about me like a sister.

I'd like to think that my H has learned a lesson about people's intentions, but who knows? Funny how I would have once described H's character trait as seeing the good in people and very "live and let live." Now I'm seeing it as naïve. Guess that speaks to my state of mind.

Veronique,

Might be related to the A type behavior, but TBH this describes a lot of guys re watching kids. I'm a gungho feminist but I do think we're wired differently! Just last weekend a group of us girlfriends were sharing the dopey inattentiveness of the guys when with kids -- wife comes home, asks where is DD? husband says, oh she's around (an 18 month old); dad figures 4 year old is following right behind at the hardware store, etc.

Not to completely t/j here, but, maybe he really thought this was ok behavior. One of my very best friends has a 17 year old son who has a severe seizure disorder and several other mental issues. If you were to look at him, you'd definitely describe him as 'mentally off'. My children are very young (6, 2 and 1). He LOVES to play with my kids. They play games. They rough house. And, no one thinks anything of it. Mentally, my friend's son really is only 7 or so. He'll never progress much past this point. I guess what I'm saying here is, I am very aware that there are people with bad intentions in this world. I probably swing the opposite of your H, always analyzing why someone would really do what they did and almost always believing the worst-case scenario. However, I probably would not have been concerned about the older child. I would have watched, for sure, because his larger size alone means that he could easily hurt one of my kids, but I really wouldn't have been too worried.

[This message edited by musiclovingmom at 3:35 PM, June 9th (Monday)]

Yes understood, but this wasn't a friend's kid. This was someone alone on the beach--no parents in sight. I think that warranted some concern.

I am brand new to this forum, but what you said about your WH sounds so much like my boyfriend. He was 'just friends' with the other woman who, now it sickens me to remember, totally betrayed my trust in her.She said she would be 'my friend' and try to help my relationship, come talk to her any time, she cared for my boyfriend,but they were only friends.She and her husband were 'soulmates', so don't worry. I cannot believe how much I trusted her, let alone my boyfriend. Once I caught her kissing him lightly on the cheek at a party at her house she had invited me and my WH to. I went outside and began to weep in a heap in the dark. She came outside to 'reassure' me it was nothing, just a friendly kiss.I wept saying please do not hurt me, I love him so much, please don't hurt me. She said she would never try to hurt me, she had been hurt herself and would never do that to another woman. All the time she was f------ him behind my back and planning on living together!!!Then he came outside to reassure me the kiss was'nothing', she had a stable marriage and would not leave her husband,he said!!! After my boyfriend's confession a few weeks later,I asked him about this incident. He told me she came in LAUGHING at my weeping, and laughed at how stupid I was to believe all the lies they were telling me. I still cannot believe how much I believed, I am now, 5 years later, only coming to grips with it, it still feels like yesterday.The humiliation was not just from her, but from my boyfriend's 3 teen-age children and her teenage son as well, who wanted their dad to be with her, not me. They all manipulated me so they could get my boyfriend, their dad, and the woman, the other boy's mom, together. They all like to drink, and I do not.And though this woman was so horribly lying and sadistic to me, my boyfriend still thought she was wonderful, she was great to his kids (letting underage kids drink as much alcohol as they want, for example), and I was the horrible controlling one. I still do not know the stories he was telling her about me. Before that woman, I did not know there were women out there who actually ENJOY duping other women, take manipulative pleasure and power from it.I thought affairs, when they happened were mistakes, terrible ignorant mistakes. Two years after the affair, I heard my boyfriend's teenage daughter recounting that nightmare summer to one of her friends as the most fun summer she ever had! Fun watching me as I slowly drowned in my own heart's blood from the knife of her dad's affair she thought'funny'. Yes, rose-coloured glasses are easy to put on when one chooses.