SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Nine years out now and I can finally see with a clear head. I see now that I should have left the marriage years ago. I don't say that for lack of the marriage not working out, or as best it can under the circumstances. (whore still lives 2 houses down) I say that because the work involved in keeping this marriage together has been extremely hard and frankly not worth the pot of gold at the end.

I absolutely think it should be law, that before any R, the cheater has to be thrown to the curb so that they can get a whiff of what they seemed to have wanted during the a, and it wasn't us. This is all my opinion mind you as I am sure there are many exceptions to that rule. My h wasn't one of them.

Had I thrown him to the curb if even for a few months I think his attitude of "so I got caught, now deal with the mess" would have been softened. I think then and only then would I have gotten the whole truth because of his fear of a D. And in my case anyway h never wanted a D. He wanted a wife who he knew took care of him plus an a partner on the side.

So to answer my own question, nine years out now and I honestly can't tell you why I stayed or stay at this point even though for the most part, all is calm these days.

[This message edited by TICKED OFF at 11:45 AM, October 5th (Saturday)]

I'm only 6 months out. Lately things have been looking better. SAWH is in therapy and going to meetings. Has been more open about things, we're really talking again (hadn't in a looooong time), he seems to be making changes (long overdue ones) and realizing things about himself.

But I was just thinking this morning: I should have kicked him out in the middle of the night when he finally confessed to the A (2 weeks after I confronted him in the first place) and changed the locks (like I threatened to do one morning after he did not come home all night - and obviously now I know why!). And I should have shut down the A by telling her boss (H doesn't work there but is involved in the business tangentially). Would have shut down the whole operation of their A/secret world/aren't we so awesome for thinking we have everyone fooled. Obviously, the wife is always the last to know...I'm sure others already figured it out.

It's disheartening to hear that 9 years out you feel like this. I personally feel like I need to let go of this anger because if I carry it with me, I'm not going to be able to move forward (regardless of staying in marriage or not). So we will see!

Why do choose to stay with a cheater?

I think I stayed because I had hope, for his sake as well as mine and my daughter's, that his cheating would not define him but rather be an aberration in the life of a generally good person.

I don't think that there are any rules when it comes to this, as people vary so drastically.

Why stay with an addict? Why stay with someone with a personality disorder?

It's hard - it can be hell, but the best any of us can do is work on ourselves and try to be the best person/partner we can be. In the end, you don't HAVE to stay with anyone, and you don't have to answer to anyone as to why you did or didn't.

The funny thing is, my marriage though under these circumstances is not really a bad or horrible marriage. It is a marriage just trying to survive as any marriage affair or not.

The problem is that now when I look back at all the mess he created and what the situation we now have to deal with (ow and family still within a stones throw from me) it just doesn't seem worth all the work and energy we both have had to put in. I still care through all this crap, but I just think it would have been so much easier to have taken a hike.

Tickedoff, I feel the same way. My ws never had to face consequences other than find a diff way to communicate with ow, his life was not affected and he sleeps like a baby. I know the day I leave, I will kick myself in the ass for wasting so many years on someone who isn't it to win it. My guesstimation of the start of the A is right around 7 yrs ago, just took me awhile to confirm. Unfortunately when I do leave, he will prob offer to do anything to stay, just like last time but it will be too late for me. I wish I had rocked his world and made him leave on DD1 ,maybe things could have turned out differently

[This message edited by Ostrich80 at 12:08 PM, October 5th (Saturday)]

Ticked off.. I so agree with this..

I absolutely think it should be law, that before any R, the cheater has to be thrown to the curb so that they can get a whiff of what they seemed to have wanted during the a, and it wasn't us. This is all my opinion mind you as I am sure there are many exceptions to that rule. My h wasn't one of them

.

I think that's a big issue with me.. WH never felt the abandonment , the fear, the uncertainty that I felt.. He went right out of his A back into the M..

I do think he lives his own hell as he knows I no longer love him like I did .. but I think if he'd have felt no having 'anyone' he might have gone into R much more involved..

Had I thrown him to the curb

if even for a few months I think his attitude of "so I got caught, now deal with the mess" would have been softened. I think then and only then would I have gotten the whole truth because of his fear of a D. And in my case anyway h never wanted a D.

I agree with this statement totally. I think for some that is the only way the person will get a reality check. I cleaned up my WS's mess. He took in the easy road when it came to R.

I regret what I did for him. Although I needed to do it for our family, not just him. He was incapable of doing it.

I absolutely think it should be law, that before any R, the cheater has to be thrown to the curb so that they can get a whiff of what they seemed to have wanted during the a, and it wasn't us. This is all my opinion mind you as I am sure there are many exceptions to that rule. My h wasn't one of them.

Hm.

While I respect your opinion and I am not sure my wife actually ever felt those things, that wasn't how I wanted it to go and if I went back I wouldn't want to do it that way again.

I think honestly making her feel those things to the degree I did would involve too many actions on my part that I would not be comfortable with making. As it was, the "This is how we can R, or this is how we can D" worked well for me.

We had a lot of issues early on but we were lucky to have SI from more or less the start, and she did not give me that attitude you described your WH as having. While there was a lot of TT, it did not involve a Fuck You kind of hurdle to deal with.

Because I knew my life would be better. I knew my marriage was over whether I stayed or went. I wasn't willing to live like I would have had to live if I left. I, fortunately, had that choice. If he had left, of course I would have managed, but should I choose that because he fuc*ed up? I don't think so.

TICKEDOFF, Gently, how come you haven't moved?

I think a lot of people stay out of fear due to their own dysfunction or due to a warped perception of how one is supposed to function in a healthy relationship.

"StillGoing"......post a h's attitude was very remorseful but only in the sense that he got caught and the fear of being shipped out of this house was very real. Many months later his attitude actually changed to "what the fuck did I do to get us into this mess." At that point he was telling all of our friends that I was probably going to D him and asking their advice on how to keep the marriage going. It wasn't until a couple of years ago that he did indeed develop the "Fuck You deal with this shit" attitude.

This is what I am talking about here. Like I said, we do have a decent marriage under the circumstances, but all in all it was just way to hard to get to this point.

And I so very much feel like what most of you have said. H just never had to face up to the music like I did. When he saw that I was going to stay and try to R, he slowly month by month just turned the music off and to this day refuses to listen to it anymore. The a incident is all but dead and gone for him but he forgets or wants to forget the hell he put both of us through. I do know that he regrets it completely and wishes things could be the way they were pre a, but that will never happen at this point.

I also wanted to add that I think you have a different perspective in that the OW in your situation lives near you. That is something most of us do not face. You probably feel confronted by that on a daily basis which is what makes your situation that much harder.

Why didn't you guys move?

I guess that's the difference - 3 years later my wife is understanding, patient and available without being defensive about things. She is aware of the damage she caused and is sorry about causing that pain... at least, I get that feeling from her actions and attitude, anyway. I'm sorry your H has shut all that down. I can easily see how it is not a pleasant way to live.

eta:

If we get to where you guys are in a couple years, I dunno. Time to finally get around to taking up bow hunting for me then. I don't want to be in a place like that.

[This message edited by StillGoing at 1:54 PM, October 5th (Saturday)]

I'll tell you why I stayed with a cheater for close to two decades:

* I took my wedding vows very seriously. I really meant it when I said "for better or for worse" and "'til death do us part".

* I thought if I could just love him enough, or in the right way, he'd come around.

* I thought if I had just the right kind of sex, he'd come around.

* I thought I was doing my duty as a Christian wife.

* I didn't want my kids to have divorced parents.

* I didn't want to be a single mom.

* I didn't want to disappoint my parents.

* I didn't want to be divorced. I thought being divorced meant I'd "lost", that I'd given up, that I was a quitter.

* I didn't want to surrender what little control I had to protect my children from their SA father.

And here's the biggie, the one that brings me the most shame:

* I didn't want to leave for financial reasons. I knew that I couldn't make it on my own financially with three children. So I lived with feeling like a prostitute, which is how he treated me anyway.

"womaninflux".......how did the kid song go - and bingo was his name-o.......

YUP that is EXACTLY why this nightmare continues. Just this morning as I was going off to the gym I saw the bitch in her driveway. And there my dear SI-ers is why some of us BS"s can and will never get over the whole fucked up mess that our spouses put us in. I am in that group of BS's that either live way too close to the op or have to work with the ap.

Should we move, well hell yes, and believe me now that h is retired he is doing everything in his power to get me to move away from the pile of shit he shoveled up. But it is simply not going to happen for a couple of reasons.

First is why the hell would I want to move away from everyone I know and love (family, friends, my awesome grandkids, etc.) and be stuck in a new place with just me and h. What if h decided that he should have another a with another new neighbor. Then I am fucked.

Secondly why would I want to move away from all my loved ones just to make it easier for his guilty feelings. Like my best friend always says....."when you are going to make a bad decision that will affect your entire life, make sure you exhaust all consequences to the very worst that could happen IF you make this decision." I say amen to that.

I absolutely think it should be law, that before any R, the cheater has to be thrown to the curb so that they can get a whiff of what they seemed to have wanted during the a, and it wasn't us.

My FWH got to live this. He moved out of our home (4 bedroom) into OW's "home" (a camper parked in someone's driveway). They got to live in CLOSE quarters 24/7 for two months. He got a taste of life with OW, and the consequences of cheating. We were strictly NC the whole time, other than for FWH to pay his half of our bills.

I think it was what really woke him the fuck up. I don't think R would have been successful if he had not been able to feel the full extent of the consequences of his actions. He got to FEEL LOSS.

But I also know that everyone's situation is different. For some WS's, just being caught is humiliation enough. We cannot project our needs, and the needs of our WS's and our marriages, onto others and their choices.

"Want2help"......EXACTLY EXACTLY EXACTLY. I absolutely know that h would have told me the truth and that he would have had a whole different attitude then the "get over it" bull shit.

Sad as it sounds I have too many friends who have had to deal with infidelity and actually did kick their WS's to the curb. With the exception of one, the others are now going strong because the husband or wife WS finally got it. They got how it felt to be thrown to the wolves without any thought at all, how it felt to be abandoned like a piece of dog shit, how to felt to know that the one person who you thought loved you actually had second thoughts. You know, all the things that most of us feel when we have to deal with our spouse having an a.

Ha ha ha ha,,,,,,as I sit typing this, the whore and her h just drove up on his shitty loud old piece of shit Harley. So there you go.

[This message edited by TICKED OFF at 6:23 PM, October 5th (Saturday)]

Ugh, the idea of having to see the AP ever, let alone when I look out the window of my own home.

Hugs to you, TICKEDOFF.

Ticked Off, I completely agree. If I had kicked WH out on Dday, maybe there wouldn't have been a Dday 2 and a Dday 3. Why didn't I? Financial reasons, kids, and of course the hope that he would change. I still am afraid to do it, but know that any other lies, or contact with OW, will be the last time. My parents now know about the A (I didn't tell them until after Day 3), and call often offering support for whatever decision I make. Knowing that I will have help if I decide to divorce is huge, and gives me the strength to do it should the need arise.

I think a separation would have forced WH to really see what he would be missing. He didn't want to separate because he thought that I would realize I didn't need him anymore . . . And I'm sure he is right. And it probably would have hurt me less than going through two more Ddays.