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I thought I should post this in general since my rage for the OW is ridiculous right now. I hate her more than I've ever hated anyone in my life. However, I had a sort of epiphany this morning and its been hard on me. I think a lot of my rage is misdirected.

I realized that she owed me nothing. She was his "friend" and it was his responsibility to keep boundaries with her. She may have crossed them and opened the door but he could have closed it. Every time he stopped it, she would do something to bring him back but he always had the option to say no.

He told himself it was harmless, that he was just using her for "release" since our sex life had become so monotonous (going through infertility). Every time he told himself this he was lying to himself. I've seen some of the stuff that she sent him and I thought it was disgusting But I'm sure I mostly feel that way because of the context. She didn't see me as a real person nor did she care. She was getting the attention she desired from my H and vice versa.

He is actually the one who opened the door to the PA. He confessed that he had feelings for her 12/26, on 12/31 they consummated their "lurve". Based on how it was described to me she made the first move but he didn't say no. Sometimes I think he would let her do that just so he could feel blameless.

I know I'm rambling but I guess my question in all of this is how do I stop hating her so much so I can focus on R? How do I get over the fact that she's never going to feel any guilt about this and that her life goes on as normal?

Eta the part about the PA.

[This message edited by AML04 at 6:45 AM, August 19th (Monday)]

Excellent point. I am struggling right now and maybe this will help.

Thanks.

I think hating the AP is a mechanism to let us love the WS and try to heal things and so it has its place in the course of events...I've divorced my WH but still hated the OW for a long time. You're still very close to it all and I think just realising that you will need to find a way to stop hating is a really good thing, but it is a process. I'm 3 years out and mostly I don't think about her at all but there are still days I start obsessing the difference is now I can stop myself pretty easily. The things that really helped me were 1. I kept reminding myself, whores are like buses, there is always another one on its way. Truely if it wasn't her it would have been someone else and 2. I was a nice person at heart, my friends and family tell me that and thats the person I wanted to genuinely be and I couldn't do that and hate someone so much at the same time. Finally for me, my faith belief tells me that hate is not ok, no matter who or what reason its not an attitude I can justify in the end. Thats a personal thing...but for me it mattered. It sounds to me that you know who you are and that hate is not an emotion that sits naturally with you...I believe that means that with time it will stop, when you don't need it as a survival mechanism anymore...when it gets too much vent it in a neutral place or journal it and then let it go, kind of like letting pus out of a wound. I don't know how important it is for R, as long as you're not bringing up how you feel about her to your WH all the time, but I do believe its essential for your emotional health and thats what will make a difference in your R.

Jadasae-it is definitely a defense mechanism. And unfortunately I would bring it up to H a lot. I thought if I showed him how a good person wouldn't do the things she does, he would not be able to miss her. I think he does see her for who she truly is but the fact that he is angry with her doesn't sit well with me and I contributed to that. When I told him about what I was feeling this morning I think it sunk in that he and only he had the responsibility to our marriage. She wanted him since day 1 and he knew that and fed into it, loving the attention. He played with fire and not only got burned but almost torched our whole life.

I am going to take your suggestions. And you're right, hate is not a natural emotion for me. I don't like the person I am when I'm feeling it.

Once he is able to find a new job and she is out of our life, it may be easier to let go of it.

Well, it works different for all of us. The way I see it, I don't see the OM as worth the effort to get over hating. I don't actively pursue that hate, don't let it rule my day, but trying to focus on not hating the guy means I have to focus on him at all and I really don't see him as valuable enough to expend the calories involved in the mental gymnastics even if it means I lose some weight in the process.

OTOH I love my wife and want to spend my life with her, so in order to R for me I had to deal with all that anger and shit for her and get it out of the way of the positive times I wanted to move on to with her.

If you find that you are struggling with that hate and anger for the OP and you can find a way to let it go, awesome. That stuff can shave years off your life. For me the way I let it go was to stop trying to let it go and accept that I would hate this loser forever, and deal with it when I had to. Since I haven't had to deal with it past that it's meant more or less the same thing as letting go, for me. If he appears on my doorstep for some reason, well, I'll deal with that happy eventuality on the day itself.

Feel your feelings. They are not right or wrong---they just are.

It's not your feelings for OW that are impeding R.

In fact, they may make it possible, by giving you a focus other than your WS for your anger.

This is a process. You're going to feel lots of things. Suppressing feelings isn't the route to healing.

Still going-I didn't think of it that way. I would much rather just not care about her at all. Thinking she's not a good person (understatement) is not going to ruin me as long as I don't let it. The fact that she doesn't think she didn't do anything wrong amazed me but that is just who she is.

I do have to deal with my anger for H. I love him so much and want to R more than anything so it's hard for me to express it to him. I'm furious he did what he did and was able to justify it to himself for three years! But I know he sees it now and even if I don't understand his hows/whys, in my head I can see how it happened after a LOT of inadequate boundaries, unhappiness with himself and our inability to communicate that to each other.

I read something the other day that helped me. People who cheat are focusing more on what they are missing than what they have. That was him to a T.

I hate the OW. I mean, wouldn't-piss-on-her-or-her-kids-if-they-were-on-fire kind of hate. Not a natural emotion for me, but still it's there.

You would think it's better this far out but no. In fact, this far out, I still haven't figured out if this is going to break our marriage. Limbo bites bad.

I hate the OW, too. In fact, I think I'll spit in her face if I ever get the opportunity. She pursued my husband. She's a whore. Maybe I'll feel differently in the future?

I hate the OW as well. Sometimes it does actually move towards murderous rage.

It is easier to hate OW than it is to hate WBF but he definitely does not get left out of my 'hate list'. It was him that decided to invite her over that day when he slept with her, he decided to not cancel, he decided to get naked with her, he decided to have sex with her, he decided to have her spend the night, and then he decided to not tell me.

I know that a lot of my anger for OW is displaced, but as I said...it is easier to hate her

I hate the OW and my anger at her exceeds that against WH but that is because she was my friend, the one who I always turned to when I needed someone, the MOH at my wedding, the Godmother to one of my children. She is not a nameless faceless whore. I am not some nameless faceless evil wife standing in the way of her happiness. Our lives have been intertwined for 25 years.

Yes I hate her. My hate for her will always be there because her actions are unforgivable. I don't believe that this hatred impacts my future with WH. That is a different relationship and betrayal to be mended if possible. The relationship with OW is a betrayal that will never be mended.

I hate the OW but she is nothing to me. I do not wish her well and believe she is evil and sick. If she invades my thoughts now I just dismiss it with no deep hard emotions. She is not worth the effort and deserves nothing from me or us.

I love my H but still hate what he did... that will never change even after he earns my forgiveness.

[This message edited by whattheh at 11:18 AM, August 19th (Monday)]

We're all healing in our own way. Early on, I think I needed to hate the AP in order to focus on healing the M and my relationship with my WH. Now that he has done much of the work in R, and I have lost most of my anger with him, I realize that I will always hate the AP.

I can partially forgive my WH because he's doing the work. The AP made the choice to have an A with a married man and he wasn't her first. I'm sure the AP's dysfunctional behavior will plague her and anyone she knows for the rest of her life. I wish the AP nothing but ill.

Throughout my life, I tend to use stressful situations as a catalyst. Overnight guests are coming? Time to paint. MIL coming for Thanksgiving? Time to clean the oven. Husband has an affair? Time to become the perfect wife.

That's not healthy, but I realize what I'm doing and use it as a tool, so don't think it's horribly unhealthy, either. I use my hatred of the OW (and, YES, I do indeed hate her) to spur my own recovery. I realize he only saw her when she looked professional, when she planned to sleep with him (so her legs were always shaved, her nails always done, her hair always shiny and clean, etc.), when she wasn't exhausted or stressed. I'm working on making changes to myself I've always wanted to make but didn't have enough incentive to make--because there were always other fires (with four kids when are there not other fires?) to put out. But, because of my hatred of her, I'm being selfish for once.

I, too, know that someday I have to stop feeding the fire. That will be in my own best interests. But for now, I'm using every single tool in my box to help myself. That forgiveness tool--for her--is buried deep at the bottom. And I sincerely wonder if I will ever not smile a secret smile when she, someday, feels the hurt she's caused me. Who knows? I'm a big person, but I don't know if I'm that big.

My husband and I are well into what seems to be reconciliation, so my disgust for her (and for him, yes, but I loved him for 22 years before having the opportunity to feel hatred toward him) hasn't marred that. He has a saying that we're (in our family) only allowed to hate a certain baseball team, cats, and a particular pop group. Recently, when he shared that rule with someone, I added, "I could add something else to that list" and smiled, benevolently. It was priceless. He knew exactly what I meant without my having to get ugly and no one else was any the wiser.

I also call her Jezebel (because her name is similar to mine and mine shouldn't be tainted by hers). So he knows. As strange as this may sound, I'm hating her with as much graciousness as possible. My BFF and I (and now my soon-to-be-in-college DD who recently discovered her dad's A) joke about faux ways to get revenge on OW. It breaks the tension and makes my inability to hurt her like she hurt me seem more palatable.

[This message edited by RippedSoul at 12:56 PM, August 19th (Monday)]

I'm with SG:

The way I see it, I don't see the OM as worth the effort to get over hating.

Hate is not good for me, I know that. I don't hate my FWW, or very many people. I keep that list pretty short.

But, when I heard that OM has terminal cancer I bought a bottle of champagne and programmed Google Alerts to send me his obituary.

For a while I thought I had reached indifference for the OW(s). Nope...I am back to hate.

I have a revenge fanatasy of screwing the OW's BF, recording it and sending it to her. Of course I would never do it but I have "an eye for eye" when it comes to the OW.

Hit By

I had a similar fantasy until I discovered that my FWW and her AP were trying to hook me up with his BW to "even things out" so they could continue unimpeded in their nefarious ways.

Talk about Unintended Consequences, would have been the RA Fuckup of all time. As it was, my actual RA was plenty bad enough.

You know what?? After reading all of your posts, I think I might hold on to the hate for a little while. My revenge fantasies do help sometimes. I thought maybe I was feeding my fire and I wouldn't be able to control myself but I think I'm stronger than that. She is definitely not worth the consequences true revenge would bring but at least I know I could tear her life apart if I chose to do it. I know she's not the sweet, innocent, troubled girl she pretends to be.

Thanks so much for letting me know I'm not alone because it feels that way a lot lately.

I don't think it's required to R. We have reconciled and I still hate every single one of them. Every one he put his dick into and every one he talked about doing that with. I will always hate them!

But, at some point I realized that the problem wasn't with them. Yes, they contributed and they are not moral women. But, HE is the one I'm married to. After 4 OW and countless other internet chat women, they all start to blend together for me. HE is the one that I had to focus on if we were going to R successfully.

Why did he fuck 4 other women? Why did he stay up late at night to watch porn or talk to porn chicks when I was in our bed begging for sex? Why did he walk out on me/kids? What is he doing to repair all of the damage to us and to himself?

Once I took the focus off of the OW, we were able to work together on me/him/us. They could have been anyone. None were really all that special - even the one he left me for. And NONE could hold a candle to me!! Otherwise, he would still be living in that tiny apartment all by himself instead of in my bed every night.

The real problems were within him. Maybe it was a MLC. Whatever you want to call it, he was not happy during those 6 years and he chose to talk to everyone except me about it. Now, he is comfortable talking to me again. We have learned a lot about each other and what "real love" means to us.

Don't get me wrong though. If I ever see #2 in particular - she was supposed to be a family friend - I may be on the 6:00pm news!