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The pub we met in nearly 20 years ago has closed down and I told him the news. I have mixed feelings. So annoyed right now but fwh thinks I am being over dramatic and doesn't understand why I am so hurt. He gets me being hurt about the affair stuff connected with it and expressed sorrow and remorse that he has tainted those memories but when his ex came up we fought.

The night he had his ONS she picked him up from that pub. I have been devastated that he could be there, where we met, listening to the band that played at our wedding and text her all night, send her photos of the band and even ring her so he could let her hear how good they are. It cut deep he could be so surrounded by me yet do it all anyway. She picked him up outside the pub and they had sex on the car park where he taught me to drive. He said he didn't even think of me, turned a blind eye to all the reminders simply because she wanted him. He admits that's all he cared about. Having another woman want him.

Well, a few weeks ago his first love pm'd him on fb. He handled it brilliantly, didn't reply til he was with me and cut off all contact, including blocking her. However, it did bring up insecurities and we discussed their relationship all those years ago, especially how she cheated on him.

He has always said how special that pub was cos its where we met when I was just 17 and that the minute I walked through the door he knew he would marry me. Yet when we had this chat about the ex from all those years ago he let slip that he had met her there too.

Now if he had told me that of course I wouldn't have minded but it damn sure wouldn't have been thought of as 'our place'! All the times he said that I feel like an idiot now.

I know I am being sensitive but I have spent nearly 20 years thinking of it that way and he has dumped on the romance twice now. 1 by having his ONS from there and 2 by slipping up and me realising it was his and his exes 'special place' before it was ours. To me that means it never really was ours.

Am I being stupid about this? I know I am not being very rational cos my temper is flying. I am having lots of other problems at the moment and am pretty raw.

He says it doesn't matter and will always be our place to him as it's where he met the love of his life etc etc and that nothing that went before me counts but that he is so sorry he ruined it the night he had his ONS.

I feel a bit of a fool for every time I have told people the story of the night we met and how the pub was 'our place' .

He swears he told me years ago but I know for sure he didn't as I would not have seen it as just ours if he had. It's like the club we would go to afterwards. I loved the place but it was never 'ours' cos he had met all his other girlfriends there and I always knew he had exes in the place. I dealt with it but it was never special to 'us' just a fun place to go.

Am I over reacting? I am not in a fit place to think straight and I don't want to blow this up if I am being unreasonable. My nan is in hospital dying a little over a year since I found out about the affair and my dad's untimely death.

I need a sensible head to help me see straight.

[This message edited by olwen at 10:10 AM, July 21st (Monday)]

I don't think you are overreacting. The pub was your special place. It had sentimental meaning behind it. Now you are having to reconcile that the pub has other memories attached to it and it is tainted. Sending you strength.

Thank you, I worried I was being silly. Thanks for your support.

I am sad how somewhere special to us has been so doubly tainted by it's previous importance to him and it being the scene of his ONS.

I am glad the place is closing. If I am lucky maybe they will turn the pub into something else.

I don't think you're overreacting at all. I had something similar come up. My H and I were together every day after our first date. We went on our first date to an Irish bar with a gay couple who worked with us. (They had just come out.) We became pretty good friends with one of the guys and spent a lot of time together at his duplex. The duplex that was attached was where my H stayed for a brief while and that is where we were physically intimate many times in the beginning of the relationship. That is where I became pregnant. The same guy who lived in the duplex ended up throwing my baby shower. Come to find out, on dday#3, my H invited a college classmate to go to said friends for drinks after class one night (while I was at home without our baby) and ended up kissing her as they left to go to their cars. She went into his work the next day to try to get him to come to her apartment and he shut her down, said it never should have happened. When I found out he involved our good friend and went to the place we had so many memories at it hurt really bad. It turned out that our friend had actually just moved to his new apartment so that part wasnt fully the same but the feeling was. That our friends place was associated with us being together. Our friend was associated with us being together. Now he has contaminated that. Also, we met and both worked at the same restaurant. Spent hundreds of hours there together and she went in to our place, a place we went back and took our pic in front of years later when they hey closed down, and contaminated my memory of that place too. She even contaminated his graduation commencement ceremony. She walked up out of the blue and kissed him again while they were all standing in a group in a hallway. H and I and our baby took one of the only pictures of me that I ever liked that night. Now I never want to see it again. He didn't tell me about any of this stuff that happened 20 years ago until 6 weeks ago. It is so sad how many memories, and what we thought were realities, got tarnished because of infidelity isn't it? Even the first year of our daughters life is tarnished now and what I thought our family was.

I'm sorry. This stuff sucks.

(((OLWEN)))

Thank you,

It does suck. I am sorry you have had special memories of a place tarnished too.

I really wonder how they can not think of this stuff but I guess it goes hand in hand with affair thinking.

That was all so hard to deal with but the fact he met his ex there first but had the nerve to call it our special place just makes me realise how differently we think.

I am learning that a lot of what he told me was special and important probably was just talk and never really mattered to him.

An affair really does bring up a lot of other stuff too.

It may still be true that your H felt like that was your special place. He may have felt more of a bond with you and fonder memories, especially since he says that is where he first saw you and knew he wanted to marry you. I know for me the spot I met my H is very vivid in my mind still today. Exactly where he was, what he was wearing etc. Yes. He contaminated your memories but some of them still belong to just the two of you.

Thank you so much. I think that's what he meant now I have calmed down a bit. I was just so wrapped up in what he took away from me that I forgot it may still mean a lot to him and there are parts of that night that are still special to me.

Thanks for your lovely reply.