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I attended an event yesterday and unbeknownst to me she was in attendance also, I didn't realize that I was sitting within 500 feet of the woman who at one point in my life I wanted to punch in the face. My sister noticed that the group of people that were with her were constantly staring at me and pointed it out. I didn't recognize any of these women but I noticed the glares also which put me on alert. I finally realized that the only woman who refused to turn around and look my way was the BITCH...

oooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooohhh...

I was a good girl I promise but it took several deep breaths and a glass of vodka on ice to keep me from kicking her out of her chair.

Ruined my day, night and morning... Just when I thought I was past the anger this hoe shows up and proves me wrong. I can't wait to seen my therapist this week we have work to do.

Accidentally spill a bowl of spaghetti on her!

It is insane how "these" people glare at you, the innocent wife. This OW was fucking YOUR WH yet you are, somehow, the bad guy in this scenario. Fuck them!

I hope you held your head high. Of course OW couldn't look at you. OW knows you are better than OW's shameful skanky, stanky ass and OW knows it.

Maybe you should have gone up to those women and introduced yourself "Hi, I'm InMyHead. Since you all seemed so interested in me I thought I would introduce myself. Yes, I am the wife of the man that _ _ _ _ ( insert whatever name you chose for OW) was fucking whilst he was married to me and unbeknownst to me. A word of advice, Ladies. You might want to watch your back and your husband, too, as long as OW is around." Turn on your heel and walk away.

Sorry your day was ruined by OW. Good for you that you restrained yourself from punching OW. If you are just a little more than a year out from d-day (your join date?) that shows really great self control. I don't know if I would have had that at that time in my healing journey. ((((InMyHead))))

LifeLostLongAgo

That would have been so satisfying

SisterMilkshake

I literally thought about walking up to exOW and introduce myself... My sister was my voice of reason...

Yep, I'm glad your sister was there for you.

They say *crickets* are best. I just like the revenge fantasies. They helped me process all the shit I needed to process.

The issue is not the OW. If your WS didn't stray the OW wouldn't have existed. Or if it wasn't this OW it was a different OW. Maybe this OW wouldn't have been at this event. Maybe she would have been at some other event. Maybe she would have stared at you. Or maybe she would have approached you and apologized. Many of us have been there when it comes to having thoughts and anger towards the OW, but the real issue is with our WS's. You can spend as much time calling her whatever your want, but is that fixing anything? Every minute you spend thinking and being angry at her is 60 seconds of your life that you will never get back.

It's great you are looking forward to seeing your therapist and recognize there is work to be done.

I disagree. The AP's are an issue. Anger is not mutually exclusive. One can be angry at both the WS and the AP for their actions. Yes, it is wasted time BUT one needs to process that anger, not bottle it up, stuff it or whatever. Expressing anger in healthy ways is...healthy.

In this scenario, OW is responsible for the feelings that InMyHead posted. The WS is always responsible for the affair but this OW hid behind her cackle of hens who were glancing sideways at IMH as if she was the scum on the bottom of OWs when in fact it was the other way around. She entered into a tryst with a married man and she has the nerve to look down on the poster? No way. I’d have made sure I waited for that group of losers outside.

Good test, yes, the angers still there. Don't worry, life will deliver her bill to her.

The issue is not the OW. If your WS didn't stray the OW wouldn't have existed

Respectfully, this comment always gets me pissed! If there weren't ppl around ready and willing to f*ck with other ppls partners, there would be a LOT fewer A happening! I'd bet if the WS had to work hard impressing a single person with the pick of the crop, they'd be a lot less successful at finding an AP! The blame is equal.

Sorry for the slight t/j InMyHead. I have to say you handled it much better than I would have!

In this scenario, OW is responsible for the feelings that InMyHead posted. The WS is always responsible for the affair but this OW hid behind her cackle of hens who were glancing sideways at IMH as if she was the scum on the bottom of OWs when in fact it was the other way around.

IMH and all of the others can give this a much of your head space as you want. You can call the OW scum or a Bitch. You can use terms such as cackle to describe the people OW hangs out with and you and interpret her actions/lack of actions however you want. Sure it may make you feel better for a couple minutes and. But is this really solving the issue? You can tell me or anyone else that the OW is equally to blame and that if there less people around the that are willing to #$*@ with other peoples partners there would be less affairs. This may be true, but this is the reality of this world. There are TONS of people that are willing to #*@^ with our partners. You can be mad at them as much as you want and swear at them and call them names, but again how is that helping solve the real issue which is your spouses (my former one included) willingness to get involved with these people. That is the underlying issue. If your spouse is an alcoholic, are you going to blame all the distilleries and breweries for your spouses drinking problem? Is calling them names going to make them go away or fix the underlying issue?

Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems to me if your partners didn't have A's (again my FWW included) the OW wouldn't be a conversation topic.

[This message edited by FEEL at 5:42 PM, June 16th (Sunday)]

You have a lot more restraint than me. See..I believe my husband's AP moved and changed her name! No joke. Because we lived in a small town and she was nowhere to be found after she came at me and told me. I would never hurt even a fly..except HER! Not because of what she did with my husband, but because it was a game for her and she tried to get me to commit suicide and kill my unborn child and so many other horrific things..just because she is a TRUE Psychopath. Diagnosed, certified, PSYCHOPATH. Just like my husband. However, she is worse because she actually laughs about it, enjoys it and is a convicted prostitute who has a husband and children. She had kids TORTURE my daughter in school! People like that don't want to meet me. I have never even stepped on an ant, except maybe by accident. But you would not recognize her face if she ever ran into my fist..feel me?

Oh yes, revenge on the AP.... I believe all BSs at least think about it. I know I certainly have.

However, it isn't worth it. A BS that I know personally did take revenge on the AP. Put the AP in the hospital after the brutal beating he put on him.

The sad part is the BS is now serving jail time. Lost his employment (and will likely have a hard time securing employment due to a criminal record in the future), has a restraining order against him, and therefore probably will not have contact with his children when he has served his time.

I don't think revenge on the AP is worth it.

Best to go crickets, and let the karma train look after the AP.....

FEEL

There is not much that anyone can say to make me dislike THE BITCH any less, the fact that I don't hate her because she knew about me from the beginning speaks volumes. This time last year if I would have seen her I would have tried to chock the life from her but today the most she'll get from me is what you see today. I'm not perfect and I'm not working towards perfection and your journey to recovery post A may suit you however I'm dealing with it the best way I can and its working just fine.

@FEEL with all due respect, FEEL, it isn't that I, and I imagine it happens to others, WANT to give head space to the AP's. It is a human reaction to trauma, and in my case, the thoughts of the AP were intrusive. It wasn't like I got the kids up, packed lunches, sent them off to school, cleaned the kitchen, grabbed a cuppa and said "Ahhh, now time to think about the AP."

Calling the AP's names here, like the slunty fucking cumdumpster in my sitch, is a way of venting in a healthy way the anger we righteously feel. If you can be all Zen about the AP in your sitch, good for you. However, it is very upsetting when BS's are told their feelings are "wrong" and they aren't doing it right.

You can share how and what you did to keep the AP out of your head and that would be awesome. I did what I needed to do to get the AP out of my head. Which was to vent here often calling the cumdumpster slimy ho bag whatever the fuck helped me release my angry feelings in a healthy way.

Yes, it is too bad that some actually physically attack people. Violence is not the answer. That is why me venting here by calling names instead of running over the OW with my giant SUV, which is what I really wanted to do, is the healthy alternative. No one needs to defend how they feel about the AP's or how they vent.

T/j Oh jeez on a thread about how IMH felt empowered after seeing the OW we get the usual smug comment about how it’s not the AP fault/they didn’t take the vows/put blame on the WS. Argh. There is nothing worse for a BS than to be told their feelings are wrong. That somehow if they were ‘enlightened’ they should be feeling differently. I got this a lot in my early days here and it drove me wild. I still loathe the AP in my situation, it’s not preventing my healing, in fact anger serves to lessen my anxiety, it heals me.

IMH I love these stories. I was terrified about seeing the AP when I did it was much like yours, I sent her crickets, and walked silently away. I always thought it’d be more dramatic, more shouty but that pond scum was absolutely not worth it. Thing is they thrive off attention and drama, best not feed that. I’m glad your sister was there to help you through that. You rock lady! And as for her friends, what a load of idiots, just wait till one of them experiences infidelity their narrow view point might change. And hate away lady! I’m right beside you hating the AP in my world with a vengeance!

I fully understand people don't intentionally think about the A and the OW etc. We all experience triggers. Things just happen and suddenly we are triggered about something and we are forced to deal with whatever thoughts result from the trigger. The thing is when we have a trigger, we do have a choice on how we react to that trigger.

As someone asked, I learned to be more at peace with this by taking a life coaching program for 6 months. In this process I learned a lot about how people become they way they do. When we all come into this world we are innocent and curious beings. We don't know what right from wrong is.

This gets shaped over time and very dependent upon our upbringings and family environment amongst other things. In the process we develop patterns, coping mechanisms and so on. That is what drives our actions and behaviors.

I doubt any of our WS's made a decision when they met us that they were going to have an affair to hurt us. It something happens during the course of the day where a conflict arises with someone (ie. a friend, a neighbour, a colleague) it's not like yourself or the other person woke up that day thinking "I plan to have a conflict with someone today". Things happen and we react to situations based upon our patterns and wiring which run us and cause us to behave, or act the way we do.

As I learned about this, I learned that my FWW did not intentionally have multiple A's to hurt me. It was her internal patterns and wiring that caused such actions from her.

So the coaching I took taught me about patterns and what I didn't know about myself. I am by no means perfect, but I learned a lot about why I made decisions and reacted to situations the way I did. I then took steps to make changes in some areas to make healthier decisions and less reactionary. My work is not done and I continue to work on it. I had hoped my FWW would take the opportunity but she chose not to and remained (and still remains as far as I know) not knowing about her patterns and what drove her to the A's. If she were to get involved with someone else in the future I suspect she's likely to stray down the same path at some point. I don't wish for that to happen but she doesn't know what she doesn't know about herself.

I am grateful I have taken a very large step in this direction and am grateful for the opportunity to keep learning. It has helped me immensely in terms of moving on and letting go of the anger. One of the quotes that resonated with me along the way was this quote from Buddha - "Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned."

FEEL not to get too bogged down in this but I entirely get what you’re saying, I hope to be there myself one day for the AP but I’m not. And if I never get there that’s ok by me. I can live my life hating one individual, I’ll get by.

The thing is this is a thread where the OP came seeking acknowledgment for her positive reaction to a very difficult, triggering experience and that’s what she deserves to receive from us. It always seems to me that there is a lack of empathy toward the BS when another more experienced BS jumps on this ‘don’t hate the AP’ band wagon, it can cause them distress, when all they wanted was to hear ‘you did good’.

[This message edited by Dragonfly123 at 2:30 AM, June 17th (Monday)]

Dragonfly - same thing here. I think it's very natural to hate on the AP. And, I think anger can be useful.