SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

..

..like many here... "believing her first story..trusting her too soon"..

.. crap...I still can't be sure I've had the whole, real truth.. she could still be holding back some of what they did together over 18 year LTA with bff..

..smy

Blaming myself, i.e., believing his gaslighting and blameshifting

Then, allowing him to cake eat

Where to start....

Should have kicked his sorry ass into next week and gone dark while waiting for the analysis of the computer to come back.

But, then again, I'm SO much stronger and much wiser since that dreadful day.

After I confronted, I should have went NC immediately and filed for divorce.

Instead I allowed him to "justify" cheating on me and we stayed in limbo for a while.

If this ever happens to me again, the cheater won't know what hits their ass. Immediate NC and filing. Separating everything. Gonna make them worry and go crazy with my silence.

Mistake #1 - Not driving to the hotel he was at (work conference) to confront him and LTA OW in person.

Mistake #2 - Not kicking him out, doing the 180 and filing for D immediately.

Mistake #3 - Choosing not to do an intervention for the suspected SA for fear he would attempt suicide.

My biggest mistake when finding out about the A was that when WH said he was 'confused and didn't know what he wanted to do' that i didn't immediately file for D and put him out.

I know now that the A continued and that i could have saved my dignity and sanity if i had been firm in my decisions from the beginning. A divorce can always be halted if R happens. But, if you file and the A is still going on, you are taking control.

Lesson learned for me.

Mistakes I made:

1. Thanking her for choosing me over the mOM (I still feel SO embarrassed about saying it to this day)

2. Failing to consult an attorney immediately after the reveal on D-Day

3. Believing her story initially, when I knew, deep down, it was a giant, steaming pile of crap

4. Not having a recording device to tape her "confession" on D-Day (laugh if you want, but I would love to have had it recorded for future use)

5. Not making her move out to live with her parents (they live in the same town) while I took care of myself early on

6. Not immediately demanding to see all of her emails and cellphone records

7. Not informing the mOM's BS immediately

I know I made more mistakes. I won't, however, make these mistakes again. There will be no second chances. Quite honestly, I should have given her a D, so that may have been another mistake. I don't know.

I think my biggest mistakes were:

• Before D-Day: Trusting him too much. I knew he and OW were close friends. I felt in my gut that they were too close, yet I could not bring myself to believe that they would actually commit adultery. I should have been more suspicious and gone into full investigative mode much, much earlier than I did.

• D-Day: Not kicking him out, or at least banishing him to the basement (where he has his office and a futon sofa) for at least a while. I think I made reconciliation too easy. He should have had to work harder. He should have had to court me all over again.

On the other hand, I did a lot of things right. I had rock-solid evidence. I did not reveal my sources. I interrogated him in a calm, cold, relentless manner on D-Day. I set clear boundaries and conditions for R. Although I expressed willingness to R if he was willing to go NC and meet my conditions, I did not beg or plead. I told him I knew I would be fine by myself, and did not fear divorce.

Staying

1. Comforting FWH on d-day.

2. Telling FWH I forgave him on d-day.

3. Telling FWH I didn't want a divorce.

4. Not kicking his ass to the curb for at least a week and making him sweat and wonder what I wanted, and letting him show me how hard he was willing to fight for me and our marriage.

When I first found SI, I was such a wreck! Some how, I totally missed the healing library and all the threads on what you should immediately do after dday on the just found out forum! I think I joined in Oct and just started to post in January. And, my other biggest mistake is giving up my sources of how I was snooping. Huge mistake!!

EA DDay : believing him when he said there was nothing going on, just stupid talk. I did not check up on him when he agreed to not have contact because I trusted him to do the right thing.

PA DDay : I confronted him too quickly. I wish that I had waited, watched, and collected info. I wish I had caught them and confronted both of them when they were together. It would have been really easy because they were so careless.

My one regret is that I did not forward all of the emails that I read on my WH BB to my email. In addition on Dday MOW was sending emails to my WH phone, which I was holding in my hand reading to him. I would read them, ignore them, and delete them. That is until I realized I may actually need this proof. I did forward a few but would have loved to pass on ALL of them to MOW BH.

Not making him leave, especially when he asked if he went to live with xOw2 and if it didn't work out, could he come back.

Should've just socked away money, started my job search and changed the locks the day he left for Iraq.

Instead I tried to love him back into the M, went full on HB...and he was still in the A.

1) Tried to 'fix' it all right away, forgiving her immediately before I even knew all the facts. I really wanted to turn back the clock, and make it all not have happened.

2) Not immediately demanding transparency and getting her email and other passwords. By the time I'd done so, she'd deleted a lot of the old emails.

3) Letting her persuade me to not tell some folks I felt needed to know about her affair.

There were others, but those were the biggies.

1) HB for three days after dday. Then he left on a 2-week business trip, allowing me to come to my senses. At three months' out now, he knows not to come anywhere near me. It disgusts me to think of physical contact with him. Not. Gonna. Happen.

2) Revealing what I knew about the online porn/cybersex. I should have quietly installed the keylogger and watched and waited to see how far he was going to take his addiction. He doesn't know the keylogger is on there but he knows his sloppy history deleting got him busted. Now he's white-knuckling it and going to IC but who knows what goes on there....

Now I play the waiting game....in limbo.

The biggest was begging and pleading, following by posting on Facebook, which means everyone knows. And worse than that, the OW saw it- I didn't know she was the OW. I knew she was talking to my WH, but I thought as a friend, so I desperately contacted her to ask her to speak to him for me. She said she would, even offered to move in with me. I hate her forever for that.

1)believing his lies

2)disclosing my sources

3) trusting him again so soon

4) not believing in myself

The 1st Dday I confronted too early, all I had was phone records w her # on it hundreds of times, should have waited and tracked/read the texts. The 2nd Dday I was drunk and emailed him my key logger info from my secret email acct, he then went into it and deleted the acct which had all my proof and lawyer correspondence in it

The arguing, the fighting. The bargaining, the crying in front of him, the tolerance even after broken N/C multiple times.

If I could turn back the clock, I would have calmly shown him the door, and 180'd immediately. No yelling, no bargaining...nothing. Just good-bye and good luck.