SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I wish I had the knowledge I have now when I found out about the Affair. I confronted moments after I found text message. I didn't even have any clue what it might mean. I just freaked out and confronted. I now wish that I would have taken a few days and watched. Found out a little more before confronting. Maybe read some of the messages between them to help me understand and get rid of my curiosity. Would it change anything? Well, honestly, it probably would have hurt more so it is probably a good thing it happened as it did, but I will always question since I never really SAW evidence of the affair other than one text.

I wish I'd of called OW from XH's phone & let her know that she won, he was on the way.

Then, when I'd confront XH, let him know OW was expecting him and from that point forward, he was no longer welcome in my house.

The next day, I wish I'd of filed for D and had him served at work, in front of our friends & OW.

Wish I'd of gotten a screen shot of the gang-bang porn I found on his computer. The woman looked alot like OW; it may have been, still unsure. Had it been, I would have made sure that EVERYBODY that knows her would have their own copy.

I kick myself that I wasted 4 years waiting for this fucktard to stop being such a fucktard. Talk about fog ...

I stumbled upon her desperate email to his work account (he accidentally left it open at home). She was begging to get back together. I was in total shock and wrote her back some nasty gram about how she could have the worthless POS that used to be my husband. Signed it, sent it.

Like someone else said, I wish I would have waited and watched instead of going full force. I wonder how he would have responded to that?

I would have LOVED to catch him in the act. I imagine me and the kids knocking on the hotel door.

He was claiming to go away for "work weekends", it would have been fun to have an emergency come up while he was gone and have to have his work track him down.

I would have downloaded and saved all the photos and texts and emails to send to her BS, her mother, her father, etc. Yes, WH's emails could go out there too.

Yes. I had many d-days.

In my re-enactment of several of them I simply walk out and never go back. I realize this would have probably been the cleanest and best solution for everyone.

But I was convinced it was my fault - something I didn't do that I should have. So I tried to fix it - and we are still together.

I have a few regrets, but the biggest by far is how we handled NC. I had the smarts to intuitively insist on NC right away, but I hadn't yet found SI and we didn't know how to do it.

He went over there in person to "break up" with them and say goodbye. I still don't know exactly what was said in the conversation, but the end result was that I got totally thrown under the bus by all three of them and was blamed and abused for "ruining his life", right at the most injured, vulnerable moment of my life. Some incredibly bad things happened as a direct result of that conversation, things that continue to undermine our reconciliation and hinder my healing a year out. The horrible way he did NC and the aftermath did almost as much damage to the marriage and to me psychologically as his affair did.

If I had to do it all again, I really would have liked to have found SI right away and learned how to do NC properly, with a factual, to-the-point letter.

[This message edited by TheGarden at 6:45 PM, July 12th (Saturday)]

I wish I hadn't confronted as soon as I did, but that I had done more digging first. I found all the emails between her and both AP's when I confronted her so I thought I had everything there was to find. However, a few months later I had reason to suspect a third A, but no way to check emails as she'd completely purged her email account the day after dday. All I have now is my suspicion and the flimsiest of evidence with the exception of an email address for the suspected third AP for a site called sexiass.com

Oh yes!

Let's see. Not being the one to make the CC appointment.

Not deleting his gmail account off of my ipad.

Not picking up when he called me about our dead cat and then going over.

Not ignoring the signs he was still lying and cheating.

Not therefore having a month of insomnia and pain and anguish. Well, more than a month of anguish. But a month of insomnia.

But really....I wasn't ready to let go. The false R let me really see who he was. It was my trying to reconcile what I believed about him with what was true. It was just not in me to walk away from the love I thought we had. And I'm pretty okay with that, you know? It was true to me. I only lost two and a half months though, which surely colors my ability to be accepting of my choices.

In the end, what's past is past.

ETA: ok but I REALLY wish I had outed his relationship status ASAP to the woman he cheated on me with, who had no idea he lived with a GF! The scorched earth policy would have been the best despite what I said above

[This message edited by norabird at 1:00 AM, July 13th (Sunday)]

@SaturnPatrick

If an A happens again, I need to be ready and capable to just walk away. I cannot go through this a second time. It's like I'm perpetually training for a war that might never happen.

I've been feeling this for awhile but couldn't really put it into words.

This summed it up perfectly. Thank you.

Although we appear to be in R for the past 3 1/2 years, I wish that I had D the man years ago when it was obvious that he was addicted to porn and visiting strip clubs.

I was so naive, needy and pathetic that I conditioned myself to willful blindness when the clues of his infidelity were staring me in the face. I should have quietly collected plenty of evidence and ended the M (it appears that I am unable to be secretive). Eliminating him and his dysfunctions from my life would have been the healthiest action I could have taken.

I love my WH but nothing is worth the years of torment.

All the time!! It's one of the biggest struggles I have. All the hints were right in front of me and I chose to trust instead. Ugh!! Now I could kick myself. I fantasize about confronting him (or them) back in those early days. I would LOVE a redo!

There are tons I would change. I wish I hadn't confronted him so soon when I found phone records of his EA, wish I'd let them carry on a bit longer without him knowing so I could be reading their texts and now how deep he was, now I will never know. Wish id been stronger when I confronted her, wish I hadn't let him walk all over me for almost 5 mos until finally separating, now wish I could get the balls to toss his lazy ass out again

I wish I had searched the emails for important words rather than read them to see WTF he had been writing. Or in addition to. And had him let me change the password so that he would have no access but I would. Then I'd have emailed them all to explain that their email f*ck buddy was in fact married with two children- one born just three weeks ago. Then I would have built my own timeline from the content. And searched on so many words- single, married, wife, love, hometown names, phone numbers, meet, see, video, baby, kids names, my name, employer names... Guess I'll never know for sure.

I think I still have nighmares about Dday they pan out so many different ways. In hindsight I think we would all do things differently. For me I should have pulled the breaks on the friendship when it started to become too friendly. I should have paid more attention to the phone bills when they came in, I did fish one out of the recycling bin because I thought he got rid of it a little too hastily, there were at least a dozen calls on there to her, she lived in another state then and she was married, I was so naive I still believed it to be nothing more then friends, she was my friend as well. I never liked the idea of him having passwords to his email accounts that I didnt have but he said that was the way they were set up. Computer illiterateidiot here. I did want to get some spy devices but where I live there is nothing available. I wanted to get a nannycam and set one up in his office, actually still want to do that one, I sympathise with you TheGarden, sounds a little similar to my story. I did tell him NC he wrote the final email and sent it to her, I told him i wanted to read it, but of course he had no intention of letting me do that, he deleted it as soon as he sent it. He is a computer whiz there is no way I could catch him out

I'm pretty happy with how things went down on DD. He returned from London (where DD A happened) that morning and we spent the day together with the girls. Him his usual moody self, me my usual walking on eggshells self.

When the girls went to bed he wanted to talk to me about going back to London for a reunion in 8m time - a nice trip for both of us. I said: "I'm not sure we'll still be married by October. Come outside, I need to talk to you."

I begged him for an hour to confess. He denied and called me crazy. He acted angry, hurt, confused - but I knew. I was crying and yelling and begging. He kept denying - shouting over me. Then 'we just held hands', more pleading, 'we just kissed', 'I went to her room but nothing happened - 'I just gave her a back massage with her clothes on!'

I was chanting at this point and pleading on my knees with my hands together - bawling, hysterical: "PLEASE - if you ever had any kind of love for me - PLEASE SET ME FREE! I beg you. Please don't let me think I'm crazy. I know you're lying. Please, I beg you."

He fell to his knees with his hand over his mouth and in a voice I had never heard him use he said, simply: 'I slept with her. Oh my god. What have I done.'

I stopped chanting and started screaming this guttural sound. I think I called him some pretty nasty things then I said:

"You don't know it yet but you've just made the biggest mistake of your life. And I don't know it yet but you've just done me the biggest favour of my life."

I calmly told him we were over. I wasn't going to go crazy or fuck him over or keep the kids away from him or any of that. I was going to make this as easy as possible for him. He was bawling. I was as calm and as quiet as black ice. 'We are done. I need you to understand this. I am no longer your wife and you are no longer my husband. I have no claim to you nor you to me.'

Then I walked out and fell over on the street in front of my house. I fell over and threw up all down the street until I found a bench to sit on.

All of that I am very happy with. I didn't lose myself even when I was broken in half.

Until...

I wish I hadn't self destructed and gone on a rampage immediately after DD by sleeping with as many men as I could. It was an act of self harm - I wanted to hurt myself for a change. That, and some epic hoovering and suicide talk on his part, is how I found myself in False R 8w later - only for 3m thank fuck. I regret attempting R because this was absolutely a dealbreaker for me. That he lacked any real remorse just made that decision less difficult to accept. Less difficult - still agonising.

At Final S (5 mins past midnight on the 8th wedding anniversary) we were having an argument that was escalating so I went to leave the house for a little while to diffuse the situation. As I was walking out he grabbed my arm roughly and said 'If you walk out that door we are DONE. You hear me? DONE.'

I said: 'You promise?', shook his hand off my arm and walked out into the rain. It was the biggest and most agonising relief of my life. I felt cut in half but also unburdened. I can still feel it now just thinking about it - Strong But Broken.

[This message edited by SBB at 8:43 AM, July 14th (Monday)]

I wish my circumstances were different so I had the luxury of just loading my pets in the car and leaving. Dday1 we were living overseas and had rented out our home in the us, so no where for me to go. Dday2 we were days from closing on a property and we had 1 car so again no where for me to go. Dday1, I found out because he forgot to close skype when he left to take a phone call from his gf. It would have been great to just stop taking his phone calls and disappear. Dday2, I overheard him in his man cave trying to talk his new gf into coming and staying in our house for a week while I went to see my kids. It would have been nice to simply pack up my pets and leave and let my attorney explain my absence. I have instead chosen to plan an exit strategy, get my finances in order, have a conversation with a good divorce attorney and prepare myself mentally and physically for the very sad ending of a relationship that lasted nearly 3 decades.

I wish I would have left right then and there.

I wish i would have found someone to help me recover the old texts off the phones ( this still haunts me. I never even thought to look at his phone on dd #1. He.bought a new phone mid A so I still have the original phone sitting here that has not been used since. Everything should still be there.)

I wish I would have damaged his car in some way.

If I were to walk into that apartment again and hear the noise of them having sex… The only thing I would do differently is get the shirt I came back home to get, pick up my laundries and some extra clothes and sneak out allowing OM to finish. After all – why waste a good hard-on. I had all the info I needed to move on.

OH GOD YEAH. Almost daily.