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Reconciliation :
How did he get away with it?

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deephurt ( member #48243) posted at 3:51 PM on Friday, January 26th, 2018

If you need to wake the dead to help you heal, then do it.

I am almost 4 years from initial DDay, I have so many questions but he doesn't remember. There are a few that are really important to me and he can't remember. I don't know if its true that he can't and he says that I know everything that he can remember so I basically had to decide if I am okay with not knowing anymore or not.

If you have the questions and WH knows the answers, ask.

me-BW
him-WH


so far successfully in R

posts: 3775   ·   registered: Jun. 13th, 2015   ·   location: Canada
id 8079694
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uxorpatricius ( member #59933) posted at 5:30 PM on Friday, January 26th, 2018

Glad it helps somewhat.

Yes - many of us need to know answers (if we can find or get them) or our mind fixates on it.

A couple of pieces of wisdom that happened for us early on. One of our counselors asked point blank if I wanted to know details. I said I was worse when I didn't.

The counselor said people have different ways of coping. For me, knowledge made me feel more prepared. For others it felt safer to have a generalization (I envy those people some days) and they may avoid complete truth, but they also avoid the vivid imagery. Some people need details later. Our counselor didn't insist that any which way was was better - but what we did or didn't do with the information was what was important. Did we find healthy ways to deal with knowing or not knowing.

Like many here, I healed better knowing. May brain works at my life like it is a large jigsaw puzzle. (And I do well at jig saw puzzles, by the way), if a piece or part is not filled in, my brain keeps trying to fit and find pieces.

If my husband denied any of the information, he was denying me pieces of my own life.

He understood this.

Also - the second consideration. That many people who want to not "let go" of the affair, including the OPs of our spouses, think that piece does not belong to us. They think it belongs to them.

I don't agree. It affected my life, denied the ability to make reasonable plans for my future, and denied me the ability to effectively communicate with my spouse. That piece is mine - it is my life. So. I go there, and I do feel better with it.

Last, my husband came to understand that keeping info actually hurt me, and even would set me up where the xOW would be able to hurt me worse if she could get info to me (and she wanted to). Many people don't want to hurt their spouse, even in true reconciliation. If the BS wants to know, they may need to articulate why. Like I said, my husband came to understand why I needed details very quickly. But I explained it, the counselor supported it, and it worked for us.

So, still wanting to know years later. Yep. I get it. It is a piece that belongs to your life puzzle.

[This message edited by uxorpatricius at 12:17 PM, January 26th (Friday)]

Reconciling and mostly doing well now.
D-Day Summer 2013 - M 20+ years.
Our children - young adults
Me: BW -3 years of IC.
Him: formerlyWH, Mr. Uxor still in IC by his choice.

posts: 714   ·   registered: Jul. 31st, 2017   ·   location: US
id 8079749
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JimmyB ( member #43976) posted at 7:17 PM on Friday, January 26th, 2018

Interesting subject.

My WW's first A was while I was away for 3 months, out of state, starting a new job where we had made plans to move. She and my 2 children remained behind while our house was being sold. We had moved where we were living 6 years prior, with no other family within 2 hours, had few if any common friends, heck we didn't really even know our neighbors. That A was carried out in our home, relatively out in the open as far as I know. Our children were 3 and 5 at the time so I'm sure it was easy to hide it from them. I was 1000 miles away, easy to hide from me. I will say her attitude grew increasingly distant during that 3 months, toward the end she even said she didn't want to move, she wanted to and keep the children with her. I know I suspected it, but I don't think I would allow myself to believe it. I didn't find out until just after I basically forced her to move and she was forced to tell me she was pregnant, obviously not mine.

Her second A, was the next year, we had moved back where we moved from, I know bad idea, and ended up separated. Again, I wasn't close at hand so it was relatively easy for her to get away with it. Same OM as A #1.

Her third A, an EA, started 15 years later, texting and some phone calls, phone kept on silent, fake name in contacts, me apparently not paying attention to any of it and I never looked at the phone records. It was likely my lack of attention that made that possible.

Her forth A, a PA with the same OM as A #'s 1&2 began 22 years after A #2. She still kept her phone silent, had a fake name for him as well, only talked on the phone from the car. Lied that she was going out with work girls or the like when they met at hotels or to make out in his van. She paid all he bills with our credit cards, she paid the bills, I didn't look. I was completely oblivious. I really didn't pay much attention to her, our relationship was pretty much non-existent so again, my lack of paying attention was a huge factor in her being able to get away with it.

The day I discovered the EA (A#3) I also discovered the PA she was having at the same time (A#4)

I choose to take a chance on a serial cheater from the beginning, I was too dumb and naïve to understand the risk. That was a costly mistake. I chose to give her a chance after the first A, that was a costly mistake. I have given her yet another chance but she is on the brink of losing it.

So...how did she get away with it? Some ways were just convenient circumstances, some by her secrecy, but mostly my own fault, chances I should have not taken from the beginning, second chances that should not have been given, attention not paid, even when I knew better. I'm not sure who it's harder to forgive, her or myself?

ME: 60 Madhatter, 1 PA, 6 months(making out, no sexual contact), 2006. 1 sexual act with a stranger in a car - w/hands, 2010.
WW: 57 Madhatter, 25 year (1988-2013) PA, 3 separate affairs, same OM). 8 year, 2005-2013, EA with 1st boyfriend/lover

posts: 570   ·   registered: Jul. 4th, 2014   ·   location: Ohio
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uxorpatricius ( member #59933) posted at 9:40 PM on Friday, January 26th, 2018

I was just re-reading the responses on here.

DevastatedDee! LOVE IT! GROWNASS MAN!

Yes! I thought mine was too!

Sometimes I wonder why I even went looking to see if he was cheating. Then I remember how his skin turned dull - death looking. His eyes were hollowed out. He was not able to talk to me in any logical way - and had always been a pretty sharp guy. Then the little clues all added up into a big "OH CRAP WHAT THE F IS HAPPENING WITH MY H!?" In ten months he had turned himself into a complete mess.

He wasn't that way with the two friends of mine who flirted with him before that. I think because he let his ego get fluffed, then blew them off and thought he could handle the ego fluff and control it.

Guess he learned not to play with fire with the PA. It train-wrecked his health and mind.

I said it on another post. When people lie, and cheat and deceive, it takes its toll on them. It turns them ugly. It affects their mind, their skin, their voice, their focus. It can turn the most beautiful woman or handsome man into something worn, haggard and crazy. Maybe not all of them (who knows - maybe lifetime cheaters are so used to it that it doesn't do that). Anyway it did with my husband.

But that word. GROWNASS MAN. Yes. That is who I agreed to marry. That is the only who I will stay married to. Nothing less. It defines what a husband should be so very very well.

He's been a champ since his pulled his brain out of that crazy land he went to, and I am going to tell him I love him being a GROWNASS MAN, next chance I get.

But I will happily ask him where did my GROWNASS MAN go if he f's up again. No boys for me. Nope.

Thank you for the new vocab!

Reconciling and mostly doing well now.
D-Day Summer 2013 - M 20+ years.
Our children - young adults
Me: BW -3 years of IC.
Him: formerlyWH, Mr. Uxor still in IC by his choice.

posts: 714   ·   registered: Jul. 31st, 2017   ·   location: US
id 8079986
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DevastatedDee ( member #59873) posted at 9:54 PM on Friday, January 26th, 2018

Ha ha ha!! Uxorpatricius, that revelation came to me a couple of months ago when I was still beating myself up for being fooled. It was like a light-switch went on. Had I been acting like his mom, I'd have probably busted him. But I didn't take on another kid to raise when I married him, damn it. I thought I married a GROWN-ASS MAN and grown-ass men don't have to be monitored like a child!

It was not on me to treat him like a child instead of the grown-ass man he was supposed to be.

DDay: 06/07/2017
MH - RA on DDay.
Divorced a serial cheater (prostitutes and lord only knows who and what else).

posts: 5083   ·   registered: Jul. 27th, 2017
id 8079996
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 Hardroadout (original poster member #56340) posted at 10:35 PM on Friday, January 26th, 2018

Y'all are so right! We thought we married grown folks! I didn't find out because I went looking either. I didn't think I needed to!

Jimmy, you thought you married a grown up too. It is NOT your fault!

And, I still won't treat him like a child. I don't monitor. But, if he acts like a horny teenage boy again, he will have hell to pay.

I edit a lot because I am a terrible typist.

posts: 982   ·   registered: Dec. 9th, 2016   ·   location: Reality
id 8080022
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DevastatedDee ( member #59873) posted at 10:56 PM on Friday, January 26th, 2018

Amen to that, Hardroadout. We didn't fail because we didn't figure it out or bust them. They failed a major adulthood test.

I am positive that all of our spouses were of legal adult age when we married.

DDay: 06/07/2017
MH - RA on DDay.
Divorced a serial cheater (prostitutes and lord only knows who and what else).

posts: 5083   ·   registered: Jul. 27th, 2017
id 8080049
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uxorpatricius ( member #59933) posted at 4:42 PM on Monday, January 29th, 2018

Reconciling and mostly doing well now.
D-Day Summer 2013 - M 20+ years.
Our children - young adults
Me: BW -3 years of IC.
Him: formerlyWH, Mr. Uxor still in IC by his choice.

posts: 714   ·   registered: Jul. 31st, 2017   ·   location: US
id 8081437
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