SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Like others have said here, I would have filed for D immediately after finding out.

I was a complete Simp doing the pick me dance and trying to nice her back. I was a fool who did everything wrong. I was stupid for believing and trusting her lame excuse for R. I should have packed all her crap in garbage bags and dropped them off in her married scumbag OM’s porch. I would have kicked her out of the house and told the kids what she was doing. There are so many things I would have done differently. When I finally did wake up, my wrath was swift and uncompromising. I filed for D and removed her from my life. I kept my promise and never spoke to her again.

I wasted almost 2 years of my life in a horrible fake R with a horrible, disgusting excuse of a human being. I’ll never get those years back.

It’s interesting to note that NO ONE (al least that I have heard of) regrets taking decisive action right away.

Expose

Getting away, physically and emotionally, from the WS

Filing for Divorce immediately

Etc

A family member of mine is very wealthy. Made their money in venture capital. A master negotiator. Can read people in a business environment like a book. Told me once...who ever speaks or acts first, has the upper hand. They set the parameters of the negotiation. The other party is put on the defense out of the gate.

As this relates to infidelity, once the WS is busted, it appears the BS who go scorched earth, seem to have the least regrets.

Nothing...I burned all his work clothes on the grill and made him tell all of his co-workers what he did. Post-nup was filed within a week. Call bitch and practically made her crap her panties.

Sent flyer to her entire neighborhood by mail with her picture, phone number and a short description of her slut behavior.

Sent the same flyer to her place of employment.

In IC within a month...MC after 3 months.

DH now treats me like a queen while I am still crying in the bed all day. Even though I did so many things the "right" way...I still feel like shit.

I wish I hadn’t confronted him straight away. That gave him time to remove and delete evidence and hide the complete and absolute truth from me. The shock and trauma of the situation took over and I was not able to think calmly and rationally. If I had my time over again, I would keep quiet and keep digging until I had all the dirty details. I would take my time and carefully and strategically plan the confrontation so that nothing could be denied or hidden. To this day, I’m positive I don’t know the complete truth of what happened. That has definitely prevented me from moving forward. It will be 3 years since DD this September and I’m still in a lot of emotional pain. I’m sure that’s part of the reason why. He has only ever told me what he thought I knew already. I asked lots of questions and got the absolute bare bones of information every time.

Hindsight is a wonderful thing isn’t it? I would have taken better care of my health and wellbeing and loved myself more. I gained a lot of weight and used alcohol to numb the emotional pain, a lot of alcohol. I blamed myself, and felt inadequate as a wife and a woman, I wish I hadn’t done that. I wouldn’t do the ‘pick me’ dance. I also regret the HB.

Like many others, I wish I would've filed after the first betrayal. I did the pick me dance hard! I did everything wrong. Set me up for repeats. Rugswept and didn't tell a soul But shit, I didn't know how to handle what happened. I thought the love I had was mutual back then. I was wrong and ill prepared on how to handle it. I didn't want to break apart our family. So the last and final Dday, I guess I woke up and said enough of this shit! Yes, hindsight is 20/20. But divorce was the best decision I've ever made. Just wish I had done it sooner! Also wish I had found SI years ago because friends here would have set me straight!

Without a doubt I would not have tried to save anything. Would have been done and over and told him to move on. Wasted YEARS. Took way too long to call it quits. He moved in with her when I finally stuck to my guns, and they lasted one year. What a surprise. I should have released him immediately. I worked too hard trying to save him from the destruction I knew he was bringing into his own life. Should have never bothered. Save yourself.

If this ever happened again with a new mate, the swift answer would be goodbye. I won’t tolerate disrespect, cheating, immaturity, lack of communication, etc ever again. It took way too long to get to that point though because I wasn’t letting go. Don’t let yourself waste years trying to save something that they don’t even deserve, nor do you. But everyone must travel their own path. I just know now which path I will never walk again.

There are a bunch of things I wish I'd done differently, starting with letting him back into the house.

At this juncture, it seems the best thing for me is to give myself some compassion for the myriad less-than-healthy choices I made during the 1st year. It's trauma. We fuck up plenty when trauma brain is in control. Anyone can "coulda, woulda, shoulda" ourselves to death. I think the goal is to learn to be OK with our human (and therefore less than perfect) selves.

Save yourself.

☝️🙌

I wish I had insisted on access to his phone and location the when I first suspected cheating. I wish I had insisted on proof of no contact and blocking on DDay, he told me it was just 1 night months before. I would have found a way to resist the ridiculousness of hysterical bonding until I was sure the affair was truly over. I would have contacted the OW when my gut knew they where together.

I would have insisted on full open access to her phone and email accounts from that point on.

I would have never done the pick me dance.

I would have insisted upon no contact.

And above all i should have taken time for myself away from it all rather than burying it in the hope it goes away on its own, it didnt and over a year later we are still struggling at times because from the day after d. Day i didnt set my boundaries in stone.

I did what I had to do. I could not leave my husband (2 very young kids and 1 5 yrs old + a 14 yrs old), so I tried to make us go back on track - for my sake. Didn't work, he was a jerk the entire time. I realised it was a lost cause when he told me he wanted us to have a good co-parenting relationship. Not be with me, nope, just be co-parents. Fuck that shit. I told him sure, but if you want to co-parents it will be on my terms - I go back to France and be with my family and you can "co parent" via Facetime. And then I made concrete plans to leave the US. Not that I wanted to leave the US, but if the alternative was to be here just so he could see the kids, I might as well be back home.

No idea what changed in his head, but we are now reconciling. He's not blowing smoke up my butt, but actually going above and beyond to make me feel secure.

If this shit happened now, I would be packing my suitcase. Oh and emailing the OW that her man was single and good luck. I would not fight for him at all.

On DD I should have made him move out. If I could do things over that is number 1. It has been really hard to process and deal with and he is here . I should have demanded time alone. I also knew I wanted to R immediately because I was not ready to throw 30 years down the drain. Was not gonna give her my life. If he left that would be different. However his LTA was 10 years so obviously he did not want to leave me for her. He just wanted his cake also. I had hysterical sex in the beginning and I was very very mean. I said everything I was feeling without a filter. I could care less if I hurt him. Did not give a damn. I needed to be alone and have all these feelings with a therapist.

..the cassette tape of their conversation was destroyed by her shortly after I confronted her with what I heard at the start. I never did get to hear most of their dirty little talk.

Always wonder what was on it... maybe it's better that I NOT KNOW!?

I was flying to Florida to bring my parents' car back after my mom took ill and had to return home. I had bugged my phone before I left.

The biggest regret now is not realizing way back then that I should have sued OM's law firm for mal-practice since he used his law firm to make their meetings possible, while he did the real estate transaction for our cottage purchase.

He actually had her miss signing one of the documents so that he could get her to come back alone to sign, and then, of course, to make a trip down to the underground parking for his jollies..

...and yes, I should have filed for D way back in 1987. I chose to keep my family together. We had two small boys.

And part of me wishes I had blown his brains out all over his law office that day I confronted him.

I had to wait 18+ years more to get the truth from WW ...AND to discover that he died from a brain tumor April 18, 2006.

Wouldn't change that part!!

smy

[This message edited by somanyyears at 10:39 AM, June 3rd (Wednesday)]

Well if the question or premise is, knowing what you know about what happened ater dday and what the WS showed they were capable of in gas-lighting, manipulations, and false R, what would I have done differently on the first dday? That is simple.

D, and never, ever look back.

If only we had had the benefit of such insight.

In my 5th year of reconciliation.

I try to focus on what I did right initially:

1. Kicked her out

2. Stop paying all her bills

3. Right into IC

4. Told my boss - just in case I needed lots of time off

5. Told my family. The support I got kept me alive.

The things I wish I did differently:

She worked with the guy, he was married. I wanted to tell his wife, it took me a few weeks to find her info. My IC and MC strongly advised against it. I now know that's the worst advice ever. Actually, at our last MC session, the MC continued to advise my W and me that it was ok for her to work with him. I said, "great, let me ask his wife if that's ok", to which my W stormed out of MC threatening divorce, leaving me stuck with the bill.

Also regretted NOT telling her boss. Again, advised by MC and IC. Their reason: this would destroy my wife's reputation locally. Everyone would know my bible thumping, God fearing wife was a hypocrite.

Dumped both IC and MC, now seeing a new IC that gave me my balls back.

Mechanic, did you ever tell the wife? It's never too late.

Actually, at our last MC session, the MC continued to advise my W and me that it was ok for her to work with him.

The exact same thing happened to me. It is, without a doubt, *the* major reason I never had a chance at reconciliation.

In retrospect, I can see that my MC was shooting from the hip completely on that. Many really don't get how it all works.

For anyone reading, I'm very glad about my divorce...but it's still a warning that the wrong MC (or premature MC) can be very hurtful to the reconciliation process.