SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Happy Memorial Day,

WWTL, does you wife still visit SI? I am curious if she still reads your posts.

What I find admirable is after the all of the carnage she created, one can still read through the lines and see that deep down you still care and have feelings for her. Like you, I have a knee jerk reaction to always defend my spouse, that comes from decades of love and devotion.

Not sure what I’m getting at here but it is quite obvious that.:

1. she still loves you and would give anything to have you back

2. You still love her but can never get over the betrayal ( totally understandable)

3. The current situation sucks but there is no obvious solution.

Not sure how you both met or were introduced but have you ever thought of starting out as friends again and see what happens?

JMan, my assumption is she probably does on a limited basis. We actually don’t talk about things like this as it lead to discussions about us, which at this point I care not to do. I really don’t mind as it is a way for her to get where I’m coming from, without rehashing everything.

We are if not friends, good co parents. In fact a few weeks ago Mother’s Day coincided with a major birthday for my daughter. My daughter asked, and I agreed to drive my EX into the city to see her so that she wouldn’t have to take mass transit. We all had cake outside in a park and had a nice time.

But starting out again? No. Too much damage was done.

It is always interesting to hear the “it meant nothing/they meant nothing to me” line.

So what does that say about the marriage? Must not have had too much value either. If it was destroyed for “nothing”.

Oh, wow, waited. Thanks for the kind words. I have similar thoughts about you - you worked on yourself, figured out what you wanted, and then actually did what you wanted to do in an honorable manner. That's what we all owe ourselves, IMO.

You do not have to D to get control and fix or work on yourself. The key is to know you will survive with or without your WW.

WWTL,

I, like you, tried to R after my STBXWH's year long affair with a local married woman. I lasted 2.5 years and am so thankful I decided not to eat that sandwich. STBXWH still doesn't get it and would love to be back together but that will never happen.

Bottom line, I'm a person of integrity. It's always been an important thing to me and I've taught my sons to always try to do the right thing, to be able to look at yourself in the mirror and be proud of yourself. I could never do what SYBXWH did and don't want to be with someone who could intentionally hurt me - especially since his A was during the time I was with my dying Father. Yes, I have 1/2 of the retirement funds I would've had but it's worth it. I also have my self respect. I didn't realize how much my STBXWH put me down until after we separated. I didn't realize I was an attractive woman until I met new friends through the local music scene.

It's been 2 years this month since I asked him to move out. I'm so much happier now.

Waited,

I just Realize that I remember all of your text when you finally made the decision that you were going to divorce.

Overalll, How are you doing? Are you dating/seeing someone?

How is the ex doing?

How are the kids?

Hope all is well in the healing

I wouldn't call it eating a shit sandwich.

Have I accepted what happened? Yes, took me a good while, but I did.

Have I forgiven what happened? No

Have I forgotten? No, I don't think I ever will.

I am working on forgiveness, he is working on helping me with that.

I kinda feel like it would be shit sandwich worthy if I wasn't able to and we ended up D, which neither of us want. I don't feel I could call working on R a shit sandwich. It has a negative vibe. Just trying to maintain some kind of optimism, but If I couldn't then it would be a shit sandwich.

Others may not see it that way.

I am a realist above all and I know infidelity is one of the hardest to come back from.

Shit sandwich?

Naw, I'm a vegan.

I don’t see it as a shit sandwich. Like Sissoon said, it’s another way of staying in the drama triangle and I am done with that.

The only person ingesting waste products is the wayward imho. They’re the one doing gross things with a gross person. I admit I feel tainted by association sometimes, but I breathe a sigh of relief that I wasn’t the one degrading myself in a variety of cheap locations. That shit sandwich? That’s the A itself.

littleAvocet- You said it perfectly.

It is always interesting to hear the “it meant nothing/they meant nothing to me” line.

So what does that say about the marriage? Must not have had too much value either. If it was destroyed for “nothing”.

Funny, this is what I told her. Yet as time went by I realized that the marriage had value to her. In fact a tremendous amount. I just think she never thought she would be caught, it would be over soon, and if it ever was found out I would see it to forgive her. Of course all of this thinking was going on if the mind of a women in the throws of a mid life crisis and not thinking straight. In fact we checked to see if she had some kind of manic episode.

It also didn't help she was pushed by a predator who knew every move to make and had made it countless times before. It did kill her that she like you said, lost everything for nothing.

I do respect those here who don't think they had to swallow anything to R. Not sure I understand it, but I think its probably why you are still married and I just couldn't make the jump.

[This message edited by waitedwaytoolong at 12:18 PM, May 26th (Tuesday)]

Just because I was delt a shit sandwich, doesn't mean I have to eat it, and I chose to stay and R.

To me it means I had to look at, smell it and deal with it. Eating it? NO. Not something I chose to do. This is something my FWH had to eat.

The shit sandwich contains the AP and I wanted nothing to do with her. It was my H's responsibility to "unshit himself" from that situation and be done with it which he did. He and his AP made the sandwich so he had to eat it. Crust and all.

I think we already ate the sandwich without even knowing. Digestion or vomiting are what we have to process next. Mine is still fermentating

The BS is force fed a shit sandwich.

If the WS wants R, they ought to be willing to eat one too.

this/fine as Beyond Rage mentioned in the previous page, there is never justice for this. Even a RA doesn't come close.

There are if not a shit sandwich, but maybe a liver or flan (you can tell I don't like these foods) sandwich that they could be served. Things like making them quit their job, exposing them to family and friends, or kicking them out of the house.

I made a mistake by not having her go through anything other than having a pissed off husband resulting in a crappy marriage. The closest I came was when I asked her if she screwed her trainer and she quit him the same day.

But none of these things are even in the same universe as an affair.

As someone that divorced within a month of finding out about a 2.5 year affair.

Did I eat a shit sandwhich ? Yes, but in all fairness I didn’t know I was eating one. I was manipulated and tricked into eating one.

What happened after I found out? All hell broke loose. I became Godzilla. I Said, “ I want my money back, you suck and never again”. If I could have reported it to the Dept of Health, I would have.

Would I ever eat another ? I hope not. Fool me once, your bad. Fool me twice, my bad.

What do I eat now? My boyfriend is very sweet and feeds me only healthy meals.

If you want to heal from it, you have to acknowledge and accept it whether you R or D.

I do think that staying requires that the BP actually eat it. Nothing that the CP does, no matter how remorseful, will ever make up for their betrayal. If the BP chooses to stay and attempt R, they have to swallow that shit to some extent.

WWTL

Things like making them quit their job, exposing them to family and friends, or kicking them out of the house.

These things, i.e. consequences, need to be analyzed for what effect they could have before doing them.

If you're going to divorce, quitting the job will almost surely result in a worse financial situation for BS, if you're going to R, exposing to family and friends will result in probably nothing positive and have long term adverse effects, and kicking them out of the house in most cases cannot be enforced by law.

Now if you're in a situation, as many are, where a WS refuses to go no contact immediately or stop seeing the other person, then all of the above are options. My only point is you have to pick the right time and method to do any of the above, which is usually not almost immediately on DDay.

I think in your situation, and please correct me if I am wrong, you at one point did NOT believe that had you not caught her that the contractor OM would not have kept stopping by even after the job was finished. That would have been a good and valid reason to go more nuclear on the issues you stated.

As you know, I in some way did two of the three above. While her infidelity did not involve work, it did involve a lifelong passion which she voluntarily gave up, and while I did tell her to get out in a not too subtle manner, she knew she did not have to and voluntarily doing it was the first in a string of smart decisions she made.

Her parents found out, which I did not instigate, and thank heavens they have remained absolutely silent. Had my side of the family found out, my guess is the entire situation and my marriage would have wound up entirely differently.

Beyond Rage, the list I gave we’re just some examples of some of the things a WS can do try to show their BS that they have lost something too. I think that was a huge issue for me. Her life, at least outwardly just went on. I know emphatically she was haunted by what she did, but to the outside world nothing was amiss. If anything, people wondered wtf was going on with me as I was going on golf trips, ignoring anniversaries, etc. I was the asshole. I would have friends pull me aside and say your wife is a saint, you better treat her better or she is going to walk. Little did they know what my saint did in our bed with him

As far as whether or not it would have continued, it hard to prove a hypothetical. She swears that at the end he so belittled her and me that the ego kibbles she got were now in the negative column, and she had a hard stop when the job was done which would have been days My theory was he had some sort of power over her and she would have let him do a drive by a couple of times a month. Who really knows.

Your WS took action to voluntarily give up her passion and tell her parents. Don’t you think her doing this eased some of your pain in that she made sacrifices too? She was willing to eat some of the sandwich. Not that mine wouldn’t have if I asked, but frankly I never did.

With the whole sandwich thing, the BS in order to reconcile has to just accept they got screwed. The WS can go on about how they suffer too from what they did, and I’m sure they are appalled at their actions, but I think deep down most think they deserve a second chance. My EX to this day is convinced that if I took her back our marriage could be better than it was. She is delusional

Now I’m not saying that some marriages can’t be better. The ones that were shitty before had room to be better. In that case eating the sandwich might be beneficial. Who knows. Everyone’s story is different and I try to respect that each has to follow their own path

I’m glad your has worked out