SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Being a sad sack of shit who feels so out of control over his life that he posts fake shit on the internet to fuck with people would be a step up from where I am right now.

wocket,

Your introspection is good because it triggers emotions and those feelings have to be processed. You have to feel them. No shortcuts. Stuffing them down hinders healing. You've suffered a serious loss. Guilt is part of that bargaining stage of grieving a loss. Bargaining..."If only I had..." then maybe the loss wouldn't have happened. Bargaining..."If only I had taken a stronger stand on her leaving the bar...". So the guilt is normal. Introspection and time will put it in its proper place. You want the pain of the loss to go away. You want to have not suffered the loss. You wish you had control and then the loss wouldn't have happened. Think about that reasoning: your partner needed you to ensure her fidelity.

I’m going to sign off for a few days. Thanks for the support everyone, especially those who have pm’d me. If anything it helps me not feel crazy for thinking and acting the way I am.

Also, I just bought tickets to see one of my favorite musicians in July. If you liked college radio in the early to mid 90’s you’re gonna be jealous. Feels fucking amazing to have something to look forward to right now.

I’m also very competitive person. I hate losing. I feel like I’ve lost the most important/biggest competition or contest in my life.

I'm also really competitive and I had many failures. I was talking to my kids about that the other day. They thought everything worked fine for me in life. But I failed many, many times.

Life is about perseverance. You'll get there.

"I’ve lost the most important/biggest competition or contest in my life."

In the future, and looking back, you'll be glad you LOST that competition.

Wocket - don't know if you'll see this before you head out for a breather, but something to consider...

All things work out for the better.

Always.

I've never seen it fail when someone just breathes with changes like this and welcomes whatever new growth opportunities come.

She may have had some unique traits that you valued highly, and consider quite rare, but I'm very optimistic that you'll find another very unique person with an added trait of faithfulness.

Being a sad sack of shit who feels so out of control over his life that he posts fake shit on the internet to fuck with people would be a step up from where I am right now.

Ok, lightning may strike me dead today as punishment, but as the absolute very first thing I read today on the forum, this made me laugh.

Wocket, you are still fully capable of bringing joy to people. You’re doing fine. Don’t let anyone manipulate you to a place you don’t want to be. Here or in real life.

Sending strength!

Take care of yourself wocket. You'll get through this.

dude - I hope some stupid comments from a poster or two on here does not sour you on the overwhelming majority who care and are trying to support you. You are probably right and taking a few days away will help you with your detachment from her...which is the most important thing you can be doing right now for your own mental and physical health.

I’m also very competitive person. I hate losing. I feel like I’ve lost the most important/biggest competition or contest in my life.

And as for this, you are the big winner here. The engagement period is to take a serious look at your SO and make sure you are all-in on spending the rest of your life with them. It's a time for both of you to show each other who you really are so you each can make a go/no-go decision on marriage. It turned out to be a very successful process for both of you so, really, you both win. She needs to consider counseling to help her figure out why she jumped into the sack with some random dude and sabotaged her impending marriage. Or she needs to accept that she needs other men in her life and if she picks a husband he needs to be ok with her having the occasional roll in the hay with another man. You have discovered that infidelity is truly a deal-breaker for you and opened your eyes when it comes to choosing a potential spouse. You need to have some very frank, open discussions on cheating with a prospective mate to uncover her true feelings about it. Like has she ever cheated in the past? Do you see that she craves the attention and need to be desired by other men? Even if you see her easily shut down the advances of other men, can you see in her eyes that she loves the whole process of being pursued and dashing their hopes? She's pushing right up against a dangerous boundary and it might not take much to push her over the edge.

Yes, this has been very successful for both of you.

Yes, you are the big winner but she got something positive out of all this as well.

Wocket, the truth set us both free. Unfortunately I have to go through a non-trivial legal process to attain what you attained through just your steadfastness to not accept a wayward mate.

Lacroix:

-You have a pm-

oftencheatedon

We’re reducing a real person into two dimensions through a filter of the single worst thing she has ever done in her life.

Her physical appearance is probably the least important of the things that I mentioned above. I don’t care about degree or school (prior serious gf of 5 years actually never finished undergrad), but I do care about someone being smart and driven. For me having smart and capable kids is very, very, important to me. I know there are no guarantees with that. But I’m vain and have a big ego, and having accomplished kids would stroke that.

She and I have a ton of fun together. We do really fun and interesting things. She has a curiosity for the world that I really enjoy.

And our personalities complement each other’s very well. Sometimes when I get into a funk I will isolate, withdraw, and just sit on my ass and do nothing. But she makes sure we go out and do fun stuff. Hiking, bungee jumping, skydiving, etc. Even simple stuff like a walk around the neighborhood. She makes sure I reach out and maintain contact with friends. This adds a ton of value to my life.

You could flip this around and say the same for her. She can be a workaholic, and I’m good about keeping her balanced. There’s a lot more, but I think you get the idea.

Though edit: removed some info.

[This message edited by wocket at 9:46 PM, June 8th (Friday)]

Damn man. She sounds like a keeper until the last bit

So sorry for you. What do you play? Fender, LP, Rick? What?

I could use an electric engineer on my board. Too bad my WW is a lawyer.

Competition? Thought exactly the same once. Now? The way I see it, the situation reads more like this:

You were driving a car when one of its wheels suddenly locked up. Consequently you crashed into an embankment, busting you up some and stranding you. In the rain.

However, although you liked and wanted that car, but were just test driving it when it crashed you.

See what I mean?

[This message edited by antlered at 7:16 PM, June 8th (Friday)]

Though I do want to mention one thing. I think she did have some doubt about going through with the marriage. I think this is part of the “why”. Essentially an exit affair. She claims now, after the fact, that she made a huge mistake and is now 100% sure she wants to spend the rest of her life with me.

She has an awful lot of growing up to do. If she had doubt, she could have talked it through with you. Betraying you for pointless, meaningless sex with some bozo is exactly that; pointless and meaningless. What was it going to solve? Nothing. As I say, she has a lot of growing up to do before she will be a trustworthy partner for anyone.

I do understand why she seemed unique, and why being with her was sometimes like surfing on the clouds at 100 miles an hour. Trouble is, she has no sense of the responsibility that goes with being over 14 years of age. It's fun to be uncontrolled, until it kicks you in the ass, right?

She needs to learn loyalty. When she does that, and she learns how to commit to another person like an adult, she may make a potential life partner.

My advice to you is to push her out, and let her learn the lesson that sleeping around is not acceptable. Go your own way, do your thing, see how things work out. If at some point in future you are both single, maybe you can think about dating and talking things over. For now, she needs to be working on herself.

wow, long thread. Listen to M1965 if you do anything else.

Fender Am STD Strat or Japanese Fender Jazzmaster through a Princeton reverb or a Vox AC15.

Mostly play thru a timmy overdrive, big muff pi, boss dd7, ditto x2 looper, and a digitech trio plus. We built a simple boost and a tremolo.

I have a couple of other dirt pedals and some stuff that makes sense if you’re in a band (eq pedal, compression).

The digitech trio is a really cool tool. It’s a band in a box pedal. Play a chord progression and it serves up a rhythm section.

I also have a Martin 000-28 and a D-18.

If you really love this woman there is no loss of self respect in giving her another chance. In fact it can be a strength if you hold her to the boundaries and conditions you establish. The loss of self respect comes with letting her set the rules and you being a doormat. This does not mean you have to marry her as you planned. Tell her there will be no marriage for 3 or 4 or 5 years or until you have regained the trust in her that she so callously ripped from you. Contrary to what most here believe, a person can change. During my life I've seen many whose life was changed for the better. During my military career I knew a sergeant who lived for combat. He use to say he was staying in the army as long as they made weapons and killed people. He fell in love with a very religious Christian woman and married her. It turned his entire world around. He doesn't even come close to the person he was . People can change. Don't throw something away, that you secretly want, that years down the road you will wonder, what if... I do wish you well.

Wocket, Something that’s important for you to understand as you romanticize the woman you were engaged to is that she had had all those great qualities but she was also this person capable of leaving a bar with you, her fiancé, and going off to be with another man. This isn’t some sort of sickness that just happened upon her that night, she has always had her FOO or whatever issues that made her capable of this. So when looking back at how amazing she was, she at the very same time, was a cheater it was just dormant. This was apart of her package. So I’d disagree with you and tell you that you could find a woman just like her, but that is not what you want. You want a woman with all the positive traits she had and specifically not the cheater trait she has.

In summary when you look back at your fiancé pre cheating day and think about how amazing she was, she was flawed the whole time. Find someone better than her, you don’t want the same.