SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This is where my feelings shifted.

I did learn that affairs are based on fantasy. Selfish needy people. Mostly feeling sorry for themselves.

In this time of fantasy, they are very happy. They are in lurve. They prefer the Ap. Right or wrong. The excitement is pretty high. When it’s lost. They mourn. They are devastated. Real or not

It’s hard not to feel rejected. They never have these feelings for me. They are in a relationship. Real or not. Your no longer the choice .

This is where they say they always loved you. They want R They don’t see the damage. How can you get past this? They are still delusional. That’s the word that fits. They haven’t been clear minded in some time. My mind is also skewed from trauma of it all.

Clearly there ideas are very real to them. And doable. Not for me. Our reality’s are polar opposites. I never accepted this preference over me. It was temporary. He’s dumped each time. It’s real love to him. It killed my love completely.

I focus on my needs. His are delusional and irrational. I’m tired of crazy

What I do want to add is that when dealing with a LTA, the thought of your WS holding on to feelings for the AP cuts like a knife. Their's wasn't a ONS. If an A lasts years, it's a relationship within the marriage. It makes the spouse a third wheel in many ways and when the WS is treating the BS with hostility as often seen during that LTA, it makes the BS feel shut out though they may not know why at the time.

My WH has years of memories with his MOW. Despite his claims I don't believe that just ends and everything goes back to normal, whatever that was. What adds to the feeling of helplessness is worrying that the AP is still looked at in a positive light in any way. My WH has never said one negative thing about his AP and I find myself wondering if maybe he would be happier with her. I have flat out told him many times to go if that's how he feels. I never get an answer. He just sits there so the ruminating continues for me.

Again, there wasn't a single WS I was referencing, it was the subject matter. Being that I'm not a mind reader I'll never know what my WH is thinking in regard to her. I do know that his silence is perceived as not only protecting himself but her as well thus continuing that shut out feeling.

I think of her every damn day still and that's bad enough.

Honestly, if I could feel pain and miss my XWH after all that he turned out to be and all that he put me through, then it isn't remotely surprising that a WS will miss his or her AP. Feelings are not rational. Feelings are not an indication of what we should or shouldn't do in the aftermath of DDay. I loved my XWH so much that it hurt, but the moment he came home high on drugs, I had the locks changed and kicked him out. Pre-DDay. I didn't know he was cheating or he'd have never gotten back in. I kicked him out despite the way it made my heart quail and scream in agony. That is sometimes what the WSs are doing when they dump the AP for a chance at R.

And you know what? If that reality is too much to deal with, it is a valid reason for a BS to divorce. It isn't fair to a BS, but I have no doubt those feelings are real.

I can see why I am coming off as the problem here.

In all reality, this woman takes every opportunity to demean my wife. When my wife has ever responded to her, she then gets a message in her inbox that is seething. It’s hard to convince me that she wasn’t referring to her. And if not, there has been enough of it that something should be said. Incidentally, my wife had no issue with it and wants no involvement.

The ws who are here to get help shouldn’t have to deal with the judgements of someone else’s BS. And as a BS I should not have people judging my wife’s capability of redemption, that is my decision to make. Neither should any other bs. You didn’t like my “judgment” on you. And for the record, i don’t judge you. it just is my belief that as BS you can decide to stop taking your spouses shit. No one should have to live like that, you deserve happiness. Sorry if there are people who don’t agree with that.

[This message edited by turnthepage at 9:46 AM, November 21st (Thursday)]

Ok TTP. Look, I'm not going to keep doing this back and forth.

I went back and looked. Literally the title is "please". Your cheater decided to engage me. It's no big secret my opinion of ALL cheaters. I simply asked her to please not engage me. I have absolutely no use for your cheater. It's bad enough I have 1 of my own. As I did with your cheater, I would be as polite as I could, and ask any cheater not to engage me.

Now I'm done. If you want to do this, you can do it on your own. Attack away big guy.

This is one of the main reason I gave no thought to taking back my cheater! No way was I going to go through the hell of her moping around because she missed the guy she f*&^%d me over with, In hope that maybe one day she will feel that way about me again! Sorry muffin, If you miss him that much go to him I wish you well, Because no way in hell do I want you back!!!!

Feelings are not rational. Feelings are not an indication of what we should or shouldn't do in the aftermath of DDay.

I completely agree feelings are not always rational. If they were, would we still be in love with our cheaters? Maybe not.

However for me, and for me only, if I found out that my WH still was pining away for an AP, it would absolutely affect what I do. No way would I be sitting around waiting to see if he picked me, if he could somehow get past it. I have no doubt that for the W in this cases, the feelings are very real. However, they should be honest with the BS about it. Let the BS decide what to do with it for themselves. Anything less is still cheating, IMO.

Last post on the matter. My wife says you have been dealt a shitty hand and to leave it be. I am not a monster who can’t see that. I wasn’t attacking, I was defending. There is no one else in wayward who posts with any regularity with that tag line so it’s not like this comes from nowhere.

I am sorry you are full of hate of all waywards but keep in mind that a lot of them have BS here trying to understand them. Hoping they will get help. Your comments about her are hard for me to read because you have no idea what I have watched happen. My wife had a fucking nervous breakdown. My rock. Your anger is misplaced. I don’t care who you hate, you don’t have to be a detriment by taking every opportunity to dress them all down.

Here's the thing, in my opinion, and as a BS who has endured 1.5 years of false R, and think the A and the whole thing that comes with it is a bunch of fucking bullshit to its core: the A, especially in the case of long term As or even A's that were anything more than a ONS - any A where there was an emotional connection, even if it was based on lies and nonsense, is still an emotional connection. Getting over an emotional connection can be difficult, even if its the worst pseudo-relationship ever.

I mean, if I have to face reality, getting over my WH is similar. My relationship with him was based on a bunch of bullshit and lies. I may have thought my relationship with him was real - based in reality - but as it turned out, it wasn't. That has been HARD for me to accept. The person I thought he was simply does not exist. Yeah, there were parts of him that were real - but for me, the fact is that my WH is not capable of having (or at bare minimum really good at blocking out the ability to have) real and lasting love. I KNOW that so much of my WH is simply a fantasy of MINE - the only difference between my relationship with him and his relationship with his AP is that I thought I knew who he was. I thought what we had was real, whereas both of them knew their relationship was some form of non-reality from the get go.

But that does not change the fact that they thought they had some sort of emotional connection. If I'm honest with myself then I have to admit that they DID have some sort of emotional connection. One of the things that really pissed me off about my WH was that he would not admit that he was thinking about her in that way. Every time in the aftermath of him getting caught he would say that he did not miss her or think about her at all. If that were the case that would NOT BE NORMAL and it seemed like a huge fucking lie to me. He was trying to convince me that although he was telling someone that he loved them for years, that *snap* just like that all those feelings were gone? It seemed like a colossal steaming pile of bullshit to me (and still does).

Can you get to the point, with some distance, where you are more disgusted with what you did and realize that all of those "feelings" you had were built on a foundation of garbage? Sure. But generally speaking, that shit does not happen overnight. There was something "good" about the A for them or they would not have done it - and while it may be the ego kibbles that they are missing and not the AP themselves, those kibbles were part of that connection to the AP and they likely miss that.

I actually see the WS who are willing to ADMIT that longing/desire/whatever as being a hell of a lot more honest then people like my WH who will not admit that for what it is.

My inner child Chaos says that WH doesn't have the right to pine for AP because that @#(& shouldn't exist.

My adult Chaos says that if WH is pathetic enough to pine for a @#(& that shouldn't exist - do it in fu*king private.

To me NC means thoughts too.

Not realistic? Too damn bad. Because you shouldn't have had a @#(& to begin with.

It's not the ones who are fresh from dday, or still haven't confessed, that are longing for their AP that I find so offensive.

It's the ones who claim to be in R, for years, yet still miss,care about, long for their AP that I find worse than the WS who was just caught.

Those WS are putting their BS through false R. They can claim to be remorseful, but no truly remorseful WS would be pining for their AP. And any BS who thinks they are in reconciliation with a WS who is missing their AP are fooling themselves. Of course, they generally have no idea because waywards lie.

[This message edited by HellFire at 12:29 PM, November 21st (Thursday)]

I mean, if I have to face reality, getting over my WH is similar. My relationship with him was based on a bunch of bullshit and lies. I may have thought my relationship with him was real - based in reality - but as it turned out, it wasn't. That has been HARD for me to accept. The person I thought he was simply does not exist. Yeah, there were parts of him that were real - but for me, the fact is that my WH is not capable of having (or at bare minimum really good at blocking out the ability to have) real and lasting love. I KNOW that so much of my WH is simply a fantasy of MINE - the only difference between my relationship with him and his relationship with his AP is that I thought I knew who he was. I thought what we had was real, whereas both of them knew their relationship was some form of non-reality from the get go.

Yup, I get it. I thought I knew him. Whatever red flag popped up I would put those rose colored glasses on and sugar coat it to make myself believe he wasn't anything but the person I believed him to be. Narcissists are very good at putting forth a false persona so I can't really beat myself up too much about that.

But I believed he loved me. I believed he had my back no matter what. I believed a lot of things, some I was gas lighted and mislead to believe. As you said ThisIsSoLonely, he and his MOW knew what the truth of their relationship was. They knew the true state of each other's marriages in a way. Yes they very likely lied or exaggerated as they whined about how unhappy they were, but that's what a WS does with the AP. It's a way of convincing themselves that they have some ill begotten "right" to cheat. What truth they knew was that the spouses were being cheated on. They knew the true whereabouts of each other as they lied about where they really were or what they were doing.

I know now I never really knew my WH until DDay. I look at him now and see a person who at times is a stranger to me. I never thought he would be capable of what he did. I will never see him as the stand up guy I used to think he was, though he still appears that way to many outside looking in. He puts on a good show as all narcs do. Even if he does something nice it's never viewed the same by me. How can it be when my guard is always up?

Chaos

As much as I would like to brain bleach the infidelity out of my head, I would love to have the power to erase it from his mind because good or bad thoughts, those thoughts shouldn't exist at all. There should never have been someone to have those thoughts about.