SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I have several things for you, and they are not so padded 2x4's so get ready.

Read your whole first paragraph, I hear a whole lot of blameshifting your whole affair onto past marriage issues. You need to get real clear on the fact that the marriage getting stale was not the reason you cheated. You cheated because you have issues, YOU. Not the marriage, not your wife. YOU.

Second, YOU have never left the affair. Your wife's best bet would be to detach from you, get on here to SI so we could tell her how to do that, and you get busy on fixing your shit. You are so busy in la la land brooding over your AP that your wife never enters your mind. I feel sorry for her.

You are a cheater and a liar, You really expected something more moral from your cheating and lying AP? Really? What land are you living in? Oh that is right, your still in affair land. Pull your head out dude while your wife is still with you and giving you a chance. It may not last forever, ask the people here. They eventually get sick of that crap.

Good luck, and oh yeah, welcome to SI and the wayward forum, I was once like you too.

Welcome to SI JustDesserts.

Have you checked out the Healing Library yet?

Also try these links:

Things Every WS Should know

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=324250

How Much Does My BS Hurt?

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=327446

Maia's Withdrawl Survival Guide

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=137622

I'm almost afraid to read any additional responses...

You know that fear? That's because the light is being shined into the dark recesses of your soul. You want to instinctively flinch back. You don't want the ugly to be made known.

Learn not to shy away from it. If something is said that scares the heart and soul out of you, hurts you, or makes you angry, it's most likely because there is truth in it. Explore that. Accept it. Embrace it.

I'm a Wayward Spouse, and also a Betrayed Cheater.

Look I get it. You're in loooove with the AP. She blew rainbows up your butt, you said cute things to her, you rubbed each other's ego. But let's be realistic. You had a spouse at home that was completely unaware of the fact her husband was cheating on her. She was a completely innocent party in this whole thing.

You deliberately stepped outside of the boundary of your marriage to play around. And you left your wife out of the loop. Your AP was not loyal to you??? Your affair partner? Dude, if you're at that point, all bets are off. Having an affair is not healthy. How do you expect the person you're having an affair with to be healthy? How do you expect loyalty from them when you're cheating to begin with?

I deserved the consideration of an apology. It speaks to character, and if the shoe was on the other foot, I wouldn't have been able to sleep at night until I was able to tell the person I had betrayed...

Did you sleep well knowing you were betraying you wife every single day with this woman?

You're more worried about your ego that was trampled by a serial cheater than what you've done to your wife? I think you need to take a step back and really realize what you've done to your wife. Your wife is 1000000000% innocent in all this. You steamrolled right over her. And you're worried about an apology from a fellow cheater?

I'm not angry and resentful that my affair is over, and that I learned some ugly truths about my AP. I'm angry and resentful that I don't rate an apology.

Look into the mirror JD. be angry and resentful at yourself for doing this to your wife. The innocent in all this. Be angry and resentful for what you did to the other BS in this situation. Not only has he been cheated on, but he finds his wife is a serial cheater. My bet is, he ain't sleeping well at night.

Stick around. Read. Absorb. The road to R is long and bumpy. The fast track is 2-4 years. Most often it turns into 5-7 years. Are you ready to face this JD? I thought I was on the fast track. Year 1 was a nightmare, yet still manageable. Year 2? Yeah, it's not fun and games anymore. We've had a lot of crap pile up. I'm stuck with some things. My husband is stuck. Issues have come up that have seemingly stalled us out. What do we do? Quit? Keep plugging on?

What about you JD? If your wife suddenly isn't so easy going and understanding, what are you going to do? When she finds that anger, what are you doing to do?

Good luck.

So....the AP was cheating on YOU when she had an affair with someone else, not on her HUSBAND.

Say that aloud a few times, let it sink in, and ask yourself if that makes any sense. From a BS' perspective, I'd be absolutely furious at an AP who took this position, whether I was your wife or her husband. It shows a shocking disconnect from reality in two ways - first, from the standpoint of you finding her to be otherwise virtuous (her affair with you alone makes her a cheater - she's not yours, bro), and second from the standpoint of you completely removing her BH from the picture and putting yourself in his shoes...where you clearly do not belong.

On top of everything else, you seem to be dehumanizing the real victim of her behavior - the BH.

[This message edited by Sal1995 at 1:42 PM, June 26th (Wednesday)]

MH here.

The thing that's sticking out to me is that you decided to break NC and then informed your BW.

You are very lucky that your W is willing to try R. But you are inflicting EVEN MORE unnecessary pain onto her. Your job is to protect her, not continue to hurt her.

I'm sorry to say, but I'm a little skeptical that you broke NC b/c you want an apology. Any chance that you were looking to restart w/OW?

[This message edited by Vulcanized at 2:02 PM, June 26th (Wednesday)]

Any chance that you were looking to restart w/OW?

That is exactly what he is looking for, even if it is only an apology, he needs her to tell him that he was really the one that she truly cared about. He was the special one. Because you see he still can't do that for himself. He still needs an outside source. He is still looking to the AP to make it all better for him.

BS here. Mostly, I keep away from posting on wayward threads because it will come across as very rude.

Reading your title, I thought it was your wife who cheated on you. Kind of a revenge affair. But then I read your post and it is pretty messed up. Unbelievable! At this point, I felt like smacking you with 2x4's. The experienced waywards have and will take care of that.

You are still in the fog. BIG time. Please for the sake of BW, read the responses on this thread again and again till you get it. Stay here on SI, read, post, absorb the wisdom here. The least you can do now is to not bother about you AP and work on your own issues even before thinking of working on your M.

Please do not make it tough for your wife than it already is.

Is your wife on SI? It seems to me that she also is in the BS fog and she needs to heal herself first before saying 'reconcile'.

You cannot reconcile until both of you realise the magnitude of your betrayal and resolve it.

Best of luck to both of you in your journey.

2) as a Betrayed Cheater who felt deep hurt, anger, and resentment toward my also married AP for cheating on me...and I'm struggling with letting go.

Im a BH, what you typed above is a BIG reason that I am divorcing my STBXWW. My WW gave me the song and dance about how much she hurt me and she was sorry. She proceeded a week or 2 later to come in the house and breakdown. I asked her what was wrong and she didn't want to tell me. I prodded some more and she finally told me she was upset because she found out that her married AP was sleeping with other people in the office. She actually sat in front of me and cried about her affair partner cheating on her. That was the beginning of the end. she never worked through her own issues and I eventually got tired of waiting worked on myself and filed. I was in my own BS FOG for awhile and by the time I got out it was obvious that my WW had not truly let go of the A in her mind. She couldn't move past it even though it was over. She didn't have the tools to do so.

You speak of this new journey you and your wife are on. This journey and new M you think you are on is headed directly for a brick wall. Your logic does not compute. A cheater is by definition a cheater. Why would you expect your AP to have any loyalty to you. You are killing any chance at R that you might have before it even starts. Your AP and your feelings of betrayal are NOT what you should be focusing on. You need to get that out of your head asap or you WILL lose your Wife. All of your pain and working through it should be for what you did to your wife and family. Directing it at your AP is blameshifting and you not tackling the true issue which is your decisions and reasoning behind what you did. It's not always the A itself that causes a BH to walk out the door but what you do after Dday most certainly will push your BW one way or the other. Expressing pain over your AP "cheating on you" is one of those things that once a BS processes goes in the GTFO of this M and file for D column very fast.

ETA: there are some great people in this forum that can help and guide you. Listen to them. Also my intent wasn't to attack you. You are doing exactly what my WW did and I just wanted to convey that it's the wrong path to take.

[This message edited by 7yrsflushed at 2:59 PM, June 26th (Wednesday)]

Hey...no piling on! Wait, um...it's seeming like that's exactly what the doctor ordered.

I feel a great deal of gratitude for the words, however unpleasant to read, that I'm receiving.

I'm thinking this day is going to be one I look back upon as a very important step toward moving forward with my hopes of becoming a better person, and a better husband.

I welcome additional thoughts, insights, and comments. Forget those 2x4's...break out those 2x8's! And a hug or two every 10 excorciating posts or so might be nice, also.

Small technical help. Where the heck is the button that allows me to snip and quote from other's posts like you guys are doing? Or what is the technique? Tx

Reminder to the BS's....

This is not the forum to swing 2x4's.

JustD...please don't encourage it either.

My focus in this post is the lingering resentment and anger that 15 months later I still feel, and which flares up. I was cheated on. And it hurts. I've shared this hurt in an ongoing way with my wife

I'm not saying this to be mean, I'm just telling you honestly. If my husband told me something similar to this, I would leave him. And I've put up with a lot from him. I would LEAVE him over a statement like that.

I have a single friend who, in her mid-20s, had affairs with two married men. I remember distinctly a conversation we had about seven years ago. She had received a text from her married boyfriend that was obviously meant for someone else, another woman with whom he was also cheating. She was so shocked and felt so betrayed. She said, "I know I'm the other woman, but I didn't want there to be ANOTHER other woman."

From the outside looking in, it's easy to see how ridiculous that statement is. He was already betraying the person he had chosen to love, honor and respect, forsaking all others. Why would he forsake all OTHER others for his side piece? On what planet could she expect honesty or loyalty from someone who had already betrayed the one person he was supposed to be the MOST loyal to? But to her, it was a betrayal, because she was delusional. He lied to her and she lied to herself.

You sound like a smart guy. See your affair for what it was - lies and delusions. I'm not even touching on the disrepect and lack of empathy toward your wife at this point, because you have to get your own head straight before you can even see that.

@Deeply Scared: I am not feeling like any gratuitous clubbing is going on. There might be an extenuating nuance here and there that someone replying can't possibly know from my rather lengthy post...which might mean I'm only a little a-hole where they are saying I'm a huge a-hole. But all in all, I am sincere when I say that I really do appreciate what I am hearing. My face was pressed pretty tight to the glass, and getting dragged back, stood up, and told to look around at reality...no matter how painful...is a good thing. That is a very important step for me.

[This message edited by JustDesserts at 3:00 PM, June 26th (Wednesday)]

I was cheated on

By a cheater. Otherwise known as Tuesday. I'm shocked, I tell you.

So you were rejected and it blows. Now what?

Whether you were a cheater or not learning to live with and deal with rejection is one of the most critical things an adult can accomplish.

It's a fact of life and that skill set is priceless.

Your wife needs to run.

You didn't choose your wife. You landed on her.

Start internally and get a mop. It's messy. We get that.

JustD...

It's great that you appreciate all the feedback and are taking it in stride.

The WS forum is not the place for BS's to swing 2x4's, its a forum rule so we do enforce it.

Start internally and get a mop. It's messy. We get that.

Yep, nodding head.

I hope my wife won't run. We'll be reading this together tonight. I realize many of you will take that to mean I'll be divorced tomorrow.

I'm just typing words on a page on an anonymous internet site here, but one reality I am confident in putting out there is the day we met, more than twenty years ago, was the day we both knew "'Till death do us part".

I screwed up epically with my affair. I've been blind to the aftermath. And selfish in my hogging a big chunk of recovery time and energy on my bruised male ego "How could my AP not really love me". It really does beg the question of "Why?" - and I obviously have some work to do in identifying and coming to terms with that part of my self and spousal deception.

Well, that ends today, and I have you fine folks to thank. I am going to stick around. I am going to listen. And I am going to redirect my personal healing inward, where it should be, and eventually that can flow, pure and free, to the woman I love more than any other on this planet. My beautiful wife...

[This message edited by JustDesserts at 3:15 PM, June 26th (Wednesday)]

I understand Deeply. I'll let the mods do their mod thing. I must say I'm not really sure what constitutes BS 2x4 swinging. Thank you!

Wow, not much to add that hasn't already been said.

When I first read your post, all I saw was you missing your AP. You seem to be missing the 'high' that the A gave you. I too wonder if you wouldn't have taken it underground if the AP wasn't avoiding you. Smart move on her part. You have no right to be angry at her. You shouldn't waste any energy on her. None. Zero.

You need to wake up and realized that it was all a fantasy. She didn't love you; she just filled you feel good stuff for her own satisfaction. She wanted the attention you gave her. It was all for her 'fix'.

I am amazed at your BW for being so accommodating to you. She really is a special woman and you need to treat her like one. Before she walks.

but one reality I am confident in putting out there is the day we met, more than twenty years ago, was the day we both knew "'Till death do us part".

Don't be so sure of yourself. It's that kind of cocky attitude that often gets us in trouble. Just sayin'...

@sandaway. Thank you. One nit: I object to the suggestion of cocky attitude. I take nothing for granted, but when it comes to what the girl I married brings to the table in terms of her care, friendship, and love for me...and what we've been through (way before the affair), I am confident (not cocky) that our steel is tempered and honed to a considerable strength.

Kind of makes me all the more of an a-hole, though, for doing what I did. We need a new abbreviation in the dictionary: DD (Delusional Douche).

Double post

[This message edited by SandAway at 3:32 PM, June 26th (Wednesday)]