SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Trying to Explain the Fog

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In the "Fog" stage your spouse`s thinking is distorted so that they see everything through a lens of ME, ME, ME. Nonsense comes out of their mouths. They have crossed over the line so far their brain is literally being flooded with chemicals that addictively call out for "new person" sex. It has changed their perception of the past so that all your great times together have become molehills & the regular problems life and couples have, have become mountains instead of the molehills they should be.

He has one foot inside the door of your relationship with you tugging on one hand while the skank is tugging at his other with his other foot wobbling on the greener looking grass there. All he can see right now are the weeds at your place & miles of golf course lawn outside your marriage.

This "fog" has blurred his vision of reality so much that he really and truly believes he's a good guy who's sadly misunderstood, unappreciated, unloved and mistreated by his wife. He feels justified protecting his self-image by making YOU the bad guy. In that brain induced high, he feels the other woman is the one who is truly his friend with wonderful levels of concern for his happiness and well-being. In this state, he can and will disregard thousands of your loving gestures toward him while focusing ONLY on one kind word or deed from her. He is able to completely disregard the fact that he's lost all integrity, honesty, honor or respect for you and your marriage. You are the enemy captor in his world. She is his liberator. The fact that she is helping him lie, cheat and steal family time for her benefit hasn't hit him yet. The fact that you must love him greatly to still be standing by him, is something he simply can't comprehend under the influence of the fog.

The fog can hit once a person of either sex is already in the affair. The fog 'victim' is hooked on the affair. They can't see the faults of the affair partner, even though they should be obvious. If the faults are seen, they're whitewashed with what the fog victim (I don't really mean victim, victim, but I can't think of a better term) wants to believe. These feelings really are caused by chemicals in the brain - it's known as Stage 1 Romantic Love, and it's heightened by the fact that the affair is secret, that THIS is the one person who REALLY understands me! I found my soulmate! Everything about the affair partner seems great. Wanting to be around the affair partner becomes a force so strong that other things that shoulld matter cease to matter. Bad decisions get made. The person does things that he/she would never dream of doing. I don't think the fog occurs in all affairs, but it certainly did in mine. I found myself falling in love (or feeling like I was, if you insist I wasnt), and my brain had so many chemicals zooming around it's amazing that that the U.N. didn't sanction me for possessing WMD (weapons of marital destruction).

THAT's the fog. I'm not trying to downplay it, raise it up, or make light of it. But it doesn't happen BEFORE the affair, and As someone who's really experienced it and come out of it, the explanation above is completely useless unless your spouse can take off the blinders and see the other woman for who she really is and not what he wants to see her to be. The other woman is always less than the wife. The other woman is always someone who lies and sneaks around and keeps secrets. And I am a man who needed to have 3 affairs and lose 2 wives before I realized what the other woman offers is never as good as what I already had. I didn't want to hear it when I was in the middle of my affairs but I now see how very foggy it made my feelings for my ex-wife. I do still love her and I always did. The other woman sold me a dream. She could never compete with the true love my ex-wife gave me but she was a lot of fun and was so different from my ex- wife I believed it had to be the right thing to do. If I could go back and change anything it would be that I would have left the other woman to lie and cheat on someone else (because when they cheat with you, they cheat on you. Don't believe she won't do the same to you) while I helped heal the pain I caused my ex-wife and rebuild our marriage because no matter what I said while I was foggy, I did love my ex- wife so much more than I did my affair partner and I will always regret losing her. I told her I love you but I am not in love with you. I was wrong. My ex-wife is now remarried and I miss her so much. I told her I wasn't in love with her anymore because my affair partner was so addictive and she threatened to leave me if I didn't divorce my wife. So I did. All during the divorce I told myself I cared deeply for my wife but just wasn't in love with her anymore. I did love her. I always loved her. My affair partner manipulated and showed me a false side of herself and made me believe I must love her more or I wouldn't have had an affair. And that simply wasn't true but I let myself be convinced it was. If someone can lie and cheat to be with you, they will lie and cheat to you to keep you. Don't fall for it. If your wife is still standing for your marriage, go stand with her. The affair is a fantasy and I wish I listened to those who tried to save me from myself. I can't save my marriage now, it's too late. But maybe, if you're reading this, I can save yours.

Do you want to be with the person who walked away from their relationship to be with you and is showing how untrustworthy, flighty and inconsistent they are or do you want to be with someone who stands by you through thick and thin?

I really like this.

I understood the fog. That's why I started raging right away. I had no fear of losing my husband to the OW - go if you must - go be someone's third husband with kids by three different guys. Knock yourself out.

The fog is all about the spouse feeling good no matter who the ego feeder is.

Once the gravy train stops, the fog clears, takes a while but does clear, IMHO...

My best friends brother is the man who wrote that. He wrote it 4 years ago. He has been sharing more with me, not sure if this is healthy for me lol or him but in some ways it does help. My husband is not returning to giving up his OW. But one day maybe some man or woman will read this and see themself and that is all this man wants.

I have 2 more emails from him, I will post those as well. He does not want to join. He has been a memeber in the past and felt since he destroyed his own marriage he really sees these sights as triggers now.

I am the man who wrote what STBXW posted here. I read it again today as I came across it, I wrote it 4 years ago. I want to tell my story. I think cheaters as well as the spouses who stood by them need to hear it. After my last marriage failed, I read all I could about this stuff. There really IS a script we cheaters all follow and there really IS a fog we get trapped in. It’s not our spouses fault we are there, it’s our own. Please read the summary of my story. If I can save even just ONE marriage because someone saw themselves before it was too late or a spouse ready to give up, gives the foggy person one more chance.. I am a statistic… you don’t have to be.

My story….

In my first marriage I decided to get sober. My life was a mess, my wife was a saint. I met another woman who was getting sober for the first time too. We hit it off. Suddenly everything my wife did bothered me. I was complaining about it all. Socks on the floor.. soap on the shower door.. . it was all my wife’s fault the place was a mess and I was a man, it was not MY job to clean. It was hers. Never mind she had 2 children under 4. Nevermind she worked full time. She was also supposed to cook, clean, take care of me AND the children and her job. I lifted no finger to help her only to point at all her flaws and why the other woman was perfect. The other woman was perfect because she was a stay at home mom. She had no job to go to and her children were teens so she had no children to care for. Her home was immaculate. Why couldn’t MY wife be this perfect I wondered. The other woman even did my laundry because my lazy wife couldn’t be bothered. What lies I told myself. My wife was a full time mother, full time occupational therapist, and she did the best she could to maintain a clean home. We were messy not dirty like I said to everyone who would listen. She was never home because she was working. She never had time for me because she cared for children and then when she was available I was gone to the other woman’s home and felt like I was a king. She focused 100 percent attention on ME and only ME and I loved it. I never even told my wife I was leaving her. I just packed ONE single bag and said I need to think. I moved to an apt and the other woman left her husband to “find herself”… of course we moved in together and began “playing house” and that was all we did, PLAY. It wasn’t real even though it felt so at the time. Her husband threatened divorce so we changed our phone numbers. If no one could reach us, no one could tell us we were doing a bad thing. When my wife realized I wasn’t coming back anytime soon, she began an affair of her own. I thought, wow she really didn’t love me if she could replace me like that. What I didn’t see and refused to see is that was exactly what I had done. I just walked away and never went back. I cursed out my wife. I called her a whore. I said cheaters are pigs and can never be trusted. I did not see what I was doing was cheating. I was having fun and doing what I wanted and I deserved it since now my wife was cheating on me. Oh boo hoo. I asked for it and I got it but now it was all my wife’s fault. By the end of the year my wife still didn’t know where I lived or have a way to call me. I was so clever. She can’t do anything if she can’t find me right? Well, wrong. She filed for divorce and moved 350 miles away with MY children, how dare she. Long story short, at the urging of the other woman I did all I could to take custody of those children so we could have an instant family of our own. Never once did it occur to me I was wrong. People told me to knock it off. I cut them off. How dare my wife do this. And with the other woman’s urging, I sued my wife. She won. She has total custody. I do not have any rights. I gave them all up for the new love of my life. The new love of my life however never told her husband she wasn’t coming back. Behind my back she was seeing him. She was working on saving her marriage and I was all cocky that I had killed mine for the love of this amazing woman. Well, one day I came home to a note, she went back to her husband. She told me if I ever contacted her she would have me arrested. What? Wait. She loves me. No. She used me to escape reality for a bit. So I moved on.. my wife was missing.. but I was single now and free. YAY.. no, wrong…

The amazing woman was not so amazing after all. She lost nothing. I lost everything. And I believed her when she was manipulating me. I believed she was better than what I had. She is still married and calls me the biggest mistake of her life. Wow right? I will never again cheat on a good woman. I will never again allow myself to be blindly manipulated.

Wife number 2…

Before I tell you about wife 2, I want to say I never saw my own actions in my first wife leaving. I was still seeing it as she had the affair not me and she left me and moved away. Denial is a powerful thing. It won’t let you see what you don’t want to see and is so harmful more to yourself than others.. I will send part 2 in a little while…

[This message edited by STBXW at 12:40 PM, November 20th (Wednesday)]

MORE FROM MY BFF'S WAYWARD BROTHER:

Now for wife 2… I cheated on her and this time it was different. We had problems. Instead of talking to her I warned her. I said things like if YOU don’t shape up I will find someone else. I was so self entitled I didn’t see this as a partnership or that I was any part of the problem. When she would get angry I would tell her that was behavior that would make me leave. It was my way of keeping the bad stuff from coming up. She didn’t know I cheated in the first marriage, she thought my first wife cheated and left me, she did not know the whole story. I didn’t even admit to myself the true story yet I was so selfish still. I saw only what SHE did not what I did.

Over time I went back to AA and I met another woman. We became friends. AA is a good place but yet a bad place for the reason of secrecy. No one wanted to get involved and no one wanted to tell me what I could do. I was in danger but still in denial. I met her small children at the meetings and eventually we talked about our spouses. And eventually we complained about our spouses and eventually we began talking about how we should leave our spouses. Through all of this I kept telling myself my wife deserved this, she was unreasonable and the other woman convinced me she was also toxic. I liked the word toxic. It took all responsibility off me. SHE was toxic NOT me. Wow. I loved this woman who didn’t let me blame myself for the things I did to destroy my marriage, it wasn’t MY fault, it was my toxic wife’s fault.

Soon nothing my wife did was good enough. I was comparing her to the other woman, my “just a friend from AA”.. no one ever SAW us kiss and grope after the meetings so I could continue to deny there was anything more to our friendship. I even believed I wasn’t doing anything wrong. The other woman was all I could think about. I didn’t care if my wife caught me. I wanted to get caught and end the game. This went on for several months and then my wife DID find out, I felt bad that I hurt her but she didn’t want a divorce she wanted to save the marriage. I did not expect this. I thought she would just leave. Isn’t that what people do? Was I just using the other woman to get rid of my wife? This is what my friends (who BTW were also cheating on their spouses) told me. I surrounded myself with people who weren’t crazy about my wife and who thought I should leave her and I shut out everyone who thought we had something real and good and lasting and I was doing a horrible thing. How dare anyone tell me, a grown man, how I should live my life or treat my wife! I didn’t even notice I was doing this.

I moved out of our home. I moved in with my brother who was also separated. My brother hated my new girlfriend and thought I was an idiot for doing this to my wife, so I stopped speaking to my brother and told everyone he had no credibility and was an asshole. I did this to protect my new love. I refused to be wrong about her. She was everythning my wife wasn’t. I didn’t care that she had cheated on her husband many times before. I didn’t care that her drug and alcohol problem was so bad she was in and out of rehab the whole time. I didn’t even care that while I KNEW she was in rehab and had not been sober that she stood at those meetings and counted off her days sober (144 days sober - meanwhile I knew that a few days earlier she was on darvocets, it was a pill not a drug right? DENIAL DENIAL DENIAL… tis an ugly beast). For the next 6 months I told the other woman we would be together and I would let nothing stand in the way. Her husband divorced her. Her husband moved away. Her husband remarried. She had no job, no education, no way to take care of herself. I was her hero. I didn’t take into account I was also the reason she was in this predicament, yet… I was not really her hero. I was a broken man, with substance abuse problems, communication issues, an adulterer not in one marriage but two and in total denial that any of this was MY doing. And this wonderful woman was there for me. My bitter angry wife who kept putting down my girlfriend was a fucking bitch who deserved it all. She was causing my girlfriend and I to fight. Why couldn’t she just divorce me or have her own affair and leave me alone? I did not want her. I felt sorry for her. I pitied her sad life and because she was toxic I also told myself no way some other man would want her since I didn’t and I carried on as if she didn’t matter. At this point she didn’t. All that mattered was my girlfriend and how to get rid of my wife. But at the same time my wife was safety for me. What if the same thing happened? Who would take me? My wife. So I played headgames on her, I think these sites call it gaslighting.. I made her think that if she just gave me some time that I would come home. The more she complained she hated this life the more I told myself that was why I had to do this to her, she hated her life with me. She hated her life as a betrayed wife. She did not hate her life being my wife. But the fog had me completely unable to see it this way.

More to come…

Who wife 2 was… She was not toxic. She was a beautiful woman, a generous and forgiving human being with a heart of gold and the soul of an angel. She picked me up and saved me from myself. She took care of me in everyway. When she began to feel there were problems, I shut her out. When she tried harder I just turned the TV up louder so I couldn’t hear her. I was not the problem, she was. I did not want to communicate, she did, this was HER issue not MINE. Instead of telling her how I felt I told the other woman. Instead of using the problem to grow closer to my wife, I used the problem to pull away from my wife and straight into the arms of a desperate, insecure, completely messed up woman who to me was all the things my wife wasn’t. Today I can say yes, my wife wasn’t batcrap crazy, my wife wasn’t a cheater or a liar. But at the time I put all the other woman’s bad qualities on my wife. I convinced myself at the other woman’s urging that my wife was cheating on my anyway, there was NO way someone would STILL be faithful in a marriage where I was doing whatever I wanted. I believed everything the other woman told me. I even lost friends. My wife had class. The other woman farted and burped in public and was proud of it. My wife was quiet and gentle. The other woman was loud and demanding and kind of scary actually. I loved her. I loved her for all the things I hoped she was and refused to see all the things she really was. I cared about my wife and felt sorry for her but I didn’t love her anymore, I dind’t love her like I loved my other woman. She was my drug, she made me feel good. What I ddin’t know and it took 2 years in counseling to find out was, I replaced my addictions to drugs and alcohol with the drama and chaos of the affair. Everything about the other woman kept me on edge and everyone in my life up in arms, much like the life I had as an addict only now I could say but I am sober… substance wise I was sober, but I was still an addict, looking for the addict thrill and adrenaline rush. I didn’t see this. I couldn’t see this. I refused to see this. There was no way I was wrong about this woman I adored more than my wife. More than my wife is an understatement. Wait until I tell you just what I did to my wife… I am disgusted with myself.

THERE ARE MORE EMAILS FROM MY BFF’S WAYWARD BROTHER.. BUT ITS LUNCH TIME FOR ME AND AS AN RN, IF I DON’T GO NOW I MISS EATING TIL DINNER LOL… SO PLEASE COMMENT… I WILL FORWARD THEM AND KEEP TRYING TO GET HIM TO JOIN… HIS STORY CAN HELP SO MANY.

STBXW's BFF's brother,

What a courageous man to (eventually) face your failings! And courageous to also share your story to help BSs and hopefully WSs understand the mind twist.

Healing and blessings to you!

ML

Hey, isn't lunch break over yet?

Thank your BFF's brother. It won't do me any good with idjat STBXH, but at least I get more concrete validation that I did nothing wrong other than being too good at putting up with his crap.

Wish he had your BFFs brother as a friend when he first started flirting with fatass dum dum whore, Shrek the Slut.

But mine was and is a stubborn stupid boob and probably wouldn't have listened anyway.

MORE FROM BFF BROTHER...

During the time my wife was trying to get me to communicate, in the early stages of what was an affair but in my denial I called a friendship, she went through menopause and also had a cancer scare. My girlfriend was much younger than us. 13 years younger, she was far from menopause and never had any serious health issue. When I would complain about my wife being happy then sad and me feeling like I had to walk on eggshells and that her coming home made me cringe in hatred that she lived there with me, my girlfriend told me that menopause is not like this. That my wife was making up the symptoms to justify her crazy ass behavior. It was crazy to want to communicate, it was crazy to want to save us, we were not compatible, had nothing in common and had no kids there was no reason I had to put up with her shit, life is short and my wife and her drama of cancer and not getting a period anymore was making me so miserable I should just go and be with my girlfriend and let my miserable crazy toxic wife fend for herself, she was asking for it really. My girlfriend didn’t want to see my wife hurt but she didn’t want to see me so miserable either. But was I really miserable? I don’t even know. It’s all a blur. The more my wife wanted to try the more my girlfriend pushed me to file for divorce already. She was divorced and now wanted me to be too. I promised her we would be together and she wanted me to stop feeling sorry for my wife and start thinking of myself, this was my life and it was about me and my happiness not about my wife who was already over me anyway. My wife had threatened to divorce me by now and my girlfriend said this proved my wife was just crazy and didn’t know what she wanted -- one minute wanting to save us and the next telling me she was going to a lawyer. My girlfriend told me she would never do this to me. I believed her. But I started to think maybe my marriage isn’t over. Maybe all my friends and family saw something bad in my girlfriend I wasn’t seeing. But maybe they just dind’t want me to be happy either and wanted me to be with my miserable bitch whore of a wife (yes, by now I told myself my wife was fucking everyone. My girlfriend told me what SHE would do if SHE were in my wife’s shoes and not seeing there is NO comparison ethically to each other, I believed my wife was a pig, but not my girlfriend, never my girlfriend). So I spent a week at a friends house far away from all this and decided to give my wife a chance, maybe we weren’t done. I left my girlfriend and told her I think I still love my wife. She was nice enough about it but she then began to torment my poor wife. She called me constantly to tell me she missed me and loved me and that my wife harassed her. She said my wife called her, stalked her, went to her job (she was a cashier), stole from her checking account, did drive bys and called her names. I believed my girlfriend. Looking back, I KNOW my wife would never do those things, but I wanted to protect my girlfriend from my crazy, toxic wife. I tore my wife a new one that night. I demanded she stop bothering my girlfriend. I told her that is why I want to leave that she acts like a crazy lunatic. My wife was in shock. She said she never did these things. I did not believe her. She showed me her phone, she even got a GPS to prove where SHE was at all times (notice how I made my wife prove to ME she was telling the truth? I never asked for proof from the girlfriend – who is a cheater and a liar and I knew it, no, I demanded my wife prove to me she was telling the truth). I never stopped calling the girlfriend. I never stopped telling her I loved her. I never told my wife I loved her. I never slept with my wife, but I did sleep with my girlfriend during this time. I never even kissed my wife except for a peck on the cheek when I had to. I was doing the right thing. I was saving my marriage. LMFAO. You can all laugh too. It took me a while, I see it now… I spent Thanksgiving with my girlfriend. I told my wife I wasn’t ready to do “family” yet. I did not see or call my wife again until mid-december. She was furious, she demanded I either cut off all contact with my girlfriend and give our marriage a serious chance or she was done. Oh she was done was she? How dare she. I was doing HER a favor by even pretending to be trying when I didn’t even love her like a wife anymore. I wanted my girlfriend. I didn’t want my wife I had to be with her. I resented her. On Christmas I sent my wife a text wishing her a merry Christmas then never responded to her again until mid January. I had moved on with my new life with my girlfriend. We were now living together. Her children were my children, we spent every moment together. My wife got a cease and desist letter from my girlfriend stating she was not to harass her or me ever again. My girlfriend denied the letter but thought it was funny. I believed her. AGAIN. I told my wife we would never be together again, that I had a new life and I had moved on. My wife wanted to know why I didn’t just tell her this, why I did it the way I did. WHAT? Tell her? My not calling didn’t tell her I was done? My living with the other woman and the other woman calling me her husband didn’t tell her I was done? My telling everyone we were already divorced didn’t tell her we were done? I was so pissed. Why won’t this dumb bitch go away and leave me alone. This sweet woman was being harassed by the fucking bitch I married and who won’t let me go. I fucking felt so sorry for my wife. I saw a broken, sad, fucked up person when I looked at her, I didn’t see what everyone else saw. She was so ugly next to my girlfriend. But let me tell you… my wife was immaculately groomed, she had hair appts and nails done. She was all woman and all real. My girlfriend… fake nails, fake hair, missing fucked up teeth, bad breath, farts, burps, curses.. my wife, all natural… and to me the ugliest woman ever next to my beautiful other woman (omg, see what denial is?). Then I had second thoughts again. My wife stopped calling. She stopped texting. At first I was relieved but then I thought maybe I was hasty, maybe I should call her. I did. I told her I was confused. I told her I wanted to see what I wanted because I wasn’t sure anymore. My wife, still patient, told me that she wasn’t sure she could believe me again. That I would have to prove it. Oh wow, makes sense but prove what? I didn’t understand what I was doing wrong. My wife knew about all this, I wasn’t lying or keeping secrets I just wasn’t telling her what wasn’t her business and my new relationship was none of her business. She just wanted my girlfriend gone but I couldn’t let her go. I didn’t want to let her go. She was everything I wanted. Sure we fought constantly but my wife was always the topic. What I didn’t notice at the time was everything was the topic the skank was just throwing my wife in the middle to make me focus on that mess instead of the mess in front of me.. once again, I was piling blame on my wife. She was the problem and if we divorced then everyone would be happy, I really believed that. We would ALL be happy once I got divorced. My girlfriend was so happy now. My wife not so much. But I didn’t love her anymore like that so I didn’t really care this made her so sad, as long as my crazy girlfriend (I call her crazy now, but I didn’t think she was then, then she made perfect sense) was happy I was happy. My family didn’t like her, I blamed my wife for this too. Why won’t she just go away? My girlfriend said my wife was poisoning everyone against her. I told everyone to immediately and at once cut my fucking wife off. Do not call her, do not text her, do not wish her a happy birthday or ask how she is and if she ever called not to pick up and not to respond. I asked them to remove every gift my wife ever gave them from their homes and to destroy any and all pictures of my wife – especially ones with me in them. My family thought I was crazy but they complied. My girlfriend was happy once again. I filed for divorce. My wife was served at her nephews birthday party. She called me devastated. My girlfriend warned me this would happen and told me what to say, never to deviate from exactly these words or my wife would never get it. Number one being I was never ever ever to tell my wife I love her. Not ever, not once, not even to make her feel better, I was never to be kind or giving to her ever in anyway. And I was to demand my wife stop using my last name immediately or I would sue her. What was I thinking? This is cruel isn’t it? Or was it truth? I still sometimes don’t know, like I said it was all a blur. I was so confused. So I just ignored my wife totally.

I gave my wife no explanation. If I had to call her I told her again and again that there was nothing to say, no she did not deserve a second chance because I had moved on and was not in love with her anymore. She wanted to try so bad. She pointed out all the times I made no sense, I told her that was to protect her feelings. In retrospect it was because I was in denial, but you couldn’t have told me that then. The divorce went through and I didn’t feel happy. I felt sad, but then happy that I was now free to be with my girlfriend. All this drama really took a toll on our relationship, we weren’t communicating well, we were still fighting all the time, people said they thought she was cheating on me. But how could she be? She was the saint that made me see how bad my life was without her. I knew she was probably lying and still doing drugs but I thought that was the biggest of my problems. She got pregnant and I was thrilled, God was letting me know I had to leave my wife. I never would have had children with her anyway. My first wife took my children and the second one couldn’t give me any, this was my new chance at a real life. But nothing about my life was real once I left my wife and began my affair. Even that baby wasn’t mine. For 2 years I believed it was. When everyone was telling me I told you so and my frineds that supported the affair told me to just accept the child as mine and be happy I realized I had made a huge mistake. I called my wife, she was not home. She never returned my call. I hear she is married now to someone she knew before we met. My former affair partner tells me that was who my wife was screwing when we were still married, but I don’t think I believe her. I am not with her anymore. 6 months into counseling my fog lifted and I saw this horrible woman for who she really was. She was a user and a manipulator. She harassed my wife, caused me to divorce her and all because she loved me so much. Did my wife love me? She must have to have waited so long for me. She must have to have put up with my shit. But I took it for granted and thought what I had was better than my wife, that I would be happier without my wife. I miss her. I am the one who cries now. I am the one wondering what I can do to fix it and then realize she is married and she is not a whore or a cheater and I lost my chance. I want to hate the new husband but he just scooped up what I threw away in my foggy brained denial. Please… please.. leave the fantasy before you can’t or before there is nothing you can do to fix what you tore apart. You still have a chance. You still can wake up and make changes. I lost the best thing that ever happened to me, I didn’t just lose her, I kicked her, I stomped on her, I crushed her, I made her feel like less than garbage and that a woman who was garbage was better than her in every way, she wasn’t. My wife was the shining star in my life and I let a piece of polished up tin foil make me think she was better than my diamond. Please if there is a God, let my wife know I DO love her and I always did and I always will. Is it wrong for me to hope she is widowed or her marriage fails? Haha… who am I kidding I fucked up all chances with her. Please don’t be like me. I am alone. I feel like a fool. I threw away everything for someone who wasn’t even worth a minute of my time let alone all thje things the fog made me to do the woman who would never leave me and never hurt me…

I can't wait to read more Please thank your friends brother for me. He is very brave to allow you to post this.

There is no rock bottom. There's just a shovel to make the hole deeper.

I hope he finds his way up and out. Was a good read.

I will let him know... he has been journaling and kind of answering me at the same time...

As for being friends with a wayward lmao.. he was soooo wayward the only help he could have given another wayward was an alibi! He will admit there is no way he can explain it even to himself, but that he "gets it"... In some ways, he's still wayward, he still gets a little fog in his eye when his skank's name is mentioned. And still looks defensive if his wife comes up. I think he hurt her more than he's willing to admit to himself so he's not really ready to face the enormity of that yet. I knew the wife. There is more to this story lol... but this is his story so I will let him tell it...

Thank you for posting this, but I don't find this guy brave at all. I find him to be exactly what I'd expect a serial cheater to be - wishing for something he doesn't have. He had his wife for years. He chose a drugged out junkie. He then stuck around for 2 more years with said junkie thinking some kid was his. When he finally realized it wasn't, and had to face the fact that he was in love with a complete whore that was a raving, lying bitch to boot, he leaves and cries 'oh, whoa is me. I love my wife.' Are you kidding me?

If that was his kid, he'd still be with the junkie, and he'd still be calling his wife names. Why? Because that way he isn't the asshole for ditching his wife. Now that he sees he ditched her for garbage (birds of a feather and all) he's sorry.

No, not brave. Fog doesn't last for years and years. This is him. Fog is 'romantic love'. He had a life with this pig. He got used because he chose scum. Too bad.

No, not brave. Just looking for sympathy. He's not getting it from me.

This was so insightful. I have often wondered what was going on in the Ex's brain and how it was that I became such an evil ogre overnight. This was very vivid and interesting.

Thank you for sharing it. It must have very been difficult for him to dig deep and uncover those things about himself. I think it's easier to stay in denial.

I really appreciate the openness and candor with which he discusses choices he now regrets.

It also made me sad for the wife. I've been in those shoes recently and it's so heartbreaking (and perplexing) to reclassified in such ways.

I go back and forth between seeing this as a "fog" in the beginning at least anyway, definitely serious denial, but isn't that what the fog mostly is?... and sometimes just sad. Sad because it sounds so much like the back and forth I have been through and so many other BS have gone through. The inconsistency.. the lies and then just when you think you get it, you're flipped upside down again. I feel sorry for his wife, she really had no chance against the crazy woman... I don't feel sorry for the other woman, she seemed to me like an opportunist and someone who jumps from relationship to relationship without properly ending the previous first. I also am not an alcoholic or drug addict and I guess I never saw the analogy before but it makes sense that an addiction is an addiction is an addiction... No one in this scenario ended up truly happy. Do any of us? I wonder about that now that I face divorce. Will I be happier? I will surely be saner without the BS but will I be happier knowing what I know now?

And I will always wonder if I would have been happier if I did not file for divorce. What if I still stood? Would we have reconciled? Or would I have ended up like this woman? And would my next marriage be better or do all people end up getting hurt at some point? I've spent years on these boards... and see many reconciliations... and many divorces... and all seem happy about it.. but are they? Hardest choice of my life.

Painful Past, I'm with you on this one. As I read the story, I wanted to vomit...no sympathy from me, either.