SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

"Though I am not sure about the part related to it being necessary for forgiving the WS. That is a dangerous connection."

Not necessary for the BS to forgive the WS.

The BS just divorces the WS and moves on.

Recovery provides the motivation for the BS to

forgive the WS so recovery can happen.

In my case, AP was a blessing in disguise!

This is a tough question for me to think of because I do feel differently about the two of them. I feel deep anger and in some ways hate for both of them, but with WH I feel a mix of hurt as well. I feel hurt he could toss me aside and think only if himself. That bit of hurt in the anger softens my feelings towards him in comparison to her that I just feel rage for.

The OW in my case pursued my WH knowing full well that he was married and had three small children. After he told her he was in the middle of a mental breakdown and had an alcohol issue and did not want to continue the affair, she still continued to pursue him. When her BH found out, she denied it and has never taken responsibility.

After dday she faked a pregnancy, I'm not sure why - to hurt us? or get him back? I still don't know.

She has never apologized to me, never admitted that what she did was wrong. As my WH went to the depths of shame and guilt and tried to take his own life due to how horrific he felt, she went on a huge vacation through asia with her girlfriends and posted on SM about how great of a time they were having. Meanwhile our lives were in complete shambles and under no circumstance would either one of us been able to vacation or party or any of the sort.

If my WH acted the way she did post dday then I would feel similarly about him too. And its not that I have villianized her but more that i can clearly see what her character is. My WH made a horrible horrible mistake and with all of his being is trying to atone for that and fix the mess he made. She did the same but just walked away as if she didn't do anything wrong.

I've been on this forum about 12 years and I would say there have been EXTREMELY few who simply gave their WS a "hall pass" while villainizing the AP.

I think the OW is a POS whore and I still refer to her as that to this day, and my H is just my H, a man I love very much and we are closer than ever. But my stance here is that every case is different and I am allowed to come to my own conclusions about people based on their actions.

The Whore chased after my H, using the deaths of his mother and DD to her advantage. This does not "excuse" my H or give him a pass but it is a part of the story and the details of our stories DO MATTER. They do not all boil down to "the same." What matters most is that after D-day, my H made his life about showing me that he could be a man who deserves me for his wife, and for 11 years now he has been doing just that. All I know about "the whore" is she is still a piece of trash and I highly doubt she is remorseful. Though I hate the kind of woman SHE IS, a homewrecking whore, I will say that I don't really have any feelings of hate or anything else for her personally.

I forgave my H, and that is far different than giving him a hall pass.

I also divorced my first H who was/is a serial cheater. I did not "villainize" the APS he was with. Though many of them were prostitutes, etc. there were too many of them for me to consider what they were like personally. He ended up marrying the final OW who was not a prostitute.

To show my point that I feel every situation is different, I feel sorry for his wife. He has recently also left her for a new OW, after she put up with this shit (and cheating no doubt) for about 25 years! Lucky me, I only put up with it for 13. (I'm being a little sarcastic as that was not lucky) but I don't believe for a second that she set out to destroy my M the way the whore did in my current M. She was on the ignorant and immoral side for getting involved with a MM the way she did, but I also know he told her that our M was dead and that all the problems in our M were my fault, and she was just dumb enough to believe that.

I would be defending her to some extent the same way even if she never apologized but ironically, she did apologize to me, after he left her for another. She said she now understands how she was no different, and how she had believed his lies when he was married to me. I just come to my own conclusions about individuals involved individually instead of painting all with the same brush.

I wonder myself how the AP somehow becomes Public Enemy #1 and deserves to be shot at dawn while the WS is being rewarded with Hysterical Bonding and not being tossed out of the house on their sorry asses for all the crap they pulled.

I don't get it either.

I don't get why some see this that way. Just because this seems to happen in about one case in 100 does not mean that most of us give the WS a "free pass" while villainizing the AP. As I said, every case and every AP and WS is different, their levels of remorse or lack of, are individual and so for this reason some of us come to a logical conclusion that the AP was in fact more of a "villain" than our spouse. And sometimes it is the other way around or equal for both.

[This message edited by Bobbi_sue at 2:20 PM, March 14th (Wednesday)]