SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Also, "A" is blowing up my phone again. Calls & texts. I might read the texts later. I'm going to close that account (it's a family plan, that was ending anyway), and open a new one for only myself.

XHZ is right. It would have happened anyway.

Glad POSOM is fucked

Remember that she knew who she was married to and that deployments were part of the package. If she couldn't handle it she could have talked to you or to any of the other wives. She could have contacted her parents. She could have divorced. She had a plethora of good options and a plethora of people and services she could have turned to; she was never alone in this. She instead chose the worst of the bad options. She chose to turn to another man and lie and deceive you so you would think that everything was fine. A mistake is a one-time lapse. After that it's a purposeful, intentional decision.

This affair had nothing to do with you or your marriage. Say that 1000 times until you believe it. It was not a reflection of you vs him and her picking. It was about her ego, self esteem and values. She was broken inside and you didn't break her.

If you had allowed her to gaslight you then you would have to go through all her B'S reasons. They would be lies. I doubt she knows why. Thank yourself for avoiding that.

A lot of people go thorough even worse things and don't cheat. It's all on her you did nothing wrong. You will go over this over and over and your chasing a answer that doesn't exist cause nothing you did contributed to this. She is the reason she cheated. You are the reason you were faithful.

The reaction to deployments goes both ways. There are also service members who cheat on their faithful spouses waiting at home. They justify it to themselves with a similar faulty rationale. You were deployed, but remained faithful. Why? Because you follow your own moral code. You CHOSE to remain faithful. Cheaters choose otherwise for their own reasons. They all have a list of the reasons “why”, but it’s just a list of their justifications that allow them to pursue their own desires. She had other options. She chose what suited her and what she thought she could get away with (this is still astonishing to me because certainly she knew the man she was M to!).

In the end, it’s the hardest piece to accept. It really wasn’t about you. Nothing you did or didn’t do or any of life’s issues. We ALL have our own issues in life. We all react to those. Same circumstances, and one spouse cheats and one doesn’t. It’s not about the circumstances, it’s about the cheater. That’s the only variable that changes the outcome.

It’s hard to internalize, but eventually you will accept this truth.

Give her the attorneys number. Firmly but kindly tell her not to contact you again and block her number.

No contact=no new hurt. If you want to read them you are going to be pain shopping. You won't get anything helpful and truthful. It will accelerate the healing.

There's nothing left to say.

First, sir, I want to thank you for your service.

The fact that anyone could hurt another while deployed is disgusting.

You will definitely ride the roller coaster for quite some time. NOTHING would have been any different because she was looking for a way to cope, using her unhealthy coping mechanisms. She only thought of herself. I am so sorry. We all understand.

You have handled yourself well. Please take your time in Cali to relax and regroup. Also, you have to let yourself grieve your marriage and the loss of your wife. That is no easy task.

I will continue to think of you.

Dem

ETA: I had three miscarriages. I never thought of cheating.

You will hear this over and over again on SI...her choices are her responsibility. She had many options but chose to cheat.

[This message edited by demolishedinside at 2:08 PM, April 16th (Monday)]

Nope. Don't even think that there was anything you could have done to stop her.

The OW in my situation was preggo when she was hunting down my WH via emails. She tried before she became pregnant with her husband's child, and she continued during the entire nine months of her pregnancy. As a matter of fact, she flew to one of my WH's training classes just to "see" him when she was five months pregnant using her gf who lived in the area as an excuse to get to him. Once that baby dropped, it was full speed ahead, and she hooked my WH without much of a struggle.

If someone wants to cheat, they are going to cheat.

OW husband found out about the EA going on between his wife and my WH, confronted them both, they said they would stop, and voila, four weeks later OW meets my WH at his hotel when he was working at her site.

Most times NOTHING will stop a cheater.

LtCdr, if you stay on the site for a while and read other people's threads, you will find that cheaters are male and female, gay and straight, successful businessmen/women, shift workers make and female, homemakers male and female, with good education, without good education, sober, alcoholics, drug addicts, lazy, active, etc., etc., etc.

The only common factor is that they didn't have the boundaries and the morals to avoid betraying their partners.

Don't pin this on you. Even if you had been a shitty husband (I don't think you were), your wife could have complained, or given you an ultimatum, told you "your career or me", or divorce. Lying and betraying her vows is all on her.

LtCdr,

Respect brother. Thank you for your service.

Sure, you could have prevented her from cheating. You could have quit the military and stayed in the same room with her 24/7. You could have hired an armed escort to stay with her 24/7. Check that, she could have cheated with the armed escort. You could have locked her in a cage. Ultimately, I suppose, you could have just killed her to keep her from cheating. I'm sure that has been done.

Your only "mistake" was trusting your wife, who make a promise to you, to remain faithful. Actually, that is the healthiest way to live. Don't go down the rabbit hole of what ifs. You didn't do anything wrong.

""A" is blowing up my phone again."

No contact; no contact; no contact. Contact only hurts you. Don't cause yourself more pain. Communicate through JAG or other official channels only. Don't allow yourself to waiver; hit the gym now. Go for a long, long run. Get busy; idle time is going to eat you alive. Take up racquetball; it's a great anger/stress relief. Call a friend and go for a beer together. Fill your time and wear yourself out for the next couple days.

And block her number.

[This message edited by Dismayed2012 at 11:40 AM, April 16th (Monday)]

Hit the enter button too soon.

The day my OW met my WH at his hotel, I called him crying hysterically bc our ADHD child was really acting up. Little did I know my WH was sitting out on the balcony of a luxury hotel in San Diego waiting for OW to arrive...while he was on the phone with me. I called him back about 30 minutes later to give him an update, and OW arrived within minutes after the second call.

You would think reality would have set in, nope, he was hell bent on f*cking OW.

God could have come down from the heavens and hit my WH with a jolt, I don't think that would have stopped him either.

Don't go down the rabbit hole of "what could I have done differently to prevent this?" This is not your fault. Every betrayed goes through a period of second-guessing. It's one of the many gifts a betrayed receives from a spouse's infidelity. Another will be difficulty trusting future partners. In the end, some people are promise-keepers, and others aren't. Even if a spouse is totally dissatisfied with her/his spouse and marriage, the honorable thing to do is to divorce that spouse and move on.

I'm not even sure it was deployment per se. If you read here enough you see all types of cheating scenarios:

- cheaters with children

- cheaters without children

- cheaters who wanted children but couldn't have them

- cheaters who were pregnant

- cheaters who cheated on their pregnant spouse

- stay at home parent cheaters

- working spouse cheaters

- people who cheat while on business trips (like deployment)

- people who cheat on spouses on business trips (like deployment)

- people who cheat with strangers (including hookers)

- people who cheat with coworkers/friends

- people who cheat with relatives (typically in-laws)

- one night stand cheaters

- long term relationship cheaters

- serial cheaters

You are going to keep replaying in your mind all the 'what ifs'. That is normal. A difficult part of healing, but normal trauma processing.

Here's the thing - there is nothing that you did or didn't do or say that would have made any difference. She cheated because of *her*, not because of *you* or your family situation.

The common thing among all these cheating scenarios is that the cheater is SELFISH and has POOR, IMMATURE coping mechanisms.

Selfish in that they only care about themselves, at least in that moment if not in general.

Poor, immature coping mechanisms in that there are many ways to deal with whatever they thought was a problem for them.

If she was feeling lonely from you being deployed, she could have talked to you about it, figured out healthy ways to ease her feelings of loneliness (going out with a friend, new hobby for some examples). You could have figured out a solution together, worked to increase communications during deployments to the extent possible.

When you got back, you could have both decided that it wasn't working out and you could separate/divorce. You could have both committed to marriage counseling to work on communication and figure out how to get both of your needs met in the context of your marriage and your jobs.

Instead, she was selfish in what she wanted in the moment, figured that what you didn't know wouldn't hurt you and gave you the biggest slap in the face ever. And then lied on top of it because SHE didn't want to lose her comfortable life. She wants another chance, she hasn't said anything about how sorry she is that she did this to you, it's ALL about what she wants. FUCK THAT.

It hurts us all to lose the spouse that we thought we had, that our plans and dreams for our future are gone just like that and we didn't have any idea there was even any problem. It is going to take time to integrate this into your new life.

I'm so sorry for your pain, you did nothing to deserve it. And whether you feel it now or not, whore wife is the real loser here. She traded someone who would take a bullet for her for a POS who, even as we speak, is most likely covering his own ass slinking back into the hole he came out from.

Big SI hugs and mojo.

Heres the thing. Okay, say A had carried to term and did the same thing. Life would much harder on you right now.

I learned as much as I knew my husband I didn’t know My husband. The same thing applies my husband had fertility issues as did I. We made the choice to adopt. If I did keep going ignored his feelings of emasculation what would have happened. If I did bear his child would he have not acted out.

The truth is I will never know.

You can have the attorney send a cease and desist letter. Make a call. You can text FIL ask him to stop her.

Going down a rabbit hole is natural. You could even say it is a learning thing. It should be done with the Chaplin.

If you start the rollercoasters post, rabbit holes post. Someone is usually here to give you, experience, strength and hope.

LtCdr - we cross-posted, so want to add how glad I am to see how fucked POSOM is.

As for whore wife, send her *1* text that says if she has anything to communicate about the divorce then contact your lawyer. Tell her in the text not to contact you again or you will get a restraining order (or file harassment charges or whatever).

Then block her number.

[This message edited by DeadMumWalking at 11:48 AM, April 16th (Monday)]

OK, the rabbit hole I'm going down right now is "What could I have done differently to prevent "A" from straying?" I know, I know... Probably nothing. But where I'm at specifically is A: What if one or both her miscarried babies had successfully carried to term, or B: What if I had pressed harder to keep trying & there were one or more children in the house? Would that have kept her legs closed? I can't know that, can I?

Hi LCL. Very sorry for your sitch but have to say that you conducted yourself very well and honorably. She may have forgotten who you are but you certainly didn't.

Wanted to say please don't drive yourself crazy with the "what if's" and speculations. I know it's easy to go there but your only going to drive yourself crazy. I would also like to add that those what it's also can go the other way as well. Such as, chances are if you did have kids you would still be in infidelity hell but with an even bigger mess on your hands. One thing that can be argues about all affairs is that they are born out of selfishness and poor boundaries. Safe to say your stbx has both. When someone is that selfish to have an affair, they never think of anyone but themselves. They almost never think of the consequences and certainly not about those that they could possibly hurt. I'm here as a BC (betrayed child now an adult) and I can tell you even after catching my mother in her A, telling my father about it, then catching her repeatedly continuing the affair, my mother at no time took anyone else into consideration but herself. That's typically how these things go. So if you are going to speculate, be thankful that one of your kids isn't coming to you with your WW's affair and all the complications with that. Stick with the facts and carry on.

You are doing great. Time to work through the pain and get to healing.

yop

I had to look up Article 134. Yikes, that's serious.

Sounds like the OM is in a world of hurt, his fun with your STBX comes with high price tag. Will he retire from the rank he is now? Any chance of advancement?

I bet he blew up your STBXW phone, like she is to you.

We all play the if only I had done A B or C game. We didn;t. We make choices with the knowledge we have at the time. You felt she was faithful for 13 years, maybe she was but the last year she made some lousy decisions and the end of a good marriage is the result.

Kids would make no difference IMO, consider how much worse this would be with kids.

I would consider a "Sell Buy Date" on the house as she might live there for a long time trying to decide. And if she switches from regretful cheating wife to vengeful xwife it may get messy.

Take care of yourself and don't be shocked when crap hits you out of the blue when you are having a good day. It happens.

I have read enough about the group you belong to that I am sure that brotherhood has you on its shoulders.

Grief is grief and there is no panacea to stop it. You have to go through it. You have an untold number of people on this site who will stick around as long as you need us.

POS has probably been crying to your STBXW, begging her to make you stop the charges. You could ask her to stop calling and use email only.