SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm sorry. It's just so unfair that this stuff is out there for the world to see. No children involved? I'm not surprised she's a liar, but I'm surprised she'd lie about something so easily disproven.

There's no need to beat yourself up for listening. It's natural to be curious and vigilant. I'd just try to remember how it made you feel to listen to it, so that the next time the urge comes, you can save yourself some time and pain. Maybe you can treat yourself instead . . . when you feel like looking her up, watch an episode of a fun show or something.

But again, the issue isn't that you were curious about someone trying to make a podcast about their destructive meddling in your life. That's natural. The issue is that your husband and this woman conspired to take away your autonomy and reality, and now she won't move on and go away. You are, once again, in the unfair position of having to navigate a toxic person making her life about you uninvited.

Dragonfly:

"If, therefore, any be unhappy, let him remember that he is unhappy by reason of himself alone."

It's your choice - your decision - to remain in misery. Don't be surprised you feel bad about it.

Then think for a minute: You are unhappy because you say she's talking about your husband and people might connect, and you are unhappy because she twists details - thereby making it less likely to connect to your husband.

There is no way you will come well out of this. Ignore her. Let her go.

swmnbc and Bigger, thanks for taking the time to write, it does help a lot.

Swmnbc - all of what you say rings true. I’m having coaching atm professionally through my job and my coach (accredited) recommended I get some cbt around this compulsion to check what she is saying. And in practise I agree, but then I’m enraged that yet again I’m having to battle something because of her toxicity. I’m incredibly protective of my family and I guess I’m always waiting for the next thing and that’s exhausting. Trouble is I know the answer I just can’t ‘feel’ the answer if that makes sense!

Bigger - again totally agreed! I love that quote, I think it’s just I’m struggling to do that, to ignore her. I know it serves no purpose. She (and the affair) have had way to much space in my head, I get that.

I always find that I can talk things away but I guess like lots of betrayed, you have a finite time where friends and family want to hear about it all. So you stop talking... you just internalise it all and then it starts to hurt more, especially if you are a talker like me. I’m lucky that I have a made a lovely friend through here, who listens to my venting. Thank you for listening too.

I am sorry, Dragonfly. I don't have any advice. I just know anytime I even talk to OBS and know things that are going on it sends me on a spiral that really feels like going back to DDAY. There is a reason that NC is so important, but if I heard my H's AP give her account, it would keep me on the floor. I do not think I would have the willpower not to keep tuning in. Of course, you know that's the best thing you can do, let karma take care of her in the end. I would let people here troll her, and if nothing else if there are comments and people hear the truth in them it may unravel her popularity and maybe she will go away?

Dragonfly

I shared this recently and someone found it helpful enough to start a thread about it…

Years ago a man swindled me out of a fortune. He was a shareholder in start-up software company I and some friends had. We had an industry-specific solution with a unique feature our competitors didn’t have.

Not only did he directly embezzle money but he also sabotaged negotiations to sell the company to our biggest competitor. About 2-3 months after leaving us the same competitor brought out an update with our unique feature. Turns out this guy never filed the papers to patent or protect our work. The competitor denied having used our code, but our former colleague was all of a sudden a shareholder and on our competitors board.

Our attorney truthfully told us that suing either would be costly and no guarantee of success. We were left with a shell of a company and a pile of debt. Debt that I mostly assumed by buying out my two other partners. Took me several years of 2 jobs plus bar-security and bartending at weekends, plus selling the shell of the company before I finally cleared that mess up.

Every day when I left my cheap, wrong-side of town rental apartment I looked over a bay to his house in the hills and thought vengeance. One day I realized that despite him not being in my life I still spent a good part of my time thinking about him, plus the thoughts were negative. I basically started most days in a negative way. I decided to change my thoughts. Rather than feel anger towards him I would feel pity. Pity because he had decided to be immoral and an @sshole. And then, after a couple of weeks of pity, it was easy to simply not think about him. That was my “forgiveness”.

About 9 years ago my CEO mentioned that he was interviewing for a manager position in the company I work for now. He asked me if I recognized some of the applicants and I saw that man’s name. I told the CEO that I would have a hard time working with him and told him my story. He wasn’t even interviewed… Karma.

Have I forgiven him? Well… yes in the sense that I don’t spend time hating him or even thinking about him. To me that is a form of forgiveness. But if I were to come across him thirsty in the desert I wouldn’t even spit in his direction.

People can only pretend for so long but eventually they are found out.

I can provide a list starting with all the famous people like Arnold Schwarzenegger, Weinstein, Cosby etc. The crooks whole stole $ from people like Jordan Belfort (Wolf of Wall Street) and Bernie Madoff and more.

I like Bigger’s story. It proves the point that your past can come back to haunt you.

I worked up until recently tor a total narc. Tried to cheat me out of $ twice but I wouldn’t back down. I saw the jerk steal client $ and use it for their own purposes until I called them on it. The narc lied cheated and stole $ from employees by not paying.

It will come back to haunt them. Some day it will bite them in the butt. There are so many enemies and so many fractured relationships it is hard to keep track.

But I am going to sit back and just wait. It’s just a matter of time before it implodes.

Like the very public OW in this thread with her blog or podcasts or whatever, someone will call her out. It’s just a matter of time. She’s not playing with a full deck if she thinks she will not be blamed as a willing participant in the Affair.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 5:36 AM, May 21st (Friday)]

CBT sounds like a good plan.

Hopefully this is just me and not how you feel, but it has never sat well with me when people chide BW for checking the OW's social media. First, we've never before lived in a time when you could know intimate details of the lives of millions of strangers. There's nothing wrong with reading what people publish on the equivalents of billboards. But most importantly, you don't heal and grow by pretending the AP doesn't exist. There is grief that needs to be expressed. When I would feel it, I would do a tapping exercise. "I wish you didn't sleep with my husband. I wish you didn't put this stuff on the internet. I wish I weren't hurting. I am hurting." Etc. etc. There is no way out but through.

Again, while I don't believe in total bans on checking the AP's public stuff as it relates to the affair or your current safety, I do encourage you to choose healthy things for yourself. Just like you'd take action if you were spending too much time playing a game on your phone or using a social media app, anything that becomes compulsory and creates a negative feedback loop should be examined. Figure out how to manage the pain that cannot be avoided because it IS your reality (your husband having had an affair with an OW who is trying to follow you into your present and future) while understanding what *can* be avoided (obsessive habits that don't bring you any closure or healing).

I love Book of Forgiving by Desmond Tutu for reading on healing, accepting, and moving forward.

Is her stuff all on You Tube? If so then reporting it could be an option - especially if LOTS of people report it.

A bit late to the party, but if there's some trolling to be done, count me in !

Come on Dragonfly123, let us troll her. I really need this. lol

Kidding, mostly, I totally understanding not wanting to give her any additional attention. Plus youtube views count for her, so I wouldn't want to help her either.

She sounds like she's pretty desperate to get attention. I also totally understand you watching one of the videos. I honestly would have done the same thing.

The problem with trolling her is that she will know it was something to do with the affair and I would honestly die before I give the AP confirmation that she reached her desired audience.

I’ve offered to complain to the authorities about her but it appears anyone can register as a coach so she’s not doing anything illegal.

The problem with vocal social media APs (I have/had one of those too) is that they have no shame to share their story, because if they would... well a lot of them would not have become APs in the first place.

We see so many examples of these APs being in your face, loudly telling their (version) of the story shamelessly. I think there’s a thread in general right now where the AP continues to participate in sports activities with the wife. I have a BS friend I communicate daily with, the AP in her case I s taunting her every day (school related affair) in the school playground and has done so for the last 3 years. This included isolating the BS by slowly monopolising all the other parents with her (the AP’s) story, basically turning the real victim (the BS) into the perpetrator and having the community isolating the Bs.

For me this is beyond any form of comprehension, I am a high empath and I often try to put myself in other people’s shoes. The scenario where I had an affair with a married man and then became vocal rather than crawl under the rock and die in shame is something I cannot relate to and I don’t think many BSes do.

And then from a BS’ perspective we end up with the unfairness of it all being even more evident: not only did we not deserve to be cheated on and no matter what anyone says, being cheated on is associated with shame, but we have to also listen to justifications of why that happened, like anything could ever justify it. There is a level of secrecy every Bs craves, it isn’t often a BS will publicly start discussing the impact affairs had on them, revealing their identity at the same time. So you’re left with feeling muted by (one of) your aggressors who shouts from the roof tops that they had an affair with your husband, attempted to destroy you, harmed your children emotionally BUT...

It’s easy to say don’t look. No BS is stupid, we all know the harm is doing to us. But I can guarantee you that when they specifically start attacking your recovery in various ways (sometimes including making you feel unsafe as you start questioning their mental sanity) you actually end up developing a negative coping mechanism and you need a huge amount of will and work to be able to mute these women. For me it’s on a par with checking WH’s emails/phones/messages, logically I am under no illusion that these checks don’t prevent an affair, emotionally I was doing it obsessively for the first year.

Bigger your story was very helpful, thank you!

HO - it just helps to be heard, thank you. Today is the weekly podcast ‘release date’, and my stomach is in knots over worries it’ll be about the affair. And then my stomach is in knots over my drive to find out. I beat myself up whatever I do, the constant self bashing of the betrayed.

Bigger - I love your story, thank you. It truly does help. I’m working hard on releasing this and just letting karma do its worst. You’re way of thinking is where I aspire to be! I’m working on getting there, but it’s a journey!

Istwife - my rational brain does say the same thing. I think ‘most’ friends and family of hers will be losing patience with her and no one likes people who air their dirty laundry really. Speaking out once is accepted, but bashing your drum about it weekly seems to send the vast majority running. I think people are naturally private. And I think even those who count themselves loyal to her will have their empathy kick in and roll their eyes when she plays victim in an affair narrative, comments on how it ‘transpired he was married’ when everyone knows that SM and a wedding ring tell you instantly!

Swmnbc - again thank you for putting into words my thinking. I do feel that this is causing my ptsd to flair, I’m hyper vigilant all over again. I will check out the book. I feel kind of stuck. I know I’ll get there but I just feel so shocked at all this.

Jambomo - not on YouTube, on podcasting channels and on insta, but yes my finger has hovered over the report button many times but then decided against it as I don’t want to martyr her.

Sceadugenga and Landclark - this is HARD! I am so tempted to ask people to troll her but I just know she will attribute it to me and turn herself into victim again. And yes I don’t click on her stuff because I fear even one extra listen or view.

Luna10 - just a huge hug! Thank you for being there and for your lovely articulate post putting into words what I’m feeling.

I think what I’m realising more and more that is causing me pain, (and something Luna talks about in her post), is our lack of a voice, as betrayed. We are working so hard to quietly and privately rebuild our families that this sort of reaction totally blindsides us. Every time she talks about my WH and it is often, she knocks me to the floor, every time she dismisses my children and I in her narrative, it reminds me of the background noise we were to them both, during their affair.

Her latest podcast (I haven’t listened) is on abuse, trauma, narcissism and ptsd. Honestly you can’t make this stuff up. Every Monday is painful as I fear what she’s going to talk about. I am happy to say though that it really does look like her friends and family are rolling eyes and turning their backs on it all. It’s pretty obvious.

I will get there, I will stop looking, stop caring, I am listening to you all and I am reflecting, reevaluating, reconsidering how I deal with all this.

I am grateful for all your thoughts!

Luna10 I feel your pain. I really do.

My biggest fear was the OW contacting my children. Mi idiot H sent her a photo of our kids. That just infuriated me!

She also published a children’s book. In the book was two pages of her “friendship” (not affair LOL ) with my H and how some things are nothing short of a circus. And the picture she drew (poorly I might add) was a likeness of my H. The only thing that stopped me from losing it completely was that she did not use his name.

She would also taunt me on SM by saying I was a loser for reconciling with a cheater. She would post some hatful stuff about me (never using my name).

But I got even in a sneaky way. She had a blog. So I would log in and leave it open for hours. I did this 2-3x a week. After about 6 months I called her and asked her if she had contact with my H. She said someone from my town was accessing her blog. I made it appear like my H was “stalking” her via her blog. Never posted anything or responded to her SM. I just knew it was there and it irked me to no end.

The outcome was that she was so bothered by the viewing of her blog she shut down her blog immediately and moved to the opposite coast. She was a social media whore (with a website) and very easy to track. But she doesn’t have a blog anymore (last I checked years ago).

The day I stopped checking her social media - best day for my healing and sanity. I learned to stop caring what other people think of me.

I feel that we can have a competition who’s AP is more crazy, 1StWife, “mine” even bought the same clothes, copied my LinkedIn profile (the intro wording), pretended to be on the same holiday location as us several times, oh and yes, she put my address on FB at which point I’ve sent the police to her door as it was obviously a direct threat. To answer your question, no she didn’t stop there (that was 3 years ago this time) she just learnt not to put identifiable things online but make references which could not be completely pinpointed to me/us.

The best time is indeed the one when you let go. Hard to achieve but highly rewarding.

Your AP is definitely more crazy. Mine at least hightailed it out of town. LOL.

Sometimes I hope she’s married 25 years and some 30 y/o does to her what she did to me. Three times she came after my H. They were “soulmates” and she “just wanted to be friends”.