SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Good to hear from you WTH.

Vocalion, On one hand, your son may not have your genes. On the other, I doubt he would have turned out like he did without your love and guidance. It's said that hurt people hurt people. I think that's true. But it also means loved people love people. You've passed love down through 3 generations. That's a good legacy. Congrats on the great-GC. May you stay healthy enough to play with and guide him/her!

My mom had a special connection with our GS, and she lived long enough that GS remembers her.

Hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas. So odd thought today, or maybe realization is more accurate. The thought of her A's crosses my mind today I guess because it was due. But something struck me this time. I don't remember what it was that lead me to finding out what she was up to. I know the how, it was finding emails between her and AP 1&2. But I don't remember what prompted me to look at her email that day. I don't remember was I suspicious and looking, or was I in her email for some other reason and stumbled across an email that didn't seem right? I really don't recall. I can go into great detail of everything following my finding that first email including what many of them said verbatim. It just really struck me as odd that whatever the moments before my finding out we're I just don't remember. I guess maybe it's the shock was so great that it was obliterated by what I found.

Anyway, just wanted to share with people I knew would understand. Happy new year and may it be a better one for all of us.

So I did end remembering what I think the reason was that I had looked in her email that lead to my finding out about her A's. I think what made me remember was probably because I looked back to the first of my journal here. It didn't go back that far but it did trigger me and brought a lot of feelings I had gotten past for a couple of days so not such a great idea. It did give me the idea though that maybe with wills and such (which we really need to do) I should add a little sealed envelope or something with my login information here and a note to read my journal so she can see what all that put me through. She probably wouldn't read it, and it might be a bit cruel so it's probably not a good idea.

I posted this in New Beginnings, but it should be here, I think.

The Universe patted me on the head and said "good boy"

I'm more than 10 years out from Dday. I don't come around here very often anymore, and unfortunately, I see a lot of new usernames in here.

I just wanted to pop in to share; XWW texted me to ask if I ever thought about getting back together because she does.

I managed to keep the petty little demon in me in check, and responded "No, I don't. I think we are a mismatch. I think we're doing a good job raising the kids, and I am content with the way things are."

I have 2 years to go until retirement (with my full pension and retirement assets) and the house the kids were born in, which I got by acting quickly to set her free to her new lover. Now, she's got a string of ex-boyfriends, is no longer as desirable as she once was (since there's no depth to her personality at all), and is pining to get back together with the controlling, boring, uncaring monster she cheated on.

I think I'll go on a little vacation next week with my new love. Me.

I salute you sir. You handled that with style and grace. Here's to you living your best life - without her.

You are a better man than I am, ChangeMaker. I would have replied to my XWW with a laughing gif and said nothing else

'Sup, y'all. About to be 10 years out from D-Day. Just checking in to say life is good, and things get better with time and therapy. Hang in there, there's a lotta guys pullin' for ya round here.

What was the worst, most hurtful thing your WW said to you during her affair? Does it still haunt you?

I was going to put this in general, but I thought I will put it here first because this thread has been inactive for a long time.

One night after she had left us, we were talking on the phone mainly about our boys. She was having them for the weekend. During the conversation I am not sure how it came up. This was over 25 years ago, and she said we didn't have a good sex life. This obviously was news to me because she had never complained before and I always went the extra mile in this department or at least I thought I did and it was also in the middle of me doing the pick me dance so this comment really hit me hard as it would to any male.

What gets me is we weren't fighting on the phone at the time we were actually having a good civil conversation and I at the time and I thought I was talking some sense into her, so it wasn't an angry outburst.

I hung up and walked out to my garage that night to get a rope if it hadn't been for my son's being home sleeping in bed. I am not sure whether I would still be here today.

That's the only thing that snapped me out of it, the thought of them finding me in the morning I could never do that to them.

This is the most horrible and hurtful comment that anyone has ever said to me in my 65 years of life.

It has come back to me full force during my recent triggers. (my oldest son has left his wife for a work colleague).

Infidelity sucks.

[This message edited by fhtshop at 3:15 PM, Thursday, August 21st]

I guess the most hurtful was the stupidest, so that mitigated the pain It was my saying she bought sort of an engagement ring for ow because our state didn't recognize same sex M at the time.

I once was very close to suicide, although my method was to walk out into traffic. What kept me from doing it is that I did not think I could do it without making my W and son think that they bore some responsibility somehow.

She treated me like shit so much for so long during that time I'm sure there are things I've forgotten but there is one thing that stands out in my mind. There was one time I asked for a kiss. Nothing more, just a kiss. She launched into a tirade how everything was all about me and what I wanted. That I never took her or what she wanted into account It always had to be about me. Talk about confused.

I'm grateful we're all still here.

What was the worst, most hurtful thing your WW said to you during her affair?

?

Because I kept accusing her of cheating, she told me I had a mental illness and unless I went to a shrink and got on meds she would divorce me and take away my son. Classic gaslighting.

Mr. Kite .

Gaslighting sucks.
I dint get it initially but did to some extent for a few months after.

lucky for me this was a time when it was common to only have one computer and one e-mail address in a household.
I hardly ever went into the e-mail my wife did all the correspondence till one day work told me they have e-mailed me a document to read.
When I got home opened our e-mail and there it was the EA in black and white she couldn't gaslight that.
BY the way the EA turned into a PA within a short time that lasted a few months till he had finished using her.

fhtshop

That sucks! We stayed married but for me the trust never came back. Should have bailed out from the beginning of this nightmare.

Mr. Kite

We are still married it's as well about 25 years since her cheating.
I wish a site like this was around when it happened.
I did everything wrong pick me dance and when she came back swept it all under a rug and now after my son left his wife for a co-worker it's come back in spades.
Our marriage is good, but it hurts when I think of how much better and pure it could have been.
Infidelity never leaves us.

We are still married it's as well about 25 years since her cheating.
I wish a site like this was around when it happened.

Exactly! Without this site there was no one to talk to that could have helped because either they had never been through infidelity or in most cases the topic made them uncomfortable. Pastors, counselors, shrinks, family members, friends; I reached out to them all and they were no help at all.

D-Day1 was 31 years ago followed by trickle-truth dropped in tiny increments over the years. I know practically nothing about what went on other than what she chose to reveal to me in order to cover her ass.

Most days we're "okay" but the stench of it has never left and continues to permeate our marriage. Why not just leave? That ship sailed long ago.

What was the worst, most hurtful thing your WW said to you during her affair?

?

My wife on Dday told me she chose her lover over me for many reasons, one being I was impatient with her too many times and that hurt her deeply but the other reason was that she was no longer attracted to me because I had put on some weight. When my wife told me she was no longer interested in me that hit me hard. Little did I know that my wife was keeping score in our marriage for so long. On Dday, which was a 12 hour marathon of questions and venting all of the things that I did wrong in her eyes up to that point were put on the table. I felt like I was the one on trial and she was the victim. But the one thing that still sticks in my heart is that she was no longer attracted to me. Sorry for the brief rant!!

Lost1313

Most days we're "okay" but the stench of it has never left and continues to permeate our marriage. Why not just leave? That ship sailed long ago.

I might be seeing it differently because for me the Marriage was never that important, I could not care less to be married or not to a woman I love, because the love is what already sealed the union from the first moment in my eyes.

Marriage is just a formalization of something that already exists, to legally protect your partner and offspring in the case of your death.

Might be either an 'anomaly' or the result of trauma, but I legally married my cheater about 4 years after her last cheating.

Religious marriage because she is religious, while I am agnostic, so I never cared, either way was fine for me, I went with what was important to her.

However after her first betrayal and the heaviest betrayal where she left me for a few months for the affair partner, the relationship was already dead, everything that lead to the Marriage was just my Trauma Bond to her.

I left her for her first betrayal (only admitted and finally confessed few weeks ago, but dating back to when we just met), and stupidly took her back, I can see at that stage it was already no longer love but trauma.

She betrayed me every single year since then, physically or emotionally, until I came to here country to live together.
Then 10 years ago we married.

I always lead and fought hard for her since the first day. Because the love I felt for the first time in my life was real.

But I fucked up, in reality we never have love, it was always one sided, only me.
Hence there is no marriage, because it was dead from the start.

Could not care less if she bears my name or wears a ring (I do not, I always refused, the ring was giving me itch, now I realized why at last).

We are not married because she was never the person I thought she was.
And now I finally treat her like that.

She may suffer it, she is walking on eggshell afraid I will leave at any moment.
It sucks to be her, for 20 years it sucked to be me, now I just do not care.

Lost1313 posted at 7:05 AM on Monday, December 22nd, 2025

What was the worst, most hurtful thing your WW said to you during her affair?

D day was a nightmare. A few things were said and done that I think will forever haunt me. I found out where she was that night and drove over to confront. It was at a complex and I didn't know which unit they were in so she walked out to meet me in the common area parking lot, got in the car, we went for a drive, and I started grilling her.

"What did you expect me to do?"

"He's a great guy!"

"No, I'm not coming home tonight. I'm going to stay here and enjoy my evening."

Every one of those comments was an emotional gunshot wound. At one point she attempted to jump out of the moving vehicle while I was driving. She had lost her mind. Like, literally. It was so far out of character for her. She wasn't herself at all for a couple of months at that point.

I went home alone that night and started eyeing my Glock, and thought about eating a bullet. What stopped me? My son and my dogs. Son was old enough to be out of the house, but the dogs were right beside me. I didn't want to traumatize the poor dogs and have them have to spend the rest of the night with my dead body in the room after hearing a gunshot. Then of course there was my son. I couldn't do that to him.

It was, without question, the lowest point of my life. Boy, things sure have changed since then.

I went home alone that night and started eyeing my Glock, and thought about eating a bullet.

Yeah, can relate because I did the same just with my father's Beretta.

Isn't it fascinating than when the person who we trusted the most hurts you so deeply there is this pulsion to do yourself even more harm, including the impulse to end your own life?

Is like staring into the abyss and feeling the urge to jump.

Fascinating

I really hate how years later this can still be so difficult to deal with. So many times there’s something she says that I want to throw what she did back in her face. Or she’ll say something that makes me think why would she feel it was necessary to add that?

Today I keep chomping on something she said this morning. About a month ago our oldest son (mine from my first marriage) called and told me his W caught him in an EA (they’re in counseling and working on getting through this). I was pretty devastated since in many ways he’s a better man than me. At any rate, we’ve been trying to set a date to go visit them and see the grandbaby, and they keep having a reason for us not to come. W had asked about just her coming for a few days and DIL said no and one of the reasons was that they’re still working on what they’re going through which I think makes sense. When W was telling me that she made the comment that maybe we could come visit if S had just been honest with his wife. I really had to struggle to hold my tongue. What he did was wrong and I’ll never try to defend it, but what she did for significantly longer is an order of magnitude worse. I came close to letting her have it but decided it wasn’t going to change anything so why bother. But it’s eaten at me that’s for sure. Sometimes I think regardless of how much progress they make that waywards will never truly understand what exactly it was they did to us.

Sorry, I just had to vent to people who would understand.

[This message edited by WearingTheHorns at 5:20 AM, Thursday, April 30th]

I get the venting (by the way great nickname love the humor)

Look the brain struggles in understanding the things that it never experienced directly before.

Empathy and emotional intelligence can get you close but only so far.

Let’s be frank, we were the same before being betrayed. Sure it’s bad but we couldn’t grasp just how bad until it was thrown our way. And everyone would have lived a better life without ever knowing what it is truly like.

You are a faithful partner so she doesn’t get it as she didn’t suffer it (but she likely fears the chance it might happen to her, no matter how remote).

I do get the wayward point of view, because there is a number of potential wayward women and girls who would like to make me the OM or become the mistress. The only difference is that we say no to this kind of proposal but if you get close to those kind of "temptation " ( in quotes because you really need to feel worthless and with no self respect to follow through) you do have a better idea of what was going on with our partners when they cheated.

And if the idea to cheat yourself is already disgusting, well, kind of obvious when someone does it to you how low they fall into your hierarchy of people’s worth.

To have an affair is likely one of the easiest things to get. You just need to become a worm, and trade your self worth for a shallow panties party.

That’s what most BS know, I don’t think the collective mainstream imagination of the bs is quite right, as a person who is without options therefore doesn’t cheat. You just need to get outside and you have 2-3 opportunities each day at the very least.

Self respect is the only difference between a cheater and a loyal partner.

She crossed that line, so the cope is likely that is not that bad because I am over it and will not do it again.

Good in part but ignores the pain and devastation caused. It’s very hard to watch the corpses you left behind. Unless you suffered it you might never get it.

I observed something similar in my wife. She is outraged about others cheating and responding with contempt. It’s not wrong, but seriously girl? Do You have any self awareness?

Once I told her I can easily get her to fully understand what it feels like. Would she like me to sleep with couple of girls, including some of her close friends, film it and let her know when she’s less expecting and fully involved and happy about our life?

She became pale as a ghost. She does know that it can happen and the only reason why she feels safe is because she knows me. I respect myself too much to pick up on the opportunities, not because I respect her, she lost that, because I respect me.

So our waywards DO know or at least feel what is likely to be when you are betrayed. They just don’t want to know, to learn this knowledge as they forced us to learn it.

This lack of thoughtfulness is deflection from this. You sense it, that’s why it triggers you

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 9:29 AM, Thursday, April 30th]