SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I think the majority of us blame ourselves for THEIR CHOICES.

We don't want to believe that they are not who we thought they were. We really want to believe that deep down they still love and care for us.

It must be some fault in us that made them do it.

No No No.

It took me a while to realise that I am not the failure HE IS.

He failed as a husband

He failed as a friend

He failed as a decent moral human being

and he sure as hell failed as a father.

Now I'm not saying I'm perfect I'm far from it but I didn't rip the security and well being from under our kids. I didn't break their hearts. He did that. I'm the one left to pick up the pieces. He doesn't see the damage he did to them, I do.

He's never once apologised to them or asked how they really are. Like I said previously, he expected them to be happy for him and his whore.

Stilllost, i totally get you still want her back. I did with mine.

What exactly is it i would be taking back.

Someone who does this and felt/feels justified doing it, midlife crisis or not. Stress or foo issues, or not. This behaviour is within them. They did not suddenky get possessed. No one put a gun to their heads.

We tried the bestwith what we had. We didnt deserve this.

Just throwing it out there

Did our partners engage in silent treatments with us allways being the ones to "make up?"

I ask as it went on for years and i always blamed myself. Even inventing stuff within me to blame it on. She was at it for years.

It ties in with all the narcissist stuff ive read

Argh someone mentuons Morrisey type cheater. The marches to a different romantic drum type.

My wife has got a bit of this in her too. And ahe is probably leaning on all her feminist stuff abiut marriage as property ownership and all that stuff.

Hey i emotionally rape people but no matter beacuse im a bit jaunty like Morrisey lol

Puff.

I got the silent treatment whenever we argued which to be fair wasn't very often but no matter how trivial it usually lasted all week.

I think mine seems typical exit affair stuff as he completely rewrote our entire relationship. He is waiting for the type of love that is the all encompassing stuff of tragic love songs and poetry and I suppose a 15 year relationship involving two children just got boring 😞 i have never been more shocked by anything and trusted him entirely. I’m still having times where I feel devastated by the rejection and imagine he has convinced himself and other people that his life was less than it was. I suppose it’s because he chose less then he had. I’m trying to believe that I will regain some confidence. I have managed to have no contact since June and this is helping.

Bookgirl

I don't know if mine was an exit affair.

From what I've read about them the cheater subconsciously or not, want to get caught.

They want a reason to break the marriage up so they are freed up to do what they want.

Like you I trusted numbnuts completely. It never entered my head once that he was capable of this.

He was the one who told me about the affair then left that day and moved straight in with her. He's admitted at least to me that it is all on him and I'm not at fault, of course I don't know what he's told other people.

To be honest I don't care what 'type' of affair it was. He destroyed his family for a serial homewrecking whore.

Hell mend the both of them.

WasSheworthit,

Mine told me, left the next day and moved in with his horrible new girlfriend too 😮 he didn’t blame me either and thought we would all be great friends 😂

he didn’t blame me either and thought we would all be great friends

omg, my STBEW said the same thing.

"Some couples are better friends than they are lovers, and that's what I'd like from us."

Are you -shitting- me? Seriously? You cheated on me multiple times, tore me to shreds, gaslit me, told everyone we know that I'm abusing you and the kids, and you want to be -friends-? GTFOH.

My nutcase played the lets be friends card. I almost dry heaved. I said and im glad i said it enemies dont even do what youve done. Id rather hang out with people i hate lol.

Can you imagine going for a coffe and fucking cake with these people. They dont realise it would prpbably invoke a breakdown in us. Yeah lets have a flapjack and cappacino and talk about our kids trauma and your new sex life.

I have never been so guarded and emotionless as when i pick up and drop thie kids. Every cell in my body is in self preservation mode and they think we can forget all that and have a natter. Black Hole Souls. I give her nothing. When they say talk kids and finances that ia literally it now, anything else and i would get sucked into the narc vortex and god only knows if id get back out.

I was going to reply to Incarnates post but I don't need to now.

Puff, you said everything I wanted to say but much more eloquently than I could 😁

Its still there when i wake up in the morning. The washing machine starts.i lie there and just endure it, that horrible black feeling of sadness fear and confusion. Picturing my beautiful kids waking up without me. Memories of happy amd carefree days we had as a family.

But everything is getting better, on the whole. The expression "dodged a bullet" has greater weight. Imagine R and they are not really truly remorseful. Imagibe the layers of mistrust amd contempt to work through and then they inevitable waywardness. Fuck that! Fishing, football, walks, exercise and most importanlty my kids. Earning more money. Meeting someone who shares the same outlook. Lot to look forward to.

Just knowing you lot are here has been a great help.

[This message edited by puffstuff at 4:17 PM, September 17th (Tuesday)]

Wanting to be friends is totally deluded. I feel worse for my children. I feel like I made a terrible choice when I considered him a committed partner and father and I feel guilty that they are having to deal with all of this. It makes me furious 😡 and devastated and numb with sadness.

You should have seen the look of total disbelief and shock on numbnuts face when I told him that we will never be friends and I was cutting HIM out of MY life.

The demotion of wife to friend wasn't something I was going to accept.

Thats the day I realised how fucking deluded he was about this whole situation. It near killed me doing it but I knew it would have damaged me even more (if that's possible) being around him.

I tortured myself wondering if I did the right thing. Was I pushing him further away from me? . Will he think I don't love him? Will he think I don't care?.

It took a friend to point out to me that HE was the one who pushed ME away and transferred his love and care to the serial homewrecking whore.

Every single day is a struggle. It's the first thing I think about when I wake up in the morning, it follows me around all day and its the last thing I think about when I go to sleep at night.

It's not even him anymore, it's what he did that stalks me 24 feckin 7. It's the total disregard and disrespect of my and my children's well being.

What shocked me was how quickly he became this cold eyed, black hearted stranger..

I had no control over what he chose to do and he didn't like the fact that he had no control over the choices I made when dealing with it.

Sucks to be him

so many moments these days when i suddenly think:

"just HANG ON one fucking MINUTE, WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK IS SHE DOING WITH HER LIFE?"

she has swapped so much for almost nothing at all.

no wonder those dead eyes look even deader, with the brutality of her self choices kicking in. suppress, repress, minimise, blame. she just doesnt have it in here one bit to self reflect, to throw her hands up and say she has fucked up in the most horrible selfish way. she would sooner die than accept her role in...well pretty much anything, looking back. i think she apologised to me about three times in a total of 9 years.

one of the worst things she has lost is a true chance at happiness and the dream life. we had it all and things would have just got better and better. our kids would have had a bright secure future.she's lost all the freedoms i gave her by looking after the kids. she could have pursued anythign she liked. now she's stuck at home forever.

now she's got a fat waddling alcoholic womaniser who screams "domestic abuse is in the post once the infatuation phase ends" and twu luv of course.

disordered freaks. why the FUCK did god pair me off with one of those. i didnt want one of those, for christ sake. it's her loitering around in the background for the next 14 fucking years that disturbs me most.

My wife of 11 years dropped the bomb on me and told me she was moving out in 2 weeks.

At first she denied there was anyone else, but I knew that was bullstuff. When she finally admitted who it was, I can't say I was surprised.

I got the old "it just happened" line. At the time I knew that was bullstuff also but I was not adept enough to counter it, not that it would have made any difference.

Now to my point, yes it was a very difficult ending and not easy for me or our 2 sons. But in some ways I'm glad she just left rather than me playing the "pick me" dance which I probably would have done. Or wasting a year of my life trying to "reconcile". For the record, I could never actually reconcile with a cheating wife anyway, but I probably would have tried for the kids.

FWIW I started dating again 6 months later. 18 months later I met my current wife, a woman who is all I could ever ask for. We are on year 22.

Great post what i know now, but i have to ask, and i hope youdon't think i am begin confrontational, but how come you're posting on SI?

however to be honest i KNOW i will still be thinking about all this bullshit in two decades time. No way will i forget it completely!

similar story to mine in regards your cheating wife.

did the 2 kids stay with her or you? i see mine about 4 times a week

puff I don't mind your question. I don't think our experiences with infidelity have an expiration date really. I still think about my first marriage and how it ended 30 years ago, the one I mentioned here was my second.

I will on some level always be working through what happened. Probably not true of everyone, but certain elements of my experience didn't come into focus until over a decade later.

And lastly I wanted to mention that my story ultimately turned out great, and that at (almost) any age if you find yourself in an infidelity situation there is always time to find a great marriage. So many people seem to think that ship has sailed by the time they are 40, not so.

[This message edited by whatIknowNow at 3:01 PM, September 18th (Wednesday)]

Life gets better although i still have lots of grinding ruminations that i go through each day. "What ifs" coming out of my ears.

I need to remind myself that puffstuff this is trauma, this is some of the worst shit you can go through emotionally.

Did yours offer closure in any way shape or form? Mine didnt. She just smirked at me. Hannibal lecter in a dress. A heartless bitch. The lack of closure is agoniaing at times.