SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

The second thing that shocked me was all the fellow posters telling him, right off the bat what an “absolute legend” you are and essentially how lucky he was. Don’t get me wrong, as I said above I gravitate to your posts because I think you really “Get it” and I wish I could see that work from my own WGF but...... if everyone started telling me how lucky I was, I’m pretty sure some resentment would start building up....

I was struck by that too, at the time. I posted back that I could understand why he'd have mixed feelings about "lucky," given the reasons why HO had to join SI in the first place, and that it was us who were lucky, and we appreciated his support for the time she spent here. I was trying to be low key in my response to avoid starting something with other members who just meant to compliment HO on her insight and hard work. Looking back, I wish I'd pushed harder against that word. I remember imagining how it would make my BH feel to be told not to fuck things up with me, and how that made me shudder.

[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 7:43 AM, October 22nd (Thursday)]

@BSR honestly I thought I would get shot down for pointing that out, I’m glad I wasn’t the only one who thought it.

I’m not saying that’s why he did what he did, or that would justify what he did in anyway. I just know in the same situation that would seriously rub me up the wrong way - and I’m the mildest mannered person I know.

I don’t know if you get it but his affair why’s are deeper than yours. His affair was committed knowing the consequences of it 100%. And that for me it’s a new level of selfishness and deceit.

I can see how it would be viewed that way. I tend to not want to compare which is worse at this point. And, honestly I think this forum likely missed a lot that I put my husband through. Not because I hid it but in our early days I was so focused on my feelings, myself I don't believe they would have resonated with me enough to relay them.

Whether or not it's deeper or longer or whatever may matter, it may not. Right now from my perspective it just illustrates to me we are different, his work is going to be different if he decides to do it, and I think Unhinged said it best that he and I need to let go of our expectations to a certain degree. Yes, the place is familiar but we have not been here before.

As far as who he was on this forum, it's a topic I am probably not going to address again. I will just say, he wasn't really taking this place as a place for him to heal or to do any self examination. He was here because he had been lurking and he didn't like what was happening and he has fucking KISA issues. I don't think he took any thing really to heart in here other than what I wrote. If he feels at some point he needs to answer to you all about his posts, or what he was thinking about yours then please just let him do it. I am not trying to be insensitive, but this is my whole life right now. I am in the midst of disclosure, I came here yesterday after hearing some things I am deeply disturbed about and am trying to come to terms with all the obstacles of keeping my fucking life together. His small amount of participation in this forums is not even on my list of concerns right now. If he betrayed people here, it's minor towards what I feel he has done to me and it's the least of his behaviors that I need to dissect. It's not that I am not sorry that his posts may have impacted people negatively, I am sorry to hear that happened. It's more that don't feel like defending him or explaining for him, and right now I am in a place where when this comes up I want to. This is grating, and I know noone means for it to be. I just can't deal with this aspect right now.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:30 AM, October 22nd (Thursday)]

Understood, HO. I'm sorry. I won't mention his presence on the site again.

BSR - that might have felt like it was directed at you, it wasn't. It's all over, and in my PMs too.

Noone means anything bad by it. The only thing you know about my husband is what you encountered with him. It's natural to want to use that knowledge, and I am not even trying to ban it or ask people never to bring it up.

I am mostly just trying to state what it is from my standpoint. I never considered him an active member here. Maybe it's because I understood his presence better than anyone else. As I said yesterday, there was a lot of shit happening in this forum when he joined.

When he told me he had been reading, he didn't come clean for any other reason than to try to talk me out of being here. He knew I was struggling with shame and he saw this as me giving myself a public flogging on a daily basis. When certain members were acting certain ways, he didn't understand I was triggering them because he wasn't following the site trying to learn from the other BS's.

I am not angry with anyone, and I am sure it will come up again. Just give it a moratorium for now. He's not here to answer for it, and I don't want to answer for it. And, I don't want him here. So, we can't get to the bottom of it anyway.

Sending you much love, HikingItOut.

I know we have rarely, if ever, really interacted, but I read your posts a lot.

I have a lot of admiration for you.

Just wanted you to know 💜

Hi how are YOU feeling today hikingout? hope you are taking some breaks for some self-care it is so important while you are going through this. Also are you going to see an IC? It really helps to have an unbiased person to speak with.

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 10:10 AM, October 22nd (Thursday)]

I do think that the online dynamic, any online dynamic, skews things a bit. So it does get a bit weird that I feel that the most "praise" here gets directed at WS. Think about that.

The response to that is the BS says that "I wish my WS was like that." Well fine. I get that, and I think that infidelity does skew relationships, even in R to get things truly back in balance in an ongoing relationship is difficult at best. There's always going to be an undercurrent, and a lot of BS get stuck in some sort of "servant leader" role where they are taking on a lot of responsibility of the relationship, but it's kind of demeaning at the same time.

So it seems that, weirdly, BS get consolation, WS get praise. BS have egos too, want to be looked on as attractive. Maybe more than "you should be so happy that you're getting more sex now, getting hysterical bonding." Gee thanks. I'm divorced, got dumped. I have a GF, so I have something, but it's not like the toll of my busted marriage doesn't matter.

Don't want to hijack here. I think it would be difficult in a different situation for a BS to be heard here if the WS had already established a prominent presence. There's a WS here who has never told their BS of the affair. I won't interact with them because of that. But I think if she ever finds out, she needs to go somewhere else, unfortunately. She deserves a place with fresh ears, not somewhere where the WS is already established.

I don't fully know how to speak to HO's case. WS need a place to do their work. But HO's not allowed to post on JFO and she hasn't, hence the title of her post. MadHatter situations are different. It comes down more to between the two of them than others of us who have not been a WS. My ex left me, and if she has infidelity in her current marriage, what can she say? She might go somewhere, to IC/MC, but it's not going to change what she did to me.

So if you have been a WS, even in a prior relationship, it probably does change things. You still need a place to go, but the WS part of you isn't going to go away? That's as much as I can reference. Just trying to look at this from a distance.

Things are moving fast, so I don't know what to say about taking a lot of time for myself, things are so crammed right now. Working, and then spending a lot of time talking with H, digging and writing here which has been a lifeline. But, I am completely functional. Sleeping, eating, bathing, and I did get a short run in last night, mostly to burn off some of the anxiety feelings. I always feel super clear and strong when running and afterwards. I haven't hit a "can't get out of bed" stage, and my focus is actually better than it was after my own affair. I think in a odd way I just don't feel like I am in control right now. My role is to basically watch and wait and figure out how I want to navigate different things. Working as a WS was a different kind of consuming. I don't know what work I will have as a BS, but right now that's not all that engaging to me yet. I think as a WS I wanted to control the outcome so badly and get myself fixed that it had a completely different vibe to it. I don't feel the urgency here. Hard to explain.

I find odd solace from participating in other threads. I think that is my normal and it helps me to focus on someone other than myself even if it's just for a few minutes. I have lots of BW's reaching out in PM's which I am completely blown away and grateful for, some have offered their numbers even. I am not ready yet, but I am keeping those messages and it's good to have them. I plan to engage an old friend over the weekend and I found a meetup in my area for BS's.

Other than that, when I think about it I just oscillate between a lot of different things. I am digging a lot right now, I spent a couple hours reading all the texts. Wasn't much to garner there mostly really boring, very little trace of anything untoward. I don't get that really, I am trying to figure out if there was an app. He had android I have apple so while I have unlimited access to his phone the learning curve there is annoying. I used an app in my affair, and texts and pictures and all of that was voluminous. But, at the same time - it was long distance and the only real way to conduct an affair with the AP. In his case they had proximity and opportunity, and so I am wondering if there is far less "virtual" evidence somehow. I didn't look at the phone bill, I already could have told you they talked all the time. There would be nothing there that would have tipped me off, nor is there anything to garner there either.

I have also talked to the OBS again, this time I reached out. He was much calmer this time, I think his resolve is just to end it with her. She is at her moms house. At this point, I seem to know more than he does and there isn't much help there with verification. I don't plan to reach out again, but I may hear from him later who knows.

So far, the AP has not seemed to do anything in the way of contacting either of us. She shut off her facebook page. I only know because I wanted to unfriend and block her, so now I have to wait for her to pop back up in there.

That's about where it's all at today. I almost dread the weekend not to have a work distraction which is the opposite of how I usually feel about the weekend.

Working as a WS was a different kind of consuming. I don't know what work I will have as a BS, but right now that's not all that engaging to me yet.

To me, the vast majority of my work was understanding my value. That my wife’s choices didn’t degrade me or reflect on me. Betrayal is so personal it obliterates self esteem in early discovery, so I spent a lot of time trying to understand I’m still as amazing as ever.

Hiking, I think a lot of your work was rebuilding yourself and understanding your value — so in a way, I think your starting line is slightly ahead of mine.

This doesn’t mean your hurt is ANY less at all, I’m just saying a lot of the work a BS does, you’ve already done. You already let go of the outcome, you already prepared yourself to stand on your own. You’re already much tougher than when you first got here.

That hopefully counts for something, even though, you may still simply be in a unique state of shock.

So, more emotions may be on the way once the dust settles, and the shock clears, but I hope you’re able to lean on the strength you built with the all the work you’ve already done.

Striver -

I know you are in a lot of pain, so I am going to step carefully here. But, honestly I think the grass always seems greener from the other side. And we tend to put a microscope on the things that go along with our own confirmation bias. You think WS get the praise because you notice it more. I see BS praise and cheer for each other all the time. It is much more prevalent than anything on this site, AS IT SHOULD BE.

Don't want to hijack here. I think it would be difficult in a different situation for a BS to be heard here if the WS had already established a prominent presence.

Again, it's what you look for. Most of the time if both spouses are here the WS gets more hateful things, assumptions and 2 by 4's than any other WS. Look at Hallmack/iamtrash, for a while it was that way with Neandrathal/Lifedestroyer. I can't remember flawed's husbands name but she only participates in PM's here because she could not exist here with him. Mrs. Walloped joined years later after Mr. Walloped was established, while received okay she was grilled for an untold number of pages. My husband never sought support here, I genuinely did. I don't think it had anything to do with our WS/BS status, it had to do with what we put into working on things on this site.

There's a WS here who has never told their BS of the affair. I won't interact with them because of that. But I think if she ever finds out, she needs to go somewhere else, unfortunately. She deserves a place with fresh ears, not somewhere where the WS is already established.

I know who you mean, but honestly, I think she would get a huge amount of support. That WS has understandably gotten very little positive feedback.

I don't fully know how to speak to HO's case. WS need a place to do their work. But HO's not allowed to post on JFO and she hasn't, hence the title of her post. MadHatter situations are different. It comes down more to between the two of them than others of us who have not been a WS. My ex left me, and if she has infidelity in her current marriage, what can she say? She might go somewhere, to IC/MC, but it's not going to change what she did to me.

True.

So if you have been a WS, even in a prior relationship, it probably does change things. You still need a place to go, but the WS part of you isn't going to go away? That's as much as I can reference. Just trying to look at this from a distance.

No, I didn't post in JFO, but I didn't post in general either. Do you know why? Because of what you said. There will always be people who feel they won't be able to support someone through an infidelity because they did it themselves. I understand that, and have no judgement over it. I didn't want to post it in General and hear how I had it coming. I know that is not what you are saying here, and honestly after posting it over here and seeing the support I will feel more comfortable in the future at times sharing my perspective over there.

I am completely astounded as to the outpouring and generousity I have been shown in this thread. I didn't expect any of this. I didn't expect people to help me see that I need to put a BS hat on here. The warmth and support and people sharing themselves with me since I posted this is a completely different response/feeling that I get from being on this site. I am saying that to assure you, the treatment of reformed WS is not better than what we give BS. There are maybe a couple of handful of reformed WS on this site. Most of our praise is for the help we have given to the others on this site and they generally come from those we have spent a good deal of time helping.

Anyway, I didn't mean to go into a whole thing there, but I think what I want you to know is I think that some of your pain and experience, which is horrific and completely undeserved, is making you notice some things and not others.

In the end, it's the same for you as it is for what I said earlier. What happens in this forum is a small piece of everything. This is YOUR life. You don't have to leave it behind or make it be less than it could have been -just because your ex wife did. Your value is not dependent of whether or not she ever saw it or not. You determine your own value. You determine your future. I can assure you that if you do decide to take control of that and maybe do some therapy and create a different vision for your life it will be worth while. You may even learn that you can put yourself more fully out there to someone because you trust yourself to be able to catch yourself.

And, maybe I am giving myself a peptalk at the same time? Either way, whatever you think of my status on this site, I want better for you. And, if I, a stranger on the internet, wants that for you, I hope you can find that you want that for yourself!

Take care Striver. It's okay that not everyone would want to support a MH. I get it and take no offense. I can see the ways I am not innocent in this. But, I can still know I am redeemable, and that two wrongs will never make a right.

[This message edited by hikingout at 12:20 PM, October 22nd (Thursday)]

Oldwounds,

You are one of my favorite posters. I am not sure if I have said that to you before, but your posts have been so much guidance to me, and always so sage.

To me, the vast majority of my work was understanding my value. That my wife’s choices didn’t degrade me or reflect on me. Betrayal is so personal it obliterates self esteem in early discovery, so I spent a lot of time trying to understand I’m still as amazing as ever. Hiking, I think a lot of your work was rebuilding yourself and understanding your value — so in a way, I think your starting line is slightly ahead of mine.

I don't think that it's that I understand my value, and that my self worth is so strong. That is something I think can come and go for anyone. That's not a permanent fixture type of thing I don't think. I think it's more I know how little my affair was a statement of my husband's value. For some reason, I just can't seem (yet?) to get worked up that this was a statement about my value. Now, it might have been a statement about my value as a wife - right? And, when he started cheating, my value as a wife was pretty damned low. But, I don't think it's a statement of my attributes?

I don't want to sound boastful here, or that this eliminates hurt, because it doesn't. But, while this person was younger than me, she is far less attractive, far less successful, far less substance of a person than I am. She is kind of trashy and not someone who he would have a real relationship with, or at least I would be floored if that is what ended up happening. I honestly feel like I might have to laugh and say good luck. That might be a weird thing to say, but it's just how I feel about it right now.

This doesn’t mean your hurt is ANY less at all, I’m just saying a lot of the work a BS does, you’ve already done. You already let go of the outcome, you already prepared yourself to stand on your own. You’re already much tougher than when you first got here.

Sort of yes. Sort of no.

I don't feel the urgency I did the first time because I am not in denial of how long this is going to take. The first time around I felt I needed to change fast and I think to the point I was not making any progress, I was trying to fake progress. At first, not the whole time. I do feel like I don't have any control on where this lands or what he does. I do feel like I can make it if I need to go on my own.

I don't want to. The pain in all of this really comes from getting to one place and then finding out you were there alone. Being told for such a long period of time one thing, and finding out another. Not knowing if you will ever be able to trust it enough to believe you are in that place again.

After my affair I was so thankful that I kept my family. That my girls had us. That we danced at our daughters wedding together. That we had the kind of marriage that I didn't know was possible and didn't think we could accomplish when I basically wanted out.

How can I go back to that place again? That is the unsurmountable question. I know a WS can feel like they understand love, but I don't even know if my H can understand himself. His disconnect is astounding on some things. In some ways I think his road forward is going to be much harder, not because of me not willing to try but because of who he is and our situation.

I know the decision is down the road, but a lot of times I feel so hopeless because it seems like the only logical outcome is going to be divorce. And, that's not what I want emotionally. That's why I can't engage it. That's why I feel removed from it and want to distract myself from it. Because logically I know I don't know what is going to happen, and I don't have any control over what's going to happen and there is no rush to make a decision.

I kind of think that part of me has already decided it's over, and that's where my functioning and not controlling the outcome is coming from. But I can't connect to that right now, and emotionally it's not what I want. Not sure that makes any sense, but maybe it's more like you said - I am in shock? It's the last thing I was expecting. I don't know if one knows where they are at until later. As a WS I always thought I was in a different stage than I was, hindsight is where I really had a grip on the reality of what just happened. I don't know if that's individual to me, but I have accepted that we just need to keep moving forward and I will know more in hindsight?

So, more emotions may be on the way once the dust settles, and the shock clears, but I hope you’re able to lean on the strength you built with the all the work you’ve already done.

I think there is some truth to that. If this had happened before I had been a wayward myself, I would have a completely terrible set of coping skills, I would have a lot of past trauma I hadn't looked at, and I was a people pleasing pushover who would have rugswept. So, Yes, I think I agree that there are some advantage to the order of these things. And, I can recognize my husband doesn't yet have these advantages. That's really another factor as to why I don't mind to give it a lot of time, as long as he doesn't break some basic boundaries moving forward.

[This message edited by hikingout at 12:24 PM, October 22nd (Thursday)]

I think that it's important to acknowledge that nobody on this site has had an identical experience. That's what makes this site so helpful - there are people who have gone through this crap in so many different ways, and everyone has different insight to pass along.

I tend to think that in terms of the different 'classifications' on here, the rules or path that a WS is expected to follow to healing is a lot more rigid that what we expect of BSes. By that I mean, when new waywards come here, they have a list of things they are told they MUST do (and I'm not even saying this is a bad thing, just standard) - NC, full-disclosure, no TT, etc. For BSes, there is a myriad of advice given depending on whether they want to R or D.

I feel like the obvious cause of this is that the WSes who come here are (generally speaking) here because they are seeking advice on how to save their marriages - if they don't want to do that, why would they be here? On the flip side, the BSes run the gamut - some are immediately in the D camp, some are on the fence, some are hopeful for R.

I don't know if I'm making sense, but my point is that it makes sense to ME that your journey as a BS would be a lot less straightforward or clear-cut than the one you had to take as a WS who wanted to keep the marriage. Even in the fog, which you admit you were in for awhile, you still seem to have wanted to keep the marriage - you just didn't know how to let go of AP.

Which is why we at SI tell the WSes all the things they need to do IMMEDIATELY if they want to save the marriage, but I feel like we tell BSes not to make any concrete decisions right away.

I don't know, I'm just rambling here. Maybe I'm generalizing too much or misreading the tone of the boards in general, but I'm sort of circling a point, and that is that your journey in this shouldn't be held up in comparison to the journey you took as a WS. If you are more unsure this time that you even want to fight for the marriage, then that is completely valid.

I don't know, I'm just rambling here. Maybe I'm generalizing too much or misreading the tone of the boards in general, but I'm sort of circling a point, and that is that your journey in this shouldn't be held up in comparison to the journey you took as a WS. If you are more unsure this time that you even want to fight for the marriage, then that is completely valid.

A lot of this makes sense. I think it might even be less complicated than that. It's I have spent a lot of time over these last 3 years working on myself. I just feel like stopping in my tracks for a while. I am tired. I drove the car the whole time. Let him drive the car for a while and see if he takes us anywhere. If he does, then I might feel like helping with it.

I think there is a to do list for BS's actually if they aren't D'ing right away. Get all the info, watch and wait, have the ws do x,y,z, and protect yourself.

I guess all I was saying is I am not scrambling. As a WS I was scrambling, everything was urgent.

Hikingout,

In the event that she blocked you instead of deleting her Facebook account, you can still block her by going into your settings and typing her name into the blocking feature. If her account still exists, it will show up for the blocking process only (just not if you do a regular search for her).

Thank you. I did know I couldn't see her if she unfriended and blocked me. I didn't know I could block her regardless. I wanted to create a fake account and look, but at this point I didn't want to confuse the situation by doing something as a WS that I shouldn't (I know that's confusing by why add fuel to the fire). So instead, I asked someone else to see if she was there with only the explanation we fired her and I want to know what to do about blocking her in the future.

[This message edited by hikingout at 12:50 PM, October 22nd (Thursday)]

In his case they had proximity and opportunity, and so I am wondering if there is far less "virtual" evidence somehow. I didn't look at the phone bill

I wouldn't be surprised if this is the case. My WH had little by way of text too. There was texts, but since they worked and traveled together, they were in person. They literally talked on the phone MAYBE a total of 15 times once their affair was physical (post first kiss, so 3 months). They just didn't need to. It was only after the sex that she started sending him flowery emails to his personal email account versus work or text - which was what got him caught.

I looked at his emails too, but didn't find anything. It doesn't help my husband works in IT - he has a lot of advantages over me in that arena. If he wants to bury something he will.

My gut is that is not the case, I just think there is very little virtual to be found. He seems to be answering my questions in a way they ring true (meaning some of it is not easy for him to tell me and pretty awful). There is a lot of his own narrative in it because I can see he still believes a lot of his own bullshit, but on the details I don't get the sense he is lying.

He could have email addresses I don't know about, but again that's a lot of effort when you see and talk to someone every day.

[This message edited by hikingout at 1:05 PM, October 22nd (Thursday)]

HO,

And I apologize if I missed this somewhere in your thread, but has he indicated/shared with you how he feels/felt towards her? If so, do you believe he what he said?

I know one of my questions to my husband on dday was "How do you feel about her?" But at the time, my husband was still very much engulfed in his affair as he was caught and didn't confess.

I don't know. To me, it comes across that your husband was trying to get rid of her, but didn't know how.

Just curious.

Ho,

You're bringing me out of lurkdom. I've been learning from this site for 2 and a half years now. I'm a WS in reconciliation. The short of it was the A had ended and I was a mess and I confessed. My H had no idea.

I was in limerence for a long, long time, even after confessing. Too long. I didn't want the feelings I had and didn't know how to make them stop. I know now it wasn't the person I was pining for, it was the emotions/dopamime. I'm still very much a work in progress and will be for a long time. But I know I'm on the right path now and I feel I owe it to this site... both to the BS and WS

Without making this about me, I just want you to know that through the past two and a half years your posts helped me immensely. I have "quotes" from you cut and pasted into my journal. You have put yourself out there warts and all and I have admired your growth for the past two years.

No matter what your decisions are or choices are moving forward, they are yours and yours alone. As you muddle through this, you are going to feel 1,000 different emotions in a few minutes. My only advice is to take deep breaths and just do the best you can and be the best you can be, like you've been doing all along. No decisions have to be made at this time. You do have that gift of time and as a WS, you have insights into the process H will have to experience if he chooses.

Finally, thank you to all the BS's who are giving her so much support. I have followed many of you through your journeys and reading your stories is what helped me "get it." I admire those of you who stick around here and help others.

I just wanted to know that there are people here that you don't even know about who are with you every step of the way. :)