SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Surviving Infidelity is akin to having a baby

These thing invades your life, heart, past, present, and future

A baby you might want though

A Cheater?

No fucking way

[This message edited by 20yrsagoBS at 4:01 PM, July 20th (Tuesday)]

Hi lovely Womenz,

I thought of popping in today as I have been haunted by some dearly departed BS’s, then I saw 20’s post about having a baby. Surprise you are pregnant!

Things that are going through my head now…

My grandmother was pregnant with my dad when she first experienced infidelity. Dad was 40+ when she told me about it. She was heartbroken. I have always hated grandfather.

A late aunt of sorts confided in me that when her boys were 1 & 6 her husband came home crying to her, for his high school sweetheart. She was about to marry his younger brother. She was heartbroken. She wanted to pack and leave him right there and then, but stayed for the sake of her children, who were both in their 40’s when she told me her infidelity trauma. She was certain that her husband was unfaithful with her sister in law. I disliked her husband even before she told me he was a cheater.

I was trying to leave my abusive marriage when surprise, I was pregnant with my 1st baby. It wasn’t until my babies were 5, 6 & 8 when I was hoping that Stbxwh would leave us.

Even in my 50’s I would rather welcome a baby with sheer joy.

ETA: like infidelity a baby is forever!

[This message edited by LadyG at 10:32 PM, July 20th (Tuesday)]

Hi lovely ladies,

I haven’t posted much lately. In fact I have been even reading less and less here…maybe because I have been healing and just enjoying my new life.

But today I am struggling. I know my situation is unique in that my WH has passed. Currently I am dealing with something in regards to his family.

My question at you all that are on your own now…how to manage the relationship with the E-in laws. They are not my family, they have made this clear to me…but I still want my kids to have a relationship with them. How do manage both. I really don’t want anything much to do with any of them…I have gone to a few “family” get togethers since he died a year ago. I go for my kids. When do you say enough is enough as being with his family is too triggering for me.

How do you put aside all that I feel for the sake of my kids. My kids really won’t go to family functions without me…so when I say no I don’t want to go…my kids end up not going. And I feel guilty.

His family won’t reach out to my kids on their own. His mom will only ever call one of my three kids. She has always played favorites and now is no different. In happier times, I always knew we were the least favorite family of him and his brother’s families. . Now that he is passed…his family doesn’t really bother with my kids much.

I guess I need some guidance as this is uncharted waters for me. Today I am hurting and 100% triggered by something his family did to me. I hate that I am having this set back as I was doing so well. Thanks for listening.

Throwaway999, to me, it would depend on the age of your kids. If they are old enough, maintaining the relationship can be their priority. Maybe it's better if they don't have a relationship?

What do your children want? I realize they may not know about the A, but how do they want to go forward? You can say that the in-laws are not your family, and the relationship is now theirs.

My kids are all young adults…old enough to make their own relationships with his family. And I have told them many times, it’s on them to nourish their relationship with their grandma, aunts and uncles and cousins. And I have told them in the past, and again today (out of anger…not my best moment) that his family is not my family. Having said that, I actually have no family here. Only one brother who lives in the US…we are in Canada. So it’s just me and the kids.

Before my husband passed, I told him that his infidelity not only broke our immediate family but also it destroyed my relationship with his family when after he was gone.

My kids, his family…basically everyone knows about his cheating. My kids don’t know the full extent of him being a serial cheater. They only know about one affair.

For the most part his family has been good over the years. I thought and felt they were my family too…but as soon as he passed, I quickly found out they aren’t my family…I have been treated differently and a bit ostracized maybe due to his cheating past and them blaming me? Who knows why. I am okay with that but I do want my kids to keep them in their lives. I have told my kids that for my own mental health I need to step back and make my own life. His family holds me in my pain…they are a constant reminder to me of what he did.

I will just have to wait and see how this all plays out. Take one family event or crisis at a time.

Cheaters are so selfish they never think past their own wants to see how much damage they do. Mine told me multiple times he just didn’t care about me or the kids when he cheated. And now that he is gone…we are still suffering from his actions.

If they are young adults, they onus is on them to keep the relationships going IF THEY CHOOSE TO. Perhaps they just don't want to. It is no longer your responsibility.

And honestly, if they have been shitheads to you after your WH's passing, are they so awesome to have in you're kids' lives? Seems like a hard no, to me.

Leafields and Trapped - things blew up with my in laws this passed weekend. I am so disappointed in them…after 25 years of knowing them and saying I am like a sister to them. Just wow.

I told my kids I was done. I won’t be attending any more family functions…that they are enough to choose to go on their own.

I will figure out Christmas when the time comes. I am still sad for my kids that this is how it’s played out. My eldest said he saw this coming.

This coming Monday it will be one year since he passed and in a few months 2 years since my first dday. Overall I am leaps and bounds better now than in a long time.

Thanks for the advice and support.

Throwaway999,

I'd let your kids know that if they want a relationship with his side of the family, they can choose that, but you are choosing not to have anymore to do with them because of their behavior (past & present) towards you and towards your kids.

Are they concerned about their relationship with you if they try to have a relationship with his family? If you are ok with it, reassure them that you won't cut them out for trying. Are they feeling pushed or obligated to try?

They may be more perceptive than you think about seeing how things have been with his family. But they might think that these disagreements between you and them could be worked out somehow and don't want to have the door closed to half their blood relatives.

I have 2 young adult daughters and they've talked about similar issues with wh's side of the family, including that wonderful playing favorites between siblings and between groups of cousins. They've also talked about creating family and connections that aren't blood related - I think their generation is much more open to that idea.

Basically, I'd put the ball (gently) in your kids court about what to do regarding the in-laws. They are old enough to make those types of decisions and find out how life goes with these types of people. For mine, I'm available to talk with and will help physically to be there for them when you should be able to count on your family, but, in a parent role for the last few years, I've begun giving them the freedom to get real life feedback from other people. Kids tend to think they know it all and that their parents don't know anything. Until they have their own experiences and see things from a different perspective.

I've cut out almost all contact with wh's family over the past 3-4 years. They are toxic. One of my sisters is toxic and I have very little contact - she's divorced and her adult (30+) daughters want very little to do with her too, so my other sister and I might be the only ones interested in taking care of her final arrangements. My other sister - we get along and try to have a healthy relationship.

Her ears must have been burning. wh came home from work and mentioned that a sister of his texted to call her. Wonder what drama awaits ...

He doesn't want to cut all of them out of his life. His mom is in her late 80s and has many health issues.

Edited to add - this sister and wh contact each other maybe 3 times a year and it's usually related to some crisis.

[This message edited by earlydetour at 5:22 PM, July 27th (Tuesday)]

Thank you gmc94, BlackRsven, outofsorts for your words. I've read them several times and thought about them, you, him, and I. I'm not ignoring what has/is happening, just trying to take care of myself and slowing the car down to feel my bearings. Find my way through this and still be true to myself and what I want. Yes, this is trauma. I reached out years ago to NarAnon group and learned so much, had an IC then and several times through the years. MC too. I didn't even have the whole story then and it was a struggle. Still, we're not the same before those events, during those events, and now. This event (the cocaine years and all that happened within it) doesn't define him, me, or us. I can't believe that it does, it simply isn't true.I want to know all the truths, not just the bad or good. I've decided to get back into counseling. My spouse and I have had some conversations and I've been reading other forums trying to understand it all. All the signs were there, why did I ignore them? Something was really wrong, I knew it, but too scared to face it then. Why? I should have confronted him years before I actually did. Who was he then, who was I?

Just a continuation of my in-law vent. My WH passed away year ago today…not one of my in-laws reached out to my kids. I texted my MIL she didn’t read it…she has her notifications turn on. My eldest phoned her…she didn’t pick up and never called him back. Really. I heard from all of my friends today…yet my kids don’t even hear from their own family. Wow. Just wow.

My kids and I are together today. Thank goodness we have each other.

T999 - I'm so sorry for you and your kids that they didn't hear anything from your husband's family. Could it be that it's just so overwhelming for them - especially your MIL, given she lost her son - that they don't even want to talk about it? From what you have said, it doesn't sound like they are the most emotionally well-adjusted bunch of people, so maybe this is the best that they can do in terms of dealing with it? Bury their heads?

They have you and they have your friends, and I'm sure they appreciate all of that. They are lucky to have such a wonderful mum

OOL - thanks. My son finally spoke to my MIL…and yes you were right the day was too much for her. The grief for her has been overwhelming. For the first few months after he passed, she kept telling me that she pretends he is on vacation away. So maybe after a year, she is finally dealing with her grief.

I think I just had expectations of what I hoped the day would be for my kids…knowing full well that his family would not step up. They never deal with any problems….they alway just pretend issues didn’t happen or never speak to that person again. I have seen it now far too many times with them. They hid their fathers infidelity from myself and the other sister in laws for 25 years. I have seen them shut out other family members over one single comment that was made that they did not like.

I was never ever in 25 years on the "bad" side for them…but now I am and I truly hope it doesn’t spill over to my kids. Time will tell. I know my kids and friends are my family, but since my H passed….I really found out that his family was not really my family…just stings a bit. Blood is always thicker than water….so true.

Edited to add….thanks for listening everyone 💕

[This message edited by Throwaway999 at 12:37 PM, Thursday, August 5th]

I was recently looking for some photos for something I'm working on. The photos are from before I met the ex - from before I even moved to the US. Long story short, I realised they were on a hard drive that I left at the house when I moved out. I actually remembered a while ago about the hard drive, but decided I could probably live without it as I thought I had all my digital items with me. That is not the case.

I don't want to leave those photos behind - they are years and years of extremely good memories. From when I lived in a different country, trips, family - I think I even have a lot of scanned photos on there of print pictures of grandparents etc.

So, after going back and forth a lot internally and some trusted friends, I decided the best way to try and recover the hard drive was to email the ex. A short, perfunctory note, saying I realised that I'd left it, I needed the info that was on it, and could he please mail it to me.

What I didn't realise until after I sent it....is that I think the email picked up the name under which he is stored in my contacts. It's an unflattering description of him. Honestly, I changed his name in my contacts pretty much as soon as we went NC for the first time, back in June 2020, so that if I was ever tempted to reach out to him, I'd see that description and it would - hopefully - put me off making that contact. I haven't looked up his details / name / number / email other than to delete things, since last contact in December 2020.

So, I think it's likely that when he sees the email, he'll see that description in the address bar.

I can't stop thinking about it. And feeling bad about it. No matter what he's done, it will likely hurt him. I am not a mean person. Regardless of what has happened, I won't want to be mean. I don't want him to think that I am mean and doing it deliberately. I hadn't thought about it for ages.

Then I get angry with myself for even caring. It's an unflattering description but it's a truthful one (it has the word cheating in it).

Oh, and of course he's not responded yet. He's a quick responder. Always has been, even during the initial separation. He's on his phone ALL THE TIME, of course, given his affair was an EA with someone hundreds of miles away, so if he's looking at email, he will have seen it. So either he's ignoring me or he's not seen my email - I feel the latter is unlikely, unless it's gone into his trash because I'm not in his contacts any more. And of course, my mind starts running off in a gazillion directions - I truly have no idea what he is doing with his life, so it's all ridiculous scenarios in my head. UGH.

How much do I push to get that damn hard drive back? I'm also annoyed with myself for leaving it in the first place - all I can say is that I packed up all my stuff in a few days, just so I could get out of the house and of course, I was on the start of the emotional roller coaster journey.

I hope this is the right thread to post this in so if not please advise where it should go. A little background, I am the BS, DDay 1 was 2 years ago, there were several additional DDays over the first year, nothing earth shattering since then. My WH broke it off with his AP within minutes of me seeing the text from her which is how I found out he was cheating and had been for 9 months. He did the usual lying, minimizing, gaslighting etc for most of the first year although from the very first minute he was horrified, ashamed and completely freaked out that I might leave or throw him out.

So pretty much standard behavior from what I’ve read for many WH’s that aren’t in love with their AP. Since DDay 1 he has been trying to fix what he broke, lots and lots of acts of service etc, changed his behavior in regards to trying to not take me for granted, help more and be more engaged in our emotional relationship. Problem is, we had what we both considered a pretty good relationship before, he travelled most weeks but we spent pretty much any time he was in town or not working together and got along very well. Had fun together and enjoyed each other’s company, pretty much like we do now. Major difference is he is very aware of what his marriage means now and all of a sudden he values it immensely. I say all of a sudden because he says he valued it before but acknowledges he pretty much took everything we had together for granted and didn’t pay attention to my needs before he got caught.

It’s a long stupid story but he had a very minor setback at work, was depressed and somewhat felt like a failure (although he has been and still is quite successful career wise). Along comes the trash that flattered him, drank with him and flew all over the damn country to hook up with him. The first time they were together he was quite drunk but after that he acknowledges it was planned and he kept telling himself he didn’t want to do it or meet her but he liked her chasing him and he liked all the compliments and ego stroking she gave him. So he’d put her off for a bit but always ended up agreeing to see her again, says he didn’t want a big blowup as this was a work acquaintance so he figured he’d see her as little as possible until she got sick of his unavailability and not trying to see her and broke it off with him. Pathetic, I know. This went on for almost 9months and they saw each other and had sex 8 times, he planned to see her and cancelled 3 or 4 times in that period.

So here we are 2 years later and I have tried to understand why he acted like such a selfish jackass and most days I kinda understand his motivation and the issues he was dealing with which I guess proves I DO still love him but the reality is regardless of how good the current relationship is I just am nauseous every time I think about how easy it was for him to lie to me and deceive me for months and literally have no problem screwing me over while telling her and everyone else how much he loves me.

I have read everything I can find, gone to counseling and tried so hard to work through this but I am just horrified that I am still living with someone that clearly thought so little of me that he was just fine living a double life screwing me over behind my back. Ok, yeah I believe he loves me but I can’t stop thinking I’m pretty sure that’s not the kind of love I want or need.

How do you get past knowing you’re basically sleeping with the enemy every night and hoping like hell they are who they say they are now? And how do you ever forgive yourself for staying with someone when you know definitively what they are capable of doing to you as long as they can get away with it?

I am utterly obliterated inside and nothing I have tried has given me myself back, I used to be so happy and positive and always found the silver lining in things, my nickname from multiple people that never knew each other in my life was always Sunshine because I was just happy every day and loved life. I am a shell of who I was and feel like a nothing now because the person I loved the most and trusted the most treated me like I was nothing and not worth being faithful or honest to.

I love him and we have a great life on many levels but inside I am just so damn sad I can barely breathe most days. Sorry for the massive post, couldn’t figure out how to shorten it. And I didn’t even get into the mind movies and complete destruction of my enjoyment of sex, figured I’d save that for another one, lol

[This message edited by BetrayedGrits at 11:11 PM, Monday, August 23rd]

Let me ask you something.

If your WH had a history of adultery before you met, would you have still married him?

I would not

We had an agreement not to have any lying or cheating in our relationship before we even married

I’m 8 weeks post op, pretty much healed. I see my surgeon again next week.

BetrayedGrits,

Oh your story is so similar to my own! I have begun year three of R. For the most part, I feel I have a good life with my husband. Sure there are many ups and downs and mind movies playing in my head, but overall it's a good life. Better than I thought it would be living with a past liar, and past cheater.

The grieving which I think is very strongly reflected throughout your post is part of your life as it is part of any betrayed spouse's life. Grieving for a past lost. Grieving for loss of the self prior to affair discovery etc.etc.

Letting go of grief is hard. Working through the past is hard. But you kinda have to do it, for your own well being. Bit by bit, day by day.

What helps me, is looking at my husband every day and night and knowing that for example, today August 12, 2021 I am not being cheated on, nor am I being lied to. This is exhausting but it helps me not to live in the past. I can visit the past, for a short time, but I will not live there. I want to live to day, everyday.

Please keep posting. You are not alone.

BetrayedGrits -

I couldn't quite follow your post (paragraphs are VERY helpful for the reader), but think I got the gist.
I'd echo NotABoringWife, and add that it doesn't matter if you remain M or D... allowing ourselves to grieve -and then let go of - the past hurts is important for our healing.

Notaboringwife and gmc94 - Thank you for your responses. I get what you are both saying I guess I just don’t know HOW to grieve this and then somehow to move past the overwhelming sadness I feel every day.

I guess I think if I spend too much time thinking about his horrible behavior every day that I am just wallowing in the pain and not moving forward. I know I have read a lot of article, blogs comments etc that say that is never a good way to recover from this.

What was helpful in getting through the grief and learning to accept what happened and learn to live with it and be able to move on with my life without thinking about this hundreds of times per day due to some unforeseen trigger?

gmc94 - thanks for the tip about paragraphs, I was afraid if I hit enter on an iPad it would post it. Live and learn, right? 😂

This is not a vent, but it's trying to help me figure out my feelings.

My ex and I do not have any mutual friends. I have been completely and utterly NC since December. I asked all my friends to unfriend him / remove him / block him etc from their social media and they have all done that. Know absolutely nothing about his life. Nothing. Don't hear about him. Don't wanna know.

We have one common connection. Our cleaner. She was my cleaner first, when I first moved to this area almost 7 years ago. Then when I moved in with ex, she came with me and cleaned for us. When I moved out, she came with me but stayed with him as well. I was a-ok with this, it's business for her.

In the 18 months since I've moved out, I've not once - not once - asked about him, or even felt compelled to ask about him. It literally hasn't even crossed my mind. She volunteered some information about him about 6 months ago, but I told her I wasn't interested in knowing.

Recently, I had to reach out to him about a hard drive that I realised I left at the house. It's got a lot of information of very sentimental value for me. He's been very slow at responding. I reached out over two weeks ago and I still don't know if he's found it or if he's sending it to me. That has - of course - caused a set back, because as we all know, NC = no new hurts, so having to break NC has brought feelings back. Mostly annoyance at him. But also pain at the fact that dealing with this is not a priority for him, so clearly I'm not a priority for him anymore - but then why should I be, we are broken up and have been for a long time. Oh the joys of living in my brain.

Then, this morning, I asked my cleaner about him. My mum had inadvertently planted the thought in my mind, when I was venting to her about how he's been so slow in getting back to me, and while I wasn't intentionally intending to ask my cleaner, I did. I couldn't seem to stop myself.

He's seeing someone. Has been for a few months. Apparently my cleaner has seen her at the house a couple of times. She's from a different state, too far for driving so she must fly to visit him. Immediate questions / thoughts that came up.

"Does he make the effort to visit her? Has she met the kids? Has she met his family? If she has, what do they think of her? She must have met his friends. I'm replaced. He's clearly put me in the rearview mirror, he's moved on. That's not fair. He's having sex with someone new so all the "best sex that he's ever had" that he had with me, he's now having with her. Yet here I am, still Suzie Singleton, feeling fat and frumpy, no one is ever going to want me."

Of course, I knew it would happen eventually. I'm not stupid. But I'm not entirely sure how I'm feeling right now. I think it's numbness. Shock maybe? I've not cried. I'm still functioning ok I think. I do feel that it's unfair that he's moving on, after what he did to me. I keep waiting for the other shoe to fall. I've also pre-emptively taken the afternoon as a sick day, just in case those feelings do come up.

But there's also a part of me that wonders if this is what I needed. Maybe the universe is trying to give something to me. To help me drive that final nail in the coffin. Why else would I choose now, after 18 months, to probe my cleaner about this?

I do keep thinking about the sex. His affair was an EA so I never really had to deal with that aspect of infidelity. But the thought of him having the loving, intimate, emotional sex we used to have with someone else....that really hurts.