SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Thought I'd update this with some answers to questions as well as un update.

As for my wife giving it air time, I had asked her if there is any contact or mention of OM, I am to know about it. Simply because if I found out about it without her telling me, we're done. I have a zero tolerance for this shit now.

We never really had closure with her affair with the OM. It was more like "I fucked up, I will NEVER do it again, I don't wanna discuss this any further. I went to therapy, I'm doing everything I can....", y'know, the usual BS of not accepting responsibility.

Why is she still in contact with their social circle? Well, we kinda both are, I'm just not as close as she is. NONE of them know about the affair. Yet. I plan to let that cat out of the bag after our recent discussion.

THE DISCUSSION: So she seemed rather quiet the next day. I didn't bring it up, I wanted to see where it was going to go. Sure enough, IT comes up. "I need you to understand something", she said. "This affair was 50/50 - I wasn't tricked, seduced, whatever, I went along with it because we were having so many marital issues at the time. When you caught me, my world collapsed. I couldn't believe I did such a shitty thing to you. THere is NO excuse for what I did. But for you to wish him dead, being that I was 50% responsible for the affair, you may as well wished ME dead, too. That is a hard pill to swallow."

"Sematics", I told her. "That's a sidetrack and you know it. And thanks for the reminder that he was 50% and I was 0%. You don't get to cop out of this, I clearly remember our difficult time and how you REFUSED counseling. Then you tried your religious bullshit, how you prayed to God for an answer - when there I was, asking you to see a marriage counselor."

Then the tears started flowing. "You're never going to forget this, you're always going to remind me about it" When that starts, I just clam up and let her cry. She's seeing a new therapist now, she can vent to him.

I had to go find your other thread to figure out what this was all about.

What is the plan for you now? How are you moving forward?

-little turtle

It is remarkable how she can't distinguish between your reaction to a person you love and a person you have no relationship with. The self-pity parties can be annoying. My WS said stuff like that too (he doesn't anymore only because I'm divorcing him).

Honestly, there were times I thought to myself that the whole thing would've been much easier if he had died (instead of us having a dday), because then I could've mourned, grieved, and gotten all the support in the world. But that's not the same as wishing he was dead, not in the vindictive way I might have felt about his AP. At this point, I've reached blissful indifference about AP, and I wish WS well if only for the sake of our daughter, but I would probably feel differently if I was still trying to R.

"You're never going to forget this,

Correct. We never forget the lies, betrayal, trauma and all the other crap that we will have to deal with for the rest of our days. And the fact that she thinks you will ever be able to forget tells me she still has a lot of work to do.

I'm going to reiterate what I said in your last post. Your wife is too stupid to reconcile with.

A person with an IQ above room temperature would either have (a) let the subject drop completely and not speak of it again or (b) said, "I'm sorry that I brought up OM's death and upset you." (even if the apology was completely insincere).

But your wife didn't do that... in fact, she said that she wasn't seduced or pursued; she wanted the affair because your marriage sucked (according to her). Then made the absurd claim that because you're happy that he's dead that you want her dead, too. Now she's crying and throwing herself a pity party.

Normally, I would say that she's trying to manipulate you into feeling like you're the bad guy. But I don't think she has the intellectual capacity to be manipulative. She really considers herself a victim. She really thought that you would "forget" that she had an affair, as if sleeping with a man outside of marriage is akin to accidentally washing someone's favorite t-shirt with bleach.

She's an idiot.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 2:56 PM, Friday, October 10th]

"I need you to understand something", she said.

Do you understand what she was trying to tell you?

​I completely understand her reaction here. The enjoyment you felt upon hearing of her affair partner's death clearly signals a high level of hatred and disdain toward him, which is entirely justifiable.
​I believe your wife's comment—that the affair was "50/50" (implying it wasn't born from manipulation or control)—was an indirect way of asking why your hatred is directed solely at the AP, suggesting you should therefore hate her equally.

​It seems logical that she raised the topic of his death to gauge your emotional state regarding both the affair and your relationship with her. Especially if you don't really talk about it openly ge really. Perhaps she hoped you would show no reaction, allowing her to feel less guilty because you would appear fully healed and over it.

​Her intense reaction to your pleasure is driven by sheer guilt. She sees that you are still not fully healed and are holding onto that hatred. She is likely interpreting your lingering anger toward the AP as a sign that you harbor a similar level of hatred for her and that she isn't truly forgiven.
​
​To address this situation more directly, the central issue is: Have you forgiven her?
​Maintaining intense hatred for the AP, and the AP alone, in what your wife described as a 50/50 affair seems logically inconsistent. If the affair was genuinely a shared choice, without significant manipulation or predatory behavior on his part, then holding onto resentment for only one person makes little sense.

​Please know that none of this is a judgment of you. What you are feeling is a natural response. Many people would share your hatred or wouldn't have even offered a second chance. The energy you're expending is completely understandable.

A few thoughts...

Your initial response at the news OM died was to laugh a bit. Nothing really out of line, nothing dramatic. It was her response 'that's rude' that provoked you to mention pissing on his grave. She provoked that due to her own insensitivity. She needs to hear that, imo.

It would be better for you if you didn't still want to piss on his grave. It really would. But I don't blame you for feeling like you do at all, the same as most people who responded to your first thread. I don't understand people who think the AP didn't owe them anything so their anger should be focused only on WS. F that. When a guy pursues a married woman he deserves a beat down, either by the BS or by the karma bus. Or both, lol.

It seems like you never learned details about her affair and here she admitted she happily went a long with the idea. Is that new to you? Is that a breakthrough in her talking about the A?

I actually understand how she could feel the way she shared, that maybe you want her to die too. That has some logic to it. I think she needs to understand the difference between how you feel about her and OM. What's the same and what's different. And that having let the A go undiscussed for so long adds to all the problems with communication.

I remember barely being insulted 30 years ago so why would a ws EVER think a bs is is going to develop amnesia? People do not forget insults, abuse, robbery and cheating.

I love my husband but the adoration I felt for him fell by the wayside after finding out he cheated.

Your wife has hung onto a "romance" that was a smarmy, secret life that she inflated. Somehow she never got to the stage of trying, really trying, to help you heal, and here you are all these years later still hurt.