SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

He told me that even though she was on affair 9 on husband #3, he was the special unicorn . 🤮
And he repeated told me he was "conflicted". Embarrassingly, it took me a year to pull the plug.

Oh, and she was fun and quirky and in another setting we’d be friends. Must be on page 2 of the cheater handbook, in bold letters and underlined.

"We didn’t use a condom because she SAID she was clean" said my almost hypochondriac WH who prior and during his A was telling me constantly how we need to make sure our 16yo will use condoms when he starts his sex life. I guess affairs are spared the STDs as they are happening in fantasy land.

Oh and I also got CT’s scenario "if you’d know her story you’d feel sorry for her, she’s not a bad person, her husband cheated on her and left her with two kids, what a jerk"…

This had to be the single DUMBEST thing I’ve ever heard her say.

She was bitching at me for telling the OBS about the affair, and she actually had the nerve/lack of self awareness to say "you shouldn’t interfere with someone else’s marriage."

What I got was not stupid, but nasty and designed to hurt me as much as possible. Not that I wasn't bawling my eyes out already, but let's kick somebody's who'se down.

He wanted to escape, he was being controlled, he was walking on eggs shells, sometimes he didn't know which mood I was in before he came back and was dreading going home, he "felt" he couldn't buy his own clothes, he was feeling resentful because I was shopping at Goodwill for kids toys, he didn't like the food I was making, he couldn't talk to me.

Meanwhile AP was always smiling , praising him constantly and he actually felt she was his twin. He wished he had met her at college. He told her she was the best thing that happened to him that year (btw I also gave birth during that year and got our former home done up and rented out, bringing $3k rent but who cares). When I found out, he texted me to say that since his "2 worlds had collided", he chose me (nope, he carried on). Particularly insulting to compare a sleazy affair with a married woman on par with me and the kids.

He was also "out", but not really out out, because he was a cake-eater (new word he learned recently to explain why he didn't divorce me). Also he never planned to leave me, though they got together one Sunday so the kids would be friends (I was there too, I had no idea what was going on but him making me meet his gf was the last thing in my mind).

Our friends turned out to be only mine, he never felt like this before. He could sell the house and get "his" deposit back if I was going through with the divorce ( i was a sahm with 3 baby/toddlers and 2 older kids). Instead of this threat making me shut up like he expected me to do, I went to see a lawyer friend who told me no judge would ever agree. Told the then-husband who said he "he would never do that" (threatening is ok then?) and also regretted ever saying it as soon as he said it (this was after I told my friend, obv, he didn't want to look like an arsehole to her).

So that's that. Nasty nasty nasty.

Oh and 9 yrs out and he still says he didn't have sex with the AP. Amd wishes soooo much he had kept the texts to prove he went out of the office to show her the lab and go to for a drink. But hey, who cares now.

It was just sex.

What is up with the "she’s a nice person, and I really think the two of you would like each other and be really good friends" horse shit? And why was I so insecure and confused that I didn’t have it in me to push back against that narrative?

I made the mistake of contacting married other woman after I found proof of my husband’s affair, and she waxed eloquent about how sorry she was and how they just had a "special connection" and how they were so surprised to find that they could live more than one person at one time, and how she had grown to love and care about my family so much through this experience. I was so shell shocked and dazed that I had no response. It still embarrasses me how weak and stupid and naive and timid I was.

If I could go back I would 1) never say a word to that duplicitous, self absorbed, lie-to-herself-and-everyone bitch, or 2) say to both her and my husband, "that’s deluded manipulative shit. You can’t say someone is nice, or that you care about a family when you’re willingly choosing to do something that tears them apart."

Cheaters are a special kind of deluded stupid, and I was a special kind of naive weakling.

I’m stronger now though.

One of the stupidest things my XWH said wasn’t to me but to all of his APs: He told them he was single.

I never understood how a relationship could be validating to him when it was predicated on a lie. I often asked him why, if he was going to lie, didn’t he at least lie more impressively? (Like he had discovered the cure for cancer or something.). I later found out after the D that he was actually engaged when we begin dating - so starting new relationships in this manner was just his MO.

Affairs are based on inauthenticity. Unraveling that is an exercise in futility. It’s never going to make sense because it’s not based on actual reality.

[This message edited by truthsetmefree at 4:02 PM, Sunday, July 17th]

My EXWS said so many ridiculous and insulting things when trying to excuse his affairs. Each new discovery the excuses would get more ridiculous..
"I didn’t know you’d be this upset? I thought you’d just tell me off for being a naughty boy and we’d forget about it" I still have no comment for this one.
He is a FIFO worker and works away on site for weeks. "I was really missing you and she reminded me of you" Gee never had a higher compliment in my life 🤦🏻‍♀️
When I started finding out the full extent of his serial cheating and I asked him why not just leave and be single?? "I only slept with most of these women because they were treated badly by men and I wanted to just show them what it feels like to be with a good man. They all told me how lucky you are to have me" This one still makes me sick years later.

And then the last conversation I ever had with him about his affairs. We were trying to reconcile (He’s also abusive so feared for my life leaving him, thought I was safer staying.) by this time I didn’t care if he was cheating or not and after he asked me one night if I trusted him.
I said "No. You continuously lie. I know you were with one of your main AP at a bar a few weeks ago, I actually don’t care about you and her anymore if you really were the honest man you boast to be you would stop secretly talking to her just for the fact alone that she hates me and runs me down and you don’t stick up for me, she doesn’t even know me so it’s obviously what you tell her, you’ve made your choice just go be with her, I’m not stopping you"
He never admitted to this one but he didn’t have to, I found out everything myself by this time. He instantly went into a rage and his eyes blackened over as he screamed in my face with pure disgust and hatred "Do you know what? She loves me, everyone loves me. Why the f*ck would I give all of them up for you?? I will never love you enough to stop cheating on you. No one could ever love you enough not to cheat on you cuz you’re not worth sh*t to anyone."
For the first time in 22 years of being with this man, I know those words were the first time he was genuinely honest with me. That’s what shocked me the most, how he really looks when he’s telling the truth, I’d never seen it from him before.
Stupid on my part that last one, I still took him back a few more times.

Yikes! That is terrible!!

"We didn’t use a condom because she SAID she was clean"

I got that one too! I told him he had no idea if she was clean, or if her husband was clean, or if anyone he might have been with was clean. He said, "Oh no, she doesn't have sex with her husband. He has medical issues and it doesn't work anymore. Besides, he let himself go and she's no longer physically attracted to him. They basically live like roommates but nothing more." Um, sure...and with all the lying you did, you'll believe a fellow cheater? Do you think maybe she said that to soften you to the idea of having sex with a married woman? Are you really stupid enough to think she told you the truth?

I went to the doctor last week and told her about the A because I felt like I needed a higher dose of my anxiety meds. She added a bunch of STD testing while ordering my yearly routine bloodwork. I told her the story that WH told me. She said, "Oh, they all say they're clean, but many end up having STDs." When I got to the lab, one receptionist was training another on the computer system. They pulled up my orders and one said, "OK, so there are lots of tests ordered here so you'll need to type in the codes for each one." Then she proceeded to point to each order and make sure the trainee entered the correct codes. They were very professional about it. Neither one announced the names of the tests out loud. But I just stood there getting more and more pissed off. I'm a 57-year old woman, a mother, raised with certain morals and values, never been with anyone except the guy I married and I'm having to endure a slew of STD tests through no fault of my own. After they finished checking me in, I had to do a urine tests and give four vials of blood.

As soon as I got home, I told WH he was going to email his doctor immediately and ask for the same tests. He did just that and went in the next day to get his blood drawn. Thankfully all of our results came back negative. I'm glad that's over, but it certainly pissed me off to no end!

This wasn't his stupid thing to say, it was the AP1's and he repeated it to me, but I am pretty sure, he didn't completely disagree at the time, at least not with the first part.

"Tell your wife, she has won, so there is no reason for us not to have a normal friendly relationship from now on".

Yeah, I really feel like a winner

And AP2 still doesn't understand why they can't go out for a coffee from time to time, since they never did anything wrong while drinking coffee.

[This message edited by ZetaCephei at 10:46 AM, Tuesday, July 19th]

We didn’t use a condom because she SAID she was clean"

My WH said the same thing. He admitted after I had to ask him, that him and this particular AP had unprotected sex because she said she was clean. I asked what the fuck did that even mean? I had never heard of that term before. I worked out maybe that is what the sex workers told him or he read it in one of their adverts when he was hunting for a sex worker. It is the weirdest expression to me. Like asking someone "Do you have any STDs I should be aware of?" "No, I'm clean". FFS of course someone would say that. Such a fucking euphemism literally. And WH did not tell this AP that a few weeks earlier he had be having sex with sex workers, because he was too embarrassed. There is nothing "clean" about any of this

My WH said the same thing

That reminded me of the follow up conversation on this subject. Another stupid thing he said: "I was prepared to use a condom but SHE didn’t like them and that’s how she told me she was clean".

What about birth control? "She SAID she had an IUD". Well if she said that then it must have been true, who ever heard of any APs getting pregnant on purpose whilst claiming they were on birth control.

As you can see whatever the AP said, must have been true. At no point in time did he question her character seeing that she was sleeping with a married man (I mean he didn’t question his own morals, questioning hers would have forced him to also look at himself).

Funnily enough post dday she lied like an expert to a police officer, an HR investigation and every opportunity she had to try to drop him in shit and destroy his life as she promised. It must have come as such a shock to poor WH

Yep...I got the "She's CLEAN" thing too . Then I found out she was a serial cheater .

After my H sent the NC message...the adultery co-conspirator wrote back telling him that she was going to choose her words carefully when she wrote a letter to ME...and she would make his life hell like he just made hers.

My H let her take money out of his wallet once to get something from a vending machine at the hotel. She saw his driver's license...and the next time he went to her house she pulled OUR house up on Google Earth...so she somehow got our address from that. I waited for months to get a letter...but it never came. Either she didn't send it like she threatened she would...or she didn't know how to write the address properly.

Either way...I think this helped my H to be as accurate as he could be about his A because I was on a razors edge about whether to go for D or R.

I’m fairly certain I have one of the top 5 stupid quotes from d-day.
I walked in on them having sex. Stood in the doorway for maybe eternity (probably less than two seconds) before switching on the light. After the initial screams, "oh shits" and gasps she turned to me and said,
"It’s not what you think".

Ehhh…
So it wasn’t sex? Maybe her gynecologist doing a very personal home-test? A new version of the Heimlich?
What was I supposed to think?

In retrospect I guess she wanted to clarify that it was just pickup sex. She had no plans of being with this particular OM (or any of the others I later heard of). I guess that made it OK to her…

W gave ow a 'sort of' engagement ring - 'sort of' and 'engagement' because our state didn't allow same-sex Ms at the time. How does one get engaged to person z when married to person A?

That was the one thing in this mess that made me chuckle.

I got the same stupid things, "ILYBINILWY", "I still care about you", " he's going to leave his wife and kids and move to be with me", "he really loves me".

She finally saw the light when he didn't follow her. I wish I'd been there to see her face when she finally realized she was just easy sex to him.

Every word that came out of his mouth right after dday was stupid. EVERY. WORD.

So many in fact, I could write a book.

The one comment that really got me was "I feel responsible for dragging her into this".

REALLY???? YOU dragged her into this? Did you kidnap and rape her? She knew damn good and well she was fucking a married man and HE knew he was fucking a married woman.

I swear people in affairs are on crack.

[This message edited by Evertrying at 10:52 PM, Tuesday, July 19th]

"It’s not what you think".

I got this too. I didn’t catch them, but my PI did. The confrontation is spelled out in my profile.

I also go a lot of the other greatest hits already mentioned. "He meant nothing" which of course pissed me off to no end as I told her she destroyed a 25 year marriage over nothing.

The other hits were when she frantically latched on to the moron of an MC who told her that we could "come out of this with a stronger marriage" . I realize some with crappy marriages prior might, but ours was good. Or at least I thought so. How was her going back door with the electrician going to make our marriage stronger?

So many other stupid things like "I choose you" like I cared about that, or you "can’t throw away a 25 year marriage over a stupid mistake." Well, watch me. Of course It took five years.

I had told her I wanted the beds gone before I came home. When I got there the mattress and box spring was changed, but this giant customized headboard was still there. I asked her WTF was it still doing there. She Said " I didn’t think this was really the bed and it’s a headboard matches the rest of the furniture ". I went down and got a weeding tool I had and demolished it. I asked her how does it match now?

It stayed that way for a while and was a perfect metaphor for our marriage.

"The one comment that really got me was "I feel responsible for dragging her into this".

I got a version if that too. After D-day2 I threatened to call OBS and tell him everything, down to the gory details of how she came to WH's office across the town for a quickie after he ended things with her, to convince him to continue the affair (bastard didn't say no, but finally ended it with her anyway after two such quickie occasions). And WH's response:

"It is not fair that she has to suffer the consequences, because I told you the truth about everything. I don't want to be responsible for the problems in her marriage."

Duh, you are responsible, just not because of me or my words to OBS. How he didn't feel responsible when he was fucking her is beyond me.

[This message edited by ZetaCephei at 6:02 AM, Wednesday, July 20th]