SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I watched a video where a woman is talking about a husband's insecurity about trusting his wife after being hurt:

...you're trying to flip that on him, and make him seem like he just woke up this morning and he was insecure. No, what you did caused that insecurity. He trusted you until you showed him you could not be trusted. And, now that he is trying to forgive you and he's trying to heal, you go do something else and think that's not going to open up the wound of what you did the last time?! You're not giving him the opportunity to fully heal from what you did before!

Look, if somebody gives you the gift of forgiveness, which is hard for a lot of us, and then you can't even respect him enough to do the work it takes to earn that trust back, you don't deserve him, Baby! You don't! He wouldn't deserve you if he was doing that to you!

I hope you come to your senses before you lose a good person.

This really resonated with me. Looking back, I realize I didn't fully heal from the first Dday when the second one hit. The counseling we received at that point was crappy, and I now think I didn't heal from the second one either, though it was decades until Dday 3 hit. Now, thanks to people here and counseling, I am healing from these terrible wounds. I suppose what this woman said about not healing fully before getting hurt again helped me make sense of it all and heal a little more.

As my WW and I move closer to D, I am thinking about what life will be afterward. Sure, I am considering dating again, but I now will come with the label of "Divorced" and I wonder if I will really be that desirable, even though it wasn't me who cheated. Then when I hear a video with a woman saying something like this, it helps me have a little value about myself. We say here the BS "is the prize" because we stayed true to our vows and even stayed a while trying to make it work out, and I believe that. I suppose sometimes it helps to hear it from another source.

Did this speak to you?

A friend of mine divorced around age 60. Within a year or so, he was in a torrid romance with a woman who was sexing his brains out. She is a widow. Her husband suffered some kind of degenerative disease that was a long, slow death. She cared for him all the way to the end. She said to my buddy, "Honey, I haven't had sex in 15 years. I intend to make up for lost time."

That hits home for me. If my wife and I ever split up though, I doubt I’d have the courage to try dating. It would take an amazing woman who had the ability to be forward enough to initiate a connection and just show an amazing amount of outright grace and caring to make me feel even close to trusting another woman again. I don’t want to label women in general because that’s not fair, but as the saying goes, "First time shame on you, second time shame on me!"

Every guy is passing through time and during this journey, we hopefully gain knowledge and wisdom.

What I have learned during this time is, number #1 the divorced label doesn’t seem to mean a darn thing. In fact, if you are over 40/Male and have not been married before it seems like more of a red flag.

Number #2, it seems to me there are more available women of a wide range of ages, and they will actively pursue which can be a good thing and can be a bad thing depending upon many factors.

Number #3, it seems from my perspective by having knowledge of what women can do you, you overcome the naiveness we once had, and it helps us see to world a little more clearly and without being jaded or fearful. It is an awareness of the real nature of relationships, which can be better or worse depending on your perspective.

Number #4, You learn how to protect yourself, I can spot a woman with questionable intentions at 50 yards and I can deftly handle that situation, it is not something to fear any more than when you were in school and the "pickme" girl would show up.

"First time shame on you, second time shame on me!"

Um, that makes no sense in context. That saying is intended to apply to a specific wrongdoing individual. If she hurts you once, shame on her. But if you remain married to and then give her a chance to hurt you a second time, and if she does in fact hurt you a second time, then shame on you.

It does not extrapolate to women generally, as in, "A woman hurt me once, shame on her; therefore, I will never trust any woman, ever." That's borderline incel drivel.

Hardyfool: Everything you said, and more. I have a few male friends who are newly divorced in their 50's and/or 60's. What they've found is that if you are a newly divorced (or widowed) man in that age range, and if you are reasonably clean and fit, solvent, and your junk still works, it is a buyer's market. Plus, at that age, there is no biological clock element pushing a marriage/children agenda.

By the way, it's "naivete".

By the way, it's "naivete".

I accept the word challenge sir!

Dictionary website (seems can't put the website in)

DERIVED FORMS OF NAIVE
naively, navely or nafly, adverb
naiveness, naveness or nafness, noun

Merriam-Webster

naively adverb
or naïvely
naiveness noun

But you made me check!

In the interest of a good, grammatical debate, I'm jumping on board with hardyfool. Without even broaching the subject of the diaeresis or accent aigu, I'll argue that naiveness and naivete (as well as naivety) can be used interchangeably.

From a woman's perspective, I can confirm if I had to choose to date a divorced man vs a man who had never had a long term relationship, I'd choose the divorced man. As already mentioned, I do almost see the latter as a red flag lol. And part of me also thinks it'd be easier to date someone who had also been cheated on, because then they'd understand why I'd most likely be guarded whilst in a new relationship. Shame though, as I was never like that before being cheated on, so it's effectively slightly changed my personality 😒

[This message edited by Devon99uk at 7:15 AM, Saturday, May 20th]

Another one who wouldn't be bothered in the slightest about a man being divorced. After all, I'll be divorced myself shortly! At my age (I'll be 49 next birthday) I expect most people in the dating pool will probably be divorced. And I don't think it would bother me at all. I think I WOULD be reticent about dating a cheater in the future though, I don't know.

One ironic thing I remembered recently was that when OH was dating me and it started to look serious, his mother, who always viewed him as. the golden child for whom no wife would be good enough, asked him, "She doesn't have divorced parents does she?" (I don't) as if that was some badge of honour that would make me worthy of marrying her son. The irony now being my own children WILL have divorced parents and I wonder whether the silly woman would accept such an attitude from their future inlaws. Ugh.

What the What??

Did you all just school BFTG on vocabulary??

Beachwalker: I am you 10 years after D-day, if I may presume. I remember thinking the same thing, that I’m some variation of damaged goods wondering in the land of misfit toys. That I’ll never trust again, be trusted and/or I’ll be labeled as having trust issues. That potential partners will prejudge me, wondering what I did that drove my wife to cheat.

What I discovered in actuality was, that every one out there dating in midlife has baggage, that is everyone that didn’t just crawl out from under a rock. Everyone has a story and you’re only going to hear their version of it. I was actually astonished by how many betrayed were out there. It was as if you’ve never been cheated on in a relationship, then you haven’t really lived—don’t quote me on that. Everyone seemed to have a betrayal experience, but no one seemed to have a cheating experience, they wanted to share. A bunch of misfits looking for the right fit.

Incidentally, I did stumble across a widow who married her high school sweetheart, they were Only’s. He died from a lightning strike after 25 years of a wonderful marriage. Of course, I stayed the hell away from that. I also met a couple of, dozen, gals who, not from lack of looking, just couldn’t find anyone "worth" marrying. I dated an ex-con who ghosted me, after she violated her parole. I dated an actual witch, a real live witch, who must have put some kind of spell on me (PM me if you want to know more). I had one date with a woman who literally crawled under the restaurant table when her neighbors walked in. I still wonder what that was all about. Maybe she dropped her napkin? I dated a hell bent for tight leather biker chick who dumped me because I wouldn’t ride bitch or get my own bike. I thought that was really superficial. Then, I dated an astonishingly beautiful movie industry heiress socialite who had been in countless short term relationships, had a bit of drinking and party problem, 16 years younger than me…I married her.

Anyway, I digress. You’re going to be fine.

[This message edited by RealityBlows at 7:40 AM, Sunday, May 21st]