Married since 2007 1st betrayal: 2010 Betrayals 2 - 5 through 2016 2 toddlers "When WS shits where they eat, it tends to get on everyone's shoes and gets tracked all over."

What are the odds I'd run into AP???

It seems I have willed this into existence. After taking a several year break from this board and making great process in R and my own healing, I just hopped on a week or two to share some experiences and ask for advice, and then...

Turns out my office at work is going to be moving right next door to where AP and WW worked. I will pass by it basically every day. I spent many hours considering whether to go park out front, wait for him to walk out, and then confront him... eventually I decided not to because I figured I'd either end up in jail or dead, honestly (WW mentioned how he always felt the need to concealed carry... ). I've been grappling with that, when...

...I ran into AP at a store near my house a few days ago. I wasn't 100% sure at first, but I loitered and sleuthed, saw his tattoos and later confirmed with WW it was almost certainly him. I think he noticed me and fled before I could decide whether to confront him or not.

In the whirlwind of emotion that followed, I did some internet sleuthing and found out that he is living with the same girlfriend he had during the A. Of course he told WW that they were on-and-off, not really together then, and when they were together she didn't sleep with him enough, etc, sob story. But now I know they are still together and he cheated on her with my WW in 2016.

So decision time, it's been 5 years. I don't ever feel like I got to adequately confront him and say my piece. He walked away scott free and has zero consequences--ever. And his GF is probably unaware he cheated on her.

As part of my sleuthing, I know where they live and could drop off a letter for her OR him. It's also pretty likely I could get an email or phone number.

So... 4.5 years after D Day, do I actually reach out to him? To her? There is still a SLIGHT possibility they weren't together when the A happened, so does that influence my decision?

What does everyone else think?

10 comments posted: Thursday, August 19th, 2021

Getting older--jealousy, and what could have been

Hey everyone, it's been a while since I've been here. It's been 4 1/2 years since Dday and The Reckoning... the realization WW is a SA and had massive issues that needed to be addressed.

I obviously believe she has been doing a decent job at R or I wouldn't still be here. She's done almost a complete 180... maybe call it a 170... since The Reckoning. But that's not what this post is about.

I'm now 38. I'm still in pretty good shape by most people's standards but put on about 15 covid pounds. I've started losing my hair, and even just ordered some Rogaine. I've gotten a couple "old person" injuries playing softball. I'm finally accepting that I am getting older, and moving past my prime. WW is too--she's having the same type of normal, late 30's aging issues most people have.

What has been bothering me lately is the "missing out" that I did. As much as I have been proud of my integrity in never touching another woman in our 15 years of marriage, I'm a man. I would have loved to get attention or get physical with other women. But I loved my wife and my family enough to not even bat an eyelash at another woman, even after discovering how unfaithful she had been. Meanwhile... WW has had EA/PA encounters with 5 different men in that time period. She had her fun, so to speak. I've started feeling a type of jealousy that isn't aimed at her being with other men... but aimed at the fact she got to have fun and I didn't. That we're getting older and I "wasted" my prime being monogamous with someone who never was with me.

I feel like this is a little taboo somehow. Like, I'm married, I should have accepted that I'd never be with another woman when I got married at 24. And I did. And we had good sex, but as is typical with As, but even MORE typical when SA is involved, our sex life got much worse after D Day... then add 2 kids into the mix. And if she hadn't had affairs, I don't think I would be thinking this way... it somehow feels very unfair, and has really hit me as we get older, get more out of shape, get more tired and our kids get older. My time to have had fun has officially ended.

It's not an easy thing to talk about with WW, because who wants to hear "Hey, I wish I had gotten to have sex with other women and I'm jealous you had that fun and I didn't." But it's the truth.

I guess this is a new type of jealousy for me. How have other people dealt with this feeling? Am I weird for even thinking this way? Is it a sign I need to work on myself in new, different ways?

31 comments posted: Wednesday, August 11th, 2021