Fun times straight down the rabbit hole

You know those great suggestions your therapist makes that you could totally do if you were such a better person. Mine has been telling me that if we want to move forward I need to drop the rule that my husband has to let me know when the OP enters his work space. This could happen if she choose to schedule an appointment on a day she knows he is in that particular office location or because she chooses to take on a client that she already knows is already working with my husband. That is her latest move. It was frustrating but my husband taped his conversation with the client where he told the client he was not comfortable working with the AP because of the unprofessional was she does things. (Which was actually true, but mostly because stalking is unprofessional). Now the poor client has to choose between the two of them. He can’t have both. What a mess. Why does she willingly put herself into these situations. She knows there will be blowback but she does them anyway. I guess I should not care. I know my husband will not speak directly to her but he will have to do so through intermediaries and that still bothers me. I want to live in an AP free space. Is that too much to ask?

9 comments posted: Saturday, July 6th, 2024

Pain Shopping yes but should there still be compassion?

It has been a messy few weeks. My father died and with his death I had to let go of any possibility of reaching closure on his infidelity in his marriage with my mom. Then, on the day he died, my WH decided to reveal his cheating (my WH’s cheating, to be clear) to our adult son (who flew into town for the funeral). Our son then revealed to my WH that he had seen his grandmother’s phone and text messages in recent years and discovered that she had been cheating on my father. My husband shared all of this with me the day before my fathers funeral, where I had to give a eulogy and was already under strain. None of this was malicious on anyone’s part, but it kicked up a million emotions and made me even more of a mess.

So last week I was using his computer for a legitimate reason and decided to type the AP’s name into the search box on his messages. It is something I have done infrequently in the 2 years since his "big reveal" of the cheating from 8 years ago. I have systematically deleted everything with her name over the past 2years with the goal of moving on. Why do I still check it sometimes? I’m not really sure—maybe pain shopping? On this occasion a new text I had never seen popped up which revealed his new secretary had maintained contact with his AP over some professional issues both 2 years and 4 years after the cheating. (at a bare minimum, there may actually have been more interaction). The new secretary would ask my WH questions on behalf of the AP and my WH would respond by text with brief professional answers. For me this was contact by proxy and infuriating and upsetting because I didn’t know and was never told. My husband basically said he forgot which may actually be true. There were other bigger attempts at contact and these he actually had revealed to me. During the "big reveal" a ton of awful information came out and perhaps these smaller facts were forgotten.

Nonetheless, other BSes know how painful "new" information of contact and facts being withheld can be and I raged one night and felt pretty devastated the next day.

The part I’m mad about is that the MC decided to spend our whole session on my choice to go looking for information. I agree I should try not to do that but I felt very ganged up on by the MC and my WH. They totally left out the context of the, I don’t know what the right word is, but maybe mindfuckery. that had gone on during the two week period and that it wasn’t me 100% at fault and my husband totally innocent. It leaves me not wanting to even go back to marriage counseling as it seems slanted toward his well-being and completely unfair. Maybe i’m being juvenile and overly sensitive and not taking legitimate criticism well. But, at this point I don’t really feel trusting of either of them. I would love some feedback from SI folks, which is a perspective I am more inclined to trust. Should there have been some discussion of the pain created by WH or was it okay to spend the time instead on changes I need to make in my behavior. Just feeling a little lost right now…

14 comments posted: Wednesday, May 22nd, 2024

How to Know if There’s Any Point

I guess I don’t know if I’m supposed to "know" if I’ll be staying for the long haul

I’ve allowed myself to be in limbo for a very long time. I feel like I keep raising the bar in terms of what I want for him to do to make amends and in most ways he keeps meeting it. Not being defensive now. He’s happy to talk about it as often as I want to talk. If he seems to be in any way "making it about him" he responds immediately and shifts back to my pain. He’s asked a reasonable question which is what is he supposed to do when I’m asking questions all about him - doesn’t he have to answer with reference to himself. He’s still giving total transparency and it’s been 8 years without even a hint of anything more than professional interactions with other women. Hess remorseful- only wants to spend his life making it better "no matter how long it takes".

The problem is he can’t change the past. I always want to hide from the fact that maybe it’s a dealbreaker. Maybe it always was and that’s why he was terrified to tell me. Maybe he knew I would never accept it. I have some extra history that my dad and grandfather also cheated with women at work. It feels like a family trauma. god forbid we tell my daughters. I’m supposed to tell them to trust some new guy and just ignore that your father, grandfather and great grandfather all did the same thing.

I want to understand why it seems like other people seem to be able to move on assuming their spouse is doing whatever they ask. Or maybe they just THINK they would accept if their spouse did the work. Then when their spouse doesn’t they can blame it on that when it’s really is the original act that was the dealbreaker.

I feel like I could have forgiven if he did this but every day during the several months it went on he told himself "you must end it tomorrow". Even though he obviously did not end it right away. Shouldn’t anyone with at least a shred of decency be telling themselves "i will stop tomorrow"? He doesn’t say that. He says he blocked it out and would not let himself think about what he was really doing. That feels like a completely unacceptable answer.

I tell myself to stop doing shitty things all the time. Like when I used to smoke i’d tell myself i would stop. Or when I was mean to someone I would tell myself i’d never do that again. even if i still did the bad thing.

does the fact that he never told himself he would stop mean mean he’s some kind of sociopath. I don’t mean that in some sort DSM-V manual, psychiatric diagnosis kind of way. More in a "wouldn’t you tell your daughter to run in the opposite direction" kind of way. It feels like the bar is so low—he just has to have wanted to stop. but he didn’t. I mean he did stop …but it seems pretty clear he stopped because he would lose everything- reputation, children, money—not that he had an ounce of morality or decency in his body.

yes now he seems different but uggg….so painful. i meant literally nothing it would appear.

i’m sorry. i think this is a rant. i don’t even know what i’m asking. maybe i’m asking if anyone has felt like this? what did you do? how did you come to terms with it?

16 comments posted: Thursday, April 11th, 2024

How could I have been so stupid?

I haven’t really started a « general interest » thread before, but here goes…

Reading HellsNotHalfFull’s last post I was struck by him saying something along the lines of he felt foolish for allowing the OM in the house.

I wanted to say to him he can add me to the unbelievably naive club but I didn’t want to t/j

Here’s my WOW AM I STUPID moment below. I am curious to hear other people’s most stupid moment of the A.

My husband took his two secretaries on a luxury vacation. Did other folks where he worked do this for their employees…absolutely not. I remember in marriage counseling he kept saying, « well Elon Musk does it ». (Grandiose much?!)

I was actually invited on this trip and declined. I was so trusting. One secretary brought her husband but of course the AP did not, although he was invited too. I remember telling co-workers and parents at our kids soccer games that he was away on this trip. At the time I thought I was just complaining, like whining about poor me, home doing soccer tournaments, etc. Now, in retrospect, I realize those people must have thought I was absolutely insane. Who does something like this? And whose wife agrees?

When he returned I think I knew. Not in my conscious awareness yet but it must have been there. For years afterward he would complain about how the fact that I didn’t want to hear all about the trip made him feel « disconnected ». And that « disconnected » feeling led to the cheating. Yeah right. At least I am not that naive anymore. It is shocking to me that all this happened in plain sight. Frankly, I guess the AP could be forgiven for thinking we had a seriously fucked up marriage to have a wife agree to such a thing. Live and learn…

Other folks stories?

35 comments posted: Wednesday, February 21st, 2024

Question for the wise folks here

The timeline is basically done and I have read what there is. It isn’t anything new but can’t finalize it till get one additional piece of information. This is one thing I wanted the "expertise" of folks here on. So there is one date which occurs in the "worst month" when cheating went on. It is tied to a meeting. This is 8 years ago so frankly all the timing of everything is very muddy. But this bar they went to (god, I feel so stupid being so detailed, I realize no one else seems to get detailed—I’m just like a detail person). Anyway, this bar they went to…they got there and he refused to order b/c it was weird for them to see each other out of office and he was nervous and kind of no longer wanted to be doing this, especially not at this bar from her college years when he’s there in a suit. He says I’m done with this after like 5 min and leaves. So, without all the detail this date was a shift, from wanting to be ALL IN (doing whatever she wanted) to starting to want to get out.

He goes straight from the bar to a board meeting. To get the date of the board meeting he has to ask his current CEO. Should I have him ask her? He is totally game to do it, despite the fact that he is in senior management and it could probably affect her opinion of him (though honestly she already knows about all this junk b/c she was there when it happened and EVERYONE knew. It’s no big secret). But, it is a reminder. I’m not sure I would want an important senior colleague to be reminded of my worst act. But, she has been very kind over the last 8 years. There was a push for all the spouses to invest in the company and I refused unless I could have confirmation the AP would never be allowed back, and this CEO did give me that. And when they tried to assign him a new secretary that I was uncomfortable with she helped us find a compromise. (I know it’s a mess right?). Anyway, I do want this date. I want the timeline to mean something, but should I let him email the CEO? It could also be viewed as a boundary crossing, so maybe thats bad?

27 comments posted: Wednesday, December 13th, 2023

Letter of apology?

My husband and I discussed sending the OM a letter of apology. I am glad that he feels remorse and cares about the OBS but I wonder whether it would be painful for the OBS. My question is for any BS but particularly for the men because I don’t know if some men would not want this. I can say that I would have appreciated a letter of apology from the married OW. It would not likely restore my opinion of her but it would set something right in the world for me.

Does anyone have an opinion of whether this is a good idea?

14 comments posted: Tuesday, September 26th, 2023

Timelines

Feeling in a bit of a crisis…been shaking which hasn’t happened in a long time. My husband is over in our in-law house writing the timeline. I feel like I’m gonna throw up. Part of me wants to run over and put him out of his misery—not with a gun, just telling him he doesn’t actually have to do it. But I know he has to do it. He has been promising it for 9 months. Cheating was almost 8 years ago but only came clean that it was physical last summer. I had always just thought they were inappropriately friendly. I’m not nervous of what he will say because I highly highly doubt he will reveal more now. We have gone over the extensive details zillions of times. But the idea of him writing this is somehow so incredibly upsetting. Was it for anyone else? I didn’t realize how scary it would be.

I asked him to try not to write « we » whenever possible. I realize that is kind of pathetic. How can he not write « we » and actually tell the story. I’m just horrified at the prospect of reading sentences that start with « we ». I’m horrified at the prospect of reading it at all. Do some BS not actually read it?

38 comments posted: Wednesday, September 13th, 2023