SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I've been reading a thread on Divorce360 that someone posted in 2008.

I know that some cheaters will and some won't and it depends on the circumstance, I suppose, but I would love to hear some stories

One replier to the thread posted this:

"To be totally honest, I think in most cases that's just what your friends tell you to make you feel better. I think that what they end up regretting is a way of life, especially if there are kids involved - because of custody disputes and child support and alimony. I think that the cheaters rarely "regret" the loss of you as the person.Sorry. I could be wrong, but having been cheated on that's MY experience."

And another wrote this:

"The thing about cheating is can you really trust the person you are cheating with? The answer is no! Even though my STBX says she can share everything with her "other man", they have a lot in common, and she trust him (this is what she told someone else), how can a relationship blossom if it was started off of deception and lies! Even though the "other man" knows that she is married and knows about me, how can they truly trust each other if they both are being deceptive. Someone once told me, "If the relationship started off as cheating, then it will end in cheating!" Basically the cheater will eventually get cheated on and they will feel the hurt. Once they feel the hurt, they will come back and apologize to the person they cheated on! "

But this was my favourite:

"No one will really be able to answer that question but your X. But what I find, if a person makes mistakes in one marriage and just leaves it behind and goes for another, eventually those mistakes catch up with them and they'll be making mistakes again, and again and again. The sweet justice is not the satisfaction of hearing them say "I regret ever leaving you" but rather watching their lives continue to remain disjointed and unraveling all around them. My X who cheated on me with a couple women is now on his 5th wife and lives in a moble home, hasn't had a job in 4 years and has had 2 major surgeries.... So.... don't focus on hoping he will one day realize what he messed up and lost, that's just a waste of your energy. YOU just become the best YOU that is possible, and that will truely be YOUR satisfaction! "

And this one too!:

"Here is my two cents: Cheaters are like addicts. They don't act rationally. The focus of thier energy is on the fix, not the consequences. Look at what your spouse threw away. And for what? Loving spouse. Home. Jeopardized relationship with kids. Financial security. Self respect. It is all gone. It was a bad trade. But hes not thinking with a normal brain. Cheaters will lie over and over and if you are between them and thier drug of choice they will go right through you. My wife has been in an affair for months and is positively miserable. Of course, to thier distorted way of thinking its not the addiction that makes the addict unhappy, it is everything and everyone else.

I don't know if you spouse will regret his actions. I think that is highly individualized. I can say this with absolute certainty, if he is lucky, he will deeply, deeply regret it. Just like the lucky addicts live to regret thier poor choices. The unlucky ones live out thier miserable days in a fog. Maybe the best you can do is hope he is one of the lucky ones who comes to regret his bad decisions."

Any opinions?

[This message edited by allatsea at 4:54 AM, May 14th (Wednesday)]

I would think most do at some point - but how deep the regret is widely variable.

I get the occasional email that indicates regret, but X lives out the addict scenario and the fog rolls in and out.

Background: Dday/S was almost 6 years ago - D was 2 years. I have not spoken to him or responded to him in 2 years. He had multiple "Come to Jesus moments early on, multiple "I'll do what it take moments..." but nothing that lasted more than a couple weeks.

Most recent "regret" was 2 weeks ago: He ran into a friend of mine at a convenience store, they chatted briefly. He left. She began to check out. When she turned to leave he was waiting at the door with a girl. He wanted to introduce her to his fiance. This was a surefire way to make sure I knew he was engaged. But then, on Mother's Day, I got an email: Happy Mother's Day. Miss us. Love you."

Does he regret walking away, losing his relationship with the kids, and half everything he'd worked for for 30 years - yeah, I'm sure he does. I'm even sure he misses me on occasion and our relationship; he'd trained me to be really low maintenance... Who wouldn't? But it doesn't mean anything and he hasn't learned anything - he's already betrayed his fiance, if only by writing that email, and I'm sure he's betrayed her in more substantial ways...

In his case: regret is just a form of self-pity. It is a mood swing - he gets over it real quick.

Just like the lucky addicts live to regret thier poor choices.

He will live to regret it but I don't think he'll ever regret it in the way I regret marrying him (or as much!). He'll regret it the same way he loved me - selfishly, destructively and not in any healthy way. I believe it will continue to manifest as blaming me for his continued unhappiness long after I bowed out of the equation. Perhaps for the rest of his life.

He will continue this sad dance to the end of his days. Forever on a quest to find someone or something to fill the big gaping hole inside of him. All of his victims are merely bandaids and bandaids are always discarded. I've realised he is happiest being someone's bandaid - being with someone more fucked up than him makes him feel good about himself.

He once thought I was more fucked up than him. He decided to be my KISA and show me that love conquers all. I well remember the lessons but what I learned is quite the opposite.

Real, genuine love? Perhaps. But not the kind he is giving.

I hope he never regrets it. I hope that he doesn't ever give me another thought. What I would give to be as invisible to him now as I was when we were married.

The way I see it he never really knew or appreciated what he had - how could he regret it? If he ever does realise it I think it would send him over the edge. Demonising me is what stops him from topping himself for what he did to himself and our family. He has no concept of what he did to me. You'd have to have a soul and he is simply soulless.

God...I really hope so! It kills me to think that, on some level, he would not feel regret and remorse at losing me, our families and the last 17 years of our lives together. I would like to think that he has enough humanity, empathy and compassion left somewhere deep inside him that he would hurt for "us" just a little. I guess I'll never really know and to be perfectly honest...it bothers me a great deal to think he is going to walk off hand in hand with the AP and live happily ever after.

My xWH finds regret an unproductive emotion because it's usually coupled with admitting you made a bad decision about something, and he would NEVER admit to making a mistake in anything he did. Every sociopathic con artist action he takes is designed to feed his image of himself as THE MAN.

So does he regret what he did to me? Not a chance.

Does he miss me? Not a chance, b/c I knew him so with me, I saw the bad stuff. Don't miss me, don't have to admit to the bad stuff.

Is he happy? No. He's still miserable, and still hiding it with sociopathic con artist THE MAN habits honed over his whole life. Is OW#umpteen/wife#4 happy? Signs point to no. Signs point to she's realized that when she quit her job at his behest after the wedding, he'd get pissed eventually. Signs point to he's the same philandering piece of shit he always was.

TL:DR those who run from their mistakes tend not to grow and tend to keep making them.

check out this link from a thread a few days ago. I'd venture to guess his WW regrets leaving him very much. then check out his profile. Seems she regretted it pretty quickly too.

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=530403

Oh, sure. I think even the most remorseless WSs can regret ending their marriages. I give you Trac-Fone. He utterly lacks insight, makes asinine decisions daily, makes no meaningful effort to connect with the kids who are on the cusp of excising him permanently, and really has no remorse at all. But he regrets, "every single day," ending our marriage.

It means nothing more than that he was comfier with me around. He even can articulate that much. What he cannot do is really own his choices or make better ones.

Regret is easy. Growth and change are not. And *they* are what matters--not that a selfish douchebag would be less taxed if I were around to do his laundry.

Regret? Yes. Remorse? Nah.

My wxh had a brief flash of everything that he lost when he realized that I was truly done. But that quickly turned into "Poor me" and anger.

We had a really nice life: newer vehicles, annual vacations, a nice house, cool pets, and great family/friends.

I still have that really nice life.

He has a life of a possible jail term, creditors chasing him, a bar-whore girlfriend, and family that despises him. Friends? None that I know off. Sucks to be him.

My XWH was killed on his 36th birthday back in 2003. We had a very toxic and abusive relationship. He cheated on me at the "end" of our marriage but due to the increased amount of physical abuse due to his A, I just needed out of the M. So we never really addressed the affair at all.

I was VERY happily divorced when he died but was also devastated. I had never wished anything like that for him & we had 2 boys together. And I sobbed over his casket during the viewing. (keep in mind, my 2nd wedding was only 5 months away & I also had 2 more children with my then fiancé, so I was confused to say the least about my grief)

After his funeral, I went to a park with his life-long best friend to "catch up" & chat. During this conversation, he admitted to me that my XWH always said his major regret in life was losing me & how it was hard to live with that fact.

It was bittersweet at that time & sucked but yet, was nice in a way to know he had regrets. But even if he hadn't been killed, it would still have been too little, too late. But it did help knowing, I guess.

Cheaters are dishonest. They lie to their spouses, they lie to their family, they lie to their friends, they lie to their OP...and the person they lie most to is themselves.

How else can they rationalize destroying the lives of their spouses and children? They rationalize and compartmentalize. If regret ever enters their minds, it is fleeting. Because for a cheater....it is all about them.

I know a lovely BW. Her XWH contacted her just before her wedding to her lovely 2nd husband, to tell her he wished she'd told him before that she was thinking of getting married because he would have proposed.

He didn't have any thought about her feelings. He didn't say sorry. He hadn't done any work on himself. He was as entitled as ever. But for some reason,her seemed to think that because she now had someone and that XWH regretted that he left....she'd accept him back.

Regret? Yes. Remorse? No.

BTW, she just said "Too late!"

Mines doesn't and I don't ever expect him to and guess what, I'm fine with that. What he feels or doesn't feel about me doesn't matter. If my stbx felt regret, what would that do for me? Nothing. if it lead him to be a better father for our children, then "regret" or whatever would be lovely.

In his case: regret is just a form of self-pity. It is a mood swing - he gets over it real quick.

^^^^^This^^^^^

My ex's regret only stems from seeing our children affected by his selfish actions, which leads to him feeling pathetically sorry for himself.

He couldn't give two hoots about me and I'm am so close to not giving a shit anymore.

As long as his regret can make him a better father to my children that's all I care about.

I know he is incapable of showing them what a healthy, loving, loyal and respectful relationship is about.....but that's a different matter and out of my hands.

[This message edited by dindy at 3:23 PM, May 14th (Wednesday)]

My ex's regret only stems from seeing our children affected by his selfish actions, which leads to him feeling pathetically sorry for himself.

He couldn't give two hoots about me and I'm am so close to not giving a shit anymore.

This.

If he could go any deeper he'd have to take responsibility for what he's done, rather than blameshifting onto me.

So yeah, some self pitying 'poor victim me' passive aggressive regret but no remorse

My best friend's husband of 15 years left her for an 18 year old who he married. A couple of years later he told her that it was an awful mistake and that he wanted to come back. She had moved on. He killed himself a few months later.

Here's a situation a little different. Married couple with 2 children married about 12 years. He leaves her for his secretary. Both remarry. Years of lawsuits, etc.

She starts cheating on husband #2 with her first husband (the one who left her). They remarry about 15 years after their divorce. Still married.

I broke off an engagement just before the wedding as something was wrong. I just didn't know what. What was wrong is that he had another fiancé who he married a month before what would have been our wedding.

He's called me for decades telling me what a mistake he made. I just hang up on him. I refuse to be the OW.

Cheaters are dishonest. They lie to their spouses, they lie to their family, they lie to their friends, they lie to their OP...and the person they lie most to is themselves.

How else can they rationalize destroying the lives of their spouses and children? They rationalize and compartmentalize. If regret ever enters their minds, it is fleeting. Because for a cheater....it is all about them.

THIS!!!

The regret you speak of was all I wanted for a while, but once you get it, it doesn't mean as much as you expect. My XWH has contacted me twice over the past year (DDay was 3.5 years ago) freaking out with regret, and then it passes...lol. And I really don't care. He's a mess and always will be....I am so much better off without him.

And to another point mentioned by another poster - regret is not the same as true remorse. My XWH doesn't have the emotional capability to recognize or probably even manage the concept of true remorse - only sporadic convenient regret.

^^^

Oh, my ribs!!

Even *IF* your cheater expressed sorrow and regret about their cheating and causing you pain, would you really believe them? Really?

I wouldn't. I'd think the slimy pig wanted something.