SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Support for BS's that have been left for the OP

Anyone dealing with the shame and heartache of this issue is welcome to vent or ask questions or share with others who've been through this (like myself) as well to get support or input on how to deal with the added difficulty of being left behind.

This looks like a pretty quiet thread, I guess those of us "abandoned" by our WS's are in the minority?

I discovered my WH's affair just before Christmas 2016. He was working abroad at the time and commuting back home via OW's country. I was like a poster child for how NOT to deal with the situation decisively, gave him "space", allowed him to cake-eat, told nobody, did the whole panicked pick-me thing. I did do some useful stuff during the deer-in-the-headlights phase such as saving photos, screenshots, emails, phone numbers, flight and hotel details, and getting us both tested for STD's. We tried a weekend away, but he got drunk, I got annoyed, and he disappeared to lick his wounds over how mean I was. I later found out that he had brought OW to this same city a few months before and when he stormed off in a huff, he went to the hotel they had stayed at and messaged her from there. In a nutshell, the A never ended.

A few weeks later, my mother came to my house and confirmed what I suspected. She and my father had discovered that WH's phone which he had borrowed from my Dad, was still sending all photos to the linked account on Dad's computer. There in all their glory were all my WH's photos. My poor parents never signed up for this cr@p!

That was the kick I needed to take charge, I would take no more of this disrespect from him. When he came home on his next trip, he arrived at the door without a key, claiming he had been mugged and lost his bags. Truth was he got drunk and passed out somewhere feeling sorry for himself. I wouldn't let him in that day, and told him I refused to be in a marriage while he continued his affair and he was no longer welcome to live with us as a family. Since he had been "mugged", I felt it was wise to change the locks in case he had left our address in his bags, so unfortunately for him, another one of his lies has meant that he can no longer enter our house.

Because I refused to be a doormat anymore, or in his words because I "kicked him out of his own home", he HAD to move in with the OW, in her country, where he has lived since his last foreign contract ended in June 2017. He doesn't speak her language, nor she his, so most of their communication was or is google translated. She is 40 and single without kids (for now ) He can't work in her country because of the language issue, and won't work in our home country because he wants to be with her. He was and probably still is like a teenager in love, making sappy Spotify playlists, sending her selfies of himself wherever he goes, taking pictures of the two of them on their frequent holidays and weekends away, and going clubbing again to recapture his youth.

Meanwhile, I have picked up the pieces of our shattered family life and started to make a new sculpture from the debris. We have three children, all living at home, two in college and one almost finished school. They are devastated. He has had almost no contact with them since he left. He doesn't know what to say to them, so he has taken the coward's option of just running away. We have had some sessions of mediation where he seems to think he is a victim and it's all my fault. At mediation he has told me I should have swallowed my pride and kept it a secret but because everyone knows he left he can't come back, he has called me a freeloader, and he has said that I have poisoned the children's minds against him (they are 22, 20 and 17 and can make moral judgments all by themselves, using the cold hard facts of his choices). He has also said he's not happy, she(OW) is not special, and that his sister said it would be a shame to lose the kids over this.

So this has been going on for 17 months now, but I think he has been off the rails for longer than that. He lost his job 5 years ago, jumped into a disastrous start-up and sunk all his redundancy into it until he had to leave and grab the contract abroad. It's easy to look back now and see that he was depressed and angry and lonely, but then, so was I. Left at home with three intense teenagers, no money and the roof over our heads threatened. Yeah, I was depressed, angry and lonely too, but I was too busy rolling up my sleeves and getting on with the business of keeping the show on the road to go have a sordid little affair to massage my ego.

So, life goes on. I'm managing, the kids are well loved, supported and sustained by my family and friends. I am getting my career back on track and am beginning to glimpse a different future from the one I always thought I would have, and it's not that bad, in fact, it's good. I'm not waiting for any miracle epiphany from WH but I can't help being disappointed that he is such a coward that he won't face me or his own children. I am frustrated that I will not get the opportunity to express my anger to him, that I will probably never get to see him suffer what he has made us suffer, that I can't tell him what I think of him and how he has shattered my heart and my world for something so avoidable if he had just faced his demons and asked for help. I know he doesn't have the emotional maturity, the self-awareness or the depth to address his actions. I doubt he ever will. I just can't believe it took me 24 years to see the real man I married, the one so shallow and selfish and dysfunctional and damaged and ugly on the inside that he lacks the integrity I thought was his core.

Not sure I really have a question here, other than wondering how others resolved their internal conflict when they never got the chance to "have it out" with their runaway WS?

(Just found out-Its across the street)

Mine left 2 days after dday to live with he AP directly accross the street. I was doing good, but since valentines day its been a struggle.

I try and keep the blinds closed but I can hear them start there cars and come and go. She has no visible shame or guilt.

I can honestly say I was a good husband and am a great father but everytime I have a work issue she asks if her AP partner can watch the kids.

I was replaced without pause. Horrified my adopted son says he has three dads now.

I'm part of this crowd.

Xwh and mow have yet to get M, but they are together and have been since before the D was filed (though they deny it was an A....). I got the "joy" of seeing mow with xwh at a kid's school event recently - first one mow has attended, and she isn't really supposed to be around my kid yet.... (long story, not much I can do about it at this time but document)

I know from an admission by mow in court proceedings she has cheated on xwh at least once already, within months of our D being filed - and she was cheating on her now xh with both xhw and this other guy as well, because she was not even separated from him then either! I've been told by another guy that mow cheated on xwh with him, too, more recently, and that xwh also is cheating on mow. I'm not surprised. I actually believe xwh had more than one ow at the end of the M; he had cheated previously, and I think he likely was not ever faithful to me. I have reason to question if mow was ever faithful to her now xh, too. (She was supposedly my bff for over 10 years, so I know an awful lot about her.)

Meanwhile, I am on my own. I have zero interest in even thinking about dating, and cannot see myself ever dating again. I doubt I will ever feel "safe" in such a relationship again; there's just too many ways to cheat and to hide it nowadays. Most days, I'm ok with being alone; I am concentrating on being there for my kids and my aging parents, for now. It is what comes when the parents are gone and the kids are grown that worries me; I really don't want to be any burden on my kids - I don't want to have them feeling they have to take care of me as I age, since I have no companion to do so. And, mostly, I don't want to die all alone.

All three of my kids know what xwh and mow did - or, at least, they know about the A that keeps getting denied. That last part is one of the biggest issues the kids have with xwh - he won't take any responsibility for what happened and blames it all on me. Since the kids know better, and since they feel they were personally negatively impacted by his actions, while he won't acknowledge, much less apologize for any of it, the kids pretty well have little relationship with xwh now, and they hate mow. All three use xwh for what money they can get out of him, and do as little as they can to appease him to get it. If he had no money, I don't know that they would have anything to do with him. It's sad. Meanwhile, though I have money, the kids view me as not really having much, in comparison, and, yet, they reach out to me to do things with them, instead of (well, in addition to) the other way around. This is big, because, at one point, xwh/mow were actively trying to turn my kids against me by manipulations and lies; that they failed is huge to me..... If I had lost my kids, I am not sure I would have survived.

I think it's interesting that shame has been mentioned twice in the last few posts here, once in relation to the BS and once in reference to the WS. Shame is so powerful and debilitating and is definitely a part of my story.

I have to say, that while I was shocked, blindsided and paralyzed by fear and pain when I discovered WH's affair, I never felt any shame. I very quickly understood that the affair was 100% on him and that any shame was his only. I am accountable for my behaviour, and it wasn't shameful, only his was and is.

Like others though, I have felt angry and frustrated that he apparently feels no shame over his actions, his wrecking our life, our marriage and our children's stability. But in fact, I think that his shame is so great that he cannot and will not ever face it. After all, his affair already shows what poor coping skills he has. Every week, every month that goes by when he buries his head in the sand and refuses to address the situation makes his problems grow bigger. By ignoring his children for another month, by refusing to engage in mediation, by pretending that we don't exist is evidence of his shame. Conflict avoiders are shame avoiders. They would do anything to ignore the elephant in the room, and want someone else to clean up when the elephant takes its inevitable dump and buries everyone in turd.

There's a lovely woman in my choir that I bumped into while dog walking. I like her a lot although I don't know her very well. We ended up having coffee and she asked me how I got on over Christmas. She knows it was my first Christmas separated. She is also separated. Anyway, it turns out she is the WW. She has an amicable relationship with her ex and is still seeing the OM who is now also separated. So I was telling her that I can't help but hope that my WH will suffer the same pain he has caused me and the children. She told me not to worry, that however it works out, that however the WS pretends, the shame never leaves the WS. Even if they "do the work", whether they separate, divorce or reconcile, the shame is always floating about inside. She and her ex agree that they probably never should have married, but she told me she will always regret her actions and her choice to have an affair. She has faced up to her actions and done as much as she can to atone but the shame is still there and she still feels it. Her story really helped me. I really do want WH to feel the pain and shame, and if she is right, he already does and will continue to do so for the rest of his days. He can go on pretending his life is a bowl of roses or he can face his demons and deal with the fallout, but either way, his shame will be a part of the story.

So, RockstarDad your WW might be doing a good job pretending she has no shame or guilt but it's probably there underneath all that brazen flouncing about. I can't imagine the horror of having them across the street though, you have my sympathies on that. At least my coward WH is far away in another country so I don't have to see his face ever again, or that of his sad desperate spinster AP!

(Edited to remove location details)

[This message edited by BeanLaidir at 2:15 PM, March 4th (Sunday)]

Thanks Bean. Ya know they can feel however they feel and say sorry, but without action to back it up its worthless. Insulting really.

Maybe selfish is the better way to put it. There convience (she used the that term when talking about the proximity) outweighs any consideration for the spouse they left behind.

[This message edited by RockstarDad at 6:11 PM, February 26th (Monday)]

This is my club, too. XWW (late 30s) cheated on me with a mid-20s single, never-married, childless COW. He now lives full time with her, which means half time with my kids.

There's probably not much I have to say about how unhealthy and sort of laughable the whole situation is. Would be circus-level hilarity if it didn't involve my kids. This strange young man is really trying hard to play "dad." Trying to be as objective as possible: he's not good-looking, rich, cool, anything of the sort. Talking to him is like talking to a literal kid, but not even a cool kid. Like a weird kid. Like a really socially awkward kid you might remember from high school.

There is so much that bothers me about the situation. My own personal feelings of shame, embarrassment, personal wronging, and at the same time anger, resentment, and a deep caveman desire to destroy this person. Won't do that of course.

Because XWW has failed to follow through with any of our agreements in terms of how long we're waiting to introduce other people into our kids' lives, or how we're going to communicate about it when we do (she just hasn't, she kept it a secret, I found out from my own kids), I'm left to navigate this dynamic completely on my own (I guess I was already, anyway).

It's just weird. My kids have a weird situation with their mom. It's clearly unhealthy, and it's clearly affecting them.

Just thought I'd share a little of my story and keep the thread alive.

I was left behind for the OW in June 2015.

The days of wondering why he chose her instead of me, of comparing myself to her and feeling like I wasn’t good enough - thankfully those days are over.

However! I do still hope they will cheat on each other, still hope that one day they will feel real pain and definitely still hope they break up!

I don’t dwell on all that stuff like I used to, but sometimes...

I just wish he was with someone, ANYONE, other than the nasty OW.

So glad this thread has been continued--this is me, too, and it is the hardest aspect of the entire experience.

[This message edited by ninon at 11:20 AM, March 8th (Thursday)]

Just to add a little different perspective if I might. Sometimes we get hung up on all of this being about "us." Or how could they leave me for them. Like we really did something to cause their cheating or gee - they just must have lurved that person more. Or somehow that person is better than me. Hooey.

I've come to realize in my situation, he ended up with his AP (eventually marrying her) because I didn't give him any other choice. Being the shame avoider that Bean called out, (add to it a pathological fear of being alone), where else was he going to go once I outed him and kicked him to the curb? He may have initially just wanted to boink her but then he got backed into all sorts of financial and emotional corners when he got busted.

And think about this....he had to somehow "legitimize" the whole affair to himself and everyone else. I mean, he blew up his entire life - if it wasn't because this woman was the most perfect skittle-farting unicorn in the herd, then that would make him...well...a total douchebag right?

I've come to realize in my situation, he ended up with his AP (eventually marrying her) because I didn't give him any other choice. Being the shame avoider that Bean called out, (add to it a pathological fear of being alone), where else was he going to go once I outed him and kicked him to the curb? He may have initially just wanted to boink her but then he got backed into all sorts of financial and emotional corners when he got busted.

This resonates so much with me Chili, my WH even said "well, I had to move abroad to live with her because you kicked me out and wouldn't let me live with you and the kids" I thought "Yeah, I wouldn't let you live with us and continue your gross shenanigans, lying through your teeth, coming and going as you pleased, effectively allowing you a one-sided open marriage to suit your pathetic middle-aged dysfunction, you stupid little prick", but what I actually said was a more measured "No, I did not kick you out, you chose to continue your affair with that woman, and by doing so, you chose to no longer be part of our family. You cannot have expected to have all the benefits and comforts of the family home after you made your choice clear".

But in the end, I made my choice, which was to stop living with the disrespect he was showing me and our marriage. He also had a choice, but he made it way back when he first started his affair. The rest of the choices all stem from his decision to be unfaithful. He can't, won't or doesn't want to admit that. He still has choices, every day, every week, every month to turn his life around and at the very least try to reconnect with his children. But that first choice he made to be unfaithful is the one which has forced all the other choices on himself, on me, and on his children.

I can live with my choices though, they are giving me my dignity, my economic independence and my joy back. It will take a while, but I don't need the dysfunction of his problems back in my life. I hope he can live with his choices, if he can't I'd say "tough shit mate, you were smart enough to lie and cheat for months on end so maybe you're smart enough to figure out your crap and make better choices in the future. Either way, don't count on me to help you out".

Yeah well I'm just NOW trying to re-find myself after all these years. And the journey's not going so well, I'm afraid.

My wife left me for her AP. But she came back. And THEN, a year later, she just found ANOTHER AP and left me AGAIN. I did do the 180 thing after a fashion BOTH times. And both times it really worked. She came back a second time. But I wasn't really ready or able to truly face the whole aftermath and hard realities of her why's and wherefore's and the ugly nitty gritty of what all had happened behind closed doors and unclothed bodies until relatively recently when she thought I was having an online EA with another woman.

All of her cute little treacherous shenanigans and abominations were pretty much contained within the space of the first 3 years of our marriage back in 1993 thru 1996, but the suspected EA thing she was in fear of was about 2.5 years ago. When she and I got to really digging into her fears and suspicions about ME, the whole lid blew off of that massive, nasty rug we'd swept all of that shit under and nailed down for posterity almost 25 years ago. And uncovering and exhuming all the ugly, unresolved excrement that was swept and stored and festering under there just about killed us BOTH due to the extreme psychological distress and new, fresh, reinvigorated trauma it put us through.

I envy those who really got the chance to face their demons and closet monsters head-on in an open battle and showdown as opposed to myself who was so damn glad just to have her back and have my prayers all seemingly answered that I just "forgave" and TRIED to "forget" everything until Pandora's box/rug got some unexpected airing out and all that shit hit the fan for the FIRST REAL time since it had all happened 25 years ago.

[This message edited by Cephastion at 3:29 PM, March 8th (Thursday)]

That sounds painful Cephastion, I'm sorry you're dealing with it all these years later.

I take no satisfaction in having drawn my line in the sand and watching my WH slink away on the other side. I was completely blindsided by his affair, life had been stressful financially and he had to work abroad but as far as I was concerned, it was temporary and we would get back to equilibrium in a year or two. I just thought this was the "for worse, for poorer" part of our marriage vows.

So in saying that I made choices and stood up for myself, I'm not saying I did it with a spring in my step, or happily, or that it gave me any kind of closure. It just had to be done because I am healthy and whole and he is not and I couldn't allow myself or the children get sucked into the vortex of his crisis anymore.

In our neck of the woods, we have to wait one year for an official separation, and four (yes, 4!) before we can divorce, so I won't have fully extricated myself from this marriage for a good while yet. So on paper we will be married 25 years this year, and nearly 28 before it will officially be over, and that's if it all goes smoothly.

Plenty of demons still to be faced here too, but at least I'm moving in the right direction in comparison to when I first discovered the A and was like a rabbit in the headlights!

Yeah it was and IS painful, I can assure you.

Her first adultery and departure and the lies that accompanied such was for 3 months or so in the first year of our marriage with an ex-high school classmate who had wanted to be in a relationship with her back before we were courting, but all her friends said he was a mental case/wierdo, which was the very official reason that the army discharged him a couple of years later when he enlisted, in fact!

Of course that was all the more reason for her to just up-and-go-for-it with him, I guess, and so she did...about two months after our miscarriage of our precious would-be daughter who we homebirthed prematurely without help from the midwife or anyone else, since it was too late and too far into the labor and delivery to do anything about it.

(She was dead before the labor set in, but it was a full labor and delivery from my wife's body's standpoint.)

In my grief at this and other maladies, she went for a clandestine and specifically forbidden visit to this POS and screwed him at his place on that selfsame very first visit! Then after a time or two with him on the sly while still with me, she suddenly and without warning abandoned me for him, going to live with her mother until better conditions could be arranged for the two of them. (He lived with his girlfriend and his brother at the time, and my own wife was amazingly just FINE with sharing him I guess!)

This left me taking care of my senile and challenging grandfather all by myself at age 22, and he died that same year while she was gone away from me due to the fact that I was totally overwhelmed and alone without any real family or help in the situation. I had to commit him to the so-called "professional" care of a careered nursing home lady who'd committed to me (much like my own wife had as a prerequisite to courting and marriage) to care for him without using tranquilizers or restraints or other obnoxious dehumanizing methods, but of course she lied and violated every ONE of our agreements in that respect and he died within ten days of being back in her care after I had brought him home for a Thanksgiving Day break.

Ironically, my lovely mother-in-law was ALSO a careered nursing home "professional" and I'd even helped her get her license/certification renewed. She too had committed to be there for me and for him since we were all supposedly "family" now, but in the same way that she left her own family in the dust without warning or real reason that I know of, she left me completely without any help whatsoever and even aided and abetted my wife's adultery and desertion without any stated cause or reason and did so with mockery and scoffing as well.

With "family" like that, I don't have any need of enemies or traitors to even things out at all.

After my grandpa died, my wife came back only to repeat steps one thru ten with a co-worker a year or so later.

For THAT particular adventure, she was gone for 9 months or so, telling me that she just "needed some space" and that she was being faithful and working on US and on herself while all she was "working on" was her lover who himself was married with young children at his home with his SAHM.

When he dumped her after three months or so, she simply went on a screwing/dating binge for another six months or so with various shapes and sizes of men all new to her, but once I fully 180'd her sorry ass which admittedly seemed like a rather moot point since she'd been living on her own either with her mother or by herself for nine months with no outside support and going no contact with me purely as a conflict-avoidance/control maneuver on her part. From the point that I FINALLY really and truly "let go" of trying to kid-glove the situation and her and the outcome and 180'd her, it took all of 2 weeks or so before she came back and we've been "reconciled" and she's been fairly remorseful ever since.

But that doesn't erase what happened or take away the pain...

[This message edited by Cephastion at 6:31 PM, March 8th (Thursday)]

Bean - kudos for getting off the crazy-train. It's definitely not easy - oh my it's not easy. I'm just sorry that you have to be entangled so long legally. Good going on holding your head high and keeping yourself safe.

Cephastion - sending good thoughts your way. Things still sound so very raw for you.

I'm in the same boat, sort of. My 5 year DDay anniversary will be in a few weeks.

It was painful at first. I went through the whole rainbow of emotions.

Today, God I'm so glad Shrek was such a stupid whore. She believed all of his lies and allowed herself to be his dirty secret for years. If it hadn't been for her, I'd still be married to that POS.

I never want them to break up. Two cheaters with black hearts deserve each other. I'm thankful to her. I did a lot of work on myself after he left. My life has slowly turned around to amazing.

My oldest DS is getting married in September and I have zero anxiety of seeing either of them two fuckwits. But I will wear my cutest dress and make up and hair to the nines. 😚.

Life gets great once we actually process how big of a favor they did us.

Hi I'm new here. My ex left me for the OW last January, saying he loved me but was "in love" with her. We had been together for 8 years, married for 6 and friends for almost 20. She was a friend of his who we'd both socialised with and I think they were having an affair for a month or two before he left. The day after he left our house he moved in with her and her disabled son. For months afterwards he would say they were now just close friends, how he didn't know how he felt about anything. At my request he moved into his own flat and started to go to a counsellor. The counselling didn't last very long, and then I had months of him being emotionally erratic, saying one thing and doing another. He has never really tried to explain what has happened, and I honestly don't know now whether he's still with her or whether they are just friends. The amount of effort and time he spends on her and the lack of clarity and effort from him makes that slightly irrelevant. I just know that he's keeping things from me.

Just before Christmas, his OW's son died quite suddenly (he wasn't expected to live a long life due to his issues). Then a mutual friend of mine told me that he was still with the OW as I kind of expected. I withdrew majorly (we had decided to be friends before that) and decided that whilst I would be kind, I would stop trying to fight against all of it, I told him that I wasn't interested in knowing about his life with her or anything about her. That I had to put my own life and mental health first. He spent Christmas with the OW. The biggest change for me was that sense that no matter how he felt about me, he wasn't able to put me first or attempt to fix anything. He isn't evil, he is emotionally damaged, selfish and a bit naive to be taken in by someone who I think had actually planned this a while ago. The OW is socially awkward, has no other friends, and relies on him utterly. And now he is dealing with her as a grieving mother too. Without being heartless, that is all his issue and not mine.

I still struggle at times, I still think if he was a stronger person all of this could have been avoided. We never fell out or argued much, he were always the best of friends. We now get on well when we meet. He has been completely reasonable about the house and financially very above board. But I'm no longer thinking any of his kindness means anything other than he cares about me. I've had to get on with my own life with him as a small part of it, and that has been very difficult. I don't expect I shall end up in another relationship, I'm too suspicious and guarded now and I was never overwhelmed with offers before I met him either. The most difficult thing is that feeling of rejection, that he just never fought for me.

For months afterwards he would say they were now just close friends, how he didn't know how he felt about anything.

My XWW did and said all of this after our separation -- they were just friends, etc., etc. From my perspective, it was a ploy (almost subconscious, like a lie to themselves) to make it appear that her new, "healthy" relationship was developed in a socially-acceptable way after her marriage dissolved for "other reasons." It's a story they tell so that society "accepts" them. The alternative story, while honest, is "unacceptable," the the people around them and to themselves.

For a WS and AP, if you can make this story a "reality," then they don't ever have to explain why, for example, their anniversary is inconsistent with the timeline of WS's former marriage -- everything that happened before separation was just good buds hanging out.

There are a few people in the know who can see the lie for what it is, and I think for the most part it's sad (if they have an interest in XWW's life and well-being) or just weird and something to avoid (ex-friends). Other people, of course, are innocent, and will believe this lie moving forward.

I honestly don't know now whether he's still with her or whether they are just friends.

Seems pretty doubtful they're just friends. Life with men and women living together doesn't tend to work that way. Especially when the man professes her love for her and moves in with her within one day of moving out of his marital home. It's just a thing he says to make himself look/feel better; otherwise he'd be living inconsistently with his own value system. It's cognitive dissonance at its finest.

I'm completely convinced that they are more than friends in spite of what he has claimed. Oddly the day that I decided that he was deluded and weak made me feel strong and happier. I've stopped telling him what I think of her, I've stopped ranting, I did that for months. If he wants to justify himself so he feels better, then he can carry on. I'm better than that though. I know that at some point she will no longer need him so much and it will go wrong. But I'm no longer telling him that. I don't need to do that anymore, he has to deal with the life he's chosen and one day he will realise that I was the better person. And it is too late to go back.