SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Ah, revenge. The dish that is best served cold. My revenge fantasy for AP1 runs along the lines of Poe's "The Cask of Amontillado". For AP2, since he depends on his hands to make a living, it was having him restrained with his hands splayed out, then me singing "If I Had A Hammer" and everytime I got to the word "hammer" I'd smash one of his fingers with the round end of a ball peen hammer. For AP3 I never really settled on one so karma took care of it for me. He contracted colon cancer and as I heard it, the end was extremely agonizing for him. Now I'm not saying I'd have wished that on even him, but I'll admit that I can't help but feel like he got what he deserved. If I have any regret concerning it, it's that I'd planned to piss on his grave, but he ended up being cremated. Oh well.

Now, on what brings me here other than my occasional lurk. This November will bring the 10 year antiversary of D-Day. Without going into it too much, I can honestly say that I feel like we have the marriage I thought we did until I found out the truth. That's not to say it isn't still hard to deal with, and it comes to mind at least once a day, EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. DAY. But now, it's going beyond that. I don't know if it's the knowledge that it's about to be a decade I've been dealing with this or what, but recently I've been having dreams that I catch her at it again. It happens about once every couple of weeks. In the dreams I catch her and she pretty much boastfully admits to it, is completely callous and I don't give a fuck what you think about it. I don't have reason to believe she's actually cheating on me again. There's a plethora of reasons that makes me believe she'd never do it again. Yet these dreams are so damn vivid that I even wake up from them as angry as if they were true. There's been a few mornings I've been pretty cold to her because of the dream. I don't know if it's just the latest bite of this shit sandwich or what. I truly in my gut don't feel that she's doing anything like cheating. Like I said, maybe it's just the big antiversary coming up is just pushing a lot of it to the surface again. It just sucks is all I guess. Just one more fucking thing to deal with connected to all of this. Adultery, the gift that just keeps on giving to the betrayed.

My revenge on the AP is knowing he's has to live with my exWW.

WTH -

I feel you brother. I'm past 10 years now, and the marriage is like you describe - what I thought I had and always wanted. Life is great, I'm pretty much getting ready to retire (on a trial basis right now since March) and been doing a lot of traveling and fishing. That being said, there just isn't in my existence a day I don't think about it. It's not debilitating like it was years ago, but it can still mess up my day if I'm not careful. It is actually one of the reasons that I decided to retire early. Stress at the job has been growing for several years, and it was getting to the point where my skills that I learned in therapy wasn't keeping up. Wasn't eating right or sleeping, just like after D-Day but nothing at all to do with it.

I've had dreams like that sporadically as well. They can ruin your day. I've never been able to identify a specific trigger, food, movie, or alcohol so I just think it's my brain just keeping me on my toes. There is some kernel in there that says "remember how this felt" for some pre-historic cave man reasons that biology has kept around "just for fun". I certainly don't need my own subconscious reminding me how I felt. My conscious does that just fine.

Cheers Menz. It's Friday, the beer is cold, there's a roof over my head, and the family is healthy. Life is good. Hope everyone is doing well. I'll raise one for Los and Koda.

Tred,
As I wrote that post I knew the experience with the dreams couldn't be unique, yet when there's something new you always feel like you're the only one it's happened to. As unique as all of our stories are, they're exactly the same. I always felt that was what made the bond here in the menz group so strong. I do wonder about the other old timers that I don't see check in anymore. I hope the reason for that is that they've healed and moved on to a point they don't need the support anymore.

...it comes to mind at least once a day, EVERY. SINGLE. FUCKING. DAY.

Every single day, for ten years? Do you think it's possible that your wife is a constant trigger?

I rarely think about it. I don't want to think about it. I don't give a shit anymore. I'm divorced. I'm not suggesting you get divorced. I just know that my Ex was a constant trigger and now she's not (just to occasional one).

I used to have infidelity dreams. They varied, however. Some dreams were about her cheating again and being absolutely callous about it. Some dreams she cheated again and was just soooo very sorry. The best dreams, I have to admit, were about ME cheating, having an affair, and thoroughly enjoying every moment. In fact, those dreams put me in a good mood all day long. Of course, all of these dreams were my subconscious telling me it was time to move on.

This whole decade thing is probably a trigger in and of itself. We humans live by the calendar. We count shit. Your brain is clearly attaching importance to this ten-year antiversary.

"A thousand injuries I had borne of Fortunado, but when he ventured upon insult, I vowed revenge."

That's my memory, not a direct quote. I'll look it up after posting. Either way, one of my favorite short stories of all time.

ETA: "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge."

[This message edited by Unhinged at 3:57 PM, Wednesday, August 3rd]

Unhinged,
I'm sure she is a trigger, but there's nothing I can do about that. There is the occasional day that I kind of wonder if the A's did come to mind the previous day. It's not like I keep a running tally, but since I sometimes have that happen I suppose the rare day may go by that I don't think of it. I suppose in a way it's like my tinnitus. I always know it's there and it's just something I have to live with. I don't always think about it,but sometimes it'll force it's way to front of mind and I know I can't let it linger there or I'll go crazy.

I've had dreams of me cheating as well, but I stop myself and can't go through with it. It's like even in my sleep I'm so adamant about it being wrong that I can't allow myself to do it. Sometimes it's even to the point I'm going to give in and I stop myself. I've always thought I could never cheat on her because knowing what it's done to me, I can't be that cruel to her. Still, because I think of it so often it kind of feels like I'm paying for her sins. Even so, I can't imagine my life without her. That said, in my mind I've never taken D off the table as an option. I don't see myself ever going that route, and it's not something I actively think about, but it'll always be in my back pocket.

Anyway, tomorrow's Friday, she's off with a couple of friends for a retreat, and Saturday night I'll be going to my astronomy club's dark site for some planet watching. Everyone have a great weekend.

Hi guys... It's been a while again since I've been around. Life's been busy. I don't remember the last time I posted here, but it was probably around when I started the new (old?) job last fall, almost a year ago . The new (old) job has been going pretty well. Didn't take long to settle into the new team, and I've realized how much I missed working on a national scale.

Anyway, seeing as were talking about dreams, I have this same recurring dream every year starting around this time (gee, I wonder why). Had it twice in the last two weeks. With minor variations, the dream is that my xWW shows up unexpectedly on my doorstep and professes her remorse, apologizes profusely for what she did and how it was the worst mistake of her life and she's so miserable now, and begs to be taken back while crying on my porch. In a moment of weakness, I agree, and spend the rest of my life miserable and regretting letting her back in. In real life I can't imagine anything near that happening, but I go through this every year. Same dream, once or twice a week for a month to two. And it's so damn real to me that I wake up miserable and spend the next day in a funk.

WTH, I actually have the same plans . The last two times I drove 25 miles to get out to the dark site on what was forecast to be a perfect evening, clouds rolled in about sunset and it was totally overcast. Tonight and tomorrow are again supposed to be pretty good so I am planning on making the trek again one or both nights, even though I have to teach a class this weekend starting at 8am. Been working on a picture, and I am finally going to call it finished cuz there's things I want to image in the southern sky before they disappear.

This is part of NGC7000 called the Cygnus Wall, which surprisingly enough is near the constellation Cygnus . I used a dual narrow-band filter to capture the oxygen (bluer areas) and hydrogen (redder areas) and then recombined them into kinda a faux hubble-pallete color image. This is a low-res version for posting, so sorry it doesn't look as detailed.

[This message edited by tbkjcn at 4:24 PM, Friday, August 5th]