Well, it has been a draining last month.
Even though I haven’t posted on here in so long, I still don’t have the requisite energy to go blow-by-blow with all the details. Here is as abbreviated a summary as possible.
The best news is that the police ‘investigation’ didn’t last long … 11 days only. My lawyer called me in the afternoon on the first Monday in May to say that the police were dropping it and that was that.
I actually kept going to work throughout that week and a half, as it helped keep me sane. When the good news came in, it took me a few days to process everything properly. But by the end of that week I had decided that it would be great for my mental health to have a 5-day staycation – which I did by taking Monday – Wednesday off, last week.
On the Friday where that vacation began (May 7th), I was having a nice barbeque in my back yard, sipping wine, enjoying the approaching cool of the evening, when the side-gate opened and … there she was: my Ex-WF. It was … surreal to see her. It had been a while. She honestly looked like a different person. Or, to put it better: I didn’t recognize her. It was an odd yet reassuring feeling; it made me think that, perhaps, I have been moving on from her more rapidly than I understood.
She apologized for essentially breaking in but said she was desperate to speak with me in person. I felt true anger throughout the first 2/3 of the experience: first, due to the unavoidable context—that she had cheated on me and blown our lives apart; second, because she was dressed very provocatively, clearly hoping to seduce me … she also was acting very flirtatious, as though we were on our 2nd or 3rd date and about to sleep together for the first time; third, because she had violated my living space; and lastly because of what she said.
She suggested, without actually saying the precise words, that her father had forced her into it and that because he had close ties with parts of the police force, that it was all more of a ‘game’ to ‘scare’ me. But, heroically (and I am being sarcastic), when she saw the light and realized what might happen to me, she intervened and said that she had made the accusation under deep mental duress – a fugue state of sorts!
Anyway, to my credit, I was able to—very calmly—do a few things:
• I told her how much hurt and damage she had caused me, and that I would never really forgive her
• I told her that no part of me wants anything to do with her or her family ever again, and that the greatest gift she could give me was to never talk to me again
• I told her about my chat with her Ex, which enraged her (though to her credit, she contained the rage), and used it to suggest that she is a deeply broken individual who needs genuine therapeutic intervention—both to get at why she has been cheating all these years, and to find a way beyond her family’s vice-like, and deeply unhealthy, grip on her soul
To her credit, she listened to it all and apologized. She said that she now accepted that we were done and that she would leave me alone. She did part by saying that a) she had only had the one affair (!), and that b) he wasn’t as good as me in any way, blah blah, and that she felt largely coerced by him. I just shook my head sadly and watched her leave.
I enjoyed a really relaxing weekend—in the end, that experience with her had been freeing, in many ways—but then last Monday, Ex-WF sent me an email, showing a very revealing picture of her sunbathing. I did not respond. Then the next day, she sent me an even more revealing photo, accompanied by the note, ‘I know you can’t dislike these that much if you aren’t telling me to stop.’ Then the next day, around the same time as the other two emails were sent, she sent me a pretty explicit video of herself. At that point, I did respond; got very angry; told her that I would be seeking legal means to remove her from my life for the clear harassment she and her family were visiting upon me. She wrote me back later that evening, apologized, and said that she knows she needs help and would not contact me again. I haven’t heard from her since (though it has only been 5 days).
However the final piece of my update is perhaps the most complex. The OBS texted me on Friday night, apologizing for her radio silence, and we had a really nice exchange—both then and throughout Saturday. It was so nice that she ostensibly invited herself over for drinks yesterday afternoon. On the surface, she is doing her best to free herself from her husband’s deeply manipulative and poisonous hold on her. But deeper down, it is obvious to me that she is still very much in love with him and now wanting to wound him as much as she can. Whether to win him back or not, I cannot say.
To cut to the chase: we kissed. It was quite passionate. I don’t know … is it totally mangled that I was aroused by my Ex-WF’s photos and video? My libido has all but disappeared throughout this ordeal. So the odd combination of me feeling like she really is gone from my life, coupled with the appreciation of those photos … served to awaken some hibernating animal in me. I honestly could have slept with OBS, but when we realized—I think mutually, at the same time—how easily it could progress to sex, we stopped.
But she has been texting me a lot since, and is trying to set up another visit.
I know: this is not good. I think the temptations are obvious: one, I haven’t been sexual in ages and am not ready to begin dating, so this is potentially convenient; two, revenge; three, I feel as though I am one of her only ‘healthy’ supports.
I’m also wise enough to know that probably less than 5% of her behaviour is from a natural source of attraction and desire towards me, and that it is purely about unhealthy stuff towards her WH. And I also know that if I did enter into a sexual relationship with her, it would heighten the probability of my Ex-WF re-entering the scene, but in an even more demented and obsessive key.
Anyway that is my whole update. In reality, it is not as … ‘colourful’ (to borrow from a guide here who seems unhealthily obsessed with the fact that I am exaggerating my story) an update as many of my others, perhaps. Overall, I feel I am moving on, in a better place, have resisted the siren-song of my Ex-WF, and feel less damaged and broken than I did upon learning about the betrayal.
But I also do know I am damaged—witness my decision to kiss the OBS—and will continue receiving counselling.
Finally – it was comforting to check in from time to time and to see people’s support and care. Such a wonderful place, this is.
