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General :
What to do if you run into an AP

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 Revenger (original poster member #80445) posted at 9:56 PM on Thursday, September 26th, 2024

This is purely hypothetical. I don't believe I'm in danger of running into an AP, but it's not entirely out of the question. We live 45 minutes from the nearest one and the potential for an unfortunate run-in is always there.

I want to practice the scenario in my head so I don't do something stupid like burst into tears and make her feel like a million bucks. Any good one-liners that anyone has? I'm aware the standing advice is to ignore, but I don't necessarily want to do that either. At this point, I think it's more likely she would run away from me before I had a chance to say something, but, ya know... I need something in my arsenal in case she gets smirky.

If anyone has ever had a run-in with an AP and did or said something they felt good about afterward, I'd love to hear it. Or thoughts on what you would potentially do.

[This message edited by Revenger at 10:01 PM, Thursday, September 26th]

Married to an SA
Many DDays after discovering many, many EAs/PAs Working on R

posts: 91   ·   registered: Jul. 20th, 2022
id 8849651
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OnTheOtherSideOfHell ( member #82983) posted at 10:13 PM on Thursday, September 26th, 2024

Since mine was a double betrayal I still fantasize (and would do given the chance) of seeing the AP out with friends and walking up with a huge smile on my face saying "omg, hello it’s been so long since we’ve spoken. Hi ladies, AP and I go way back. She’s a great gal you’re friends here with. Careful though,if your husband is the cheating kind and loves enormous women, she’ll Fuxx him without telling ya! Really, great gal, though" 😂😂😂 and walk away.

posts: 218   ·   registered: Feb. 28th, 2023   ·   location: SW USA
id 8849653
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SacredSoul33 ( member #83038) posted at 10:20 PM on Thursday, September 26th, 2024

I still cross paths with the AP every couple of years at company parties. I take every dang opportunity to get in her space. I have no idea what I might say to her, I just want her to feel as uncomfortable as possible. I hope I run into her in the bathroom or stand in line right behind her at the buffet.

Actually, I'd like to run into her H without her around and tell him that he needs to take a look at her Pinterest sometime. She has 900+ pins about missing the one who got away. Dummy. lol

ETA: I meant that AP is the dummy, not the OBS!

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 6:14 AM, Friday, September 27th]

Remove the "I want you to like me" sticker from your forehead and place it on the mirror, where it belongs. ~ Susan Jeffers

Your nervous system will always choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven.

posts: 1479   ·   registered: Mar. 10th, 2023
id 8849655
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Webbit ( member #84517) posted at 2:50 AM on Friday, September 27th, 2024

Oh how this has run through my head. I think im so clever when I play scenarios through in my head but the other day I saw her in her car and had a complete meltdown.

So I really don’t know how I’d go in person😂😂😂

Webbit

posts: 143   ·   registered: Feb. 22nd, 2024   ·   location: Australia
id 8849668
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WB1340 ( member #85086) posted at 4:12 AM on Friday, September 27th, 2024

It's because of this I avoided going to the place he and my wife work at. He's off on medical leave for a few months so zero chance of bumping into him there but like I told my wife, that place has been ruined for me and I really enjoyed going there and volunteering.

I honestly have no idea how I would react. Probably just keep walking. I do wonder how he would react since I recently informed his wife about the affair so he's dealing with that at the moment. He had five months of feeling like he won the lottery.

Turns out this is the second time (that his wife knows of) he's done this.

An affair, the gift that keeps on giving :/

D-day April 4th 2024. WW was sexting with a married male coworker. Started R a week later, still ongoing...

posts: 68   ·   registered: Aug. 16th, 2024
id 8849672
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Fit43 ( new member #83966) posted at 5:31 AM on Friday, September 27th, 2024

I understand saying something mean to the AP, but saying something mean or hurtful to her betrayed husband, even if he's a chump I don't get that. I don't imagine you would want someone to say to you about how your spouse is pining away for someone else. If she is doing that she has such little regard it's not going to hurt her, it may cause a fight between her and her BH, but he will certainly wonder why you would take a shot at him.

posts: 17   ·   registered: Oct. 5th, 2023   ·   location: OK
id 8849674
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SacredSoul33 ( member #83038) posted at 6:13 AM on Friday, September 27th, 2024

I understand saying something mean to the AP, but saying something mean or hurtful to her betrayed husband, even if he's a chump I don't get that.

I meant that the AP is a dummy for posting all that nonsense publicly on Pinterest. I’ll edit my post for clarity. I see how what I said wasn’t at all clear. Thank you!

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 6:19 AM, Friday, September 27th]

Remove the "I want you to like me" sticker from your forehead and place it on the mirror, where it belongs. ~ Susan Jeffers

Your nervous system will always choose a familiar hell over an unfamiliar heaven.

posts: 1479   ·   registered: Mar. 10th, 2023
id 8849675
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Panopticon72 ( member #85106) posted at 9:40 AM on Friday, September 27th, 2024

I was really worried about this, as I don’t know the AP, but could potentially meet her. My WH gave me a really nice image to keep in my head: that he and I are now in an impermeable bubble: nothing can touch us, and most certainly not anything the AP does or says. It is us, not her. He has suggested I say this to myself and her, if she says anything to me, if we should meet.
I have found this so comforting, especially as it came from him. ( In reality, I should want to punch her on the nose!)

posts: 61   ·   registered: Aug. 20th, 2024   ·   location: England
id 8849679
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Salthorse ( new member #84347) posted at 10:30 AM on Friday, September 27th, 2024

My therapist suggested to be polite, perhaps give the words calmly spoken that he best stay away from my wife as he'd meet a very different version of me if he tried reigniting anything...

"do you feel lucky punk? well do ya?"

Be well
Salty

BS(54) WW (49) DD 24 Sep 22 R-25 Nov 22 M-17Y Reconciliation in progress, 1 tween

posts: 25   ·   registered: Jan. 10th, 2024   ·   location: UK
id 8849680
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 Revenger (original poster member #80445) posted at 6:59 PM on Friday, September 27th, 2024

Careful though,if your husband is the cheating kind and loves enormous women, she’ll Fuxx him without telling ya!

"do you feel lucky punk? well do ya?"

Hahah, I love these responses. On second thought, I think the plan should be to stand there looking holier than thou while my H makes exaggerated disgusted faces and loudly groans about her existence. Just hope he's there with me if/when it happens!

Married to an SA
Many DDays after discovering many, many EAs/PAs Working on R

posts: 91   ·   registered: Jul. 20th, 2022
id 8849784
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Grieving ( member #79540) posted at 7:20 PM on Friday, September 27th, 2024

I see my husband’s AP a couple times a year. I just do the kill her with kindness ice queen thing. She’s obviously wayyyyyyyyy more uncomfortable than me in those situations, so that helps.

Husband had six month affair with co-worker. Found out 7/2020. Married 20 years at that point; two teenaged kids. Reconciling.

posts: 642   ·   registered: Oct. 30th, 2021
id 8849790
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hardyfool ( member #83133) posted at 8:45 PM on Friday, September 27th, 2024

I thought about this years ago and I'm was to go with an old star trek quote with a little ad lib at the end.

"Having is not so pleasing a thing, after all, as wanting. It is not logical but it is often true, especially in your case"

posts: 167   ·   registered: Mar. 27th, 2023
id 8849804
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merrmeade ( new member #36180) posted at 7:29 AM on Monday, September 30th, 2024

My answer to the question is simply - nothing. You do nothing if you run into the AP. This person is not your friend, and you don't want to change that. Non-acknowledgement is the best attitude you can give, and you're not responsible for the reaction, if any. You just look away and keep going. You owe this person nothing.

I also fantasize about what I would have loved to have done the last time I saw the AP but ultimately just getting away was the right thing to do.

I'll tell my story anyway. The AP was my sister-in-law, my brother's wife, who got close to my husband after my brother suffered a paralyzing stroke and was placed in a nursing home near our family cabin where my husband was staying. I was out of the country a lot, and my husband had just recovered from a long illness that left him without much work. He moved into their house with her to remodel it, and my sister-in-law stayed at the cabin when visiting my brother. (Yes, I know. I feel pretty dumb even writing it.) The two of them became BFFs. They talked many times a day every day when they weren't together but hid their emotional intimacy from my brother and me for three years. When I finally woke up to it and confronted them separately, my husband confessed immediately that they'd had a physical and emotional affair while she gaslighted and played the victim. When I asked her to leave us alone, she tried to contact him through a neighbor and emailed me with touching reminders of our mutual history. WH sent her a no-contact letter, and she announced to me that she would be unavailable - as if it was her idea. The only acknowledgement I ever got from her that she had hurt and wronged me was a small 3x5 card four months later with three sentences: I am sorry. It was mutual. We were needy.

We moved away, and three years later my brother died. SIL organized three memorials for him, and I attended each one. She made three syrupy, disingenuous attempts to hug me. It was not perfect evasion, but I tried my best not to engage with her without calling attention. It was creepy enough, sad, utterly unpleasant and final. I haven't seen her again.

These were awful times and huge tragedies that could only be endured and grieved. Too, too heavy to revisit, so I sometimes sublimate the memory into petty obsession. For example, one thing I couldn't get over was some perfume he bought her. When I came back from my last trip abroad, he started to talk about a particular fragrance that was new and very popular but stopped himself. Later, I discovered he'd given her this fragrance as a birthday gift and gotten himself the male version of it - which I immediately dumped out. I told him how deeply that cut me since he hadn't picked out a fragrance for me for years. I suggested he could still do it and was crushed that he never did.

So I re-enact different versions of a daydream about this stupid bottle of perfume that she left in the bathroom of our family cabin during my brother's memorial. In one version, I dump it out in the toilet and put the bottle back empty or maybe in the trash can. In another, I throw it in the middle of the road, smashing it into millions of tiny pieces. Although the violence of this version is quite satisfying, I invariably redo it so as not to cause any flats. Otherwise, it's the perfect retribution.

But I didn't do it. She would have used it against me if I had. Anyway, I also believe that my complete avoidance is just perfect.

P.S. Do you know that, with my brother's death, this woman inherited our family cabin and then SOLD it to my children? She screwed my husband, inherited the family legacy and made a profit off of my children, which she put in a trust for her children. Such people don't change, and there's nothing you can do or say to them that they will understand.

[This message edited by merrmeade at 7:42 AM, Monday, September 30th]

Aren't we all a work in progress?

posts: 30   ·   registered: Jul. 19th, 2012   ·   location: U.S.
id 8849887
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Vocalion ( member #82921) posted at 12:31 AM on Tuesday, October 1st, 2024

My WW's first and most significant AP shuffled off this mortal coil precisely seventeen years ago as of yesterday and is therefore unreachable in every sense of the word. Not long after my wife confessed to her awful choices, I learned that her AP, a doctor at the hospital where she an RN had worked in the same department had been cremated and his ashes.dispersed in the Pacific Ocean off the Central California coast... so there is zero likelihood of my crossing his path.Ever. However....
If I wanted to play the " what I would have done if I ran into the POS game", there is a definite sequence of words which I would have dearly loved to have been able to utter to his face: " Your place at the banquet of consequences has been set" and just let him wonder what the heck that meant. The answer would not be long in coming.
Not long ago, Ireceived the legal opinion that since the LTA that he initiated with my WW resulting in the conceiving of his child, was conducted exclusively within the confines of the hospital premises in a set of rooms expressly allocated to the Residents and Interns for their use as employees of the hospital either with or without the knowledge or tacit permission of the hospital administrators, I would have had a firm prima facie legal claim.for damages against both the doctor and hospital in recognition. of its vicarious liabilty. But more.importantly, should I have pursued this course of action, I am confident the ensuing negative publicity in the Press would have been a more important consideration for the hospital Board.
Furthermore, the state of California Medical Licensing Board also stipulates that a medical.practitioner may lose his or her licence to.practice medicine for " moral turpitude ", I would not have hesitated to petition the State Board for redress in the form.of loss of his license for cause. He took an immense risk in pursuing my wife
The only consequences that the ranks of the arrogant privileged understand are bad publicity that cuts into the bottom.line and the loss of the means to practice in their profession..
I.like to think my actions would have been more eloquent than my words in telling the AP how deeply I despise him.

When she says you're the only one she'll ever love, and you find out, that you're not the one she's thinking of,That's when you're learning the game.Charles Hardin ( Buddy) Holly...December 1958

posts: 337   ·   registered: Feb. 22nd, 2023   ·   location: San Diego
id 8849925
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Drix ( new member #84672) posted at 10:20 PM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2024

I think all my efforts getting my anger into an acceptable boundry of reactions will have been for nothing.

posts: 12   ·   registered: Apr. 1st, 2024   ·   location: Washington
id 8850101
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BluerThanBlue ( member #74855) posted at 2:08 PM on Friday, October 4th, 2024

The worst thing that you could probably do to an AP-- and the best thing you could do for yourself-- is treat them the way you would a piece of dog excrement left on the sidewalk. You see it there and it's revolting, but you give it no more than a passing glance of contempt before you continue on your way.

BW, 40s

Divorced WH in 2015; now happily remarried

I edit my comments a lot for spelling, grammar, typos, etc.

posts: 2094   ·   registered: Jul. 13th, 2020
id 8850132
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Brew3x ( member #72052) posted at 3:39 PM on Friday, October 4th, 2024

I confronted the AP a few weeks ago after he got a job at my gym. I got my W and I kicked out of the gym so maybe taking the high road is the way to go.

posts: 263   ·   registered: Nov. 10th, 2019   ·   location: MA
id 8850175
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 Revenger (original poster member #80445) posted at 4:28 PM on Friday, October 4th, 2024

I confronted the AP a few weeks ago after he got a job at my gym. I got my W and I kicked out of the gym so maybe taking the high road is the way to go.


Thanks for the laugh!

Married to an SA
Many DDays after discovering many, many EAs/PAs Working on R

posts: 91   ·   registered: Jul. 20th, 2022
id 8850201
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alucard ( member #78796) posted at 5:40 PM on Friday, October 4th, 2024

I recently ran into the AP in a public space after four years of not seeing him. He used to be my friend, and this was the first time we crossed paths since everything happened.

I approached him and told him exactly what I thought. I called him an immense piece of trash and said that while he might feel like a big man, in reality, he's a miserable being. I reminded him that I once loved and respected him, that he had been one of my best friends, and I held him in high regard — but he betrayed me. I told him he's a coward and that he’s not even worth the consequences of the bullet I could put in his forehead.

I pushed his head. He tried to speak and apologize, but I shut him down, violently telling him to stay quiet. He then tried to blame my WW for what happened and asked if we could talk. I made it clear he should never try to talk to me or my WW again, and if he did, things would not go well for him.

What I saw in front of me was a scared, pathetic little man, trying to apologize while shifting the blame with his eyes cast downward. That's the portrait of someone who steps so low as to betray a longtime friend.

It was something I had to do, and it felt cathartic. After years of avoiding this confrontation, it really helped me resolve some of my lingering issues.

"Above all, don't lie to yourself. The man who lies to himself and listens to his own lie comes to a point that he cannot distinguish the truth within him, or around him, and so loses all respect for himself and for others. And having no respect he ceases

posts: 151   ·   registered: May. 14th, 2021
id 8850211
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