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There is another part of the betrayal I am trying to process and it feels different from the prostitutes (posted seperately) because this person was actually brought near my life.

Years ago my husband had an emotional affair with a co worker. He introduced me to her at his work drinks on two occasions and she was nasty to me and the whole situation made me uncomfortable.

What I cannot get my head around is that on the third occasion I met both her and her husband while her husband was also completely clueless and I recall her sneering at me at the bar and wearing provocative clothing whilst he told me to dress "modestly" as it was a "work colleague" - she was not even in his department.

Later she inserted herself into things that should have had nothing to do with her - she got him to carry a mobile phone to Cyprus to take to her friend and recommended a horrible hotel and somehow became part of our holiday. Her Cypriot friend knew it and was rude to me and also looked at me with that sympathy look - but I had no proof.

After that she also gave us a movie 'Eyes Wide Shut' and told him to "watch it with your wife" and if you know the film it is not exactly appropriate.

He used to mention her name frequently and say that she was unhappy as her husband was much older and she was not being "satisfied" in her marriage. I pulled him up and said she had ill intentions and he defended her saying she "needed someone to talk to" until I said what would he think if a man shared his poor sex life with me.

After that he moved offices so she disappeared. Later I got pregnant and he used to say how beautiful Russian women were as she declared herself Russian although later switched to being Ukrainian. I accidentally bumped into her after I had the baby and she looked venomous when I unknowingly said how happy we were.

At the time those things were confusing and irritating but now they feel loaded because I did not know what was really going on. I was being polite and trying to make sense of someone who was already too close to my marriage while he knew far more than I did.

That is the part that makes me feel sick as it was not only that there was an emotional affair but that I was brought near it without knowing. Her husband did not know either and we were both clueless while they carried whatever this was between them.

I think I am struggling with the humiliation of being around her and not knowing what she represented. The fact that she was able to be nasty to me and insert herself into my life while he let it happen and yes it is all on him. Then years later I am left looking back at those moments with a completely different understanding.

How do you process memories where the other person was actually in your life and you did not know what they really represented?

[This message edited by ButterflyInProgress at 4:38 PM, Saturday, June 13th]

Hi my story is similar to yours except my ex husband actually had a two year physical affair I had no idea about. Her and my ex husband were ushers together at our church ! her husband never came with her because he mentioned to him they weren’t getting along in their marriage. Then she started talking to him about things she was interested in like diving and got him interested just putting herself inappropriately in our marriage. I didn’t think anything of it because I trusted my ex-husband totally we were married 35 years. He never gave me any reason to believe anything else. I did tell him a few times I didn’t trust her and that he was talking to her too much. I ended up finding out about the affair accidentally looking at a charge card receipt. I played the pick me dance with him last year for about six or seven months and it totally destroyed me , he ultimately chose her and we divorced this past September. His reasons were that after he retired he discovered that we don’t have anything in common anymore, and I’m not any fun, I have been devastated by this. I can’t seem to put it to rest. I ruminate day and night at my age. It’s very hard to start over. I’ve never had to do any type of finances never really was alone. I’m going to two separate therapist. I’ve attended divorce care twice. I don’t have any children. I do have some friends, but they’re pretty much getting tired of me being in such a depressing frame of mine. I just can’t get over this betrayal I feel so disrespected, unloved and unwanted. She ended up divorcing her husband as well a few months before ours. This was her fifth marriage by the way! I’m just totally crushed so I understand. I feel duped and stupid for watching this happening to me every week when we went to church they paraded back-and-forth past me and I knew nothing.

Betrayed at 70 I am so sorry you have been through this and I really felt the pain in what you wrote

I feel duped and stupid for watching this happening to me every week when we went to church they paraded back-and-forth past me and I knew nothing.

That is exactly the kind of humiliation I was trying to name as it is not only the affair itself - it is being near it seeing the person/sensing something is wrong, saying you do not trust them and still not having the truth.

You were not stupid you trusted your husband because you were married for 35 years and he had given you no reason to believe he was living that kind of hidden life and that is not stupidity - that is trust being abused.

I also understand what you mean about feeling disrespected unloved and unwanted - being betrayed in plain sight does something very deep because it makes you look back at ordinary places and ordinary moments with a completely different understanding.I am so sorry you are having to start again at this stage of life betrayal grief does not move on just because other people are tired of hearing about it and thank you for sharing this..

ButterflyinProgress -

How do you process memories where the other person was actually in your life and you did not know what they really represented?

My wife’s AP was part of the neighborhood who welcomed us when we moved in. AP and his wife were older than us (about 7 years) and their kids were older than ours, but we were all friends, we babysat their kids, they watched ours, company picnics together.

That was AP’s in, the kindly neighbor guy, until he turned out to be a serial cheater, who gave my wife his 12-step apology call years later. I assume he was claiming to be an SA.

My wife never admitted the A until 18-years later.

So, yes, I had to do some serious reconstruction of what my past really was, what that ‘friendship’ really was. AP was just as good at lying to my face as my wife was. The older bro act was just that.

Eventually, and I mean a few years of healing later, I realized that I simply did my very best with the information I had in hand.

AP didn’t get anything over on me.

He was a coward and lied about everything.

Infidelity is a competition we do not KNOW we’re in!

In that sense, I don’t care what he thought or thinks of me now. He never mattered.

The A was about their failings in life, not MINE.

Infidelity is a competition we do not KNOW we’re in!

Not really a competition, it’s a sabotage.

We fall because we hold our partner hand, and they drag us down. not because we lose competition to someone.

The AP is nobody.

Butterfly, what hurts as usual is the fear that your healthy trust is a bad thing because people can be bad and abuse you, so your healthy attachment gets rewritten into dangerous flaw.

Is not. Is a good thing.

You offered truth and spontaneity to your husband and the person that he vouched for.

You were probably putt off by red flags from both but you see the world through your lenses:

You are a good and high value person. Your husband is an extension of that. Hence he is also like that. So who is vouching for must be also a high value woman.
That’s why you told yourself you were probably imagining the red flags.

Then you find out he is a low value man, she is a low value woman and you have been lied and deceived, so you equate yourself to even less because they deceived you.

It was your love "deceiving you " to protect his image from the mud where he chose to swim.
You were not deceived you chose to trust beyond the instincts warning you something is off.

But that’s a proof of your value as a partner, that has nothing to do with their value as. A pair of cheaters.

It actually puts you out of their league.

I know it feels bad, this is perspective though.

Oldwounds spot on...

Infidelity is a competition we do not KNOW we’re in!

This says so much as I feel that part of the humiliation is looking back and feeling foolish but you are right we were doing the best we could with the information we had at the time. I was not competing because I did not know there was anything to compete with and was simply living my life and trusting my husband.

The A was about their failings in life, not MINE.

I needed that reminder as her behaviour and his choices were about them, not about me. Thank you for sharing your experience as it helps to hear from someone who also had to reconstruct memories where the other person had been close enough to feel part of ordinary life...

BackfromtheStorm thank you and understand

what hurts as usual is the fear that your healthy trust is a bad thing because people can be bad and abuse you, so your healthy attachment gets rewritten into dangerous flaw.

That is exactly the feeling and it makes me look back and question whether trusting him made me foolish when really I was simply living as a wife who believed her husband. I also take your point that my instincts did register something was off but I trusted beyond them because I believed in him and in the version of our life I thought was real and trying to hold onto the idea that my trust was not the shameful thing - their deception was...