SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I used to post and read here all the time right after DD, but the ups and downs got too distracting.
But the last few years have caused me to question so much of life.
10 years ago I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia. 2 years ago I was diagnosed with PTSD from the affair in 2017, and everything that went along with it. Since then I've had a failed engagement, realizing my ability to trust has been decimated, and a new son who I have 50/50 custody of but I'm having to file my third contempt filing against his mother and modification of custody.
I've given up on relationships, I have no interest, at all. The thought makes me shiver.

Meanwhile, WXW married the AP and they bought a $400k house an hour farther away.

My appeal of the custody order was thrown out because i didn't know to file a reconsideration first, lesson learned, and I'm on appeal of contempt for being unable to pay more than 80% of the $1547/mo child support. I lost one of my 3 jobs for bullshit reasons, the highest paying one. And the only reason I'm not homeless is the grace of God that the VA stepped in to bail me out at the last minute last month. Still, both cars I had ended up with blown transmissions, and my hopes of buying a house seem farther away as I contemplate filing for bankruptcy.

I don't know if I'm sincerely asking or if the brandy I decided to indulge in after 3 months is having an affect, but I just wonder when is the shoe going to be on the other foot?

Sure, she married an abuser who I've heard cursing her during my calls to the kids, but outwardly it feels like they're winning.

Now, I don't mean to disprove God's grace, I've survived where many others would have lost it all. I have the kids in summer camp, somehow, for my weeks. Power is on, rent is paid, and I have transportation through Uber rent. But I have worked so hard to get ahead and am just making it, while they seem to be thriving.

I honestly never cared until a month ago.

All these years, I thought things would flip, but in all the ways that matter I'm struggling while she complains about the escrow on their house being due.

I harbored no hate the first few years, but the harder it gets for me the more I hate her. My only saving grace is reminding myself I'm not better than the apostles nor Christ who suffered unrighteousness, but it isn't as convincing as it was a few years ago.

I haven't been to church in 2 years, but that's for other reasons, too.

Anyway, I'm sorry I've been gone so long. I'll be wallowing on Spotify and brandy awaiting opinions.

I'm sorry to hear brother. I too am a veteran (not that it changes much) and 2 years out I am still fuming at the audacity of my ex-wife's treatment of me. It is interesting re: PTSD, I was diagnosed with it too. A 23+ year career in warzones and peacekeeping, and it had no effect...yet my wife cheating on me comprehensively over 10 years did it in the end.

I know it is of small comfort, but they have to live with themselves. Your ex isn't winning, she has to live with herself AND another cheater.

My WW just picked up the kids today and while outwardly she appears to look like she has it together, she looks haggard. She was telling me how hard it is to manage work by herself, and how she has no support. Her parents, while still supportive of her, have from what I have worked out, completely wiped their hands of her AP after I told them what was going on. The same AP mind you, who was so committed to her that he willingly took up an overseas posting on the other side of the globe for 2 years separated from her.

Focus on yourself mate. You are ten (ok, maybe five ) times the person she is. Her future is infidelity. That parasite who she is with on a deep level knows this too, you can bet five cents to the nickel that he doesn't want to believe it though.

You can beat yourself up over "stuff" like outward appearances BUT if you let it get to you, it can destroy you.

The best revenge is a life well lived. And trust me I am living proof of that.

My life in many ways is better after my H’s second mid life crisis affair wherein he was dumping me for the OW.

I have a successful business after struggling to get it up and running for 3 years. Last year I made almost no $ and people I worked for stole one of our proposals.

I no longer give a damn about things that don’t relate to me. My kids are young adults and if they don’t have $ b/c they spent it all, not my problem and I’m not bailing them out.

I’m sorry you are having financial issues - I was in your shoes with no $ to my name and kids to worry about when my H was secretly planning to D me. Yes I have PTSD from that.

But it did turn around for me and I believe it will fit you.

Here’s the "however". You have to stop comparing yourself and your life to the X. That negative attitude will hurt you more than anything.

She’s an XW for a reason. A good reason. Move on and live your best life. And one day you will no longer be comparing yourself.

Sure, she married an abuser who I've heard cursing her during my calls to the kids, but outwardly it feels like they're winning.

They are not winning. She gets to be treated with disrespect on the daily. Money isn't everything. My lifestyle downgraded when I left but I'm no longer being abused or having to worry about which floozy my xWS is chatting up next. Sure it's difficult I struggle as a single income but I am at peace and happy. I no longer have the ups and downs I did when I was with my ex.

Maybe get out there again and look for another higher paying job. If you had it at one time you can have it again. Does your xWW work? If she married the AP and works you should be able to cut that child support payment down. Maybe stress to the court that you are having financial difficulty. They should require that your ex get a freakin job.

And try not to hit the Brandy too much, alcohol is a depressant and will make you feel depressed. Get out with friends more often and do things you love. Find your happiness

Wonder what you mean or what you expect from karma?

If it is that she has it worse than you... well... who knows – maybe he beats the crap out of her in that 400k home. Maybe they are facing foreclosure or her new hubby facing time for tax evasion or maybe they both have some terrible disease that will leave them stone-cold dead within a year...
Or not.
None will make YOUR situation any better...

There is an old saying that goes something like "to become the tallest tree in the woods you can either focus on cutting down the other trees, or you can do your best to grow". I suggest you focus on growing.

Life improves when you make it improve. When you work at making it better. When you set financial, social and personal goals and strive towards them.

And... booze wont help you reach any of those goals...

I personally find Psalm 73 to be comforting when I feel this way.

The comparison game will kill you - the faster you find a way to move beyond that the better you will be.

My lifestyle downgraded when I left but I'm no longer being abused or having to worry . . .Sure it's difficult I struggle as a single income but I am at peace and happy. I no longer have the ups and downs I did when I was with my ex.

Think about it for a moment: Your lifestyle versus the absolute and utter hell you lived before? My lifestyle financially also downgraded significantly. When I lived with him I never worried about money and even paid off a bunch of stuff and managed to save. Now, although I am a relatively high income earner, I live paycheck to paycheck like I did in college. I have nicer things than I did back then but from a purely financial standpoint I am MUCH worse off that I used to be. Yet, I am so much better off in every other way.

But I will give you a more personal example of why outward comparisons are cheap, easy, and pretty much worthless that is likely more comparable to yours:

My mother had an A with a married man when I was younger. My parents divorced as did her AP when my mom turned up pregnant. My mom and AP married so AP became my step-father, and he and my mom are still married some 30+ years later. My mother is definitely better off financially than my dad is and in part because she married her AP. AP had a successful business and my mother has a knack for real estate investment. Between the two of them they are VERY wealthy now. They live in a $1m+ home and own multiple other properties which probably value over $15m in total as well as stocks and retirement accounts.

My father on the other hand never remarried. He dated a lot for awhile but never settled. He also had a horrible accident which rendered him partially disabled when he was in his late 40s (many years after their divorce), right after he was laid off from his job, and due to some health insurance issues, ended up losing most of his savings due to medical bills and never was able to return to full time work again. He does have a retirement and social benefits that allow him to live, but it is not a spendy existence by any means, and my sister and I both supplement his income and he lives in a moderate rented home we help to pay for. He probably has in total, $20,000 worth of things to his name including his car. He is fortunate that we are able to help him as he could not afford to live where he is now but for that help (and that is part of the reason why I live paycheck to paycheck now - when WH and I were living together I spent what I would usually use on housing for me for my dad - so now I pay for my household and part of his).

Which one seems better off? Financially, my mom, hands down. No contest. But which one is actually better off? My dad, times 100.

What the financial balance sheet does not tell you is that my mother's marriage to her former AP has been a shit show. He has had multiple affairs and she has had all kinds of outbursts about him moving out over the years, and honestly their relationship seems okay about 50% of the time and strained and astoundingly awful for the remainder. Sometimes they are not speaking to each other aside from yeses and noes, and other times they seem very happy together. My mom has spent countless days, nights, weeks, months alternating between crying and being hell-fire angry. In other words, she has been living in infidelity limbo for the better part of the last 40 YEARS.

The financial balance sheet also does not show you about her relationships with her kids, especially me, which has been less than stellar. We are not close, which I am fine with. My sibling is a bit closer but neither of us have the relationship we have with her that we have with our father. I see her about once a year on a holiday. My sister sees her a bit more than that as she lives very close, but not much more.

My mother's life has been, honestly, a bit empty, and I think at times very very lonely. My Dad, even though he never remarried and remains single even now, has had a much fuller life. He managed to shoestring travel around the world, house sitting for people and staying with friends and family. He has lived in some fascinating places and he has seen things most people on this Earth never will. He has gotten involved in community volunteering and some other clubs making things like furniture for people struggling to get by as he loves woodworking and can still do it, although to slow to do it as a job due to his injuries. He and I have traveled to six of the seven continents and he made it to the final one himself last year.

So while my Dad's life is far from perfect - I'm sure he wishes he had full use of his body the way he used to, and I know he always wished he would have met someone, if not to marry, than to share his life with, that didn't happen (and while it still could he is running out of time for that as he's getting a bit long in the tooth) - it is profoundly better than my mother's in all the ways that matter when you reach the end. Even with all her money I think her life has been much less than she had hoped it would be and it's a lot less fulfilled than my Dad's.

So chin up - really and stop the comparison game - it's only hurting YOU. To steal from that amazing opt ed piece that Baz Lundgren turned into a song: The race is long, and in the end, it's only with yourself.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 8:34 PM, Friday, June 14th]

No karma.

People wanting karma leads them to either try and exact that karma ir leads to a bitterness that corrodes everything in their lives.

Blow after blow and yet still you stand. Life keeps fucking with you and yet still you "win"

Karma would be your happiness. Karma would be finding someone else.

it feels like they're winning

It looks like you are as attached as ever to her, just in a different way now.

T/J

ThisIsSoLonely: Your story should be pinned at the top of the Divorce/Separation forum. It's a truly remarkable story on why it's important to stay true to your values in the wake of infidelity. I'm raising a glass to your Dad and his girls tonight.

I struggled so much with the concept of karma. Really, what I was struggling with at the core was my belief in God as just. That was only complicated by an existing, underlying belief that God had brought this man into my life as a 10 fold return from previous losses. It caused me to feel as if I was on the receiving end of some unrecognized karma. Was I the black sheep? Was all this somehow justice *for me*? How was I to even determine when justice had been met?

What would justice even look like? A RA? (back when I thought that it might matter). Him being run over by a bus? Having his new marriage also end in infidelity, getting a history inquiry phone call from a devastated BW?

I literally could not figure out what would be justice, what it would look like for it to actually be justice?

I gave up. Not because I did some altruistic thing like forgiveness. And not because I just decided it was an unjust world or an unjust God. I gave up because my ideas of justice just created other seemingly unjust consequences. There were a lot of angry conversations with God and an ocean of tears in the process. But the surrender - the defeated kind, not the passive aggressive, maybe I can get it this way kind - brought peace. And that was what I was really looking for anyway.

Then it happened…it’s happening now. In a way I could have never conceived - nor in a way that I could have imagined the impact. It’s rolling in like an angry summer storm on a really hot day, just building more and more energy. So distant from impacting me that God literally had to connect the dots for me to see it.

And I have no conflicting emotions about it. Because in the bigger picture it’s about a greater justice. The right thing is happening…he’s just caught up in it too.

God grows greater to me in each passing day. And I’m SO glad I stayed out of this one.

Space and time, friend. Give him those two things and see what he does.

I am going to sound like Pollyanna here. Life is what you make it. Your ex should not even be on your radar. Whatever is going on in her life is no longer your concern. There is not one single family on earth that does not have grief of one sort or another.
Right now a woman sits in prison because she and her business partner tortured her children. Both women lived in huge houses but I will guarantee her children and her stbx don’t care. Look up the Franke family. It has been all over the news.
Are there people who interest you who live close by? Is there a way to get outside and enjoy it?

There is someone in my family desperately trying to stay sober. We all help but he has to do it. So do you. You need to remember the AA prayer: God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and wisdom to know the difference. Once you accept that life threw you an emotional bomb and you survived you then can wake up every day and promise yourself your ex is either happy or sad and you don’t care. Care about things and people who have worth.

I live close to a National forest and a friend of mine says whole families are so destitute they live in it and come to her church for food. "I complained I had no shoes until I met a man who had no feet". Sadness is out there. Don’t let it into your home. You have had it long enough. Let go of it. Your wife did not win a prize. She married a man who is not worth a single penny that he makes.