SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I’m in this club. My DDqy was January 2016. My xWW emailed me on Valentines Day at 10:30p to tell me that she and AP got engaged the weekend before and just told my DDs that evening.

I’d like to believe Bean about the fact that we really does carry guilt and shame, but I’m not sure I believe that. She never showed a thread of remorse or even think she’s done anything wrong.

I’ve continued to give them rent free space in my head. Not sure why I can’t just let go, but I can’t comoletely do that. There’s still a part of me that is hoping for some kind of justice.

So they just get engaged without there even being a divorce? Maybe I missed something there...

I think I might start my own thread with this issue, but since it kinda plays into this thread as well, I reckon I'll start with posting it here.

I have this thing in my craw about "separation".

I posted this in another place, but it was kinda out of place there as it was just a triggered vent of mine in the context of some other responses along these lines. Here was/is my vent and question:

I fail to see how being "separated" constitutes grounds for betraying wedding vows and simple decency and self respect--particularly if the alleged separation is on the terms of the adulterer and not mutual or on the BS's terms.

How does it work where the offender and liar and betrayer gets to "feel better" about committing adultery when they just screw first, abandon their family, and then live la vida loco while sleeping soundly at night lying about working on "themselves" for a better overall marriage while they're gone? I thought she was only gonna be gone for about a week or two while staying at her mom's, and under such a notion I gave consent for her to take a "break" from being together for awhile. The entire consent (she was already QUITE gone, incidentally) was based on her committing to be faithful the whole time (which shouldn't even HAVE to be said in a marriage, really. Kind of like saying, "ok, now you're not gonna eat anyone or stab them to death with a fork while you're gone, right??" "Uh,huh, yup!, if you say so, I guess I just won't then..." I mean what the HELL is WRONG with people, anyway???

What in the WORLD makes it more okay to commit adultery by outright abandoning the spouse unannounced while lying about the whole nature of the thing immediately and for months afterwards right after the fact?

I vented furthermore to say:

Oh, BYE, Honey! I think I'll just "separate" for a lil while so I can go on a personal orgy-fest vacay while we're still man and wife. Oh but YOU don't get to do any such thing, no Sir! Partly because I wouldn't like that, and also because I know YOU'RE not into such skank-nasty lowlife morals and mindset either, so it's a win-win for ME!!

Is it just ME, or can someone ELSE make sense of this seeming senselessness and bas-akards morality and ethics that such a set of choices represents to me?

I can not speak for others, but I remember having questions almost exactly as you have posted: how can our beloved mates justify their actions? How can they be as they are?

12 year out from D-day, the only insight I can pass along is this is "fuckwittery". The behavior of our beloved mates, and their justification is not in the realm of sanity, or rational understanding. It is not logical. It is not something understandable, or explainable. If we argue with this, we can get pretty messed up ourselves. At least this was my experience.

I dearly, deeply, wanted to understand my spouse and what he was doing .. why he was making the choices he was. I wanted to make our marriage work. I wanted back what I thought I had. I wanted my husband to be the human I was so certain he was (honest, devoted to family, rational, loving, etc). I was so sure he would snap out of his "fuckwittery" and comeback to our family. To all we had together.

Maybe your spouse will regain her sanity. Maybe you can rebuild your marriage. But maybe she is gone. Maybe there is not logic/reasoning/understanding here. If so, gently suggesting "fuckwittery" is at play.

[This message edited by luv2swim at 12:17 AM, March 10th (Saturday)]

To be clear, luv2swim, she DID snap out of it...after the second "reconciliation". All of that was over twenty years ago and there's not been even a hint at anything even remotely like what we're talking about here during all of that time.

What's new about all of this is our pulling back the rug we'd self it all under and looking at the why's and wherefore's of the whole nasty thing.

Once she came back the second time I was almost like the 3 monkeys: heart no evil, see no evil, think no evil, sort of a thing, because I thought that was largely what forgiveness was...rugsweeping.

2.5 years ago or so we started really digging in to what had happened on those first years of our marriage complete with nitty gritty rated X details and EVERYTHING.

It's this exhuming of those corpses and closet monsters of almost twenty-five years ago that's making me hurl and want to die NOW. And I'm trying to understand and process and accept those things instead of just ignoring them and going they'll Judy go away or get better with time.

We've had all of our five children in the interim and two if then are grown adults now, but none of them know about the adulteries, just the abandonments themselves.

[This message edited by Cephastion at 7:20 AM, March 10th (Saturday)]

She never showed a thread of remorse or even think she’s done anything wrong.

I’ve continued to give them rent free space in my head. Not sure why I can’t just let go, but I can’t comoletely do that. There’s still a part of me that is hoping for some kind of justice.

Yeah, I think these two things (her not showing remorse, and you not being able to let go) go hand-in-hand. I think anyway.

Same here. What I've witnessed is that instead of exploring the ways she hurt me (and others), she found acceptable ways to blame me (and others). I do think it's a long term series of lies she's telling herself in order to cope, but...hindsight being 20/20, this is how she lived her life since we were really just kids.

I think if AP would have fallen off a cliff, or if bullshit MC hadn't counseled them back together in the first place (another long, horrible story), there could have been sort of an "awakening" and maybe some sense of justice whether we R'd or D'd.

I just don't think it's in the cards even a little bit for those of us in this club. For our WS, the A just *never* ends. They remain in affair-mode indefinitely. So that fog -- or whatever we want to call it -- never lifts.

It ended for my fWW, but I'm still dealing with the aftermath, which means SHE is too, I suppose.

But her mother...that wretched thing is STILL very much a wayward lost in her own fog-space-unicorn-land where she gets to be Queen B (guess what "B" stands for...) of all that she surveys in her very tiny, lonely little world.

She started the whole tradition of abandonment in her world. Kind of the pioneering, trendsetting woman there, I guess. And she's not any different or better in her heart or head as far as I can tell at least. Even NOW, she's STILL trying to control and ugly up everyone and everything around her by having to have her way and make her frikking mark on everything she can.

At least I know that my wife came by it as a hand-me-down family tradition started by her lovely abandoning trashy mother and not just doing it all on her own. But stupid ME had to give that monstrosity the benefit of the doubt when my wife and I were courting and early married, so I feel like a fool for not being more circumspect and guarded concerning her toxic influence and character.

At least my own wife is no longer in that fog or mindset. I just wish she'd figured out that shit BEFORE going nuclear three times on me and our little family.

You know, of all the shit sandwiches we are forced to eat during the affair, seeing the OW/OM with your children, is by far, the fucking worst.

After 25 years of being together, my high school sweetheart left us for a coworker he had known for a few months. Our divorce was finalized last December, they got married in January, in secret, without our children having met her.

I still don't get how or when this intelligent, kind, moral, righteous, honorable man I met when I was 16, ended up turning into this guy.

His parents enable him, his children are furious and the youngest two refuse to see him, which he is fine with. He has managed to just cut out every one of our friends and family like they were nothing, me included. He won't speak to me, his insecure wifetress interjects herself into the few discussions we have about the kids, and frankly it's a constant fucking source of stress I wish didn't exist.

I've gone back to school, I've made new friends, gone to therapy, lost weight, become a good single mom to my kids, and am really working to find my happiness. But it's like a damn trigger every single time I see that whore at my kid's soccer games or in my driveway when he decides to try and pick up the kids. It infuriates me that I give her any of my emotional or mental energy.

Group hug, because this sucks.

KerryWash, that must be torture, ugh, so sorry you have to put up with that.

I don't get the haste some walk-aways have to get married again. Like, clearly they didn't even respect the institution of marriage since they had no regard for it during their affair. So why on earth would they feel the need to go rushing headlong into another legally binding scenario??!?

And the ones who sneak off and do it without even telling their children beforehand? I can't even!

I think that such a rushed "marriage" and "wedding" is little more than just a quick rush to deputize a criminal or put a kind of self-instituted "governor's pardon" on a socially condemned act and pair of convicted liar/thieves who abandon their families and sanity just to pay for their little timeshare condo on Fantasy Island.

Even Benedict Arnold made a formal defection to the enemy he had sworn to fight, but he defected with the whole army under his command in tow as part of the "severance package" and colonial "Facebook post" to help spin the thing as a more politically correct kind of betrayal--if there ever were such a thing.

I think that in the sick, twisted mind of some waywards, you can simply cover up certain horrors by increasing the scope and scale of it and painting the coup and scarlet letter over with a white wedding dress and a white collar wearing preacher/priest for a kind of cold, snowy, whitewashed camouflage to confuse the eye and try to hide all the blood from the broken hearts and the shit from all the bull and lies and shitstorm they cursed their unwilling victims with.

Kind of a "whiteout" blizzard smokescreen, I guess. I mean now that I actually write all of that out here on "paper" I'm kinda asking myself , "why NOT?"

They've typically ALREADY done this in their own minds and hearts, making them so cold and hardened and unfeeling and unthinking except to see everything as blindingly "white" as possible, coloring their glasses and their world with snow angels and smiles and making their AP's their own special SNOWFLAKE! If they are reveling in being snowblind themselves, then why NOT wish the same madness upon everyone else around them?

After all, white rhymes with right. Perhaps in MY case it really was a matter of "might makes right" (which is a little of my earlier vent about arbitrary separation legitimizing ongoing adultery(s) even when adultery happened FIRST, before the "separation").

But in the case of whitewashing the tomb of treachery, abandonment, adultery, lies, broken vows, and overall ugliness and betrayal, it's also a mindset of "white makes right".

In my own WS's mind, even though she tried to convince herself that I wasn't worth treating honorably or lovingly in any way, she didn't actually legitimize her shit and/or her AP's by seeing them as Knights in (white) Shining Armor--well...except for the first one that is, I suppose.

But the fact that she was ashamed enough to keep most of her sins and adulteries hidden and let her shame in the thing be at least a partial reality for her...I think that is largely what saved her and our marriage in the end.

Cephastion I really enjoyed your analysis, and I agree it's their way to legitimize and normalize a horribly hurtful act.

Ok, but what about those who do NOT run out and get married right away? It's been over a year since my D was final and more than that on mow's D, and still xwh and mow are not married - not even engaged, from what I know, which, admittedly, isn't much. They are not living together at this point, keeping their own homes, though xwh stays at mow's place every night he does not have our one minor child, which is most nights. Still, xwh is insistent in involving mow in our kids' lives to a large extent, despite the objections from all the kids who want nothing to do with mow and her kids. He has made comments about him wanting them to act as "a family"....

On the other side of that, mow admitted to having cheated on xwh beginning nearly immediately after my D was filed and continuing for months with one guy (when mow wasn't even D'd yet herself, and I don't believe had even filed yet), and there are indications she has cheated at least once more since; there are also indications xwh has cheated on mow, and that is probably with more than one other female (and, since I clearly have no idea, I wouldn't rule out with males as well, just because anything is possible). So, obviously, the only commitment between the two seems to be to still be involved in the other's life and have sex. Yet, they portray things as though they are indeed headed to a committed marriage..... It's another crazy-making saga in this never-ending soap opera.....

Anyway, what thoughts do you have on this behavior?

My own thoughts are they feel the need to portray to the masses they were 'right' to leave their former spouses for each other, though they have likely realized they don't really want each other either, and the only way to do that is to appear as though their relationship is "successful"..... despite it being a dismal failure in reality.... (but the two seem to love living in the land of denial anyway....)

I also have other info not shared here that the two likely cannot rid themselves of the other - she needs him so she keeps her pay from her "job" and keeps getting him to pay her bills for her, and he can't dump her, as he can't be alone, for one, and he risks her wrath that means lawsuits and police reports and so on, on which he knows she has zero qualms of lying..... So, really, unless she finds another willing to pay the same or more to her or for her as xwh does, the two will stay together in some format. This second thought, though, does not explain the whole "fully and completely act as though we are committed and going to get married someday when we are not actually the least bit committed at all" thing.

Ok, but what about those who do NOT run out and get married right away?

Here the divorce process takes four years so I am fascinated by the speed at which it all happens over your side of the world. Either way, when a WS leaves I think they need to justify and legitimize their behavior publicly to cover their shame at being caught in an affair.

Let's face it, most WS's don't actually want to leave their marriages, they just want to eat cake in peace. When that is removed as an option they usually make some attempt to placate their BS and stay in the marriage.

Those of us in this group got the biggest wimps of all, the ones who didn't have the backbone to stay and face the music but who ran away like cowards. They are under pressure to prove that their new relationship was worth giving up all they had for, hence wildly fast engagements and weddings, setting up home, moving abroad (in my case), and parading the OP around the place and on social media. Of course everyone knows it's a sham and they bend over backwards to prove that theirs is the greatest love story ever written.

Some cling on for a very long time, and if they have found someone just as desperate as they are, I guess it could actually last a lifetime. Unlikely though, the stats are against them every time.

I just can't get my head around doing this when kids are involved though, that's pathetic. I am thankful mine were spared having WH's trollope imposed on them against their will. They have taken the view that their father is behaving immorally and have cut all contact with him. His choice as to when that ends, but the longer he leaves it go on, the more damage he does to his relationship with this kids.

Actually, my D took over 3 years. It didn't have to, but xwh wanted it to, as he needed the time to devalue the company and to spend as much of the marital estate on frivolous spending as he could first. (His one goal in the whole thing was to be sure I got the least possible amount in the settlement; his "offer" to settle was less than 1/10th of what the estate was valued at in the end - 1/10th..... I got awarded my the court slightly more than half instead.)

So, it has been over 4 years now since my D was filed, and only a little less since mow's was. Four years they have been "together" (not counting the A time before filing), and still no signs on a pending wedding.... Their lurve was enough to destroy two families that had three kids in them each (some already adult age), yet not enough to get married?? Oh, and keep in mind, the pair still live in the fantasy land of thinking because they deny there was an A, people actually believe them..... NOT! (No picture/video of the two in bed together, but far too many things all pointing to an A for it to be possible there wasn't one.)

Maybe when they say "committed" they mean it like one does when one is put into a mental institution or a state of madness by one's own will or the will of those around them who have a large degree of control over them...

That particular scenario reminds me of the Mad Hatter world of Alice after she goes down the rabbit hole and starts drinking miscellaneous elixirs on her quest to " fit in" better down there.

It also reminds me of a completely insane-like music video I saw once. It was almost R-rated like in my own way of "rating" it, but the "fog" that the main singer/character gets into just smacks of filth, chaos, and a kind of dementia and deviant mindedness to me.

Probably VERY trigger-happy for many of us SI'ers, both BS and remorseful fWS's as well, but for those who are interested, it's called "Cold" by Maroon 5.

The lyrics themselves tell one story which I can VERY much identify with as a BS who's wife did in fact go VERY cold on him, but the visuals of the music video itself tell a whole 'nother story of what the wayward mindset and lifestyle looks like to the BS who's having to watch all the madness as a very concerned-but-innocent bystander who helplessly sees the real-world cause & effects of such willful and intentional depravity and self-destructive madness, but is relegated to the sidelines of that circus while the clowns and animals and freaks and artists just ORGY-ON with one another in the midddle of the show with all the relatively "normal" people looking on (or covering their eyes) from the higher seating and bleachers above it all.

I guess I kinda tripped out there just a little bit MYSELF just TALKING about what that whole wayward dog-and-pony-show looks like to ME when the rug is lifted and the true colors are seem for why they really are, but feel free to keep your eyes " covered" and not watch that particular music video depiction for yourselves.

Some things are perhaps after all better left unsaid or unseen, to be honest, and my own horror at the abomination of adultery isn't really anything I wish on much of anyone, except perhaps a small handful of the very special people who intentionally made that horror a reality for me, that is.

But for those of y'all who are ALREADY in the midst of your own custom made horror show gifted to you by those you loved, I daresay that you are NOT alone in being shocked and horrified and in great consternation and bamboozle-ment and discombobulation by such. Consequently, my sharing that video and/or lyrics might just help you feel a LITTLE less alienated and alone in your awe and estimation of such madness. Either way, I guess I should say,

"Viewer discretion IS advised".

[This message edited by Cephastion at 1:11 PM, March 16th (Friday)]

Just some snarky thoughts I had a few years back.

I understand that sometimes LTAs “seem” to work out for years. But this is for everyone like me sitting there wondering why did they "choose" this other person? Well, I have realized that their affair and everything surrounding it completely changed my Ex into a healthy person. It’s so incredible how sex with an affair partner leads to such deep self-actualization (as Cat says - finding themselves by looking in someone else's pants). This is an idea of how “their” lurve story might unfold:

• They will do lots of soul searching and work on themselves. Will immediately go to IC and be honest, transparent, and vulnerable. They will tell the IC how much they have screwed up their lives and need help. They will own their mess. AP will encourage this because they love and respect their soul mate who has shown them everything about their true self. No one else have ever been able to understand the real them.

• They buy lots of self-help books, actually read them, and actually mostly understand them. Some even highlight and do the exercises and everything.

• They will take their AP partner to couples counseling because it’s so romantic. They will tell MC everything about their affair. Usually they’ll go and get matching airbrushed t-shirts right afterwards to showcase their deep intimacy. Send one to MC too because they are also a champion of this relationship.

• No one will ever have to pay a bill or get a job or make dinner or take care of children. No one will ever get sick or old or have to deal with a real-world problem. Just press a button and everything falls into place while they are busy in bed. Spend all day in bed if possible.

• Their life plan consists solely of “being together.” Because what else could anyone ever need? This person is my everything.

• They will never ever show their real selves to each other. This can be sustained for a long time, but one day – perhaps in a time of stress, illness, or neediness - it might reveal itself. It won’t matter though, because lurve sustains all crappy behavior forever and ever. And we are different than everyone else.

• Neither one of them will ever cheat on the other because undoubtedly they are too special for that. Plus, the only reason they ever cheated was because ________ and everything is so different in this situation. Including them.

• Once they dismount the skittle-farting unicorns and wipe off the glitter, they will never ever get bored with each other.

• If someone goes through a divorce, loses their job, has financial hardships, kids not wanting to see them, people judging them, or they get embarrassed publicly – it won’t affect the relationship at all because their lurve is stronger than the stupid crap in the real world. Shrug off anything that stinks of consequences as no one “gets them.”

• Everyone will always accept them – all of your friends, family members, hey – even you. They get invited everywhere together especially at their coming-out balls. All three of you get together as often as you can. You even host a party for them. Make sure to hire a clown.

• Every time someone asks them how they met, they truthfully tell the whole beautiful story in full detail. They even borrow all of the affair evidence you have (texts, emails, pictures, VAR files, all of it). Everyone oohs and ahhs and says it’s the most amazing story they’ve ever heard.

• Since their lives are built on such honesty together, they will never get suspicious, start snooping, wondering where the other is, or try to figure out why the other is disengaging from the relationship. They would never resort to such behavior.

• They will always put the other’s needs above their own. They are completely selfless in this relationship and will never ever need anything from the other. Just being in the presence of their true soul mate will always be enough. What more is there really?

This is my club as well.

11/29/17 WH tells me he's going to start sleeping on the couch because I snore too much

11/30/17 WH texts me that "he loves me but is not in love with me"

12/01/17 I find phone records (that I'd never looked at before) and confronted him. He tells me his affair with the OW (who I know) is a recent development

12/02/17 He moves out, tells me to a hotel. Turns out he was living with OW, her daughter and mother.

12/15/2017 Turns out, the affair has been going on for 2-3 years. He's not sure of the timeline.

12/26/2017 our 12 yo daughter tells me that dad is cheating on me, and she's seen naked pictures on his phone starring WH and OW. He denies, verbally abuses me, then eventually admits it.

After a rough time, and lots of therapy for me and the kiddo, I've 180'd his ass, not to get him back mind you, but for my own sanity and the protection of our daughter. We are in the process of mediating our divorce, but he appears to be in denial about his actions, etc. making demands like alimony, full custody, etc. along with wild accusations. Thankfully I've got a great attorney, the full support of friends and family (including his) and hundreds of pages of texts, emails, etc. containing his threats to make things difficult. You see, this wasn't what he planned! He wanted an easy, amicable divorce. Apparently, I screwed that up by finding out.

In the end, I don't think I'll ever get an apology, compassion or empathy from this monster I married. He didn't change, mind you, I see now after a LOT of work that I was emotionally abused for years, which allowed his behavior to continue. In the end, he'll have to live with what he's done. Losing a wife that loved and supported him, a daughter who adored him but now can't stand the sight of him, and most everyone we know seeing the real monster inside him, who he was the whole time, but hid well and gave excellent performances.

Womanscorned, I resonate with your post (even the dates) and am so sorry you are going through this. My situation is different in that STBX was wonderful for many years and then turned. The lack of compassion or remorse in someone we once loved is shocking...it levels me everyday. I'm glad you are feeling strong in yourself and in your legal case...I do not, but am working on this. Can I ask how old your child is? Mine is almost 9 and he has been in immense pain, but continues to love his dad, and I think that ambivalence is confusing for him.

In the spirit of "snark", there is a series of very lame text-to-speech "movies" that were referred to here on SI in another thread that I'm very much reminded of with all the situations and some of the specific things that some of us are saying really happened to us here in this thread.

It's so lame, it's funny, in fact. I can't speak for some of the language that is used in these lil homemade mini "skits", but the FOG that these two characters are in while riding their magic unicorns into the sunset (or wait...maybe that's actually HELL they're riding into, and it just LOOKS like a sunset from here...)...oh well...it sure looks rose-colored to them at least.

I guess their term of endearment for one another is to call each other "Schmoopie", so this is kinda the Schmoopie series I guess. I think that there's actually about 24 of these skits and they kinda build upon each other in sequence as the "plop" thickens!

Here's a sample of what I'm talking about:

My Wife Knows Everything

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQsUVw6lsDw&t=1s

[This message edited by Cephastion at 11:12 AM, March 17th (Saturday)]

My ex and his mow started jumping into bed together three years ago. They have been living together for two years, and as far as I know they are not married yet. Kind of surprising because he let me know he was going to marry asap.

My own thoughts are they feel the need to portray to the masses they were 'right' to leave their former spouses for each other, though they have likely realized they don't really want each other either, and the only way to do that is to appear as though their relationship is "successful".

^^^^ I totally agree with Wiserallthetime on this.

I saw a quote on the internet not too long ago that (in my opinion) might apply to my ex. That quote is:

"If you dance with the devil then you haven't got a clue, for you think you'll change the devil, but the devil changes you." - unknown.