I changed. Not my fWH.
My husband and I had a massive row while away on a weekend trip. I was triggered, and I sarcastically commented and of course, this escalated.
Two days later, we agreed to talk about the episode. As usual, I prepared for my talk and wrote out all the stuff that was meanly said, my reminders about boundaries etc.etc. I was ready.
I ran it by my best friend…she is also a fBW. So she understands.
She suggested that I simplify and tone down my approach as I tend to be quite direct.
My husband is a shallow thinker and I am a deep thinker. I tend to really analyze any uncomfortable situation. Cover all angles.
She said that I need to get down to his level of thinking to get my point across and that my original way of presenting information does not work with him.
I agreed. I changed my talk to three short sentences. And I apologized for the sarcasm.
My husband looked at me with these huge eyes. Like a frozen deer in headlights. He was thrown off because he expected to be told how he messed up. Of course he did, but so did I. But that was not the point of our talk.
It ended very well. Easily. We are good again.
Just saying to all fBs, that changing one’s approach when the way it was done in the past did not really end well, is priceless. And well worth rethinking.
I learned something about myself.
2 comments posted: Sunday, November 17th, 2024
Taking a swipe or two at the fW.
I took a swipe at my husband the other day in response to a comment he made. It just came out and I was surprised at myself how easily the words just formed. I was sarcastic. I suppose his comment hit my button.
He mentioned something about infidelity and I said sarcastically ´you tried that already, and it did not work out for you did it?´
Does anyone else have swipes to share?
20 comments posted: Wednesday, October 23rd, 2024
Second Chance Shame
Counting sixth year into R, I had an illogical dream about why I gave my husband a second chance to continue with our marriage. At that time we were 40 years together.
This dream unsettled me more than I thought it would as I’m finding myself looking for I don’t know what.
It’s like I’m questioning my decision to give him a second chance. I feel shame right now, in giving my husband who left me for his AP on d-day. They lived together until he wanted to return to familiarity and he claims , me. The dream triggered something for me.
Shame is feeling that I did something wrong. It’s a strong feeling. I have no regrets though. Just a feeling of shame today.
Please don’t tell me to go to therapy. I’d much rather hear from anyone who has felt something similar.
14 comments posted: Tuesday, July 30th, 2024
After all
There won’t be many perfect days but there will be many perfect moments!
This saying made my day, may it make yours.
2 comments posted: Tuesday, June 25th, 2024
Escapism followed by a fantasy life.
Owing to @WontBeFooledAgai, and @cedarwoods posts, this is a spin-off to point out how brazen, emotionless and clueless a WS can be during D-Day and the fall-outs in the aftermath.
As a fBS, during our "talk" on D-Day, the outcome was that he left me to live with his AP. Maybe this was an example of an exit affair all along, but I did give him the "motivation" to leave on D-Day. Politely kicking him out of my house and life.
During our talk, fWH was in another reality. He was caught unprepared. The things he said were simply unreal. The one thing I remember clearly was his intention on remaining in our home, in another bedroom to continue carrying on with his AP. Really? What person (me) in their right mind would ever allow this? What reality was he living in? The one comment that pierced his reality was my telling him I would do everything in my power to make his life totally miserable should he decide to remain. It cemented my need to throw him out of my life on his ass.
His final comment as he left was he felt a sense of relief that he no longer has to hide, nor schedule travels in stealth mode, etc. Wow. Nothing about our 40 year marriage. Nothing. It was all about him.
What he experienced during our separation was the other fantasy. One in which the real living arrangements clashed with the fantasy of the cheater’s expectations. One where the cheater realizes what he threw away, what he misses, what living with the AP really was like. What was once "cute" was now frustrating. The loss of freedom to do as he pleased. The dilemmas surrounding visits with his family, his adult children, his grandchildren and me (to finalize our separation). The loss of privacy. Feeling like a guest with benefits. Yes, there were waning exciting moments. Sex, travels, activities, love. Unbelievably, he still footed the bills for the travels. There was some splitting of house expenses but I think this cheater realized he was taken advantage of his financial generosity during the actual affair. Strange, as his AP was very well off.
He settled for his AP, because:"that's where I want to be."
Over time, the cheater wanted to return to the familiar me. He did compare his life with AP with our life. I will generalize here, IMHO, many cheaters do compare. But there are absolutely no winners. Only survivors.
In ending, I will quote my fWH: " the grass is not greener on the other side". Ya buddy! You had to destroy lives in order to see that! My fWH was such a stupid, selfish acting man.
I'd like to add a caveat, his mum who passed away two weeks after my mum passed away, told me that she is grateful that I took him back. She also added he is a selfish person. Yikes. I can't wrap my head around her comment. But it almost gives me a vindication that what I saw was in fact real. Not my imagination.
I’d like to think that this story gives some insights to others.
6 comments posted: Thursday, December 7th, 2023
Wallowing in grief…
I am grieving as my mum passed away three months ago as well as my MIL two weeks later. I feel my mum’s passing intensily, my MIL’s not as much for various reasons and all of this infidelity consequences stuff from five years ago has returned to haunt me.
It is draining. I feel so alone. So sad. I look at my husband and I think of how his words and actions then threw me into chaos. For sure I have good times and yes he supports me and I support him. We both lost our mothers. However, my mindset is feeling the hurts from the past. I cannot separate the two events nor do I want to at this stage.
It’s almost like I want to be the victim one more time and just wallow. Ugh!
I don’t know, maybe therapy would help? What do you all think? Would it be a grief specialist or someone else?
7 comments posted: Thursday, November 23rd, 2023
Don’t want to reclaim what was ‘theirs’.
Are there other fBS’s that think like me? I don’t want to go to or have anything to do with places that my husband and his fOW went to or traveled to . Like restaurants, entertainment venues, cities etc. etc.
To be specific, places I had never been to with him.
Just the thought of going to those same spots make me feel sick to my stomach. It’s that viseceral. Even going on five years out.
My husband knows this and he’s stopped asking me to join him during his work projects that bring him to the same spots he’d brought fOW. When he’s there I feel relief that I did not go. I don’t miss going to those spots at all. There are many others in this world and in my home city to chose from.
The only places I have gone to are the ones where we had been to before his affair, knowing he had taken fOW there also. This is triggering me for me, but I deal with it.
I think that reclaiming is sort of like a comparison where I have to compete against my husband’s memories. Common sense tells me he has lots of those memories. They travelled and went out extensively.
Well, that way I see it, is let him deal with those memories, I do not want to be in the same places.
We are approaching a milestone birthday for my husband. It’s a trigger for me. Maybe that is why I’m writing about reclaiming. 
7 comments posted: Tuesday, October 3rd, 2023
When boundaries and self-care become limiting.
This is a general observation, in no way specific to couples who are living through infidelity and reconciliation. It is a but a personal perspective as a former BS that I would like to share with the SI community.
We often are bombarded with articles on self-care for healing and establishing boundaries during reconciliation following infidelity.
It could be said that once infidelity is present in any relationship, most of the books, documents, articles focus on self-care and establishing clear boundaries during reconciliation. In other words, care and heal yourself first.
For the most part I agree with this approach. However, there is a wayward spouse in the reconciliation picture. As one focuses on self care and establishing clear boundaries, simultaneously the betrayed deals with relating with the wayward spouse.
I’d really like to see more written advice about relating quicker to your reconciliation partner as the work of reuniting and healing begins.
On a personal note, during the first two years of reconciliation I worked on self-care and establishing boundaries. Looking at my efforts, I see that had I included different ways to connect to our re-unification earlier, my path would have been smoother for me emotionally as a betrayed working on healing and reconciliation. . All the work I was doing focused on me as a priority, not our relationship during those first two years. All my work limited me to feeling good about our re-unification efforts during that time.
What makes us human is the ability to strike a balance in reconciliation between my personal ways of doing things, my spouse’s personal ways of doing things and most importantly keeping the relation, the connectivity between us alive and healthy. Sometimes that means adjusting my boundaries and caring more for the relationship and not necessarily caring more for my self-care development.
7 comments posted: Wednesday, July 19th, 2023
My husband’s life with the OW once we separated.
I posted here as this relates to the separation period between my husband and I following my D_Day.
I read articles on situationship relationships. It is a curious definition. It makes me question the superficiality of my husband, while he was living apart from me with his OW three years ago. We have since re-united.
I feel it may help explain what some WS’s go through when they have detached from their spouses and have attached themselves to their OW. It clarified and validated that this, was a far from a perfect union that my husband believed it to be at first.
And unless this kind of relationship changes and evolves with firm commitments, it is bound to fail eventually. It may fail within three months, as in my husband’s case or it may last years. I can’t speak for the OW. But I can speak for my husband’s answers to my questions and boundaries once we re-united.
The following are some descriptions from an article called What is a Situationship online: I picked the ones I can more or less relate to my husband during his living arrangements with the OW.
I recognize that each separation is different. But it sure lit light bulbs in my mind! 
The relationship is undefined: You and your partner may not have had the "What are we?" conversation, to define the relationship, set expectations, and outline boundaries. It may feel too early to have the conversation, or you may not feel comfortable bringing it up.
There’s no mention of the future: People who are in a relationship may plan for the future in some capacity, whether it’s going to an event in the near future or longer term plans to settle down and have a family. In a situationship, there’s typically no discussion of the future.
The connection is superficial: Though you and your partner may spend time together, or may even be intimate with each other, you may not have developed a deep emotional connection. The conversation may be superficial and you may notice that your partner never asks you personal questions,
The relationship is based on convenience: You and your partner may not prioritize each other or go out of your way to see each other; instead, you may tend to make spur of the moment plans based on convenience, if you have a gap in your schedule or if something else doesn’t work out, for instance.
People who tend to gravitate towards situationships are those who want the emotional connection and intimacy with a partner in a compartmentalized way. They can have emotional presence and connection in person, but when apart, they can have their freedom.
Both parties may not be honest about what they want out of the arrangement. Typically, one person is content with the casual aspect of the relationship, while the other is hoping that it might turn into something more.
The mental health impact can be immense for the person wanting more as they may begin to conflate their sense of self-worth with gaining the approval of the other person.
Additionally, because situationships tend to be superficial, the partner wanting more usually does not know the other person well, which causes them to idealize their partner, and in turn devalue themselves.
The article helped me understand the dynamics that may have been present to some degree in their seemingly "perfect" arrangement once he abandoned me for her.
I believed at that time, that she was perfect for him. I had lost all respect I had for this man that I was with for 40 years and I believed at the time, that they deserved one another.
Bottom line, their relationship was far removed from the perfect image and story I had created in my mind. The way I see it, It actually sounds pretty awful to live like that. 
So three years later, this definition validated some of our conversations about the time he was living with his OW( not the affair) and explained my husband’s mindset at the time he wanted me to take him back with remorse, shame, apologies, contritions and all.
6 comments posted: Sunday, May 29th, 2022
