SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am curious to know if there is anyone out there who has had a similar situation as mine:

I feel that I was doubly betrayed by the affair, but also because the OW stalked me and was arrested at my place of work two days after D-Day. Because of this, I have been violated not only by the affair but also as a victim of a crime resulting from the affair.

Not only do I have to fight the battle of trauma related to the affair, but also the trauma of being a crime victim. Both of those things are happening simultaneously, and sometimes I feel overwhelmed by it all.

Are there any words or wisdom for me out there? Or anyone with similar experiences?

Rugbychick,

I am not in this situation, but there is a thread in the General forum "F* why do cheaters have to take everything" where the BS is venting where her friend (also a BS) was run off the road with her 2 children & all 3 were killed by the OW.

Pretty much the entire premise of the show Snapped is based on similar.

So sorry you're in this situation. Take care of yourself & be safe.

I’ve seen a few double betrayal people in the JFO section and I thought it was worth bumping the thread to say we’re still here. Still surviving!

I haven’t seen the ex friend AP in over 4 weeks. It has been blissful. If only we could move away completely

My WH is thinking of visiting his other sister that lives in the same city as AP over the Thanksgiving holiday. Another sibling from out of state is going to be in town & staying with AP.

I don't want to go because of all the triggers, but I'm afraid that if I don't go that AP will show up. The sister he's staying with & her husband say there's no way they'd even let her in the door, but my anxiety level is going up.

WH knows I don't want to go. Before, he's said that we wouldn't go & a month later, he's talking about going.

To top it off, Thanksgiving is our 32nd anniversary. I told WH that if he wanted to celebrate our anniversary, he would have to make all the plans because I wasn't celebrating the M.

I'm not sure if I should stay or go.

(((leafields)))

I’m so sorry. What a crappy situation he’s put you in. It doesn’t seem acceptable that he’s going at all if it’s hurting you. He should be working to make you feel better, and not causing you further worry by taking this course of action. Have you told him how this makes you feel?

He casually mentioned it yesterday when we were having our family picnic. When we discussed before, he mentioned that we wouldn't go. Now, I didn't even know he changed his mind. He took a phone call with the sister that wants us to visit, so I didn't hear what was said. I was in shock, so I didn't bring it up later.

He apologizes for his selfish behavior that caused the affair, but he doesn't yet get the depths of his selfishness.

Thanks for the reinforcement, littleAvocet.

I have a question for all of you with Wayward Spouses who were the double betrayers relating to disclosing the A to the OBS when the AP was also married. I ask here as there is no forum like the ask the WS questions. I am not the one who has been double betrayed, but I am married to the double-betrayer and the OWBH would be the double-betrayed. While I was not personally close with the OW but my WH was very close with OWBH long before her BH even knew her. I definitely knew, and have socialized with the BH many times but I have only met the OW once, long before the A started.

My questions are these: Did any of your WS's APs express remorse and/or try to reach out to you after they became aware of the A? If so, how did your WS react to that expression? For those of you with WS who were involved with 1 member of a couple you knew/were friends with did your WS ever express remorse to you for the hurt they cause the AP's WS? Were they ever able to talk to you about that? If so do you think that it helped them reach some clarity about their own actions and start to deal with their issues?

I ask because I have not disclosed anything to her BH (or anyone outside of 2 of my friends who live no where near us) because there are very likely work reprecussions that would affect not only my WH and the OW but possibly the BH also. I have extreme guilt about not telling the OWBH but at the same time I do not want to let the cat out of the bag if it will end up hurting him. At this point I really don't know if I even care about how it affects me (I can tell you I care less and less every day), but I hate sending my WH out into the world as the walking time bomb that he is. In my opinion he has such poor boundaries and so many issues that he simply isn't a good relationship candidate, romantic or otherwise. I am hoping something wakes him up to look at himself - and while I know it's not my problem, I feel some sort of alliance with his future friends and co-workers and girlfriends who will get screwed over by him if he doesn't wake up and start working on himself.

My apprehension in just blowing it all out of the water is because my WH works with OW and OWBH - in very close quarters, with a very high security clearance and in a job/field that you cannot just up and leave (2+ year waiting list to be transferred and then you have to be accepted at the new location and your employer has to agree to let you leave - right now they are so understaffed that no requests are being granted that I am aware of) unless you want to be unemployed and never make close to the amount of money you were making before (think used to make $150,000 annually and have no transferrable skills to where you are working as a stock clerk at a grocery store - which happened to one of his co-workers who was forced to leave the position). So, the BH would not be able to just up and leave the job, and neither would the OW or my WS. It would be a special kind of hell to have to live with that which I would not wish on anyone, nevertheless the OBS who is a very nice person as far as I know.

Anyway, thanks for listening and I can only tell you that being on the other end of the double betrayal is no fun either as somehow you end up feeling complicit in the whole thing - all the secrets and lies of their A end up being yours. It's terrible...I feel for all of you immensely.

The general wisdom is to tell the OWBH. There are fact-specific exception, such as where there is a legitimate concern of violence. The reality is that the OWBH will likely find out sooner or later. If it is later, he will be triply wounded because he will think he was, between now and the time of discovery, the brunt of a three-way joke between you, your WH, and the OW.

A spouse should know if his spouse cheats. It is the decent, human thing to do by telling him. He should have agency to make his own decisions about his marriage, in the full light of day. If the situation were reversed, wouldn't you prefer it if he told you?

Butforthegrace - The thing is, no, I wouldn't (I realize I'm in the minority here but I really wouldn't at all - and he could have told me the first time and chose not to as well - and even with him knowing I never felt like a three way joke between him and her and my WH - that seems petty and childish to me as it certainly wasn't his fault?). I especially wouldn't if it could cost me my job (which in this case, it could if he knows with some qualifications) but if he or I out my WH and the OW his whole workplace would absolutely know and I would DEFINTIELY NOT want that humiliation in a place where I was continuing to work - that would kill me). But my questions about how a double betrayer reacted to dishing out the double betrayal was broader than "should I tell" and was more one of "did it seem to help you and your relationship with either your spouse or with the OW/OM when/if they expressed remorse and/or attempted to apologize? Did it seem to help them come to terms with what they had done?

I think I may "force" him (weirdly I think he will do it if I ask) to be the one to tell the OBS. I simply do not think this is my place to do, especially in light of their former friendship, and I am hoping (for his sake - it won't help me) that it gives him that moment of clarity about this situation as you can "blame shift" away all kinds of stuff about our shitting relationship and why he was lonely, but his friend did nothing to him ever so all of those excuses go away. Maybe this will be his moment of realization - I am anticipating that it will crush him emotionally, and while there is admittedly something appealing in that from my end, ultimately if getting it out in the open helps him deal with it then that's what I think he should do. (The job-related concerns are still there - for my WH for sure - financially this would be a horribly dumb move but that's another story).

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 11:15 AM, September 18th (Tuesday)]

I like keeping this thread close to the top, too. Thought I'd check in.

Living in a small town with two former friends who both became my Wife's AP's, me working with OBS, all too much for me. Constant run ins, weekly being in the same crowded area at kids events (kids same age) I just couldn't take it.

Gave up potential partnership at the firm I worked for and moved the family 300 miles away three months ago, another very small city but much closer to family support. I haven't looked back... The freedom from not having to see BOTH APs at least once a week has freed my emotions up to deal with the things I want to,and not always negative feelings associated with having to be face to face with APs, not always looking around every store or restaurant to see where they might be sitting...

Doing better

New member, glad to be here and receive the support.

I get to be in this club, too.

My story in my profile.

Thanks for helping me know I am not insane.

I want to find out if anyone else experiences difficulty/anxiety about socializing with your spouse with other couples or groups. My fWH's MOW was both a coworker of both of us and in our main group of friends that formed during college and kept doing regular social get-togethers after graduation. To go NC, we both had to drop this main source of being able to go out socializing. I'm a very social person, but my fWH is the opposite - loner and socially awkward. Making and bringing friends and couple friends into the M seems to be done only by me. Has anyone else here experienced anxiety issues trying to rebuild a social life as a couple after a double betrayal?

Early Dettour ... what you are experiencing is normal. We have made some “couple” friends since I found out about the double betrayal. But I am never really relaxed around them. I hold back.

The interesting thing is that I truly believe that my husband will never betray my that way again, but I am just so very aware that I sat beside, laughed and joked with, made meals for, had them sleep at our house, someone that my husband was intimate with. This just makes me sick to my stomach that this went on for so many years. I cannot seem to distance myself from this awareness.

I do not know if our “couple” friends pick up on it, but my husband definelty does, and tries to support me in any way that he can. When there are hugs happening, he sideway hugs, he always makes a point to be sitting next to me, we have a lot of eye contact when we are out, he says no to slow dances with anyone but me, His consistency with these actions help me a lot. And if we see to much of a certain couple, I pull back. He never questions this. He lets me make those decisions.

Good luck with your journey. The pain of two people that you thought loved and respected you, doing this to you, is such a huge pill to swallow. But true remorse will win over.

Hello everyone, I hope you’re managing to find some peace at this time of year, even if it’s just for a moment.

I’ve been thinking about the nature of a double betrayal. I keep coming back to the way ‘friends’ have acted, and the way it has affected my life. Dealing with an A is bad enough. Dealing with the destruction of my social world is yet another layer in the shit sandwich. How did you all cope with this aspect? Every so often I come back to thinking about this before moving back to looking after myself. The AP was my closest friend. All my other friends were mutual with her. I’ve had to cut myself off from almost all of them, but in the process I’ve realised these people were never real friends. Is there a way of processing this aspect of the betrayal? Is it another thing that time will take care of?

I am just at 3.5 months since D-Day, the day I discovered what actually happened. Over the summer my Wife began acting very strange off and on and I had no idea why. I should add she was 3 years into a period of sobriety as an alcoholic and was getting stronger. I loved watching her grow as a person, mother and spouse. What I did not know was this whole time she was developing feelings for my bestfriend. I knew they were messaging on FB and all but I would ask from time to time if it was anything inappropriate or if she felt like he was trying anything. She would always answer "no". Anyways, I should also throw out there that I had some deep seeded anxiety from her years of alcoholism and she resented me for it a bit. However, I had just started seeing a therapist to help with that and began seeing improvement. I was also experiencing a deteriorating relationship with our oldest daughter. Seeing the therapist immediately began fixing the issues. My wife and I began seeing improvements in our relationship as well. Sex was awesome and more frequent. We were taking tons of vacations. It was weird though, because the whole time this last summer she was acting out and blowing up on me more easily. It was so confusing. Fastforward to June, a day after her, me and our oldest got back form a great trip to Colorado. She tells me suddenly she wants a divorce and needs to see other people to know if we are meant to be together. She kicks me out and guess where I end up? At my friends house. So of course I tell him all about it. The next day after I wake up on his couch she calls and goes on to tell me she had developed feelings for a guy at work a while ago, a job she quit. She explains it really messed her perception of our marriage up. Anyways, she wants me to come back home. So I did. Then she starts letting me look through her phone, because I obviously start getting a little freaked out about things, but she is willingly doing this. I start looking at phone records without telling her and see her and my bestfriend were always in touch. Before a work trip to Miami I ask her to stop talking to him. I said that it was my friend and I felt uncomfortable about how close they were getting. However, the morning after I arrive in Miami she calls me to tell me she and he hung out the night I left. It really messed me up. However, I say okay whatever, it is all good because I trust you. She drives out to Miami with our two daughters and we have a wonderful time when I am not working and we all drive home together. Then within two days my Bestfriend offers me tickets to Drake concert playing in a city near us and I could not resist offering my wife to go instead of me because she loooooves Drake. My bestfriend knew this. As the night goes on I know another guy is with them so I feel less weird about it, but the whole time I feel like something is just not right. My bestfriend kept saying they will for sure be back by 11 to watch the meteor shower with a group of people at my house. However, when I call my wife at 11:15 they have just left the front doors to get to the car. Mind you, my bestfriend said at 10:45 they would be in town (30 min away) at 11. So I start freaking out and my wife gets defensive immediately. She comes home furious and saying she is thinking of a divorce again. I am just blown away. So guess who's couch I sleep on? You already know. fast forward a couple of days and my wife and I are talking again and she is telling me how bad she wants to make things work. She felt betrayed by my lack of trust in her. Anyways, I show my best friend one of her sweet texts and he looks upset. It was the first time I knew. It was too fucking late though. My wife and I decide she should maybe go on a solo road trip to decompress and get away in order to think things through more. I explain this plan to him. He acts confused why she would go alone. I begin asking them both to stop talking to each other because it is hurting my feelings, yet the day before she leaves I check the phone records and see they have texted each other. I ask her why and she said he just wanted to talk. That is the night it happened except I go over there and see them in the driveway talking and think to myself that I am just being crazy. She comes back early from her roadtrip and tells me she cheated on me with the guy from work!!!! A year ago. So I kick her out and she stays at a hotel for the night. She gets in touch with me and asks me to come be with her. I ask her straight up one more time if anything happened with my bestfriend. She said no. So I meet her and we have sex. I go home with her the next day and she asks if we can just cuddle for a min. After she falls asleep I luckily look through her phone and find a message from another one of her friends asking her if, I knew it was him. To which she replied No, I would never tell him, it would kill him.

BOOM!!!

I remember all of these terrible details. They were both talking about each other in code to me.

The day she left to go on her roadtrip she went out of her way to tell me that she talked to my bestfriend and asked for him to be there for me more than ever before.

I am haunted.

Now, I have seen a couple of other women and one in particular has been really good to me. Mind you, my wife fell into a relationship within two weeks of all of this!!!

Now, she has been remorseful for 3 weeks and keeps wanting me back. My bestfriend told her after everything happened he never even had feelings for her and that he was just using all of the info I gave him about her desires and fears to manipulate her. He is a textbook sociopath. He admitted to manipulating the entire drake concert incident, including lying about the time they would get back. My wife also had her bestfriend manipulating her thoughts on marriage.

UGH.... Now she wants me back and is giving me time to decide. This is totally new territory. I am scared she is just going to hurt me again some self sabotaging way. I have no reason to think she has cheated on me before. She really thought they were developing a love for one another. Her addiction in the past combined with her anxiety and depression cause her to always be questioning herself.

What would you do? I feel like if there is even a 1% chance of it working, we owe it to our daughters and each other to try to make it work.

Fkmylfe

You might want to post in JFO - even though it has been a couple of months.

After reading your post I would volunteer you should put about 2000 yards between you an her for a year and see if she learns how to navigate live with some integrity.

- and give yourself plenty of time to figure out your own feelings and health

Dear Fkmylfe,

Are you certain that having that woman in your life is what will be best for your daughters? Just because she is their biological mother does not mean she is necessarily good for them. Also, do you want to give your girls the idea that if they get cheated on, they should put "The Marriage" above their own happiness?

Do what is best for YOU. That is how you will teach your daughters to do the same.

Best of luck to you.

I was not close to the woman my STBXH has been involved with for years and years, but I did think of her as a friend or at least a friendly acquaintance. We belonged to the same social group. What makes it really hateful is that she made her first real gestures of friendship towards me right at the point that my STBXH got seriously involved with her and more when he finally decided to divorce me to be with her. Clearly, she was making a pretense of friendship just to keep me from being suspicious. That more than anything is what convinced me that she is a heartless, soulless, selfish bitch who cares nothing about whose life she ruins in order to get what she wants. And if that isn't bad enough for you, she was still married to one of my STBXH's best friends when they got involved! My STBXH spent years involved with the wife of one of his best friends, and she carried on with one of her husband's best friends for years before she got around to divorcing him, making it a triple or even quadruple betrayal.

I too have felt the sting of thinking about my STBXH and his adulterous mistress laughing at my gullibility. But I would urge all of you in the same situation not to feel shame over it. Think about this: they are essentially laughing at you for trusting people who are as untrustworthy as they are. That says a whole lot more about what sorts of people they are than it does about you. You trusted because you're trustworthy; they laugh at that because they are dishonest, selfish, and hateful.

I know that for many people, the initial impulse is to try to salvage the marriage, especially when there are children involved. But when I think of cheaters laughing at their betrayed spouses for trusting them, all I see is people who are so heartless and unfeeling that they actually find pleasure and humor in cruelty and in the suffering of others. In my opinion, anyone who can be that vicious doesn't deserve to live among decent people and is incapable of having a decent marriage. It certainly isn't someone I would ever allow to live in the same household as my children.

The thing is, I now have reason to believe that my STBXH has been cheating for most if not all of our marriage and with multiple women and that others were also my friends or friendly acquaintances. I think he had sex with my former best friend. It's hard to explain her peculiar behavior during my divorce any other way. I don't know what numerical value of betrayal I suffered and will probably never know.

I don't want apologies from any of them except my former best friend. If she did have sex with my STBXH, there were reasons that would make it forgivable. I wouldn't believe a word of any apology my STBXH and any other adulterous mistress offered. It would be nothing more than a self-serving attempt to whitewash what they did to me along the lines of: "See how sorry I am? That means I'm really a terrific person and you're a hateful bitch for not forgiving me."

Nope. Not interested in a pretense of an apology. I'd much rather call up her place of employment, church, friends, and family and tell them all in detail how much of a whore she really is.

What can make it really bad for people like us is when we know or strongly suspect that many of our so-called friends knew about the affair(s) and either aided and abetted or covered it up by their silence if nothing else. I have literally been betrayed or at least abandoned by every single person I know who isn't a relative.

I'm terrified that I will never be able to open my heart enough to try to make friends again. I already had trust issues before all this. I don't really care that much about the prospect of never remarrying. I don't have enough good experiences of marriage to want to be married again. But how am I supposed to live if I can't make friends again?

When I think about that, I wish that all those so-called friends who betrayed and/or abandoned me would suffer the kinds of things that happen in all those stupid horror movies my STBXH and his adulterous mistress love. There are many days when I hate my former so-called friends and want to see them suffer even more than my STBXH and his adulterous mistress(es).

The 2xB situation is so incredibly painful because not only are you betrayed, but you are also robbed of a vital part of your normal support system.

You are exactly right, Ascendant. Except that I was robbed of my entire support system except for my family. I was left with NO ONE ELSE.

It has tainted every interaction I have with everyone.

To Thescreaminside:

This. So much this.

How do you not hate and distrust the whole world after everyone you've ever known except your family has betrayed and/or abandoned you? Is it even possible to heal after something like that?

At least my family is great. I couldn't ask for a better one. That is the one and only good thing I feel I have going for me.

I will close by saying that I hope not to ever again hear any nonsense about the Bro Code or sisterhood. If you live among people who expect monogamy in marriage, you don't engage in extra-marital sex with anyone if you are a decent person. Period. End of discussion. You should not need to be in a friendship with that person not to derail that person's marriage. You should not have to be the same sex as that person to avoid sex with that person's partner. You should simply be faithful and honest. Even if you aren't married yourself, having sex with someone that you know is married still makes you a selfish, cheating douchebag.

This is my first post. I’m five months past d-day and H and I are trying very hard to move past the worst year of our lives. We're a bit different than most of the posts I've seen here, as it was a ONS and not a full blown affair, but it has still shaken me to my core. I haven’t had a good day yet, but I’ve had good hours each day… At least I'm not having the full blown panic attacks anymore... But today is a really bad day.

Today is her birthday.

The first one that I’m not celebrating. For the last 17 years, I’ve made sure that I always had the perfect gift for her- I made sure that her birthday present was not wrapped in christmas paper and that it was separate from her christmas gift because I knew that was important to her. I would drive out and make sure that it was a special day for her. It was always a big day because she was my best friend- like a sister- and I loved her and I thought birthdays should be important.

(She consistently missed my birthday over the last 10 or so years and then this year was the first time we celebrated it together and that was the night of the ONS, after I went to sleep. So now even my birthday will be extremely hard for me.)

Anyway, it’s a really hard day because even though we haven’t spoken since D-day, five months ago, there are still moments where I almost forget and I think, she’d love this or I should text her or something along those lines. And to not have called first thing in the morning or post some mushy best friend post on facebook with a flashback photo from when we were kids and to not have spent days shopping for the perfect gift… it’s just… it hurts. It reminds me of how different my life is now. And I really loved my life before this happened.

It doesn’t matter that in retrospect, she was a manipulative narcissist and a terrible friend. She was my best friend for more than half of my life. It’s hard not to think of her. And every time I do, I fall apart again.

It's not even 10 am and already I feel like the pit in my stomach is threatening to swallow me whole.

**Edit, I hope this is this the right thread to post in. I wasn't quite sure since I'm relatively new to the site...

[This message edited by betrayalbrokeme at 8:56 AM, December 28th (Friday)]

(((((betrayalbrokeme)))))

You have been heard.

All infidelity sucks, but a double betrayal adds a special layer of shit sauce to it. BTDT.

You posted in a good place, but I think you'll get more responses in Just Found Out. As you can see, this forum is not very active (but a great place to post because everyone in here knows what it's like).

she was a manipulative narcissist and a terrible friend. She was my best friend for more than half of my life. It’s hard not to think of her. And every time I do, I fall apart again.

I empathize. My ex-friend/FWH's xOW was the same. It was always all about her - learned from my IC that she is likely NPD. Our "friendship" was not as long as yours and your ex-friend's, but in retrospect, it was best that the friendship between the two of you is dead and buried...she was toxic to you before the A.

I read your profile - are you and your H in IC/MC? You are clearly still in so much pain and I think IC could help you as well as this awesome place (SI).

Hugs...

Lala