SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello to everyone who remembers me! As I've always said, I could not have gotten through my descent into betrayal and my painful journey out without so many SI members.

This is an update I've always hoped I could eventually post. (D-Day was 2012, divorce 2014.)

It is also important that I post this for those who have recently found SI, still in the early throes of pain and shock. More narrowly, this is for those who are emotionally ravaged specifically by your spouse leaving you for the AP. You are tormented by your questions--how could he/she? why wasn't I enough?--and one of the most painful possibilities: that theirs is true love. That the AP really was/is "the one," their soul-mate. That your Ex would change for the AP. That their love would last forever.

Nine years ago this is where I was, and for years after as well--albeit to lesser and lesser degrees as time healed my worst wounds and life went on. But so did my ex's relationship with the OM, who played an important role in the conscious destruction of a family. No, I don't place an undue amount of blame on the AP: my ex had free will. He was not a puppeteer, just a run-of-the-mill lowlife. I like the metaphor of the bank robbery: the spouse robbed the bank, but the AP drove the getaway car.

Anyway, I knew deep down (and supported by evidence) that they weren't truly happy, and yet... There they still were. Now, note that as time went on, I did not obsess over this. It is totally natural to do so in the early years. I generally stopped caring. My happiness was no longer dependent on their unhappiness. But once in a while, I thought: where the fuck was that karma? Could I have been wrong about her? About them? Were they star-crossed lovers and she is now the angel for him that she never could be for me?

Well. Fast forward to the day before yesterday--New Year's Day, appropriately enough. Their relationship finally and abruptly ended. And it ended in the most banal, utterly predictable way, for the most laughably cliched reason--one that I'd seen so many times on this site and wished for in my situation:

He caught her cheating on him and kicked her out. She had been having an affair for at least a year and refused to stop. Exactly the same as my narrative with her. Their relationship began with lies and deceit and ended with a satisfying stroke of poetic justice. Karma has been served--at least for the OM. As for her, she obviously found a new chump. He too will learn in time. And eventually she will hit her own rock bottom, when no decent man will buy her Princess in Distress act. It is then that I predict she will come to know all that she lost. But any such revelation will never be accompanied by remorse, only by regret. She never grasped the enormity of what she did in destroying her family: a devoted, loving husband and two small children. She never will. Narcissists don't. They just don't.

But here's the thing--and this is the part directed primarily at those who crave, long for that karma: Please let him/her cheat on him/her and let the AP know my pain! Yes, it is vindication. It does feel good for so many reasons. I saw my ex today when she came for our DD. She was a wreck: eyes puffy from sobbing, pale from days of self-pity. I felt a surge of triumph and grim happiness for the OM's pain and for my ex's. Finally! Holy shit, it's over, and she cheated on him!

But then, within a minute, pleasure, the schadenfreude I'd waited for, dissipated and was replaced by sadness: what a waste, I thought. Theirs was no Great Love Story after all, no star-crossed lovers they. Just a couple of cheap, selfish cheaters. Life had handed my Ex an enviable life and she pissed it away.

And then the moment passed. I kissed my DD goodbye and told my Ex to take care and drive carefully. Shrug. Karma was not what I thought it would be.

Fellow Betrayed, don't spend your days yearning for that karma. It may come in a dramatic, poetic manner as it did with me, but 1) the rush did not sustain; the sadness lingered longer, and 2) it took a hell of a long time: almost ten years.

Are yours still together? Did they marry? Is their Facebook page full of happy photos? I call bullshit. These relationships forged in pain will come to the same end. The end might "be an end"--they might break up, one might cheat on the other--but a dead, unhappy, distrustful relationship can burn on the fumes of delusion for a lifetime.

Don't believe that theirs was a love that you could not offer. You did, they can't, fuck them.

I hope this helps.

Good to "see" you again!! And great update. As we always hope for, they both got everything they deserved.

It is poetic justice when they implode, but once you reach indifference as you have, that moment of unbridled euphoria and vindication quickly turns to "Meh, what am I having for lunch today?"

Well done, Abbondad, well done.

Hope the kids are doing well!

Oh I so needed to read something like this today. I'm happy for your strength and well being.

ABD - My man!!!! How the hell are you though?

How are those kids, how big are they now?

You got through it, and you escaped your narc, and you have a good life now though right???

Isn't that the important lesson here?

this is for those who are emotionally ravaged specifically by your spouse leaving you for the AP. You are tormented by your questions--how could he/she? why wasn't I enough?

Welp, this is me. I found out about the cheating and kicked him out. He never even tried to come back and he's still with her, awaiting her divorce.

Your post was very helpful, thank you. My head is aware of everything you have said - I know I won't care eventually. But my heart has yet to catch up and it's been over a year since Dday.

THIS!! Plus those with children the children will have to endure yet another loss in thier lives assuming they have a connection with their parent's new partner. My XH is still with COW living together since COVID hit nearly a year ago. My DS 6 very offhandedly made a comment that his dad and dad's GF were arguing about a coworker of his. Oh the sweet irony that I was the mean bitchy wife which is why he HAD to cheat on me with a young coworker but now he was cheating on her with a different coworker.

As much as I LOVE the karma bus I wish more than anything that my kid's parent wasn't such a douche canoe!!

It might be cliche but 6 years after the 1st DDay and 5 years after final DDay the best revenge/karma has really been living my best life! For me anyway! Happy New Years to all you SI'ers in your New Beginnings

Abbondad, your posts were very inspirational to me when I first went through my DDay in January 2016. My exWW married her POSOM who was also married. They are still "happily" married. I don't see any karma coming their way. I was begging for karma, but I've reached a point where I don't care as much any more.

After 2+ years, I finally met a woman I could fall in love with. We dated for 2-1/2 years, and I thought I had finally found the "reason" why I went though the shitstorm with my exWW. Well, the recent exGF broke up with me unexpectedly in late August, over the phone, with very little explanation, and didn't want to discuss it. She defriended me on facebook the following day, and ghosted me ever since. In November, after agonizing for 2 months over what the heck did I do, I discovered information that points to her cheating on me for the last few months we were together (you can see my thread on this Forum under "Just got dumped". Yesterday, I ran into her and the new guy and his friends at a sports bar watching football. It was awful, and it stirred up all the emotions all over again.

Beep Beep

Hey Abbondad, nice to "see" you and nice to hear about some karmic justice!

Hope you and the kiddos are doing well and are staying safe & healthy.

Thanks, everyone!

"My head is aware of everything you have said - I know I won't care eventually. But my heart has yet to catch up and it's been over a year since Dday."

It will catch up, but it can't be rushed. For that matter, you're only a year or so out: when I was only a year after D-day I was still sobbing uncontrollably on daily basis. You are still in the trenches. It gets better.

"How the hell are you though?

How are those kids, how big are they now?"

Hi, Tushnurse! I'm pretty good, thank you! My kids are just about to turn 14 and 17, which is insane. I love them and can't stand them. Those with teenagers get it ;-)

They've weathered a hell of a lot and while they are not without their resultant issues, I have kept my world, my home, a safe, stable place for them for all these years. (Their mother has moved seven times in nine years, gone through as many jobs.) Good old boring Dad is predictable and secure and they know that I love them from my consistent actions, not merely words.

So good to see that you and your kids are doing so well! I followed your story from the beginning. Can the you of 9 years ago even believe where you are now? Great job and thanks for coming back to share!!!

I love this post on so many levels. Thank you.

Hi Abbondad! I remember you and your struggle. You really struggled to find your footing and now look at you.

Well done, and I hope you are well and finding joy in your life. Thank you so much for posting.

Beep beep!!

Thank goodness your children have you!!!

Abbondad,

Happy New Year to you!

You were a few months behind me in your D-day in 2012.

It’s great to hear from you. I remember the wrenching pain and anguish of those days then - especially what we felt for what our young children were being put through.

I’m glad you have the wisdom to see that karma does not necessarily bring the great sense of satisfaction or vindication that most of us, at some point, wish to hold over the people who betrayed us. Actually, my XWW will likely never feel any sort of karmic vengeance because if she were to betray her current husband, she would simply blame him and the universe for her behavior and run off to some other new guy to maintain her inner fantasy world. Karma for her will be time and life forcing her into reality via the inevitability of old age and having to look more so back on life than the shortening future.

Keep that safe and stable place for you and your kids.

All the Best.

Condensed update:

XW is reconciling with AP. My kids are furious, crying and confused. She is a despicably selfish person who will never change. I am saddened for my kids but not surprised. I knew it was a possibility if not a likelihood.

Abondad, you are the stable parent in the scenario, your kiddos are lucky to have at least 1 functioning adult to look up to.

I am the stable one in my kiddos life too. It's tough because we get to clean up the messes that their other parent makes.

Like you I'm also 6+ yrs past the end of my shittastic marriage to their dad. I'm unrecognizable from the woman I was before and I continue to make myself a better person for the little humans I created.

I'm sorry that your ex has reconciled with evil. Continue to be the soft spot for the children.

XW is reconciling with AP. My kids are furious, crying and confused. She is a despicably selfish person who will never change.

As we have known for a long time now, its about her and only her.

The children’s well-being does not factor in at all if it interferes with their fantasy world.

My XWW has never apologized to our children and has never even acknowledged, remotely, of having hurt them because of her grotesque behavior.

Indeed, the selfishness is despicable and breathtaking - even all these years later.

I wonder sometimes, how someone becomes like this.

I wonder sometimes, how someone becomes like this

I am not sure that someone becomes selfish but rather they always have been selfish.

Sometimes they hide it well until it finally comes to the surface.

Sometimes the spouse finally sees the selfishness once they are no longer seen through starry eyes or rose colored glasses.