SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I wanted to share my weekend experience with folks who will understand. On Saturday night, we went to a pool/cocktail party at a friend's house. There was a new couple there who had just moved into the neighborhood. Both of them were very friendly and outgoing -- almost too much so, like everyone they met was their immediate best friend. Okay, I thought, I'll put it down to nerves and being in a strange place, and I went out of my way to chat with the wife.

We hadn't been talking long when she started going on about how fate decided she would be lucky in her new life. She and her husband had known each other in high school, lost touch, reconnected, and fallen back in love. I asked where they moved from, and she told me they had an apartment together in the city while "things got sorted out." Now they've bought this old house in my friends' neighborhood, are completely remodeling it, and his youngest daughter is "so supportive of our relationship" and happy that she'll be able to get away to her own room there. No mention was made of his older kids, who are adults, and the level of support there (or lack thereof).

Could it all have been above board? I suppose so, but my Spidey senses were going off like fireworks. I asked how they reconnected, and I got a skillful answer that glossed over the point that we both sensed I was getting at (i.e. were they single at the time). I also got pressed for my contact info so we could get an invitation to their upcoming open house. It very much had the vibe of someone trying to rebuild a whole new crowd of friends to populate their socials because they've been properly ostracized by the ones they already had.

I can't prove it, and I wasn't about to make a scene at a friend's party. But I was right, I know it. She'll get my contact info when hell freezes over. Ick, ick, ick.

Vomit vomit vomit.

This screams trash.
Glad you had those spidey senses.

Did you hear my eyes roll when I read:

known each other in high school, lost touch, reconnected, and fallen back in love.

Ick is right.

BSR,

You have successfully unlocked a hidden skill I did not know I had.

You managed to make my eyes roll so far back that I could see the back of my head.

Serious and sadly familiar ick. Just chiming in to share the weird camaraderie of the shared yuck.

Bleh.

Oh HELL NO!

They reconnected over social media, had an affair, he left his wife (or she kicked him out), and they needed to leave their previous community where they had become pariahs. Only one of his children still talks to him; the others are pissed.

I admire your restraint.

I'd have been tempted to point blank say, "so you had an affair,left your spouses, kids are mad,and you've moved here in effort to start over where no one knows? Except me. And I like to talk. "

[This message edited by HellFire at 1:00 PM, Wednesday, July 17th]

Sometimes I feel dumb for how naive and accepting of these kinds of stories I was prior to my husband’s affair and the devastation wreaked in our social circles by a couple other affairs. I used to take people’s stories at face value, and betrayal/affairs didn’t immediately pop into my head as a likely scenario in cases like this. I would’ve just seen the woman as a gregarious over-sharer and moved on. But yeah, ick.

"Fate decided she would be lucky in her new life" 🤮🤮

First, I want to say that I think your ick is deserved. This situation sounds so much like the star-crossed lovers AP situation that I need to before I move on.

I do want to share another story, tho.

I am connected on Facebook with an old friend of mine from High School. He and his wife divorced 7 or 8 years ago. I don't know the details, it is none of my business. Two years ago he reconnected with his college girlfriend. She was also quite single when they got together. They just got married a couple of weeks ago.

There are "honest" cases of reconnection. They aren't all disgusting cheaters.

It’s funny how in the life before, we wouldn’t think twice and just accept the story at face value. Now we have a 6th sense to connect the dots easily.

Wife and I had a similar experience when we took a couples cooking class 5-6 years ago. The sheer desperation to make a connection as friends. I figure it was 50/50 whether they were swingers or they had blown up their peer group by how they got together and needed to recruit a new set of friends.

Reading this and all the comments reminded me that one skill we all took away from infidelity is a honed and sharpened "bullshit o meter".

I'd have been tempted to point blank say, "so you had an affair,left your spouses, kids are mad,and you've moved here in effort to start over where no one knows? Except me. And I like to talk. "

I didn't say it to her, but you're spot on about mutual friends who are within range of her net.

Sometimes the urgency and dedication to engage and make new connections in a fresh social group has a more mundane cause: About thirty years ago, long before WW confessed to her affairs, we met a very dynamic new couple at the church we attended who solicited our presence at a party they were throwing the following weekend. Not knowing I had been betrayed, the idea that they might be a pariah couple trying to forge new friendships in fresh surroundings never entered my mind. Turned out that our presence at their party was to find new "marks" for the house cleaning products pyramid scheme they were promoting. Only three years later however, did it become common knowledge in the neighbourhood and in our church congregation that the wife, who also frequently traveled for business to the Xxway head offices had been caught having serial affairs by her husband, who promptly divorced her.
And in a little side bar, I confess that now knowing that I was cheated on for at least thirty five years of our marriage, I can no longer watch couples in any number of social settings without entertaining the pernicious thought of wondering who is in an affair, and who is blissfully ignorant of the betrayal. Infidelity is such a toxic force with so many ramifications.

I asked where they moved from, and she told me they had an apartment together in the city while "things got sorted out."

In other words, until one or both of our divorces was actually finalized.

They don’t deserve the time of day from you or anyone else in my opinion. Well done.

BSR,

I now know what you mean...once you have seen it, you can not un-see it.

It becomes a well honed sixth sense you "feel" when people are dishonest about relationships.

Now on the other hand, I truly, desperately hope that you can keep tabs on this "new life" of these people.
This is a disaster waiting to happen and the fallout will be biblical.

These sound like people who blew up their whole entire lives. Since statistics show that only about 2-3 percent of relationships that started as affairs survive, we know that this will NOT last.

They sound like the happy go lucky liars that put on the façade of everything is great, all the while knowing that they both hate themselves, don't trust each other, but have gone too far to turn back now.