Cautionary Tale from OW

[fuckedmylifeup]

I was relentlessly pursued by a MM whilst also married myself. This continued for the last three years. I take full responsibility for my actions but now I find myself:

On the verge of a nervous breakdown
Seeing a counsellor every week to try and get back the parts of me I lost during this damaging time
I've lost everything - my husband, my home, my job, my friends
Am on the receiving end of frequent and distressing text messages from MM's wife (and rightly so)
Grieving for two relationships - the MM (as stupid as that sounds) and my lovely dh
Devastated by the hurt i've caused dh who in no way wishes to reconcile (and who can blame him)

Whilst NOTHING has changed for MM (he is back in his marriage) - I have to start again from scratch. I'm a shell of my former self and can't see past this.

I can't eat/sleep/concentrate. I'm such a mess. Please help.

[redundantandbitter]

fuckedupmylife how was your day today? Did you manage to eat some bits and sleep?

[DoYouEverFeelLikeAPlasticBag]

I second that - I keep coming back to this thread to see how OP is. I think you were very brave and frank OP, and you can gain a lot of support on here.

Keep strong - don't let this mistake define you, you can still have a happy future

Hope you're ok

[TheGrandPooBah]

And when you start the new thread, change your name to something like 'MovingOnwards' or 'PuttingThePastBehindMe' - make the first step to becoming a new, happier you and put the mistake behind you.

[fuckedmylifeup]

Thanks so much to everyone who has posted on the thread and continues to show an interest in how I am. Thanks also for the PM's and all the ongoing advice - your help has got me out of a really dark place and I am beyond thankful - THANK YOU .

This week has been so hard. Dh has moved out temporarily and we have continued to talk but he has 100% no interest or desire is giving the marriage another go. I can already see a new lease of life in him and he doesn't appear to want to look back for a second and says he has been unhappy for years. We are both leaving our marital home as it is simply too sad and are currently looking for places to live. I'm still crying daily and nightly but am able to busy myself at times.

MM has called me (I didn't answer) and sent me a message saying how hard it is and that he cares for me so much (I haven't replied). Yes Mango, he has dcs. Not sure what his game is really. Or how I should feel/respond.

I perhaps will start a more positive thread when i'm feeling a little more deserving. Thanks again everyone.

[holidaysarenice]

A letter to the ow telling her to back off is the only letter I would be sending. Preferably from a solicitor. Telling her the next step is formal harrassment.

[holidaysarenice]

Sorry I didn't see that you had posted. Well done on surviving a very hard week.

[Putitonthelist]

Have been thinking about you OP.

I fully expected MM to contact you. He is trying to ease his guilt. Don't engage with him. I know how hard it is but he has made his choice. He knows you and your H have separated, that would be his opportunity to be with you but he has chosen his wife.

(((Hugs)))

[tessa6]

Well done for not replying. I am so so impressed with you.

[DoYouEverFeelLikeAPlasticBag]

Well done OP.

Sorry that your relationship with DH seems over, but if you separate this from the MM issue, hopefully you will see that if your DH admitted that he has been unhappy for years, then the marriage would probably have ended one way or another sooner or later. What you did was a symptom of this, you accelerated what would probably have happened anyway. People in happy marriages don't have affairs.

I suggest you focus on looking after yourself in the wake of DH leaving. Forget MM he was just a bit-player in your life and his part is over. He is just feeling sorry for himself and still wants to mess you around - ignore him to deal with his own issues. If you consider your recovery as your priority, then you'll see that contacting him is detrimental to your goal, like picking at a scab that is trying to heal.

Take some time for yourself - do you have any friends to support you? Keep yourself busy, and each day will pass. You will feel better.

xx

[DoYouEverFeelLikeAPlasticBag]

and as for I perhaps will start a more positive thread when i'm feeling a little more deserving. Thanks again everyone.

Everyone deserves to be happy, and you deserve support. You know what you did is wrong and you are sorry. Everyone makes mistakes, it is learning from them that makes us better people.

Here's and to get you started x

[rubberbandgirlme]

I discovered telephone records that showed thousands of texts he'd been sending to the OW over a period of 18 months - it was the first thing I knew that far from 'feeling like he'd won the lottery with me', 'had never been so happy in his life' 'I was the best thing that ever happened to him' 'there could be no other woman for him, but me' he was actually texting this OW even as he told me those lies! It started just one month after we returned from honeymoon! She worked at his office and came to the wedding! I didn't know her, but she wouldn't even look me in the eye - and for ffs you couldn't miss who I was - I was wearing the big FO dress! So despite him swearing on his daughters grave I still don't believe something wasn't going on even before the wedding. Absolutely agree, the problem here was with H - he was the one who had an obligation to me and his promises - but she knew he was a married man - she came to the wedding! For 2 years exH swore they were nothing but 'friends' and nothing had gone on! Huh! I couldn't believe him - if she was such a close friend how come I'd never heard of her? His constant changing stories just didn't add up either - only after he'd 'left me' (came back many times afterwards) for not trusting him and 'looking sad' did he finally confess they'd had sex - so for 2 years I was gaslighted and punished for being so unkind to him!?! My head was wrecked (still is tbh). I contacted OW with 1 phone call on the night I found telephone records (called her a f-ing whore - undignified I know, but hey! why should I have been the only one behaving to script - and being the, above all, quiet suffering victim) and then I sent her two texts (after he finally fessed up to it being more than a 'few flirty texts') asking her to please tell me the truth. There were only two people in that whole sordid episode who knew what had happened and the one who should have been telling me what had been going on had been lying to my face forever! He drip fed what he would decide the story was this week / day / hour / minute and I was constantly being 'ambushed' by new revelations! He admitted he pursued her and he told me he did it to 'teach her a lesson'!!!!! I was given no room to recover from having the ground pulled out from under my life and I NEEDED to know what the bloody truth was! For the poster who said a while back that the OP should threaten this wife with prosecution for harrassment! - what legal address can the wife take against the two people who knowingly set out to ruin her life??? A few angry texts, if that's actually what they were - and not a plea for the truth - is NOTHING compared. I know this OP has suffered now, and I am sorry for her, she is at least remorseful about her part in this clusterfuck (and believe me, I totally appreciate how relentless my exh can be when he has set his sights on someone/something he wants - and it sounds like the OP met someone very, very like my exh) - but I really feel I need to stick up for this poor wife who is 'harrassing' the OW - my personal experience is this is a bloody nightmare no one would ever, ever want to go through and if she was married to a man like my exH he'll never have told her the truth, fessed up, or been truly remorseful for the pain he had caused her. I never lost sight of the fact that my exH was the biggest st, with at least 75% of the responsibility - but the OW is also responsible for allowing herself to behave the way she did. I'm 50 and, in my single years, had lots of 'love affairs' but I'm proud to say I never, ever had anything to do with a married man - that was my moral choice - and even if not as noble as that, how can you ignore the truth of 'marry a man who cheated on his wife and you've married a man who'll cheat on his wife!'

Sorry that was such a rant - apologies - just connecting to my long-suppressed anger there! :-D OP - I agree with everyone who advises you that we all make mistakes (of course that's true), and it is terrific (really) that you have shown remorse for the impact on your H and the MM's wife - it shows you have a soul and probably got caught up with something you might have thought was 'harmless' and 'controllable' at the beginning. You don't sound like someone who thought they'd just do what they wanted to do and 'who gives a fk who gets hurt while you get it' - but you must (and not just for the sake of the MM's W) NEVER contact the MM again (and make sure you're not 'open' to any contact he might make. Would you really like to hear he'd been telling his wife that 'he never liked you anyway', 'thought you thought too much of yourself' and 'wanted to teach you a lesson'? Because this is what I heard about the OW from my exH - another 'truth' he swore on his daughter's grave about.


Sorry - rant mode again!!!!

Love and peace to all (now where are my tranquillisers????) :-D

[tawse57]

I believe that life is a series of lessons and that we all come here to learn life lessons. You are learning many now.

I don't have much more to offer than the other excellent advice that others have given... but I do wish to say this.

You have made a big mistake but, hey, you aren't the first human to do this and you sure as heck won't be the last.

We all make mistakes and do things wrong that we regret - it is part of being a human being. If you did not make mistakes you would be some kind of saint or supreme being. You ain't - you're human and you sometimes get things wrong.

But what you can change is how you live your life going forward. It won't be easy but you can move forward and live a better, happier life.

[fuckedmylifeup]

Quick update - I have found somewhere to live and am currently going through the awful stages of packing away my life and watching dh disappear from it. Still not sleeping much at all. I am feeling less burdened and the guilt is easing somewhat.

One issue at the moment is that after his dramatic 'farewell' message, MM is still contacting me. He is still working on his marriage but says he is worried about me and wants to know how I am/what i'm doing. I know I should tell him where to go but while I am mourning dh it feels weirdly comforting and I'm ashamed to say that I have been responding. What a mess.

[Missbopeep]

Change your phone number or block his calls. He doesn't want you. It's an ego trip for him to try to comfort you when you are down. If he wanted you he'd leave his marriage. FGS fess up a bit and stop feeling sorry for yourself.

[fuckedmylifeup]

Sorry Missbo. I know you are right. These things take time - I was with dh for 15 years. I'm trying.

[Putitonthelist]

OP you are doing really well. I understand how difficult it is to cut contact but you are prolonging the agony - don't let him do this to you. He is doing it out of guilt and for his own ego.

Right now if he told you he was leaving his wife I know you would welcome him with open arms. In time when your head is clearer and you can reflect on what kind of man he actually is you will not want him anymore. He is still showing complete disrespect to his wife. This is the woman he committed to, who he wants to stay with, yet he is still showing her such disrespect. Sorry OP but you could never trust this man, he is not where your future happiness lies. Please delete and block. ((Hugs)) to you.

[Missbopeep]

But you aren't posting about how you miss your DH are you, even though you had 15 yrs with him.? You are posting about how you miss OM.
OM is there - in your head- to fill a gap. he's playing with your mind. If he really cared he'd back off and not torture you. He's contacting you with some misplaced sense of guilt at how you are now facing life alone when he's all cosy with his wife. You need to tell him to stop. It's not helping you to have this contact. You are prolonging the pain no matter how good it may feel to have contact at the moment when you are lonely.

[Putitonthelist]

Totally agree Miss

You need to take control OP. You cannot control what the MM does but you can take control by blocking him from your life. You know I've been there. I'm now 3 months no contact after faffing about for months. The constant contact set me back time and time again I woke up, smelt the coffee and said NO MORE!! I feel strong, empowered and even walked past him the other day and felt nothing!

I promise you will get through this but continuing contact is opening a healing wound again, please don't do it.

[fuckedmylifeup]

Thanks for these lightbulb moment messages. I won't be responding to any future contact - I know he is messing with my head and that he had made his choice and that is wasn't me. I have long since deleted his number/blocked him but this is from a different number.

Please don't think I am not missing my dh, I'm crying noon till night at what I've lost through my sheer stupidity and the gravity of having to start all over again. You are right MM is just filling a gap in my head.

I'm sorry that I sound so sorry for myself, I know - i'm sick of myself! I'm desperately trying to get the strength to move forward - it is just so hard and the future looks bleak from where I stand. The strong inner me who would be telling me to pull myself together isn't there any more when I reach for the strength. I am honestly really trying.