After 14 years together I discovered my (now long ago) ex- son of DS who was three, was having an affair with the woman across the road who I thought was my friend. Turned out she was not my friend but had been using the "friendship" as a way to engineer seeing him. And she was pregnant- I was struggling to get pregnant with our second child. Hardly surprising when he was having sex with her not me!
I went loopy, at the moment I found out-from her- he was walking in the front door. I rammed the door shut, bolted it and I chucked everything of his I could grab out of an upstairs window onto his head. I can remember standing with his AppleMac Classic (it was 16 years ago) on the windowsill and him pleading with me not to throw it out and me willing myself to do so. I held back on that, but I turned to his chest of drawers and found porn in the bottom drawer and returned to the window where he was standing miserably picking up pants and socks from the garden. He looked up and said "please don't, not in front of the neighbours" to which I yelled- "lets see what the neighbours think about this then" and proceed to tear the pages from the porn mags and chuck them out at him. It was 3:30 in the afternoon and daylight and children and parents were walking down the road- I did not see them or care, children exclaimed "why are there pictures of ladies bottoms in that garden?" He stood desperately trying to gather it all up.
Some weeks later on, when I was having all his stuff shipped out of the house, I bought four tiger prawns and wrapped them in gaffer tape and nailed them in the far back inside of the chest of drawers he was taking. (I had heard of the curtain pole story and thought I would trump it), I glued the remainder of the porn mags into the drawers of said chest with super glue as drawer liners, glued his precious vinyl records into their sleeves and sent it all off to him. Her ex husband later told me that after three months their (my ex and his ex's) bedroom stank and they finally discovered the prawns. I never of course got to see or hear about this from the ex himself.
The whole thing devastated me for a long time and my anger scared me. Like the pp who says that she was grateful for gun laws in the UK I am now also grateful (although I would be out of prison by now if I had done it!). I declared myself in favour of Sharia law and stoning for adultery and (in hindsight) was a tad unhinged. It is refreshing to know that I am not the only one. It look years to properly recover, 6 months to get somewhere near being able to function properly and 5 years to put the weight I lost back on.
I saw her the other day in Tesco's, I still wanted to punch her lights out. I was with my step grand-daughter and so I waltzed sweetly around the store being careful to avoid any isle that the old bitch was in and gloated that I have aged better than her!
It's odd, I feel detachment from the ex, no feelings at all for him. We have managed to bring up a son 50/50 who is lovely, balanced and successful and now 20 but her- I still thank the gun laws.
It will get better- it will and you dont have to act on the mad impulses that you will have with alarming frequency. Find ways of calming yourself not fuelign yourself- that was my mistake then. I did not know how to self soothe, It is a skill I have had to learn through the following years and I recommend warm baths, Bob Marley, Basement Jaxx, Beyonce, wine, friends, holidays and locking your phone and facebook into a safe for the duration.
My heart goes out to anyone facing heartbreak like this at this time of year. Stay well and keep passing the open windows. 