An old deep scar torn open...

[inneedofguidance]

About 2 1/2 yrs ago our relationship suffered a very low moment which stretched it to braking. We recovered it, but it left me badly scarred. I put it behind me as I could rationalise what happened despite it crossing a personal line in the sand. It helped that there were no real reminders or anything that meant it needed to come out again.

Come forward to today. Flicking through the papers & the individual responsible for that low moment appears. Appears for the same reason for the low moment. I now feel like the whole episode has been raked up again & reopened. I know it's affecting my behavior & demeanour. I know my OH will realise something is wrong. But if I discuss it with them it will reopen things for both of us that are best left closed.

Really not sure what to do about it or how I feel.

I'm scant on details I know. But as the issue has been in most of the national press things would be too traceable.

It sounds as if nothing was really resolved in your own relationship problem - to use your scar analogy, no healing went on under the skin, the wound was badly closed and the scar tissue is fragile.

I think it should be possible for you to say 'this has reminded me of our situation and, whilst that's all behind us now, today it makes me sad' and have that understood by the other party. The fact that you can't may be because it hasn't been dealt with, just pushed under the surface. You hoped it wouldn't come back - but it always does.

You need to decide what you want to do. Bring it up and reopen the wound, maybe spend the time cleaning it out properly so it can heal correctly this time, or try and cover it up. Can you try and get away for a bit so at least you don't have to put on an act?

It's difficult to know what to say without knowing more about your situation but it doesn't sound as if your problems with go away until you've addressed them.

It sounds as though you've only papered over the cracks of your relationship problem.

I guess also I don't really know what I want to close this properly. Things can never be undone.

No, things can't be undone. And a result, things cannot go back to the way they were before. It seems like maybe that's what you've both been trying to achieve? It's not possible.

But you can work through what happened, together, and come out the other side of it. It won't be easy but then neither is feeling as you do now.

The more I think about this, not always a good thing to overthink I know, I realise that what I wanted all along is to have as much damaged reeked on that individual as they caused me, much as revenge is not to be recommended. I now know their career is over, their marriage is destroyed & their reputation shredded for what they did. Maybe this is the result I should take. I can't undo it, but I can take satisfaction that what I hoped would happen has.

If anything it sounds like you've been under thinking this for some time. However, I wouldn't try to pin too much on this person having now got their comeuppance - unscrupulous people have a remarkable tendency to bounce back. And as is often said on MN threads about infidelity (not that that is necessarily what you're hinting at) the person you should be angry with is the person you're married to, not the third party.

Sometimes all you have to do is sit back and wait for Karma to happen!