No longer blindsided by H

[Gingerloaf]

This is a second thread - first one was ‘blindsided by H’

A couple of weeks has passed since that thread ended and suffice to say the shit show is a gift that keeps on giving.

An attempt was made at face to face discussions about ‘us’ and there were tentative noises from H although his concern for how OW would take his leaving her seemed to occupy his mind rather more than it should.

A period of time to reflect and H has decided he is required to look after his mental health - it’s somewhat bizarre that the perpetrator decides that he is the victim and must be protected at all costs. So I readily agreed to some non contact ( more for myself than him) it took less than 2 weeks for the next contact to be made.
Once again the me, me, me dialogue was started. There was also a completely useless email but hey, we have to show we are ‘reasonable’ even if all other behaviours are that of a small child.

Plenty of things afoot for me - busy calendar ahead.
What has been pleasing is the righteous anger of other woman in my age range who are now seeing this pattern play out in so many long term relationships. This is now taking the form of politely confronting OW and asking WTAF was she thinking??
Reputations are being bruised shall we say - and frankly they have both had a very polite and easy run of it up until now.
There is a lot of evidence that the relationship is strained but that was always predicted and very sad considering this little diversion has cost us a relationship of almost 40 years.

So no reconciliation, not even a whiff of ‘I am sorry’ and certainly no adult / reasonable discussions.

Looking forward to hearing from
@Goldcushions2
@MillyCentTap
@shamedbysiri
@Diarygirlqueen
@Acrossthepond55
@Fannyfiggs

I have noticed an awful lot of tarot card reading reels on FB - apparently he’s coming in with a communication and a desire to reconnect ( according to the spirits) Time will tell! Who says FB is not listening to us??

It’s breathtaking and pathetic in one fell swoop.

Indeed. "O wad some Pow'r the giftie gie us, To see oursels as ithers see us!"

Never underestimate how galling living and looking well is to the cheater.
Despite your decades together, he would much rather you fall apart and look haggard.
People are simplistic and visual, and irrespective of words spoken and what they have heard, the image of you looking better than you ever have really is a weapon and an excellent distraction to focus on.
If you were to fall apart and sink into a funk, that would suit him just fine, in his mind a back up plan if his new situation goes to shit.
However, you doing a make over on yourself implies that you might well be back out looking for a replacement yourself.
THAT will not suit his narrative.
Nor will people telling him, Gingerloaf is looking AMAZING.....the implication being...Ginger looks so much better now you are gone...why is that?🤔
You can hardly be suffering, if you are looking so well.....like I say people can be simple beings!

My friends brother had an affair with a colleague and it was a shock when it came out, he was unexpectedly seen when he was supposedto be on a businesstrip. He definitely didn't want to, nor expected it to come out.
It was a fling, not a serious thing apparently🙄, like that makes it better somehow🙄.

He had two teens at the time. His wife was stunned,
and asked him to leave temporarily which he did and went to his parents.
In literally the space of a month a spectacular make over was done by her. She initially started it because of shock, humiliation and fear that he had strayed.

But the more time she spent on herself and the better she felt, the crosser she got with him.
He really wanted to come home, from staying with his seriously unimpressed parents, but she went from desperately wanting him home to deciding that actually she was enjoying the space.
She had initially totally blamed herself.

However, the more she focused on herself and the better she looked, the angrier she got with him.

A month later she told him that it was over and that she didn't want him back and wanted a divorce.
HE was now the one stunned.
3 years on and she has never looked better, he seriously regrets his actions, but my friend has zero sympathy for her brother.

She told my friend she would NEVER have instigated a divorce in a million years, not least because of the children.

But when HE messed up, she suddenly realised she had an out without being the baddie, and while she was initially terrified she suddenly realised that she would survive this. Investing in how she looked distracted her from the shock, pain and mortification of it all.

She is not in a relationship but focused on herself professionally, and a huge promotion has doubled her salary and she is really enjoying that.
She recently bought a gorgoeous second hand BMW 2 door, now that her children are at university and honestly she is loving life and her new toy!

Her husband admitted to his sister that everytime he is told how fabulous and successful she is, how marvellous she looks, it is a knife in his side, and he feels like people are actually saying how stupid were you!

Also a shared history is a very special thing. As time goes on, and they live their small lives together, I wonder how much will they actually have to talk about, particularly if his circle is keeping him at a distance.
Familiarity is a great big blanket of warmth and comfort as we age.
As time goes on, it would be very strange if he didn't really miss it.

I hope you distract yourself by planning a wonderful Christmas holiday with family, friends and your children, with lovely photos!

You really are doing so well, one day at a time.

@Gingerloaf I can’t sit easily with the ‘she owes you nothing’ train of thought either.
On cheating threads on MN, if the betrayed wife says anything remotely negative about the OW, she often gets a stream of comments like this:
“Why blame her? It’s your husband that cheated.”
”She’s not to blame, your husband is”
“Save your anger for your husband, she’s done nothing to you.”
I can’t agree with stuff like this.
If OW know the man is married and deceiving and gaslighting his wife to be with them, let alone if he has children, they are in it up to (at least unfortunately) their armpits as far as I’m concerned.
They know that what they are doing would and will hurt you if you find out. They know exactly what they are doing, know how they would feel if it happened to them and would no doubt admit that cheating is morally wrong. Yet they carry on driving a wedge into the marriage to prise it apart as long as they get what they want. This isn’t abdicating responsibility for the affair from husbands, they are responsible for starting it and are not helpless seduced victims, they choose to do what they do, but boy, OW know exactly how to help them and drive it along.
Many OW say they feel guilty for what they are doing or have done. Here’s where the ‘owe you nothing’ falls apart.
Nobody feels guilty if they’ve done nothing wrong. If they feel guilty about how the wife got hurt, surely therefore they feel they have responsibility in part and should therefore apologise at the very least?
So logically if you feel you’ve got something to apologise for to somebody for, you do owe them something?
Husbands are to blame for having the affair, absolutely, but OW are willing accomplices to the deceiving and manipulating and secret keeping and know that. You’d have to be pretty hard-nosed not to feel guilty about doing that to somebody. Guilt means you think you’re doing wrong, doing wrong to somebody means you owe them at the very least, an apology.
Personally I’d tell my husband’s OW to stick any apology up her gym-honed-gravity-defying arse, but thankfully I’m not holding my breath.

I agree with @Thewookiemustgo… in this case, the Budgie is complicit. She is equally responsible for the pain she caused Gingerloaf and her kids. Though adults, they would still feel his betrayal deeply also. Women who deliberately target married men are a special kind of devious. The Budgie knew he was married. She was introduced to Gingerloaf by STBXH and decided to shag him anyway. Grotesque.

The OW definitely does not feel guilty if she knows about the wife. They feel triumph if they get the man away. It’s a competition to them. I was the wife with several OW in the picture and I know exactly what they thought of me. The contempt was astonishing since I’d only met the one he brought to the house for a ‘meeting’ and he had me making coffee for her. Part of his game. The others believed he was the catch and wanted my life. Once I found out, I thought they were welcome to my life because my life was with a man who had 3 steady gfs and was still on several dating sites , picking up more contenders for the harem. Those OW deserved my life more than I did. He lied every day, from day one. He already had two gfs when I met him. I just believed his meetings were business meetings.

Anyway, she thinks she has won. I have no doubt, but in fact, you won. I know it doesn’t feel like it now but she lost. She got someone who wasn’t worthy of you. You have won the chance to have a better life. Revenge is a dish best served cold and yours will be sweet. You blossom while she shrivels and he…sees you eventually and realises even more than he already has, that he threw away a diamond to pick up a piece of gravel.

So much of that resonates with my ex and the OW @DearDenimEagle . She was very obviously angry that I was there, in my own home, when she was here with her eventually to be won prize, angry that I was stopping him being with her (I really, really wasn't), angry that I left a pile of paperwork on a table that she needed to rifle through (they want our lives indeed), angry that he wasn't committing to her. She has him now, she's won her prize, she'll be living what was my life. I would pity her, another abused woman is never a good thing but nor is fucking another woman's husband so I struggle to find it in myself to give a fuck. The only thing in her defence, not that she deserves it, is that she believed his lies. He is very believable when he speaks.

he threw away a diamond to pick up a piece of gravel

👏🐥👏

It is so telling that so many of us have blossomed/flourished/grown/every positive word in the dictionary not having those men and their presence in our lives. Our brains are allowed the space to think of us again.

Thank you so much - dare u say we realise that our Hs may indeed hold us back. That once liberated from thinking how our money should be used to benefit the family that when it is only for us then a manicure, a new outfit is no longer pushed down the to do list

The message is clear - don’t disappear inside your own marriage. Enough if putting everyone first

I think many, many women are held back, kept down, make little of themselves, think little of themselves in their relationships.
Often they are too busy bending themselves out of shape to be everything to everybody in their lives, work, children, husbands, parents and friends.

A marital breakdown and the rising from the ashes of a marriage can very often be a really new dawn for them.
Surprisingly so.

No, not every single woman is happier eventually but definitely in my long life, I have yet to meet a single woman, 5 years later, that would revert back to that old way of life, even though they weren't the initiator of the split.

I think that is very telling.

I have yet to meet a single woman, 5 years later, that would revert back to that old way of life

Apparently single women without dependent children are the happiest demographic.

They live longer, too.
Married men live longer than single men
Single women live longer than married women

Says a lot about marriage, doesn’t it?

Disclaimer..yes there are exceptions but I read on average that it the case

@MillyCentTap It’s not good to think of another abused woman, but I’m bitchy enough not to pity successors if they deliberately competed with the wife.

Mine certainly lied very well, and many of his pick ups were lied to. So were the others at first but once he had them hooked, he’d let slip stuff that told them he was married and then was open about sneaking around. To begin with, I was an ex who still lived in the house because I’d nowhere to go and he wouldn’t throw me out. Easy enough to say when the house has 6 bedrooms and 4 bathrooms and several sitting rooms…even 2 kitchens. I hope whoever is cleaning it now thinks it was worth it lol

This is me. I've been single for 11 years after an absolutely horrific divorce involving a malignant OW. I would never go back. I don't like men and I wouldn't subject to my young teen to anybody either. Quite happy on my own.

Oh Gingerloaf, I'm glad I fell upon your 2nd thread.
Well done for keeping your chin up. You are managing this the shit storm with geniusl.
I can only dream of his downfall, but honestly, he will probably stick with BB, as the alternative is crushingly embarrassing. proving himself to be middle aged cliché.
I can only imagine the chagrin of DC meeting up with their father at NY.
.....Partly duty, partly curiosity, partly love. partly habit.
I hope they are intuitive enough to recognize any manipulation & fabulation he comes out with.

This warrants a repost as opposed to a click on the thanks button.

And this bit needs a massive poster on a billboard.

don’t disappear inside your own marriage

This thread should be stickied. It could help so many women who have doubts or are worried about being alone or whatever, it and you lovely posters really are an inspiration and a source of strength.

I think that's a good thing to remember for ALL women in relationships, even happy ones. We need to honour our own 'selves'.

What brings this to bear for me is the number of happily married/partnered women who say that if they should become single again (no matter what the cause) they would never marry nor cohabit again. And I'm one of them!

DH and I have been together 35+ years and have both kept our own 'selves' and interests. But I do think that overall I've probably 'given in' more times than he has and he'd acknowledge that. When either of us have given in, it's with full knowledge on both our parts. So even though I haven't disappeared inside my marriage, if I should lose him I will be happily on my own for the rest of my life.

Absolutely agree about disappearing inside your own marriage, it’s a superb point and very well described.
Another point that I said myself at the time was from @DearDenimEagle “she wanted my life”. My husband’s OW definitely wanted my life. The restaurants and five star hotels he took her to (although checking in at lunchtime and checking out at 3pm sounds unutterably grim and obvious as to what was going on to the reception staff. Bet they see it all the time.🙄) had made her think that a mid fifties married man with two kids was a fine catch indeed and the sooner me and our (at the time) teenage children were out of the picture she could have our holidays, our house etc etc. He spent a fucking fortune on the affair and I think she thought we lived like that every day. Fantasy Island. 🙄
I think she was jealous of me and hated that he came home to me every day. She only got one night with him and that was how I found out. She knew we slept together in the same bed as he didn’t lie about that and apparently often mentioned it presumably to fish for compliments and reassurances. From a proven liar! 😂
He absolutely threw away a diamond for a piece of gravel @Gingerloaf because you sound amazing. Never forget that.

My ex liked to spend (my) money on impressing the OW too @Thewookiemustgo but she had to slum it in the Premier Inn 😄

@MillyCentTap I wish my husband’s had. 🙄😂 Doesn’t matter where they drop their knickers though to be fair. It’s all as absolutely grim as ….. To be honest the better the hotel the more of a gold digger I’d feel. You can still be seedy in a five star hotel.

Mine picked women who were generally financially vulnerable. Only one was not, and she was married. He took her on short day trips abroad after making excuses why I shouldn’t go. The others were skint. One was a nurse , the most regular one, the nearest, worked as a hotel manager when they met. So he sometimes went to the hotel, but more often they met up in supermarket car parks and on industrial estates, where he would hand over a few hundred quid and she’d perform in the car…often MY car, because it was a sports car so he was showing off. Not enough to go to a hotel though 😂 He took that one abroad for a week . Thought I didn’t know but I scuppered his next planned holiday. The nurse got some money and shags in the cars in lay-bys. When they saw the house and the electric gates etc they thought they’d a ticket to heaven. They thought we had a life of luxury. He had short arms and deep pockets and the only reason I didn’t leave sooner was because he’d spent my house money and I wanted it back first. They only saw the nice him. He was abusive, enraged by the slightest thing.

Me too - I'm 6 years out from being married to an alcoholic who, as it turned out, was emotionally abusing our DC. Mine died and there was no OW, only the booze, but honestly single with cats is bloody brilliant.

There's a pull in point at the top of our village. It's a sight seeing spot below are rolling hills and a view of the sea.

The times I passed there over the years seeing two cars, one empty and one steamed up at lunchtime.

I used to think do these women think so little of themselves that they'd be bonking in a car in the middle of the day.

That's for kids for a bit of fooling around at night, not adults. It's all so sordid.

When one of my daughters discovered her ex's cheating her ex's partner colluded in the deception. My DD sent her a text asking where her self respect was to cover up their affair.
She moved
Currently my DD is pregnant with her second child and happy. Her new partner adores her.

Alcohol can be as much of an 'OW' in a marriage as an actual OW is. The alcoholic puts the bottle before his family, just like an OW. They lie about it and spend money on it, just like an OW. They hide it, just like an OW. You beg and plead with them to 'leave' the bottle, just like an OW.

Not much difference between the two to my way of thinking

May I just interject here, that ' toying' with a person with whom you are no longer even remotely involved emotionally, is kind of evil but really fun. May that day come for you sooner than you know.

I ditched H and acquired 2 cats (female ones). I love it.

I am going to be very unpopular now BUT!

Imagining all sorts of things for the cheaters is indeed very satisfying and delicious.

However, it is akin to having desert before the meal.

We eat your meal first because that is where the nutrition is.

So @Gingerloaf , this translated from my clumsy mind means that the hard, strong, lonely work of repairing the damage done to you by two awful people, needs to be done for you and you alone. Not in consideration of them but in spite of them.

It is very hard to pull away from the daily hope that they will get comeuppence. It is very hard not to make decisions without considering the (hopefully negative) impact on them. In short, it is very hard to truly walk away.

But, that is actually where you heal. That is where you will get your nutrition. That is where you will create really solid emotional foundations for your new furture.

They (the ex +1 ) need dialing down, hard as it is.

You need dialing up and not just in defiance but as nurtrued woman, with the emotional strength and intelligence to leave them to it, come what may.

I really hope the tone of my writing comes across the same way as the tone in my head. I mean to be supportive, not lecturing or criticizing.