Guilt for not forgiving cheating husband and wanting to move on

[MollyFitz]

So, I caught husband out having cheated back in August (read a text msg to the OW saying 'gosh I miss waking up next to you'.) He wrote that msg while our 6 Yr old DD played lego in front of him. Way before this I saw all the red flags in his behaviour about where this relationship was headed, I warned him, told him we're done if he cheats, tried to spice up our sex life by buying toys etc while he was away (not 2 days later after he knew I was doing this, he slept with her)

What followed was weeks of awful behaviour on his part: emotional blackmail telling me he's going to have nothing and no one, blaming my decision to end our marriage on the trauma of my parents splitting (hadn't left at this point), blamed the OW for taking advantage of him, told me I wasn't going to be able to provide for our daughter, our life would be worse, I was throwing away our marriage and our 26 yrs together, I'd just been waiting the last 10-15 yrs for him to do this so I could walk away, and that everyone deserves a second chance because he'd only made 1 mistake in 26 years.

When he was away for work and after discovering he was on a dating app, I took the coward's way out and got family to collect DD and me. I was an absolute wreak, lost nearly 10kgs, wasn't eating or sleeping, cried all the time, trembled and shook for hours at a time, and actually I'm very ashamed to say wasn't taking care of DDs emotional needs.😞😭😭 I'm so ashamed of that, for letting myself fall apart and break that much I wasn't a decent mum. He I turn, was the model dad and husband, pretending to all that all was great and nothing was amiss. I ran away, from him, the hurt, the lies and, my shattered life. I'm not proud but I felt like I had no choice.

Since then we've only communicated about access for DD, I've not filed for divorce yet and I've been in therapy for at least 6 weeks. He utterly broke me with his infidelity and subsequent behaviour, I was danger close to a breakdown and if family hadn't got us, I'd have had one. The reasonable part of me knows I was absolutely justified for leaving him.... Yet why do I feel so much guilt for wanting to heal, for wanting a new life with minimal contact with him that isn't about our DD? Every msg from him makes me feel awful and I don't understand why😞😞😔

Because he is a cunt!
You did the right thing and possibly the hardest step of all, it wasn't cowardly at all.
You feel bad because of his behaviour and not yours.
Take the strength from your amazing decision and carry it through to completion for both yours and your daughter's life.
Good luck, you've got this. He is not worth your tears.

You are in a period of grief for the relationship you have lost and the life you had. it hits some people very hard indeed as it has with you.

Don't feel guilt. Just take the fucker to cleaners when it comes to the divorce and don’t look back as you will be happy again.

All I got from reading your thread is that you're an incredibly strong woman who put the needs of your child first. You got out of a toxic situation.
Well done on leaving a cheater. Don't feel guilty, he destroyed your family, not you.

Give yourself time, it'll get easier.

Don't let him rewrite history, he not only cheated he actively pursued trying to cheat by joining a dating app.

You are obviously are hurting, but he's not in your side, he's trying to blame you (the script) so he emerges the poor victim.

Leave him to his games, you concentrate on yourself and your DD

You have been through the worst part now. You have nothing to feel guilty about. In fact I don’t even understand why you would feel that way.