Bitter and can't move on

[minipinmad]

Hi, I have used this site to look things up before but have never posted until now.

My H had an affair with my best friend 4/5 years ago. I had just been diagnosed with PCOS, my grandfather died and within mnths my grandmother (the best woman in my world) died. I started Infertlilty drugs (with Mood effecting side effects) and within mnths my H says he just wants to have kids the "normal" way and that this way is too "difficult". (I wasn't asking him to take the drugs and do the blood tests every mounth) So to say our relationship was strained is an understatement.

Anyway long story short it all came out and after many, many mnths we were able to turn our marriage round and two years ago after IVF we had our DS.

So in my local butchers on Saturday who do I see but the slut friend. We had lived in two different towns which was ok cause I avoided her town since the affair but here she was in my home town. Turns out H knew she had moved to a village outside our town with her partner now husband.

It has dragged up all the history I had buried and it turns out I am still very bitter and haven't moved on. I still felt anger and pure hatred toward her. She looked fab and happy. In my head over the years I have wished her dull and very unhappy. I know that makes me a horrible person but at least I'm honest.

So how do I move on, what do I do if I start to see her around town more, I mean she was smiling down the counter at me, before I realised who it was, as if we were long lost friends about to catch up and talk about the old times. Should I be at that stage, I mean I have been able to build a live with H after his part in it all.

What do I do? I'm back to hating H over it all like I was at the begining.

LOST

What I read from you is that there are still some aspects about the affair that you are especially bitter about - and I can relate to what you're saying. At a time when you were doubly-bereaved and had health and fertility issues, the two people who knew precisely what you were going through and who should have been your strongest advocates, instead betrayed you and caused more hurt. That's a hell of a lot to forgive and get past.

I also think you still feel bitter about your H's reaction to the infertility treatment and I note that he knew she had moved and you've registered that, no doubt resurrecting worries that there was contact between them in recent years.

Some of your feelings might come down to how you and your H rebuilt in the wake of the affair. Did you really get to the bottom of it all and do you feel that your relationship is now affair-proofed? How is your marriage now?

You are perhaps expecting too much of yourself not to still feel badly towards the OW - and seeing her in a shock situation would always have been painful and threatening. I can quite see that the way you have been coping with your feelings towards her is to have imagined her sad and miserable - seeing her looking good and happy must have jolted you out of that comfortable denial. However, things are not always as they seem.

On the good side, she might have learned from this experience and resolved never to act in this way again. She might have reformed her character and learned to forgive herself.

Or she might still be the same - you just can't tell from appearances. If she's the same, your prophesy that she will have a miserable life will be accurate, but if that's the case, then other women like you are going to be hurt by her and you wouldn't want that, would you?

So I think the way of processing your feelings about her should be - hopefully she looks happy because she has learned from this. She lost a friendship and her self-respect by her behaviour, but she has turned herself around.

Do listen to your inner voices about the things about the affair - and your H - that perhaps still hurt so much. Find a way of getting those out in the open and dealt with.

Our marriage hasn't been too bad since but at times not the best either, although some of that could be down to the strain of the fertility treatment and IVF. At times I wonder did I stay in the relationship because at the time I was at such a low point and the thought of starting over was more than I could cope with.

At other times I can see how I was partly to blame, the fertility drugs I was on where very hard on me and I was very down about losing my gran so I suppose he was looking at the OW who was full of life, fun and was always up and happy and there was me standing beside her dull and drawn.

I take your point about her being happy the other day but I can't look at it that wayI just feel hatred. Do you know it realy gets me that she never ever tried to say sorry, she never made any attempt to contact me and make amends of any type. It was as if what she caused was nothing, I was nothing.

I don't blame you for feeling the way that you do. Your best ''mate'' was shagging your husband? I'd be livid too and if I saw her I would want to slap her.

Hi

For your own benefit you need to work on yourself. Theres a saying by the Buddha:

Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one getting burned.

I am dealing with siuation where H has left to be with OW I know -and who knew our children and exectly what she was doing.

Its anger you feel -that is what you need to deal with. Im working to deal with it by counselling. Others I know use Buddhist teaching and web resources - if you look up stuff by Pema Chodron -she does some really helpful stuff online. She was a wife whose husband left her for another woman and she has helped a lot of people I know.

There is also a good book called the Dance of Anger about anger in women but I find Pema Chodron more helpful

be honest...even if she said she was sorry, would that make you happy. no, it would probably make you want to slap her even more.
please do not make excuses for dh affair because, as you say, you were hard to live with during IVF. did he not want kids, then? you were putting yourself through hell for BOTH of you. for him to get pissed off because you were no fun anymore and she was is despicable.
tell him you are still angry....he may have no idea!

Oh I understand mini. The truly adult, compassionate thing to have done in her shoes would have been to write you a letter and express proper remorse, which would at least give you some closure. I understand why you hate her and perhaps you always will, but the problem with it is if it's destructive to your happiness.

I come back therefore to what you say about your marriage. No you were not partly to blame for an affair at all. You were going through a horrendous time in your life and you were entitled to support from them both, not deceit and betrayal. You were only ever responsible for your marriage and what it had become, but you only had 50% of the responsibility for that at any time. Instead of perhaps taking more of that away from you because you were in a bad place, your H had an affair.

You don't sound very happy in this marriage and perhaps when you were in shock, staying with him seemed like the best solution. Perhaps there was also an element of not letting her "win" too, which often happens.

I ask again - did your H ever really analyse his own behaviour after the affair? Was he truly sorry, to the extent that you feel this could never happen again? Does your marriage bring you happiness?

If you never did resolve all this, it is not surprising that this has unearthed feelings of bitterness and anger.

Tell us what you told your H about the encounter with the OW. Did you talk for long about it and how did he deal with your feelings?

Mini, what a horrible situation. It would be hard enough if you never saw her again so long as you live...but living in the area. Horrible.

How do you think your H already knew she had moved in to a nearby village?

I agree with WWIFN, it does sound like you have not fully resolved your feelings over the affair.

But it does also seem very strange of her to move into your area after what went before. Even if it is 4 or 5 years later. Most people would want to stay away, I'd have thought. Does her H know about the affair do you think?

Thanks for all the replies, I will try to fill in the blanks.

Yes her partner at the time knew about the affair cause I told him. Me and OW became friends and introduced our partners and we did alot as a four. After a couple of yrs her P started to work for the same company as my H. I always found it strange that after they were outted he would still contact my H and be able to have conversations with him. I would of punched his lights out every time I saw him. Even after my H left the company if her P saw him on the road he would contact him. H says that is how he know where they moved to.

Yes a heart felt letter would of atleast acknowledged what she had done was wrong.

As soon as I found out I moved out, and yes after a few days my H was very sorry and begged for forgivness. Eventully I moved back in but after a few mnths was affraid I had made a mistake and told my H I couldn't live with it and wanted out. Again he was very sorry and begged me to stay. I did.

When I told him I had seen her on Saturday he didn't know what to say, and at the moment he is kinda sulking with me for not as he says "snapping out of it".

'after a few days' he said sorry...a few days???
never mind a few days, he should have been banging on the door asking for forgiveness immediately...what a plank!

Mini, perhaps because your responses are quite short, I get the sense that beyond an apology and an appeal for forgiveness, he hasn't shared much with you about the affair, what it was about him that made him choose infidelity and how he was going to make sure he never made that choice again.

His reaction to your recent encounter with OW is illuminating. He should have held you and urged you to talk about it, but I had a feeling you would say this. It sounds that once you had agreed to try again, he just wanted to resume life as normal, which never ever works with infidelity. It comes back to bite you later on, as you have found.

What about your marriage now and your feelings for him? It's not too late to deal with this you know.

H is a prick and tends to bury his head in the sand in the hope that it will all sort itself out. I think it took him a few days when i first found out to sort out exactly what he wanted.

When they were caught out he did try to play the affair down in time scale and seriousness but the OW was very honest with her P and he told me, when confronted with this he said he wanted to save my feelings so no I never got an explanation for why it started and what his feelings toward me and her where. I do think I need that information but I know he won't want to get into it all again.

When I saw her on Saturday he wanted to give me hugs and he thinks that is enough to make it all go away so when I was still shouting or not talking to him at all at times this is when his sulks start. Funny thing is as upset as I am I'm still the one left to look after DS while he sat out on the patio in the sun, ha.

My DH was just the same...took lots of arguments from me to FINALLY get the lightbulb moment from him. He just thought things would go back to normal, same old same old, afterwards, but I knew it could never be the same.
You HAVE to make him realise that, unless you get a full explanation re this affair, neither of you can move on and you will be stuck in this circle of sulking and recrimination.
Talk to him calmly, if possible, but get to the crux of the matter, do not let him fob you off.

I had a family situation (not an affair) that made me incredibly angry with my two half sisters. Nearly 14 years later I still find myself daydreaming, or rather day-raging, about them and how much I'd like to shout at them/get back at them.

I refuse to see them, haven't seen them for over ten years.

So I can empathise with the inability to drop the anger.

To me, from your posts, it seems like you might feel you made a mistake and should have left him, left them, to stew in it.

For my part I felt my life was too short to have people like that in it. So I got rid of them, and I get rid a of anyone who does anything remotely similar to this point.

mini your use of the present tense speaks volumes. You say your H "is" a prick - and if he thinks that a few hugs and no proper conversation, then sulking is going to help you, I'm inclined to agree with you.

If the OW was more honest with her DP as you say, it could be that's why she appears to be in a better place at the moment - perhaps she told the whole story and they have therefore been able to move on. Whereas for you, you only found out some real truths from her DP. People often claim they are hiding things from a betrayed partner "so as not to hurt" but the main reason they do so, is to minimise their own culpability.

Have you actually asked him since the weekend to sit down and give you the answers you need? Have you discussed your relationship and how it's going in recent times?

Also, have you had any counselling on your own about this?

One of the things you might be awakening to is that what with the bereavements, the PCOS, the fertility treatment, the affair aftermath and then giving birth, you have perhaps suppressed what you truly need from this relationship.

We sat down the other night and had a very honest detailed chat, there where no raised voices and only a few tears and I do feel I got the answers I asking for.

I have never went for counselling and to be honest at some stage I think I should look into it as there are other things I think it would help me with also.

I stayed with my H because he was a huge part of my life and a part I didn't want to be without and for the most part I am happy but lets be honest he is a man and therefor will never be as perfect as me.....