When the Other Woman Won't Leave You Alone

When my husband ended his affair, one thing that really ticked me off was the stream of email and Facebook messages form his now ex other woman. All I wanted was to be left alone, but she wasn’t having any of that!

When I’d told my husband I’d had enough and that he should be with her  if that is where he wanted to be, I sent her a message telling her the same. I was so sick of the whole thing!

Turns out, after I told him that I was at the end of my rope, but I was giving him one last chance, he decided he wanted to stay. To this day, I’m not sure what changed his mind.

We had our appointment with our counsellor that evening, and when we got home, he emailed her a “goodbye” message. She’d sent me something that said the affair wasn’t her fault, that it was mine, that if I'd been a better wife, he wouldn't have needed to turn to her, and that she thought I must hate her.

I sent her a very short message saying that I didn’t hate her, I just wanted her to leave us alone. I also told her that I hoped she’s learned from the affair and that she’d find a single guy and have a happy life.

Then I got another message from her that said I was wonderful, she would pray for us (?) and that she wanted to be my friend and that I should email her if I ever had any problems and wanted to talk.
To this day, i still don’t know what the heck that was all about!In what possible version of reality would I have wanted to do that?

After that, the barrage started. Lots of messages and emails, calls, etc. She said she hated me, said she thought I was great, said that she was so hurt and it was all my fault said she wanted to harm herself and it was all because of me.At first, I thought she was serious and I felt bad for her, but the harm she said she was going to cause to herself never came, She kept sending these messages.

When that didn't work, she started sending my husband anonymous messages trying to convince him that I was cheating on him. He was away on deployment to the middle east at the time. He didn't believe her, but it still upset him that she was not letting things go ( he knew they were from her, as she sent them from a work computer, and it showed who's account they came from).

What a load of bunk! I think she was just mad that I stood up to her and she didn’t reduce me to begging her to leave us alone. I think she would have liked that!

what the @%^& what she thinking?

Since she and my husband worked together, and since we live in a small town, I heard lots about her from different people, most of whom don't know anything about the affair. Turns out, she has been in many affairs since, has lost her job and is now pregnant and unmarried by a married guy.

I had hoped she’d learn and not continue to go through life like some sort of human wrecking ball.
boy was I wrong ! She just kept right on going, blaming everyone else for her actions as she went.

Funny thing is that when I'd hear these stories, I'd just listen and pretend to be shocked at how someone could act like that, when , on the inside, I knew all along what she was capable of.

Get Legal Advice ASAP.

I’m a firm believer that getting legal help and advice is one of the most important things you can do if you find out your spouse has cheated.

This doesn’t mean you’re headed for divorce, but rather that you are gathering all the facts that you need to make an informed decision. This is so important, especially if you have children.
The more information that you have, the more confident you’ll be in the choices you make. This is really important, especially if you are a betrayed husband. Some betrayed husband’s choose to stay because they feel they have no other choice. If they leave, they may worry about finances, what will happen to their children and any number of other things. Seeing a lawyer can help put your mind at ease.

If you decide to stay, it should  be because you want to, not because you are too scared to leave.

Legal help can make all the difference in the world.

If your spouse is “waffling” don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself and tell them that you saw a lawyer about divorce. That can often show them just how serious the whole situation is. For some wayward spouses, their heads are so high up in the clouds ( or so high up somewhere else) that they don't see the situation for what it is. Seeing a lawyer is not a manipulative tactic, rather, it's a way of protecting yourself and letting them know you are not afraid to do so.

It’s not a game, it’s reality…

It's Been Five Years...

September is here, which makes it five years since  my husband ended his affair…

While things may not always be roses and sunshine, in many ways, they are so much better, even better than they were before his affair. We’ve both worked on ourselves and have grown so much…I guess that’s the lemonade I made when life handed me a huge pile of lemons…

Of course I still think about the affair sometimes, but now it’s as something in the past, sometimes we even joke about it. For example, his ex other woman is kind of , well, a nut bar, and I was teasing him the other day about how he dodged a bullet by not staying with her…

Being able to kid each other about it is a sure sign we’ve really moved on…

Someone once asked me if I forgave him for the affair…I have. Forgiving is not the same as forgetting. I forgave him, but don’t forget and that makes me value what we have so much more. I know how fragile relationships can become, so it’s very important to “tend and water” them carefully.
Some have told me I need to forgive his ex other woman in order to “heal”…that is something I have never really understood at all. Some people feel a need to do so, and that’s fine for them. If it works, don’t knock it. For me, it is irrelevant. I’m not raging at her, I’m not even a little bit angry…the truth is that I don’t care enough to forgive her. She is irrelevant to my life.

It feels really great to say that. She was an other woman who couldn’t handle his rejection, and she lashed out at me and my children. She did so much to try and make us miserable, but through it all, I never gave her the satisfaction of knowing she got to me.

She is a serial other woman, and is likely with another married man now, which is sad. Of course, she has convinced herself that somehow she is better than any man’s wife, but really, all she is is an easy “roll in he hay”…I pity her for that, as no woman should feel the need to reduce herself to that low point in her life. She could do so much better, but she doesn’t want to. Makes me think of a pig in muck…content, maybe because she doesn’t know any better.

Ah well, as long as my husband and I are happy, in the long run, it doesn’t matter 

Looking for Your Input

Up until now,  I've been talking about my life, experiences and opinions, but I'd like to hear from you.

Here's some questions for you:

online poll by Opinion Stage

online poll by Opinion Stage




 

online poll by Opinion Stage

Your answers will be anonymous, but I will share the results.Feel free to include any thing you'd like to share about your answers in the "comments' section for this post.

 

 

Affair Boosters?

During the affair, did your spouse have a small group of friends who thought that everything they were doing was just fine?

Did he or she make new ones, and stop spending time with those people who would not be supportive of their affair relationship?

Mine sure did.

During the time he was cheating, he began to distance himself from his friends and even his family who he knew would not support the affair. It’s understandable. After all, knowing how they felt, how could he look them in the face while he was cheating on his wife?

He made new friends, and one thing that really struck me at the time was that these people really were jerks! I couldn’t understand what he saw in them. They cheated on their wives regularly, and bragged abut it to one another. I think that, in them, he saw two people who he thought would understand him and not look down on him. He felt guilty enough himself without having it rubbed in his face by those he felt were “judging” him.

These two would give him advice on how to keep the affair a secret from me,  how to spend time with her without me being suspicious, and even on how to make me feel guilty for asking questions ( this is called “gas lighting’” which will be the topic of another post)…

The more they encouraged him, the less he saw that what he was doing was wrong.

With friends like that, who needs enemies?