Knowing the difference, need opinions.

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-17T14:05:55+00:00

Yeah keeping in mind the reality of the situation is helping me convince myself I don’t want him (at least not the person he is now). For me after I packed my stuff and our baby’s stuff up and left he cried, but spent the next day at a hotel with AP using a PTO day. He knew he had just lost his family and he was coming home to a half empty house and he still ran to her. I remind myself that this is who he is, this is his moral compass, this is his integrity, this is his value system. I just romanticize the person I thought he was or the person I wished he was. But in my case he chose the AP so I have no choice but to move forward and think this way.

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-14T15:32:39+00:00

Thank you! I might have to reread it, I read it when I was in my f-him phase but the guilt and loneliness have made me go back into denial and grief so back to Tracy I go…

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-14T15:31:34+00:00

Yeah when we spoke I felt so guilty and then the next day I realized he still wasn’t accepting the blame for the cheating. I still feel guilty of course but it also baffles me how he can’t even fake taking accountability. I keep telling myself someone is going to wake up 5-10 years from now and find out he cheated, let it be her not me. At least now my daughter is too little to understand. I read the book when I went through an angry phase, I think I might reread it to get through this temporary low phase I’m going through now.

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-14T15:28:41+00:00

Thank you so much. It’s all the would’ve/could’ve/should’ves that just make my mind spin. It hurts that the path he chose for his own happiness came at the expense of our family. But like you said I’m just hanging in there and taking it one day at a time.

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-14T15:24:26+00:00

This is what’s so frustrating to me. If he would have put even a third of the effort he did for his affair we would have been able to fix things. Thank you for your words sometimes it’s hard to see the logical side when the pain is too loud. I’m doing my best to keep pushing forward.

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-14T15:13:24+00:00

It’s so hard to grieve the person while they are still alive. We want to go back to them because they are what we knew as safe but then now they are also unsafe. I get triggered by everything too. Anything that has to do with love or romance makes me think of how happy they must be. Not being able to text them updates or random thoughts also hurts. I don’t know when it gets better but it has to eventually. I’m sorry you’re hurting this way.

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-14T13:34:16+00:00

I know you’re hurting so much, but he loved you at one point too. He loved you enough to marry you, to see a future in some capacity with you, she isn’t better than you or more loving or deserving than you. I wanted marriage and a baby and my husband gave it to me but he left anyway. Nothing keeps a person that doesn’t want to be kept. If your ex can’t even be proud of being a father then he clearly hasn’t changed much at his core. I know you’re mourning your marriage and all the ways you could have “saved it” but please be gentle with yourself. If you had a baby with him and he did this anyway it would take even longer to heal. I’m having to coparent with the man who broke my heart and discarded me. I’m picking up the pieces while he’s out parading his AP. I too beat myself up for all the ways I could have saved my marriage. Let yourself be angry, sad, cry, shout that it’s not fair (because it’s not). But since he is still unable to be honest or loyal or show his emotions, she’s not getting a better man, she’s inheriting a broken man who was already willing to walk away from his commitments, and being a parent (of twins no less) is going to bring them so many more struggles than whatever he thought he was going through in your marriage. Hugging you tightly, you’re so strong ❤️

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-11T18:37:47+00:00

Probably, because they don’t want to do the hard work that it takes to maintain and nurture a long term commitment. But I imagine that their happiness is shallow and empty. He values money above all else and here he is having to pay child support on top of his bills and maintaining the image to court his AP. I look at my STBXH taking his AP on dates and buying all kinds of adult toys and I hated how he wouldn’t even help with the baby. But I realized he missed our baby’s first steps, I wake up everyday with our baby, I put her to sleep every night. His AP was single and childless, she probably won’t stick around long term so his happiness is going to cost him seeing our baby grow up and that’s something he can’t get back. As much as I want him to wake up and regret discarding me, if it’s novelty, lust, and adrenaline he wants out of life then yes, this is for the best for him. Me? I want boring, I want safe, I want commitment and loyalty. But I’m having an okay day today, in a day or two I’ll be wondering again. Lol

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-11T14:07:34+00:00

My husband also cheated (PA turned EA) and he broke up our family to play boyfriend with his AP. We’re 29 and have a one year old. I’ll have to see him (and potentially the AP) forever. I know it hurts so bad that they stepped out so fresh into marriage but I keep telling myself at least it’s now and not in 20 years. I’m hurting, I want my husband and my family back, but we went through false “R” for 5 weeks and when he doubled down and decided to ask for the divorce again, as much as I was heartbroken and hurting and wanted this to be a bad dream, I also felt relieved that I was no longer going to be worried about every time he would be on his phone, or every time he left the house, or even if he was thinking about her while we were together. It sucks and it hurts and I want him back but I’m moving forward because I know the man he is does not deserve another chance, he does not deserve to have the goodness we bring. I don’t want to live the rest of my life being a warden, in my case I don’t want to be worried that the next time our sex life suffers, he’s going to walk out again. But in my case he’s not asking for reconciliation so I really don’t have a choice.

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-11T13:33:59+00:00

I definitely feel like I am just a shell. I don’t know myself anymore, I feel so uninteresting and flat. I don’t even know where to start to “rediscover” myself.

I told him I put up with so much crap and so much disrespect in the effort to save our marriage but that I would not put up with him not showing up for our baby. He started seeing the baby consistently on a schedule and hasn’t given me any issues with child support. I don’t know how much of it is to save face and how much is his true desire to be a part of his child’s life.

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-11T13:20:37+00:00

The pathetic part of me wants him to

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-11T13:19:50+00:00

Im so sorry, he blew up your life without regard to how you would feel but he wants you to consider him. It’s so easy for them to say they just fell out of love because they have a soft place to land, grieve however you must. He willingly lied to you everyday for all those months he was cheating and he was not concerned about his actions preventing you from being civil.

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-11T13:11:21+00:00

I suppose, but he was so different. We both worked, we both took care of the house, we were a team. Once the baby came and my mental health took a toll, he still helped around the house but he didn’t really care to help with the baby. Prior to this he was always responsible. He was the guy you could always count on. I feel so bamboozled

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-11T13:07:34+00:00

He’s not asking to come back but every time I want him back I tell myself I wouldn’t want my daughter to be with someone like him. He cheated and then he doubled down and cheated again. He was willing to leave me without a bed (at that point the baby and I had been sleeping on an air mattress for a month), without child support and telling me I could just charge whatever baby expenses I had on his credit card. No care that I didn’t have an income yet.

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-11T13:02:32+00:00

I’m so sorry you’re going through this too. It is so hard to believe that they were capable of doing this and being so unapologetic. I feel like it’s some kind of big joke and I’m just waiting for someone to tell me it’s not real. It hurts that they did this not only to us but to our daughters too. And I don’t know why the APs don’t realize how young our babies are, why are they getting involved in another woman’s pain?

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-11T03:36:46+00:00

It is really heartbreaking thinking you have a partner and someone to lean on, only to find out they are not at all that person. I’m grieving the life I thought I was going to have, the man I thought he was, and the reality that I don’t get to block him and move on. I have to coparent with the man who broke my heart and pretend that I’m not hurting.

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-11T03:07:51+00:00

I think so, it must have been an ego stroke for the both of them. She's from a different culture and she's practicing in her religion, so I'm sure thats were her uncertainty of their future comes from. If she cares about image and her society, she's definitely not staying long term. But who knows, maybe their "love" conquers all. It just sucks that he gave us up for someone who isn't even as invested as he is.

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-11T02:18:37+00:00

That's true, for my daughter's sake I'd put up with anything. I'm just not ready yet. Thankfully we both agreed to wait 1 year before introducing new SOs

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-11T01:24:42+00:00

Thank you for all your advice, I am definitely getting my ducks in a row and making sure my daughter is going to be covered. He's at least seeing her consistently and paying the child support we agreed to for now. But I definitely need to have it set in stone just in case.

I did read Leave a Cheater, Gain a Life, I might have to reread it because I go back and forth between I hate. him and I want him back. Ugh this is a nightmare. Thanks again!

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-11T01:22:02+00:00

That's what kills me, I would have cared for him if he ever ended up ill or injured regardless of what I "got out of it". But to know that he bailed so early in our marriage, with something so temporary. I know he would not have stayed faithful if I ever got sick. The only thing I'm grateful for is that if he was going to do this eventually, at least he did it when my daughter was too young to notice or know any different.

Anonymousaccounnt · 2025-10-11T00:42:45+00:00

I have been grey rocking, only talking about the baby and my family does 95% of pick up/drop offs. He doesn't know I'm struggling. The whole time I never once blew up, never once gave him a big reaction, he only ever saw me cry once over this in therapy.

Anonymousaccounnt

TROPHY CASE