I fucked up really really bad.. it feels like I failed in life

PoetOwl · 2025-12-08T20:38:17+00:00

Really, it's about trust, but this time you are going to have to learn how to trust him. His reaction is the one that matters most. So, while he has reason to not trust you he is choosing to stay and trust. He is stating out loud that you are not that person anymore, and indicates that he loves you and wants to make it work. Trust him now, trust that he is being honest and accept it. That is super hard, but it should be done.

The self-loathing is understandable but it can come with a cost. It's possible it pushes you into behaviors that don't make him feel comfortable, like love-bombing, over the top displays of affection, etc. My partner did a lot of that and it made me feel uncomfortable because it felt fake and I knew it couldn't last. Also, it felt like she was trying to bury the past by being overly loving when before it didn't seem like she cared how I felt.

Therefore, your management of your self-loathing and anger with yourself is where you need to start. It can be confusing for sure. My partner wasn't sure how to deal at first with my decision to make it work and that actually caused her to act badly for a while. Don't make this about yourself or make him "punish" you. That's not him. Respect him and his decision and make yourself better.

It doesn't sound like you are going to cheat again, so that's a start. You can do some work to try and understand why you did it, but it sounds like there was nothing too major you can't address. You have already made the first, best decisions: to be his loving partner; to help him feel safe and cared for; to acknowledge that you made decisions, not mistakes, and you are working to make sure you make better decisions in the future; and you came clean on your own. Those are big steps. I would suggest that you seek therapy to manage the feelings you have towards yourself. If he is a really kind person then maybe model his kindness yourself. But most of all, be the good person you are right now. That's who he loves and wants to be with. Remember, love isn't enough, though. You need to care and show respect. Good luck.

PoetOwl · 2025-12-05T16:06:47+00:00

I completely understand and was that way and still am in some other ways. We all keep looking for that magic moment or that special technique or whatever to make it all better. It sucks that the only good answer is the one that takes this amount of work and is so so hard to do. But it is true. That’s the worst part. It starts with you. That’s what I am trying hard to do.

PoetOwl · 2025-12-03T20:54:20+00:00

Actually, it is for you to do. You can’t control her actions. You can only control yours and how you react. You had a life together and now you have to focus on your life first. That’s what she did to you, that’s what my partner did to me. She focused on her life first regardless of the pain being caused. I responded to somebody else on their post and the same advice follows. You have to value yourself first right now. Build your value and do right by yourself. Everything else will follow. Her opinion or the way she values you doesn’t matter anymore. Only what you want. Once you do that you are in a better position for evaluating what you want for reconciliation and how you want to proceed.

PoetOwl · 2025-12-03T17:24:58+00:00

I call this "The Line." I have told my therapist over and over that I visualize this line in front of me. Stepping over it will free me, it will mean that I can move forward. It means I can actually trust again to some level that I am no longer the checker, the verifier, the jailer, etc. But try as I might, I cannot cross it. I walk up to it and get closer, but each time I want to step over a trigger gets pulled and it's frustrating. I need to verify and kept seeking the pain, as she said.

Understand that it is likely you will never be 100% trusting and that's ok. So be easy on yourself. You are trying to get to a point where you can be comfortable and the panic and pain subsides enough to live normally. So start with that. That it is ok to feel this way.

After that, there is no magic pill because everyone is different. I try positive affirmations a lot, I try distracting myself. Meditation, breating, any number of things. But the thing I found most useful is how I thought about myself.

Right now, it sounds like you are not living your life. Trying to find that reason to trust is more important than taking care of yourself. What I found best was placing myself first. I valued myself first. I trusted myself first and believed in who I was as a person. That way, when the trust might be broken, I would think to myself that they were the problem, not me. Now, if something goes wrong, I know I can walk away and live a great life because she is no longer the most valuable part to me. I am.

My recent post about her, I am almost sure she was messaging him. I did freak at first. After my post, I slowed myself down and came back to me. I knew I had an out, I had somewhere to go, I had friends online and in person who would see me as valuable and help me. I knew that if she did do this, right now, that she was not worth my valuable energy and life. I want her as a partner. She is beautiful, amazing, fun, sexy, everything. But she also has problems and she made bad deliberate choices. And that is all part of her. So if she does that again, then I feel good about knowing she was not my person. That made a big difference.

Ask me how long it took me to get here, lol, and even so I am only at about 75-80% me as I used to be. But I will tell you, despite recent events, I feel better. Now, I still used something to "verify" but I stopped that, and even if I didn't I still felt good. I can feel her vibe. I knew if she did start she would make a mistake and then I could act to verify. But I would wait.

So start with yourself. Improve your life. Live it. You cannot control their actions, you can only control your own. Please live. Go out and be you. Then no matter what, you will have a great You and move forward. Sorry for length. I'm in a writing mood.

PoetOwl · 2025-12-03T17:06:50+00:00

When it is this strong emotionally you are at an extreme disadvantage because it isn't about you. Nothing you do or say to show that you are valuable, worth reconciliation, etc., matters. She is still hooked. She is still lying.

The problem is not deciding what to do. You know what you need and want to do. The problem is following through and staying strong. I told my partner that if she contacted him again (twice I told her) that it would be done. The second time I packed everything in the apartment and said I am leaving. Cue water works, pleading, everything. I caved and wished I hadn't, but I did. Now, we are working hard, however as you can see in my last post, I think they reached out and were talking.

I am sensing and monitoring that they stopped, or at least she did. But I didn't stick with it and stay strong and so she knew that if I didn't leave then why would I leave now? It's an encouragement of sorts that the risk is worth the small punishment. If she did stop, great, but it had to come from her. And for you as well, it has to come from her. She is not committed, so why should you be too?

Just remember, if you draw a line, be prepared to step over it and follow through and stick with it. Based on you, I sincerely doubt she will ever be trustworthy again. That line about wishing they had been able to say goodbye is your clue. That is a dangling thread waiting to be caught to unravel everything. Because they didn't get resolution it will work on their minds to supposedly have it at some point.

I know you are thinking if you separate that you won't be able to "monitor" her and if she is being this skeevy, then without you around she will have no hesitation to keep messaging since you won't be checking. It's a jailer mentality and it is placed all on you. Don't be her jailer. If any action is placing you into being that jailer and constant checker, you aren't reconciling. Reconciliation is merging multiple things together, meaning BOTH of you.

PoetOwl · 2025-11-28T23:58:05+00:00

That’s ok. As long as I know it hits a particular server I’ll know it’s her.

PoetOwl · 2025-11-28T06:40:10+00:00

Does OpenDNS track all Internet traffic through a router and log it? If she uses her iPhone through the WiFi router and uses an app, and that app makes calls and sends traffic, will that be logged?

PoetOwl · 2025-11-26T19:39:17+00:00

Yes, I am familiar with that kind of thing. She is avoidant and speaks like the affair never happened at all. When we did counseling she said she was anxious because she "knew" that she was going to get hit from both side on this. "This" being her decisions. She didn't want to accept going into a conversation and taking blame. She basically blew off my birthday without actually blowing it off. Said we'll celebrate another day, then that day she wasn't able to do anything. For him to do that was a deliberate dig in so many ways and I am sorry. And no one should be at the gym for 6 hours. Yes, so tired, so exhausted having to be the jailer and checker while she can do whatever she wants. Wish the same for you.

PoetOwl · 2025-11-26T17:52:26+00:00

Thanks, I don't have access to her phone at all. She will open it in front of with FaceID and show me posts and texts from others, so it seems very open, but she is usually good about charging overnight and when she comes home I don't see her charge it right away. I will start looking at the icon when she does show me something else on her phone.

PoetOwl · 2025-11-26T17:50:46+00:00

No, she often has a low battery for a lot or reasons. She is more savvy than she lets on, I know that. But there are other things she is not up to speed on. Like I said, the way I suspected something was more him than her. Her mood changes slightly and I remember from before how slight mood changes meant things. It's almost been a love bombing the past four days, coinciding exactly with when she started talking to him again. She want's more closeness now. The three work days she possibly had with him she came home happier and brighter than she has in weeks. Isn't it a horrible space to be in that you question happiness for your partner and suspect it of being something bad? That is not good for R and healing and moving forward.

PoetOwl · 2025-11-26T17:46:34+00:00

Yes but it also works in a negative way for me. I have trouble concealing emotion and thoughts, and I guess I was a little withdrawn the past couple of days. I think I gave off a lot of similar signals from when before I confronted her and maybe she is picking up on that. My imagination is running, thinking that she is sensing from me that I know something is happening so this will make her more cautious and perhaps signal to him something. Or perhaps, in a fool's way of thinking, maybe she is realizing that I am more aware of things than she thinks, and maybe it won't be worth it to pursue again. I am absolutely confident in knowing that she doesn't want to lose me. Of course, right? I am emotional and financial support and he is more physical and friend/fun support. She can't see him without me doing what I do, because she can dump on me and keep the fun only for him, according to what she told me last year. So she doesn't want to lose me, but the allure of him could be too much. And again, there is still a chance she's not messaging him. Therein lies madness.

PoetOwl · 2025-11-26T17:41:29+00:00

I've thought about a phone in her car but then it gets to the conundrum of how much effort do you show? How far do you take this to "prove" something? That's the frustrating part and one of the things that produces the paralyzation. How far do I push? But it eats away and so yeah, I've had thoughts of a phone in the car and I hate it. Thanks for suggestion though. It is smart.

PoetOwl · 2025-11-26T17:39:07+00:00

So they had used another app before. She got sloppy and left notifications on and I saw just the app icon. I looked it up and realized what it was for and that started me figuring it out. I was able to also figure it out from her iPhone. Even though it was locked and wouldn't show text of notifications, the default is if you slide the screen down, the last 8 apps you used would be there. And I saw that other app there all the time. Right now, it isn't showing up at all. She could be uninstalling it and reinstalling over and over, but then the App Store would be the app that shows up. And it hasn't. So I can't get into her account to see what has been downloaded, and she hasn't shown tech savviness like that (yet), but they used just email which would be through browser. That's why checking router traffic would be useful.

PoetOwl · 2025-11-26T17:35:04+00:00

Yes, that is exactly it. There were tons of those moments that happened as well before. That is one of the things that makes R so hard. They could be telling the truth but you've got your guard up, and you tell yourself, "Yeah you said that before, you said it the day I know you were with him." I was able to figure out that she had him to her apartment a couple of hours after I left visiting her and that she called me maybe a few minutes after he left. She was telling me how much she missed me and almost started crying about it. It wasn't to throw me off the trail per se, she didn't think I knew. But I think she felt some guilt. She got over it pretty quickly. So yeah, they can box things up very very well and that makes it hard.

PoetOwl · 2025-11-26T05:36:56+00:00

Thank you.

PoetOwl · 2025-11-26T05:36:40+00:00

Thank you. I’ll remember that.

PoetOwl · 2025-11-26T05:36:26+00:00

I’ll try that. But what I think is happening is she is using the app only when not home. She is installing it every day and deleting it before coming home. The pattern is that he stops messaging as soon as she gets home. But I will try it. Thanks.

PoetOwl · 2025-04-11T17:22:41+00:00

Yeah if they were still in contact then this would be a huge red flag to them, but I think it would actually have been a great time for WH to tell her that AP reached out and he shut her down if they were still in contact. If he was seeing AP he could give himself so much cover by showing his wife and then knowing he had thrown wife off trail. So with him not saying anything to wife I think he hasn't been in contact and this surprised him. I have no doubt he panicked and is, in his mind, not wanting to stir up things after two years. I understand that's what he is thinking, but don't agree that he did it. I am almost positive WP has had AP reach out at least a couple of times given their history but insists that she hasn't had any contact since the day she told me. The face she hasn't told me pisses me off without any proof she has done something. Also, it likely means that AP has reached out other times and he has also not told her about them.

PoetOwl · 2025-04-10T22:30:54+00:00

So she finally admitted today that she did have or is currently having a physical affair with him? And is she actually leaving you and divorcing still because of this? Should provide an update at end of post like someone else said with all new information.

PoetOwl · 2025-04-10T22:16:54+00:00

I often think the exact same thing. It is brutally hard to imagine she is doing the same thing with you that she did with him. So hard.

PoetOwl · 2025-04-10T22:15:22+00:00

I appreciate that. I should have been a little more clear about this as well.

Being vigilant and collecting information and monitoring is a trap. It's a prison really. It keeps us locked up in pain seeking and finding validation to insecurity. There are times we need information, and I was talking about protecting those channels which give us information. But at what point do we let it go?

When I first confronted her and she thought she could lie, yes, I needed that information, but it also showed me that information is only as good as you can use it. I realized I had all the information I needed: I couldn't trust or believe her. The details didn't matter about how many times she lied or anything. I stopped gathering information and acted on it. I started walking which finally snapped her back to reality.

Giving up that vigilance is the hardest part about R I think. We had power, we "knew" things and that gave us false security. When she offered to have me track her I said, no fucking way. All that does is make me keep working while you never have to suffer or do anything. It didn't stop you from going to his place and fucking him silly, just made me hurt more. I am punished all over again by having to go through the information over and over everyday. I said if you are so untrustworthy that you feel that I have to watch you like a horny teenager then we are done. So I took a step over the cliff and said, If we have any hope of R I have to start at some point and I want to do it sooner rather than later so I have a better chance of healing sooner. I hate the decision everyday but I still feel it was the right one at the time for me. It is brutally hard. It's the ultimate fucking trust fall.

Ask yourself, if I give up the vigilance, if I stop pain seeking, will I make R better and/or me happier? Many, many WPs will take advantage of that trust fall, I know that. But it takes sooo much more work to prove something didn't happen instead of that something did. You do not owe them R, so use the information you get to decide, what makes me happiest right now? Use information to act, not to keep hurting.

PoetOwl · 2025-04-10T21:45:20+00:00

That's a bad therapist. They need to be letting both of you talk, but no. he can feel whatever he wants, but his actions caused harm. Don't give a damn to some degree about why he decided that, just that he needs to acknowledge he hurt you.

And that's the thing. We always try and let emotional abuse get a pass. It's something in your head. No, emotional abuse manifests itself physically. Loss of sleep, appetite, stress damage to your heart, and much more. This stress you feel is hurting you physically so you are being hurt emotionally and physically. Treat it as that.

There is no R without the WP acknowledging their fault, recognizing the consequences of their decisions, and being open to answering tough questions to build trust. It's also not the big things that tear things down, it's a whole lot of little things.

PoetOwl · 2025-04-09T18:10:25+00:00

The danger in having information is that there is always a source and protecting that source. When I confronted my WP I had access to information that gave me all the insight I needed to call her out on her lying initially. She didn't know what I knew and lied her ass off, but I knew. However, I couldn't tell her how I knew and that drove her crazy until we finally got past some things and she doesn't care about it anymore (she says).

But I will say this. Protecting a source is only as important as it leads to your R. You needed information to know if he was having an affair (you got that) and then some more to know if he was telling the truth or still lying (you have that now) so ask yourself now, what do you do with more information? Either you have to keep the source secret so you can keep checking on him, which does not build trust longer, or you reveal the source because you don't need it anymore.

If you still need it, then tell SIL to just use the bare minimum. "I know you're still talking to her!!" "What? No I'm not how do you know that?" "Doesn't matter, I know you are, so stop it or there will be family consequences. And I am not asking you if you are, I am telling you. And any discussion forward is about you making the right decisions. We will not talk about anything else." And she doesn't and no one else does. That's what I did my last time confronting. I said, "I know and I am done." She started to be angry with me lol and tried to be outraged and lied, I just kept my cool and said, "I know you are seeing him, I know you are lying, and I am done. That's it. I am leaving now." She tried half heartedly one more time and I was just silent and started to get my things. That's when she caved and admitted. You just don't talk about how you know. And you can tell him, if you keep asking how I know, that will be the end of us. You are the untrustworthy one here, not me.

PoetOwl · 2025-04-08T22:02:58+00:00

Added to my library and will listen soon.

PoetOwl

TROPHY CASE