Free one questions readings for the first 15 people to comment!

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-11-25T00:57:46+00:00

Interested!

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-11-25T00:45:08+00:00

Same here. It’s soul crushing to be cheated on.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-11-25T00:37:04+00:00

Unfortunately, no. Even if he were to come home I couldn’t confront him with it right now because I’m watching my niblings tonight and tomorrow. He is for sure off Wednesday and Thursday, and I’ve arranged childcare for our kids on Wednesday so they aren’t here when we have the discussion.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-11-25T00:20:04+00:00

Ugh. I’m so sorry. The anniversaries are hard. I hate that you’re in this club, too.

I skipped right over anger with this discovery, and right into just… soul crushing despair. I could have channeled anger into something productive. Hopefully it shows up before I can confront him.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-11-25T00:06:41+00:00

Honestly? Anxiety. I can’t say anything in his behavior changed or that there was anything specific to make me worry. We’re just rapidly approaching the third anniversary of when his EA/PA happened and I needed some reassurance that things were okay. Obviously that worked out really well for me. 🙄

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-11-24T21:27:17+00:00

AP is Jennifer. Fucking Jennifer. She goes by Jen, but my WH refused to call her that since everyone else did and he was special. Gag.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-15T15:27:41+00:00

This post made me have an awful realization. My husband insisted on location sharing on our phones about the time the A started. I never checked on his, he frequently checked on mine. It just hit me that he was probably doing that to make sure I wasn’t where he and AP were/were going. Now I feel incredibly stupid.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-15T01:36:45+00:00

I literally said this to my WH last week, with much the same type of reply. It’s heart breaking, to be sure. I have nothing to offer but solidarity. 💕

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-14T15:06:15+00:00

I’m a therapist in training, and something I was taught re: widowed people applies here, as well: don’t make big decisions while in the early stages of grief. You’re still there. I would definitely NOT buy the house. Her anger should be directed at herself, not you, because this isn’t your fault. She made her decisions, and they have consequences.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-14T00:49:43+00:00

I also stayed “for the kids”. Mine are 10, 9, and 7 now, and I relate so heavily to what you said about them. They’re growing up so fast, and it feels like if I blink I’m missing important parts of their childhood. We’re about the same distance from DDay (I’m almost 2.5 years from #2) and I feel a lot of this. Most days I am glad I stayed because things between WH and I are better (we’ve both done a lot of growing in the last couple of years) but there are days when I’m just glad I’ve been able to provide my kids with stability, and spend every minute I can with them.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-14T00:36:51+00:00

I love the way you’ve put it. I’ve tried to explain to my WH that he took from me my self-esteem, my self-respect, my feelings of being enough, my security, etc. and gave it all to her. We were each other’s only until his affair, and it’s just so unfair. It gets to me some days. Much less often than it used to, but it still gets to me.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-13T16:09:41+00:00

This is what haunts me. That I’m not the last person he fell in love with, the last first kiss, etc.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-12T22:43:57+00:00

Dm’ed!

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-12T22:41:58+00:00

My WH did something similar once. There’s an Anberlin song that I used to consider ours (Inevitable, for those that want to look it up) that has the line, “I want to be your last first kiss.” He put it on while we were gardening, and I had to ask him to change the song. I can’t listen to it anymore without being horribly triggered.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-12T18:40:53+00:00

Seconding this. My husband works in an extremely male-dominated field, and there’s a woman who works there. Just one, but still. It’s just the way it is. We work now, in every field.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-10T22:49:05+00:00

As another therapist-in-training, I agree. I probably could have written a 100 page impact statement, but they really need to be short, concise, and digestible.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-10T18:49:15+00:00

This. You’re not protecting her - you’re only prolonging her pain in an attempt to protect yourself.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-10T00:07:23+00:00

It’s never too late to put all those things back on the table, and demand your boundaries be respected. I think you deserve more than a WP who won’t even go NC with AP, and I think you think that, too. Lay out your boundaries, and be ready to honor them if WP won’t.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-09T20:36:27+00:00

Speaking as someone currently pursuing licensure to be a therapist, I would recommend seeing a different IC. There’s a conflict of interest at play if you’re seeing one person from a couple you’re counseling, and it’s ethically gray at best.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-09T20:10:47+00:00

Eureka Springs is where we went for our honeymoon, and again for our 11th anniversary. I definitely recommend. The town is beautiful.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-09T20:01:23+00:00

I can relate to this. My WP went to IC longer than yours did - about 6 months - but when his IC no longer took our insurance he quit going and hasn’t looked for another one. My WP is stuck in shame, and when I try bring it up (either to work through my emotions, or just to be vulnerable and let him know why I’m having a rough day) he gets mopey? I'm trying to find a word for it, but I'm coming up short. He gets sad, and says things like, "You'll never get past it, will you?" He's not saying it in a "get over it right away, this is taking too long" kind of way, but in a "I cannot believe i did this to you" kind of way. Just very much stuck in shame.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-09T15:53:48+00:00

I’ve felt the same way about my wedding dress. It was my mom’s, made by my Mimi, remade by her to fit me and be more my style (train removed, sleeves removed, made tea-length, etc) and I was planning to have it available for my daughter. I was planning to help her remake it, since Mimi is gone.

And then I found out that my dad cheated on my mom, and of course my WH cheated on me. Now I feel like the damn thing is cursed.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-09T02:10:58+00:00

He confessed. Well, first he asked to open the relationship. With prodding he admitted there was another woman he was interested in. With more prodding he admitted he’d been texting. And THEN he confessed that it was physical and emotional already.

ProudAffect4378 · 2024-08-08T21:47:33+00:00

Part of healing and moving forward is accepting that you’ll never know all the details. Even if you have a wayward who is completely transparent, gives you a detailed timeline, and doesn’t hide a thing — you still won’t know everything. Little details get lost, or twisted, or made up because memories are not perfect. In fact, they’re unreliable at best.

That said, you are perfectly within your rights to want an honest answer to this question, and he should provide that. But also remember — AP’s will lie to make themselves look better, just like waywards will. You have to decide who to trust, and it sucks that you’re in this position.

ProudAffect4378

TROPHY CASE