SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

If you guys don’t mind, I’m going to use this post as a bit of a therapy session and dump a little anger here to get it out of my head. It’s not going to be pretty. I’m going to admit something I don’t like about myself in the process. That’s the beauty of anonymous discussion boards, I guess.

WW pasted way a year ago and the anger phase is hitting me hard and I’m trying to untangle all the rage I’m currently swallowing. I think a lot of it boils down to things I’ve missed and, on the surface, which is selfish, so I didn’t want to admit it.

A little background to explain why I’m so angry.

Our relationship was good early on but was never fantastic. We didn’t do much together. WW was sporty and I was a nerd. She loved baseball and I built computers. She would never come with me to the things I was interested in, but I went to her ball games and her social events. She was the extrovert, always talking to everyone and I was quietly listening. Got to feeling like I could send a carboard cut out of me and no one would notice the difference. After a few years I started wondering why I felt so lonely. I was happily married, right? What the f**k?

Intimacy was never good. Started out good, but always vanilla (not that I’m a freak) and I realised it mostly happened after a social event when she was a little drunk. That started to weight on me and I started trying to initiate more at different times. Not much luck. Shortly after kids, she lost all interest. She never initiated and only said yes about 1 time in 10 or 20. I started trying to predict when I should try initiating to better my changes. Not during the day, that was never a thing. Not at night during the week, she’d be too tried. If at any point I heard her mentioning having a headache or being tired, don’t even try for a couple days. You do that math. I only tried to initiate about once a week tops. Months would go by with nothing. We talked about it and she agreed it wasn’t right, but nothing ever changed. She didn’t see it as a problem because cuddling and spooning at night was enough intimacy for her.

Later she developed Ulcerative Colitis and as you can imagine, intimacy pretty much fell of the face of the earth. When we talked about it, she said she wanted to, but the colitis always made her feel gross. That I could relate to, but it was still a hard pill to swallow.

WW’s on-line infidelity started in 2007. She started texting an old high school acquaintance who reached out to her. It was stupid flirty stuff, but inappropriate. By the time I clued in, they had made plans for my family to have a vacation where he lived, a 20 hour drive away, so they could meet in person. I found out before the trip by checking her email. She DARVO’s me and was mad I spied on her. I laid low and let the trip happen to see what she’d do, all the while secretly having access to her Email and IMs. They kept trying to meet, even tried arranging a trip to a casino where they could accidently bump into each other, but that never materialized. I’d planned to see if they would follow-through and record them together but circumstance never let it happen.

It was never fully addressed. She never admitted to more than I could prove She said she go caught up in the fantasy. The pressure for her to be intimate while struggling with Colitis was apparently draining for her. She liked that the physical demands weren’t there with her online fun and games. I eventually let it drop. I made all the mistakes we usually make, confronted too soon, and closed to door to getting the full picture. She relied heavily on the, "I can’t remember" line during talks and I eventually stopped bringing it up as a pointless exercise.

Then in 2009, at a family event in Vegas, she started up something with the husband on one of her cousins of all things. We suddenly started seeing more of them. Have dinner’s together, etc. While watching a movie with our kids, I noticed them playing footsy. That started me back into investigation mode. Found out they were emailing and talking inappropriately. Cryptic comments about back in Vegas. "If he only knew." They even discussed me noticing them touching that night and how made fun of how jealous I seemed to be. I still didn’t find a smoking gun and couldn’t hold it in any longer. The confrontation was explosive. Again, she only admitted to what I could prove. She never admitted to anything physical happening with him, but I’m not stupid. I almost left, but I couldn’t do that to my kids.

For way to long, I convinced myself I could stay for the kids. And for the most part I did. I got really good at compartmentalizing. But the relationship had died. It was almost a weekly thing. I’d get the point wanted to file, then talk myself out of it because I couldn’t live with the idea of my kids being from a broken home. I eventually lost all desire to be with her. Couldn’t even get it up with her. And she didn’t seem to mind. I guess it was to big a chore, what with the Colitis. I’d decided that once the Kids were settled, I’d file and try and move on. I deserve to be a relationship that was meaningful for me and I began the long wait. I didn’t want this to affect the kids, so I kept it all inside. No one knew about her infidelity and wouldn’t know until it I was ready to file. Then, about 5 years later she got cancer, and the rest is 2 years of nightmare fuel history.

A few weeks ago, I began realizing I was angry. I mean teeth grindingly furious, but I couldn’t nail down why. I slowly began to realize I was angry at my wife. All the unresolved crap started bubbling back up to the surface.

Angry for what she did to our relationship.

Angry for making me live a double life of pretending to be happy.

Angry that my sex life was decades of masturbation.

But then big one hit. I realized I wanted something I would never have admitted to wanting.

I wanted vindication.

No one knew what I’ve had to put with all these years. Eventually, when the kids were settled, I’d finally get to move on and I’d finally be able to explain it everyone. But not know. I can’t ruin her memory. I’m suck with the lie my live was happy. I’ll never have the big reveal and the vindications I didn’t know I wanted.

Yes, it’s selfish. I’m hoping getting it out will help me deal with it.

Part of that is saying it to someone outside my own head, and you guys get to hear it.

Rant over. I hope it helps.

ETA: Maybe now I'll stop anger dumping in other people's threads.

[This message edited by Twitchy at 3:33 PM, Wednesday, September 18th]

I am sure other people will be along soon to weigh in. However, I just wanted to empathize with the injustice of what happened and to say I am sorry you went through that. I wish you much future peace and healing.

what you are feeling sounds normal to me. And yes, often the anger comes later. We’ve seen some other BS who learned of their WS affairs after the WS had passed. They too felt a lot of anger mixed with the sadness.

Keep processing it (accept the feelings, acknowledge them, BE angry.). If you get stuck here, then talk to an IC who can help you move through this.

And I too am sorry you were put through so much. Keep working on healing and recognize that YOU were a great partner and great dad.

Does anyone in your real life know about her affairs?

Just my sister. She's an NR and was a godsend helping with palliative care. Without her I'd have never gotten through this.

No one from WW's family.

You may find that you feel okay about telling people later on anyway - in the context of YOUR story not for the sole purpose of bashing hers. Dying of cancer does not erase the life that you lived nor does it mean that you are not allowed to talk about her actions and their consequences for you.

I agree with TISL. Your story is yours, and it's one in which you endured an awful relationship to keep stability for your family. You stayed with someone who betrayed you and likely lied to you about it for years, and then took care of her in her final years despite her betrayal.
You deserve a chance to be with someone worthy of your character.
How people will feel about that is their business, not yours.
BTW, does your wife's cousin know about her POS husband?

"How people will feel about that is their business, not yours"

I am slowly becoming far far less concerned about what people think of me. And again I am very sorry you acted decently and were treated horribly.

I do tell a somewhat beige version of my story. I have found it to be a litmus test…

It also invites connection from other positively focused people who have their stories.

Eeh, I don’t know. Just a couple of thoughts.

My brother-in-law died just about a year ago. I played hospice nurse because my sister could hardly stand to be in the same room as him. She was pretty traumatized by our mother’s death of the same cancer, it was all playing out in her head in technicolor. This was a guy she didn’t meet until her mid-40s. She had dated a lot of guys, and this one was the love of her life. He was finally the right person to marry, and in the end they had less than a decade and a half together. But part of her grief process this past year (remember, love of her life) is to process all the things she was bitter about in the marriage. The things they struggled with. The things she had to give up to be with him. The unfairness. He didn’t cheat. He loved her. Good steady marriage, and she still has to let some rage out to process of coming to terms with his death. It might just be part of the process.

Second thought, a couple of years ago my uncle told me about my grandmother’s affair. About her trying to get in the car and drive away and leave my grandpa. About the affair partner beating her up and about my grandpa pulling her out of the closet she was hiding in and brining her home. Did I know she had an affair? No. Would I have believed it? In someways, no. When she talked about Freud and Penis Envy her thought was "who would want one of those ugly things hanging between their legs?" So the thought of her trying to find penis out of marriage was kind of unexpected. But also, yes, I believed it and in a lot of ways was not surprised. She had her demons. I think it is okay to talk about your wife’s affair. It is part of what made you who you are today. I don’t think you have a sacred trust to protect the way others think about her. She did not protect you when she had the choice. And others may not be as scandalized as you think they will be.

Also, I think maybe we all need to discuss the rage and hurt. I spent so many years trying to protect my cheater husband, to love him, to support him, to talk him up in the childrens’ heads, to try to understand and see it from his point of view. I think holding onto all that did nothing but hurt me, and now that he’s in a permanent relationship with one of the women he had an EA with (someone he was engaged to before I met him, she cheated on him, why he promised me he’d never do it to me, though he claims he never boinked this one during the marrige), anyway I have delayed my healing by trying to protect him. It’s all coming out now. It happens. You are forgiven for all thoughts and feelings. And I hear you.

Thanks everyone. I appreciate the perspectives.

Its made me realize that I really care less what other people think of the situation. I was wrong about needing Vindication. My kids never need to now what when on between WW and I. And right now I won't risk them finding out. They're still took shaken to deal with that. Maybe sometime in the future. There's no rush.

But I'll never have the satisfaction that would have come from WW finally seeing the consequences of her actions. I hid my feeling well. As far as she knew I got past it. I was waiting for the kids to be less effected by my filing for divorce.

However, that's a good thing, too. It would have come with a lot of drama I get to miss, while reaping the benefit of being able to move on without the financial decimation.