Should never have looked

[lo5erinlove]

Its been 3 years since i ended our relationship after 7 years. He cheated on me with his brothers female friend, i found out by accident. He went to work overseas and he forgot he gave me his new work cell number and found a picture of them together and she was with him overseas... The relationship was getting strained due to his drinking and gambling and his internet affair, addictive personality disorder he told me he had. It killed me doing it because i still loved him in a way. But the first year was hard i suffer with depression and multiple health issues, but i soldiered on, but i thought about him every day. I thought about how he treated his ex wife and came to the conclusion he would treat everyone woman he met the same.

 

Then last night i heard about hurricane Irma and was worried about him as he was still working overseas.. i checked his linkedin account and then i saw it.... a photo of him and the woman he had an affair with, cutting their wedding cake.

I couldnt breath, my heart was pounding and i didnt sleep all night thinking about them.

 

I started to question myself, was it all my fault, did i do something wrong? For so long i kept saying karma will do its job and punish him for what he did to me, but karma played a great game, she seems to be punishing me. i have felt emotional since i saw the picture, i went on Facebook and found she had unblocked me and posted a public picture of them saying their vows... It felt like a punch to the stomach. He did ask me to marry him so many times but i said no, i told him we would never marry because of his gambling and financial situation, i had a lot to lose financially and because of my disability i couldnt take the risk.

 

Why does he get to have his happily ever after and im sat here, upset, struggling with my emotions, what did she see that i didnt, what did she do that i didnt.. Maybe i should have sat in the pub with him every night an got drunk, maybe i should have let him gamble and not questioned him about it, maybe not making a big deal about his addiction to internet porn. i keep telling myself im a good person, i care about people but its not helping, i cant speak to anyone and i cant eat because the thought of it makes me feel sick... i wish i had never gone into his linkedin account, i would never have known.

 

Last night was one of the worst nights in a long time, i wanted to talk to someone, but i cant, i cant tell anyone as they would think the breakdown of our relationship was my fault because now hes married and happy, so it must have been me to blame. I was doing ok but now its opened up old wounds and im scared to will take me another two years to get over it....

[ExpatInItaly]

Nope, karma didn't play a trick on you. The joke is on them.

 

Think of it this way: She married a cheating, gambling, drunk with a porn addiction problem. Wow. Where do I find such a catch?! I definitely want to legally bind myself to this Prince Charming, and for sure would love to share finances with him too! It's going to be so awesome.

 

He's going to be her problem now, for a long time to come. You were smart enough to turn down his marriage proposal. Her? Not so much.

Edited September 8, 2017 by ExpatInItaly

[Goodguy05]

Hey u going.. I understand ur story let me explain my own. What u saw and went through I been through with all of my breakups each and every one. I get dumped and they go on to better happier lives.

 

This has happened to me a good 4 to 5 times now over the span of 25 yrs. Ok explain each one but 1st let me explain what I believe it is and why it happens to good people like me and u.

 

I believe we drop the ball. We are consumed in the hurt and life passes us but opportunity after opportunity gets lost in the haze or pain and suffering we endure each time. I've had both more times where they have left and gone on to bigger and better things and once or twice where the tables have turned and I came out on top.

 

1992 1st soulmate she dumped me married her best friends fiance who was killed in a car crash (by the time they got married it had been 3 yrs and I'd moved on to my second soulmate believe it or not we attended her wedding lol...ive had a colourful love life to say the least). Anyway remember driving passed her big house she'd done really well had a family me on the other hand still living at home lol.

 

2nd soulmate - dumps me after 6 mths I found out she was a hooker wth the people i worked (gut wrenching stuff). Anyway 2 yrs later she had remarried and looked happy me on the other hand was still not quiet over her. And single at that stage. And still living at home lol. A yr later I met my next soulmate who ended up being my wife.

 

Soulmate 3 - lasted 10 yrs she left as well money issues she went on and remarried very quickly 2 yrs later had 2 kids and is extremely happy. Me on the hand got involved wth a rebound who I wasn't really that head over heaps in love wth. The rebound lasted 3 yrs and she cheated wth my very close friend the pain was just incredible. She was on a visa at the time and withdrew and went back to Thailand my ex mate got her back somehow stupidly I felt sorry for her wen she went back and tried to help how stupid I know at my own expense and age came back they married and had a kid but something tells me they are not that happy. Never see any photos of him on fb but they are well off. I went on to my next soulmate oh boy ur gonna love this next one

 

3rd soulmate most recent break up one yr ago now. We were together 6 yrs apart for 2 wen I moved interstate she has 3 kids 2 who are immediately wth her and one she had abandoned earlier because she couldn't cope (I know a red flag and I stupidly missed it). She moved up we were trying ldr and she applied for the same company I was working wth mind u at this point in our relationship we were having problems. She moved anyway left one of the kids wth the dad and took the boy up who had at this point time refused to see the dad for over yr. Her rationale was that she would take him and leave the daughter as a compromise any I had a bad feeling about it all. She came up moved up here lost the boy in a custody battle and then dumped me a yr ago now. The awkward and very painful thing is we work together and she started seeing another work colleague who thankfully left and moved overseas. Having said that karma has not been kind to me as a lot of men there lavish her wth a lot of attention and to be honest it is very hard to see everyday quiet painful.

 

I feel trapped as it's a very big company probably the biggest in the country and a good paying job and it's in a holiday location part of the country and it's not so easy to find another job well not like this. I really like the job and where I work but she makes it unbearable. So where's the karma in this i ask myself? I don't get how she gets away wth it nor the others I wonder what the hell did I do to deserve this?

I do have an answer we create our own reality if we let these ex's consume us and rule our thoughts we can only assume suffering to come from that. So the answer as wth that rebound when this happens we really have to create some big goals and dreams for our lives to not be so consumed by what our ex's are doing or how happy they r that's truly the answer. I believe once we have our passion our life goals and dreams we won't be bothered nor care what our ex's are doing. If you can come out of the pain and haze wth success in tow wether that be finding someone better or a better job or a better apartment or a better living environment u win. Btw my current ex kinda went backwards even though she hurts me at work constantly she is actually doing my old role lol whilst I went up a notch. She doesn't have her kids wth her I'd not know what there relationship is like but she hardly has gone back to visit so I can only assume on some level those kids are feeling rejected.

Karma is wen u make a huge success of ur life and u r so happy wth where u are in life ur ex is no longer something u get consumed by wen u see him slicing the wedding cake it just doesn't matter to u anymore and that's wen I think it works for people like me and u. I don't think it's about Kat.a thry can change they can make better choices it's all about working hard and being focused on our own lives. How they're life is then won't matter. The other thing we don't truly j ow the state of there lives or how happy they are it's just a photo we can only make assumptions from it. I remember me and my current ex had these wonderful smiling photos on fb but deep down inside I want happy because I couldn't see how itd work wth her kids because I was having a hard time seeing that kind of future because I don't think someone else's kids fit the profile I had for my own life and way I wanted to live.

[d0nnivain]

Just because they got married doesn't mean they are happy. They are just married.

 

He's still a cheater who drinks & gambles. Right now he's in the path of the most deadly hurricane to hit the US in a century. You're safe in London. Think about that.

[lo5erinlove]

I have ever only had one other relationship....My parents are Italian, I was born and raised in the UK, I looked at them together and wished i had what they had.

I was married for 25 years, it wasnt great, i was a golfing widow and i came very low on his list of priorities, the only good thing that came out of that was my daughters, who are amazing. I had a couple of dates when i left my husband, but nothing to write home about. I then had an operation that went wrong, i was told i should have died, i spent 4 months in hospital with horrific injuries, so i had that and Lupus ( which i was diagnosed with 27 years ago) to deal with and then he came along, I was asked out constantly and i always refused because they would find out that my health wasnt so good. i suppose i latched on to someone who loved me ( so he said) scars and all, I have been very self conscious of my scars and sometimes wouldnt let him near me... .. so ive only really had 2 serious relationships.

 

I keep telling myself a leopard never changes it spots and my daughters have been rallying around this morning and giving me words of encouragement " mum hes an Ogre a drunken, gambling thug " and i do say shes welcome to him, but we did in the beginning share some really good times, he did make me feel special.... he said and did for me than my ex husband did for me in 25 years and i cant get those moments out of my mind... I keep asking myself who wants a 54 year old woman with health problems, which were not my fault....

[lo5erinlove]

He's in the UK at the moment as he only got married a week ago, so i had no need to worry anyway .... the first 3 years we were happy, hes been with her 3 years, so she has a lot of catching up to do.... i just feel unhappy and disappointed that he got to do the wedding thing with everyone thinking hes such a good guy. Hes on his second marriage and one long term relationship and shes 45 and on her first marriage, maybe like me she thinks she can change him....

[d0nnivain]

lo5erinlove

 

You are sad because you have health issues & you are lonely. Think about it. You really don't want him back. You do want to be in a healthy loving relationship, which is completely understandable.

 

Seeing him married was a blow to your ego. It hurts so you can wallow a bit but no more than the weekend.

 

By Monday you need to have a plan. What are you going to do to improve your health -- walk a bit? eat healthier? get more sleep? Then what are you going to do to meet new people? Can you join a support group for people with lupus? Maybe you will meet an understanding fellow there because he's in the same boat.

[lo5erinlove]

lo5erinlove

 

You are sad because you have health issues & you are lonely. Think about it. You really don't want him back. You do want to be in a healthy loving relationship, which is completely understandable.

 

Seeing him married was a blow to your ego. It hurts so you can wallow a bit but no more than the weekend.

 

By Monday you need to have a plan. What are you going to do to improve your health -- walk a bit? eat healthier? get more sleep? Then what are you going to do to meet new people? Can you join a support group for people with lupus? Maybe you will meet an understanding fellow there because he's in the same boat.

I understand what your saying, i suppose it was the shock, the same feeling when i found that picture he was cheating on me....Well I spend an hour in the gym this morning, and yes im eating healthy but at the moment the thought of eating makes me feel sick. Here in the UK we dont have many Lupus support groups, I see a mental health nurse for PTSD, depression and anxiety but to be honest shes not good. ive been writing down things i want to do leading up to Christmas... when i moved i lost a lot of friends because i live so far away from them and as you get older its harder to make friends.. so im focusing on trying to get things back on track and spend time with my daughters walking around London, like we always did

[Just a Guy]

Hi LiL, if there is one bit of advice that I can give you off the bat it is that you should immediately change your moniker to something more, much more positive. Just reading your moniker is such a downer so I can imagine how desperate you feel. The fact is that our minds are our most powerful tool and we can use it to our advantage or towards our detriment. I wonder if you have ever heard of a man by the name of Victor Franklin? Well Victor was a Jew who was incarcerated in one of the worst concentration camps in Germany during the Second World War. I do not have to go into details of all the horrors that those poor souls had to undergo but Victor was a survivor. All around him his comrades in suffering were dying from exactly the same privations that he was suffering from but he survived. The only reason he did so was because he did not let his circumstances overawe him and affect his morale. He maintained throughout that the prison staff could do anything to him physically but they could not enter his mind around which he built a wall. As long as they could not get in they could not break his spirit and so he could bear all the privations and yet maintain his sanity. I do not remember the name of his book but you could search for it on the internet against his name and procure it if you wish.

 

There is another book that I think you will benefit from and that is titled "Psycho-Cybernetics" by Dr. Maxwell Maltz. I would think if you were to read and practice the principles laid down there, you would undergo a complete personality change for the better. Your whole attitude toward life would become more positive. Whether you get this book or not, you definitely need to change your mind set to a more positive one. When I read your OP I thought you were someone young and immature but in one of your latter posts you revealed you had two daughters and were 54 years old. I would think life would have taught you to handle such a situation in a much more sensible manner. By all accounts you have avoided a quick sand situation and instead of thanking your lucky stars you are moping about a lose lose situation. This brings me back to my opening suggestion. Change your moniker to a more positive outward looking one! Warm wishes.

[lo5erinlove]

Hi LiL, if there is one bit of advice that I can give you off the bat it is that you should immediately change your moniker to something more, much more positive. Just reading your moniker is such a downer so I can imagine how desperate you feel. The fact is that our minds are our most powerful tool and we can use it to our advantage or towards our detriment. I wonder if you have ever heard of a man by the name of Victor Franklin? Well Victor was a Jew who was incarcerated in one of the worst concentration camps in Germany during the Second World War. I do not have to go into details of all the horrors that those poor souls had to undergo but Victor was a survivor. All around him his comrades in suffering were dying from exactly the same privations that he was suffering from but he survived. The only reason he did so was because he did not let his circumstances overawe him and affect his morale. He maintained throughout that the prison staff could do anything to him physically but they could not enter his mind around which he built a wall. As long as they could not get in they could not break his spirit and so he could bear all the privations and yet maintain his sanity. I do not remember the name of his book but you could search for it on the internet against his name and procure it if you wish.

 

There is another book that I think you will benefit from and that is titled "Psycho-Cybernetics" by Dr. Maxwell Maltz. I would think if you were to read and practice the principles laid down there, you would undergo a complete personality change for the better. Your whole attitude toward life would become more positive. Whether you get this book or not, you definitely need to change your mind set to a more positive one. When I read your OP I thought you were someone young and immature but in one of your latter posts you revealed you had two daughters and were 54 years old. I would think life would have taught you to handle such a situation in a much more sensible manner. By all accounts you have avoided a quick sand situation and instead of thanking your lucky stars you are moping about a lose lose situation. This brings me back to my opening suggestion. Change your moniker to a more positive outward looking one! Warm wishes.

Thank you for your reply.... ive suffered some terrible medical problems in the past 30 years and i feel they have knocked my confidence. Being married for 25 years to a man who had his problems but would never have cheated on me made this situation alien to me. To experience someone cheating on you when you trusted them makes me feel like the whole time we were together a lie. Only ever having 2 long term relationships to go from someone who was so faithful to someone who wasnt has been tough to accept. I start to question, what did i do wrong, will i make the same mistake again, if i was to ever meet someone else. Suffering from mental health issues doesn't help, you question everything, you analyse everything, will the next person i meet do the same... there are trust issues. I used to be a fraud investigator and so i have a suspicious mind. Yes i knew he was up to something, things started to change and i suppose I wish i had acted on those suspicions earlier. Ive tried to move on maybe its the way i am, maybe im destined to live a life alone, but i am going to try and start thinking positive. My daughter once told me that i cant love anyone else until i start loving myself... so i need to master that first.

[Been]

You assume that they will be happily married forever and all his past problems just disappeared.

People don't really ever change they just hide it better. And in his case at his age he isn't going to ever change.

I once dated this woman who was almost 50 years old. It was the greatest relationship I thought at first until I started seeing all these red flags which I ignored. We ended up breaking up. She got with someone days after.

Now while we dated she was always having money problems and I had to always bail her out. Now with this new man they moved in together and ended up marrying less then a year latter. And like you I thought maybe it was ME in someway that lead to the break up cause she's happily married and I'm not!!

2 years latter they got divorced. Turns out that from what I heard her now ex husband was almost in financial ruin trying to always bail her out of her money problems.

So you see its not always what it seems. Build a house on a weak foundation and eventually it will collapse.

[Redhead14]

Its been 3 years since i ended our relationship after 7 years. He cheated on me with his brothers female friend, i found out by accident. He went to work overseas and he forgot he gave me his new work cell number and found a picture of them together and she was with him overseas... The relationship was getting strained due to his drinking and gambling and his internet affair, addictive personality disorder he told me he had. It killed me doing it because i still loved him in a way. But the first year was hard i suffer with depression and multiple health issues, but i soldiered on, but i thought about him every day. I thought about how he treated his ex wife and came to the conclusion he would treat everyone woman he met the same.

 

Then last night i heard about hurricane Irma and was worried about him as he was still working overseas.. i checked his linkedin account and then i saw it.... a photo of him and the woman he had an affair with, cutting their wedding cake.

I couldnt breath, my heart was pounding and i didnt sleep all night thinking about them.

 

I started to question myself, was it all my fault, did i do something wrong? For so long i kept saying karma will do its job and punish him for what he did to me, but karma played a great game, she seems to be punishing me. i have felt emotional since i saw the picture, i went on Facebook and found she had unblocked me and posted a public picture of them saying their vows... It felt like a punch to the stomach. He did ask me to marry him so many times but i said no, i told him we would never marry because of his gambling and financial situation, i had a lot to lose financially and because of my disability i couldnt take the risk.

 

Why does he get to have his happily ever after and im sat here, upset, struggling with my emotions, what did she see that i didnt, what did she do that i didnt.. Maybe i should have sat in the pub with him every night an got drunk, maybe i should have let him gamble and not questioned him about it, maybe not making a big deal about his addiction to internet porn. i keep telling myself im a good person, i care about people but its not helping, i cant speak to anyone and i cant eat because the thought of it makes me feel sick... i wish i had never gone into his linkedin account, i would never have known.

 

Last night was one of the worst nights in a long time, i wanted to talk to someone, but i cant, i cant tell anyone as they would think the breakdown of our relationship was my fault because now hes married and happy, so it must have been me to blame. I was doing ok but now its opened up old wounds and im scared to will take me another two years to get over it....

 

Why does he get to have his happily ever after -- You don't know that's what he has. Given his gambling, cheating, addictions, and lack of financial stability, it's not likely he's changed so significantly. I'd be thinking, "oh she's got her hands full, doesn't she? And, good luck with that, sweetie". He may just have himself a co-dependent, desperate woman who doesn't have a clue.

[Stephen44]

If he's a drunk gambler, chances are it won't be.

I'd be angry at him for what he did. You deserve better!