BS: tell me what you would want your WS to know

[Devil Inside]

In an effort to help me really understand and feel what my wife may be going through in the wake of the disclosure of my long term affair I felt it would be helpful if some BS could write about what they would tell their WS now.

 

I would like to hear form all kinds of situations and viewpoints: those that have healed their marriages, those that left, those that are in the early and dark days following the discovery.

 

I would like to hear what you would tell your WS...not a general answer, or not one that applies to me. I am asking this because I feel that if it is more personal it will also be more honest.

 

I know that my situation is different...no two are exactly the same, but I think it would really help. I already have gained so much insight from some members here writing about what was hardest with them in this time. I would also like to hear what was most helpful.

 

So sit back, close your eyes, and imagine your WS was sitting in front of you and you could tell them anything at all about how this has made you feel and most importantly...how their behavior after D-day affected you...good and bad.

 

Thank you ahead of time...I know it is not easy to lay your soul on the line. Someone on this forum was generous enough to give me some of this insight before...and to them I am very grateful...I am hoping to gain more insight and empathy from your words.

[bentnotbroken]

I did tell him that his act of sex was the least of his actions that hurt. The lies (gas lighting)chipped away at my confidence in my own judgement. The feeling of disrespect by bringing her into our home, our bed surrounded by pictures of my children and the choice to do so without protection, was so damaging to my heart and my health. Your lack of concern for my emotional and physically well being told me what was truly in your soul.

 

The fact that you could look her H in the face, her children in the face, her extended family in the face and know that you where destroying her family from the inside out? He trusted her, he trusted you and you made him and his children suffer. It was okay with you until you thought he would whip your behind then you were afraid and wanted to run to me to help protect your life and your rep. NOT. Why should I be your shield?

 

It did not matter how many times you told me that you loved me, all I could see were your actions. Actions speak to me louder than words. Your choice to put our family(kids, siblings, parents)through the emotional upheaval and turmoil spoke volumes of your character, and mine. If I could marry someone like you, love someone like you, try to please someone like you....even by giving up my own life, made me question what kind of person would love you? What kind of person am I? Why didn't I see the real you? Why would I blindly trust you?

 

Tell me how do I trust my own judgement again, much less another person? The scars will heal, they always do. But most scars leave an imprint, rough tissue or even a hole....how do I fill the hole?

[2sure]

I would say:

 

You were my best friend. I committed to you fully and completely.

If you were having an issue, you should have come to me. FIRST.

 

Its not the cheating, its not betrayal, its not your issues. Through those things I still loved you.

 

Your not being able to say the words, when I already knew....emasculated you and made you less of a man.

 

Even I cant fix that.

[2sure]

WHAT in the hell gave you any IDEA that you, regardless of your own problems or needs, could make decisions affecting my entire life without my knowledge.

 

I know, I know...you "compartmentalized"

 

You put me in a freaking BOX.

[Dexter Morgan]

So sit back, close your eyes, and imagine your WS was sitting in front of you and you could tell them anything at all about how this has made you feel and most importantly...how their behavior after D-day affected you...good and bad.

 

If I had stayed with my x, what I'd really want to tell her, quite honestly, if I HAD stayed with her is, first and foremost, how much she disgusts me.

 

I'd also want to tell her that if she wants to in any way salvage the marriage, that her nights out with friends are over and that I call the shots with regards to what I expect and what is reasonable of someone betrayed to expect. no, I'm not talking about being controlling. I'm talking about the mindset of somene that trusted a spouse to behave, only to be played for a fool.

 

So in nutshell, I'd want to tell her that she would never play me for a fool again.

 

But its all moot, I wouldn't stay with a cheater anyway. I considered it when I was married, but after a short few weeks, I decided against it and knew I'd not even entertain the idea.

[PhoenixRise]

You will never know the extent that you diminished yourself in my eyes with this affair. It was never about just the sex with another woman. It was the lies...the complete lack of character...the blameshifting and not taking responsiblitiy that made you.....less....in my eyes.

 

I have known and loved you for most of my adult life. I believed in you, I trusted you. I knew you were not perfect, but I always saw you as a good man. I always thought you had integrity. I always believed you would never deliberately hurt me.

 

The affair showed me a whole other side to you. A side that felt entitled to hurt me. A side that is selfish beyond anything I could even imagine.

 

I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to reconcile the two side of you that I now know exist. I believe that both sides of you ARE the real you.

 

AND You know what?? After dday, I wanted you to just stand up and be a man with integrity even more than I wanted the marriage. I just wanted you to have the balls to tell the truth, to yourself and to me. This still what I want most.

[Athena]

My dear H you blew it. This time you really pushed it too far. It's not enough that you messed up in your first marriage and professed to have "learned your lesson" when you lost your family because of cheating on her, but you went right ahead and had a whole lot more A's in our marriage too.

 

Did you want me to dump you? Like your first wife did? Or do you just like seeing how far you can push the line?

Don't you care what your actions did to me? To the once-beautiful part of me? You know that strength I had that you so admired? That confidence and self-esteem that you always saw in me? Did it, in some perverse way get you determined to squash it out of me since you were clearly lacking in those traits? How far would you push me?

 

So I gave you more than twenty years of love, loyalty, faithfulness and Trust. You blew it. All for some extra validation from a woman far away in another country, whom you admitted you could never see yourself with long-term... you said you just thought I was strong enough to take it! Take what? Affairs 7 and 8?

 

No, I eventually buckled... funny isn't it? Destroyed, but now building myself up, and making sure none of it includes you. I don't even long and pine for you any more... I have begun looking at you, at us, in a cold factual light and I pride myself on not crying over you anymore! I never believed this was possible, even two years ago I was distraught over the possibility of losing you... and now, I have finally gotten my wish -- to be mostly emotionally disengaged from you.

 

That took a LOT for me to detach from you emotionally -- I went against my natural character inclination... I did what I did to survive.

 

Now you write me an email today telling me yet again how you fall asleep and have fears of losing me, a quote from your email, <<My thoughts are plagued about so many things Athena and just when I feel I am making sense of my thoughts and developing resolutions about them I hear a love song that tells the story of unrequited love or broken hearts or I see a Dr.Phil interview in which he says the best indicator of a persons behaviour is looking at their past behaviour, and then my whole world comes tumbling down like a pack of cards. Regret and pain splattered everywhere. I see the thinning of my hair indicative of the slow trickle of time running out, never to return. I see the little white sail of my family drifting slowly further toward the horizon each day blown by winds I have created. I have desperate dreams about you at night in which I lose you and I wake up calling your name. I just can't seem to get a grip on what I'm supposed to do because I can't get a grip on what I'm supposed to have done to go in the right direction. >>

 

And yet, H, you had those SAME desperate dreams two years ago when you were sleeping post-coitally next to OW#7 every night for a year... and she heard you so oft call my name in your sleep, crying, and she asked you why would you steal some fitful nights with her, when you clearly loved me?

Yet you continued to live that double life and lie to me each time I asked you why you were distant and if you had another woman again.

 

I am done with you, H.

I am moving on, and now you can really really feel it. In your heart you feel you have lost me. Because I stopped playing that stupid infinite game where we each had our scripts and we kept it up in a never-ending loop.

I changed the rules -- I didn't get seduced by you again. And I am never going to trust you again.

[Snowflower]

I would have never believed that you could do such a thing to me and to our marriage...to our very lives together. I have known you almost my entire adult life...and I thought I knew you so well. I never suspected an affair when you told me repeatedly that 'we' were finished, that a divorce was what you wanted, etc, etc.

 

I wish you had come to me and told me how you felt and asked me how I felt...instead of making assumptions about me and my feelings. I made plenty of mistakes in our marriage which I completely own...but I didn't deserve this.

 

You will never understand how you made me feel when I fought hard for months to keep a marriage that was essentially over, I just didn't know it yet. I begged and pleaded with you to not give up on our marriage and I hoped and prayed all the time that you-my husband-would come to your senses and stop saying such hurtful things to me.

 

I had no idea about the OW or what was really going on-maybe I would have reacted differently if I had known the truth. I just knew I was about to lose you. You wouldn't listen to me and instead listened to your OW and allowed yourself to not be true to yourself, much less me.

 

You changed me forever, DH, as a result of your actions. I will never blindly trust or take anything anyone says at 'face value' again. I will always be wary now.

 

I know you're trying to make it up to me and be a better husband and man. And I gave you another chance because I loved you and I know that you loved me, despite everything. But this can never be undone and you will probably need to spend the rest of your life trying to make up for something that shouldn't have happened in the first place.

[bentnotbroken]

WHAT in the hell gave you any IDEA that you, regardless of your own problems or needs, could make decisions affecting my entire life without my knowledge.

 

I know, I know...you "compartmentalized"

 

You put me in a freaking BOX.

 

 

Here, here. Who the hell said they had that right? :bunny:

[eleanorrigby]

I've never been hurt like you hurt me. I managed to make it through my unbelievably dysfunctional family and all their drama only to end up with YOU, someone that made the **** i went through as a child look like your average Brady Bunch easily fixed problem.

 

As crazy as my parents were, and they were crazy, I never felt degraded, demeaned, abandoned, ****ed over, and ****ed with, the way YOU did.

 

Your affairs have been the misery of my life, and i just hope one day when we divorce (and i'm sure it will happen) that you find someone that you think really has your back and I want her to do everything to you that you did to me.

 

****stick.

[Apple_juice]

The things i can't tell you to your face...

 

 

You said " I didn't know what i was thinking or doing. Please judge me by my action from this point onwards, stop looking back, i really want us to work".

 

I know you have been trying hard, i don't know what to say because deep i down i still can't get over what happened:

 

- How you handled the situation at the time. Your quick thought to abandon all of us.

- Your protective feelings toward the MOW when i confronted her. I never felt more alone, me, the bad guy on 1 side and you two, the victims on the other side..

- Your blatant lies after lies.

- And your honesty - your urge to explore and the realization that you're robbed of that chance after our marriage.

- You telling me maybe i should abort this unborn child, after i have made my decision to keep it.

- You, believing that all said and done can be erased and fixed just because she and you have moved on.

- You causing me to resent my growing body and this difficult pregnancy, where it should have been one of the most joyful moments in my life.

 

Dear WS, do you know.. i feel like i'm dragging behind, physically and mentally. It's heavy, i'm hurting inside out, i'm panting most of the time.. and the days are going by too excruciatingly slow.

[Devil Inside]

Thank you for the answers thus far. The words have touched me deep in my core. Surprisingly I also have tapped into some of my emotions about my wife's many infidelities....which have been buried in a mountain of guilt and numbness.

 

I have a few words for my W as a BS....

 

When we met I was in a dark time of my life. I met you and you accepted me for me. You thought I was enough.

 

I loved you with everything that I had. We had a child...and I did what I thought was right...for all of us. I have a tendency to rush into the fire.

 

Fueled by love I worked two jobs, finished school, change diapers, awoke for three AM feedings, and tried to show you love. I know I took you from your support system at home...so I tried to be everything to you...and in the process I lost me.

 

I wished you would have reached out and pulled me back in. I hammered away at the task of creating a perfect life for out little family...while you sat at home and chatted with men on the internet. I know you were depressed and feeling alone...but I wished it was me you reached for...and not some pervert in computer land.

 

The day I called the man you were talking to...I flipped. I always told you if you cheated I would be gone...no wonder you hid it (unbeknown to me hid the multiple EAs and one PA by then), I can see that.

 

I swallowed my integrity...swept it under the rug with assurances that it was an innocent and isolated incident (not even close) and went about my day...and died a little everyday.

 

We went into the last few years with you feeling that things were great. Yes we were more financially stable, our kids are beautiful, and you resumed your passion of singing....but what about me. Didn't you see me over in the corner with that dead look in my eyes. Didn't you wonder why I wouldn't try to make love to you every night like I used to. Of course not...all was well in your world now.

 

What I did...by cheating...was disgusting. I regret doing it to you and to my children...they are innocent and deserve better parents then us. The worst thing however, is that I can barely muster the emotions to be upset and hurt by what you did...because I am just the same. A coward that ran to the arms of another woman..because I wasn't man enough to tell you I was drowning in a sea of coldness.

 

I love you...but I don't trust you. I don't trust me with you. I do not even know if we can stay married. I am going to give it my all for those kids...but if it can't change I will walk...for those kids...they deserve a man for a father...for once.

 

When you act like nothing has happened this soon after D-day. When you tell me you aren't mad. When you say you wish I never told me...it pisses me off. You wish this never came out? You wish I never found out about you? You wish we could go on and keep thinking what others do...that we are the perfect family...we aren't. I can't live like that anymore.

 

I regret we had to burn it to the ground...but we have a chance to build a real foundation...brick by brick. I hope we both have what it take to build it back up...and even higher and stronger then it was....but if we can't...I won't look back.

[eeyore1981]

I would want my H to know one day of what he has done to me.

[tami-chan]

As a BS, I would have told my H..."you gambled and you lost me....you could never understand why I could not forgive you (like I told you so many times-I am not in the business of alleviating your guilt) and worked with you in rebuilding the marriage.... there was nothing to rebuild....you've lost your wife...."

[Trialbyfire]

Devil Inside, I've said everything I had to say to my ex. Getting everything off my chest directly to him, no holds barred, has let me fully forgive him and also myself, for having trusted him in the first place.

 

Get it all out. Forget being nice, tactful or kind. Tell her everything, straight from the heart, head and gut. If need be, write it down. Spew it, venom, hatred, love, pain, anguish, all of it, so all the poison is gone. It stops it from festering, thus rotting your soul.

[ladydesigner]

When you act like nothing has happened this soon after D-day. When you tell me you aren't mad. When you say you wish I never told me...it pisses me off. You wish this never came out? You wish I never found out about you? You wish we could go on and keep thinking what others do...that we are the perfect family...we aren't. I can't live like that anymore.

 

Wow DI this sounds like me, although my H has never found out about my A. I won't ever tell. When my H cheated on me I kind of knew it was coming. For years he had been going out with the boys sometimes coming home at 4 in the morning (I mean common what happens after the bars close) and I turned my head... and I turned my head... and then I found him in another lie... and another lie... until I no longer had any feelings for him. My xOM came and shed attention on me. I still held my feelings back. My xOM told me "he loved me" and I began to open up more and let myself fall more. Then he ripped my heart out as my H had and I am left with the mess of myself.

 

So what i would want my WS to know is how harmful his infidelity was to my self-esteem and to our relationship which was perfect I thought at one time, but maybe that was just my perception.

[joybean72]

Dear F*%tard,

 

Seven years of my life wasted, yes WASTED on a lying peice of s*#t. From day one you were a lying opportunist, hidden druggie, getting what you can from your then "source"...you narcissistic @-hole.

 

You did not have to do the things you did...the gaslighting, lying, cheating, kicking when I was already down. I knew something was wrong after you were caught lying (about the drugs) after we were only married 6 months, and the OW(s).I tried to communicate and got answers like, "I dunno why I did it."..."That's YOUR version, it never happened"...."You're crazy." (Even though I knew better.) I would have left A LOT sooner and saved myself a couple of years before it got as bad as it did.

I also could have found someone who loved me enough to have another child while I was still young enough, like WE had taked about. (Am SO glad I didn't with you...still, it pisses me off though!)

 

I loved your children & your family. It's sad that you have had to lie to them about who you TRULY are. I feell bad for them, because they will never know you the way I do and what YOU did to their mother, as well as myself. (You are SO good at playing the "good guy" & "victim" in every relationship you've been in...it's a down right art form at this point! )

 

I am glad to be be rid of you as I have found someone who actually cares about someone other than themself...who is loving, kind, and honest. You can SUCK IT!

[joybean72]

P.S. Devil Inside...I know ALL about "sweeping things under the rug." I'm sorry you went through that. Good luck to you.

[seren]

From the moment I saw you I knew that we were meant, sounds silly, but it is true, and you know I am not an overly sentimental woman, just say it as it is. For 25 years we have grown together, true, I have always been the scaffolding, I am a face it and fight it person, you are an avoid it and it will go away type. BUT, I did what I did for us, because I believed in us, we worked. You knew all my deepest fears, all the crap and hurt, and there has been more than most. I trusted you with the whole of me, for you there were no barriers, no walls, you had complete and utter access to my heart. I believed in YOU, warts and all, and you believed in me, warts and all. I knew we were having problems, I tried and tried to talk, but you just wouldn't acknowledge that we had problems. You went to Iraq and came back a different man, you became hurtful, took me for granted, took us for granted, acted like you didn't have responsibilities, and I waited for you to go through this thinking it was something you needed to do.

I knew to the day when it started, I knew the trips to the shops that took longer each time were excuses for something, just couldn't think that it would be another woman. I asked if there was someone else, you said not, and I believed - we still hugged, made love, laughed, made plans but it wasn't right.

Then you told me and my world just dissolved, what I thought was, wasn't, what I thought our marriage was, wasn't, who I thought you were, you were not. It felt like I didn't know what to do. I am the problem fixer for everyone I know, the person who sorts things out and here I was couldn't even think past the next second. I asked if you loved her and saw the incredulous look that said don't be stupid, and that really, really pissed me off. If you were going to kill me do it for love, not for lust, not just because you could. You text her it's over - that was that. The thing that wiped me out so easily ended. How bloody insulting to me, to our marriage, our son, to her.

I never, not for one moment thought of leaving, I loved you, I love you. How to fix it? truth, total truth, no bull****. It is the thought that you thought to make decisions about what I know, about what suited you to tell me, about what I thought my life was and how much I am prepared to put up with that riles me. The sex? I am confident enough to know that I have no concerns there. I just wish you had worn a condom, STD and all that. And so we begin.

For 2 years I have had my husband back, our marriage back, we have addressed what went wrong with our marriage. You have addressed what it was about you that looked to someone else to sort your head out and I have addressed how I enabled you to treat me without respect. Lots of learning and change all around. I trust you with other women, but not with 100% of my heart, I mourn our marriage, the one I thought we had, but I like this new marriage, you cannot show me more that you have remorse. You struggle with it far more than I. I came to the point where enough was enough, time to move forward, not forgetting, just putting it all into perspective. I still think about it, but not about her. Once I realised that it wasn't about her, or me but about you it was easier to resolve in my mind. I never stopped loving you, if I had I would not be here now.

[foreal]

Dear H,

 

I am 'all in'.

 

But you are sadly mistaken to believe I am 'all in' to you and us.

 

You have no idea who I am or what I am capable of...you think you know me, just as I thought I knew you.

 

You don't know me.

 

I am a different person now as a result of your betrayal.

 

Patience. Patience. Patience. I've got a lot of it. And I'll wait. One day, the time will be right. You'll never see it coming.

[Athena]

 

I am a different person now as a result of your betrayal.

 

Patience. Patience. Patience. I've got a lot of it. And I'll wait. One day, the time will be right. You'll never see it coming.

 

Wow. Powerful.

[silktricks]

DI - there's nothing left from the painful time to say to my formerWS, as I said everything that ever came into my mind during our recovery. I pulled no punches, softened no pain. He saw it all and heard it all. I told him that I never before truly understood the phrase "broken heart" but now I knew the phrase was true, as I actually felt it tear apart.

 

Now? Now I would only tell him that I love him. I've forgiven the bad times and am thankful we were able to recover our lives and our marriage.

[aeh]

Initially, you destroyed me. I will NEVER be the same person I was. I thought once we found each other that we were "it" for each other. I believed I was the center of your universe. You never acted like I wasn't. But now, from the ashes of the anger, betrayal, utter devastation, I have come to see that I will pick myself up again. I am not the person you thought I was. (I echo Foreal on this). You aren't the person I thought you were. Frankly, it disgusts me to watch anything related to a wedding. It looks like a farce to me. What a crock. You have disillusioned me completely. Even if we weren't together, no matter who I am with I will never trust completely or blindly. I am mourning the loss of that innocence. How could you do this to me? Do you know what you have turned me into? I look at every attractive man and wonder if he would have done this to me. Whereas I never noticed men before, I am acutely aware of their presence now. Will we stay together? I'm not sure. Somedays I realize that I love you more than ever, and other days I am wondering how I can get out of this mess and leave my children's lives intact. In fact, sometimes I vacillate between these feelings intensely many times in a day. You can't be my soulmate. My soulmate would have never done this to me. I didn't deserve this. You're doing all you can to make it better for me. I know that. And I do appreciate it. Strangely, I still completely trust you. But the truth remains that you did this. And that I can never forget. You held my heart in your hands and crumpled it into pieces. Does it make me feel better that you say you didn't love her (even though you told her you did and you cried when you told me this because you said it wasn't true but you knew it would destroy me to hear.? I don't know whether it's better that you didn't love her (you threw away my love and trust for someone you didn't even love?) or if you had loved her. You crossed the line with her over and over again. It wasn't just a bad choice...it was thousands of bad choices. I guess I'm still waiting for my Prince Charming......

[EcstasyX6]

I was in your shoes; but he said that it was the lying that hurt him the most. How could I look him in the eyes and lie so easily? He still loved me, but it was the one thing about me that he detested.

 

Also, the total disregard for his health and safety stunned him. How could I put his life on the line? It was one thing to endanger myself, but to risk his life when he had never stepped outside of the marriage... (We both work in the health care field, and I knew better.)

[aeh]

And more...

 

Today you told me that if I had been the one having the ten month affair, that you would be over it by now (three months post D-Day). You also said that you wouldn't ask the same questions over and over. I have become bitter towards you, but its seething beneath the surface. Sometimes I feel like everything is back to normal, and in fact, better than normal. I feel nervous and excited like we are just dating. I LOVE having sex with you. And yet, I am closing off parts of myself to you.

 

I have had a RA. Did I enjoy it? Yes, very much. It was brief, a mere two weeks compared to your ten months of deception. Yes, I sunk to your level. But did it make me feel better? Yes. It made me feel like less of a victim. As if I took control of something in my life, even though I have never felt so completely out of control. I have given caution to the wind. I have been tired of being "the good girl" because I have seen that being the good girl gets me nowhere in the end. You threw that girl away. And you know what? I still respect myself.

 

Something else interesting....it gave me a perspective on how affairs work. I realize that I did exactly what I have read about. I minimized the marriage to enter the affair and I minimized the affair to "re-enter" the marriage (still not sure that I want to re-enter the marriage). I even used all the lines on my XOM I have since read about--"We're not doing that well." "We don't have sex" (God, this couldn't be further from the truth--still two and three times a day!) I ended the A after I got what I wanted--validation, some good sex, a distraction from the immense pain. It was all about ME.

 

So, here we are after I've asked a million questions and you clearly don't want to continue to dwell on it. You didn't reprimand me for dwelling on it, but in a roundabout way you were. You asked me at lunch why it looked like I was studying you so closely. My dear husband, I am looking at you trying to figure out who the hell we have become.