Hazyhead Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 I hope I don't offend anybody by posting in this thread as I am a former OW. As time passes and my remorse grows for negatively affecting the lives of others, I think more about the BS (yes, this is too little too late, I know). Again, sorry if this sounds falsely contrite, but I have genuine admiration for somebody who can overlook such hurt that's been caused and forgive. My question is, how do you balance your own emotional needs with actions that represent forgiveness, in order to move the marriage past it?
imagine Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 My opinion of a FOW is to offer an apology to W with no expectation of forgiveness. She will never make contact with that family ever again. The shadow cast by OW is devastating to the family. Any reminders brings triggers to both BS and MM. Pray for God's grace.
Author Hazyhead Posted February 9, 2010 Author Posted February 9, 2010 My opinion of a FOW is to offer an apology to W with no expectation of forgiveness. She will never make contact with that family ever again. The shadow cast by OW is devastating to the family. Any reminders brings triggers to both BS and MM. Pray for God's grace. Thank you for your post Imagine. I understand what you are saying and I have offered my apologies to those I have hurt. I feel remorse every day and, unfortunately, can't change the past. I can only work on myself and part of that is understanding for the BS. I'm sorry that my post has offended you.
RedDevil66 Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 great thread As someone who also cheated with a married man 11 yrs ago, I was confronted by the wife and I acknowledge my actions were deplorable. I was immature and well basically a lost soul. She forgave me......she understood. That pain changed my life and I never walked that sick road again. Then I was a BS. And like many of the OW here, she was unapologetic, blamed me for the failed relationship and really felt entitled. She was a serial cheater, married 4 other times and just got off on the chase, drama and chaos I compare this to sociopathic behavior. She didn't care who she hurt There are two types of cheaters, the ones who show remorse (like you) and the ones who feel their actions are A OK and have this entitlement.
freestyle Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 I hope I don't offend anybody by posting in this thread as I am a former OW. As time passes and my remorse grows for negatively affecting the lives of others, I think more about the BS (yes, this is too little too late, I know). Again, sorry if this sounds falsely contrite, but I have genuine admiration for somebody who can overlook such hurt that's been caused and forgive. My question is, how do you balance your own emotional needs with actions that represent forgiveness, in order to move the marriage past it? I applaud you for the courage it took to post this. In a strange way,for me it's somewhat comforting.........Maybe it's knowing that not all OWs are like the one Red Devil described. I had a similar experience to hers, so I know how much it shake your very faith in humanity when someone acts with such a callous disregard for your feelings. So thank you for your candor, and for caring enough to try to see through the eyes of someone who's been betrayed. I think it may be a huge step in your own healing. Recovery is a long, long, road.......
Author Hazyhead Posted February 9, 2010 Author Posted February 9, 2010 Thank you, but one thing I've learned from posting on these forums is that there is a lot of remorse flying around. I'm still wondering how you do it, mind, as the BS (I know, the same must apply the other way around). Maybe it's something that at times even you don't know that answer for sure. It is a long road. Thank you for your replies.
Gabriele Posted February 9, 2010 Posted February 9, 2010 For me.......I think I hold on to what my reality used to be, and weigh the hurt I (and my kids) would feel if I chose to leave my WS. For me, all I want is my fairytale back. I know it will never be the same. I don't know how I do it. An IC asked me what it is that I respect about myself for staying in the M, I couldn't answer........I don't think I respect myself, I think it is very De-selfing to stay married and choose to repair someone elses mess (and I know in some cases there are marriage problems that are caused by both spouses, but in my situation, that was not the case). It's very tough. I am only 6ish months past D-Day, I am hoping I will have a better answer to this question sometime, one that includes me respecting myself. I made contact with one of his OW (there were 2 with years separating them) She was remorseful, like you..........but to be honest her remorse meant nothing to me. She obviously had her own problems (she was married to). The only one who betrayed me that hurt me was my WH. I suppose if she was a B and made it out to be my fault.......I would likely hate her more.....but to be honest I think it would make me hate my H more, cause that would mean he lied to her about me or told stories to her to make her feel that way. just my thoughts. Gabriele
crazycatlady Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 I hope I don't offend anybody by posting in this thread as I am a former OW. As time passes and my remorse grows for negatively affecting the lives of others, I think more about the BS (yes, this is too little too late, I know). Again, sorry if this sounds falsely contrite, but I have genuine admiration for somebody who can overlook such hurt that's been caused and forgive. My question is, how do you balance your own emotional needs with actions that represent forgiveness, in order to move the marriage past it? For me - and I know I'm different from most BS - For my emotional needs I had to forgive and let go of my resentment, hurt, anger at the OW, pain with my H, I had to let it all go. I knew I wasn't leaving, I knew H loved me and hadn't meant to cause me pain, that he is a conflict avoider and to be honest I tend to be as well, and has had trouble talking to me about some other things as well. I decided that because I felt this way about him and our marriage, because of how I dealt with things early, and some other issues, that in order to be at peace with myself, with my H, and with the other woman that forgiveness, peace, love and understand had to be felt on my part. And I've flip flopped some but for the most part I've been able to accept, embrace, and move on. And it feels good. But again, I'm very different from most others and my situation is really different from everyone elses. But I also don't understand why you would stay if there is so much bitterness and anger felt so strongly for such a long period of time. I couldn't do it. CCL
RedDevil66 Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 I applaud you for the courage it took to post this. In a strange way,for me it's somewhat comforting.........Maybe it's knowing that not all OWs are like the one Red Devil described. I had a similar experience to hers, so I know how much it shake your very faith in humanity when someone acts with such a callous disregard for your feelings. So thank you for your candor, and for caring enough to try to see through the eyes of someone who's been betrayed. I think it may be a huge step in your own healing. Recovery is a long, long, road....... I also thank you for the candor. It takes a huge heart, a real soul and a kind person to see the err of their ways. And recovery is long, but lots of wonderful lessons learned along the way
Ronni_W Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 My question is, how do you balance your own emotional needs with actions that represent forgiveness, in order to move the marriage past it? Do you mean how does a betrayed spouse find forgiveness for a wandering partner and/or the affair partner? Forgiveness is, at its core, an act of self-interest. If one's mental-emotional-spiritual-physical needs and goals include having an intact family and a stable-happy marriage, then forgiveness becomes a necessary element -- one's own forgiveness (of one or more others involved) supports one's own needs and goals for family and marriage.
Author Hazyhead Posted February 10, 2010 Author Posted February 10, 2010 For me.......I think I hold on to what my reality used to be, and weigh the hurt I (and my kids) would feel if I chose to leave my WS. For me, all I want is my fairytale back. I know it will never be the same. I don't know how I do it. An IC asked me what it is that I respect about myself for staying in the M, I couldn't answer........I don't think I respect myself, I think it is very De-selfing to stay married and choose to repair someone elses mess (and I know in some cases there are marriage problems that are caused by both spouses, but in my situation, that was not the case). It's very tough. I am only 6ish months past D-Day, I am hoping I will have a better answer to this question sometime, one that includes me respecting myself. I made contact with one of his OW (there were 2 with years separating them) She was remorseful, like you..........but to be honest her remorse meant nothing to me. She obviously had her own problems (she was married to). The only one who betrayed me that hurt me was my WH. I suppose if she was a B and made it out to be my fault.......I would likely hate her more.....but to be honest I think it would make me hate my H more, cause that would mean he lied to her about me or told stories to her to make her feel that way. just my thoughts. Gabriele Thank you for this honest, poignant response Gabriele. I'm so sorry for your suffering. You're brave to face that every day and put your own self aside for the sake of your family. I hope you and your husband can create a new fairytale.
Author Hazyhead Posted February 10, 2010 Author Posted February 10, 2010 For me - and I know I'm different from most BS - For my emotional needs I had to forgive and let go of my resentment, hurt, anger at the OW, pain with my H, I had to let it all go. I knew I wasn't leaving, I knew H loved me and hadn't meant to cause me pain, that he is a conflict avoider and to be honest I tend to be as well, and has had trouble talking to me about some other things as well. I decided that because I felt this way about him and our marriage, because of how I dealt with things early, and some other issues, that in order to be at peace with myself, with my H, and with the other woman that forgiveness, peace, love and understand had to be felt on my part. And I've flip flopped some but for the most part I've been able to accept, embrace, and move on. And it feels good. But again, I'm very different from most others and my situation is really different from everyone elses. But I also don't understand why you would stay if there is so much bitterness and anger felt so strongly for such a long period of time. I couldn't do it. CCL Hi CCL, I've followed your story and you strike me as a very strong individual. Your husband must admire that strength and determination and that must help your recovery situation. That's what I don't understand though, how somebody could stay with all the bitterness and anger. It takes some amount of self-sacifice.
Author Hazyhead Posted February 10, 2010 Author Posted February 10, 2010 Do you mean how does a betrayed spouse find forgiveness for a wandering partner and/or the affair partner? Forgiveness is, at its core, an act of self-interest. If one's mental-emotional-spiritual-physical needs and goals include having an intact family and a stable-happy marriage, then forgiveness becomes a necessary element -- one's own forgiveness (of one or more others involved) supports one's own needs and goals for family and marriage. Sorry for being unclear Ronni, I meant how do they find forgiveness when, I suppose, it can't be a natural response. I wondered if there was a point where they simply had to try to fight the anger and hurt in order to see the positive in their partner again. It's such an amount of hurt to work through. But I do see your point about how forgiveness is a personal act and is necessary for one's health, not just the other person.
BlueeyedJonesy Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 HH, I really don't think there is an OW/OM out there who doesn't feel bad about what they've done AT TIMES...but for some, it is incredibly difficult to admit wrong doing. You sound like a very strong woman. You recognize the pain you've caused and are trying to fix it. It takes alot I'm sure. I always think of it this way..My H has an enormous amount of guilt, and I have SEVERE heartache....but if I could pick which side I was on..I def wouldn't take the guilt...My IC says I had no control over my H's actions but he sure as hell did. There is nothing I can do but try to move on and like Gabrielle said "I just want my fairytale back" HH there will come a day where you will feel peace. You deserve it.
SleepingDog Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 (edited) I appreciate your post and can only tell you about my own feelings. Though the affair is 10 years ago it occasionally rears its ugly head again. I am now havng a particularly bad period of flashbacks. I tried to forget and forgive, but it never really goes away. While I had to forgive my W in order to move on, I didn't have any orgiveness left for the OM. I won't ever overlook the pain he caused me, pain that even ten years later can hurt like it was only yesterday. The moment he decided to interfere with my marriage he decided to make himself part of my life. He decided that my feelings were of no consequence and could be trampled with to his hearts content, just so he could get what he wanted. That's what I hate him for. And even though I have not seen him in ten years he will not get out of my head ( and now virtually. He just showed up on facebook and is friends with 14 joint friends who don't know about the A). Until the A I never felt physically aggressive towards anyone. I never understood why people might hate someone enough to hurt them. But now I do. I can see in vivid mental images what I would like to do to him, and I hate him for bringing the animal out in me. I hate, truly hate him, with vindictive, disgusted rage, for still being there in my head when I have sex with my wife. Even though our sex life is better than it has been in 10 years. It has become part of my life like a car crash is part of your life. It has always happened, it never goes away, and sometimes you still feel the pain. The thought that this man physically exists somewhere, has perhaps a nice life, with a nice job and a nice wife (and a nice mistress) makes me sick. Until I die I will not be able to forget what he did to me. I hate him because he did not have to pay the same price I did and can walk away undamaged, with only his pride slightly ruffled and a dent to his self-iamge as 'a nice guy'. This bad episode will pass hopefully soon and it will be n the back of my mind for another couple of years. "Coping" describes what I am doing, not "overlooking" A contrite, heartfelt sorry might have helped. But to be honest I don't think I would even then regard this person as human. Edited February 10, 2010 by SleepingDog
Author Hazyhead Posted February 10, 2010 Author Posted February 10, 2010 HH, I really don't think there is an OW/OM out there who doesn't feel bad about what they've done AT TIMES...but for some, it is incredibly difficult to admit wrong doing. You sound like a very strong woman. You recognize the pain you've caused and are trying to fix it. It takes alot I'm sure. I always think of it this way..My H has an enormous amount of guilt, and I have SEVERE heartache....but if I could pick which side I was on..I def wouldn't take the guilt...My IC says I had no control over my H's actions but he sure as hell did. There is nothing I can do but try to move on and like Gabrielle said "I just want my fairytale back" HH there will come a day where you will feel peace. You deserve it. I don't feel like a very strong woman, but thank you. I do recognize the pain... but I can't take it back. I would pick the side of the guilt and shame too, rather than heartbreak, definitely. I'm sorry for your pain BEJ. I hope you find the peace that you so rightly deserve too.
Author Hazyhead Posted February 10, 2010 Author Posted February 10, 2010 I appreciate your post and can only tell you about my own feelings. Though the affair is 10 years ago it occasionally rears its ugly head again. I am now havng a particularly bad period of flashbacks. I tried to forget and forgive, but it never really goes away. While I had to forgive my W in order to move on, I didn't have any orgiveness left for the OM. I won't ever overlook the pain he caused me, pain that even ten years later can hurt like it was only yesterday. The moment he decided to interfere with my marriage he decided to make himself part of my life. He decided that my feelings were of no consequence and could be trampled with to his hearts content, just so he could get what he wanted. That's what I hate him for. And even though I have not seen him in ten years he will not get out of my head ( and now virtually. He just showed up on facebook and is friends with 14 joint friends who don't know about the A). Until the A I never felt physically aggressive towards anyone. I never understood why people might hate someone enough to hurt them. But now I do. I can see in vivid mental images what I would like to do to him, and I hate him for bringing the animal out in me. I hate, truly hate him, with vindictive, disgusted rage, for still being there in my head when I have sex with my wife. Even though our sex life is better than it has been in 10 years. It has become part of my life like a car crash is part of your life. It has always happened, it never goes away, and sometimes you still feel the pain. The thought that this man physically exists somewhere, has perhaps a nice life, with a nice job and a nice wife (and a nice mistress) makes me sick. Until I die I will not be able to forget what he did to me. I hate him because he did not have to pay the same price I did and can walk away undamaged, with only his pride slightly ruffled and a dent to his self-iamge as 'a nice guy'. This bad episode will pass hopefully soon and it will be n the back of my mind for another couple of years. "Coping" describes what I am doing, not "overlooking" A contrite, heartfelt sorry might have helped. But to be honest I don't think I would even then regard this person as human. Thanks for posting Sleeping Dog. I understand your anger and it's justified. It's also justified at your partner. I don't know if the apology would make any difference. I apologised, sincerely, but it was not well received, and was met with the comment about me being less than human. Not that I expected it to be well received. I can't take back what I participated in, I wish I could, but an apology is all I have. Everybody loses though, I believe. He might not be walking round with the perfect life; he may well have gotten his karma. I'm sorry for your suffering; have you been to IC and MC?
SleepingDog Posted February 10, 2010 Posted February 10, 2010 (edited) Thanks for posting Sleeping Dog. I understand your anger and it's justified. It's also justified at your partner. I don't know if the apology would make any difference. I apologised, sincerely, but it was not well received, and was met with the comment about me being less than human. Not that I expected it to be well received. I can't take back what I participated in, I wish I could, but an apology is all I have. Everybody loses though, I believe. He might not be walking round with the perfect life; he may well have gotten his karma. I'm sorry for your suffering; have you been to IC and MC? At the time, yes. We went to MC, which made me realise how unhappy my W was about certain things in our M. I do feel though as if it was me trying to win her back though than the other way round, and to an extent this justified her A. I now feel she had a lot of complaints that are petty compared to what she did. I went to IC. I had gone that road before because I had a depression, and took medication IC has limits. It is nice to vent. It gave me some useful crutches which I used to repeat like a mantra. Like 'you can't control what other people do'. Which helped a bit when I was obsessing about the future but is bad advice really. Because if you are a BS A's are all about control, and I did regain some control by taking revenge on OM (to the displeasure of my analyst) A proper apology might make me think he's human. I really did think he owed me an explanation, and the fact that he just would not respond to emails, put the phone down on me when I called him just added insult to injury. He was man enough to screw my wife, he should have been man enough to face the consequences. But he was a weasel and a coward and ran away from me. Did you know I wasn't in the country when this happened? That is the kind of man he is. On the other hand, had he not had these character flaws my W might have left me for him, who knows. Also it makes it easier for me to despise him. He even hid behind his mother, can you believe it, who told me (after 3 months) I was crazy and 'it is time to move on'. I don't think there's karma. I even said when I confronted him ' I hope this never happens to you, because then you will know how much what you've done has devastated me. I don't wish that on my worst enemy, and that happens to be you'. T(hat last line is surely worthy of Hollywood). I don't know why I was so his generous and allowed myself to show my vulnerability at the same time. I feel stupid about that now. I think I wanted to appeal to that 1 % of common decency in him to make him feel well and truly bad about himself. Still, it is nothing to what I am going through. Edited February 10, 2010 by SleepingDog
imagine Posted February 11, 2010 Posted February 11, 2010 Thank you for your post Imagine. I understand what you are saying and I have offered my apologies to those I have hurt. I feel remorse every day and, unfortunately, can't change the past. I can only work on myself and part of that is understanding for the BS. I'm sorry that my post has offended you. I'm not offended and I am sorry that I appear to be. I am an old poster that has never been cheated but strives to tell the truth. My honest advise is to be removed from the family regardless of how much you may want to recover their marriage. Involvement by you will only cause hurt. Make your requests for them to God. He alone, can have effect. So seldom does the OW appreciate what has been done nor is she fully impacted. Your contrition is noted.
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