Author herenow Posted November 17, 2006 Author Posted November 17, 2006 Also, the OW was not a friend. As a matter of fact, I have never met her or seen her. She worked with my H and is no longer employed at the same company. She is a faceless person that turned my life upside down. I am doing this (as I have said before in another post) to rid myself of the hatred I have for her. Maybe part of the reason I want to talk to my H about this is to find a little sympathy for her myself. I don't like the feeling of hating someone so I'm really trying. Maybe your right and it's not a good idea.
NoIDidn't Posted November 17, 2006 Posted November 17, 2006 Okay, that makes complete sense. I did something similar, but it had nothing to do with OW. I knew how much he regretted what he did to her, what I did to her. And, no, I have never been within a mile of her knowingly anyway, so no violence there. Getting to the root of his thinking is definitely what it takes.
Author herenow Posted November 17, 2006 Author Posted November 17, 2006 ask him if he at the time if hewas so unhappy in the marriage why did not tell you? Did he love his OW? I did ask him if her loved her. His immediate answer was no. After talking about it he realized that he used her to escape from all the realities in life. Love was not part of the equation for him, however, she did fall in love with him and was very frustrated that he never said he loved her. I got this info when he let me listen to old voice mail messages. Why didn't he come to me and tell me he was unhappy? That is the million dollar question. I will let you know if I ever get an answer. Truth is, I didn't tell him I was unhappy either. I just poured myself into work and family and went into denial about our problems. Not everyone that is unhappy in a marriage has an affair.
Author herenow Posted November 17, 2006 Author Posted November 17, 2006 I put this out to the OW, because I have no other way of knowing your side. I have no intention of ever calling the OW because this is about me and my H and fixing our marriage. She is no longer a part of our lives.
Author herenow Posted November 18, 2006 Author Posted November 18, 2006 I have to admit that one of the reasons I post on this board is because I don't want to waste valuable MC time talking about my issues with the OW. However, I can't ignore them either, so here I am. My posts are about the OW, but there is so much more to me that I don't post about. I have lots of great things in life that I'm happy about, I just need to get past the little OW obsession that I seem to have right now.
NoIDidn't Posted November 18, 2006 Posted November 18, 2006 herenow, As this is the OW/OM forum, I don't want to make this about my M or its recovery. Enable your PM feature, as you have enough posts now to do so. That is, if you want to.
Author herenow Posted November 18, 2006 Author Posted November 18, 2006 herenow, As this is the OW/OM forum, I don't want to make this about my M or its recovery. Enable your PM feature, as you have enough posts now to do so. That is, if you want to. I would love to. How do I do it?
whichwayisup Posted November 18, 2006 Posted November 18, 2006 This is about him and his feelings. Then ask him what he got out of being with her. What was it she made him feel? Was it an ego feed for him? Loving that someone else other than you, desired him and that could 'have' her? Sit down and write out all your questions, ask him to answer honestly. I bet you'll find it was ALL ABOUT HIM and nothing to do with you at all.
NoIDidn't Posted November 18, 2006 Posted November 18, 2006 Click the "My Profile/CP " link at the top of the page. There is a Private Messaging section where you will see what to click to enable them. HTH
Author herenow Posted November 18, 2006 Author Posted November 18, 2006 Then ask him what he got out of being with her. What was it she made him feel? Was it an ego feed for him? Loving that someone else other than you, desired him and that could 'have' her? Sit down and write out all your questions, ask him to answer honestly. I bet you'll find it was ALL ABOUT HIM and nothing to do with you at all. I'm sure you are right. I'm already done with the "what was it about her" part of this.
Author herenow Posted November 18, 2006 Author Posted November 18, 2006 Click the "My Profile/CP " link at the top of the page. There is a Private Messaging section where you will see what to click to enable them. HTH I tried that and it says that I do not have access. I'll try again.
Author herenow Posted November 18, 2006 Author Posted November 18, 2006 Thank you all for your feedback. I'm going to sign off now for a great weekend. Hope you all have a great one too!
whichwayisup Posted November 18, 2006 Posted November 18, 2006 I tried that and it says that I do not have access. I'll try again. After a certain amount of posts and time being on LS as a member, then they'll enable PM's and you'll have access.
Ripples Posted November 18, 2006 Posted November 18, 2006 I don't think it's healthy to do this, HN. I don't think it's very healthy, either, to be in contact with other OW here, either. You admit to be obsessed with the OW in question. It seems to me that being here is a way of trying to fulfill that desire for knowledge of her. Have you ever hoped to find her here? Do you hope she reads your posts and so sees you as a strong, independant, good person? Would it be right to assume you would, at least like to know what her motivations are? If this is the case, then I would advise you don't come here and that you find a way of coming to terms with not knowing the whole truth and realising that you don't need the truth to move on.
BUTAFLY Posted November 18, 2006 Posted November 18, 2006 You are absolutly correct Ripples. We are all looking for answers here, thats because we don't trust or are afraid to seek the answers from the people who we need to get it from. I have 100 questions to ask my exwbf/mm but I won't, so I ask mm here & in real life. I also try to wrap my brain around the W. So I ask questions to BS here and won't ask his wife. None of this may be healthly but some of us need to make sense of this mess and have closure in order to move on. The thing is we get fixated on LS becasue we don't find those answers we seek; we never will, not unless we confront the true people that hurt us.
lovernotafighter Posted November 18, 2006 Posted November 18, 2006 OK, I have a meeting to go to now, but I have an offer for all you OW. My H and I go to MC every Thursday. Next week is Thanksgiving and we won't be going, but our therapist suggested we still take an hour to talk. Truth is, we talk about this when we are alone anyway. My offer is to use one hour to get his feelings about the fact that the affair hurt the OW. I know that she was devistated, but we haven't really spoken much about her in MC. We try to use our time fixing us. I'm not sure he understands how much she was hurt. If any of you would like me to ask him anything, please let me know. I don't even know where to begin, but maybe I can get some good info for all of us. I think that is very kind HereNow, but I worry that asking something like will send you back 100 paces... I think you want to forgive her and that starts with understanding..but your more important..focus on you kay? (((hugs)))
Guest Posted November 20, 2006 Posted November 20, 2006 Please search Who She Is written by Regina Barreca. It really tells the story about being the OW and being in love with a man you'll never have. I'm the OW for 4 years now. When I read this -- I felt the author had written about my life. I don't know how many of you have read it -- but it's profound.
Ripples Posted November 20, 2006 Posted November 20, 2006 The thing is we get fixated on LS becasue we don't find those answers we seek; we never will, not unless we confront the true people that hurt us. Yes, I can absolutely understand this, although I don't believe that we'll ever get the 'truth' even by confronting those people. Simply because, no matter what we're told, there will always be a doubt in our minds. After all, the person we're asking has lied to us before, why would we believe them now? I believe the only way to move on is to come to terms with not knowing and realising that it really doesn't matter to not have the 'truth'. After all, what the truth is, is debateable
Guest Posted November 20, 2006 Posted November 20, 2006 I presume the OW knew what she was getting into. Lets not make her into some innocent who was caught up in the mess, this is very rarely the case. It is your feelings that matter now.
erika2610 Posted November 20, 2006 Posted November 20, 2006 Who She Is Regina Barreca She's the nicest woman you could ever meet; in fact, you might have met her. You might know her fairly well and you might like her a lot without being aware that she's sleeping with your husband. She is a nice woman, really. This is the only part of her life that can't be admired, that can't be examined, that can't be discussed out loud. It's the only part of her life for which she doesn't respect herself and it keeps her miserable, even when she's happy, because she knows whatever happiness she has is stolen and illegitimate. She's not a fool even though she knows she's acting like one. Or, she's not sleeping with your husband -- maybe you're single, maybe you have different relationships in your life -- and so this is a friend of yours, a woman you've come to consider a good and dependable part of your life. She's an elementary school teacher, a physical therapist, a pharmacist, a social worker, a bank executive, a swim coach, an engineer, a computer programmer. She's been your friend since junior high, your college roommate, your best colleague, your neighbor, your confidante, without revealing this part of her life to you because she suspects that even at your most understanding you wouldn't understand. You couldn't unless you've been through this and she knows you haven't. Or she thinks she knows you haven't but one thing she has learned is that nobody is exempt from the possibility of this happening -- if a person could claim exemption, she'd be first on the list. So she doesn't tell you, her best friend. You might judge her harshly or, even worse, stop speaking to her altogether and she can't bear the thought of losing you. She's already surrounded by the possibility of loss and will not add to it, even at the cost of not talking about the very thing that consumes her waking moments. Educated, polite and brought up by a loving family, she's not a particularly hot tomato or the kind of woman usually transported across state lines for immoral purposes. Attractive, fun, attentive and considerate, she is deeply committed to those she loves and that's one of the reasons this tears her apart, One of the things she loves about this man, after all, is the way he treats the ones to whom he is closest. Not her -- he can't treat her as if she were really in his life, after all -- but others. His real family, the inhabitants of his real life. If he were an emotional bully or an emotional slob, she wouldn't have been drawn to him in the first place. Those aspects of his life he betrays to be with her are the very parts of him she would never wish him to compromise. So she understands how divided he is, how he feels like a piece of meat being sliced up by a rusty knife, how he feels like he's drowning and suffocating and being eaten alive all at once. He, too, is a decent person, except for this business of loving someone he isn't supposed to love. Holidays are hard, but so is spring and so are winter nights, summer mornings and long, early-autumn afternoons. The phone is her lifeline and she has about 17 different ways of being reached in case some shard of time can be broken off and given to her. She'll take what she can get -- not in a way anyone would think of her, but in this case it's true. There are codes they use to communicate what can't be spoken or written; these were funny at first but over time they have be come as serious as a car crash. Maybe it ends when there is a car crash and they're in the front seat together, returning from a place where they never should have been, suddenly having to make up a series of lies to disguise what everybody around them now suspects is the truth. Even if they get away with it, the experience wrecks them, mangles what they had beyond recognition. Or, she goes to his kid's high school graduation ceremony and realizes that it's been 12 years already and that she could have had a kid herself by now, one in the sixth grade. Or it continues. Impossible nights, intolerable weekends, endless violations of everything she knows about how life should be lived, but they have loved each other for so long now, how can it stop? She starts to worry that he'll die of a heart attack and no one will tell her for days because why would anyone think to call and tell her an incidental piece of bad news about some guy she never knew very well? Or she starts to think about her own final moments. This is the worst. She can't believe this is her life. Nobody else would believe it either, even the man. It's a tough, rotten, exhausting routine. Nobody chooses it on purpose. This is not a defense of her: She knows better than you that what she's doing is indefensible. Don't ridicule her, and don't think you don't know her. You do. © Copyright 1998, Regina Barreca. All rights reserved. http://gloryb.com/articles/whoisshe.html
Spinderella Posted November 20, 2006 Posted November 20, 2006 The "who she is" article, is really excellent. However, part of healing from pain inflicted (even though I know it is unintentional, alot of inflicted pain is really, look at break-ups) by another, is to be angry at that person for a time. It's part of moving on, and healthy, provided you deal with that anger appropriately. Somehow, it seems that HereNow is maybe trying too hard to move too quickly through that stage, and though it is very admirable of her, I dont think she should expect to be feeling at peace with it right yet. She is just learning to trust her H again, and talking to him about the Ow at this stage, may well bring up all kinds of doubt in her mind. Perhaps the best thing to do (assuming you also have individual counselling with the same marriage counsellor), would be to discuss the subject with the counsellor first, and see what they think about raising the issue with your H at this stage. It seems HereNow that you feel guilty to have these feelings of anger toward OW. I think, well, you have not acted on these feelings, and it is not wrong to have them. No true compassion for others comes until we are at peace with ourselves. Heal yourself first, because, compassion does start from within.
Recommended Posts