just got a call from BW...

[Heather1]

I'm so glad this worked out! Good for you for following your instincts on it & actually giving her some piece of mind that it's her H that's the problem, not you. The BS & the OW probably have a lot in common, considering people are usually attracted to a certain type. Sometimes people marry the wrong person though, not realizing how hard being M can be.

 

Oh....and at&t it's .50 a txt out of country for your H, but he can get incoming txt's at the same rate as in the US. Works pretty much all over the world now.

[Heather1]

ps...FB is stalker's paradise. I can't shake some guy I haven't seen since Jr. High & he keeps commenting. I never go on it anymore.

[sadintexas]

...and if he does know, then it makes me want to puke, the way he's letting her blame me and demand retribution from me instead of dealing with the mess in his house his own damn self.

 

Well, unfortunately this is quite typically the conflict avoidance that causes them to seek affairs in the first place, instead of dealing with the mess in his house...just par for the course. Just try to see it for what it is.

 

You don't have to be involved in THEIR situation unless you choose to be. Politely dismissing the invitation to be continually involved in this will only help your healing and leave them to only face each other. Although you feel like you want to unleash on them right now, in the long run, I think you will feel better if you stay as removed as possible from this. You've done what you can do. The rest is up to them.

 

Edited: I hadn't read the rest of the thread when I replied to this. I'm very glad it worked out well. Maybe now there will be some level of peace for you both.

[sugarmomma]

Glad everything worked out in the meeting. I was prayin for you girl!! Hoping she wasn't tearing your eyes out!!!

 

Very Good!!:bunny::bunny:

[dobler33]

thanks, sugar! i appear to still possess both my eyeballs, although i've had a couple of glasses of the aforementioned wine by now so i'm not sure i'd notice if one were gone.

 

heather, EVERY bad interpersonal thing that's happened to me in the last year has been a result of FB. i have no idea why i bother. at this point i just refuse to be pushed off, i think. how very f*cking mature.

 

thanks for the text info - i'll let him know to keep his phone on. would be nice to be able to get word to him fast rather than waiting for him to be able to check his laptop.

 

and thanks, texas - even before you saw the post script your words were compassionate and understanding. i'm glad it worked out ok too, and i'm hoping like hell there is peace in this for all of us.

[dobler33]

l'intrepide, i grew up a-horseback, although i never had a godly-named horse. i had a blue-eyed ex-barrel-racer quarterhorse named roscoe p coltraine (although when i was little i thought it was "roscoe piko train") who was my most reliable male family member. my sister had a mad thoroughbred/appy who spooked at gravel.

 

who are your godly beasts named for?

[boldjack]

We had Isis, Hecate, Juno,Minerva, Cleopatra, and Brunhilda-mares. Zeus, Apollo, Ajax, Lysander, Thor-geldings and studs. These were picked out by my daughter. The boys got to name the dogs and cattle. 2 mules, castor and pollux. The boys names were funnier. Dogs named, Miller high life, Bullwinkle, crab grass, and others. We have had many animals wild as well as tame, the boys were always bringing something in.

[LaGazelle]

holy self-preservation, batman. you KNOW i ain't contacting either of them again unless absolutely effing necessary - she and i set up strategies for dealing with any unavoidable social contact, that if either of us was aware of something that could not be got out of we would email the other and strategize accordingly, like who will bow out, that kind of thing. but him? HAILS no. it is amazing to me how he has twisted this into me pursuing him, according to her, anyway. whatever. doesn't matter. it is done and ended on as positive a note as could be hoped for (she gave me a hug???), and i am hoping like hell never to have to deal with either of them ever again. let them rip each other's eyes out and leave mine alone, you know?

 

i am LOVING the francaise, jack l'intrepide. o la la.

 

Dobler, it's great you have managed to "resolve" the issue with MM's wife so effectively. It is just a shame that you seem to wish for them to "rip each others eyes out" even though she is kind enough to wish for you and your husband to be happy together. I will never fully understand the female psyche. Or perhaps it is the human condition.

 

Glad it all went well anyway, and everyone now seems to have closure. It was noble of you to accomodate her request to meet.

[dobler33]

Dobler, it's great you have managed to "resolve" the issue with MM's wife so effectively. It is just a shame that you seem to wish for them to "rip each others eyes out" even though she is kind enough to wish for you and your husband to be happy together. I will never fully understand the female psyche. Or perhaps it is the human condition.

 

Glad it all went well anyway, and everyone now seems to have closure. It was noble of you to accomodate her request to meet.

 

 

oh gosh, of course i don't want them to rip each other's eyes out. i do care deeply about them both. it's just that the more distance and perspective i get on this the more aware i am that i was seriously an object for both of them, that they kind of made me into a weapon against one another, and i ended up getting pretty ripped up myself in the process. this does not at all excuse my own actions in the whole trauma. but a lot of the damage they wanted to do to each other got done on me instead, so i think that comment was more like "glad i'm not in their crossfire and glad i took a firm stand to keep myself out of their crossfire - let them deal with each other now." you know?

[Owl]

oh gosh, of course i don't want them to rip each other's eyes out. i do care deeply about them both. it's just that the more distance and perspective i get on this the more aware i am that i was seriously an object for both of them, that they kind of made me into a weapon against one another, and i ended up getting pretty ripped up myself in the process. this does not at all excuse my own actions in the whole trauma. but a lot of the damage they wanted to do to each other got done on me instead, so i think that comment was more like "glad i'm not in their crossfire and glad i took a firm stand to keep myself out of their crossfire - let them deal with each other now." you know?

 

That makes good sense.

 

You know from your own experience that they, nor their marriage, can heal while you're "still in the picture".

 

You can't heal while you're "still in the crossfire".

 

And YOUR marriage can't heal while you're "still involved with MM" in any fashion...to include interaction with his wife.

 

Removing yourself from the loop is good for everyone. Hopefully his wife will be able to keep things that way on her end as well.

[NoIDidn't]

I still wouldn't have gone, but I'm glad it worked out for you.

 

I have to ask you "Miss Therapist" about you "he pursued me" objection to what it seems he said to her. Don't they teach therapists about different perspectives? I don't mean this in a snarky way at all. I just forget what its called. My mom is a therapist, of sorts, LOL. No, seriously.

 

Anyway, as I was saying, perspectives. Its been my experience as a woman that any response (to his flirting or other direct interest in me) I give to a man positively makes him think that I "want" him and am thus "pursuing" him. But to me, the simple fact that he asked my name and number means that he is doing most of the pursuing. My point, you were both pursuing each other as the shared feelings didn't grow in a one-sided vacuum.

 

Just my "perspective". LOL. Sorry for the threadjack.

[MistyK]

I'm really glad this went well for you. I hope everyone keeps up their end of the deal so you can move on.

 

As a sidenote - Why are redheads accussed of being evil? I hear that a lot too. The other day I saw a license plate you might be interested in if you're not in Penn and have that sort of humor : EVLRDHD HA!

[dobler33]

Anyway, as I was saying, perspectives. Its been my experience as a woman that any response (to his flirting or other direct interest in me) I give to a man positively makes him think that I "want" him and am thus "pursuing" him. But to me, the simple fact that he asked my name and number means that he is doing most of the pursuing. My point, you were both pursuing each other as the shared feelings didn't grow in a one-sided vacuum.

 

Just my "perspective". LOL. Sorry for the threadjack.

 

 

thanks, NiD. you are absolutely correct that i am responsible for the shared nature of those feelings. i think what i mean is that he had been in love with me for several years before we became friends, something he was aware of that i was not when we started talking. it was my great transgression that i let my boundaries down and let him in as we became friends. that is absolutely true. after he told me he was in love with me and i became aware of returning those feelings, i maintained a stance of counseling him to reconcile w his wife for some time. when he said things like "i married the wrong person, it should have been you", i chastised him and told him he only meant it in the moment. every time i did that he would panic and beg me not to build walls, beg me not to keep him out, feel crushed at what he felt was a rejection of his love. i should have immediately ceased all communication with him the minute i became aware of his feelings, and if not then, certainly the minute i became aware of my feelings. this is what i take full responsibility for, with myself, my husband and the BW. i did not, and i allowed him to continue asking for me to open up wider, let him in farther, keep nothing emotional back from him. i allowed it, and that was my fault.

 

but i can't escape a sense that he WAS pursuing me, that he knew what he wanted even if he wouldn't admit it to himself while he was telling himself and me and his wife that he just couldn't keep his love for me inside anymore and just had to let it out. the day before he ended it he was telling me how much he wanted to start having babies right away, as soon as the D papers were filed. i take responsibility for my gullibility and naivete, for my own madness and willingness to throw my own marriage away as well as his. that is my burden. but i can't quite get away from a lingering feeling of having been used - pursued relentlessly even before i knew i was being pursued, begged and demanded to let him in to every corner of my psyche, leaned on and depended on while he struggled to decide what he wanted to do, and then tossed out when he got confronted by his wife. that's what i mean by pursued. it doesn't change my culpability one bit. but it was hard not to feel a bit like a discarded wad of chewing gum in the immediate aftermath.

 

i'm SOOOO glad he chose not to leave, though. i'm grateful every day to have the oportunity to make the progress my H and i have made in our marriage. i told this to the BW last night, in an effort to ease her mind that i'm not out to get her or have anything to do w her husband.

[dobler33]

Don't they teach therapists about different perspectives? I don't mean this in a snarky way at all. I just forget what its called. My mom is a therapist, of sorts, LOL. No, seriously.

 

 

ok, so this gets back to my "dalai lama" comment. of course they teach you that. i spend my every working day in that head space, looking at every perspective i can possibly catch a glimpse of and tirelessly working to see the ones that are invisible to the naked eye. i try to bring this neutrality and open-mindedness into my personal life as well, and for the most part i am pretty successful. but, hell, y'all, i'm also a frickin HUMAN BEING! i have crazy unflattering unstable uncontrollable impenetrable emotions too, just like the rest of you. it's a frightening thought, but your therapist goes home and has fights w her spouse, cries about pains past and present, worries about money and the future, gets blasted from time to time and does stupid stuff, just like you. because i am a therapist i often have people holding me to a much higher behavioral and emotional standard - "you're a therapist, you should know better." i do know better, and i struggle to do the right and healthy thing just like every other poor bastard on the planet. so that gets tiring, being super mature and compassionate and understanding and therapisty, especially when someone is coming at you with hurtful vitriolic attacks and hatred, or when someone is being willfully buttheaded. there's only so long you can hang onto your zen psychoanalytic "i care about you" face before you wanna straight regulate on someone's a**.

 

ironically enough, the same people who say "you're a therapist, you should know better" are often the same people who say "stop trying to be my therapist" when they're mad at you. just a little side note that my colleagues and i have noticed.

[dobler33]

I'm really glad this went well for you. I hope everyone keeps up their end of the deal so you can move on.

 

As a sidenote - Why are redheads accussed of being evil? I hear that a lot too. The other day I saw a license plate you might be interested in if you're not in Penn and have that sort of humor : EVLRDHD HA!

 

 

are you a ginger, misty? i'm not sure why we get the whole devil's handmaiden rap. i know there are a lot of stereotypes about redheads that started during the inquisition and witch burning periods of european christian history. also, wasn't judas supposedly a redhead?

 

my husband, who lived in china for a while, once told me that there is a chinese folk myth that redheaded people are actually demons who have taken human form. that same week i heard a piece on NPR about the outrageously high incidence rate of domestic violence against women by their male partners in china. so i developed this elaborate fantasy about becoming sort of an avenging superhero for battered chinese women - go ahead and capitalize on the whole evil demon thing and do some good with it, you know? i know, i'm insane. but sh*t, i'm a redhead. what do you expect?

[dobler33]

 

Just my "perspective". LOL. Sorry for the threadjack.

 

ps, NID, it's my thread and i say it's not a threadjack. so there.

[Mino]

thanks, sugar! i appear to still possess both my eyeballs, although i've had a couple of glasses of the aforementioned wine by now so i'm not sure i'd notice if one were gone.

 

heather, EVERY bad interpersonal thing that's happened to me in the last year has been a result of FB. i have no idea why i bother. at this point i just refuse to be pushed off, i think. how very f*cking mature.

 

thanks for the text info - i'll let him know to keep his phone on. would be nice to be able to get word to him fast rather than waiting for him to be able to check his laptop.

 

and thanks, texas - even before you saw the post script your words were compassionate and understanding. i'm glad it worked out ok too, and i'm hoping like hell there is peace in this for all of us.

was holding my breath for you! I am glad everything worked out well for you, Good luck:)

[Gamine]

ha, jack, were you reading my atheist posts? naughty. i know her anxiety is the result of the infidelity. my husband's anxiety is the result of the infidelity, and i consider that absolutely my responsibility to address. her anxiety, from the moment he decided to stay with her, was his responsiblity, not mine. i'm not even sure he knows that she's come after me like this, which of course rankles no end. she got to read all my letters because she insisted that she needed to know everything. fine. i would have offered the same to my husband if he asked. but what gives her the right to continue pursuing me and not telling him about it? and if he does know, then it makes me want to puke, the way he's letting her blame me and demand retribution from me instead of dealing with the mess in his house his own damn self. can you see why i'm so enraged? i didn't ask for this. i made stupid decisions that i'm seeking to rectify in my own marriage. this guy pursued me and begged for my exposure, which i succumbed to because i was unhappy and lonely and, yes, again, stupid. i'm PAYING for my sh*t. why do i have to pay for his, too?

 

I'd bet anything that he most certainly knows she's coming at you. He's probably staying 'politely' out of it so as not to alienate his wife. This is part 'throwing the OW under the bus' treatment which arises when the MM decides he's ready to go back to being married again. The MM seem to quietly go off into that 'good night' and the women duke it out.

[dobler33]

I'd bet anything that he most certainly knows she's coming at you. He's probably staying 'politely' out of it so as not to alienate his wife. This is part 'throwing the OW under the bus' treatment which arises when the MM decides he's ready to go back to being married again. The MM seem to quietly go off into that 'good night' and the women duke it out.

 

yeah, you know, i was thinking about that last night. i have twice met with her, received and accepted her anger and aggression and sometimes frightening confrontationality, both times because it was the right thing to do. the first time was when the affair was still going on, after she found out, and the second was the other day. the first time the xMM called me directly afterward and made me give him a play-by-play, commenting sometimes cruelly on his wife's behavior, saying "see? this is what she does! this is why i have to leave her!" this time he actually called her during our meeting, at a time when he most certainly knew we were sitting across from one another, with her throwing her strange paranoid accusations of strategic facebook malfeasance at me, banging the table and yelling. i think the reason i assumed he must not know is that her facts are so screwy i thought there was no way he'd allow her to attack me on stuff he knew was just factually incorrect. that was clearly the last little shred of fantasy that he had any effing cajones whatsoever, or at least enough to man up and take responsibility for his part in it with his wife.

 

and let me point out that he has made no effort to face my husband. let's repeat that. i have twice faced his wife, once during the affair and once with him clearly hiding behind her skirts, and i have faced her with love and compassion and a total lack of defense, though people have even been concerned for my safety in doing so. he has not ONCE faced my husband, his best friend.

 

what a coward. thrown under the bus indeed. but, then again, all the more reason to be glad it's over.

[boldjack]

Well Gidget, You can call me a cheater, call me a womanizer, or call me a worthless SOB, but you can't call me a coward. I think that one of the biggest issues with affairs is the reluctance of the Ws or OM to admit to their folly. When I decided to change my lifestyle from that of cheating businessman, to that of honest farmer, I made EVERY effort to allow the BH's to confront me. They could and did call me every name in the book (along with some interesting new phrases) and I took it without flinching. The only thing I would not allow was physical violence (a couple of them tried, but soon realized their mistake) towards me or their WW's. I'm sorry to say that your ex OM seems a right yellow bast*rd.

[dobler33]

Well Gidget, You can call me a cheater, call me a womanizer, or call me a worthless SOB, but you can't call me a coward. I think that one of the biggest issues with affairs is the reluctance of the Ws or OM to admit to their folly. When I decided to change my lifestyle from that of cheating businessman, to that of honest farmer, I made EVERY effort to allow the BH's to confront me. They could and did call me every name in the book (along with some interesting new phrases) and I took it without flinching. The only thing I would not allow was physical violence (a couple of them tried, but soon realized their mistake) towards me or their WW's. I'm sorry to say that your ex OM seems a right yellow bast*rd.

 

yup, it does seem that way, doesn't it? that's such a bummer. it's difficult to swallow that someone you loved so much and who seemed so good and strong and beautiful is not what you thought. *sigh*. well, sh*t. there's no santa claus, either. a girl still has to get up and get on with her day.

[boldjack]

THERE'S NO SANTA CLAUS!!! WTF are you telling me?

[Reggie]

Best to stay away, now and try to repair the damage you guys did. She is acting fairly normally. You and her husband hurt her quite badly, without a thought to her well being, and it will take some time for her to heal. She is feeling paranoid for a reason. She was lied to and betrayed by her spouse and someone she considered a friend. Most folks would be very angry and in a lot of pain. Hopefully, she can get past this, now.

[dobler33]

Best to stay away, now and try to repair the damage you guys did. She is acting fairly normally. You and her husband hurt her quite badly, without a thought to her well being, and it will take some time for her to heal. She is feeling paranoid for a reason. She was lied to and betrayed by her spouse and someone she considered a friend. Most folks would be very angry and in a lot of pain. Hopefully, she can get past this, now.

 

 

totally. it's actually his behavior i'm calling into question. of course, it doesn't matter for much more than an LS rant, because i have no intention of ever speaking to them again (you are like the fourth person to tell me this, reg, even though i keep saying that i want them both to stay away from ME - i have not initiated contact here. that's not said with anger at you, reg my dear, just something i've noticed in this thread). but damn, you look back and start seeing the f*ckwittage of this man you thought was so great and it's hard not to reel a bit. it's kind of a good thing, really. clear vision is always a good thing.

 

and jack, pretend i never said that......

[Reggie]

Focus on yourself and how messed up you must have been to not see who he was and what you were doing to your friend and husband. Not much you can do about him. I expect he feels you are messed up, as well. I mean, heck, you were screwing around with your friend's husband. That is really out there.