LoneStar49 Posted September 27, 2004 Share Posted September 27, 2004 Yep. Serial killers. Serial heart killers. That's what I think most of these married men are. Ted Bundy's, but with a twist. Charming, good looking, able to convince us of their sincerity, helpful...but in the end, they rip our hearts out and never even look back at the destruction they've caused. When caught in the act, by us or their wives, they have all sorts of excuses and stories. One set of excuses they give us and another set they give the wife. They feel no remorse because for most of us, we're their 2nd, 3rd, 4th or more affair. And, after us, there will likely be others caught up in their web of deception. Sure. We contributed. But most of us, in the beginning, were merely naive and gullible. We felt sorry for them (poor baby...his wife is so mean and doesn't understand him). We really believed their words. How can anyone look at you with such sincerity and tell such lies? But you know, I'd bet that some of those women Ted Bundy killed believed he was their friend...he had arrived to help them. They trusted him. Am I reaching the anger stage? I hope so. This other one certainly hasn't been a nice place to be. One thing I'm beginning to think and never thought I would (and yes, I do waiver) is that in the end, I am the winner in this game (and yes, I believe it was a game to Mr. XXX). I'm beginning to have some pity for his wife knowing that she is the one that will have to look at him the rest of her life, knowing that he invested 3 1/2 years in someone else, wondering all the time...where is he and where was he? Has he talked to "her" today - and if I'm not "her" she'll still wonder if there is another "her." The most basic element of trust is forever removed from that relationship and frankly, I believe it will die a slow death in the end. No, Ted Bundy didn't rip her heart out completely, but he did manage to leave her mangled and bleeding on the side of the road with scars she'll carry for the rest of her life. Yep, serial killers. They leave nothing but pain and destruction in their wakes. Sure, there is the rare exception, and believe me, I thought mine was the exception. If someone had told me a month ago I'd be here, well.................... Link to post Share on other sites
WantanS4 Posted October 1, 2004 Share Posted October 1, 2004 This is great... just the person to ask.... When things got shaky between me and the SO..... I told her I knew she was the one for me after I went out ONCE for drinks (THAT"S ALL THAT HAPPENED... I DIE BY THAT!) with another girl (who happened to become a pretty close FRIEND) while at school. I have never cheated on her because I trully felt that I wouldn't want that done to me. Was it wrong fro me to be honest??? She is no longer with me... she ended the relationship about a week after I told her (things were not good in the first place... I told her because I really did/do love her). Was I wrong being honest? Link to post Share on other sites
kiwi29f Posted October 1, 2004 Share Posted October 1, 2004 And that is why people should leave MM/MW alone no matter what!! Link to post Share on other sites
Moose Posted October 1, 2004 Share Posted October 1, 2004 Originally posted by kiwi29f And that is why people should leave MM/MW alone no matter what!! And all the people cried, "AMEN" Link to post Share on other sites
Fran_H Posted October 2, 2004 Share Posted October 2, 2004 Sure, there is the rare exception, and believe me, I thought mine was the exception. I think most of us start out truly believing that ours is the exception. I think the key to moving on from a relationship with a MM is coming to terms with the fact that he is not an exception, he is just like all the rest. Once you've cracked that the rest should be easy. Right? Link to post Share on other sites
Author LoneStar49 Posted October 2, 2004 Author Share Posted October 2, 2004 Originally posted by Fran_H I think most of us start out truly believing that ours is the exception. I think the key to moving on from a relationship with a MM is coming to terms with the fact that he is not an exception, he is just like all the rest. Once you've cracked that the rest should be easy. Right? It should be easy, but unfortunately for most of us, it's easier said than done. It's been several days since I wrote this thread, and one thing I've come to realize is that for us, the OW, at least we can move on and for most of us, find happiness elsewhere with some hard lessons learned. For them, the MM and even the betrayed spouses, they will have to always look at each other and wonder. In the end, I think I'd rather be where I am than waking up looking at my spouse every morning and wondering. That would be a heck of an existence. Link to post Share on other sites
izzybelle Posted October 2, 2004 Share Posted October 2, 2004 lonestar, you are absolutely right! even though what we go through as OWs is incredibly painful we do have the option and eventually will move on and find someone else (or at least i'm hopeful). my exMMs wife told me i was "not his first affair and wouldn't be his last." what a way to live! i told him recently that although i still loved him, he had broken my trust in him because he went back on his word, even with me. and she's the one he made much, much bigger promises to. as difficult as it is, we do have the ability to more easily walk away. in many ways, i feel sorry for his W. to admit that they don't think it will be the last affair, but then stay with him? if my H had cheated on me once and we got by it that's one thing, but to have it happen again and openly admit that it was expected to happen again. that's a truely sad relationship to be in. Link to post Share on other sites
Mr Spock Posted October 2, 2004 Share Posted October 2, 2004 Originally posted by Moose And all the people cried, "AMEN" Oh, stuff it you!!! I don't think it's an accurate comparison myself. People who have affairs are selfish, not neccesarily sociopathic. And even though you're hurting, what your MM did to you is NOTHING like what Ted Bundy did to his victims. Link to post Share on other sites
whirleygurl Posted October 5, 2004 Share Posted October 5, 2004 they murder another person in every way except one. she is still breathing. aside from that, her self esteem is gone, her sexuality is gone, her abilty to trust is gone, her abilty to believe in love as a beautiful thing is gone. she is left feeling cheap and used and worthless. time does not heal this kind of abuse. it may diminish some, but it stays in the mind and heart forever like an old wound... an every time a man approaches you, it opens just a little and begins to bleed all over again. philanderers are as cruel and viscious and deceiving as serial murderers because they do not care at all for their victims. they only seek their own personal gratification. like serial murderers, they often pride themselves on the number of people they have "killed", finding some way or another to brag about it. perhaps keeping little mementos or photos. to say you are merely selfish is grossly insufficient. a murderer is not merely selfish. neither is a repeat adulterer. they are deeply disturbed people. Link to post Share on other sites
whirleygurl Posted October 6, 2004 Share Posted October 6, 2004 i have been thinking about this post and have come to this conclusion. both types of victims are unsuspecting, fooled by the predator. however, in the case of a serial killer, say, an axe murderer, once the person is dead they are dead forever. adulterers leave their victims alive, but maimed. a serial killer cuts a person's arm off. their arm is gone forever. it cannot even be partially recovered. an adulterer castrates a woman emotionally and sexually but she can recover her self esteem and sexuality. it is a long, hard road to recovery. but you can recover. some people recover completely, others only partially. just like the intended victim of a murderer who somehow survives, so does the victim of an adulterer. both are disabled in some way or another, both suffer from the memories, but the difference is the permanent disability caused the victim of a philanderer is invisible to the outside world. a lying cheater, like a murderer, takes the life from another unsuspecting person. the difference is, the damage caused by a cheater is recoverable. how much you recover is entirely up to you and how hard you work at it. like a person with one leg, you learn to adapt or you focus on it and remain depressed and upset about it forever. the best revenge is to lead a good, happy, fulfilling life and to leave the killers of life to their own unhealthy devices. Link to post Share on other sites
crowdreamer Posted October 6, 2004 Share Posted October 6, 2004 This whole thread leads me to the question...is there an exception to the rule? Is there a man out there who really has never had an affair before in his entire 22 years of marriage, who did not ask to have an affair, but once he was kissed by the other woman (who pursued him) he realized it was time to leave his wife finally? That his excuse of staying in the marriage for the sole purpose of protecting his child from hardship no longer held up any more? I'm sure you can see where I'm at. I just don't know yet, it's too early. This is what he tells me, and he is very sweet, very honest. I have been around the block (I'm 33) and met all types and I can smell a shark anywhere, he does not strike me as such. He has not slept with his wife for 10 years. She has been spending money like crazy and lately she's written bad checks, dropped out of counseling despite being bi-polar, and put them in debt for tens of thousands of dollars. Does he sound like an axe murderer to you? Whipped maybe, but no axe murderer. I'm the one who kissed him. I'm also the one telling him I'm stopping myself from going to bed with him, and he's agreeing to it. I don't know, I guess if there were any GOOD stories to tell you all wouldn't be on here. But does anyone know of a MM who doesn't live up to the slimeball reputation? Link to post Share on other sites
Mr Spock Posted October 6, 2004 Share Posted October 6, 2004 STOP the drama. This is a rediculous thread. What you fail to realize is the only way you FEEL like that is because you give someone the power to make you feel it. It's important to remember that. Selfish people aren't uncaring, they just don't care enough to avoid hurting others. There are many people who f*ck around in their marriages-what MAKES them a slimeball (on this site anyways) is the fact that they do it. The sole fact. The best revenge is looking good. Link to post Share on other sites
whirleygurl Posted October 7, 2004 Share Posted October 7, 2004 i like this thread because it incites thought and discussion. i think there are different levels of selfishness. the REPEAT cheater is different from a cheater who cheats once and realizes their error, learns from it, regrets the pain he's caused, and does not repeat it. he WAS selfish. he learned. the serial cheater never learns. he doesn't care who he hurts as long as he gets the rush he needs. like an addict. he is more than selfish. he is deeply disturbed. Link to post Share on other sites
WantanS4 Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 I agree with Mr. Spock 100%... except that for guys... the best revenge is finding a girl that's 897405928374052847 times better looking the the ex. Link to post Share on other sites
Fran_H Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 Originally posted by Mr Spock STOP the drama. This is a rediculous thread. What you fail to realize is the only way you FEEL like that is because you give someone the power to make you feel it. I don't think this is a ridiculous thread at all. In fact I totally understand where LoneStar is coming from. She has been lied to and led on by someone and wasted precious years of her life believing in him. She is now swinging from being totally lost without him to being so angry she is comparing him to Ted Bundy. And I can relate to that! Spock, it must be great to have total control over your emotions. I wish I had had the power and the insight at the start of the relationship to stay in control. I think I did for a while, but then I fell in love with him and that was my biggest mistake. Part of my 'therapy' has been re-reading about 3 years worth of emails (I kept them all). Looking at them without my head in the clouds has been quite a revelation. I have recently showed them to a good friend who has been through a similar situation and she has pointed out that I was actually dealing with a master manipulator. Now, I am not a stupid person by any stretch of the imagination, but all the time it was going on (8 years EA and 3.5 years PA) I thought that I meant something to him, and I believed the things he was saying. I did some crazy things, risked my job, spent thousands of pounds on airline tickets, had a breakdown, you name it, I probably did it for this man. Now I find myself waking up and surveying the aftermath of a totally destructive relationship and its the most disturbing time of my life. Stop the drama? This is dramatic, this is horrible. And if any of these posts put off just one person from getting into an affair with a married man, then we can say we did something good. Link to post Share on other sites
Fran_H Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 Originally posted by crowdreamer This whole thread leads me to the question...is there an exception to the rule? Is there a man out there who really has never had an affair before in his entire 22 years of marriage, who did not ask to have an affair, but once he was kissed by the other woman (who pursued him) he realized it was time to leave his wife finally? That his excuse of staying in the marriage for the sole purpose of protecting his child from hardship no longer held up any more? I'm sure you can see where I'm at. I just don't know yet, it's too early. This is what he tells me, and he is very sweet, very honest. I have been around the block (I'm 33) and met all types and I can smell a shark anywhere, he does not strike me as such. He has not slept with his wife for 10 years. She has been spending money like crazy and lately she's written bad checks, dropped out of counseling despite being bi-polar, and put them in debt for tens of thousands of dollars. Does he sound like an axe murderer to you? Whipped maybe, but no axe murderer. I'm the one who kissed him. I'm also the one telling him I'm stopping myself from going to bed with him, and he's agreeing to it. I don't know, I guess if there were any GOOD stories to tell you all wouldn't be on here. But does anyone know of a MM who doesn't live up to the slimeball reputation? Crowdreamer, in answer to you question, yes there may be an excpetion to the rule. My brother in law was in a relationship when he met my sister. But my sister told him she wasn't going to entertain having an affair with him and she didn't. So he ended the relationship and he and my sister have been happily married for 5 years. Thats the right way to do it, if you continue to have an affair with this man he probably won't leave his wife. By the way, I am not entirely convinced that you are not having an affair with my ex-mm! All that stuff about bad checks and being bi-polar, don't believe it for one single second or you will regret it. And the bit about him not sleeping with his wife for 10 years. I know you really want to believe him, but please don't. You are 33 now, by the time he has finished with you you will be 36 maybe 37. You will need about 3 years of therapy to get over the lies and deception. Not quite as easy to find a nice single man at 40 I am told... I wish you luck! Link to post Share on other sites
Papillon Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 I find it amazing how people will just lay the blame at the feet of the MM/MW. It takes TWO (2) to tango. Deux! Twee! Zwei! Due! Dos! It takes TWO people to ignore the fact that there is a marriage which vows are being destroyed. It takes TWO people to ignore the fact that there is a third person involved. It takes TWO people to be selfish enough to act on their desires without considering the consequences. I've been there. No sympathies. Sorry. Link to post Share on other sites
Fran_H Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 Originally posted by Papillon I find it amazing how people will just lay the blame at the feet of the MM/MW. It takes TWO (2) to tango. Deux! Twee! Zwei! Due! Dos! It takes TWO people to ignore the fact that there is a marriage which vows are being destroyed. It takes TWO people to ignore the fact that there is a third person involved. It takes TWO people to be selfish enough to act on their desires without considering the consequences. I've been there. No sympathies. Sorry. I know it takes two, and most of the people who get involved with a MM are nice people, who would not dream of hurting someone deliberately. I would not want to break up someones marriage or hurt someone because I was acting on my desires. I truly wanted to be with him, and spend the rest of life caring for and loving him. Yes I knew he had a wife, but according to him, (and you only ever get one side of the story) there WAS no marriage. She didn't want him, she didn't love him, she abused him mentally and physically. She spent all his money so he could not leave her. All lies, I know that now. And when faced with the prospect of losing me he would say 'please don't leave me you are ALL I have'. Which was bollocks, because I wasn't all he had, he had a wife and family. Papillon, love can make you do crazy things. I am not blaming MM for everything, but I am blaming him for telling lies. I blame myself for being STUPID and GUILLABLE. Link to post Share on other sites
Papillon Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 Originally posted by Fran_H Papillon, love can make you do crazy things That's for sure. One thing about affairs is that they're ALWAYS based on lies. One way or the other. It's only afterwards that we have that perspective on it. I hope you've learnt your lesson. No more married people. Link to post Share on other sites
izzybelle Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 papillon, yes, it takes two and i think for many of us OWs we do realize that and accept our part of the blame. but in many cases we have been manipulated to believe that situations were different than they really were. were we stupid and naive in believing? in my case, yes. and honestly that's a hard thing to accept and admit. nobody really wants to believe that they fell for an age old game that people, not just men, have been playing for years. were we both selfish in entering into the affair? sure. and i think many of us questioned the relationship at the beginning. i did. brought up several times that he was married and in return i was assured that the marriage was over, mostly by his wife's statements. in my case it wasn't so much that he "promised" me that he would leave his wife for me, he never said that. his wife was the one who had proclaimed their marriage finished, that she was leaving him and that he was also done with trying. so yes, i thought it was a done deal except for the paperwork. fran, i too have all of the old emails saved and have re-read many of them. they used to bring tears to my eyes as i remembered the wonderful feelings they used to create. but now, like you, i read them from a different perspective and mostly they just make me feel angry that i was so stupid. i'd love it if he would admit to me that it was all just a game. he recently said to me that he "never expected to fall so hard" for me. and idiot that i am i sit and obsess over that statement which i've decided just simply means that inspite of everything he told me about his marriage being over, it really wasn't, that i was just a momentary escape from his so-called unhappy life. so some may think this thread is stupid, but i don't. while the comparison to ted bundy may be a bit extreme, i definitely feel like he killed a part of me, and i'm guessing (although i'm not sure) that his wife feels the same way. the day he dumped me a part of my heart died, very much feeling like i'd been stabbed, not once but many times. once for the trust he took, once for the love that he killed, once for destroying the "plans" for the future we'd made, and once for the lies that i was foolish enough to believe. unlike the other victims, we can get back up shake it off and try to pick up the pieces. but there will always be a part of us that is dead. whenever you give your heart so completely to someone, being hurt is a chance you take, and married or not many of us chose to take that chance. wanting to trust, wanting to believe the lies, wanting to believe that when someone says "you're the most important person to me" that they really mean it. Link to post Share on other sites
Fran_H Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 Originally posted by Papillon I hope you've learnt your lesson. No more married people. Papillon, Brad Pitt could call me right now and tell me Jennifer does not understand him, and I wouldn't even go there. Link to post Share on other sites
Papillon Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 Well, no need to punish yourself THAT hard Link to post Share on other sites
izzybelle Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 Ha! for brad pitt, i might make an exception, except that it could be plastered all over the tabloids and i have no desire to be a topic on entertainment tonight! Link to post Share on other sites
Papillon Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 Hey, that's OK! Everyone will blame it on Jennifer anyway. It worked for David Beckham, everyone blamed poor Victoria for being ambitious and cold, driving him into the arms of another woman Poor Posh. Link to post Share on other sites
Mr Spock Posted October 8, 2004 Share Posted October 8, 2004 I blame her horrible boob job myself. Link to post Share on other sites
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