Looking for perspective from an OM or OW

[ice3784]

Hello there,

im in a same situation as you,just that i haven't reach the part where we are apart yet. My OM wants to reconcile with his wife - which he already did , behind me. He slowly changed, until the day when i called his wife, he changed completely. We are now 2 strangers sleeping on a same bed, living together as the tenancy agreement will last until this August. We argue constantly and i hate him for his betrayal. Twice, he lied to my face and bring them for holiday. I told him im fine if you are honest and tell me. Before this he said he has no feelings towards his wife, and only want to be with the kids, and stay at a nearby motel when he visited them. But he lied and book family suite . Guess it was a happy family day vacation and a fool for me.

They are now planning a revow in the church which i may have ruin it due to my phone call but im too upset cos he planned everything behind me !

[BluesPower]

OldShirt is one of my favorite posters. He and the others have given you a lot of great advice.

 

It is hard to say who is right or wrong on his motives to end it. I kind of lean toward OS's explanation.

 

I don't know how old you are or you xOM. But I can tell you that as a recent divorced man, who was also a cheater toward the end of his marriage, that men like me are like catnip to women our age.

 

I'm in my 50's, decent looking, a few bucks, steady job, Bad A** local musician, and it is like shooting fish in a barrel.

 

I have a hard time deciding which girl I want to screw next. I am having to date the prime candidates to figure out who is the next batter. It is kind of insane out there.

 

So there is a good chance that he is just living single, and or the drama just got to him.

 

I will say that one of my main AP's is now my #1 GF. But she also understands that she has to share me.

[anika99]

Grrr... this part makes me so angry. It's why I won't go back to therapy ever. You go through months and months trying to recover, doing the right thing, and then someone WHO SHOULD KNOW BETTER helps you pull the trigger and sabotage all the work you've done.

 

I think the people on this board have much more constructive advice, having been through it all.

 

I'm sorry for your pain. I hope you find a different therapist.

 

OP I'm very surprised that your therapist pushed you to contact your ex OM too. What possible good was supposed to come from that? Maybe start therapist shopping.

[oldshirt]

OP I'm very surprised that your therapist pushed you to contact your ex OM too. What possible good was supposed to come from that? Maybe start therapist shopping.

 

.....unless the therapist thought that contacting him would break her delusions and help her see the futility of all of this.

 

That doesn't really seem ethical or professional though.

[GeekLover]

.....unless the therapist thought that contacting him would break her delusions and help her see the futility of all of this.

 

That doesn't really seem ethical or professional though.

 

Though it was a small setback at the time, it has actually helped me to push forward more now. By him giving me the silent treatment after giving him space for almost 4 months, it has started to open my eyes and help me realize what kind of man he really is - certainly not the same one I believed he was.

 

Thanks again to all the advice and perspectives given so far. There have certainly been some I had not considered. Though hard to hear, I think it's what I need to help me move on.

[GeekLover]

I don't know how old you are or you xOM. But I can tell you that as a recent divorced man, who was also a cheater toward the end of his marriage, that men like me are like catnip to women our age.

 

He's in his late 40s, I'm in my late 30s.

[oldshirt]

I learned this gem of wisdom many years ago from a very wised one -

 

- people do what they want to do and don't do what they don't.

 

That is why one should always go by people's actions and not what they say.

[GeekLover]

http://www.loveshack.org/forums/romantic/other-man-woman/617048-looking-perspective-om-ow

 

Hey...it's me again. So I posted my story about a month ago (see link). I've been doing really well since I read all your comments. They were very helpful. Since then, I also stopped stalking him on social media (and the "other woman" he claimed to had gone out with a couple times right at the end of our relationship). Funny, but the only social media my exOM used was pinterest.

 

Of course...back in my serious social media stalking days, I managed to figure out who she was. It wasn't too hard...the two of them started following each other on Pinterest within the last month of our relationship, and started "liking" each other's pins.

 

Weird pinterest action a month or so after him and I split:

-ExOM and I used to "share" multiple boards on Pinterest, but we did so in PRIVATE, meaning only him and I could see this, it was not viewable by the public

-these included some fun things such as clothing for each of us so we could share ideas for each other, healthy eating recipes, and the big one..."Our Home" the board we privately shared to plan a home together/renovations to his home (which he has now moved from)

-about a month or so AFTER our split, he chose to make these private boards public. He did NOT change the name of our home board and my name/profile pic is plastered all over it because I had contributed to the board as much as he did.

-this messed with my head, but I did NOT contact him at this time. Anything I had control over on my side, I deleted. He did NOT need to make this public, he chose to. If he wanted to save the memories,he could have left it private for himself

 

Curiosity got the best of me:

So it's been 5 weeks since I've done anything on Pinterest. I have not pinned nor have I looked at his...until tonight.

 

Within the past month:

-he is now sharing a Home ideas board with her (like we did)

-he is now sharing a clothing board with her (like we did)...where ALL of her latest pins have been MY style, however up until their relationship would have started, everything was COMPLETELY different...no joke!

-he is now sharing a food board with her (like we did)

 

Seems so silly...I know. To me...it's like watching our relationship unfold all over again, but with someone else. I should feel hurt, but I don't. I feel bad for him and I feel bad for her. He used to tell me all the time...even a WEEK before we split, that nobody would ever be me, and there would be a lot of boxes on his list that would need to be checked off...that any woman after me would be F$&Ked.

 

There's been a couple other things that I've seen on social media too that were messed up, but I won't get into that now.

 

I don't need anyone to tell me to stop checking his social media. Trust me, I know how much better I am not doing it. I've really made a lot of progress in the past month. And honestly, seeing this tonight didn't upset me as much as it should. I actually find it sad.

 

This is a man who literally walked out of his 20 year marriage and overlapped with me for over 5 years, now he's overlapped into a new relationship that seems to be looking VERY similar to what we did!

 

I know it's better for me to stay away, and I will definitely go back to that again. I can even tell by the way I've reacted to what I saw tonight that I'm much stronger. I don't feel crushed. I'm actually kind of sad FOR him...not ABOUT him. I guess my curiousity just got the better of me tonight. Oh well. At least I can say I'm healing. I may need to post about it on here, but at least I'm not crushed.

 

I just wanted to get the feelings and thoughts out somewhere.

 

Thanks for reading...back to FULL NC (social media included)

Edited April 22, 2017 by GeekLover

[jah526]

Seems so silly...I know. To me...it's like watching our relationship unfold all over again, but with someone else. I should feel hurt, but I don't. I feel bad for him and I feel bad for her.

 

You seem very emotionally balanced. I wish I could have this perspective on things. I've never once been jealous of MM's wife, have actually felt very sorry for her. But I'm insanely jealous of anyone he takes a liking to (and there are many). I guess I worry that whoever comes next is going to be treated better than I was... he told me he worried about being with someone young and beautiful, presumably because he might fall in love, and I guess that's why he liked me - because he didn't have to worry about that. In your case it looks like the next one was treated exactly the same as you were, so the guy has a pattern.

 

I wish I could get to where you are. The jealousy is killing me, and for what? A cheating, abusive a******.

[GeekLover]

You seem very emotionally balanced. I wish I could have this perspective on things. I've never once been jealous of MM's wife, have actually felt very sorry for her. But I'm insanely jealous of anyone he takes a liking to (and there are many). I guess I worry that whoever comes next is going to be treated better than I was... he told me he worried about being with someone young and beautiful, presumably because he might fall in love, and I guess that's why he liked me - because he didn't have to worry about that. In your case it looks like the next one was treated exactly the same as you were, so the guy has a pattern.

 

I wish I could get to where you are. The jealousy is killing me, and for what? A cheating, abusive a******.

 

Thanks. It's been 5 months give or take, so I think time has a lot to do with it. Also, the way he chose to exit says a lot to me about his character. I've chosen to not shed any more tears over someone like him. I am beginning to gain my strength back and I'm starting to see the forest for the trees. This man is weak, needy and incapable of truly loving anyone because he is unable to love himself.

 

I'm no angel here though. I was too scared to leave my marriage for him. All the pressure finally became too much and I text bombed him with a lot of hurtful things that weren't even true (I melted down and I only remember thinking that I needed him to hate me so he could move on easier). But he never ONCE indicated he was unhappy with ME...it was always our situation that he had issues with me personally. I only heard of this a week or so after my initial melt down...AFTER I had a second melt down and ended my marriage to be with him. Only then did he tell me everything...and in a cold, hurtful text conversation, followed by a final goodbye email. He refused to see me.

 

I'd get it if he were single all this time...but he wasn't. He was married, I was married, and we both had our year to figure things out with our spouses. As it turns out, he couldn't handle it when the tables turned.

 

Oh well. He says he's damaged now, yet overlapped into another relationship....again...I hope he gets the professional help he needs.

 

I hope he gets the professional help he needs.

Edited April 22, 2017 by GeekLover

[sophinla]

I don't think he wants to be helped. After 20 years of being with the same woman, this guy figured out a way to get lucky with one woman after another, using exactly the same tactics. He's got it made. He will probably work these tricks until he's tired of it or until they stop working.

 

Move on and live well

[aileD]

What man uses Pinterest!!!!

 

Be happy he's gone. He's got a routine I guess. What s loser!

[GeekLover]

What man uses Pinterest!!!!

 

Be happy he's gone. He's got a routine I guess. What s loser!

 

Haha! I knew somebody was bound to say this! I'm the one who introduced him to it in the first place. You're right though: what a loser!

[elaine567]

I think it is quite common for people to basically slot other people into similar patterns of behaviour.

Few of us are truly unique, so when a relationship breaks up, our exes just go off and do the stuff with other people that they liked doing with us,

What worked in one relationship will probably work in the next.

 

The "special" restaurant, the hike in the mountains, the regular Saturday shopping trip, the movie on the couch with a bottle of red, the "pizza" night, the sharing of similar music, the planning of similar holidays... etc. are not really about "YOU", it is about how HE "woos" you and so he often tends to "woo" someone else in exactly the same way.

Yes he may have "stolen" some good ideas for things to do and taken them into his next relationship but we all do that.

 

You felt the Pinterest boards were special to you, but as you have found he just ended up doing them with her.

I guess he just likes Pinterest.

 

I was too scared to leave my marriage for him. All the pressure finally became too much and I text bombed him with a lot of hurtful things that weren't even true (I melted down and I only remember thinking that I needed him to hate me so he could move on easier). But he never ONCE indicated he was unhappy with ME...it was always our situation that he had issues with me personally. I only heard of this a week or so after my initial melt down...AFTER I had a second melt down and ended my marriage to be with him. Only then did he tell me everything...and in a cold, hurtful text conversation, followed by a final goodbye email. He refused to see me.

I have not read all your whole story, but by this ^^^ you appear to be the architect of your own destruction.

The first textbomb meltdown I guess made him question your whole relationship. No-one with any respect for themselves would put up with that. You wanted him to hate you but I guess you killed any love he had for you stone dead.

YOU then left your husband but it was already too late, hence the cold reply. He was done by then.

 

He is moving on and you have to do the same.

[GeekLover]

I have not read all your whole story, but by this ^^^ you appear to be the architect of your own destruction.

The first textbomb meltdown I guess made him question your whole relationship. No-one with any respect for themselves would put up with that. You wanted him to hate you but I guess you killed any love he had for you stone dead.

YOU then left your husband but it was already too late, hence the cold reply. He was done by then.

 

He is moving on and you have to do the same.

 

I definitely did get the ball rolling, but it probably would have happened regardless if he already had someone else lined up. We spoke a few days after I flipped out on him and we had a very warm conversation about us going our separate ways. I was able to explain what prompted my meltdown (frustration with our situation), and he understood. I'm happy I had that opportunity to apologize for my behaviour and acknowledge it was wrong.

 

I was good to him. Of course I made some mistakes, but so did he. Of course we had arguments, but not many. That's normal. If me blowing up his phone one time was enough to crush his love for me, then he didn't have much anyway.

 

Anyway...he seems to be moving on. Good riddance!

 

And yes...I have been doing the same.

[elaine567]

Anyway...he seems to be moving on. Good riddance!

 

And yes...I have been doing the same.

 

Good!

 

I think there is often a myth around affairs that says they are "special" and "forever", but affairs are just relationships and relationships do often end no matter how much "love" has been shared, nor how much one or both want them to work.

[BikerAccnt]

What man uses Pinterest!!!!

 

Be happy he's gone. He's got a routine I guess. What s loser!

 

Some of us with artistic endeavors do. Great community of 3d render artists there. It's not all home ideas and shopping stuff. Though in truth DeviantArt is a better resource for that.

[GeekLover]

Some of us with artistic endeavors do. Great community of 3d render artists there. It's not all home ideas and shopping stuff. Though in truth DeviantArt is a better resource for that.

 

This is true. I can't argue with that. It can be a good resource for projects and any interests you have.

[somanymistakes]

It's hardly surprising men have a lot of trouble expressing themselves and their feelings when they get picked on for being unmanly just for having harmless neutral hobbies, lol

 

(I hate pinterest but not for it being girly, I hate the annoying way it teases you with pictures and then covers them up when you try to look at them, and the way it encourages people to repost the same things and clutter up the web with duplicates so you can't find original art when you search for it.)