I understand all too well...my (now ex) husband cheated and eventually left me for the ow. it's been almost 7 years and I still struggle...but reality is we can never make them understand the hurt and pain and how it changed us... how their actions had ripple effects through their children's lives too... your words and constant reminders only generate anger... not healing. for what it's worth... I'm sorry for what you've gone thru.

Clearskye, it has been 5 years in my case. Spent last night thinking about no words of regret or apologies. I was left with 6 week-old twin babies ... abandoned for another woman. All I can say SixesnSevens is that, yes, you feel awful some days, but there are days on which you feel better.

I'm so sorry you are in so much pain. I've BTDT and didn't get an apology either.

I think healing is a process. And the first step is to know that NOTHING the other person does or doesn't do will speed up your healing. Even if she apologized, it would only be a little blip in the scheme of things when it comes to your healing.

Healing comes ONLY from within. The next step is know that healing comes ONLY from within. Nothing another person does or doesn't do would make any difference.

Then, it is important to begin to accept what was and what will no longer be and then mourn your losses. Even if the other person is a total sociopath (not saying they are), we still need to mourn what we wanted and thought we had.

As long as you continue to remind her or what she did, there will be no chance of you healing. That's like the old saying about anger being like drinking poison and waiting for the other person to die. And, if you have kids, it also means you are eliminating any chance of you two working well together for their sake.

It might help to seek counseling with a qualified therapist. A therapist can help you refocus your attention on yourself and your healing.

3My ex-wife and I were married for 10 yrs, separated after 8-1/2 years. She had numerous affairs and never once admitted to any of them. She died of cancer in 2013 and the day before she died, I visited her in the hospital and asked her if there was anything she wanted to tell me, ( hoping for an "I'm sorry") as I had told her before, but, she said "No". I asked her if the was anything she wanted to ask me. Again, she answered "No". She died the next morning.

I still think of the years we had together,our first date, etc. but, we can not turn back the pages of time, we can not wish the bad things away. We have to accept them and move on with our lives even though we will never get the answers we would like to have.

She is in denial, and she may always live in denial. In order to justify to herself the things she has done, she has to convince herself that she is/was not in the wrong. It's how some people cope, and often the worse their behavior, the stronger the denial. She may, as old biker mentioned, take the denial to her grave. Because in order for her to say she is sorry, she would have to stop lying to herself about what she did, and for some, that pain is something they would do anything to repress and avoid. It is the only way they can live with themselves, and they cling to it.

I am still working on "accepting an apology I never received, from someone who is not sorry." I work on it daily, for my own sanity. It was said to me by a friend, and it rings true, that the person who broke you can't be the one who fixes you. If they had the capacity for that, they wouldn't have hurt you so bad to begin with. As hard as it is, we have to find someway, on our own, to accept the fact that this person is no longer who we thought they were (or maybe they never actually were).

well said happymama!!

To start, let me just say, I sympathize. What you are feeling is OK. All the stuff people in our society say to justify these things and make them OK are bunk. It is perfectly normal and healthy for you to not be OK with what they did.

Having said that, knowing that you face a lot of issues with having to keep dealing with your Ex and even if you didn't you need the peace of healing, I recommend EMDR therapy. It made such a difference to me that after four years I actually graduated from therapy and have been a far healthier person ever since.

That was before my husband dumped me and took up with someone else. Now I can see clearly that we were both emotionally unhealthy in the early and middle years of our marriage and after I got far enough along in my healing journey he did not like that and had no intention of changing himself. Somehow I am getting through the divorce process with just some chatting with my old therapist and mostly with lots of prayer and real coping and processing which I would have never been capable of without the previous counseling that I went through for over four years. Someone else sharing their experience with EMDR therapy techniques and that began my healing. Now I'm just passing on the idea for what it may be worth to others.

Thank you all for the responses.
Mulling it over again and again, I will never get anything I want or need from her. If I'm honest with myself I never really did. I was challenged for not being a partner to her, which I believe to be untrue. Fact is, I find one of my biggest strengths is being there for others, however that usually comes at the expense of not taking care of myself.
I think I want her to somehow change her attitude and approach to me. I realize that'll never come about.
My issue is that she managed to make everything about as ugly as it could be at the end. I want a reaction from her- to feel some of the hurt she inflicted on me. I'm angry and hateful because of it.
The ink is barely dry on our papers and already she's happy and moving in with another man with my kids. She flaunts her happiness in my face. As un-constructive as it is, I want to take her down a couple of pegs and remind her of who she proved herself to be, and the effect on others.

I highly doubt she is as happy as you think she is or as she pretends to be. You proved that by what you said in reply #8. She will probably do to the new guy what she did to you. People like her are usually miserable and they expect someone else to create their happiness.

Keep your contact with her to a minimum and ONLY about the kids.

The only person we can change is ourselves. Please focus on you and your healing because your feelings toward her will only poison you and your kids.

~healing hugs~

From someone who did get a half assed apology from a cheating ex wife ("for what it's worth I am sorry")....it didn't help and quite frankly I felt like telling her to cram it up her ass. The urge to talk with her about the relationship will pass, you just have to make your mind up to work on yourself and accept she's history. She won't care what you have to say anyways, it isn't like you can tell her what she doesn't know and she made up her mind because that's who she is. She's fine with her decisions. It sucks but leave her in the past. The sooner you do that you can really heal.

I agree that as happymama (post #5) says, the person who broke you can't fix you. As it turns out I've just discovered that no one can fix a person but themselves. I've just given 9 years to someone who came to me broken by his wife who cheated on him many times. I thought by giving him a safe and loyal relationship he would have time to heal and be well. This week I discovered that he is going back to his cheating ex wife. He's just as broken as he was nine years ago... when I asked him about it, he was completely unable to self reflect and see what a bad move that will be. It's up to him and I wasted a lot of years thinking I was more than I really was...

I don't know, but I found that 'telling' him (in texts) about how he made me feel and how his actions destroyed me actually brought some healing to me.
At first I had absolutely no contact with him, blocked him from everything. Then, one night it was all really getting to me (I had already moved out) and I wanted to know why. I started to text him and I put all of my hurt and pain into words. I knew he read it all, because I have read receipt on my texts.
He actually answered to some of it. At first he was trying to lay blame with me, but when I reminded him of things I had done for him, his parents and his kids, his answers changed.
He actually admitted that I was a good woman, that I took good care of him, his parents and our dogs and that I didn't deserve anything he put me through.
He never answered the 'why' question. I honestly don't think even they know why.
We texted like that for 2 nights and for me it was mixed feelings in that it brought a lot of the hurt back full force, but at the same time it validated that I didn't do anything to warrant his actions.
After that we didn't 'talk' for another 3 or 4 months.
I was in one of those moods again and started texting him exactly how I felt, what I thought and how much damage his actions had done.
Again I knew he read the messages, only this time he didn't reply. It didn't matter, I felt better after, because I think that they SHOULD know how deeply they hurt us. I don't believe that they should just be able to ride off into the sunset, not knowing how much pain they have inflicted on another human being.
Whether he will ever admit or acknowledge this is (for me) beside the point. I know that down the road, on some days, in some instances he will think about what I said and I'd like to think that it will have some effect on him, no matter how small.
The 'talks' have really helped my healing process. Of course time has, too. It's been a year, but I still have my moments, thought they are becoming less and less.

TM1070,
I'm glad you found some healing in letting things out and writing to them the effect they had on you. It sounds as if you found a constructive way to express yourself- even if it did fall on deaf ears.
I have personally been all over the map- for nearly three years now. I was initially shocked that she cheated on me- she took our consideration of separating for a time, as a hall pass to do whatever- in full view for me. I addressed that one fairly constructively and poured my heart out sprinkled with a little anger here and there. After a few months I was fool enough to allow myself to be taken back in (I was forced to leave my house because I could not afford it on my own), only to be put out again once she started back up. Then I was taken back in again, she took up with her boss- which to her credit, one night she got drunk and high and blurted it out, confessing it like it was nothing. At least she owned it then. I left of my own free will that night. I was angry and said some hateful things for about a week, calmed myself down, accepted what was and set out to be decent and helpful for the sake of my "family." In that interim she tried to tell me that she had an "inappropriate" dating relationship with this man- that she had not done what she said that night. I helped her move out of "our" house and somehow in the process got pulled back in yet again- she wanted me back in her home. Some months later I came across graphic emails that revealed what she had said was true and went on longer than she led on as well that it continued. She was lying to me the whole time. One day I handed the emails to her and walked out when I could take no more. She begged me to come back, that it had ended, and that it was me that she wanted, our family together. She said there were no guarantees that it would not happen again, but that she would not lie to me again. Never an I'm sorry or even any regret. Again the fool, I returned and while I tried to make myself available to her, she showed no interest and was even more critical of me in those days. There were others I'm sure, she developed a pattern and habits that I recognized. Then came the final blow when she started going to "conferences" across the country- kept in constant contact with one man, whom she claimed was a professional colleague- guess what, he was not.
In all that time, I tried so hard to be constructive, tried to talk it out with her, come to some agreement even if it was divorce. I've had my periods of being angry and hateful as well as my complete subservience to her. None of my approaches have made any effect. She left me with so many images, stories, and conclusions that I cannot get them out of my head. The thing that bothers me most is that for all that I tried to be constructive and compassionate- she has left me with nothing but hate. I cannot even look her in the eye anymore- why is that I can't? It wasn't me that did it. Unfortunately, this has taken a toll on our ability to co-parent our children (another thing I struggle with is that fact that I have to deal with and communicate with her on a daily basis- I feel like I'm a prisoner.)
I'm sure this man she is with now, the love of her life she tells me, and will soon share my kids with on a daily basis, has no idea what happened between us for two years. I'm sure he thinks I'm the terrible person and enables her to continue to roll stones down on me which only fuels my urge to keep throwing them back at her.
I also fight the urge to contact him and spell it out. Show him the emails, the pictures, the texts. If I can't get her to "get" it, maybe the one she is with might reign her in.

Well, he's been texting me and even came over for a face to face talk, to tell me how he screwed up - yada yada - after he and the OW both lost their jobs, they moved in with his parents (7 houses from where I live). They've been living with his 70+ year old parents for over 4 months now. I am sure that puts a damper on the excitement of being with the OW. I am also certain that life with the OW is no longer stress free as he'd proclaimed before he left me.
So, now the enlightenment is setting in: "I realize that what I had was 100x better than the pain and trouble I have caused. That what I always wanted wasn't on the internet, rather it was right in front of me and I let is slip away"
Those are his words by the way - via yet another text to me.
Of course I have been more than delighted to forward these texts to the OW. I want her to know what it feels like to love someone who spends his time texting with someone else - wooing another woman.
I KNOW this is NOT a pretty side of me and I actually hate what this whole thing has turned me into, but the OW KNEW he was married and she didn't think twice about seeing him, didn't think twice about the pain she inflicted.
I had forwarded his text about wanting to meet me at the old place for old times and about the song he wanted me to listen to ;Happy together' by The Turtles.
She only responded to one text, calling me names and telling me how lucky she is that I eff'd up my marriage and how lucky she is that she now has the love of this wonderful man.
I guess she is not very intelligent, because the dates and times of the texts show that this is something very recent.
If nothing else, at least I know I have succeeded in implanting that doubt in the back of her head - no matter what she says, that will always be there and that is good enough for me.
Payback is a b...h

Sixes... I fear you may be a future self of me. This post and subsequent responses has struck a chord in my damaged heart. Thank you for sharing and especially thanks to HappyMama's poignant wisdom about those that hurt us. I too look for self-worth from the one who has betrayed and rejected my love of 15 years (with no regard for the destruction to our children's lives, too). The only thing keeping me from succumbing to the desire to repeatedly remind her of the emotional trauma she has inflicted yet refuses to own is a desire to build the most positive cooperative and even friendly co-parenting relationship possible for the sakes of my precious boys.

If you learn any secrets of self-healing please share them with me. Until then, prayer for both our families and our wounded hearts is all I can do.