Infidelity Support Group
Any relationship in which one partner engages willfully in sexual relations with another outside of the partnership is considered to have experienced infidelity. This breach of trust is often traumatizing for the faithful partner as well as the relationship, and support is often needed to heal emotionally and to decide whether or not the relationship should continue after...
Trying hard to heal, my boyfriend is doing everything right to help with this, but my situation is much more painful for me than it should have been because of the cruelty and vengeance of the jilted Other Woman. She, over 2 months after my boyfriend ended their "affair" of only 2 weeks (she knew he had a girlfriend all along, but she chose to try to steal him anyway), out of anger, obtained my e-mail address through a Google search, and sent me all the e-mails that had been exchanged between the two of them during the time they were together. They only saw each other a few times over less than 3 weeks, but there were a lot of e-mails, and the sex talk and other flirtatious talk in these e-mails has taken a toll on me, especially due to some of the timelines of the e-mails. Their "affair" ended before sexual intercourse took place, though she had begun behavior that very well could have led to that. The "affair" started because my boyfriend and I were having some difficulties in our relationship, and he (erroneously) thought he could have a new friend of the opposite to talk to about our problems, so he shared intimate details of our relationship with her and she, knowing he was weak and needy, capitalized on what he told her and used that information, along with physical aggressiveness to entice him to leave me, and at a time when I was out of town a lot. Fortunately, my boyfriend came to his senses quickly, once he started seeing red flags with her and realized that she was playing the "sex card" to try to accelerate that relationship, in order to convince him to leave me. He told me that he had been so drawn in by her that he did not even give any thought to what he was doing being cheating. As soon as he came to his senses, he cut all contact with her, apologized to her and to me for his behavior, and has been striving to be completely transparent with me and to help me heal. We ended up having to get the police involved, as she sent a harassing/threatening e-mail to him directed at me. As a result of my boyfriend coming down on her really hard for threatening me, she has ceased contact with us for the past month or so, and indicated that we would never hear from her again. But the e-mails are still very hurtful. I know he loves me (we are planning to marry), I know he did not love her, that it was a flame addiction, fueled by dopamine, etc. He acknowledges that not only did he not love her, but he did not even know her really in that short time. Does anyone have any advice as to how I can get past all this?
The scary comment from me was pertaining to the fact that how psychotic must you be to create a fantasy life with someone you never met? To me, that means Fatal Attraction wacko-type behavior. My being 1,000 miles away makes me feel helpless, but in all honesty, I really am helpless in this situation.
I am going to have a great bucket trip with Mom and stop giving any power to the OW by thinking about her while I am gone.
Having said that, IF the OW contacts him while you are away, he definitely should not tell her you are away. That could inadvertently send a signal to her that the door is open, without him intending it to.
Speaking of psychotic---my OW is a bit that way. Guess there are a lot of them out there. Their relationship was so brief, and once my boyfriend realized what she was doing, he slammed on the brakes and got out. She went on thinking that she had rights, that their e-mails (the more recent ones) were private and she was enraged that he shared them with me. In one e-mail to my boyfriend, she actually referred to the boiling a rabbit in his kitchen thing!!
And this woman is a nurse!!! Scary!
All the abbreviations seemed odd to me when new too.
AP = affair partner
CS = cheating spouse
BS = betrayed spouse
OP = other person
OM = other man
OW = other woman
A = affair
ONS = one night stand
W = wife
H = husband
dday = discovery day
Those are some of the more commonly used ones.
stbx = soon-to-be-EX
stbxh = soon-to-be-ex-husband
stbxw = soon-to-be-ex-wife
What i should have added is that sometimes we are actually angry at our cs but almost feel guilty because they are being so caring. We need an outlet for that anger and the ow is the easiest target.
The only problem (for me) was that I could never resolve that with her or his family. In the end i had to see them as bit players who distracted me while I wrapped my head around what had happened. I had delayed anger at my H. 6-12 months into rebuilding my anger shifted towards him and away from the outsiders.
We began truely rebuilding after 12 months. As i worked through my anger towards him, my need for revenge and my anger towards the others lessened.
Im not saying you are going through the same emotions but this is how my rebuilding went. Often times there is delayed anger towards the cs as in my case. I get that the ow chased him. I believe my H was persued, maybe not as intently but women come onto him all the time, always have even if they know hes married. Its shitty. Women can be worse than men in their persuit of a "good time".
Anyway you seemed defensive or offended by my response and i thought i should explain where im coming from.
My boyfriend was weak, he was looking for a friend to share his problems in our relationship with instead of talking to me (erroneous). She was a listening ear, he spilled his guts and she used that info to push the right buttons to try to take him away from me. It is all spelled out in those e-mails she (so graciously) sent me.
My boyfriend and I have recently been discussing infatuation vs. real love, which has inadvertently promoted further healing for me. After prayer, thought and reflection, I now can see now how he could still be saying loving words on one hand to me, while, at the same time, he could be making very flirtatious and overt comments to her. I believe that what we had/have, despite the problems, is real; what they had was a flame addiction, a fantasy, born out of neediness and infatuation instead of reality. So how can I expect to make sense out of it? Trying to do that very thing recently has caused me a lot of pain and frustration. I can now see how hurtful and counterproductive this has been to my relationship with my boyfriend. The bottom line is that I now hold the keys to being able to stop obsessing and get on with my life.
I will take real love over infatuation any day!
The bottom line is that there can be hope and healing after an affair, and time IS your friend. I struggled a lot for a few months, and did not know if I would ever get past all the questioning, obsessing, and ruminating. All of that was hard on both of us. But things are so much better now for both of us and we are happy and continuing to strive for transparency and great communication, which will greatly reduce any temptations to cheat in the future. We also have grown closer to God, and He is directing our lives in the way they should be.
I feel that am one of the lucky ones--he has done everything right since DDay (confessed not discovered), and I am lucky that he is smart enough to have figured out that his old way of life was not the way to live. We have God in the center of this relationship, that has made all the difference.
Anyway, I wanted to share this, as there are so much unhappy stories on here, I thought giving a few people hope might be good. I will continue to be part of this group; healing and growing is an ongoing thing.
It's the whole fool me once shame on you...fool me twice.....yeah.