Dear Gabe, Please cut yourself some slack. You did not go out of your way to find om and you did not encourage him so if you can absolve yourself you may be on your way.

It must feel awful for you right now.
I don't think that type of situation is something you could pre-meditate and at least if it happens again you will be better prepared to deal with it. Use this as a scenario in your head and practice your reaction of ignoring him if you pass by him another time. Over time your mind will automatically stop you from waving or what ever the case may be. Ask yourself what was your motivation for waving? Did you want to hide how painful this has been?
AS for the bluetooth-personally I would not want my H to tell me something like this over the phone, I would want to see his eyes.

Look how far you have come-you have recognized your behavior and the consequences-you are keeping yourself in check and this only confirms (I assume) you don't want to ever go there again. Progress comes in baby steps.

I agree with the others. Maybe the smile and wave was just a normal reaction to seeing someone you know and then when you realized it was OM because I'm sure you had that OMG moment that you couldn't believe he was there and then you proably couldn't believe you smiled/waved.

I understand you feeling bad and I understand the shock of seeing him makes you face the reality of the A and brings it all back up again but sometimes that is a good thing because you can realign yourself (even though you were in a good place). When I say realign I mean you and Cole and look back at how far you've come and seeing OM was a reminder of just how far that is as well as reminding you both that there will be situations that may come up with OM or even other men for you and woman for Cole so that your both always in the right place mentally. I hope that came out right.

Gabi, I'm proud of you for going to Cole whether it was in person or on the phone the fact that you told him and your remorseful shows alot. Don't beat yourself up -- your human and have learned from the past. If you rolled your window down and had a conversation that would have been another story.

BTW, I'm sorry you had to go through this today.

I wasn't too upset about it. Like others have said, she didn't attempt or even want to make contact with him. And given the situation, though I wouldn't put it past him, I doubt he did either. Just one of those happenstances.

Yeah, she should have broken eye contact as soon as she recognized him. What he got today was probably the most positive feedback from her since the weeks right after dday. But I understand, in the abruptness of the moment, it is easy to not think straight and do the right thing, but do what is natural. So I don't fault her too much for that. He probably hoped she'd follow him to a parking lot or something, so at least he got the message she wasn't intending to do anything more. And from what she told me, he had his window rolled down and was holding up traffic, one person honked at him because the right turn was open to take. But apparently he was hoping she'd roll her window down and talk to him. And she didn't.

So the fact is, while the response wasn't ideal, it was far from the worse case scenario as well.

Like Gabi said, the big concern we have is he make take this as a trigger to attempt more contact with her again. The last time he did that, about six months ago, it stopped when I emailed him a threat to get a restraining order on him. And it had seemed to work. If he makes another attempt to contact her, however, a restraining order will be forthcoming. No warning. He's already been warned. Once like this is a coincidence. Twice is planned. And I wouldn't put it past him to follow her as she passed the entrance to his neighborhood on her way home, and if he saw her, he might have followed her without her realizing it since he was in his mother's car. So if this is the beginning of him starting this up again, I have the emails I sent him and what he wrote back I can give to the police, and he'll be served.

But I hope he doesn't go there. We don't need anymore drama right now, with a crew staying in our house, the added cost, a wedding and graduation coming up, and our one year dday anniversary followed by our 30th anniversary...he just needs to go away and leave us alone.

Makes me want to move out of town just so we don't have to deal with him anymore. But we're in no position to do that. Save my books selling real well.

Wow , those rights of passage and signifigant dates are good distractions, but also triggers.

I fretted so much about our anniversary dday the days before were horrible for me , (because I anticipated the worst) but really when it came and went with out any drama it was a relief.

One day at a time. Stay in the moment.

I could totally see myself doing this - heck I do it when I'm caught off guard and see someone I really don't like in public. It's a natural reaction to put on a happy face and be polite.

If he makes further contact then Cole should intervene.

It's all good ...

I agree in that is a natural instinct to be polite when somebody is polite to us. Especialy when caught off guard. You feeling badly and being open to cole is so much more signifigant than the action of waving and saying hi. You acknowledged what happened and learned an important lesson. Now you will be prepared for the response/reaction that makes you feel better if you ever run into him again

One further note. What pink said. The fact she tells me about these things, and has been through our whole rebuilding, is one of the reasons my trust in her has grown so much over the past year after being so totally wiped out. Well, not totally as I described it on dday, it was a "smoldering wick, almost snuffed out." Meaning, it wouldn't have taken a lot more for me to totally lose all hope. The trust loan I gave her, however, a huge chunk of that has been repaid specifically because she tells me all these times he runs into her, I think always on the same day. And while her reactions haven't always been "perfect," they were usually understandable and we've worked on it together.

I treasure her openness and honesty, things she could easily have kept hidden and secret if she wanted to and I would never know. And as a result, would have become more tempting to let happen. It's stuff like this that makes me know she's serious about this rebuilding stuff.

For what it's worth: you shouldn't be so hard on yourself. I think it's a completely understandable reaction at the moment, and you had a great reaction afterwards. Respect to you both.

I get something. I know why it wounds me so much to see OM. I worked a long time today alone in a place where my cell phone pretty much doesn't get a connection and mulled this over in my mind.

I made up this illustration about A's. It is like having a horrible disease that in the early stages makes you feel fantastic but not quite yourself. This disease gives you energy and excitement but you don't realize that while it is making you feel so great it is slowly destroying you. At some point the rubber hits the road and all the fun is gone and you are exposed to the full extent of the damage. The wounds are horrific and painful and the treatments are painful and the more aggressively you treat the wounds the more they hurt but the faster they heal.

I read in proverbs that adultery destroys the soul. I know that is true. That is what it feels like. Damage to the soul. I believe the longer you stay in and the deeper you go the worse the damage. For me, 7 mo in the fog, 6 weeks of a full PA with OM#2. Almost 1 yr into the healing process and I can feel that I still have a long ways to go, and like I often say, it is not really a matter of returning to what was. It is a matter of rebuilding.

Whenever I see OM it is like jabbing the wounds because he is at the center of it all so it just makes the pain fresh. I always try to guard my thoughts and live in my real life and sometimes the A's begin to seem surreal. When I see him it just crashes through everything and there it is in all it's vividness. The ultimate trigger to set me back and renew the pain and struggles within myself over all that I did.

I wish I could just be indifferent about him. then I wouldn't be afraid to go out in public alone. I don't even really know why I fear. I do not want to go back to him or have contact, I think it is just a pain thing. If something hurts, we try to avoid it. We fear it.

I think that's why my reaction upset me so. It's like I was giving him the message, "It's okay, we're still friends." But we're not. We can't be because it would destroy me and my M. But, hey, I think I may have given him one good message. I reacted to him as if I was saying, "I am happy and doing okay, life is good." Maybe that is good and it will free him up to know that I am okay and he can not worry about me and get on with his own life.

I think I'm thinking about him way too much. Time to put him back on the back burner where he belongs. Where is that rubber band? I have a great H and family and a very busy, loving life to live. My needs are being met, and while I continue to work like mad on my rebuilding I am happy, and though it took me 11 mos to be able to say this....I am forgiven.

Forget that back burner. Place him in an old pot and toss him in the garbage. The back burner needs not be giving its space up.

Oh yes! pinkpony, Thank you! Cole gets ALL the burners!!!!!

If only my Cs would be that honest. If he ran into OW or if she even tried to contact him, no WAY would he be honest enough to tell me! Kudos to you, Gabby. That is why I haven't healed. After so many years after dday, I still don't trust him.

The fact that you shared all of this w/ cole is HUGE! Stand up straight and be proud of yourself. Give all of these negative feelings you have to God. He can handle it when you can't. ((love ya, girl!))