Yeah. SO.
Lucky me. I got to fall apart. Again. For the zillionth time in two years.
Remember the letter I sent to OW's fiance? I got notice back that it was signed for and received. He married her yesterday, anyway.
H has been patient and tried to help, but he's no use. He doesn't get it. Hell, I don't get why I care so much. We don't talk about her or the affair anymore. I'd bitterly say, "I'm not allowed to," but that's not the case, really. H. will let me talk about about anything - to a point - but it generally just leads to bitter arguments or "Can't you leave the past in the past?"
Apparently, I can't. But that's neither here nor there. I'm trying to learn how to just not say every damned thing that's on my mind and instead pick and choose my battles. A year ago (or so?) it was about asking H for what I really needed instead of throwing in his face what he gave to her or didn't give to me during the A. It was about feeling whatever I was feeling and then deciding what it was I needed from H to make it better - if possible.
I've tried falling back into that, but it's hard. How do you say, "Skankalottawhore is getting married Saturday and I'm not happy about it?" Well. Actually, that's IS exactly what I finally ended up saying when he pressed me to find out what was wrong. He rolled his eyes and flippantly said, "Who cares?" OK I get it, he's over it, how nice for him, but I am not and clearly I care. His attitude may have been bravado to prove he doesn't care about her and I'm the one who's important to him, but it ended up feeling like he was invalidating my feelings. "I don't care, so you shouldn't either," comes to mind.
At one point we even started to fight. That sounds so odd, how does a couple "start to fight"? I guess, we started raising voices at each other and then he left. This KILLS me every time he does it. It's not just, I don't know, him leaving the room to calm down, this is him getting in his car and driving away. Too many bad memories from childhood. I can't take it when he does it. In any case, there was sort of a break through moment where, in essence, he said, "I'm trying so hard but I don't know what you need," and in which I told him that I didn't either, and that was the problem. I couldn't ask him for what I needed. I couldn't tell him what to do. I just didn't know.
SO... finally I just puked it all out: I hate her for being happy. I hate her for not having to live with any consequences of her actions. I had hoped that at least in sending that letter there would be some sort of consequences. And who knows? Maybe there were? Maybe they had a come to Jesus talk in which he said, "Oh hell no. We're not playing like that if we get married. We're going to run this show a whole different way," and maybe she was genuinely apologetic and maybe she really and truly saw the error of her ways. Maybe she is remorseful and maybe she finally understands.
But I seriously doubt it.
So she gets a big expensive wedding. And undoubtedly a lavish expensive honeymoon. She gets all the things I never had and gets to live her happily ever after.
And that's when H said, "You don't believe in Happily-Ever-After. You never did even before the A. You always said the hard part comes after the big triumphant love kiss in the movie, but they never show that part because it'd just be a long grind." (Yes, I'm terribly romantic like that.) Then he went on about the consequences she has had to face that I wasn't aware of. Like how people at work treat her like shit. At best, they openly joke about the affair. At worst, they won't come within ten feet of her or even talk to her to her face unless work demands it. Many exclusively deal with her through third parties so as to not have to be confronted with her. Almost all the guys make lewd jokes about her. I won't lie, some of this was a balm on my soul. Part of it pisses me off, too, because those fuckers are such HYPOCRITES. Seriously. They cheat on their wives and their big men, but she skulks about after married men and she's a slut?
We also talked about her "dream wedding" and how if it was in THIS county at THIS time of year it couldn't have been that beautiful/romantic/whatever. We may not have spend tens of thousands on ours, but we were married in a castle during a blizzard. If that's not romantic, what is? He also let me call her a "stupid face" (a childish insult we use as a joke to lighten things when we're frustrated/sad/mad) and that helped.
In the end, H talked me down from my ledge, though not entirely out of my mood and asked me to go out to dinner out of the county. That was a huge balm. I didn't want to sit around yesterday knowing "Right about now she's [insert whatever part of the wedding I thought they'd be at]."
Unfortunately, we had to return a carpet cleaner we'd rented, and he forgot and took the wrong way out of town so we had to reroute and backtrack not only past her fucking house but also past where her wedding was currently underway. I lost my shit. I sat in comatose silence and even though he knew something was wrong, he was a fucking idiot and didn't stop/turn around/talk to me - nothing. Once we were past the place where the wedding was being held, he said, "We should just return this tomorrow. Do you want to just return it tomorrow?" What? And drive past her house and her WEDDING all over again!? ARE YOU HIGH? I was clutching the seat belt with a death grip and the best I could manage was, "Too late, now."
When we arrived at the place where we'd rented the carpet cleaner, H finally said, "I'm sorry. I should have taken a different way. I should have just returned it myself and then come back and got you."
And for whatever reason, that's it. That's all I needed. Not to be "okay" exactly, but. To at least be off that scary ledge. I needed him to SEE for himself that he'd fucked up and I needed him to FIX it himself without me baby stepping him through it. And he did. It wasn't perfect but it was right.
So I went to the bathroom to clean up my tears and makeup and then he said he'd take me the "long way" out of the county and away and we'd have dinner and just relax. It was a fine evening. It was a good distraction. He was attentive and tried to carry his end of the conversation (unlike usual, where he sort of just grunts and lets me talk or sits in silence if I don't coerce him into talking). Still, I was grateful to just fall into bed when we got home and pray I could sleep through the rest of the weekend.
H is working OT again tonight. Near where Skankalottawhore lives. Yay. I guess I should be glad she's blissfully and happily married now and I should delude myself into thinking that'll keep her away from married men, now that she's got her own, but she had been with this guy for a long while before she ever even met my husband and she still cheated on him to be with my H. And no, maybe they weren't married, but she was still supposed to be exclusive with him.
Distraction seems to help ease the hurt a little. I thought about having a "mangle photos of the happy couple" contest on my blog out of spite and hatefulness, but really, who wants to be dragged into someone else's pity party? Besides, I couldn't handle someone saying, "You just need to get over this." In fact, I might kill someone.
So, instead, I have a chilled bottle of champagne and tonight I will make up toast after toast to the happy bride and groom until I finish the whole damned bottle. I guess this will be my celebration of 22 months of post DDay Survival - something I wasn't always sure I could survive.
Feel free to offer up your own toasts.
My favorite so far:
"May the bride honor her wedding vows more than she did my husband's."
I also like:
"May you get everything you deserve."
Remember the letter I sent to OW's fiance? I got notice back that it was signed for and received. He married her yesterday, anyway.
H has been patient and tried to help, but he's no use. He doesn't get it. Hell, I don't get why I care so much. We don't talk about her or the affair anymore. I'd bitterly say, "I'm not allowed to," but that's not the case, really. H. will let me talk about about anything - to a point - but it generally just leads to bitter arguments or "Can't you leave the past in the past?"
Apparently, I can't. But that's neither here nor there. I'm trying to learn how to just not say every damned thing that's on my mind and instead pick and choose my battles. A year ago (or so?) it was about asking H for what I really needed instead of throwing in his face what he gave to her or didn't give to me during the A. It was about feeling whatever I was feeling and then deciding what it was I needed from H to make it better - if possible.
I've tried falling back into that, but it's hard. How do you say, "Skankalottawhore is getting married Saturday and I'm not happy about it?" Well. Actually, that's IS exactly what I finally ended up saying when he pressed me to find out what was wrong. He rolled his eyes and flippantly said, "Who cares?" OK I get it, he's over it, how nice for him, but I am not and clearly I care. His attitude may have been bravado to prove he doesn't care about her and I'm the one who's important to him, but it ended up feeling like he was invalidating my feelings. "I don't care, so you shouldn't either," comes to mind.
At one point we even started to fight. That sounds so odd, how does a couple "start to fight"? I guess, we started raising voices at each other and then he left. This KILLS me every time he does it. It's not just, I don't know, him leaving the room to calm down, this is him getting in his car and driving away. Too many bad memories from childhood. I can't take it when he does it. In any case, there was sort of a break through moment where, in essence, he said, "I'm trying so hard but I don't know what you need," and in which I told him that I didn't either, and that was the problem. I couldn't ask him for what I needed. I couldn't tell him what to do. I just didn't know.
SO... finally I just puked it all out: I hate her for being happy. I hate her for not having to live with any consequences of her actions. I had hoped that at least in sending that letter there would be some sort of consequences. And who knows? Maybe there were? Maybe they had a come to Jesus talk in which he said, "Oh hell no. We're not playing like that if we get married. We're going to run this show a whole different way," and maybe she was genuinely apologetic and maybe she really and truly saw the error of her ways. Maybe she is remorseful and maybe she finally understands.
But I seriously doubt it.
So she gets a big expensive wedding. And undoubtedly a lavish expensive honeymoon. She gets all the things I never had and gets to live her happily ever after.
And that's when H said, "You don't believe in Happily-Ever-After. You never did even before the A. You always said the hard part comes after the big triumphant love kiss in the movie, but they never show that part because it'd just be a long grind." (Yes, I'm terribly romantic like that.) Then he went on about the consequences she has had to face that I wasn't aware of. Like how people at work treat her like shit. At best, they openly joke about the affair. At worst, they won't come within ten feet of her or even talk to her to her face unless work demands it. Many exclusively deal with her through third parties so as to not have to be confronted with her. Almost all the guys make lewd jokes about her. I won't lie, some of this was a balm on my soul. Part of it pisses me off, too, because those fuckers are such HYPOCRITES. Seriously. They cheat on their wives and their big men, but she skulks about after married men and she's a slut?
We also talked about her "dream wedding" and how if it was in THIS county at THIS time of year it couldn't have been that beautiful/romantic/whatever. We may not have spend tens of thousands on ours, but we were married in a castle during a blizzard. If that's not romantic, what is? He also let me call her a "stupid face" (a childish insult we use as a joke to lighten things when we're frustrated/sad/mad) and that helped.
In the end, H talked me down from my ledge, though not entirely out of my mood and asked me to go out to dinner out of the county. That was a huge balm. I didn't want to sit around yesterday knowing "Right about now she's [insert whatever part of the wedding I thought they'd be at]."
Unfortunately, we had to return a carpet cleaner we'd rented, and he forgot and took the wrong way out of town so we had to reroute and backtrack not only past her fucking house but also past where her wedding was currently underway. I lost my shit. I sat in comatose silence and even though he knew something was wrong, he was a fucking idiot and didn't stop/turn around/talk to me - nothing. Once we were past the place where the wedding was being held, he said, "We should just return this tomorrow. Do you want to just return it tomorrow?" What? And drive past her house and her WEDDING all over again!? ARE YOU HIGH? I was clutching the seat belt with a death grip and the best I could manage was, "Too late, now."
When we arrived at the place where we'd rented the carpet cleaner, H finally said, "I'm sorry. I should have taken a different way. I should have just returned it myself and then come back and got you."
And for whatever reason, that's it. That's all I needed. Not to be "okay" exactly, but. To at least be off that scary ledge. I needed him to SEE for himself that he'd fucked up and I needed him to FIX it himself without me baby stepping him through it. And he did. It wasn't perfect but it was right.
So I went to the bathroom to clean up my tears and makeup and then he said he'd take me the "long way" out of the county and away and we'd have dinner and just relax. It was a fine evening. It was a good distraction. He was attentive and tried to carry his end of the conversation (unlike usual, where he sort of just grunts and lets me talk or sits in silence if I don't coerce him into talking). Still, I was grateful to just fall into bed when we got home and pray I could sleep through the rest of the weekend.
H is working OT again tonight. Near where Skankalottawhore lives. Yay. I guess I should be glad she's blissfully and happily married now and I should delude myself into thinking that'll keep her away from married men, now that she's got her own, but she had been with this guy for a long while before she ever even met my husband and she still cheated on him to be with my H. And no, maybe they weren't married, but she was still supposed to be exclusive with him.
Distraction seems to help ease the hurt a little. I thought about having a "mangle photos of the happy couple" contest on my blog out of spite and hatefulness, but really, who wants to be dragged into someone else's pity party? Besides, I couldn't handle someone saying, "You just need to get over this." In fact, I might kill someone.
So, instead, I have a chilled bottle of champagne and tonight I will make up toast after toast to the happy bride and groom until I finish the whole damned bottle. I guess this will be my celebration of 22 months of post DDay Survival - something I wasn't always sure I could survive.
Feel free to offer up your own toasts.
My favorite so far:
"May the bride honor her wedding vows more than she did my husband's."
I also like:
"May you get everything you deserve."
Replies
It\'s so weird the timing of your post because I so know how you feel. I\'m 3 years passed dday and I am still struggling with unforgiveness towards the pig. I even prayed about it in the car n the way to work this morning. I am generally a very forgiving person. Even though I still have transient moments of hurt about the A, I have forgiven my husband.
The main thing that has had me stuck is the fact that the OW showed no remorse, played the victim and purposely went out of her way to hurt me. I too wanted nothing but pain and suffering for her. Even though I did see some through my phases of internet stalking, it just never seemed enough. Even though I know she\'s a pathetic loser who did what she did because she has no self-esteem and is frozen in emotional adolescence, I could never seem to just forgive and move on. She has occupied way too much space in my head and I\'ve had enough.
Here is one thing I do know about my H\'s OW and your H\'s OW. No matter how happy they may pretend to be on the outside, unless they are remorseful, own what they did and learn from it, they will never truly be happy. People who think that they are entitled to getting whatever they want even though they know it can cause others pain can never truly understand what true love and happiness is. They search and search for that which will fill them, but never really seem to find it. Why? because they have not wisdom. They do not understand selflessness, giving, caring or empathy. So Allora, she may have had her big lavish wedding with the poor shclub who married her even though she betrayed him, but unless she was remorseful and unless she learned from her mistakes, this marriage will not be a happy one. Unless she has owned what she\'s done, she will continue to be a selfish, self-centered woman and the schlub who married her will never know how to make her happy because she herself doesn\'t know. She looks to external things for contentment because she is not emotionally evolved enough to find it wiithin herself.
I know this is true for my H\'s OW. I pray to forgive her, but what that means to me is this. I just want to get to a point where I can let go of the anger and not think about her anymore. I want to get to a place of indifference, where I truly do not care what happens to her, good or bad. I don\'t have to love her. I don\'t have to even wish her well. I just want her out of my head. I hope and pray the same for you. Hugs.
I want to believe you\'re right. I want it to be true, but it\'s hard. Right now I just believe that all the jerks of the world always win because they don\'t play by the rules.
I wish she would have apologized. I honestly think that\'s all I need right now to be \"okay\". And I honestly think it\'ll be the one thing I never get.
Me too :( but you know what that says about us? It says that we are capable of forgiving. We need to, for us and us alone.