Just read a helpful short article on how to treat a second chance. See above link and below excerpt.
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Nothing is impossible…
One step at a time.
I
This was posted by my 80+year old 6th Grade Teacher.
Here’s the Truth Ladies! (or Gentlemen!)
The following doesn’t keep a man:
Being pretty…Being honest…Being loyal…
Treating a man good…Being there for him…Caring about him…Making an effort for him…Paying attention to him…Spending time with him…
You could have the BEST intentions…you could have the most sincere feelings…you could be a good woman…and you still wouldn’t be able to keep a man.
Because the only way to keep a man is that if he wants to be kept by you.
You can’t force a man to be with you…You can’t beg a man to stay with you…You can’t love a man into loving you.
You can tell when a man wants to be kept when the relationship gets hard…and he does EVERYTHING to fight for you..
Because a man only fights for the girl he wants to belong to.
So if he isn’t fighting for you when things get hard…
Then that means that he no longer wants to be kept by you anymore.
The Moral of this?…
Don’t hold on to a man who doesn’t want to be kept by you.
No – you are NOT giving up on him…it’s him who gave up on you.
And it’s you who should not want to give anymore of your time than you already have.
Know when its time to let go and walk away…and know it is time for him to be un-kept.
Thank you E of “Marriage, Relationships” for nominating me for “The Lovely Blog Award”. Such a nice award name in itself. 🙂
This comes as a sweet surprise as I never thought my blog would be noticed much less nominated for anything. This is such an honour and I am extremely appreciative of this kind gesture. Thank you “E” and to my fellow bloggers and readers simply for your company.
SOME RULES:
7 Facts About Myself:
There are so many bloggers that should be awarded for their captivating and helpful writing. I have included the ones that helped me through the early days. However there are so many more to include on the below list. Thank you all for sharing your stories and holding our hands through this
My nominees:
https://healingaftermyhusbandsaffair.wordpress.com/
https://lifepostaffair.wordpress.com/
https://healingafterhisaffair.wordpress.com/
https://workingtowardshealingafterhisaffair.wordpress.com/
https://luvcanbuildabridge.wordpress.com/
https://temptedblog.wordpress.com/
https://behindmychoice.wordpress.com/
https://betrayedin2012.wordpress.com/
https://heplayedme.wordpress.com/
https://ofachesandtears.wordpress.com/
https://fallingashblog.wordpress.com/
You know the saying…no news is good news…well we “Betrayeds” usually end up writing when we are down and out and need to vent.
To be honest…with the exception of a few internal setbacks, triggers, and biting memories…I and WE have been absolutely amazing. After all, it has only been a little over a year. So as far as I am concerned, this is major progress and we are truly blessed.
We had recently organised a little family getaway over an orchestrated long weekend and were extremely excited to be able to decompress and spend some quality time together – as our weekends go by too quickly for us. After driving over six hours, finally checking into our hotel, quickly changing into our swimsuits and rushing down to the pool to have a quick swim and a vacation cocktail before dark…my husband goes white like a ghost and whispers to me – “WE HAVE A BIG PROBLEM”…
I GASPED…there goes my heart constricting again and I unfortunately immediately thought the worst….”SHE WAS HERE!!!?!!??” and then realised how melodramatic I was being and profusely apologised for jumping to that conclusion. He took a deep breath and said “It is exactly that”. My heart sank…I gasped again.
WTF do we do now? We had no where else to go. All of the hotels in the area were fully booked out. Do we drive back home after being in the car for so long? I panicked. We panicked. WTF?!
My husband immediately wrapped his arms around me…held me closely, asked me to look at him and then softly and sincerely told me how much he loved me…how very sorry he is for everything again (BTW: I hear this a lot from him), how seeing her disgusts him as it reminds him of all of the horrible things he let himself do…how much hurt and pain he has brought to the girls and I…and how he almost lost me and us. He reminded me how far we have come…how amazing we are…how we must try and not let seeing her set us back too much, as we both knew that was going to inevitably happen. How we needed to remain strong together and try to enjoy ourselves as much as possible, as we too deserve this holiday together. (HEAVY SIGH!) A very BIG ASK!
We sat huddled closely together on the lounge chair, with the beach bag still over my shoulder – looking like we had just seen ghosts. Meanwhile our poor kids were inside the pool begging us to come in, but we were glued to the lounge chair with our backs to HER while her husband was swimming right beside them. We couldn’t do anything. We were frozen. It simply broke our hearts that we were letting our kids down….once again.
I did however take advantage of this moment and H’s vulnerability and asked him more questions about the affair, things that I needed to feel he was telling the truth about. He seemed so sincere and honest with his answers which made me feel better, albeit that the truthful words still stung.
We luckily avoided any direct run-ins with her, her husband and baby that evening. However, I was definitely paranoid and was constantly looking around like a rhesus monkey, expecting the worse. Unfortunately I often do this when I go to the supermarket in my home town…always scanning public areas to see if she and her husband are around. Now…here we are…thousands of miles away…and there SHE F@cKing is! COME ON!
I barely slept that night as you can imagine. Major flashbacks were zooming through my mind. My children think I am always sad looking when I am supposed to be happy. We are on vacation for goodness sake. It is so hard for me as I wish they could understand that I am NOT a miserable Beatch…and want to be happy.
The next morning at breakfast was rough for me too, as expected. Thankfully, still no sign of them so far. After, we situated ourselves at the pool on the opposite end of where we saw them sitting the day before. I made sure to position myself with the best visibility to be armed and ready. I was anxiously awaiting to see them and for noon to quickly kick in, so having a cocktail would be deemed acceptable. Grin.
There she was…with her big ass ski slope forehead, pathetic “Olive Oyl” bun wobbling on top of her head and with her man arms pushing her Quinny stroller (but of course) along the pool side. (I know, harsh of me…but I cannot help myself. Still have a lot of hatred and at the same time feel very sorry for her. So please forgive me for my shallowness.) …They didn’t see us.
Finally noon reached…Pina Colada #1 had kicked in good and proper. We were playing cards by the pool with our kids…and the vibes were nice despite that I was on major high alert, as expected. SHE was right at the other end of the pool. HER! WTF! ….And just like that… there she was….slithering into the pool like a smug snake with her perfect ass…(YES. It is still unfortunately absolutely perfect. The Beeatch.) She slowly looked around happy as a lark…and BAM! She saw me! She immediately froze. Then she quickly looked at our kids…then at my Husband and then back at me…to make sure it was in fact me that she was looking at. She is the one that now looks like she saw a ghost! Meanwhile, I was having a little internal conversation with myself during this very moment that went something like this…”yes..it’s me…you Bitch…happy to see me?”…and then I gave her a BIG ASS smile…head tilted and all..and her facial expression changed from shock to a sly CXNT. And with that she slowly turned around and slithered off to the other side of the pool. She then hid behind a large pool statue and eventually crawled out.
What a weird feeling this all was to me. There she was…and I survived. After a few hours with her being nearby the pool…riddled with one more dip in the pool with her husband, but behind the statue…as it was very hot.. They finally packed up and walked the long way around on the grass, with their stroller, to fully avoid us. I wonder if she told her husband that we were there? Knowing her…maybe not.
I felt better after they had left the pool area, as for some reason I felt they were gone for good. So life was good again. After some more fun games, swimming with the kids and yummy Pina Coladas…we fully enjoyed the next two days completely stress free and more in love.
Maybe this “oh so small world” was a good thing after all. 🙂
#EatShitandDieMs.B
Had to re-post this as it is too good not to share and the link was not accessible for some.
Believe or not this is totally uncharacteristic of me to have such negative feelings against another human being. Generally, I try to see the good side in everyone.
Realistically, I know I hate the emotional affair more than the person I am attacking, but right now I feel that this is a healthy way to let go of my anger.
I know that I can’t hate Doug, even though he is as much to blame as she is, because that would hinder everything I am trying to do to save our marriage. And sorry to all you men out there, but women have a way of manipulating you like putty.
Unfortunately, that power erodes when you have been married as long as we have. So along with my top list of stupid things said during an affair this is my “I hate you Tanya list.”
There. I’ve got that off my chest. Believe it or not, I feel much better now. You should really give this a try. This allowed me to take some of the burden of their emotional affair and transfer it out of my mind, if only for a little while.
I am having another weak moment. Maybe it has something to do with the 14% extra gravitational pull from the recent supermoon. Please therefore go easy on me with this post!
I know I am and we are on the road to recovery. I know that in order to keep growing stronger individually and together as a couple I need to push these thoughts away. But it is so frigging hard.
I blame my husband first and foremost for the hurt he has caused me from this affair. He had made horrible choices and we both have to live with it for the rest of our lives and accept that it is a long and difficult journey with no guarantee.
However, I am still stuck when it comes to her. I just can’t cant seem to get “her” out of my head. Thoughts and images of her still haunt me on a daily basis. All of the pictures that my husband took of her, the sexy and cute ones that she had sent to him…her loving words in her messages, letters, cards, emails…the memories of all of the interactions between her and my husband…I just wish I was strong enough to resist letting all of these flashes of her into my world. They sear through my being and I am trying so hard to fight them off, but unfortunately I am still not strong enough.
I will NEVER forgive her even if she owes me absolutely nothing and has no direct ties to me. Despite all of what my husband has done to us and me (and he does take full responsibility for his actions)…She TOO is NOT a good person and has stolen something special from me that I can never get back. The innocence of my certainty of our marriage and what it once was. My trust, security and safety are all gone! My heart is broken into pieces. None of it was hers for the taking. She played a significant role in encouraging my husband to cross the line…over and over. I know he allowed her in and as a result let her take advantage of him and by association us. He allowed her to steal precious quality time with him away from us and break down our beautiful bond that we once shared. But she was there on the other side with her “bits” hanging over his head luring him into her web. She took full advantage of our marriage being vulnerable and went in for the kill without any remorse.
I will never lower myself to her level…but I am still hurting and simply hate her. I often wish she could read my blog to see all of the pain and damage that she has caused. Not that she would care. Her parents must be so disappointed that she turned out this way.
The below link is similar to the way I feel…just because!
Here ya go Ms. B! and YES…I HATE YOU!!
Just when I think I am doing so well…a teeny tiny “straw” breaks the camel’s back and I feel like I am struggling to stay afloat. I am trying my hardest to not let myself go backwards, get caught in the current and drown in the overwhelming undertow of my insecurities and horrible memories of the affair and setbacks that have taken place over the last 10 months. I keep reading that “we Betrayeds” MUST fight the urge to allow ourselves to think about the past, dwell on what has happened and relive the pain over and over…as it isn’t doing any of us any good whatsoever. However, for some sick macabre reason I sometimes catch myself caught up in the immense current of my negative thoughts. Maybe this is how Garp felt in his life while dealing with his “Under Toad” (from the story “The World According to Garp” by John Irving).
I believe it is a combination of many microscopic to woolly mammoth sized triggers and vulnerable moments that weaken my “firewall” and allow these dark hurtful thoughts to seep in and enable me to overthink things way too much and unnecessarily so. Yet here I am…fighting the urge to go “there”, losing the battle and end up hiding the tears that well up in my eyes and tolerating the large painful knots in my stomach. Trying not to pay attention to the never ending flashes of the affair, the hundreds (400+) of souvenir photos that they took to reminisce together each of their romantic escapes, the cute and provocative emails and messages shared right under my nose…all of the hurtful things he repeatedly did with her and all of the dignity that he allowed the both of them to strip away from me…even if she doesn’t owe me anything at all. They ALL zoom around in my thoughts like a laser show in the sky when I get weak.
Triggers. I have been trying to fight off so “freaking” many of them. TV shows, movies, random innocent comments made by friends and our kids, almost all of the popular songs on the radio, every morning when I open our blackout curtains, our cute little dog that she picked out (the dog that my kids adore…the same dog that is still in one of her flipping social media profile pictures and the one I greet every morning), several thoughts of her unfortunately lurking around in my sub conscience…I truly don’t want to give the affair or her any more power than they already have in my mind, and yet here they are…sneaking in through my oh so very weak and vulnerable areas.
Some may say I welcome these thoughts…who knows…maybe the sicko in me does? However, I do know that my husband and I are doing really well. We are communicative, doing fun things together and extremely attentive and loving with each other…I guess things seem too good to be true maybe? Or maybe I have been burned so badly that I just expect something bad to soon happen again? Or it is the pangs from all of the raw scars that still lurk around that hit me when I least expect it. I try to fight them with all my might…but sometimes I lose and get sucked right into the force from that @#$%^&**&^%$# “Under Toad”. I need to find the escape route fast from this wasteland of hurt and TRY my hardest to never look back.
In my husband’s so-called 10 page apology….aka “love story”…it started out with a warning – saying that most often it isn’t the affair that kills a marriage, but how the Betrayed manages and deals with the aftermath is what determines the outcome. I remind myself of this daily…but the human in me often wins because I can’t help but want to “go there”…where I should just let bygones be bygones and get on with life. Sad that “we Betrayeds” have to deal with this “killer” and keep it at bay before it kills us. We all know it almost did before and very well could try to do it again. There is simply no guarantee. (I grew up! Remember?)
I don’t want to be like Garp and let this anxiety and fear suck me under, only for me to realise when it’s too late. I don’t want to let this strong current drag me down as I am only allowing it to try and derail our relationship from recovering, rebuilding and becoming even stronger. If I am not careful – it could even push us toward a deathtrap where it cannot be ever mended. I need to just STOP and let life happen as it should. This is easier said than done and believe me I AM trying to LET IT the F@#K GO!!!
YES – I AM a continued work in progress…
Maybe I should call Ms. B…”the @#$%^&* Under Toad”!!!!