Letter from OW to me

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2004
Letter from OW to me
6
Tue, 03-30-2004 - 8:09pm
This is PART of a letter I got from the MM's wife. Now, I can respect that she is very hurt and I have my own guilt to deal with but I just wanted your oppinion of where to go now? NC....that would be great if these letters were not forwarded to her H and now he is pissed at me!!!! I have tried SEVERAL times NC and something always happens...just want an oppinion....


The affair had no other place to go....it had to end. Is that why you are mad at him because it ended because he did not keep his promises? Because he is not pining away for you and having a hard time letting go? You must have really fallen in love with him and the time with him was the best time of your life and you can't forget it? He was the answer to your miserable existence and once you were together forever your life would be lived happily ever after? Was he like a drug to you? You got addicted to him and just can't stop the addiction? I just cannot figure out why you are having such a hard time letting it go!

You both were married with children and it was all an escape from reality for both of you.My H and you connected because you both were in marriages with people that you hated. It was a huge fantasy that could not have ever ended happily ever after. Once you got caught and the fantasy ended that should have been the end of everything. But, it was not everything has just kept getting trudged up and slung through the mud.

This also brings me around to the fact that he was and is still my husband. Your supposedly best friend in the whole world's husband! I can't sit here and feel sorry or bad for you because he hurt you....you had to know that it was a possibility that you would get caught and that there was a chance that your relationship was just a fleeting fantasy. After all no matter what he said he has been with others and has always come back to me.... isn't that just great?

I was the one who discovered the affair and in one night lost my H and best friend. I am still suffering for all of my losses. But, you seem to think that I have not lost a thing. It's always all about you....never mind that this past year has also been a horrible one for me. I have uprooted my children, moved in with my mom, lost a great job, had a close call with my dad, might lose my grandfather who is the hospital as I write in ICU. But, you seem to think that your losses far out weigh mine. You might be right, but I did not do anything to bring on my losses I did not make a choice to do something that altered my life and snowballed into an avalanche. He by the way did not rape you. You seem to blame him 100 percent for the affair. You chose to tag along knowing that it would crush me. Your choice affected me and my life. Your choice altered my history and my future. Regardless of what state you think that my marriage was in

After all I have spent the majority of my life with him. I have been with him since just after my 21st b-day turning 39 very soon. He is all I know and have known for the past 18 years. He is the father of my children. He is the third person that I have made love too. He saw me naked when I was truly beautiful as I will never look that beautiful again. He knows how every scar on my body came to be there. I have been to the other side of the world and back with him. He has seen things that no other people will ever see.... like my uterus and all of my insides during the c-section...yeah I know you are thinking what but, it is just a fact and no one will ever see what he has seen. He and I shared the birth of our children alone together. I saw the delivery of DD through watching his face. I have sent him off on 6 month cruises hating him but yet so excited at his return. I have made love to him so very passionately and let him closer than I have any other human being in the world. I have truly looked into his eyes and felt pure love for him like our souls somehow touched each other. I have loved him as I have no other. I have loved him and I have hated him to the core of my being. I have sacrificed so much of myself to be with him........ I have always been able to say to myself hey you know I am not alone I am married. Whether we got along or not I still HAD someone to say was my very own.Not the case anymore! I am alone..

When he went to Surgery during your affair I almost lost it I was overwhelmed at my intense feelings for him I did not know they even existed.( I even remember telling you that and at the point you were both already deep into the emotion of your affair!) You did have evidence that I really did love him but you ignored that and kept on with your plan to dethrone me! ............

This brings me back to my point. You shared 11 months with him on and off talking on the telephone. You spent maybe 5 hours alone with him and the other 4 days in our families company (a second compared to my 18 plus years)...how does this make you feel justified in hating him? You have no moral ground to stand on. It was a fantasy that you latched onto because your life with your H really sucked not to mention you craved the attention that my H so readily dispersed to you the damsel in distress. You were just a fantasy with MY H because his life with me really sucked. I really do not think looking back that he would have ever left me permanently to be with you. It was always the way our life went he would leave only to return on his knees begging for another chance. It is a cycle that our life had been in from the get go. To prove that point he did come back on his knees insisting that he loved me and that we could work things out. I am not saying this to be mean to you but, I am really PO'D and I want you to really get it this time. I did love him and will always love him. We have a history together that can never be erased. I will cherish those memories that we made both good and bad. I will hate him and forever be angry and PO’d at what he did with you..

What happened in those 4 days of your visit will forever burn the core of my heart. Those 4 days were the worst days of my life. I can honestly say that. What little sense of myself I had at that time disappeared those 4 days and broke me as a person. It was wrong in every way possible it was wrong. I do not care if our marriage was bad I do not care if we had been divorced for 10 years it would still not be OK with me. He was my husband and you were my best friend. Those are lines in the sand that should never ever be crossed but, for some reason you both took it upon yourselves in the most selfish of acts and told each other that it would be just fine to gleefully step all over those lines. To hell with the marriages and everyone else your self gratifications were much more important to you as you rushed forward and used both families’ souls as if they were your doormats............

The end well there is a lot more not going to share on here! Would get me kicked off I'm afraid!

Thanks

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-18-2003
Tue, 03-30-2004 - 8:56pm
Wow...powerful stuff. It just drives home the point of why this needed to end for me and exMM. And for those of you who have been "forced" here by being cast off by exMM (or MW) this presents a different side of things....something that we seem to forget from time to time. I know that I frequently get so caught up in my own pain that I fail to see the pain (or the potential pain--as we were never found out) that it causes.

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-27-2003
Wed, 03-31-2004 - 1:15am
Sun

Thank you so much for posting the letter. It is good for all of us to read. Could have been sent to me. XMM's wife and I were friends, not really close, mostly in order to facilitate the A . This friendship was very much encouraged by XMM, ("Good Girl") even when I told him I couldn't maintain it. Eventually it led to me hating her out of jealousy and doing little things to hurt her, causing massive amounts of tension, trying to make each other look bad in his eyes. Certainly the worst I have ever behaved in my life. She knows, but not all, about our relationship. If she did know all, I don't think their M would have survived. I probably flatter myself in that belief. What your XMM's W writes about the fantasy is very true, and about the time spent together as insignificant. We must really let go of the fantasy, as beautiful and effortless as it seems it would be to fulfill, of even mourning it. See it as the distructive force it really is. Gosh....NC is hard. My XMM recently blew it by sending me an E starting with the words.... "Lala... my dear sweet all". It sent me into three weeks of emotional melt down, desperate e writing. Calls. Physical illness. Belief that indeed, things aren't working out on his end. Just a matter of time..... Making all the progress in my own marriage meaningless. Thank God, I'm pulling out of it now, but it is hard...... really hard to let go of the fantasy. I do miss him, or at least the fantasy version of him. But I think it is important to know how NC feels, the relief once the initial pain has subsided, so that when it is inevitably broken, you long for that peace again. Does that make sense?

I wish I had gotten a letter like yours. It might have made it much easier to let go. Saved us a year of flailing about in pain. Such a waste.

May I pretend your letter was for me?

Good luck. NC is a gift we give ourselves.

Lala

iVillage Member
Registered: 03-29-2004
Wed, 03-31-2004 - 8:12am
Yes of coarse you can pretend this letter is to you!!!! :)

I have been the worst nightmare of a OW in total history. In fact Im waiting for my award

any moment to arrive. This has been unbelievable.....I have been a monster. When I used

to feel strong and had morals....it all went down the drain this last year! I do feel her pain

as I have had my husband cheat on me numerous times. Not to the point that I have not had to

deal with another woman for so long but pain is pain. The letters she sent me were pages

and pages long, not just with her hurt and pain but personal attacks from my

housecleaning abilities to my strechmarks.....to my kids. That stings...if Im wrong or not. When my A was discovered she

had taped the call with her H and me. She then played it to my H. My H became very

violent and my children and I moved out for 4 months. My oldest daughter ended up

leaving and living with her grandmother for good. So I guess what I am trying to say is

that just her pain and me having a hand in totally destroying a marriage and their

children.....I have destroyed mine too. I have been trying to “heal” for a long time. I can not figure out how I became so weak not to mention loyality went down the drain! Every

time in the past it would end up with me talking to MM again but this time it is different.

Being MM’s wives friend I listened for seven years about what he put her through and

guess what???? He has not changed. My “lightbulb” moment was in Feb we had talked

and he told me “ I wasn’t sure if it was you, my wife, or some other woman” He was

talking to several woman on the Internet and I fell silent. I told him then that we would

never talk again and he agreed. After the letter was sent to me from her he did make one

more contact to call me nasty names and was pissed that I had any contact with her at all.

For the first time in a long time, I KNOW I will never talk to him again.

Things are not the best with my husband.....that is a story in itself but I do have three other

kids that I have emotionally neglected for a long time. I got physically ill so bad I ended up

in the hospital through the holidays. Its been a mess........now just moving on and putting

things behind me. It feels good to be free from all the drama and secrets. As you all know,

it is soooooo hard to live in a cloud of lies and secrets!!! I have my days but not nearly as

bad as they were months ago.....

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-01-2003
Wed, 03-31-2004 - 1:09pm
Sun:

Thank you for sharing that letter - it was very enlightening. I think it is very descriptive of the muck that surrounds affair situations. Muck on ALL sides (marriage relationships and affair relationships).

I probably have a different and more callous feeling than most of the people here will have. I have a very cynical response. I know that the W feels that pain but I also hold her accountable for her pain. I believe that it isn't events that happen in life that cause us the extreme pain - it is our way of responding to it. The letter shows a woman that is deperately clinging to a fantasy of her own. Yes, she has a piece of paper that says she is married. I have never been of the belief that a marriage certificate entitles the bearer to any kind of rights over another person... that's slavery in MHO. Before I get slammed for my opinions, let me also add that I think affairs are wrong because they are not healthy situations for anyone involved in the muck and they can usually never turn into healthy relationships.

But, I think it is sad that a woman (your MM's W) would admit that she has been hurt by multiple affairs and has stuck around to keep enduring it. Her line, "you had to know that it was a possibility that you would get caught and that there was a chance that your relationship was just a fleeting fantasy" really struck a chord with me. Because, IMHO, she also had to know what she was living with too. I just think that it is sad that she takes no responsiblity for any part of her pain and she is trying to feel better by attacking someone. Sure, she is logical for what she is doing in getting her anger out at you - but, it seems very tragic that she almost gloats that her H returns to her and not the OW (yuck). I'm not saying she is wrong for taking her H back each time. I'm saying she is wrong to try to inflict pain on another human being in order to make herself feel better... and, we get accused of being without morals. I don't believe in the 'eye for an eye' solution to your problems.

I also don't believe that history is the same thing as love. It's just not the same. You can have a long history with someone and stick around because it is too scarey to let go of that history and move forward... that isn't the same as love. I know an awful lot of situations where families have remained connected because they were a family - but, they were the most dysfunctional group of people imaginable. Just because you have done 'this, that' and the other' with a person all these years and you have a piece of paper doesn't mean that you are immuned to unprovoked pain in life. Life doesn't go smoothly most of the time. It is amazing the justifications that people will use to make their behaviors ok (I'm grouping everyone in here OW, MM, BS). Over the past years, I have read more stories than I can remember of really bad, obnoxious behaviors surrounding affairs. These behaviors were exhibited by ALL of the sides of the affair. I have also noticed that in most cases, it seems like everyone in the affair triangle (or quadrangle) is screwed up emotionally to begin with. It goes back to my original theory that affairs don't just 'happen'. The marriage or marriages are screwed up to begin with in probably 99% of the cases.

Granted, having an affair isn't a satisfactory answer to a marital problem...and neither is writing a scathing letter to try and... who knows what she was trying to accomplish...I think human beings don't look at their own behavior and hold themselves accountable enough in their lives. When I read her letter, I do see a woman in pain. But, I also see women here every day in pain. I see a few men in pain, here too. Sun's MM's W can claim that she did nothing to bring on her pain and we did everything to bring on ours - so any behavior that a BS exhibits is deserved. I say 'hogwash' to that claim. I know that rejection from another person is probably one of the most painful experiences in life. I know that when a spouse strays that is either temporary or permanent rejection of that BS. I just definitely think it is so blind of a spouse to believe that since a person has a marriage certificate and history, that they will never have to feel that human rejection ever again in their life. Most of the painful experiences we've had in our lives are not brought on by ourselves and we probably don't deserve it. Have you ever noticed that the 'karma van' that BS's laugh about hitting us or MM never applies to them when they feel pain... they never think they are being paid back for something that they did earlier when they feel the pain of the affair. I don't think I put a whole lot of stock in that kind of karma anyway. But, the BS's obviously haven't heard of the book, 'Why do bad things happen to good people'. Bad stuff just happens and people do stuff that may be bad to you in life unintentionally and intentionally and it is part of the crap of life... IMHO ;) Does it make it right? Heavens no... it just makes it LIFE.

I was married for 10 years before the start of my A. I have been a married woman and a single woman during my long-term affair. If nothing else, this affair experience has permanently opened my eyes to what a realistic relationship and marriage is. A large part of an affair is fantasy - I see that now. But, I also look at BS's who are living in fantasy. I think her letter was indicative of that fantasy life... the "I'm married with a family so I'm protected from bad things" fantasy. I guess I don't feel sorry for her as a BS. I feel sorry for her as a person who isn't at a very healthy place in her life right now. I think that the BS's and OW that move on and prosper are the ones that realize they are living on the edge of disaster if they wrap their emotional sanity around the acceptance or rejection of another human being. If you do that (and, I have done that), you *will* be in pain a good deal of the time in your life. A marriage certificate, some kids, and a house in the Hamptons is not going to keep a spouse immuned from the bad things in life... a decent sense of self-worth is going to help a spouse weather any storms that may come along in her life... even if those storms are unprovoked by her.

Lastly, in my long-winded opinionated post, I will never look at life the same way after having gone through my affair. I observe women who think they are entitled to be cared for in some way by a man. I have watched (mostly though the boards) people entangle their lives around another human being so tightly (either through an affair or through marriage), so that if the sands of time shift in the slightest way, a woman is thrown into utter dispair. I guess I may have lost some of my optimism with relationships. Maybe that cynicism will dwindle with time in my healing... maybe I'm just bitter. I'm definitely not trying to justify my involvement in an affair. Hopefully, I just see things a little more realisticly now.

JMHO,

Bird

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-27-2003
Thu, 04-01-2004 - 4:29am
Wow..... great post! So much there to ponder. I've saved it for later. This whole discussion has been really interesting. Thanks Sun for opening it up. I must say as much as I accept responsiblitly for my actions, and am truly sorry, I don't know if I will ever "forgive" XMM's W for what she did that gave me the green light... namely not accepting the fact that she was pregnant with twins, putting XMM through absolute hell the entire pregnancy, wishing him dead, and now playing the happy mother. I have had 4 miscarriages since my son was born 6 years ago, and can't imagaine a greater gift than two beautiful babies. Between that and XMM telling me I was the woman he had always searched for, and really meaning it, and my morals went out the window. I'm so sorry, Sun, that your marriage didn't survive. My DH just held his breath waiting for the tidal wave to pass, and now we are working things out. In better shape than before. Wiser. Trying again for a baby. That is his merit. XMM is commited to his marriage for the kids, but his wife constantly threatens him with divorce. His side of the story. Then again, he had an affair while she was pregnant. Not exactly prince charming material. Bla bla bla.... yes it is all very complicated. No one is 100% free of blame, and everyone needs to take a good look inside. Best to look out for number one. Affairs are self distructive behavior.

Lala

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-23-2003
Thu, 04-01-2004 - 8:30pm
I really liked your post Bird. You really are cool. You put into words some sentiments that I've had but for some reason I feel ashamed to admit. Or I feel a little guilty because I think like that. Like you, I guess I don't fully believe that "history"=love, but I find that so many people fall into that it gets me feeling like maybe I am missing something. There were other points you touched on too that clicked with me. Thanks. Hope all is going well with you.

Take care,

~LC