She broke "the code"

I have never down played my husband's fault in the affair. He was in NO way a victim here. He made his choice to have an affair rather than work on a decade old marriage. A marriage that had produced 4 healthy children. A marriage that had involved vows before God. He chose the affair. I will never understand that choice, I don't believe I am capable of understanding that choice. No matter how bad our marriage had gotten or how unhappy I was, I am incapable of making the decision to cheat.

Which brings me to the other woman. She was not the "type" of woman I would expect to be an affair partner. She wasn't a single, lonely, well streetwalker. She certainly wasn't a prostitute with a heart of gold (Pretty Woman ..haha). She was a married woman with 2 beautiful young children. This made me more angry than anything. She basically was me in a different body. How could she be so selfish to put her marriage and children in jeopardy just for her own "happiness." Did she even think about how many lives she was going to destroy in her search for happiness? She played the poor poor me card to my husband more times than I can count. Her life was harder and more stressful than anyone else' life. Her marriage of course was more unhappy and she had to wear a "mask" around everyone everyday. No one understood how bad her life was and she could only talk to my husband because only he understood. I wonder if my husband's large paycheck had anything to do with that understanding in her eyes? ...just a thought

As a married woman that is busy raising kids and running a house and working and doing a million other things, you expect other women in your place holding you up and supporting you. You feel like you are all in the same club. I try to support all the other wives and moms I know. It is two of the hardest jobs you will ever have in life. You shouldn't have to worry about the wife down the hall from your husband's office taking a shine to him. You are in the same club...right?

Why do I stay?

This is question is one that has been asked a few times via email. I appreciate that some of you are reading my blog and getting something out of it, even if you are afraid to follow publicly. I understand that my material is not something that you may want to advertise that it interests you. A lot of people going through affair recovery are ashamed. I'm not saying that any victims of infidelity have any reason to be ashamed, but I definitely understand the shame. I have felt it and still feel it on occasion. OK back to the question....

I stay for many reasons. Here are just a few I can think of at this moment. First, I believe in marriage. I believe that when you take the vows, you do it before God and it is not something to take lightly. Second, I love him. Some days I have no idea why, but I do love him. Third, I don't want him to lose his children. I KNOW I can raise my children alone, but I don't want them to be angry with him. They are smart kids, they would know that something bad was involved in our breakup. My children need both of us IF we can have a healthy relationship.

All that being said, there are days that I have NO IDEA why I stick around. I have chronic pancreatitis. It is no fun and some days are just pain and fatigue. Those are days that I just don't feel like fighting for my marriage. It is too hard and I am too tired. Truthfully, I'm not sure anyone that is in affair recovery can point to one reason they stay and work it out. I can definitely see that MANY reasons to just pack up and leave.

Mrs. Personality

I changed the name of the blog to better describe what it is about. I do still see myself as Mrs. Personality. The story behind it is simple really, it is a comment made by my husband in one of his many love-fest emails to Mrs. Cheatsalot. I'll try to quote his exact words. " I will try to call you in the morning while you get ready if I can get away from Mrs. Personality." Apparently they has a daily gab fest in the morning while she was dressing for work and he was driving the 60 miles to work. He kept leaving earlier and earlier so he would have time to talk to her. Her husband was already hard at work so she was free to talk. The morning he was referring to was a Friday that he happened to be off work. He thought I was fooled when he always volunteered to take the kids to school on those days off. I am not stupid, dear. I know how long it takes to drive less than 2 miles to drop off the kids...even if you had to pump gas it does NOT take 30 minutes. I hope you enjoyed your talk.....Jerk. I get so angry thinking of those times. All the phone calls, lunches, meetings, emails, and texts. Proclaiming their love for one another over and over again, while I waited at home for even ONE kind word, text, or email.

The Mrs. Personality thing just rubbed me all kinds of the wrong way. Sorry Dear that I wasn't sweet and in a fabulous mood, MY HUSBAND WAS CHEATING ON ME. Trust me it is a mood killer every time.

I choose Joy

There is a wonderful blog I follow and I stole my title from something she mentioned. She has been through more in her less than 30 years on earth that I can't imagine. Yet, she is fantastic and she really and truly seeks joy in life. She doesn't ask for sympathy for her life she asks that everyone look for the blessings of life.

It is hard to always find the joy. Some days, I admit, that I struggle to find any joy in my situation. But then I listen to one of my children laugh and I know that life will go on with or without me. I prefer to live life not let it pass me in the fast lane.

And then it hits me

I am not loved like I deserve. My husband does not look at me and tell me he can't live without me. I do not have that kind of love. I truthfully think that someone that has been faithful, birthed your four children, been supportive of your insane job change, and dealt with your midlife crisis, deserves the best love has to offer. What I get is nothing like that, I get leftovers. He was totally obsessed with his affair partner...sometimes I think he still is obsessed with her. He wrote her love letters..never sent ONE to me. He told her he would love her forever and NEVER give up on "them".... never said that to me. He bought her and her children gifts.....until this year he never purchased a gift for our children and well his gifts to me are always impersonal. For my birthday the year he was in the middle of the affair he gave me a portable computer desk. Oh be still my beating heart. He gave her a love letter and a picture of Scarlett and Rhett because theirs too was a love that would last forever. The picture was a movie still that I had given HIM! Jerk!!

I never feel beautiful or loved. Am I wrong to feel like I deserve that from my husband? The only true love I feel like I get is from my kids. My 5 year old regularly tells me I am beautiful. Not the same, but it makes me smile. I want to be the most beautiful woman in the world to someone. It hurts my heart that the someone is not my husband. Sorry, I am negative today. Sometimes the hurt just gets to me. The unfair aspect of an affair can just sneak up on you from everywhere.

Love to anyone out there feeling this hurt. I am sorry.

Do you tell anyone?

I have struggled with this question over and over again. I visited my Best Friend about 4 months post D-Day and I had a horrible visit. I felt like I had to hide something from her, so I pulled back from her. I have always shared everything with her and I knew if I got too close to her on the visit she would KNOW I was in distress. We know each other so well, I felt like a fraud hiding it from her.

Mr. Personality yelled at me one night because he thought I had told my family. In truth I had not told my family a word. He on the other hand had told his two faced backstabbing sister who not only condoned the affair but wanted to meet Mrs. Cheatsalot. She also was quick to tell EVERYONE in Mr. P's family. She thought they would be as vicious as herself and band around Mr. P. like I deserved the affair or something. She likes gossip and malice that much...classy. It backfired on her. His siblings started calling me and supporting ME instead of him. One of his older brothers sat next to me at the kids' football game and just put his arm around me while I had tears streaming down my face. Mr. P was " at work" during that game and his brother came to support the kids and me. All he said to me was " he is stupid, fight for you marriage he has no idea what he has to lose." That is all he said. He just sat there in silence the rest of the time. He simply wanted me to know that he knew and he DIDN"T CONDONE what his brother was doing to me.

My husband is the baby of 8 children his siblings for the most part still coddle him like he is the baby. He really has the mentality a lot of the time that what he does is always acceptable and if he does something unacceptable it the fault of someone else somehow. The affair for him in his mind was justified because he was unhappy. Sometimes to this day I think he feels like he was justified because I wasn't what he needed or wanted at that moment. Sometimes I fantasize that he finally "gets" that the affair was his fault and his alone. I have owned up to my part in our marital problems, but those problems in NO WAY made an affair justified. I was not happy with him, but giving what belonged to him to another man would never have been acceptable to me.

My sister figured out what was going on, so I did open up to her a little. My husband of course was furious and didn't believe that I didn't actually have to "tell" her anything. To me it wasn't something I really wanted to share, not to protect him but to protect my own heart. I felt like a fool that I had this happen to me and I didn't just walk out the door when I found out. I gave my sister the emails for safe keeping in case I needed them for a divorce. I told her to read them if she wanted. I have never seen a person so furious. If I had let her she would have caused him bodily harm. It made me feel a little bit better, I admit it. I felt like at least someone thought I didn't deserve this pain.

To this day, my sister is the one person I have told. My husband's entire family and probably some friends know thanks to my SIL. I call it selective telling, my husband was fine sharing with people he saw as on "his side." Some days I think it is time to tell my close friends. I think I deserve to have someone on "my side."

Some days after a year, I feel lost

We are settling into our new life in Oklahoma. I miss my friends and family terribly, but we are all adjusting. It has been just over a year since D-Day one and today is the 1 year anniversary of D-day two. I am battling Strep Throat so my mind has luckily been on other matters today. I will not sugar-coat it.... I.struggle.every.single.day. This is the anniversary of finding all the emails that pretty much blew his "we are just close friends" out of the water.

I struggle every day with the feeling I am his second choice. The mother of his 4 children, the supportive, FAITHFUL wife is 2nd place. It is a bitter feeling I have in me. After the discovery of the emails in September 2010, there were other HARSH discoveries that no wife (or husband) should ever endure. While we were in "recovery" between Sept 2010 and March 2011 I was sure to send him pictures of his children and myself while he was away on business trips. My way of staying close to him and including him while he was far away. I should have known the jerk wouldn't appreciate it. In March 2011, I start looking through his pictures on his blackberry. Not a single picture of me, a couple of the kids I sent him, and DOZENS of pictures she had sent him AFTER the "no contact" was put in place. I was literally falling to the floor in anguish. I am not a very dramatic person ( not at all really), but this discovery literally knocked me to my knees. I weep just thinking of this night. I felt like such an idiot. I trusted him and he proved once again he can't be trusted.

He was literally sweating when I confronted him. He knew he was wrong, he knew I had every right to be devastated. I told him it was either a real no contact this time or I was leaving. This was all I could handle. This.was.it. He was to tell her there was to be ABSOLUTELY NO CONTACT of any kind, work related or not. I also wanted him to have her contact me stating she understood what no contact meant. She sent me a rude condescending email saying she understood "my" definition of no contact. I sent her a rude one back stating I was pretty sure no contact means the same thing no matter how you put it. It means NO CONTACT! I knew she didn't take it seriously. She was enjoying my torment. She enjoyed her little game. She had no plans of actually leaving her husband for mine, but his attention made her feel good about her miserable, deceptive self. I was going to wait and see if my husband was finally going to get his head out of his b**t. I knew at that moment, it will take YEARS for me to ever trust him again. He just keeps proving that he doesn't deserve me or his children. No one deserves an affair. There is no one on earth that deserves what I have been through, except maybe Mr. Personality and his slut. I am trying to let go of the anger, but there are some days I daydream about her husband dumping her for an affair partner. He is another person that does not deserve what they were dealt in the marriage dept.

Until the next time, I pray for everyone that is going through this crap. There is a web forum that I have found very healing. www.survivinginfidelity.com .....God Bless you guys.