I'm still stuck hating the OM. Which I think is pretty common with everyone on here

It is so annoying though because it gets into my head and just stays there and gets me all worked up.

I think one of the things I hate most though is the thought that they are now just happily getting on with their lives - totally "over" it - and in fact probably rather proud of their "conquest".

And yet for me and my W it will be here forever. It has done so much damage, not just to me but to my W as well. What sort of friend would do that? They are such evil evil people.

Does it make me a bad person that I have genuinely thought about it, and I know for a fact I would not only be happy if they were dead, but that if they were in mortal danger I wouldn't lift a finger to help.

How do you stop hating these people that are so deserving of hate? I don't want to hate them, not because I want to forgive them (because they deserve slow and horrible deaths after miserable unfulfilled lives) but because I know my hating them only hurts me, and they just get to carry on and be happy. It is like they stole my happiness from me. And so I resent them for that.

It has been 5 months now... And it doesn't seem to get any easier. In fact it hits me worse in the "good" times.

At first - and not too long - I hated the OW.

Then I thought, if I hate her for what she did, and if I wished a slow and horrible death after a miserable unfulfilled life for her, then I must also think that of my husband. He was not an innocent. He walked into and embraced the A as much as she did. He had the ability to say "No!" He did not. To hate one, I must hate the other.

Hate takes too much energy. Takes too much away from me and my happiness. But now he is totally remorseful and doing everything to ease my pain and help me heal. He is a human, with flaws. I have forgiven him.

But I cannot hate either of them. To do that, would crush me internally.

Perhaps, Adam, if you thought of your wife as a willing participant, and equally as culpable as the OM, and can find it in your heart to forgive her (providing the A is over and she is remorseful...feeling YOUR pain), then you wont focus your energies on the OM. He's in the past.

Usually you don't care for my responses; I suspect it will be so again. Nevertheless, I chose to answer in hopes of helping you see a different point of view.





Peace is not just the absence of war; it's an exercise in compassion. -Dalai Lama
Coming to you from JJ

Adam, I've heard it said that carrying resentment is like drinking poison, hoping it will hurt the other party...

But it seems you already have a handle on that. I share your feelings that it's such a bloody ripoff that the OM & the WS are often going their merry ways and we are the ones dealing with the bitter dregs. The exceptions to this are those who are often found posting on the Open board. I've give my arm to have a W who cared enough to even show a glimmer of remorse.

There are no easy ways to let go of this deep trauma. All you can do is take control of your mind and train it to focus on the good things in your life. I know it sounds trite.

The human mind is THE MOST COMPLEX & POWERFUL "ENGINE" in the universe (apart from God, if you believe in one), and we must always try to have it working for, rather than against, us. Please think about that....such a potent, compact universal force that we carry in our craniums leaves the lifeless, endless galaxies in the dust! Such raw power has overcome years in concentration camps, brutality on many scales, and other things that even make our BS issues seem small by comparison. This is not to minimise your pain, man, just to let you know that you must reclaim your personal power and never allow circumstances to keep you down!
BB

First of all, its good to hear your "voice". I'm hoping after the hospital and the police station that your W and you are finding less turbulent times.

Hating the OP. To be honest with you, I hate the OW in our situation. I just do. Like you, I understand that hating her really only hurts me IF I let those feelings consume me.

In our case, OW was/is a serial OW. Although she claims to be very much in love with her own H, she has no remorse over her infidelities. She's admitted to at least one A before the one with my H. She was on her way to setting up a new one when I discovered H's A with her. And the more H and I talk about the details of their time and how secretive she was, the more convinced my H is that she had concurrent A's going while she was involved with my H. (Excuse me while I hurl.)

I think its only natural to harbor distaste, disregard and disdain for people so consumed by their selfishness, thoughtlessness and greed. OW was manipulative and knew exactly what she was doing and coached my H in how to conduct an A. This doesn't take blame off my H. We're dealing with those issues to work through the hurt and anger I have for him. He is remorseful. I haven't come to a point of forgiveness with him, but the fact that I'm still working towards R has an implication of that goal, I suppose.

So, Adam, I guess I can say I understand your feelings and share them. I've found the best way to deal with all of the negative emotions has been to accept them. It hasn't helped when I've tried to suppress them or minimize them. I don't feel its constructive to nurture them, so its good to find "stop" techniques when possible. But sometimes, those feelings just need to be allowed out.

Your OM absolutely took something from you. It doesn't mean you can't regain your happiness. And you will hopefully have a better, stronger marriage when you're on the other end of reconciliation.

Part of what's helped me is seeing OP for who they really are: in my case, that was a selfish, manipulate, greedy, needy, b@#$ch. She will never be happy EVER because she hasn't figured out that happiness isn't about how many men are willing to sleep with her. Eventually, she'll be old and wrinkled and used up and not desirable. She's already deeply in despair when she walks through a town and sees more younger, more attractive people than herself on the street. I don't need to go through dying or killing fantasies anymore about her, because the internal pain she's trying to avoid and run from will torture her for a long, long time. I just hate that she will be destroying other people's lives in the process.

Anyway, I'm not sure if that helps. During the good times when this hits the hardest, its your PTSD kicking in: the contrast between how good the moment feels and how much healing still needs to occur. Sadly, the best Rx for that is time, which is sometimes torturously snail-like in its passing.

BlueIris

"We cannot wait for the storm to pass; we must learn to walk in the rain."

OK, I hate them too. All of them but particularly the real, EA partner, the one who clung on to H for seven years manufacturing reasons to see him, the one my H said he should have married in the note I found on D Day.
It consumes me less and less but still, when it does, the severity is overwhelming. I found out that she got married about a year after D Day. Thinking that she was having one of the best years of her life while I was having the worst of mine added to the fury.
Unlike JJ, I see a real difference between H and OW and don't think that hating OW means hating H. I hate what both of them did but H has been remorseful and recognizes how sick and destructive his behavior was. OW has done nothing and my guess is that she is not remoresful at all but looks back on the A as a fun and exciting experience with an older, married man She has tried to destroy my life and my family and I despise her for that. I am not even sure she knows that I know the whole disgusting story which makes it worse.
I have wished terrible things on her....that her H cheat on her, that she not be able to have children, that she is stricken by a terrible disease, that I get the opportunity to humiliate her. Wow, does that sound immature!
But, sometimes, I am now able to think of her with pity and even ocassionally, with disinterest. I want to get to the place where I don't think about her at all - exactly the way she didn't think about me. That would be the best revenge and the best for me, too.
Like so many other issues related to infidelity, it is important for us to understand what happened. For me, it was also helpful to get a perspective on OW. My IC has been very helpful with that. She has said that, without exception, people who get involved with married people have huge issues - she can not venture to say what they are but that they do exist. She has also said that OW are desperate and self destructive, very often lacking in self esteem. I like thinking that.
The bottom line - she is not worth a minute of my time.

I am now two years post d-day and I can say that things do change with time.  My feeling reading the responses was to imagine that I was the other person and this makes me understand and helps the negative feelings dissipate a while.  Yes, all that is said is true ie that other people have issues and are imperfect and yes, the pain is like nothing else I could have imagined till it happened to me.  But from the deep dark place in the centre of the storm can come something new and deeper understanding of just how the world is.  I now realise how much of the pain comes from me wanting to hold on to the dreams I held in my mind.   When I notice this I can let my pain go a bit too.  Now all this does not mean you end up being unfeeling, it leaves me feeling that I am holding a resonance of the pain and suffering of my wife, her OM, and my own pain.  All this together allows me to see the whole big picture and all those other people out there who also suffer.  And the suffering is not just because of infidelity - I feel my own body aches and pains and I read, even here of how cancer and other illness brings death to our short lives.  I don't mean this to sound all bad and dark because it is not for me - What I can touch into these days is a kind of gentle warmth and understanding.  Not always but from time to time.  And still in those other times I get also the bad returns times of deep despair too.  But the good times are the ones I can see now and these feel a bit like a relief and a moment to breathe again.

may you all be safe and well, contented and happy

[Edit: Sorry for the length and the language having a bad day/week/year/life]

Sorry JJ if I seem to disregard your comments often - it is always better to have someone comment, even if I don't like what it says! If only because it tests my beliefs.

In this case I'm not going to strongly disagree with you. The willing participant thing (despite turning my stomach) is something I cannot ignore. But the difference is that I see how much she is suffering, and how much she stood to lose, has lost and may yet lose.

For the OM there is none of that - and that is the core of my hatred. I hate the injustice that they can just get away with it, have a happy life and go and do it again with someone else.

One of the OM is one of the most manipulative and nastiest pieces of work I've ever met when it comes to women, he treats them all like dirt and has left a trail of destruction behind him - yet never suffers any consequences for his actions. It is like he's left a trail of "victims" - all the womens lives he has damaged and ruined. And then all the people like me in those lives who are also wrecked by the fall out.

And the little **** just carries on.

As for the other guy - well that was an EA and PA so that's a whole different ball game (first one was drunken ONS). I don't even know what to think. There I agree with you JJ - it is so difficult to separate the WS from the OP when dishing out blame. She led him on, lied to me, perpetuated it. But on the other hand, she had confided in him, he knew she was messed up. He knew she was very very lonely and confused and just desperately needed a friend she could trust. And he abused that trust.

Jerry suggests imagining I was the other person - I can't. I honestly do not believe I would be capable of doing what he did. A friend who really needs you - and you wreck her marriage? Not against some faceless husband either, but you stand there chatting to him, holding hands with his wife in front of him????

I feel sick.

I'm having a very very low day.

As for the other **** - well we have a solicitor and are going to see her later this week, so fingers crossed with that one.

She's fully recovered now from her OD attempt at least.

Still little improvement on the job front, hoping to get each pay check as it comes and see if I have a job the month after. If hard to job hunt in the middle of all this though.

Have been warned to be very careful with drinking in this state (by therapist and my lovely HH friends), and so far have been reasonably good. So thats a plus at least

I'm starting to worry how long I can hold this together now. I've always been well above average at coping with stress, but everyone has breaking point.

Thanks, Ami, for your advice. I know in my heart I have forgiven my H, but I have not been able to verbalize it yet. Ironic? Perhaps...and maybe also because I am not yet at FULL forgiveness...a bit of my heart still occasionally aches with pain.

Adam, I also feel that our OW emerged from the A not as devastated as my H, but having said that, she also did not leave scot-free. All of our eductional community - from students, to parents, to teachers ... even to the Superintendent of Schools KNOWS of the A. Her H and children KNOW of her A. Her reputation is shot. Why she continues to work in the same school district astounds me. I can only imagine she has no self-pride and displays her stubborn, self-righteous mask every day. I feel for her H, as he was in the dark about her several As, besides my H. To me, she is pitiful.

But...she did NOT lose her job.(My H retired immediately) She did NOT lose her H (we almost divorced). She did NOT lose her home-state (we felt we HAD to move out to give us a chance).

My H had worked in the same district for 35 years and retired without so much a "thank you" because he left disgraced. That's very hard for him to accept, yet he's been a trooper. He's been a trooper because he WANTS me in his future. That's a strong incentive for me to work with what shards were left of our M.

For me, that's the decision breaker for the question: Do I stay or leave? What's the behavior/response/action of the WS NOW? Evaluate THAT and what's in your own heart, and the answer is clearer. Our path is still littered with sharp stones on our bare feet, but I can still the soft, cool green grass up ahead on the journey.

Peace is not just the absence of war; it's an exercise in compassion. -Dalai Lama
Coming to you from JJ

Edited for stupid mistakes. Can I do that with my life? Simply edit out the mistakes...

No real hate here for the OM.

He's a nice guy, bit dumb maybe.

I didn't marry him. He never made a commitment to me. I wasn't in a relationship with him.

My problem was with my partner. It was her responsibility. She took her knickers off, after all.

It does no good to blame the OM - after all, they are just the person our SO found first. If that OM wasn't there it would have been someone else. It's very rare for the OM to be the real cause. After all, our SO could always have said no but didn't.

Good luck Adam, Sam

It has puzzled me for a while.

Initially I really hated both of them, since I knew both of them socially, and the 2nd one even held hands and stuff with W in front of me, and would chat to me as though there was nothing wrong - was "friends" with me.

And so I felt very mistrustful and hurt by that - and very angry that I'd been made such a fool of.

But now, I dislike the man, and always will. And I also think that what he did was inexcusable. He was not being my W's friend by being complicit in the destruction of her marriage. A friend should have looked out for what was best for her. And he couldn't possible have thought that the A was what was best for her.

On the other hand, I'm not "consumed" with hate for him any more. I do not consider him to be evil spawn of satan. I would never shake his hand, nor speak to him, but you know what I'm saying.

And the odd thing is with him it was a 1 month EA and PA. So maybe my brain is just coming round to how you think all of its own.

My problem is the other one. I hate him with such passion it is scary. I mean literally, if I he hurt himself and needed an ambulance, and I was there, I would just walk away. Not only that I would genuinely be happy if he died. I would NEVER be stupid enough to hurt him myself, but only because I have too much respect for law and order.

The reason? He IS an evil piece of scum. He has f*cked around women for years. He treated my W like sh*t when they dated. He's a theif, a cheat, and while not a convicted rapist - his view on "consent" leave a lot to be desired. In some of my early posts I ellude to the fact that the ONS with my W, while she MUST shoulder some of the responsibility for her actions, was if not rape, very close to rape. She was very very drunk, and clearly not herself, very upset at a funeral, and he manipulated her. Now I know it is common to dismiss this as a BS looking to make his WS the innocent party, but read above, I accept her guilt in the EA & PA. But I know what this guy has done to other women, and I know he CAN manipulate people. He delighted in causing trouble. When I first met him, he was charming as pie to me, little did I know who he was (the evil ex), and delighted in telling me sordid little stories about this girl he used to date etc. etc. little did I know that he was talking about my W!!!

One thing that makes me so sick is knowing that there is a high chance that part of his motive and part of "thrill" was in knowing how much damage he would do. The second guy, while a pr*ck and the rest, I am fairly sure actually did have feelings for my W. This guy did not have any feeling for her. At best he just used her, but more likely he got off on the thrill that he was destroying her. He has done it to plenty of women in the past. (As in I know at least 3 of his exes have ended up on medication and having councilling after dating him as he destroyed their self esteeme through systematic emotional abuse).

So quite frankly I have plenty of reason to hate him.

My problem is that I know hating him does me no good, and him no harm. So I wish I could stop.

Adam, I just want to say that I feel your pain and know what you mean because I feel the same way. It’s amazing sometimes how you can read a post and see how complete strangers go through the same emotions, feel the same things and struggle with the same problems. I too hate/despise the OM and feel the same way and its been 10 months. So much so that it bothers me because I know that feeling of hate that strong are 1) dangerous and 2) not very Christian like.

I hate him because he was totally the instigator of the A. I know that my W is equally guilty for giving in and all that…I’m just saying he actively pursued her even when she initially said that she is married and not interested. He went after her, made advances and etc with now one else in mind (like me) besides himself. Ugh my blood is boiling as I am writing this. I hate him for that. I hate him for pursuing MY wife and for putting this blemish on my marriage. I hate him for having no respect for me, my marriage, marriage in general and no respect for my W. This is one of the hard things that my W realized in reconciling and that is that he used her and what he did was very disrespectful. If he cared about her he would have respected her and the fact that she was married and not pursued her to satisfy his one selfish needs.

And like you said Adam, I think the part that gets me the most is the fact that I feel he got away with it. His W does not know, his life went on, his happy and here I am devastated, trying my best to put horrible things in the past and accept things about my W just in order to stay with the woman I love and want to be with.

This is actually a whole another topic for another post but because of this hate and resentment I feel towards him I have this strange desire to face him. When I think clearly about it I don’t know why, or what I will say to him or even want to say to him. I discussed this with my W and said maybe I want to because I want him to be accountable for it in some way and maybe I think that having to face me would do that. I don’t know, it’s something I really struggle with. Plus like I said, I hate him so much that I don’t think I can grace him because I fear that my anger will take over and who knows that I will do. God, what a helpless feeling. I just hope, if not from me, he gets his in life…bastard!!!!!!!

But I have to ask - if the OM is "happily" married why haven't you or your W told his wife what happened?

Well Adam, this is one of those touchy subjects that my W and I actually don't see eye to eye but the reason was in the beginning for not telling his W was 1)to have something in the holster and 2) to keep people at her work from knowing.

Up to just a week ago, my W worked with OM for the last 10 months. Obviously there was business contact everyday (which killed me) but we did enforce NC as far as personal contact goes. We decided to keep his W not knowing over his head sort of as a threat. Like "hey, you better not cross the line or we will tell her" type of thing.

Also, in our situation now one besides my W, OM and me knows about A and we were afraid that if we tell her the cat would be out the bag, things will escalade and everybody would know, which even I did not want because of the embarrassment factor.

Now that she finally got out of her job I want to tell his W so bad. I want to hurt him and also ruin his life, everything that I described in my previous post. My W argues that it’s not our place, because his W is innocent and in trying to hurt him we will just hurt her. If the other woman knows than she might come after my W and my W said that she already has the guilt of ruining our marriage, she does not want the guilt of ruining that woman’s life too. We have enough going on and don’t need extra drama. So I guess to answer your question, now that my W is out of her job, the only reason I have not contacted his W is because it will hurt and negatively affect my W. Trust me, if not for that she would have already known.