SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Well folks, I made it through the worst summer of my life. As we got closer to our divorce being final, things got harder and harder and my soon-to-be ex just got more and more selfish. I’m finally in my own place though with my youngest daughter. My oldest is settled into college and doing well. I’m back at work and hanging with my friends. A week ago I would have said I was doing really well.
Then he posted a picture of him and the AP on social media that said I love you. And of course, a "friend" called to tell me. It crushed me. Not because I want him back but because he never did stuff like that for me. I don’t think he even loved me. And why does he get to be happy and in love? My brain knows he not… he still texts me all the damn time saying he’s miserable and sorry. Why does it still hurt me that he did this?
To top it off, my mother is not speaking to me because I told her to stop bossing me around basically. I’ve been letting her for awhile because I’ve felt so broken but I needed her to back off and boy did she ever. Says she may never speak to me again.
And my 14 year old, she’s the meanest kid on the planet right now. She is angry and she takes it all out on me.
I just want to be ok. I wish I could forget him.

AdL,

Glad to hear you have your own place now. Tell the friend to keep that stuff to herself, and I would question why she sees his posts.
You don’t need to see/hear/know about any of that. I told our mutual friends that I had no interest in hearing about what is going on in his life - i t was no longer any of my business or my interest. And please remember that Facebook is known as FakeBook for a reason. And words like that are cheap. There’s no depth there. It’s all a show, a play. You know that he has not changed - she’s getting your damaged leftovers.

As for your daughter- teen years are tough. And she lashes at you because she knows you are the safe parent. No advice, but she will outgrow it. Is she in IC? Might help. (Might not- teens are tough!!)

Keep doing what you are doing. Moving forward, building a life. When he pops in your head, acknowledge it and "turn the channel". Takes practice and time, but you will think of him less and less over time. I 100% didn’t want my XWS back but it still took time and more than a few tears to get through it.

Hang in there. You really doing great. 💪

Yes, I second the encouragement, you are doing GREAT!

I too had to tell my mother to back off during my divorce and she stopped communicating with me, for about 3 months...I broke the ice by sending her a simple Mother's Day card. She later apologized and admitted she was just doing to me what her mother had done to her. (I was seeing an IC and the IC said I was "enmeshed" with my mother and needed to stop letting her boss me like she was used to doing (I was 30 years old!) This too will pass...

Ad, hugs to you and I wish you peace in your healing journey. It sounds like you are doing your best to take care of yourself. I would establish some boundaries with your friends such as "if you see him or what he posts , I’d rather not know". I don’t think he is truly in love. But even if he was , you deserve someone better than him. You are the focus of your life now . Keep taking care of yourself and doing the things that make you feel good, even when it’s hard. One day you will wake up and feel less emotionally attached to it . All we can do is keep going until we get to that point.

Unless you are a cheater you are going to have troubles in understanding the why’s of such behaviors.

It’s a performance, a show, a charade.

He blew up your lives and he is very well aware of it.
Deep down he knows he is 5e villain.

And he likely knows that now that he’s in the open with the AP…. It ain’t really holding up to the fantasy of the affair, isn’t it?

He is forced to face that he might have lost something for a fantasy that turned out to be less than what he had.

Accepting and confront it?

No friggin way, he is a cheater. He needs the castle of lies to look himself in the mirror without spitting at his reflection.

So double down, reinforce the lies. Put up a show.

Is all a masquerade to hide his empty void that he made deeper with the betrayal, and he keeps spiraling into.

He didn’t do anything like that with you because you were safe and real. The AP is like him, a cheater, and he knows that. So he needs the show off to keep the ego validation going and keep functioning without breaking into shivering little pieces.

And that will happen, trust brother time to get there. He has an appointment with his true self down the road, he can delay, but can’t cancel it.

And he will crumble.

You think he never truly loved you. That’s probably right, but not in the sense he never had affection for you. He can’t love others because he is not capable of loving himself. He never learned how.

You are able to love, so you measure with your own meter and hurt. But he is not like you. He embraced his low self worth and chose to become worthless instead of stepping up.

He is just too immature to qualify for your standards.

Chin up sister. Better guys exist out there if you ant, and they can very weel be able to truly love.
In the same way as you do.

You are the prize, and he is not worthy.

My brain knows he not… he still texts me all the damn time saying he’s miserable and sorry

I'm willing to bet good money that this is why he made that Facebook post. I think the AP read his text messages to you or his caught him in some other lies, so the FB post was his grand gesture to make her feel better. The other possibility is that he's frustrated that you haven't been taking the bait by responding to his tales of woe, so he's putting on a big show for everyone about how happy he is, hoping it would get to you and hurt you... which it did.

Aside from that, what I got from your post is that everyone in your life-- your STBX, your mother, and your daughter-- is really pissed off that the new AdLarue17 has standards for herself and boundaries... and that you're not just letting them wipe their feet on you, as they often did in the past. They really don't know what to do with themselves.

You've been putting up with bullies your whole life. Breaking out of patterns is difficult and painful. But you will get through it and we will be here to give you an ear when you need it.

Thanks for all the replies and all the support. There is nothing quite like talking to people who get it.
My daughter is in IC but she still seems so angry with me. And I have to say that it bugs me that she doesn’t seem to give her dad the same crap. Not that she seems him that much.
My mom is still giving me the silent treatment but oh well.
My ex called me a lot on Monday crying and acting all regretful. I’m trying to cut him off when he gets like that because it just makes me want to hit him over the head with something heavy.
Today my oldest called me in a panic at work. She had texted me a picture of her boyfriend walking sort of near another girl. She wanted me to tell her she was overreacting which I told her she probably was, just to calmly ask him about it. Which she did, and it was nothing. But I felt like she was being hyper sensitive to the possibility of him cheating simply because she knows her dad did. And that makes me sad for her.
It just seems like the consequences of his poor choices keep showing up.

I don’t know why your daughter or mom have to give you the silent treatment or anger, since you are the betrayed partner, the victim of abuse, not the villain here.

That doesn’t make any sense, unless they were lied about and gaslight by your abuser (ex husband).

If you were victim of another kind of sexual and emotional abuse, would they give you crap the same way? This is something that they should be confronted with. They are wrong in this attitude. Dead wrong.
Because the trauma you suffered is in that very same family of abuse, and the scars it leaves on your psyche and nervous system are very similar.

About your oldest daughter. Yes it’s very likely.
Infidelity and adultery are a nuclear bomb that will devastate the lives of everyone in its immediate vicinity.

Tpyour oldest know obviously and she is suffering the fallout. Speak with her, openly and calm. Share your emotions and tell her you understand the pain. That infidelity must have consequences (like your ex being now ex and an irrelevant bad memory, well deserving his misery).

I say that because kids of infidelity suffer trauma as well.
If unresolved could turn out badly. They might have it impacting their lives forever or they might cope by turning up cheaters themselves. Which is still going to ensure that their lives will be miserable.

Don’t allow it to go under the radar.

Your ex husband being miserable. I believe that. He is cheating on his affair partner by emotionally cheating with you if I got it right.

But you refuse to become an affair partner for your cheating ex husband.
He chose to live in the swamp by his own ego, and left nothing but a nuclear waste of the family you once had right?

Maybe even tainted by the foulness of his and his APs bodily fluids. So it’s now a gross, greasy, radioactive wasteland.

I can believe he is miserable.

I also say, fuck him.
He chose misery and now he’s going to sleep in the bed he made.

You are free and don’t deserve to be dragged down into his misery anymore.

He had his chance, he had it all.

And he fucked it up.

You on the other hand, have the right to embrace life and reclaim your peace and happiness. And nothing else matters.