Happy Wednesday!

We were recently made aware of a relatively new site called Cheaterville.com that allows users to publicly shame unfaithful men and women by posting stories of indiscretion, accompanied by names, photographs, and even job titles.

The way the site works is that someone will post something about a cheater, it then gets blasted on Facebook, and the accused responds directly to the post. They can refute the information, but a lot of people come clean and apologize. At that point, the person who posted the initial cheater information can remove it or make it not visible on the site. It’s a form of forgiveness. The site’s owner claims that it seems to be very therapeutic for all parties involved.

We’re really interested in the ethical implications of a site like Cheaterville. Is letting the world know someone has cheated a violation of their privacy?

Do you feel that a site like this can be of benefit to you and/or the cheating spouse?

What is your general feeling about “outing” someone who has cheated? Would you consider it?

Does a site like this actually help to prevent infidelity?

Remember to respond to each other in the comments!

Thanks,

Linda & Doug

 

See also  The 2013 Emotional Affair Journey Comprehensive Reader Survey

    38 replies to "Discussion: Exposing a Cheater Online"

    • April

      I think puting CS’s information about cheating on that site is a violation of his/her privacy. My husband is my partner, and not matter how I am angry with him he is not my property. What about children? Will they want their friends to see their parents on a site like this?

    • Alecia

      I think a site like that promotes revenge. Revenge never gets you anything you think it will. You think it will make you feel better but it doesn’t. Not in the long run. You still have to deal with the hurt and betrayal. I know when my husband confessed I toyed with calling the woman who was also my friend. I eventually did. Within that conversation I basically told her that if she didn’t tell her husband, I would. I, in that moment, felt that if I had to suffer all these consequences for other people’s choices then surely the people who made those choices had to suffer consequences. She didn’t deserve to go on with her happy life like she’d done nothing. In hindsight, however, that is not my place. She has someone to answer to for her choices – and its not me. I don’t necessarily think this site would curb infidelity. However, a healthy measure of accountability is good for a relationship. I know for my husband it was initially helpful to know that we had a keylogger on our computer. Not even a secret email account could be hidden anymore. He knew there was built in accountability. He also knew it was building up trust with me again. But to “threaten” someone that if they ever cheated on you you would blast them on a cheater website…that’s not true accountability. That’s an ultimatum. That’s a threat. And, I don’t know about anyone else but I don’t want someone not cheating on me because they’re afraid of what I might do. I want them to not cheat on me because they care about my heart and about honoring me.

    • alycon

      How interesting. I had to go away and have a long think about this. And I’ll be having a look at ‘Cheaterville.com’ as soon as I’ve finished this post!

      I can totally understand the reasons why a BS may feel the need to do this. However, I think I may be in a unique position to comment here because the way my suspicions about my H’s behaviour with the OW were confirmed was actually through his posts on a blog he had created about his ‘exciting new job’.

      Seeing photos of him and her on there with her arm around him inder the guise of ‘in the name of their job’ literally blew me sideways. In fact I explained the experience at the time as walking into the middle of a nuclear blast.

      The posts he was putting on there giving her romanticised nicknames made my blood boil and left me devastated, especially as he never mentioned that he was married. SHE KNEW HE WAS; SHE ASKED HM BEFORE ALL THIS KICKED OFF ‘ARE YOU MARRIED / HAVE CHILDREN? Thank god we don’t have kids, god only knows what it would have done to them.

      I felt cold and numb inside. I ended up taking sick leave, seeing a counsellor and taking anti depressants. But my obvious distress and turmoil didn’t stop it. And knowing that his fans were accessing this site every day added to my distress. Not only was I being humiliated in private but in public too.

      As far as ‘Cheaterville.com’ is concerned I would love to go on there and ‘tell all’ but in the long run it would make matters worse for me. My H has made it clear he doesn’t want me contacting her (or the other one he’s now ‘running around’ for and working with for that matter) because it would cause problems for him.

      But that’s not the reason I wouldn’t do it because if I’m completely be honest, right now I couldn’t give a stuff about how he feels; as I’ve pointed out he’s created this problem by resorting to that behaviour in the first place but I feel I need to retain my dignity, integrity and self respect by not lowering myself to that level; by exposing them I’d be no better than they are.

      This is just my personal opinion, for those who feel it would work for you I’d say go for it!

      • alycon

        By the way Alecia / April, your comments are so valid. I felt my privacy had been violated when my H posted his ‘articles’ on his blog. And I feel that the best revenge is to not lower yourself to that level oneself. Again, my personal opinion here….

      • melissa

        Hi Alycon
        Hadn’t seen your post above before but understand now what you are saying. Am thinking about your other points, which relate more closely to my situation, I think it’ll do me good to dwell on them for a bit.

    • michael

      Very, interesting.
      And what timing.
      Anyone who has followed my ordeal knows this caught my eye. But what to do with it.
      Privacy shit. My marriage was supposed to be private between my wife and I. During her affair it wasn’t. It was ammo for him to get what he wanted from her and it embarrassed me to many among our soccer region. I was played a fool for the thrill they enjoyed.
      Tension it may cause.
      If you read my blog you know nothing I’ve done has made my marriage better for me.
      Did he get away with it. From watching his wifes and his facebook pages I think his wife is clueless to it.
      And based off of his chat with me, and being married multiple times, it seems like he has done this time and time again.
      Doesn’t his wife have the right to know.
      Do I think its a good reason to do it in public and embarrass her to all her friends. Do I think she deserves the pain I’ve felt.
      No.

    • RecoveringMommy

      I believe everyone is entitled to express their anger/sadness however they feel they need to after finding out about their spouse’s betrayal. I would’ve loved nothing better than to “stick it” to the OW. But since her family was friends of ours, I genuinely carded about her family and I wouldn’t do that to her children. Before doing anything of the sorts though, I would advise thinking long and hard about the consequences of it. In the end, what will you really gain from doing it?

      As far as curbing infidelity, I don’t think sites like this help. If someone wants to cheat, they will find ways to do it. If you threaten them with exposing them on a site like this, I believe all that will accomplish is making them find more discreet ways to continue the relationship.

    • Irish Kate

      Not after all this time I wouldn’t but in the beginning, when I first found out, I may have considered it (had I know about such a site)…. but I’m glad I didn’t.

    • alonglifesjourney

      Why not just paint a scarlet A on them and stone them in the town square? I don’t see the benefit of the site. I would think they are setting themselves up for a lawsuit and what good does it do to ruin a family and someone’s career. If that kind of revenge makes you sleep at night, I would recommend some serious counseling.

      • Doug

        I think the benefit of the site is that it is lining the pockets of the site owner. They have had a ton of press and they have even hired the ex-president of Playboy- which can’t be cheap. I read an interview with the site owner and he mentioned that they haven’t really had any legal issues yet, though as their notoriety increases I’m sure the lawsuits will follow.

        • alycon

          The ex president of Playboy… EWWW, how gross.

          I did have a quick look earlier and it’s not pretty. Lots of photos of the ‘offenders’ and personal details, even detailing whether they have a tattoo!!!

          As far as my personal struggle is concerned, this evening during dinner I had another discussion with my H; it wasn’t as emotionally charged as they usually are though I’m still making it blatantly clear that I’m hurting and seething and generally incredibly pissed off with him; but I actually got the feeling that we’re beginning to handle the discussions better.

          He’s filming on Saturday with the girl I don’t like him being around because of his inappropriate comments about her and I said I’d prefer it if he got rid of the disk he went out of his way to get from the woman he had the EA with. He said he’d give the disk back to her. I said I’d prefer it if he just snapped it in two in front of me and threw it in the bin.

          He said he wasn’t going to film with the other girl again after Saturday and he would stay away from the EA; I’m sceptical despite his assurances, I did tell him that his behaviour had degraded me and dishonoured me and our marriage and he kept saying sorry.

          Then I said I wished he’d look at this site so that he could see the damage his kind of actions have done to so many people and he said, I have seen it ALY CON. I almost fell off my chair, as my user name on this site isn’t how my name’s actually spelt.

          What surprised me was that he didn’t have a go at me for putting my posts on; he just said reading the stuff on here he didn’t realise how EA’s affect people and cause such damage.

          He said he’d never heard of EA’s until I mentioned them to him and I said I didn’t until I googled his ‘antics’. I don’t know if I’m wrong but things seem to be calmer now and he seems to be emerging from his ‘fantasy fog’ as I call it.

          I sure hope I’m right. The FIL is coming to stay at our house next weekend and the last thing I want is the turmoil that’s seeped through our home for the last 11 months. But I’m not going to count my chickens – I had to draw the line when he said I’d have to learn to trust him and I put my foot down and said he’s in no position to dictate what I feel or think, that he has to prove to me that he can be trusted. He responded with ‘I can assure you’s but who knows……………..wish me luck!!!!!!

    • InTrouble

      Aside from a great way to get even with just about anyone who has irritated you, I’d just like to point out, once again, that if the only thing preventing your spouse from having an affair is the fear of getting caught then your marriage is doomed anyway. Similarly, revenge doesn’t add much to ones life.

    • Alice

      Well, in Dr. Harley’s books exposing an affair is a key step to getting your spouse to end the affair altogether. The idea being that affairs thrive on darkness and secrey and once it is exposed to friends, family members, the AP’s spouse and even the CS’s employer, the affair loses a lot of its power.

      Dr. Harley using the apt image of turning over a rock and watching the beetles scurry away from the bright light.

      I’m not sure that a website like that is the best way to expose an affair, but it might work for some.

    • Candace

      I don’t think the site would be good for anything but revenge. I bet that most individuals who post on the site do so in haste, anger, confused state and probably do regret doing so at a later date. As someone else stated my H may have cheated on me but he is my partner and my goal is not to degrade him publicly but to bring our marriage to a healthy relationship which we can both fully appreciate and enjoy. I personnally do not want all the details made public either.

      Although I did alert the OW’s spouse to the situation, not out of revenge, but because I knew he had caught them 4 months earlier, confronted them both & asked them to stop the EA. We had a lot to discuss. Because we were all friends made the situation tricky to say the least.

      • Healing Mark

        Candace – I agree with your assessment that the site is good for anything other than revenge. I also personally do not want the fact that my wife had, but ended before I became aware of it, an EA to become known to the general public. Shoot, I don’t even want our friends to know, and have not let the OM’s wife know since my wife and I were also friends with the OM and his wife. My questions to you are, has your husband continued a non-EA relationship with the OW, and do you and your husband continue to socialize with the OW and her husband? Unfortunately, I imagine that many EA’s occur between spouses of couples within an existing group of friends (e.g., couples with children of like age(s) or interests), making it more difficult for affected parties to halt all social interaction without making other suspicious, although suspicions will often exist anyway since few persons in the midst of an EA are able to hide their feelings 100% of the time. I am interested in how you and your husband have dealt with the fact that the EA occurred with a woman that you were each friends with at the time (I imagine that the OW is not much of a friend to you anymore).

        • Candace

          Healing Mark – No, my H has no contact with her. If he so much as passes her on the road he must tell me.

          No, we no longer socialize “with them” . But because we all run in the same circle of friends there have been events which we have attended where all four of us have been present. Luckily the one event was large enough that we really did not come in contact with each other, however, the presence of the OW made me uptight. The other event was small and very ackward, they ended up leaving early.

          Most of our close friends are aware of what took place. The OW has tried to make very light of the situation amoung our mutual friends, saying that myself & her H made too much out of her & my H “talking” to each other. This bugs me, but I have pretty much remained silent and just let her dig her own hole among our friends. The OW has not always been the most popular person in our circle of friends, due to her “drama queen” personality. So most of our mutual friends do not take her too seriously. They know from what I haven chosen to tell them that it was very serious and has put two marriages in chaos. Unfornately I have to work very closely with her in one organization. I will only speak to her when absolutely necessary, she has actually not attended the last several meetings.

          As far as the kids go, my daughter knows that daddy talked to the OW too much and made mommy mad. I have no idea what her children have been told, if anything. The kids no longer go back & forth between homes, but still attend various activities together. The OW did pull her daughter from one activity, but I have no intention of ever doing this.

          The whole EA has affected our social group, some friends have taken sides, so to speak. I have told our close friends that I would never ask them to cut the other couple off but to please realize things will be very difficult for all involved. I think before all this some of us were closer than others so this has maybe just drawn those lines a little clearer. I am not sure how the situation will be a year from now. I must say I am very grateful that not one of our friends have told me “to get over it or that I am making too much of the EA”. From reading posts on here I understand this is not always the case. Acutally several friends have said things like “that is why___ or I remember ______” Just like I have been doing, the signs were there but never recognized.

          At this present time (4 months after D-day) I cannot ever see a day where we will socialize “with them” again. The EA just would always be in the back of my mind. My H & the OW’s H have both said they will be able to talk again in the future sometime. But I cannot see my relationship with the OW ever returning to what it was or even close to it. The four of us all knew each marriage had some problems. But my H & the OW decided to comfort each other.

          I cannot tell you it will be easy to handle among your friends. I think each situation is different. The one thing I made sure NOT to do is confide in great depth to any of our mutual friends. This just would have been too difficult to handle on all terms. Most of them just knew an EA had taken place & that we were working through some issues in our marriage.

          Even though I do not want all the details known publicly I still feel that my H and the OW need to own up to there actions. Our friends would have eventually figured it out on their own. Remember first the OW’s H discovered the EA, then myself, then it would have been our family & friends. I just have chosen to not cover the issue up or sugar coat it. Not everyone will feel the same way.

          The fact that the OW was a friend to both myself & my H has been bad for me. Everytime I remember something I told her about my H I wonder if she repeated it to him. Things like that keep entering my head. My H on the other hand says the EA just happened with her because they both needed someone to talk to, that they were both “in the right place at the right time”. He says it could have been anyone and he doesn’t understand why I got so upset because she was a friend to us. Some how I think he rationalized that becuase she wasn’t a stranger to me I would be ok with the EA.

          I know this was long, but I hope it gives you some help on how to handle your situation.

          • Healing Mark

            Candace – Thank you so much for taking the time to share with me your experiences and thoughts and advice. I really appreciate it. It is weird to me that it is oddly comforting to me to communicate with someone who has experienced an EA under circumstances so similar to mine. Then again, my life has been full of weirdness since discovering that my wife’s friendship with a guy that I was first friends with (he and his wife were brought into a certain group of friends at the insistence of my wife shortly before the EA began).

            Because I discovered the EA after it had ended (in addition to evidence of various inappropriate activities and interactions as well as expressions of love, I also found evidence of their decision to stop obsessing about each other and to return to just a “normal” friendship, and I had sensed that my wife’s relationship with the OM had become “normal” shortly after the timing of this decision), and because I insisted that we seek marriage counseling even though she would not admit to having an inappropriate relationship with the OM, and this counseling helped us to fix some problems/misconceptions my wife and I were having (at the time I discovered the existence and ending of the EA, our marriage was perhaps as good as it had ever been since our first child was born), I cannot really relate to persons on this site who have discovered an EA in progress and then had to deal with a spouse that was then torn between two lovers (perhaps a good line in a song?). In that instance, I would most certainly have insisted no contact or else! In my case, I initially insisted that my wife and the OM have no contact, under pain of exposure of the EA to his wife and our friends. This worked with respect to the OM, and the only contact we had with he and his wife were at a few larger events, and the contact was minimal and awkward.

            I also think that I would have insisted there be no contact if the OM and his wife were not a part of a particular shared circle of friends. However, given the circumstances, and given that I began obsessing over whether my wife was having contact with the OM and this led (rightfully so) to my wife feeling as though I didn’t trust her and didn’t believe that she and the OM had learned their lessons and re-established an appropriate friendship (also the fact that I realized that if my wife really wanted to have contact with the OM, she could do so without me finding out and the prohibition against contact was bothering her as a “controlling” action by me), my wife and I agreed that she could continue very limited contact (like it was at the time I discovered the EA, which was about 8 months after it ended) as long as she shared with me whatever they talked about or texted about. It was important to my wife’s belief that I had truly forgiven her that she be able to show me that she can have an appropriate relationship with the OM. Also, people were starting to get suspicious (again, suspicions were there while the EA was in progress and at least 3 of our friends said things to either my wife or me) that neither my wife nor I were having any contact with a couple that we previously had been such good “friends” with and whom we introduced for the first time to many of our couple friends, so it was easier to allow appropriate contact (all that she has told or shown to me has been appropriate/normal) than try to make up some story as to why we were no longer friends with the OM and his wife (frankly, the only story anyone would have believed was that my wife and the OM had had an affair).

            I find it interesting that your circle of friends all know. How awkward! What you have described is pretty much exactly what my wife and I felt would happen if we came clean and announced the existence and death of my wife’s EA. My wife and I particularly struggled with how you could really get people to understand just what kind of an affair happened without really going into more detail than we and our friends really wanted to go into. Also, we anticipated that many of our friends would not believe that the “affair” was non-sexual (I have evidence that they did not have sex which corroborates what my wife and the OM said in this regard), and also anticipated NOT that our friends would take sides, but that they would no longer respect my wife and the OM and act differently toward all of us. We also feared that our children might find out, which is something my wife and I have sworn to do everything to avoid, and I do believe that even if our marriage had not become even stronger (not due to discovery of EA, but due to its ending and our using counseling to get to root of certain marital problems and then fix them), and we ended up divorcing, that neither I nor my wife would divulge to our children the existence at one time of the EA.

            It is also amazing that some of the things you indicate that your husband said or thought about the EA are almost exactly what my wife said or thought. My wife has genuinely apologized to me many, many times. And she has admitted that what she was doing with the OM was, for a time, wrong. Unfortunately, had I not found out that the EA actually occurred as opposed to me just thinking something was up for a period of time but then went away, which it did, my wife and I would be much happier together now. The lies are the real killer for me. And the loss of trust is terrible and the process of regaining that trust has been difficult. I don’t like it when my wife says this, but she has said on numerous occassions that, in our case, the occurrence and then ending of the EA was a good thing (she once said it was the best thing that ever happened to her, but very quickly distanced herself from this ridiculous statement!), as it woke her up to needing to get more things from me in our marriage, and ultimately led us to counselling and a commitment to save our marriage with the end result being a much stronger marriage than we had before. My wife told our counselor, and has since told me, that the EA sort of slipped up on her and the OM, but that once they realized how they were acting and how much time they were investing in their “friendship” as opposed to their marriages and other aspects of thier lives (like children), they agreed to (I saw emails to this effect) and then did ramp things down and started interacting more appropriately, and my wife realized not only that she loves me very much, but that she really wanted to be happily married and recognized that we needed a little work to get there and stay there.

            Sorry for the long post folks, but I really appreciate you, Candace, for taking the time to share with me. It’s also theraputic to sort of vent here. It’s been about 8 months since d-day, and I have to say that as time has passed, dealing with the occurrence of my wife’s EA and the loss of trust and battle to get to forgiveness has gotten easier and easier for me. I hardly visit this site much anymore, and my wife and I rarely feel the need to re-visit what happened as a result of her EA. Instead, we have focused on healing and recognizing that people make mistakes and that, fortunately, her mistake in this case did not kill anyone, and luckily did not kill our marriage.

            • Paula

              Candace and HM, Lovely to hear your stories, lovely being a strange word to use, but I think I mean, it helps to hear other people’s experiences. I just want to add something here, that may be a little controversial, I knew my OH was having a lot of contact with the OW (an ex-girlfriend of his, and an old childhood friend of mine) and I wasn’t really threatened by it, we have always had that kind of relationship, he always had female friends that he chatted with, and I always had male friends, so I thought nothing of it. My best mate said to me one day, “why does your OH have so much to do with OW,” and I just laughed and said he’s always done that, it doesn’t worry me, and it didn’t. When I told her that I once had asked him why he was having such a lot of discourse with her (she lives a couple of hours away) he had answered that he enjoyed chatting with her, and her separation from the small town way of life (gossip, etc) we have here, and her different point of view, I thought that was normal. My friend was taken aback and said that there was no way she would allow her H to have that kind of relationship with any woman, let alone an ex-girlfriend – I was a little judgemental, and thought to myself, “how insecure, I know why, her husband is a very likely candidate for extra-marital relations, and they both know it, he’s admitted he’s easily tempted, and they work hard on their marriage, and it is pretty special and successful.” I just thought, “thank God, I don’t have to live like that, I’ve never been jealous, and I trust him completely.” This was after 21 years together. I now see, how naive I was, that they were having an EA, but I wasn’t worried about that, as I believe (d?) that it is healthy to have robust and energetic discussions with people, whatever sex they may be, about many of life’s idiosyncrasies. I know that many here have been incredibly injured by non-sexual EAs, and I take that pain incredibly seriously, but for me, the injury is that he was telling me the truth about the EA, but neglecting to tell me that it had turned sexual very early on. They were not able to have sex often, due to distance, and family and work logistics, but that was the thing that completely floored me. The problem for me is, if he lied to me about this, what previous friendships was he also lying to me about. He swears this was the only time he crossed the line, and it’s taken some time, but the evidence (I have asked some of these women reasonably directly, we live in a small town, and the knowledge of my OH’s infidelity became widespread, fairly quickly, another thing that is difficult to deal with, if there was ever anything inappropriate, a couple of these girls are dear friends of mine, and they all denied vigourously, and were VERY shocked to hear he had done this, and other evidence, also) does suggest that he is telling the truth about this. He understands the doubt that he has created about many things, and it is one of the things he wishes he could change, the doubt that one mistake creates on the rest of your history together.

              So, for me, without wanting to offend all of you you are hurting SO much, is the sexual aspect of it, even though the sex itself is not the problem, but the fact that he took her THAT seriously, that he was confiding in her, not me. This probably doesn’t make any sense to many of you. The sex doesn’t hurt (too much) the EA does, but it took the sex to make the EA “real” for me, and sharing your body with someone else is a precious thing, not to be taken lightly.

              Back to the purpose of this thread, I agree with most, outing someone is just a mean and vengeful thing to do, done out of hate and spite, and has nothing to do with love, forgiveness or tenderness, and won’t help with “moving on.” I always tell myself to wait 24 hours and see how I feel about a certain action/words, etc before I act on them – VERY hard to do sometimes, as I am very impulsive, but I have found it works really well for tempering “moments of madness!”

      • Healing Mark

        Sorry. That would be that the site is NOT good for anything other than revenge!

    • Robin

      Wow…or maybe whoa…this is the online equivalent of running over him/her with a car – the marriage is definitely not coming back from this! If, however, the marriage was over through the cheater’s choice and, as seems to happen so often, the injured spouse’s attempt to maintain dignity was simply used by the cheater to rewrite marital history and portray him/herself as the victim, this could be a very satisfactory way to put a stop to it. It also seems like a very tempting way to deal with the OP who keeps popping back up. Of course, it would only work if he or she has any sort of reputation or image to protect. I couldn’t actually do it, because it seems like it would be a Pyrrhic victory at best, but at 12:30 a.m. after a difficult day, I find the idea immensely appealing…perhaps writing an entry but never posting it could be a healthy venting mechanism????

    • InTrouble

      Alice – A couple of things: Yes, disclosure may end the affair. For awhile. Or what if the hunt goes on? How satisfied in the marriage is a spouse who is under house arrest, or a microscope? People don’t last living like that. Unless it is truly in their heart to fix themselves and their marriage it’s all just bullying, at least that’s how I see it.

      • alycon

        Yup, quite agree InTrouble, I find it incredibly ironic that my husband ‘exposed’ his EA himself through this blog of his; he also told his dad / my FIL that he’d ‘chatted her up’; the FIL was not impressed and said ‘you’ve got a lovely loyal wife here, why are you doing this?’

        Then he added that my H needed a kick up the rear!

        Maybe that’s part of the reason that I wouldn’t resort to this as my H has done it for me! He basically did to himself what other people would love to do to their CS on ‘Cheaterville .com’!!

        I honestly do wonder if my H has actually enjoyed the drama and noteriety; his family and friends have made it clear that they don’t approve of what he’s been doing but he seems to relish the attention, albeit negative!

    • Frilady

      It has been really healthy to read all the comments on this site. You are very loving people who are trying to keep your life dignified in a very difficult situation. It has helped me to get rid of much of the blame I had put on myself for failing to save my marriage.

      I also think revenge is not a good road to travel…I don’t think my husband started his affairs to revenge or hurt me, he is still not to this day admitting to having affairs. We are now separated and he has filed for divorce.

      I have told some people, like family, that he is seeing someone else. My oldest daughter (20y)did not want to hear, so I do not mention anything more. She wan’t to think well of her father and that is her decision. She does not live home anymore and has not been around the past two years. It is important for me to keep a good relation with her. She has always been “daddys” girl. I do try not to say negative things about him, just keep our conversations on positive things and about her and my life, not his.

      My son(16y) has taken the opposite stand and don’t want anything to do with his father after my husband said he wants a divorce finding out I was expecting baby no4. My son got into a clinical depression and still needs medical help and counseling. I have told him I found out his father is seeing someone, because he had to witness me getting into another process of crying and morning my lost marriage.

      I thought the reason my husband choose to leave was my refusal to abort the child, but now I know it was the cue he was waiting for to be able to blame the failure of our marriage on me. He actually gave me an ultimatum that I could keep either the baby or him…He moved out when I was 5 months pregnant. So after morning the end of our 20 years of marriage and getting to terms with the separation, I find out he is seeing someone else, denying it still though…But for me it meant I had to start the process all over again….I had grieved but not for the true reason…. I felt double cheated.

      Our 5 year old is seeing her father on weekends and does not have had much explanation of the situation.

      My baby, that I choose to keep, is now 4 months old and will grow up without a father. But what confuses me is that though he did not want the baby, my separated husband showed up at the delivery room and stayed with me through the delivery, he also traveled halfway the globe to attend the Christening. Each time he is picking up or returning our daughter he holds and plays with the baby if he is awake…

      I talked to my counselor and he suggested the reason my husband refused to admit having affairs is, that as long as he denies it all, if things don’t go as “planned”, he could just turn up one day and say he changed his mind and want’s to get back with me. If I refused, I would be the culprit again…. That would also be the reason he is being “nice” all the time dealing with joint issues. Because it made me really confused,…. if he did not want to be married to me anymore, why would he be hanging around all the time “helping out”???? -To be able to have have a safe backup if he screwed things up with his new girlfriend, my counselor answered. (Apparently it is not uncommon behavior )

      Who can pick another persons brain???? These lies makes me go crazy, so I don’t even confront him anymore, all I get is more lies!

      Two weeks ago I got hold of his cellphone he had left unattended and found messages from 4-5 different women!

      I am not proud for probing, but It confirmed to me I was not delusional. The fact that there was more than one woman made me feel so much better actually. It just proved to me that I was not to blame for the separation and that he has some real issues with honesty and commitment.

      Now I am waiting to sign the divorce papers and move on with my life, and leave him to deal with his. I still love him, we have been husband and wife for 20 years and will be co-parents until “death do us part”. But to take him back, if he comes creeping? No, he is an adult and he has made his choice. He refused to talk with me, he refused counseling, he refused to be honest. Me, him, our children and our families and friends now have to live with the consequences of those choices. They can not be erased or rewinded.

      I believe am better off moving on, living the best life I can live for me and my children’s sake. Revenge or humiliation will not further any of us.

    • blueskyabove

      “…a violation of their privacy?” My, my aren’t we polite! Mind you it isn’t a tactic I would, or did, employ as such sites have existed for quite some time on the web, but can we not get too politically correct? Do we ever get to stop walking on eggshells around the poor, fragile cheating spouse?

      As far as “outing” a CS, I think it’s possible it might be very therapeutic IF the CS outed themselves. A lot of good could happen to everyone affected if it was done openly and honestly with a view toward growing as human beings. I’m not suggesting it needs to happen on the web though. Unfortunately, I don’t see many CS’s having that kind of courage. Too bad. They could be missing a wonderful opportunity.

      InTrouble, the BS’s know what it’s like to be bullied. House arrest? Microscope? There’s that poor cheating spouse syndrome again. Whatever you do, don’t upset the CS. They’re too fragile to handle any kind of discord. IMO – when you hold people accountable they rise to the occassion. They seek a higher vision of themselves, not a lower one. Affair partners do NOT hold their lovers accountable. APs accept lies, deception as worthy attributes. They justify the actions and call them ‘good’. And no one flourishes, no one thrives. That isn’t really living. I do agree with you that they have to want to fix themselves, but you can’t do that by running away.

    • alycon

      So true blueskyabove; I’ve always tried to approach my H about stuff that I felt needed dealing with, but it always descended into arguments because of his refusal to discuss stuff. As I’ve been saying since I found out about the EA, we have to find a better, healthier way of relating to each other.

      I’ve asked him what he needs. He says my love and support. He wants me to be happy for his success in this new job of his, he’s always wanted to do it and now he’s fulfulling his dream. He needs me to be kind and feminine. He doesn’t like women who are too loud or ‘act too masculine’ (which I’ve been told I am).

      But both parties have to approach issues from a loving and respectful place and seek fair solutions and compromise, do they not?

    • mellowjello

      The one subject that seems to be avoided in this forum is whether or not all of these people who are posting are telling the truth. It’s so easy to put anything they want onto any message board and there are gullible people everywhere who never question the authenticity of the post. I would imagine that many…probably most…are authentic, however, blasting someone on the internet, although it might feel good at the moment, is not the way to take care of problems caused by infidelity. How I would love to tell the world about the woman who caused all of my problems, about what a sociopath she is, but what’s to keep her from replying with lies, lies and more lies to this same forum and how do I combat that. Please think before you use the internet to vent. My own personal rule is to write what I want to say, then leave it on my computer for at the very least, 48 hours. Usually by that time I have calmed down and have decided that these things don’t need to be said to the whole world. The times I haven’t waited, I was truly sorry and wished I had waited. Once it’s out there in cyberspace, it’s there forever!

      • Healing Mark

        Certainly a very good approach to take, and one that does not surprise me coming from “mellowjello”. Personally, I don’t need validation from persons posting comments that what my wife engaged in was an EA or that the effects of it were damaging to myself and my family. What I have found helpful are the experiences, thoughts and advice I have gotten from persons who have experienced the pain caused by thier spouse crossing the acceptable line in thier relationship with regard to relationships with third parties. It has also been insightful to at times get the same from persons who have caused the pain and are typically trying to make things “right” and regain the love, trust and respect of their partner.

    • Healing Mark

      Paula, no offense taken in any respect. There are so many ways in which an affair, whether emotional or sexual or both, can hurt the other party in the affected relationship. It’s no surprise that some hurt more than others for different people. As for me, I have found that on some days, the fact that my wife lied to me when I asked her if she had special feelings for the OM hurts the most. At other times, that fact doesn’t hurt as much (did I really think that she was just going to break down and confess?) but what hurts are some of the things that my wife said or did which I always thought would be reserved just for me as long as we were married. I was very fortunate in a way. My goofball wife (I mean this in a very endearing way) felt, correctly so until I became virtually certain that she was not being truthful about her relationship with our former mutual friend, that there was no way that I would check her phone for texts and computer for emails. As a result, she saved quite a bit of the more “special” emails that she shared with the OM, including emails as they broke off the EA and pledged to only act appropriately going forward, which objectively they did. These emails addressed desires to get physical, but also showed that my wife and the OM knew that doing that was really wrong and that they had no intention of crossing that line (my wife and the OM have each said, and I believe them, that it was the realization that they felt strongly enough about each other that they would even consider having sex together made each of them snap out of the fog and come to the realization that what they were doing was very wrong and damaging such that they had to stop). Had my wife gotten physical with the OM, I doubt that I would have been willing to try to forgive her and as a result our marriage would have ended, our children would now be children of divorce, and all of our lives would be drastically different. Maybe I’m wrong about this, but really, really thankful that I don’t have to find out!

    • mightbeatranny

      what a great idea! if you don’t want anyone to post about you; don’t give them anything to post about!

    • mightbeatranny

      ^^ “the woman who caused all of my problems”? so your husband is a helpless victim? YOUR HUSBAND brought this woman into YOUR LIFE. this is one HIM, not her. she never promised you forever or till death do us part. your husband lied to you all about this woman w/ words, and in action everytime he acted like things were “fine” between the 2 of you. you are knowingly puting your trust in a liar. does that sound smart to you? how can you get into bed every night w/ him?

      • mellowjello

        Well, first of all you don’t know me, my husband, or the other woman who was involved and I really don’t care to go into that, however, you make some very valid points. I believe that “anger” is one of the major causes of infidelity and therefore my husband and I have tried to make it a prominent point to work on in trying to keep our marriage together. I am sorry that I hear so much anger in your response and hope that you will be able to learn to let go of it to help yourself. Hanging on to that anger only hurts us, not the people the anger is directed toward. Let’s just say that that is what is so great about this country, everyone has a right to their own opinion, just remember that it’s easy to judge others, especially when you don’t have all the facts.

    • Frilady

      Migtbeatrany, You are being very condescending. I have found this site full of very caring people that try to do the right thing in a bad situation.
      Who are you to bash them? Irony is not the right approach towards people in pain. If you have good advise to share in a bad situation, please do so with a humble heart.

    • Adrianne

      Everyone is forgetting that there are other people that can be hurt rather than just the person that is getting posted about. I dated a man for six months, fell in love, got pregnant and then married. There were some rough points in our relationship. He was posted about on this website and the people started posting info about me, our wedding and baby. I practically had a emotional break down. They said I was stupid etc. I have never met a single one of his ex girlfriends. They found it funny to try to ruin his life and obviously didn’t care about mine. Posting where we work, live etc. and the site allowed it. They even tried to post phone numbers but they were blocked. I was then harrassed on facebook by fake profiles and so on. I DID NOTHING to these people. I think hiding behind a fake profile is wrong. Confront the people upfront. Don’t hide and don’t drag innocent people in the picture.

    • Heartbroken

      To April: I would assume that most people that blog have created a separate identity so that their kids or their spouse would not know it is them. Everyone has a right to express their opinions, their anger, their frustrations in regards to the situation their spouse has put them in. They did not deserve to be put in the situation they are in. The spouse that is cheated on, is always the one that is getting hurt the worst. In my situatin, my cheating spouse seems to always be more concerned about the feelings of the OW then of what I am going through. Pure bullshit. Believe me, I want to pick up the phone and call the OW husband so bad ’cause I know he has no clue what she has done. But, I am just too damn nice. If I want to write a book about what my husband has done to me I have every damn right to do so. I have always put everyone else’s feelings before mine up until now. Sorry, had to vent.

    • sandy

      I think you are missing a very important factor, what about the person who comes after you? Most cheaters don’t do it just once and many a girls end up having their lives destroyed as a result. Plus if I was being cheated on I would def want to know, if for health reasons if nothing else. I find this whole loving bs talk to be extremely co dependent. And fyi a guy you blogs about cheating on you and still interacts w the girl in any form is abusive scum. What’s wrong with you? You need to get some self respect. If someone humiliates me I want a chance to set the record straight as well as warn the next girl. Cheating became unacceptable under any circumstances when it became a threat to your life (AIDS) and outing these people is a public service announcement. Call me vengeful if you like but you know what if some slaps my face I’m coming back with a punch!

      • Notoverit

        So why are you on here Sandy? Did you set the record straight and are you with the same guy? What are you looking for on this site?

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