I am just blown away about the emotional damage of a divorce and how absolutely pathetic you become in dealing with this loss.

We decided to divorce earlier in the summer, actually I discovered she had a crush on a co-worker and she asked for a divorce.

As we had literally soold our old home and built a new one, our finaces were such that we were goingt o cohabitate for about a year, sell the house and then divorce.

My STBX started spending time with older coworkers, she's 28 and these men are in their 50's, and are professors at the University she works at. As this was also the same demographic that her crush was, I was irate. I verbally berated her and about a momth after our initial discussion of divorce, she moved out and in with her father.

Things got bad and we could no longer even be civil to each other. More appropriately, I could not be civil towards and just caleld her vile names and told her she had been cheating on me, she denied this, told everyone around us that there was nothing there and that it was an innocent crush.

I looked like an insane ******.

Over the next couple months our e-mails ( we were limited to e-mails at this point) would end with me calling her a tramp, whatever....

At any rate, between August and mid October, I discovered various infidelities had occurred during the srping, of course inlcuding the "crush" and continued to try and just get an explanation out of her.

When a friend of hers told me about her relationship with this married professor, with kids, I sent out a drunken e-mail to a number of people within her little circle exposing this.

Ultimately, I was just issued a restraining order form contacting her anymore and let's face it, it's completely justified.

I just cannot get over what an ****** I have become. Seriously, I tried to be a great husband and was loving and supportive and then the temr divorce enetered the picture and I became and abusive ******.

Then again, she had ****** around and had broken every vow of our marriage and I think at the very least, she could have at least been honest with me about the other man.

This has really messed me up.

You should have gotten evidence FIRST.

What would it have mattered? We live in a no fault state.

Besides, I became aware of the incident as I had put spyware on the computer. In order to have gptten evidence, I would have had to look her in the eye, day in and day out and pretended like there was nothing wrong. I could never do that.

The thing is, I actually loved her when this went down and the betrayal devastated me.

I know it sucks to have to be cordial with a cheating (insert text here) but Pariah is correct, evidence first.

To be honest with you, the best thing you could have done when this blew up is to have completely ignored her, and acted like you did not care anything about her either then nor ever.

I did that to my ex and it drove her nuts to the point she was talking reconsiliation, which was of course out of the question.

Hard as heck to do, and it took a lot for me to not completely freak out on her. But, alas, I at least got a little satisfaction in not giving her the idea that she broke me. It is amazing how quickly they feel insecure when you go from kind and caring man to "whatever, don't bother me" in a heartbeat.

I hate that game, but she deserved it, and besides, in the end, she wasn't worth it, so ignoring her just made moving on that much easier.

So do I, but a contested divorce with evidence that the other spouse destroyed the marriage is alot of leverage when negotiating.

Helped me emmensely.

No spousal support AND I got to keep ALL of my retirement AND half the equity in the house.


A recorder in the car works wonders.

Your wife looked you square in the eyes and lied to you and betrayed you.

I had to make it a challenge to be able to get through this process.


So did the rest of us.

Welcome to the cesspool of divorce.

So you acted like a jealous maniac for a while. I know you feel like an idiot, but people actually do understand. And trust me, you'll never act like that again, even if similar circumstances thrust themselves on you.

You said you became abusive. Did you become physically violent with her? If so, some angermanatement strategies may be in order. As for the name calling on the email, just wait 30 minutes before you hit the send button when you're angry and hurt.

Did I physically assault her?

Absolutely not. I would never, have never, will never put my hands on a woman, no matter how awfully I have been treated.

What I did do was drop even the most minute level of respect for her. I looked at and spoke to her as if she were garbage. In court she refrenced "the verbal abuse became so bad I moved out".

Umm... How about the emotional abuse I had been subjected to for months?

And you are damn right I verbally abused her. I make no apologies for that.

My WH was caught red handed (yes, I hired a PI) yet he could like me in the eye and deny it, saying it wasn't him.

I too have days when I am ashamed of the way I acted, I truly feel bad and if I had to do it over again - I would have handled things differently. But, what's done is done.

It's not like I had EXPERIENCE in dealing with a lying cheat would bedded many, many woman..Well, now I do..

I actually hurt myself and who I am, more than I hurt him.His A's brought out the worst in me. I was just so hurt and he didn't care one bit, which made it all hurt worse.

So you aren't the only one who didn't react calmly or treat your emotionally abusive spouse with little to no respect.

Forgive yourself and move forward to healing...Maybe write a letter to her, apologize, explain your feelings, say your sorry, but, I wouldnt' mail it...

HUGS

Write her a latter apologizing?


Ummm... sorry I busted my [censored] trying to give you everything you ever wanted, putting up with yuor deadbeat relative and then actually getting mad when I discovered you had been cheating on me...


How's that for a rough draft?

Confused,

I was a kind, gentle husband for 19 years. Never swore at my X, never hit her, never berated her in anyway.

However, after her 3rd EA and then the PA, I became someone I did not know. I called her in the night screaming at her. I came very close to punching out her BF. I became an angry monster for a while. All the while I loved her.

I know...

I can honestly say that if I did come in contact with the person, I do npt know what I would do, even now.

Prior to the divorce discussion I really triued. Although in the month or so leading up to this we had grown to a point where we barely even talked anymore. I do not miss that feeling of isolation.

I am bitter at being betrayaed and am upset we never even sought counseling.

Don't get close to the BF.... you could snap and it isn't worth it.

I too was bitter at being betrayed (and still am to an extent). But life goes on. The lessons I have learned in the last 3 years are priceless and I am thankful for the wisdom it has given me.

I think the most hurtful thing of it all for me was how much my X disrespected our marraige. It was as if it just meant nothing to her. To this day that bothers me greatly.

The good thing is I don't hate her anymore. I don't loathe the ground she walks on. I feel very little for her. About all I know is she is spending money like there is no tomorrow (3 new cars in 3 years, new house, spend, spend...)

Oh, and the money that she is spending... it came from selling my Grandfather's farm that I inherited. I had to sell it for her "cash" settlement. The farm meant nothing to her either.

Keith

I say this very gently Confused, b/c as a BS I understand your anger/hurt/devastation, but anger is one thing, verbal abuse is another. All it's done is deflect from the real issue that she cheated on you and now she's got something to grab onto in order to make herself feel better about what she's done...."Of course I cheated! Look at what a psycho, abusive, jerk Confused is!" <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/frown.gif" alt="" />

I do think you should apologize to her, not for your anger, but how you chose to express it. You sound like a decent guy who's struggling w/ the abuse you heaped upon her post discovery. Apologize to her for YOU so that you can begin the process of moving on and healing......

Just my .02

So very, very true. A WS will use this as a justification of what they are doing. They HAD to get out of the marraige because of this person's anger. However, they convienantly fail to remember that prior to their affair(s) that their spouse NEVER had any anger issues.

I wrote a letter to my X over a year after she left me. I apologized for how I expressed my anger during the divorce but I did not apoligize for my anger. She had cheated on me multiple times, she lied to me, she took my inheritence, she destroyed our family, .... I had a right to be angry.

Don't beat yourself up to much over this. Use it as a learning tool.

Keith

I just don't know how to respond to this.

After months of my suffering through her verbal & emotional abuse as well as the lies and cheating, I responded in kind.

If she wants to hold onto that as her justification for her actions, more power to her. However, I will never apologize for my response to her actions.

Ultimately, she showed me no respect at the end of our marriage and my apologizing for my words would only cause me to lose respect for myself, what little I have left.

Confused,

You certainly should not apologize for your anger. Anger is a normal response to being hurt and you have every right to be angry.

When I apologized to my X, it was because of how a displayed my anger at her. I called her a slut when I found emails from her boyfriend where he took pictures of her panties on his bed. I swore at her when I found all the evidence.

In hindsight, she wasn't worth my anger. I was an excellent husband and father but no matter what I did, she did not love me. My biggest mistake was just marrying her.

Don't apologize for being angry... but at some point, you may want to for how you handled it.

I wonder though if my X will ever apologize for hurting me??? (I won't hold my breath on that one!)

Keith

Keith,

Quite frankly, you had every right to call your wife a slut as that is what her behavior would define her as.

I don't think apologizing for my behavior would do anything but confirm to her that I was weak. I believed the lies she told me and internalized her critical view about me. This caused me to have a tremendous loss of self esteem.

Quite frankly, I feel she got off lightly.

Confused,

I vividly remember feeling (and I know this sounds stupid) that I wanted her arrested for hurting me. Here is someone that hurt me beyond belief, hurt our children, lied, cheated, had multiple relationships with other men, and I could do nothing about it. On top of it, she was out having a gas living a new single life and I was absolutely devasted. To this day, I can't believe the things she did during our marraige.

Self esteem??? Mine went down the toilet and all the way to the sewer plant. It is 3 years and I still am rebuilding it but I definately am a stronger person today then I ever was.

Have you joined any divorce groups? I joined divorcecare.org and it helped me very much. And even if you aren't a religous person it can still help with practical advise.

Getting past the anger isn't easy and it takes a while. Heck, I am getting mad at my X just by writing this!! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Keith

These are all your words Confused and that's why I gently suggested you apologize....the apology is for YOU not her b/c in your own words, your JUSTIFIED anger turned you into something you are not, someone who verbally abused another human being and just b/c she did it doesn't mean it was ok for you to b/c that ultimately hurts YOU, inside, but you did, your hurt and rage are understandable, and now you know that spewing such vitriol only makes you feel better for a short moment.

Trust me, I know exactly how you feel. BTDT

(((hugs)))

Devastated,

Thanks for the kind words and advice.

In an ideal world, it would be great to have a dialogue such as you have presented. Regrettably, I have gone well over the edge on issuing an apology in any form. Actually, i think if I contacted her with an apology I could/would be arrested.

It's sad that is has come to this.