My FWH and I are recovering well. We are 7 months post D-Day and I truly think we are on course for a wonderfully fulfilling marriage because of the things we have learned about ourselves, with the help of this site and also from many wonderful books we have read.

I am having to become a much better person that I ever thought I was capable of being, and I have always strived to be a good person anyway. I never thought I could forgive the things I am trying to forgive, but I worry slightly about a single aspect of this whole mess.

The OW owed me nothing (apart from allegedly being my friend). My FWH is the one who made promises to me, and he is the one I trusted, and had faith in. I am working towards forgiving him for his betrayal, but should I also be working towards forgiving the OW?

How can I wholeheartedly forgive my FWH if I don't attempt to forgive the OW? Is there a level of hypocrisy in forgiving our Wayward Partners if we do not attempt to forgive the OP's?

I feel many emotions towards my OW , varying from hatred to pity, and I do not feel that I have it in me to forgive her, but if I choose not to, does that decision mean that the forgiveness of my FWH is less "real"?

I hope I have made sense, because this is something I have serious reservations about.

What do you all think about forgiving the OW/OM?

It sounds as though you had a relationship with the OW so maybe your situation is different.

My opinion? I owe OW nothing. She is lower than the dog crap on the bottom of my shoe. She has no respect for the institution of marriage--either mine or hers and I would have a hard time dredging up sympathetic feelings for any terrible things that would happen to her.

I feel your pain. I am not exactly a fan of the OM. My only issue with hating the OM is that means I hate my WW too. It takes two to tango. Nobody was forced to do what they did. I am not going to forgive him. He mean nothing to me. But I would like to think one day I would have complete apathy towards this person. He is so unimportant to me and my M that he is not even worth thinking about. A good goal I think, not sure if I will ever get there though.

Serendipitious, you are a kind soul. Maybe because my H is deep in the A with OW (alias plastic pinata - PP) I am not feeling so kindly.

We love our spouses so we forgive, but as far as the OW I do not think I could ever feel that forgiving. I know "we should turn the other cheek" but in my case it would be her backside as I load up the pistol with pepperspray.

It takes 2 to tango, I understand that -- but when I hear that the OW knew my H was M, we all work in the same place and bragged to friends outside of work that she was going after him because she wanted him to hire her as a permanent employee. No I cannot forgive. She will have to ask God for her own forgiveness.

Same here, OH.

That being said, I don't waste my time on being actively angry with the skank. She isn't worth the energy spent in my synapses thinking of her ugly-[censored] horse face.

Forgiving the OP is for YOU, not THEM. If you don't feel as though you can forgive the OW, I don't necessarily think that makes you a hypocrite. More importantly, I think, is being able to accept that what happened, happened, and not allowing it to eat you alive. I liken it to putting it in a box with a lid, and putting it up on a high shelf. If I want to get the box down and open it up, I do sometimes. But as time goes on I'm finding that I need to get that box down less and less.

FWH's is a pathetic piece of trash - always was, always will be, and I absolutely refuse to give her any power over me.

Our House,

I'm glad you said that because that sort of sums up how I feel about my OW, even though as I said I do pity her.

I'm not sure though that I am any further into knowing if I should be "trying" to forgive her. I understand from all that I have read, that forgiveness is good for the person doing the forgiving, and that the forgiven person need not know of this forgiveness.

Let me confirm that I never want to speak to her ever again, nor ever hear her name, but I do want the forgiveness of my FWH to be real, complete and wholehearted, and I don't know if I can say that is true unless I attempt to forgive "HER".

Can my forgiving of my FWH be real without any attempt to forgive the OW?

I don't think I can ever forgive the OM.

He is the only human I have ever trully wished pain upon. He is the lowest low life I have ever met.

I actually sought out a former freind who had wronged me erlier in life to forgive him, becouse I couldn't hate OM enough if I still heald a grudge against this former freind.

I will not activly seek revenge upon him, but if I heard he was in pain, I would smile.

I know this may change over time, but this is how I feel right now.

Personally, I think it can.

I accept what the OW did. I accept her role in the single most devastating event of my life. Obviously, for a person to live the life she does (oh she's a real winner) she has serious issues. I know it wasn't personal - it wasn't geared towards me, about me, or anything. It was about HER (and FWH as well obviously). I just happened to get caught in the cross fire of their selfishness.

I don't think forgiveness for your WS and OP are connected in any way. WS owes/owed you something, OP doesn't necessarily.

I am 10+ months after D-day and I am no closer to forgiving the OW than I was on day 1. She went after FWH, admitted this to her H. She lied, manipulated my H (oh yes, he selfishly followed right along without a thought to anyone but himself), willfully tried to destroy our M and failed (at least so far). Like on a previous thread, I feel as though she is the gum stuck to the bottom of my shoe - still there, not worth the attention, but will forever be a part of our M's marital history. I hate her, often wish the "karma bus" would take her out, and generally spend WAY too much time thinking about her. And I think she is probably going about her life as if she has no care in the world and is probably picking out her next victim as we speak.

I am not at all worried about whether I need to forgive her or not.

AM

Not gonna happen. Ever.

Pond Scum is a sociopath that spotted my FWW as a possible and spent his time working on her. Yeah, yeah, it takes two to tango, but he'd met me on two occasions, and knew who I was and what kind of person I am.

During those conversations, he talked about how tough it was being divorced and having kids in a broken family. He had me fooled, and he fooled my wife as well. She tells me that he never would have gotten any opportunities if she knew he was married, and I believe her.

Do I wish him ill? You betcha. Will I do anything about it? No, for three reasons. One, there's really no way that I can do anything to ruin his life. Actually, I expect he'll do it to himself, because people like that always create their own private hells. Second, it would be suicidal. I'm a greyheaded old fart with a titanium hip who is eight years younger and five inches shorter. Yeah, I lift weights, but he's ex-military, and in the words of my wife, likes to play with guns. I'd have to do it from a distance. I have no desire to take a needle for this POS.

Third, is something like this will destroy you if you let it. I don't even worry about him anymore. My greatest joy in life will be to piss on his grave. I eagerly await my opportunity. If it takes 40 years, I don't care. It'll be worth it.

---

BH 49
FWW 47
S23, S22
EA 4/07?-1/09
PA 6/07-10/08
NC Broken 8 times
NC finally firmly established 1/23/09
Making baby steps in Recovery, with a long way to go.

This all comes down to individual convictions. As for me, I forgave my H's xMOW. I know he used her to get back at me and for that, I feel sorry for her. I watched her lose her marriage, house and the respect of her children.

There is great fruit in forgiveness for the sinner.

2 Corinthians 5:8 "I am not overstating it when I say that the man who caused all the trouble hurt all of you more than he hurt me. Most of you opposed him and that was punishment enough. Now, however, it is time to forgive and comfort him. Otherwise he may be overcome by discouragement. So I urge you now to reaffirm your love for him."

It takes a strong person to heed these words. I have forgiven my H for his affair. I am still in the process of forgiving my father for beating me as a child. That one somehow is harder to do.

I found it easier to forgive my mother for beating me into a coma when I was six years old than to forgive my XW and OM.

Mother actually asked for forgiveness and meant it, XW thinks what she was doing was right and ordained by god. OM is just an arrogant bastage.

I am not a bad person but in case of OM, sorry that pos, I will make an exception. I echo the sentiments above.

OW is a piece of work. Flew into town the week before my wedding, asked H out for a drink (he took a friend along for "safety--he didn't trust her even then) and then proceeded to tell him that leaving/dumping him (she's a former girlfriend. They dated when they were 18 for a few months and then again on the rebound when they were 25) to go find her perfect dream man/husband was the biggest mistake of her life and she wanted to toss it all over for him. He said he was getting married and wished her a nice life.

She continued to phone him every so often (at work of course) and make small talk. I guess he was able to fend her off until our own marriage was in the toilet, though he should have done the right thing years ago and told her not to contact him again, he was happily married. He claims their conversations were innocent--just "catch-up-on-life" talk. It was sporadic--maybe once/twice a year at most. (I only found out all this AFTER the EA came to light). Then he flew back home for his 30th HS reunion. She went to a different HS in the same town but found out he was going to be there without me and manipulated her HS's reunion to be same weekend so she'd have an excuse to be in town and crash the reunion. That's when EA started.

So it continues in some fashion with drippy love notes via emails, looong phone calls (until I shut down that avenue) and so on and culminating in vomitville cyber-sex. She claimed he "reawakened her sexuality" and she was deeply in love with him. It was really nauseating.

Anyway, after I finally threw the evidence in H's face and THEN he confessed to lying like a dog to me for so many months, he agreed he needed to end it. It took him a week to write the NC email. Ok, so he writes this email (which was kind of wussy, IMO, but it did say he was wrong, the EA was wrong, he had hurt me and he felt terrible and that he was ending it and to have a nice life, basically) and sends it off to her.

You know what her reply was to this "I'm dumping you for my wife" email? Her reply to the "love of her life" the "man she never stopped loving" (oh, except that she had to run out in the middle of their second tour of dating to go find her perfect husband)? Her reply was:

"I understand and accept everything".

Barf. Either she was blowing smoke up his a$$ or they knew I'd be reading so they were blowing smoke up my a$$$ and they've been carrying on ever since. I sincerely hope it's the former. If I ever did run into her (I've never met her in person), I'd probably rip out all of her hair by its bleached roots.

Several months later, she sent him an anonymous package (to where he was working at the time) with some stupid plaque, a silly note and a gift card to a restaurant (that was the give-away for H---it was her favorite restaurant chain). It was mailed from a different city. I called the place where she mailed it from--express mail---over $50 in postage. And I blew the whistle on the employee--probably a friend of hers--who mailed it for her. Using company postage for personal reasons. The envelope inside was addressed in her hand (or so H thinks) but the outside label was not. I returned everything to the address from where it came--regular mail. I should have returned it to her home address! A friend told me I should have kept the gift card and had a nice dinner out on her but I can't even bring myself to walk into the restaurant.

A few months ago I flew cross country and re-routed my flight because it had a stopover in the city where she lives. I couldn't stand the thought of being in the same city.

So no, I'm not bitter.

LOL

"Is there a level of hypocrisy in forgiving our Wayward Partners if we do not attempt to forgive the OP's?"

No.

You don't have to hate her either. Just forget her.

I will never forgive neither.

What will you gain from holding on to this? Forgiveness doesn't not mean that you're a doormat. Quite the contrary....it takes a very strong person to forgive someone. You don't have to verbalize it as long as it's true in your heart.

Just a thought.

Good Psalm choice....I see you're a Christian as well.

When I was first dealing with this, I was having trouble with the concept of forgiveness. My IC told me that forgiving something doesn't mean you forget it. While I still haven't completely forgiven my husband, it did make me feel better about going down that road.

But for the OW. Not a drop of forgiveness will she ever get. And I try not to dwell on her because she really isn't worth my time. I'm not angry with her---I reserve that for H. But I will not bestow forgiveness on that POS. And the only woman to whom I've ever used the "C" word to describe.

Oh I used that word to describe her to FWH several times, and the text messages I sent her were filled with every filthy name in the book.

What's even more pathetic is that H at first was actually insulted that I called her the "C" word. Said "I know you have no use for her, but she's not like that". I've always had choice words for her though. I gave her a nickname taken from the title of a famous porn movie after she pulled the "come down and party with me" while H and I were engaged (and she was married but in town to "play") and then again after she blew into town the week before our wedding.