WH promised me that if we ever ran into any of the OW, he would point them out to me. We had gone out shopping last night for the after Christmas specials and ran into one of his short-term OW at the check-outs. WH didn't see her right away, but felt someone staring at him so he looked up and she was standing there staring at him.
To his credit, he immediately whispered in my ear what was going on and who it was. I look directly over to her and anger rushed through me like I haven't ever felt before. Anger at him for doing what he had done and anger at the married OW for what she had done. WH started hugging me and kissing my hair while I stood there glaring at her. Even with me standing there, she wouldn't stop looking at WH so I got in front of WH so that she had no choice but to look at me if she was going to look at him.
This OW was in front of us in line. I didn't say anything to her, but would simply smile at her with a wry grin when she would look at me and nod my head to let her know that I already knew all about her. After checking out, she left the store, but came back in and was walking back and forth in front of the checkouts. I made it obvious that I saw her and was watching her. By the time she finally left the store, she was looking down at her feet.
We had gone out the opposite set of doors that she went out of because that was where we parked. When we got to the parking lot, OW was sitting there in her car watching us come out. I was furious, but kept it in check. I looked over at her and started pointing and laughing to WH about how desperate she must be to be sitting out in a parking lot looking for a piece of man meat. She was parked directly in front of our vehicle. As we were getting in our vehicle, I smiled really big and waved bye to her. She ducked her face and tried to pretend like she wasn't watching.
I know I probably shouldn't have ridiculed her as WH has more responsibility in this situation that she does because he was the one who had the vow of fidelity with me, but I was either going to find something to laugh about or go yank her out of her car by her head. It's been broken off between them for a little over a year, but WH never officially broke it off. He simply started avoiding her like the plague once he realized that she wasn't all there so that she has had no closure on the A. Their A lasted almost 4 months.
Hopefully she got the closure she needed last night. I doubt it since I was there, but WH told me that if he ever saw her again and she was staring at him like that again, he would tell her to go away and introduce her to me in the manner in which he knew her. In another words, he would let her know that the cat is out of the bag by introducing her to me as the woman he had an affair with. Maybe then she will go away for good and will start avoiding him like the plague.
Back to WH, I am so angry that he would have all of these A's. I realize that he is a sexual addict, but that doesn't make his double life and the actions within it hurt any less. I am so disappointed in him that I could scream. I was proud of how much self-control I had given the circumstances. I thanked him for pointing OW out to me, asked him a few more questions about OW and the A, and told him that my anger over all of this may fade with time, but that it would most likely never go away completely.
WH told me that the worst part about everything he has done over the years is that other people have come to expect a certain kind of behavior from him. Now that he is breaking his bad habits and old lifestyle, some people were still expecting him to behave in the old way. He said that breaking their habits of coming on to him and flirting with him was going to be just as hard if not harder than breaking his own habits, but that he was doing it whether they liked it or not. He told me that everytime a woman makes a comment to him about not liking him so much now, it makes him proud because he knows he is doing something right.
I've heard through the grapevine and from WH directly that there was one particular confrontation where this statement was made after a woman jokingly poked him in the ribs and he told her to never touch him again. After her comment, he told her "Good, you don't have to like me to do your job so get to work."
It's those little things that give me hope that things are really starting to turn around, but only time will tell if this chance is temporary or permanent.
