I recently confirmed suspicions that my wife cheated on me prior to the unofficial breakup date (when she told me she was leaving and she wasn’t going to change her mind). At first I was just mad that she lied to me, then I felt disgust that I was sharing my bed with her when she was fucking other men, and I ended up on regret for all the opportunities I had to cheat on her that I passed on because I was trying to be good.
OK, there were only three instances, and two of them were women that I was involved with prior to meeting my wife who continued to be interested in me, but one was a girl I had a crush on many years before (not the first time I fell in love but the first time I fell so hard that I lost my sense of self), who looked me up after being out of touch for many years. Talked to her on the phone three days in a row while she was visiting, contemplated going to see her, and decided each time it wasn’t a good idea because she let me know she was…receptive, and I actually did not want to cheat on my wife. That sucks.
And do I get a reward for being the good guy? Not really. I’m painfully single, my wife just moved in with her boyfriend. She has the nice car, I have the tote-the-note overpriced Saturn from Casa de Auto. I do get to keep the bills, and lord knows I ran that Lane Bryant card up mighty high all on my own…
You were the better person, and you should be proud of that. You remained faithful to the institution of marriage until it was legally over. Your ex-wife sounds like a person of low-character-- you wouldn’t want to act like that.
Despite your situation right now, I think any woman would be impressed with the fact that you didn’t cheat, even given what a lot of people would consider “justification.” It speaks well of you.
Take it slow. Don’t try to rush into a relationship out of lonliness. Find contentment in yourself, get your life in order, and the right woman will come along when you least expect it.
You did the right thing, Badtz Maru. I always thought you were kind of a sociopath, that if I fell asleep in the same room with you you’d smother me with a pillow for the five bucks in my pocket, but this changes everything. You do have a conscience beneath that steely exterior. Walk tall, boy! I’m proud of ya’!
I sympathize on the “chances for sex that were passed up due to monogamy that was apparently only one way” bit, but you really need to lay off Saturns.
I know how you feel, I felt Like I was was cheated by doing the right thing in my marriage- even though he was a cheating lying bastard, and that I had wasted alot of tiem that I could have been doing something else- It gets better- give her a call
Alas, I have no way of getting in touch with that girl - it was about a year ago, she was back in Texas visiting her family when she called me (about 50 miles from where I was staying), but now she is back out of state.
I realized I may not be clear on the time frame - my wife left me last July, I just didn’t know she cheated on me until yesterday.
Doing the right thing can be cold, cold comfort sometimes.
Like the time that I wouldn’t have sex with a woman I was dating because we were both drunk at the time (it would have been the first time with her). She decided I was rejecting her and got extremely distant and cold. I only saw her once or twice after that night. Sigh.
I feel your pain Badtz. However, you’d have to live with yourself if you had cheated on your ex, and that may have been worse.
Funny parallel there, Demise. Back when I was 19, the girl I mentioned offered to have sex with me once when she was drunk. I turned her down, then had my first makeout session (yep, slow bloomer and very shades-of-gray morality). She moved away not long after that, but remained in touch for a while. She got in touch once before a few years ago and we talked on the phone a lot for a while, then fell out of touch again. Last year, she called me up. She had to ask around to get my parents number and then get my number from my Mom, so she knew I was married already when she called, and joked that she was disappointed because she was going to cash in on that deal to marry each other if we were still single at 30, then asked if I cheat on my wife. :shocked: I said ‘Not yet’ (jokingly), and didn’t go see her while she was in town, though I got permission to - I did tell my wife that there was a prior romantic element to my relationship with her, but it was 10 years old and I honestly did want to talk about old times with her. I think I knew that if I saw her again and if she made herself available to me, I’d rationalize it and do it, and feel horrible about it later.
I’m sorry for the pain you are feeling Badtz. It will get better. As others have noted, you did the right thing, and it’s good that you did the right thing, inconsequential of your ex’s actions.
Don’t use other’s actions as an excuse to lower yourself.
Allow me to add my own bit of “You did the right thing”. For what it’s worth, I think there are very few things you can do worse in a relationship than cheat on your spouse - regardless of how bad things are going in the marriage. What a horrid woman.
I would always wonder, had I ever cheated on my faithless, lying psycho bitch ex-wife, if my cheating had somehow caused our marriage to fail. But since I didn’t, now I have nothing to find myself at fault over. (At least in that realm, anyway.) That gives me pleasure from time to time.
Hey she went trough all that trouble to get in touch with you, i think you owe it to yourself to do the same. You should never regret doing the right thing, even if you got burned for it, but you might regret not getting in touch with her while there is a chance. Go for it!
You should be applauded for not cheating on her, it seems many people nowadays do whatever they feel like without thinking of how it affects the people around them. Unfortunately, ‘doing the right thing’ often ends up in sorrow because of no fault of your own.
Convince her you were sleeping around on her during the final stages of your marriage. Wait a month or two(or until the divorce is completed if you wish) and tell her you just tested HIV positive. Cruel? Yes, but getting a below the belt hit to both her, and the guy she was sleeping around with would be oh-so-satisfying.
The self-righteous feeling of doing the right thing is good, but revenge is so much sweeter.
