PS
I have to say i too have vacillated between was the OW conned by my XH or was she predatory. However, after having seen some of the early texts between her and XH- plus the fact that she sent such a graphic picture of herself less than two months into her affair with XH - i no longer ponder whether she is a victim. I know she made a very planned and distinct move to entice XH. That to me is predatory and very deliberate. Having said this i do believe that as their relationship progressed she needed to buy into XH's lies to justify her behaviour.
OW was also cruel in her dealings with me - never spoken- but through deeds. For example, about four weeks after BD i had to go back to what had been my home for 13 years with XH to fetch some stuff and OW made sure that when i walked into the house i got the message loud and clear that she was now in the house, she left a cake cooling off on the counter, left other belongings of hers including her vibrator out in the open on the counter for me to see openly what was going on. She was making it very clear she was now the woman in his life. She was marking her territory like a bob cat. That to me lacks compassion. Whatever the MLCers has said to the OW i really do not think it warrants this level of spite.
There was also an incidence where she was deliberately cruel. This was before BD - I was told by XH he was going away for business - he did travel a lot for work. XH and i because we live in a country with a high crime rate of which car hijackings are common, had this agreement were we would check in when he traveled. He would text or phone me when he arrived at the airport and text me once he landed. On this particular day he didn't text me so i phoned only to get hold of this woman on the other end - initially i thought i phoned the wrong number so i tried again only to keep getting hold of this woman. I made several phone calls and when she started ignoring the calls. I called from a land line which she then answered with the same reply that the mobile was her phone. At this point i am very stressed i am convinced XH has been hijacked and that thieves had his mobile. I phone tracker - its a security company that offers a car tracking service in our country. No sooner i phoned the company my XH phones from his mobile - i burst into tears relieved he is okay, i tell him the story which he finds amusing and says it was probably a cross line (in my naivety i believe him not realizing mobiles cannot get cross-lines and especially considering i phoned several times not only from my mobile but from a land-line). Here he is laughing at my distress, however when i tell him i have just phoned tracker he got really angry. At the time again in my naivety i believed his version of events and i put his behaviour down to insensitivity. It was only many, many months after BD that i figured out what had happened. The woman on the other end of the line was the OW and Xh's reaction of finding it funny, followed by the anger was that if tracker had gone out he would have been caught in his affair.
I often wonder how both XH and OW could have played such a cruel "joke". At this point in our M i am being super supportive of XH thinking he is depressed, not reacting but responding - really at this stage i had as yet given no cause for XH's anger or mean spirited behaviour. As for OW how could she be so spiteful, how could she take pleasure at some-one else's distress. In all my anger towards the two of them i have never hit back and believe me i could (i have evidence that XH was cheating on OW with several OW's). While i came close many times to sending the evidence (i would have sent it anonymously, XH does not know to this day i have this evidence, so i would not have been a suspect) something always held me back.
In the space i am now i realize that i could never have lived with my guilt if i had hurt another to the extent that this would have hurt XH and OW. Yet they were able to hurt another for no other reason that it brought them pleasure and joy in that moment as their behaviour bandied them together against what they perceived to be their "foe", me. Really i could see OW pulling the wings off flies out a macabre sense of pleasure.
To this day i am still at a loss to the workings of the human mind that would allow any form of cruelty, i am unable to understand how a rapist does what he does, or a murdered does what they do - i just cannot put myself in that mind set and i do not believe that psychology can really explain it - that's just me. Because of this i often feel disconnected and very confused from that part of our human nature.
Anyway back to XH and OW. Its done know - realizing the level that XH stooped really set me free because up until this revelation i still perceived XH to be this kind, generous and loving man. But now i know different. Whatever my flaws, whatever needs XH felt i did not meet - its certainly did not justify that level of behaviour. I have come to understand the dynamics of an affair. the man feels bored, is unsatisfied by the direction life has taken, possibly even has a sense of failure - so when a much younger woman comes along and makes you feel like a hero and alive again it is a very strong temptation. What i cannot understand is the spite and the cruelty especially when not provocative. Its this aspect of my XH that i cannot reconcile with the man i thought he was and quite frankly MLC does not justify it or explain it to me either because i believe we can rise above the darkness within - the fact that MLCers have those moments of clarity and feel bad about what they have done proves that.
Peace and acceptance are now my mantras
moment
What is life with the OW like?
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