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Old 15th May 2008, 11:30 AM   #1
Bob Pickens
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Wife left after affair - Will she feel remorse/guilt????

Hello everbody. I'm a 40 year old male, new to the forum but have been reading the threads for sometime. My wife left me about 15 months ago and we eventually got divorced 3 months ago. She had an affair at work and told me she loved him (the OP) and that we had drifted apart. She said some very hurtful things to me and basically tried to make out as if the affair was all my fault. She never said she was sorry for what she had done but she did show some kind of remorse, there were tears from her around the time she left to move in wit the OP. I tried everything to keep my marriage going but looking back, she had made up her mind 100% that she was leaving me. I didn't know everything at first and I feel she manipulated that to her advantage by trying to blame me. I didn't know how long the affair had been going on for and was so sad and focused on saving my marriage that she was able to almost manipulate my position.She had total control and I ended up an emotional wrecjk with her which I wouldnt have done if I knw the full truth.

She admitted that she had been haing a affair with him for just over a year. We have been married for neary 13 years but didn't have children. I found out 2 weeks ago that her new lover has got 2 kids and is in the process of getting a divorce from his wife.

I really loved my wife and I admit that I wasn't good at expressing my feelings. I guess I could ave done some things diffrently but I can't be alone on that? I know I have to move on but finding it really hard to because I never really got to understand how she felt about me and how she felt about what she has done. I don't want revenge. I just feel so abandoned after 13 years together and that she never spoke to me to tell me that she was unhappy. I would have worked on it ad fixed it but she never told me.

I know everyone is different but what I really am trying to find out is if my ex will ever feel guilt and hurt for what she did to me. Will she ever feel deep sadness somewhere in her heart? Wil there be times when she will think of me and wish she hadn't hurt me so? Thee are so many questions that Iwould like to understand. You see, my ex and I do not commuicate at all and all ties with family and friends have been broken. It's like she vanished of this earth and I am left feeling completely broken. I just wish someone could tell me what a woman will go through based on what I have said.

If you have been in my wifes position or know someone who has, I would be so appreciative of any feedback that gives me an understanding of what she woul be going throughh now. It sounds silly but just knowing that this hurt her too would make me feel a little bit better.

Sorry for the rambling but am so down and confused.
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Old 15th May 2008, 11:40 AM   #2
val100
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Re: Wife left after affair - Will she feel remorse/guilt????

Hi,
For me it kills me, There are days when i crumble. I wake up every morning and It turns me inside out.
Every single minute of everyday even when I am laughing I hurt for him.
I would do anything to take away his pain. To stop all the hurt.

I carry it around with me and it cripples every relationship I try to start as I am so ashamed and I don't believe I deserve to be happy.
Will she feel the same as me?
I have no idea, most probably when the sheen wears of the new man.

I am really sorry you hurt and if I can help you to work through this just ask
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Old 15th May 2008, 11:55 AM   #3
Bob Pickens
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Re: Wife left after affair - Will she feel remorse/guilt????

Thank you Val. I have really struggled 2 come to terms with this and wonder if I ever will. I think I flipped in the early days. Lost so much weight, got depressed and couldn't function. I kept a brave face or tried 2 for the 1st 6 months but eventually it took its' toll and I ended up losing my job. Still trying to find employment. Also my wife took her share of our assets (half) so I ended up with no money to pay my motgage and had to sell the house we had lived in for nearly 10 years.

You know that I can't understand what hurts more. The affair. The Lies after I found out. The way she treated me after I found out. Not even trying t give it a 2nd go. Or that I seem to have meant less than cows turd to her based on everything she did and the way she treated me. How can you be with someone for so long and be so heartless? I wish I had been killed in a car crash or something than have had to live this life of torture and abandonment.

I feel as if she aimed a gun at me and without any feeling, pulled the trigger
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Old 15th May 2008, 12:04 PM   #4
SadBill
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Re: Wife left after affair - Will she feel remorse/guilt????

Bob,
I have been on a training course oversea's for a while, made avacation out of the last few days of itso haven't been about in here.
You and I can be brothers in arms, my wife is gone for 2 years, and the hurt I feel is a killer. I too was told that she was in love with him, and NOT with me. When I discovered what was going on she refused to stop seeing him, infact despite saying that there was a possibility that she and I were meant for each other, that she wanted to remain with him for a while. I was completely taken aback by her and her actions, as it was (I think) rather out of the blue, I think that she had never done it before, and yet she put myself and my three daughters second to herself - not necessarily a bad thing sometimes, but in this fashion, and under these circumstances.
She has shown remorse and so on, but truly the damage is done and that is that.

Unless your wife is a total hardfaced B*tch, then I think its safe to say that she will be guilty, but if shes anything like mine then that woudn't have stopped her from continuing the affair either before you found out or afterwards. I bet if you got her cell phone theres SMS's and calls in there. If there's a stupid name in theyre - thats not guilt, thats a continution of their affair. thats you being mocked and ridiuclued. So she may - probably will feel guilty, but in my opinion, its a hollow sorry, because she will never know what she has done to you.
I still see HIM about twice a month, and it takes me all my strength not to stop the van, take something out of the back of it and make him feel some of my pain, but thats not the way to go. I am better than him. And I don't need to do that. I pray, and I drive on by. One day He will have to face his maker and 'fess up to what he has done in his life, how he has treated others. I'd like to be there for that.

You need to get up and dust yourself down, and make yourself happy for you. Take time to discover the Lord. He can help you more than you know it.
God bless you Bob,
Bill
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Old 15th May 2008, 12:16 PM   #5
Bob Pickens
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Re: Wife left after affair - Will she feel remorse/guilt????

Oh boy, I have tried picking myself up. Really, I hate feeling like this and am not cowering in self pitty but these emotions are just toooo trong and I seem to have no control on their effect on me. Funny, I found registered calls on her mobile to this guy that she works with, lots of them and daily. That was a day b4 she left me and that is when I realised that it was worse than she had said. Even then she said it had only been a few months but now I know that it was at least a year, maybe much longer.

I'm not religious although I'm not a non-believer. Just never had anything happen that can make me believe in it. I can't lie to myself and pretend I beleve in God when I have too many questions about religion. I think religio is generally good but ineed to see, feel, touch and buying into religion bsed on faith alone right now is something I cant do. I had faith in my wife and marriage an look what happened. I also wanted to thump the OP but would jus have ended up in jail and guess she would have probably smiled.
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Old 18th May 2008, 02:16 PM   #6
Mike56
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Re: Wife left after affair - Will she feel remorse/guilt????

FWIW, I can empathise whit what you are feeling - I can also say it takes time and lots of it to heal in this sort of situation. But heal you will.

A question though. Have you asked yourself why you want to be with someone who is capable of treating you the way your wife has treated you?

You ask will she feel guilt? Quite possibly she will. Lots of people though seem to have a remarkable ability to either control or hide their feelings and can't express them. As indeed (it seems) do you.

Irrespective of the rights and wrongs of whatever happened in a relationship, I have become firmly convinced over the last two years that they key to a decent relationship is combining Care, Communication, Compromise and Compassion.

Keep strong - look for happiness in yourself first - only then can you find happiness with someone else. Look to yourself, not to others.

Mike.
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Old 19th May 2008, 10:55 AM   #7
val100
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Re: Wife left after affair - Will she feel remorse/guilt????

Mike that is exactly wat keeps a good relationship going but ithas to be two people doing it together.
How do you get the man you love with all your heart to hear you, to care for you, to compromise and to be compassionate to your needs and pains???

Sometimes partners are not emotionally mature enough to understand that
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Old 19th May 2008, 05:34 PM   #8
Bob Pickens
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Re: Wife left after affair - Will she feel remorse/guilt????

Hi and thanks for the replies.I've been off sick so just catching up. Mike, in answer to your question about wanting 2be with my wife, I don't. I don't want her back in my life. The problem is dealing with all of the effects of her betrayal, lies and general treatment of me prior to, during and after her affair/leaving me. I can't close the book and move on because I know that there is more behind her betrayal that she hasn't confessed to. I do need to know so that I can understand it all. I need to understand how someone who was suppossed to be my wife, my life, can treat me as if I meant nothing. I surrendered my soul to that woman. Every belief, all my trust, all my hopes, my future with the one I loved. She took it and destroyed everything without battering an eye lid. A few manky tears is all I got in the early days followed by efforts on her part to portray me as the criminal and her as the victim. I often wonder what the other woman must be going through since my wife is largely responsible for taking her husband. I've often wanted to contact this woman but don't know if that if the done thing in this situation.

Val, in answer to your question, communication. Partners are supposed to talk to each other, not go off and start relationships with other married people. In any case my wife could have had the decency to leave me 1st before she decided to romp around elsewhere. That is the least I deserved and yet all I got was an attempt to blame me and then to vanish, leaving me to try and figure out what happened and why. I wish I had laid into her lover the day I found out and pleaded temporary insamity (which is what it would have been) I am so bitter and angry and never deserved to be mistreated like this.

I know I can never trust again.
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Old 19th May 2008, 05:45 PM   #9
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Re: Wife left after affair - Will she feel remorse/guilt????

Bob, please dont take this the wrong way, i dont know anything about you and if im totally wrong, i apologise now.

when me and my ex split, he blamed me for everything, he told our kids it was all my fault, his family backed him up and i lost friends thru his insistance that he was innocent. the truth was, as he has now come to realise, it takes 2 for a marriage to work, he hadnt put the effort in and this was largely our downfall. he found it easier to play the wounded soldier and gain people's sympathy than to look harder at why our marriage failed. it takes a brave person to admit to their failings and accept that they too are responsible.

now im not saying this applies in your case, but from reading your posts its obvious you have a hell of a lot of anger, my ex did too, and i know your circumstances and reactions are your own personal business, all im saying is, sometimes its easier to cast blame soley on the other person that to look at ourselves and see things we dont like and do something about them.

hope ive not offended you, it wasnt my intention.
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Old 19th May 2008, 06:30 PM   #10
Bob Pickens
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Re: Wife left after affair - Will she feel remorse/guilt????

Hi Doormat. I'm not offended at all and understand where you are coming from ( I think ). I will be the 1st person to admit that I wasn't a perfect husband, I wasn't good and communicating my feelings and I understand that partners need to know that they are loved. Yeah, I wasn't perfect and had faults but wasn't a wife beater, drug user alcoholic or other. I was probably more guilty of taking my marriage for granted. I spent most of the 1st 3 months blaming myself and my ex fueled this with her comments and general behaviour. Looking back, I realise that I was giving her exactly what she needed to overcome any guilt - vindication and redemption. I also accept that at the time I was so broken and wanted her back so much that I was willing to accept the part of villan. You know what it's like, you do whatever it takes to win back their love bt of curse, you don't know the full truth and severity of the affair and just end up makig a fool of yourself. She is 100 steps of you in everrespect because she knows all that she did. And then she only admits to what you've discovered as true, no more than that.

It takes 2 to tango. One to walk off the dance floor. But show me one wife, one husband who is perfect, a Jesus Christ in every respect. No matter how good a marriage is, it could always be better. To leave a marriage through an extra-marital affair and then focus on all the faults of the other partner is unfair and often cruel. My ex is off with another man, happy and contented, whilst she leaves me nothing but a pathetic mirage of what I once was. I'm working hard to reverse this but it is incredible how this sort of story can destroy a person. I know I'm not alone and others have experienced far worse. Still, that doesn't seem much concelation and I accept that this comment in itself is probably selfish.

Please feel free to criticize me for the things you identify I have done wrong. I think I've already beated myself up over those errors far too much but hey, if it helps me understand everything then that can only be positive.

Bob
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Old 19th May 2008, 06:52 PM   #11
912jws
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Question Re: Wife left after affair - Will she feel remorse/guilt????

I can semi see where both of you are coming from and some of my feelings are like Bob's in the fact why has she done this and wanting to know, I agree with you doormat in some respects about its not just the one person that is at fault, my wife said the why do you always portray yourself as the victim? But I was the one who has had to leave my kids, I was the one who was told I don't love you anymore and the one left in the financial $hit. I know its not all her fault but I know i loved her and wanted to address our problems, a lot of which were created by her affair a few years back which she just would refuse to accept, it takes two to make things work and sadly only I was willing to give things a go. I just wish she had told me what was up, so far I have only got that i needed downtime from the kids, my insecurites(created by her), nagging over finances perhaps because we were seriously in debt. These are all things that could be worked on!
Bob, you will learn to trust again just like I will, it will just take time, I know its not easy, the hardest part for me is admitting that my relationship is over.

Jon
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Old 19th May 2008, 07:20 PM   #12
Bob Pickens
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Re: Wife left after affair - Will she feel remorse/guilt????

Jon, assuming you still see your ex because you have a common link, being your children. If you don't mind me asking, has your ex ever shown you regret or sorrow for what she did to you? Do you honestly think that perhaps her actions might be eating her up, or do you feel she has let go and doesn't care either way? Bob.
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Old 19th May 2008, 07:43 PM   #13
doormat
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Re: Wife left after affair - Will she feel remorse/guilt????

hi bob

i feel awful, like ive offended you, i really hope i havent, i dont want you to feel worse than you do already, it was just i noticed you have a lot of anger and i was trying to say that a marriage is a 2 way thing.

no marriage is ever perfect, you are correct, it can always be made better, if thats what both parties want. you say your ex is off with another man, happy and contented, but really, how do you know she is as happy as she says? like you say, no marriage - or relationship - is perfect. i will bet that the day you learn to trust again and meet someone else who truly makes you happy, she will change, she will have her taste of what she has been dishing out on you, and she will have to take it. its a very hard lesson in life for both sides of the relationship that once was.

you do need to look at where you went wrong, and try not to make the same mistake twice - trust me, its far easier said than done, habits are very hard to change or snap out of, but in order to succeed, we have to work harder.

i spent 16 years with my ex, in that time i grew up, i learnt alot about him and a lot about myself, our split was very messy and hard for our children. i realised after we split that i didnt really know him at all, we had both changed so much, had different interests, different ideas and expectations of life and now know with absolute certainty that it was the right thing to do, in fact, i wish i had done it a long time ago.

obviously i dont know your wife, but i imagine she will feel regret at some stage in her life, whether it be in 1 weeks time or 10 years, but she did love you once and you did have good times together, unless she is a very very cold insensitive monster, she will feel some degree of regret for how she has hurt you.
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Old 21st May 2008, 08:26 PM   #14
912jws
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Question Re: Wife left after affair - Will she feel remorse/guilt????

Quote:
Originally Posted by Bob Pickens View Post
Jon, assuming you still see your ex because you have a common link, being your children. If you don't mind me asking, has your ex ever shown you regret or sorrow for what she did to you? Do you honestly think that perhaps her actions might be eating her up, or do you feel she has let go and doesn't care either way? Bob.
Bob, to be honest she has shown no remorse, she blabbed a bit during counselling, she obviously was upset but also relieved, in some respects doormats comments may be applicable in that she may have wanted out for a while but didn't have the guts to admit she had problems? And also perhaps as the counsellor suggested we were on different agendas, I know people change but i firmly believe in talking about things, more so now now I am seperated Also I have been far too nice ie.backing off in the hope she may come to her senses. Unfortunately she is far more ahead of me in the emotional stakes and more than likely has another bloke now My friend reckons she won't actually feel any remorse until this or next relationship falls flat on its feet, i'll feel sorry for her too I think if it happens.
On a seperate note Bob how did you get your divorce through, was it Adultery or unreasonable behaviour, I might need some tips as I don't see the point in being married to someone that isn't there and possibly seeing someone else, I just want to try and move forward as much as I don't like to admit it!

All the best

Jon
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Old 21st May 2008, 10:20 PM   #15
Bob Pickens
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Re: Wife left after affair - Will she feel remorse/guilt????

Hi Jon. Thanks for sharing that with me. I divorced my ex on the grounds of adultery - she didn't care, she just wanted out so that she could move on with this new person....who is still married.

Hard to believe I was married to a woman whom I clearly never knew at all. Never in a zillion years would I have expected what happened & how she turned out to be. People can accuse me of being partly at fault in the failure of my marriage and I accept that. However, how can anyone then defend what she did in having an affair with a married man. I'm guessing that this must have upset his 2 kids awfully. He has been with his wife for 22 years. How does a woman or man live with their conscience after doing this?

The entire marraige and all that has happened really has me disilusioned about marriage and life in general.
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