If you read the post from DDay, you know that one of the things that really impacted me is that my ex wife would tell me, “You bring nothing to the table except a paycheck.” I would hear this over and over again, and think that she had minimized by contributions to our life, our marriage, our kids, to just financial support.
I was talking with a professional about this online who said he has seen this a number of times and provided me with this:
Her head space of remorseful and angry and resentful of you is because of you not wanting her to be happy. You have become the strict dad of a 18-year-old girl stuck inside a 40-ish-year-old woman.
She feels she doesn’t need you and you bring nothing to the table. She works, she cleans, cooks, she takes care of the kids, and she deserves any financial support you are giving her. She deserves to be happy. If you had been making her feel special every minute of every day like her affair partner is, she wouldn’t have reached out to him in December 2018. You should have been able to read her mind. If you loved her, you would have been able to make her happy and not have to be told out loud. You could have seen how unhappy she was. She is so much better with the kids when she is happy with her Affair Partner, so this is definitely good for the kids. The kids need a mother who is happy and fulfilled. She even is a better wife when she is cheating. If only you didn’t find out, she wouldn’t have to worry about her reputation. How unfair it is for her to have to deal with this Scarlet Letter of cheating now stuck on her back when you had all these behaviors she put up with for 13 years. She finally just couldn’t anymore; she tried, but she finally gave in, and now everyone will think she is the bad one, when it really is you.
That’s what’s inside her head right now. All that reality-TV watching and whatever, she needs all that to get through all you are putting her through.
You acting like you are a victim really gets her mad.
What does this mean:
Affairs are extremely low maintenance relationships. They get the ‘best’ parts of each other (the date nights, the sex, etc) while the ‘worst’ parts (raising a child, distance learning, running a household, daily activities, etc.) are shared with the Betrayed Spouse. Once the limerence dies down, your ex-wife will come to learn that they have affaired down so much that it’s not even funny. Add to that the fact that cheaters are 300-400% more likely than non cheaters to cheat in their future relationships, it’s quite possible that your ex wife and her Affair Partner will cheat on each other.
Don’t look at or compare her relationship with her Affair Partner and focus on yourself and your healing. Grieve the marriage you lost, but then look forward to the future.