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Sometimes how you get 'em is how you lose 'em.
By P.D. Reader — Written on Apr 30, 2022
For those who have been cheated on, the discovery of an affair is cataclysmic.
Even when you suspect there’s someone else and go looking for evidence, finding the evidence you were afraid you would is just as painful as when it pops up unexpectedly.
But the most horrible feeling of all is meeting the affair partner or stumbling onto secret texts and discovering that the one you loved and trusted completely smeared you to someone else, even as you gave that person your all in the relationship.
Is there any worse betrayal than that?
And you begin to wonder: How does your cheating partner really feel about you? Most of the time this comes out after the primary relationship breaks up, reinforcing in your mind that breaking up was definitely the right thing to do.
Here are 3 infidelity stories that illustrate how cheating spouses actually felt about their partners.
1. Getting cheated on when you were the other woman.
Shannon Ashley discovered she was pregnant and her boyfriend, who had divorced his wife for her, slipped a ring on her finger. The very next week he left.
A heartbroken Shannon later found out that everything he portrayed to her about their relationship was false.
He took every disagreement much worse than he ever told Shannon. He was very unhappy and just never said a word about it. Oh, and he was seeing a third woman the entire time!
On the surface, there’s no upside to some of these scenarios. Shannon found herself homeless and dealing with a crisis pregnancy.
A religious couple took her into their home, but treated her like a second-class citizen, eventually revealing their true intention all along: to try to adopt her baby.
Years of struggle ensued, with Shannon working through both a bipolar disorder and an autism diagnosis while holding down a miserable job and raising a small child.
The blessing in all of it turned out to be her daughter, a fantastic little girl who keeps Shannon grounded as she’s established a full-time writing career and battled a horribly disfiguring disease called Lipedema.
Together, they’ve created a happy family life Shannon never would have had otherwise.
2. Being confronted by the other woman.
Eshal Rose was similarly hit in the guts when she discovered her boyfriend was cheating. Like many women, she assumed she was the problem.
They broke up, but Eshal’s self-worth took a hit that seemed permanent.
She writes, "I felt not good enough, unlovable, and unattractive." So many women, when a guy finds someone else, think it’s them — their looks and their personality.
Then, the other woman showed up, with all the lies her boyfriend had told her about Eshal. Absolutely ridiculous lies!
But the other woman was so sweet and so protective of Eshal. She thought they were still seeing each other and had contacted her to warn her about this loser. It turned out the guy had treated the other girl exactly the same way.
Eshal’s friends had spent three months consoling her, telling her how pretty she was and how much she deserved someone better.
But when the same news came from the other woman, that was what it took for Eshal to finally let it in. She’s moved on these days and with much higher self-esteem.
It’s much harder to save a relationship when this sort of double-betrayal has gone on.
The person who finds out feels such a lack of trust, the relationship often can’t recover.
3. Being hated on by someone you thought loved you.
Holly Bradshaw, a popular writer on Medium, dealt with this when she stumbled onto texts her husband had sent another woman, texts full of such vitriol she found herself beyond stunned, beyond hurt.
Her husband had even written this other woman that he hated Holly.
The experience opened a whole new window on Holly’s marriage — anger flowed like lava underneath their home, bitterness about things her husband had never discussed with Holly. And then … the problems even spilled over online.
What can you do in a situation like this?
It’s so easy to walk away in despair and disgust, believing you and the relationship will never recover. For most people, behavior like this is unforgivable and something they can’t get past.
These emotions are certainly understandable, and yet, before you leave, especially if you’re married, exploring the issues in counseling is crucial.
For one thing, if you unwind on just how such terrible misunderstandings arose, you will be so much wiser in any relationship you enter in the future. There may be red flags you missed.
If you contributed to the situation in any way, it’s important to see that and understand it.
But sometimes even this terrible situation in a marriage can be salvaged, in the most surprising and unconventional of ways.
Holly and her husband ended up opening their marriage and experimenting with polyamory … and they're still together.
If you’ve just experienced the free-fall of finding out not only that your partner has cheated, but utterly smeared you to someone else, take a deep breath, find some support, and work it through.
There could be a silver lining that adds to your life in ways you could never imagine.
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P.D. Reader is an astrologer. Struggling In or With an Affair? is now a book! P.D. Reader also shares insights about astrology, relationships, and infidelity on her website, The Thinking Other Woman.