Husband #1 decided to start dating before he filed for divorce. He actually started dating before we separated. OK, he cheated.
I took it pretty hard. Finding out that your spouse has been unfaithful is a huge blow to your self-esteem and not something that you get over quickly. My brain was working overtime with my own self doubts:
Was she:
- prettier than me?
- a better kisser than me?
- funnier than me?
- more interesting than me?
- smarter than me?
- sexier than me?
- better in bed than me?
- Why was I the loser?
If you’ve ever watched the movie High Fidelity, you’ll relate to the scene where John Cusack is imagining his ex-girlfriend sleeping with the upstairs neighbor and, in his imagination, they are having the best sex of her life. Deep, passionate, throbbing sex…
The ugly, curious size of your mind will want to know details. Where did they do it? How did they do it? How many times? Who said what? Unfortunately knowing these things will not help, but do more harm to you than the not knowing.
During my first divorce, I befriended a clever British woman whose husband was in the throes of an affair. He was living in his own apartment outside of the marital home and she could not resist the urge to sneak around his place and peek in the windows. Had the police caught her, she would have been horrified. She was a distinguished woman of means who was over 50 years old skulking around like a peeping tom.
While on one of her spying trips, she watched her husband and the other woman in a typical interaction. He was sitting on the couch, clipping his toenails and nose hair. The other woman was wearing a jogging suit with curlers in her hair. Not the scene of white-hot passion my friend imagined. After seeing that (very boring) interaction, my friend laughed all the way home.
Console yourself with the fact that your imagination will make the extra-marital affair much, much better than it actually is.
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