I know it’s awful…but has anyone ever craved revenge?

Oh, you’re not alone! Sometimes I think of it just for ME–even without throwing it in his face. The hard part is, I know I wouldn’t do well with sex without an emotional attachment (at least I don’t think so). I did ask my SA a few weeks ago how he would feel if he were in my shoes. He said, “I’ve never thought about it” (Of course NOT, as I roll my eyes thinking about it). He also said it would be a relief as it would lift some of the burden of his guilt. There again, always about THEM!!!

No, you are not alone. I told my husabnd I wanted to cut his thing off, make meatloaf out of it and feed it to him while he watched me get it on with other men. Because that’s the way it made me feel for him to do that to me. To find out he was lusting and satisfying himself while I lie in bed waiting for him to come home to me. I am still freaking livid.

I don’t think it’s really vengeance, per se, but rather the deepest kind of betrayal and hurt that needs validation.
Even to just say that to my husband felt good to me and believe me, I didn’t hold back much of how I felt. He was shocked to see hurt and angry I became, but I think he felt it was more of an annoyance that he had to put up with my emotion than really sorrow or repentance for how his behavior affected me.

I know some other women have had affairs to even things up but that is never an answer and I wouldn’t do it. It would feel so much better to move on with my life with my integrity intact. But it sure felt good to let my rage out. My therapist was discussing a murder suicide here in our town over adultery last winter. It is a crime of passion. I think we all have thoughts we never thought we would think but being put in this situation really tests our souls.

ZG, he probably thought about it for a minute and started getting off on the thought.

Your all invited over for meatloaf dinner, haha.

Love, Deb

Mmmm… I’ve always loved your logic JoAnn and I think its a perfectly normal reaction to this kind of trauma. I actually see this not so much as being out of control, but the mind actually trying to regain control of a situation that is so very out of control. I used to have a vision of throwing my son that I call Christian (cause I couldn’t think of a better name for a Jewish boy) over our 7th floor balcony when he was a little baby and fussy and then screaming. I was exhausted and overwhelmed, but I didn’t really WANT to kill him. (I kept telling myself that if I actually did it, I would never see him graduate from high school). I just wanted the pain to stop. He’s going to be 21 next month! So cute and I still want to throw him over the balcony sometimes, but he’s 6’2″ now and about 180, so I think I’d probably have a tough time with that. 😉

I’ve asked lots of married men this question. “why don’t you have an affair with your wife?” The answer was always, “oh, she’s not interested” “her sex drive is in the toilet” (and mine is through the roof) right.

Or, “I’ve bought her all those lacy things and she won’t wear them!” Then I would suggest that he actually talk to his partner and tell her that he was considering having an affair.

But of course, this is not about not having his needs met. They can’t empathize and they don’t consider your needs or how any of this will affect you. As difficult as it is to imagine, they simply can’t even imagine that you will ever find out. I guess, unless he has a baby with someone else, while in a marriage with someone else. If that isn’t grounds for murder, what is?

I think we all have a need for them to get a taste if what we feel. I actually have fantasies about comeuppance for the friends and associates of mine that had sex with him and continued our association. I dream about them coming in to my workplace with family and friends as they have done often over the years (chatting me up and hugs,etc) and exposing them for what they have done. I confided in my best friend how I hated them, but also felt sorry for them because they all probably thought they were something special but in reality he would screw anyone who would pull their panties down. I had no idea at the time that she was one of them. I always try to remember that they weren’t married to me. He was, but he had a compulsion and they just betrayed me because they could.

I really can’t understand how a “friend” could do that to you… Its one thing for him to put a “spin” on your relationship and have a woman who doesn’t know you fall for it, but there’s no excuse for a friend and it sounds like it was several of them?

This is reminding me of my composer ex friend that i call “reptilian”… I’m friends with his wife on facebook now! LOL

But, he is just like that too… such a loser, in reality, but really good at making a woman think that he’s the holy f**king grail. At first… that is… a narcissist’s narcissist.

Wow, isn’t this a hot topic!
I’m not sure I’ve spent a lot of energy plotting revenge on him. These SA guys are so dense that I just don’t think they would realize it was directed at them. They wouldn’t really get it. And that would just take the fun right out of it.

I do think of doing horrible things to his mother, who was terrible to me. She was also his monster mother and why he became an SA. But mainly I want revenge for how she treated me. And now the truth is known about her, I would love to find a way for all her very religious friends to hear it. But then it passes as I think of her sorry little pathetic excuse for a human being getting up every morning and having to live with herself. Somehow, that seems revenge enough.

Maybe I would have more revenge in mind for my SA if he had chosen to fuck actual people who were present and accounted for. But he didn’t (well-who really knows, eh?). So he’s kind of pathetic too.

Actually, I think the idiot therapists make me angrier than anything else. What kind of revenge might we imagine on those who call us co-addicts and co-dependents, or those who tell us we can’t live apart from our abusive SA’s in order for the “save the marriage model” to work?

We could make them watch their own stupid YouTube videos for hours at a time. Or maybe just have them come online here and “take questions and comments” for a day. Hmmm. Now that has real possibilities for a satisfactory outcome.

But sisters, I’m mindful of what they say—holding a grudge is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die.
Still, maybe revenge removes the need for a grudge.

Oh this life—who could have known?
love,
D.

P.S…And when I say I’ve RESOLVED to be my best self, I haven’t necessarily gotten there yet, lol!! There’s been a lot of bitchy lashing out lately. I suppose I need to “go with it,” and let him deal with it.

I do hope that someday my revenge can be as noble as being a better person and staying away from him – but I’m not nearly there as yet. I also contemplated murder, but didn’t want to deal with the guilt for the rest of my life.

The revenge I’ve saved for a rainy day is a video which I found of him masturbating onto his computer screen, which has a picture of some women on it. (He was nice enough to take a clear shot of his face, before moving the screening further down.) If I ever feel the need to, the video will be sent (from an anonymous address) to all his e-mail contacts (except his family). I doubt I’ll ever be that angry, but it’s nice to have.

NAP, that was very well said, and the truth of how you are living your life without your SA comes out in your words. You sound so much happier:)
As regards revenge, my mother always said the best revenge is to be happy and live your life. I think you nailed it, NAP!
Marie

Since this is where I’m stuck in my journey, I have additional thoughts.

This must have been what Lorena Bobbitt felt, she just didn’t stop at the feelings.

The phrase “Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned” now makes perfect sense to me.

I have seen some pictures on email of a banner out in front of someones house that read; CHEATING HUSBAND… and an airplane flying over a crowded beach with a banner that read something like; ___ ___has a small unit. I found that one particulary amusing.

I don’t want the dirty hands but wish he would get in a car accident or stop threatening to kill himself and just do it. I couldn’t accept that I really felt that way, but I did.

Asking myself: What is it about cheating that has ignited this fury? (notwithstanding the additional deviance involved in some of your stories) there is a split in me.

* My husband is a broken little boy who needs love and forgiveness and to work on his own problems.

* My husband is a cheat and pervert, liar and deceiver, controller abuser who needs to suffer the consequences for what he’s done to me.

I can see it now…one side is about him, the other side is about me. I care and pity him in his brokenness. I cannot excuse the choices he made that brought my world down.
It broke all the rules: goodwill, fair play, trust, honor, safety…all gone. Then it gets personal. How do I compare? What did his eyes see? Wasn’t I enough? Why not? I’m so fabulous, how dare he reject me! How dare he let me hope in him and seek his favor while he knows what he is doing. I could be with someone worthy of me. That indignation fuels the anger.

That brought me to the struggle to forgive and forgiving is not forgetting or not holding someone accountable. I can forgive him, I just don’t know if I can ever look at him the same, to restore the marraige. I agree with Lexie about trying to find equilibrium when you are thrown for a loop. We have to name what this behavior is and how we feel about it or we lose our moral compass. Then we are faced with our reaction to it and we must also name that behavior or we lose our moral compass. This is the theme in a couple good movies. Les Miserables and the Count of Monte Cristo are a couple good period movies that talk about injustice and the struggle to not become the very thing they hated.

It’s a process. Good one Diane, drinking poison hoping it will kill the other person. That’s a line my therapist uses often when one of us has to interact with someone unpleasant. How much poison did you drink this weekend?

Some of our reactions are so funny, the tire on his red car! But when you can’t let go of it, when it is a continual circus, when it gets under your skin. It’s time to move on.

Debora

You all had me laughing out loud as I read through the black humour of it all.
I do remember taking a hammer to a china ornament his mother gave us for our 25th anniversary—long after it was over, and I don’t “do” china ornaments. (Well, I guess I do them with a hammer!)

So here’s some book titles for spouses on Sex addiction:
Why I’ll Never Eat Meatloaf Again
Oh, Was That Tire SUPPOSED To Be That Round?
The Shape of a Pound of Flesh
If I Had A Hammer—Oh Wait, I Do!
New Video Releases—Cheap!
Little Men and Little Penises

oh, I’ve got to stop.
D.xo

Debora,

I had a friend who was continually threatening suicide and I felt the same way. JUST DO IT ALREADY! Of course, I didn’t really feel that way, but I realized when you just said it, that its also a kind of abuse. That kind of attention seeking behavior is abusive to the recipient as it invokes great stress and feelings of helplessness. Like the screaming baby, we just want it to stop and so the FEELINGS of it wanting it to stop, I believe are normal. Threatening to kill oneself is NOT normal and it is a kind of abuse.