My comment to a betrayed woman who felt she needed to look better, be nicer to win her unfaithful’s attention and love:

“I am so sorry you have been put in a place to feel competitive. None of us should EVER have had to even consider these things because our unfaithful vowed to never allow themselves to stray.

My experience is different. I have never felt compelled to do or be anything like the AP. She was my ex sister in law, a few years older, pleasant looking but not young/athletic. A bit soft and a mother herself. She was single and just broken up with my brother so vulnerable to my UH’s advances (as he knew and planned)

I did not find out about the physical years of their affair until 16 years after that part ended (though they remained emotionally connected – an EA) We had moved four hundred miles away, she remarried.

What do I feel? Anger that who I thought was a supportive woman of me and my family could do such a thing. I also feel pity for the obviously broken selfish woman she is.

In the years after the physical part of their affair I got into super athletic shape because I was a new empty nester with time to focus on me. My UH was super sexual with me, but that was only because I felt great about myself. He is an SA as he has now realized which has put the past in a more realistic perspective. I see now that is why he was so persistent and demanding all those kid raising years and why he was (uncomfortably) over the top when I was a more relaxed empty nester.

I look back on those super in shape years with a cringe because I now know why his attentions felt a bit objectifying.

And then came d-day when he blasted me with the news. This was post athletic, more normal times. He had decimated our retirement finance and had a stay in the mental hospital from a nervous breakdown self induced by aforementioned. His financial betrayal put me into a tailspin and turned off my libido. As an SA he took that personally. He went deeper into alcoholism and marijuana which led to him vilifying me and dumping d-day on me to hurt me. (In his mind I was withholding sex to hurt him–not because I was traumatized). All very messed up addict thinking.

So no—I never felt in any way drawn to compete with the AP. She is no one I would ever want to be like in any way. I pity her. I pray for her and her new husband and I release her and them to their higher power.

All that said, my UH has never focused on my looks. He has alway accepted me and acted liked he cared about me. In his way, he did. He expressed his affection throughout all the years—non sexual affection. The sex part was the messed up part, if that makes sense. He always said he thought I was pretty and special.

I don’t think I will or can ever totally understand the mind of a sex/adoration addict. I am working on recovering from the feeling of objectification a SA communicates, even subtly. I believe he always felt he loved me, but his addiction messed with his mind and therefore actions. He was and is a sick man. I have been the victim of his ill thinking and choices.

The AP? Also a sick woman with her own issues. Anyone who could do what she did has her own adoration addiction and ‘need’ to feel lusted after. She is sick. 

Maybe it is because my UH always communicated his appreciation for me and my heart/giving. It is not in my nature to try to compete with two dimensional woman (porn/photographs, etc) or ‘real women in my UH’s life. Maybe it is because I feel I have always been enough. Always done my best and been an excellent wife and mother. If he couldn’t see or appreciate that, it definitely had nothing to do with any lack on my part. He chose me to marry. There was and always will be younger, prettier woman. There was and always will be older, less attractive women.

I can not and will not try to compete. Marriage is not a competition with other potential mates. That decision and promise was made on our wedding day. Breaking of those vows was not because another woman was prettier. It was because my UH was sick with lust and insane decisions. The AP could have been anyone. She was not, is not, and can never be me–the woman he fell in love with.

There is not another woman on the planet I want to compete with. They are precious in their own right just as I am in mine. They do not have my UH’s heart, our history together, children together. They can not possibly compete with ME.

And none of your UH’s Ap’s can possibly compete with YOU.”