I am so stuck in the hearing her name, seeing her around town etc that It just makes me sick. Especially when I know how they were BOTH playing me, mind F-ing me, screwing with my mental state for so long.
Can anyone really ever get over double betrayal?
girlpower, I hear you. You are in shock and trauma right now, and know that you WILL make it.
I felt much of what you described above--to the point of sickening nausea with how I felt treated by two of the people with whom I was closest in my life (at the time). I was in shock for 8 months; my weight fell below my high school weight and there was nothing I could do about it.
Around 8 months post D-Day, I felt my body start to relax, and knew I was going to start putting the weight back on. Slowly, I did.
I then spent the balance of two years from D-Day, trying to understand what the hell happened. Only now have I started to regain my enthusiasm for life and challenges.
The bottom line is that, for whatever failing I may have had as a spouse, their mutual decision to do what they did says everything about them--and NOT me. The truth is, they weren't thinking about me, AT ALL.
At some point, I decided that I no longer was going to live my life out of others peoples' judgments... That I am a complete person who no longer values THEIR behavior and selfishness, over my integrity and honor. You will get to that point.
I'm not saying any of this to belittle or diminish your pain. On the contrary, I get it. My XWW's and friend's 5-year double betrayal was the most shattering experience I've ever had, and not by a little bit. It was 50 times worse than the death of my mother.
It'd have been infinitely better if my XWW had just died--there is no deceit in death.
Now, two years out, I'm actually grateful for my ordeal; grateful for the gifts it has given me: my more meaningful, compassionate, and loving life.
I'm alone, but not lonely. I have a deep, strong peacefulness in me, integrity, honor, a much deeper relationship with God (which grew tremendously via this ordeal), and like who I am.
My perspective on what happened has completely flipped. Instead of feeling that it was grotesquely unfair that my XWW could simply leave me in a shattered heap to go be with my "friend," I now believe (and this may sound weird) I am the lucky one.
I'm the one who got stronger, more compassionate, loving, and focused on what I want out of life and my mission in it. I have a deep happiness with myself, and am increasingly grateful for ALL of my life that has lead to where I am right now; penning this post.
And them? They get to live with their evil, selfish choices for the rest of their lives, that blew up two families.
I wouldn't trade my choices and life for theirs, for anything in the world.
You are the one who behaved rightly; you are the honorable one; and you are the one who in the long-term will be enormously happy with, and grateful for, your life--exactly as it is. Believe it.
Blessings, LA