I've been pondering a little just what it is that is the hardest to forgive. Here's my top 10 list, rank ordered as best I could, #1 being the hardest to forgive. I realize that some of these are intertwined with others, but it's the best I can do:
1. The fact that she didn't give me a chance to fix what she perceived as wrong with me, with our M, before betraying me. That is, her initial decision to be unfaithful. I really struggle with this one. I hate it when I read some book that suggests that the betrayal was a good thing, that the M could not have been turned around otherwise. Bullsh!t!!! When she came to me and said that she didn't think she loved me anymore (but months before the betrayal came to light), I responded to that, got DB, and starting working on myself. It did NOT require a betrayal in order to get me to wake up. How much of this excruciating pain could have been avoided if she had just spoken her unhappiness.
2. The impact her betrayal had on my self-respect, my loss of self. Those feelings of worthlessness, unloveableness, and undesirability are life-stoppers. I don't think I became clinically depressed, but this would be the reason if I had.
3. Her being intimate with someone else. I wrestled a lot with this on my 1st thread. The fact that it's still so high on my list means that it's still an issue I grapple with. The words of those discovered intimate emails still haunt me occassionally. An EA would have been much easier for me to handle.
4. The fact that I can't trust her now. I used to trust her without thinking twice about it. I hate the thoughts that constantly enter my mind now, that make me wonder what she's doing when I'm not around. I hate the anxiety, I hate how I feel about her when those thoughts come, I hate that the thoughts come even when I know better.
5. Her falling in love with someone else. Yeah, I know that for others, this one would be higher than #3. It's not that this one isn't bad, it's just that the sex thing haunts me more, and is therefore harder to forgive. What I hate most about her falling in love with someone else is how expressive she could be with him (as gleaned from the emails and from what she's told me). It became easy for her to tell him anything, to share herself in a way that she has not shared with me in many years. And apparently she listened to him and was interested in him, again in a way that she has not with me in many years.
6. Her complete insensitivity to my pain as it all unfolded. I guess we've all marveled at the way our S's could inflict hurt so easily, causing excruciating pain even when the benefit to them was slight. She still hasn't expressed much sorrow over what I've gone through. That pisses me off.
7. The impact her betrayal had on my respect for her. I've tried very hard to understand what she was going through when she made her decision to betray, and my contribution to the problems we had. But ultimately, I think she allowed herself to take the easy way. She was weak. She should have been strong enough to resist temptation, she should have had enough gumption to try to fix what was wrong, instead of just choosing the fun way. I don't respect that, and it's going to take time for me to again respect her fundamental character, the basic part of who she is.
8. The untold numbers of lies. How many lies did she tell me over the course of the last few months, 1000? 5000? It might be easy to forgive individual lies, but the totality makes it more difficult, because it again speaks to her basic character. Is she a liar, is that just who she is, or was it just a temporary thing that she can and will overcome.
9. Her selfishness. Not pretty. At one point, she thought she was ready to give up everything, and wreak utter devastation upon everyone else, including her kids, to be with this OG.
10. The financial cost of her betrayal. OK, this is a little thing, relatively speaking, but it's still annoying to be paying off these infidelity-based cellphone and other bills. While I was off working, she was off "playing".
So there it is. The next question: Should I work towards forgiving everything all at once, or should I start at #10, and work my way up from there?
