I am proud of myself that in the midst of this betrayal and profound hurt...and sometimes anger...that I feel, I am still able to find sympathy/empathy for my W.
Because she gave her therapist permission to do so, W's therapist has revealed to me some of the information that has come out about W's past, particularly in regard to her sexual behavior. W disclosed that during her sophomore year of high school she slept with at least 25 people and was promptly branded the school slut. Later, during a period in her late teens/early twenties when she worked at a hotel catering banquets and weddings, she said she had sex with so many random people she met at the events that she had no idea what the tally was, but she estimates it in the hundreds.
When W and I discussed it, she said she slept with someone new pretty much every weekend, sometimes more than one person in a weekend, so that could easily be 200-300 people that she's had sex with during the time she worked at the hotel and over the course of her life. That is staggering to me. And she has had sex with almost as many people during our marriage as I have in my entire life before meeting her.
I do not judge her for her sexual history. I honestly do not. I feel bad for her. She seems tortured by it at this point. She has admitted that hers weren't the actions of a sex-positive person who merely enjoyed sex and meeting people or whatever positive spin you could put on her behavior. She says that at the time she told herself it was empowering, but that she sees it now as the behavior of someone who was lost and empty inside, and trying to fill the void with drugs and alcohol and sex.
For as much pain and anguish as I continue to experience at times due to the revelation of my W's infidelities, I wouldn't trade places with her for the world.
H: 43 W: 37 M: 11 years T: 12 years S: 11 D: 8 ILYBINILWY, "I want to move out" and "I want a divorce": 3/23/14 MC started: 9/22/14 Affair and past infidelity discovered: 9/26/14 Piecing: 10/20/14
