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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I have a question for the PPs who talk of karma eventually taking care of the OW.

You wouldn't like my former AP's now ex-wife.  She's a racist, nasty, Trump voting, unintelligent person.  I don't believe in karma, but since you do, isn't it possible that her husband cheating on her and leaving her is karma for her choices?

/shower thoughts[/quote]

I don't believe in karma per se, but definitely that poor choices often have a cost. As for this person, it sounds like her lack of intelligence makes her susceptible to a comforting "us vs them" ideology. Certainly that may drive people away from you, but that's a separate issue than your AP choosing to cheat rather than leave. He made his own poor choices that certainly cost him something as well. Her being unpleasant didn't suddenly absolve him of treating her with the basic decency owed to someone you once chose to marry.

My husband had an affair a decade ago. [b]I've followed the OW's life from afar since then.[/b] There were the self-pitying wilderness years following the affair. Then her finding an older widower and getting married. Now she's 42 and posting about how she still hopes to become a mother some day.  :shock:  I can understand why a ready-made family seemed like a workable option to her at the time. That didn't work out for her, of course. I never wanted bad things to happen to her, but at the same time I understood that the same frailties that made the affair seem attractive were also going to shoot her in the foot in other ways as well, and maybe I didn't always feel too terrible about that.

(And yes, dear reader, obviously I ponder the same frailties and consequences for my husband, but that's a separate post. He certainly made out a lot better than the OW, and the cost paid was disproportionately paid by me, the innocent party. Guilt is only as punishing as a person's capacity for it. Though on balance, I'm satisfied with how we resolved things.)[/quote]

The bold is the only thing that matters here.

For a [u]decade,[/u] you have given the OW a spot in your mental real estate, a place in your thoughts and apparently at the tips of your fingers as you follow her on social media. You possibly think it's no big deal, you only check up on her rarely etc. But over an entire decade? And with what end goal? To see if karma bites her and if it does, if it's biting hard enough?

I really can understand the huge satisfaction in that--initially. But I can't fathom giving this person one instant of your own precious time all these years later. It would keep the anger and the wounds fresh, like picking at a scab all the time and keeping yourself reminded of her existence. I'm just boggling at the waste of time and mental space on knowing so many details of an OW's life for years on end, if you actually believe you are "satisfied with how [you and DH] resolved things." [b]Ten years of interest in the OW sounds pretty unresolved, somehow.[/b]

[/quote]

The weird thing is that the AP is probably looking at OP’s social media as well. At a certain point it really is no longer about the man, but some odd blend of competition and morbid curiosity. It is difficult to give up the drama- in the end, he’s just a man. 
[/quote]

"It's weird to be invested in the life outcome of someone who was once an important player in your life," said the stranger invested in the outcome of someone who was never an important player in their life, lol.[/quote]

DP. Cute, but you know perfectly well that that's what DCUM is -- posting about strangers' lives. The dismissiveness makes me wonder if you're the PP who's so invested in the details of her DH's ex-AP's life.

It's not weird, it's unhealthy, to be invested in the life outcome of someone who wrecked your life, if you are tracking them in never-ending hope of seeing them crash and burn until they or you die. That's what the PP who's following the former OW for 10 years is doing.[/quote]

The internet age, for better and for worst, allows us to keep tabs on all the players in our life. I keep tabs on so many people, as we all do . . . the youth group leader who molested a bunch of boys, my high school boyfriend, the crazy coworker who terrorized the office before retiring, etc. [b]It's natural to be curious about other people, hence my prior point. There's no shame in that.[/b] Assuming a spouse's affair partner wouldn't make that list is laughable, but shaming women who've been cheated on is a favorite pastime here, so I'm not surprised at the attempts to pretend that looking at someone's public social media from time to time = stalking.

I keep my social media locked down. You can't even look at my prior profile pictures on my Facebook page if you're not my friend. It's my responsibility, and no one else's, to maintain my privacy to my level of comfort. Pretending there are rules about whose public stuff you can and can't look at . . . I mean, come on, are these serious arguments? [/quote]

Never said there were "rules." Where did you get that? Look up anyone you want.

Yes, you're right here: It's natural to be curious, and it's not shameful. But when the person is your spouse's former AP, can't the "curiosity" and searches also be unhealthy? Keeping wounds open, or at least the memory alive--and sore. The betrayal cant' be forgotten, but why keep thoughts of the AP fresh by making regular check-ins on the AP's life [i]now[/i]?

It may not be stalking, but it's still allowing the OW one is tracking, even if you're only Googling her twice a year, to take up headspace. Apparently for the rest of your life, in that one PP's case. Only we can control who and what gets our attention and time, even if it's only a few clicks a year. Some people seem to choose to let those who damaged them in the past to -- as the saying goes -- live rent-free in their heads by keeping up with their current lives. It's not shameful, but it's certainly not productive or positive or a movement forward. [/quote]

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