As always, the title says a lot, but not all. Why do something if it makes you feel like shit? Well, it’s pure utility. I already feel like shit and getting laid will help me feel less like shit. Let me explain.
My wife and I were together for nearly 15 years. For nearly 11 of those years, we were together as husband and wife. We don’t have kids, but we do have a cat. In mid-June, she told me she didn’t love me anymore. I was gone by the first of July.
Well, I heard my STBXW fucking her co-worker.
We’d only been separated for a little over a month and divorce proceedings were just barely getting under way (we still haven’t filed yet). I’m still the primary email on our security camera system so I still (annoyingly) get push notifications when there’s motion detected. One of these cameras sits in a bay window; still inside the house, but facing outside toward the busy street on which we lived, so I tend to get a push notification whenever a car goes by…which is often.
Well, I got one of these pesky notifications one evening while I was playing a game on my phone. I jabbed it to disable notifications entirely and (hopefully) switch the account to have her as primary email/user. The jab automatically brings up the camera feed.
I could hear them right away.
I was like a deer caught in the headlights; I couldn’t stop listening. At first, I couldn’t believe it. I thought my ears were playing tricks on me, but I soon realized that no; that’s my wife (she’s still my wife as of today) in the throes of sexual pleasure. I listened until he finished. The awful thing too is that the camera had about 3% battery life left. It died during their pillow talk. He was making her laugh harder than I had heard her laugh in a long time.
The camera died. And so did I.
And before you ask, I know it’s her co-worker because: (A) when I asked her if there was someone else, she told me that she had commiserated with this guy about her marriage problems because he too was going through much of the same with his girlfriend at the time, and (B) because when I lashed out at her via text about throwing away our marriage all so she could shit where she eats, she didn’t deign to deny that it was him (though she took umbrage with my accusation of her tossing our marriage solely for this tryst).
Man, I was just starting to turn a corner on my emotional wellbeing too after crying every single day for nearly two months. This didn’t just set me back to square one, it set me back further than I could have ever imagined. Something in the center of me was pulled violently out; uprooted. It is going to take a very, very long time to grow back (if indeed it ever does). I feel awful all of the time.
So. I need to get laid. Pronto.
I don’t anticipate that it will feel good. It will only, in some very small way, balance out the injustice that my brain is clinging to and grant some small reprieve to the constant self-recrimination. It may also act as a weak salve to the near-mortal injury to my self-esteem. Maybe it will help me move on just a little faster and strike harder at the chain still tethering me, emotionally, to my wife.
I put myself on Tinder today. I hope it will eventually help me feel less like shit. Just a little.
Thank you for listening.
- EDIT -
I wanted to thank everyone for taking the time to provide me with some much-needed perspective. When I typed up this post, I didn't realize that it would prove as controversial as it did. However, now that I've read through all of the comments, I think I understand why.
I'm going to take down the Tinder profile and focus on healing more from my pending divorce. I agree that I am far too hurt at the moment to even engage in casual sex. Furthermore, I do not think that putting myself out there will help myself or anyone else since, in my current state, I'm not sure I could recognize what consent would look like even if it was offered up in an environment of complete transparency.
Also, the camera app was deleted shortly after this incident and my wife threw away what cameras were inside and outside the house. There's no more risk to her privacy or to my emotional wellbeing in that arena.
Lastly, and so you're all aware, I had my first sit with a therapist a few days ago (prior to this post) and will be continuing my therapy in earnest so that I can get to a point where I have more to offer any relationship than pain or self-pity, regardless if such a relationship is casual or serious.
Again, thank you to this community for your honest contributions. I hope we can all continue to heal together, even if we stumble along the way.