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The original was posted on /r/asoneafterinfidelity by /u/Beneficial-Prompt-43 on 2023-07-04 18:49:41+00:00.

My husband had an affair a couple years ago. We are going through counseling and reconciling. All of that is for another day/post. I am trying to tackle all of my insecurities and anger. While my husband and I are still working through things, I find myself able to forgive him more and more with the effort and therapy he is seeking. Which is why I came here, I’m having trouble forgiving the other woman. I understand that my husband made vows to me and she did not. I try to be a loving person, but I am having trouble letting go and forgiving her for the wrong she did.

For context, my husband was dealing with a lot of PTSD from his job and I will admit that I had become so focused on the children, that I did not see a lot of red flags of how much he was struggling. On a work trip, they got drunk, she took his key card out of his wallet when he went to the restroom, and when he couldn’t find it, he texted the group and said she found it. Obviously, one thing led to another. As a wife, I’m like you’re an idiot for thinking with your drunken d*ck and trust me, I am angry at him for that. But if he were my friend, especially female friend, I would think they were being taken advantage of while under the influence. I did not know this happened for a long time. He did withdraw even more after this, but due to his deployments, he was gone for chunks of time, so I was very unaware of what all was going on. By the time I started figuring everything out, mind you the affair continued when he returned, he says out of fear she would report him and just general being so depressed and giving up on us (again, another long story). We separated and he moved out. At that point in time, my goal was to help him work through his issues, and get counseling so he could be a good father. He was spiraling and I was scared that he may try ti hurt himself. Anyway, my husband has the blame of the affair, but there are things that are hard for me to forgive her for doing. I do feel she took advantage of him during a difficult time. She even called his therapist to have a joint session because she didn’t like the way he was making changes in his life (which were for the better). She tried to interfere with our custody agreement (we separated during Covid so we did as much as we could without going to court) because she didn’t like that he wouldn’t have the kids for more than 2 days at a time because he would see me more often at exchanges. Mind you, our daughter was a year old and due to his deployments, she barely knew him, so obviously none of that was for the kids’ best interest. My husband did a couple of groups activities with her and the kids, which as soon as I found out about it, I cited every single peer-reviewed article I could find about how this was psychologically damaging to the kids and he stopped. But once he stopped, she made up excuses to come over to his apartment when the kids were there because… I don’t know why. She wanted the kids to see her? She knew they would tell me and want to make her presence known? This happened more than once.

The crazy thing is, this woman is well liked, respected, outgoing, and seems fun. I couldn’t imagine her ever going after one of her friends’ husbands or being understanding of the “other woman” if any of this happened to her sisters or friends. So why him? Selfishness? Proving she could? I’m just looking for perspectives and advice to let go of this anger, forgive her, and find peace.