# Do they look different to you now?



## growing_weary (Jul 23, 2017)

Not because of time passed, but in pictures you used to cherish. 

If/when you go through pictures does your WS look as attractive to you as they used to? Does the betrayal cover their whole being in an aura of gross? I found myself looking through FB and realized that without the pictures I took or me in them he had very few other things. I know, pain shopping, but if he never updates his profile and I plan on not being FB friends by the time this is over then I might be ok. 

Even the pictures I used to think were gorgeous have been tainted. He is good looking, we both are, but it's like I can see him differently in photos, and I don't like what I see anymore. I am the one who fostered his aesthetics and new style so maybe I'm being more objective. Plus it doesn't help that he would send pics of his outfits on his way to work to other women when I picked out every stitch on his body besides his underwear.


----------



## Hexagon (Jun 20, 2017)

growing_weary said:


> Not because of time passed, but in pictures you used to cherish.
> 
> If/when you go through pictures does your WS look as attractive to you as they used to? Does the betrayal cover their whole being in an aura of gross? I found myself looking through FB and realized that without the pictures I took or me in them he had very few other things. I know, pain shopping, but if he never updates his profile and I plan on not being FB friends by the time this is over then I might be ok.
> 
> Even the pictures I used to think were gorgeous have been tainted. He is good looking, we both are, but it's like I can see him differently in photos, and I don't like what I see anymore. I am the one who fostered his aesthetics and new style so maybe I'm being more objective. Plus it doesn't help that he would send pics of his outfits on his way to work to other women when I picked out every stitch on his body besides his underwear.


Yes she does look differently. Shes like a stranger in some ways. Everything I thought was true was false. I lived a lie. I asked her early on shortly after we separated if I had not discovered what was on her phone where would we be and she said, "still together". I'd still be living the lie. 
That changes things a little. 

Now that I've given it some thought, I see her now as the mother of my daughter and little else. When I see her face the first word that pops into my head is "liar".


----------



## GusPolinski (Jan 21, 2014)

Yep.


----------



## Rocket Skates76 (Jun 24, 2017)

Absolutely. 
I'm exactly one month since DDay, and pain shopping has become quite the hobby for myself. 

"You mean to say I was watching the kids while you went out and met up with him..."

"Oh, so that selfie wasn't for me..."

"Gawwwwd, I remember us all doing that like it was yesterday."

"Omg babe, we went on that date just the night before..."

That genuine smile.

Life as normal tainted unfortunately by her selfish duality.


----------



## Youngwife1000 (Mar 26, 2017)

For me yes also, I find it painful and tainted looking back at anything before dday, our marriage photo still hangs on the wall and fb sends me memories, none of them every bring me joy anymore, just such deep sadness. So heartbreaking, I don't recognise that man in the pictures or the wife beside the man, it was a lie. They are dead but we still live. 
Hoping time will be able to realign what they once meant .


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk


----------



## TAMAT (Jun 20, 2015)

I never noticed the contempt or disgust my W showed in our wedding photos when looking at me, at that time I was happy to have married her, and thought my W was over OM-1. Years later looking at them I'm like OMG. 

Perhaps she had a secret wish that OM-1s GF would break up with him and she would leave me. I think the social pressure from her family to marry me helped keep her from backing out too. 

Tamat


----------



## Hoosier (May 17, 2011)

Yes, but who cares................. Trust me you will get here, it has taken me 6 years, after 4 I thought I was good to go, but I feel so much better now it is unbelieveable! And I think it is only going to get better.

My x had two affairs, I found out about the first when I found the second. I knew the time lines, kinda, and would look at a photo and try to figure out if that was during a time she loved me or during the time she didnt. I think a bit of that is normal and needed to happen, to work it thru. Just dont let it consume you, dont let it stop you from enjoying your life. You are responsible for your own happiness. Be tough. You can do it.


----------



## WasDecimated (Mar 23, 2011)

It's been years since I've seen XWW in person...my choice. I don't know if she looks different in person and I don't want to know. Whenever I come across old pictures taken before her cheating, she looks genuine, like the woman I devoted my life to, and it makes me feel sad. Photos taken during or after her affair, she just looks fake and disingenuous to me. The only words that cross my mind are cheating, lying wh0re. 

I'm sure it's just how I feel about her now that makes her appear different.


----------



## StillSearching (Feb 8, 2013)

When I look at my 24 year old wedding pictures all I see is a mentally ill woman and a FOOL.


----------



## LosingHim (Oct 20, 2015)

Completely different. Not as attractive. All I see right now is “liar”. He wore the watch I bought him every day, each time he was with her. I always thought it was a really nice, fancy watch. I hate that watch now, because she probably touched it. I went through a period where I would randomly throw out his boxer shorts because they might have been ones he had on when he was with her. He always told me he was going to high school basketball games when in actuality he was going to see her. So now I hate basketball. I remember back now, him coming home on those nights and he always looked guilty. Wouldn’t look me in the face, would always turn down sex if I tried to initiate it those nights. And now I know why. And I’m disgusted by him because of it. I remember all of the horrible, mean things he said to me during those times and that’s who I see now when I look at him. The person that could be so mean to me because he was so wrapped up in his AP that he could treat me like dirt under his feet. 

My car insurance goes up again next month. We found out that my car is driving a large portion of that. Plus my car is expensive. So we’ve been talking about getting me something cheaper and better on insurance. He told me yesterday I could take his car and he’d get something cheaper. I don’t want his car because his car has been to her house. His car is tainted by her. I’m pretty sure she’s been in it. I don’t want to drive anything that she’s been in. I don’t want to drive anything that’s been near her. It makes me angry that she’s even SEEN his car. It’s a freaking CAR, who cares? Why does it matter? But it does. I hate his car because his car was what transported him to see her. How irrational is that? 

Everything is different now. Can’t even look at our wedding pictures because she text him that day and told him to have a good day and best wishes with his marriage. She couldn’t even leave him alone on that day. Everything is tainted by her. Everything I see leads back to her. Which taints everything about him.


----------



## growing_weary (Jul 23, 2017)

LosingHim said:


> Completely different. Not as attractive. All I see right now is “liar”. He wore the watch I bought him every day, each time he was with her. I always thought it was a really nice, fancy watch. I hate that watch now, because she probably touched it. I went through a period where I would randomly throw out his boxer shorts because they might have been ones he had on when he was with her. He always told me he was going to high school basketball games when in actuality he was going to see her. So now I hate basketball. I remember back now, him coming home on those nights and he always looked guilty. Wouldn’t look me in the face, would always turn down sex if I tried to initiate it those nights. And now I know why. And I’m disgusted by him because of it. I remember all of the horrible, mean things he said to me during those times and that’s who I see now when I look at him. The person that could be so mean to me because he was so wrapped up in his AP that he could treat me like dirt under his feet.
> 
> My car insurance goes up again next month. We found out that my car is driving a large portion of that. Plus my car is expensive. So we’ve been talking about getting me something cheaper and better on insurance. He told me yesterday I could take his car and he’d get something cheaper. I don’t want his car because his car has been to her house. His car is tainted by her. I’m pretty sure she’s been in it. I don’t want to drive anything that she’s been in. I don’t want to drive anything that’s been near her. It makes me angry that she’s even SEEN his car. It’s a freaking CAR, who cares? Why does it matter? But it does. I hate his car because his car was what transported him to see her. How irrational is that?
> 
> Everything is different now. Can’t even look at our wedding pictures because she text him that day and told him to have a good day and best wishes with his marriage. She couldn’t even leave him alone on that day. Everything is tainted by her. Everything I see leads back to her. Which taints everything about him.



Oh I'm so sorry, that sounds awful. *hugs*


----------



## Openminded (Feb 21, 2013)

Everything is different. How can it not be. 

There's life "before" and life "after". The two aren't even close to being the same and never will be.


----------



## Truthseeker1 (Jul 17, 2013)

This is an interesting thread. I've never thought about it form this perspective or how deeply infidelity effects EVERYTHING and EVERYONE. Why people go down that road expeically in basically good marriages is tragic.


----------



## arbitrator (Feb 13, 2012)

*To answer your question, "hell to the no!" My RSXW means absolutely nothing to me anymore!

And while normally vivacious and naturally attractive, in my minds eye, Margaret Hamilton, the Wicked Witch of the West from The Wizard of Oz, looks far better by comparison!

IMHO, a deceptive, unapologetic, lying cheater is just about as ugly as they come!*


----------



## honcho (Oct 5, 2013)

LosingHim said:


> Completely different. Not as attractive. All I see right now is “liar”. He wore the watch I bought him every day, each time he was with her. I always thought it was a really nice, fancy watch. I hate that watch now, because she probably touched it. I went through a period where I would randomly throw out his boxer shorts because they might have been ones he had on when he was with her. He always told me he was going to high school basketball games when in actuality he was going to see her. So now I hate basketball. I remember back now, him coming home on those nights and he always looked guilty. Wouldn’t look me in the face, would always turn down sex if I tried to initiate it those nights. And now I know why. And I’m disgusted by him because of it. I remember all of the horrible, mean things he said to me during those times and that’s who I see now when I look at him. The person that could be so mean to me because he was so wrapped up in his AP that he could treat me like dirt under his feet.
> 
> My car insurance goes up again next month. We found out that my car is driving a large portion of that. Plus my car is expensive. So we’ve been talking about getting me something cheaper and better on insurance. He told me yesterday I could take his car and he’d get something cheaper. I don’t want his car because his car has been to her house. His car is tainted by her. I’m pretty sure she’s been in it. I don’t want to drive anything that she’s been in. I don’t want to drive anything that’s been near her. It makes me angry that she’s even SEEN his car. It’s a freaking CAR, who cares? Why does it matter? But it does. I hate his car because his car was what transported him to see her. How irrational is that?
> 
> Everything is different now. Can’t even look at our wedding pictures because she text him that day and told him to have a good day and best wishes with his marriage. She couldn’t even leave him alone on that day. Everything is tainted by her. Everything I see leads back to her. Which taints everything about him.


I think many of us go thru a period where seemingly everything reminds us of the affair and we try to avoid it all. What your doing is trying to avoid dealing with the affair in essence but your subconscious brain is messing with you. I did things like this and had triggers, the kind of car he drove, whenever I saw one I thought of him etc. In time you will also come to realize that everything doesn't lead back to her but right to your husband. 

You will always hate her and rightfully so but also keep in mind your husband was more than a willing participant and played her just like you. Hold the one person you can accountable, him! 

Yes when I look at pictures of my ex now she looks different. Little things that I alway's looked past when seeing her I now notice in the picts. How grey her hair had gotten, the aging of her face, things like that that when times are good you don't notice. My crazy ex also physically changed after the affair, she gained a great deal of weight, aged about 10 years in a year. I remember when my lawyer first met her at a hearing he didn't even believe it was the same person from the pictures I had shown him. He was convinced they were two different people she had changed so much.


----------



## Red Sonja (Sep 8, 2012)

LosingHim said:


> My car insurance goes up again next month. We found out that my car is driving a large portion of that. Plus my car is expensive. So we’ve been talking about getting me something cheaper and better on insurance. He told me yesterday I could take his car and he’d get something cheaper. I don’t want his car because his car has been to her house. *His car is tainted by her. *I’m pretty sure she’s been in it. I don’t want to drive anything that she’s been in. I don’t want to drive anything that’s been near her. It makes me angry that she’s even SEEN his car. It’s a freaking CAR, who cares? Why does it matter? But it does. I hate his car because his car was what transported him to see her. How irrational is that?


I understand this completely. I feel the same way about the house we lived in for 26 years, the house our child was raised in. After the parade of OW that have been there and slept in what was our marital bed, I do not want it, don’t want to enter it, it was a trigger to even drive by it. Thank goodness I moved 50 miles away.

He didn’t want to move, didn’t want to disrupt his life (poor baby) so it cost him $500K buy me out of that house (that had no mortgage). :surprise:

To answer the OP, before I was always looking at him through the “eyes of love” and he was very attractive in my eyes. Now I have reached indifference and he looks like a skevy old man of bad character, which is what he truly is.


----------



## sokillme (Jun 10, 2016)

I don't know how anyone stays when they feel this way. Why would you. UGGH.


----------



## TaDor (Dec 20, 2015)

So far... I don't have issues with our older photos. My screen saver still shows pics of us in our first few weeks of dating.

I still have to go through photos taken - during the affair and delete some photos that has the OM in them or events. Actually many OM photos - I delete (before / during the affair).

The worst photos I have with my WW is when I found out of broken contact or just after D-Day. Either fake happiness or misery of drama. There is simply not many photos other than the toddler.


----------



## Ghost Rider (Mar 6, 2017)

I don't even bother to look at our old pictures. The pictures I had of her at my desk at work, I took them down. I don't care anymore.

One of the most surprising things that happened was, after I found out about the affair, I questioned (and still do) everything I thought I knew about her, whether it was related to the affair or not. Whenever I could step outside myself, I could see that, and it was an unexpected outcome. Without the experience of infidelity, it would not be an obvious consequence.


----------

