So I am picking up from my previous post read here  which was a pre-requisite to this one. As you may have guessed this one’s about social media.

I started this blog to help people. I have spent over four years writing my book in the hope that someone can pull it out of their pocket at anytime and read a part of it that resonates with them: especially at the times when they feel as if they are drowing.

Over the months since sharing this blog I have engaged in a much bigger way on Twitter, set up my own Facebook site, joined a lot of Facebook sites about infidelity, and tried to help all the people who have messaged me for advice.

More than anything I have found a wonderful supportive group of people in the blogging community. I have learnt much more than I could ever know about the bravery of people: for staying committed to their relationships, for putting their struggles and pain out there for all to see, and for sharing the fact (bravely) that they were the person who had the affair. All have had something to say that has taught me so much.

If you had asked me before this all started about Twitter I would have turned my  nose up: how can you support people in 280 characters right? Well there was a big learning: I was wrong. I have picked up with a group of fantastic and supportive people. No we do not always agree but generally we agree to disagree and respect each other’s opinions. Each persons story is different (but the same) and so each person will have a different take on infidelity and all that entails.

But… and there is a but: with any social media what you put out there will tend to come back and there are a lot of ‘haters’ out there; and yes, I have chosen that word carefully. I know that negative comments, trolls, and haters is the want if you put yourself out there on social media; I don’t have a problem with that, my skin is thick enough. My my problem is with the damage it can do to people who, in their hour of need, just need help.

Our dear friend the cad read his blog here would explain that ‘hurt people hurt people’ and I agree; but I would add to that hurt people who are full of bitterness  read my feelings on bitterness here will also set out to destroy others. Bitterness is not my bag, and whilst I can have understanding for people who are bitter I am also a true believer that you have to make the difference to your own life, and if you don’t want to and you want to embrace bitterness then you are too dangerous to be around: especially for those whose hearts are already broken into peices.

Let’s look at so many of the affair partners: the ‘she’ from my story, Kim from Dolly’s story you can read Dolly’s post here and so many others are bitter people: they were not happy and they were never going to be happy because they were bitter; and that bitterness set them on a path to destroy others lives, just for the shear fucking hell of it!

So that brings me on to Facebook: On Saturday I was thrown off of a facebook site. I have shared the site on Twitter if you want to see which one. But it had in the title the words ‘healing’ and ‘full circle’, which in all honesty, given my experience, I would say could be construed as a tad misleading.

I had noticed recently that the people on this particular site seemed to be getting more and more aggressive: the ‘haters’ had joined the party. There are a lot of lovely people on that site but sadly there seemed to be more and more of the people who used the words: should/have to/ must/ cheater/lying arse; told people what they should do: you should leave him, file for divorce, ‘get down that attorneys office in the morning girl’; and so much more. In fact in the last two weeks I have been told not to trust Danny because he is ‘sneaky and misleading, and just a liar.’ To quote: ‘Where was all that love when he was sticking his dick into someone else? You should leave him’ . Should I fucking really?

And this is my point: this person may or may not have read this blog; they may or may not know we are 12 years in; but I doubt they do. I doubt they would have even clicked on my story, what I wrote touched a nerve with them and they just wanted to hate.

This was the post I shared Read here It’s a post about Danny’s breakdown, it’s a post about what I learnt, but somehow the only thing this person got from it was about Danny ‘sticking his dick in someone else’.

Now happily I know about emotional touch points, and I know that she used these words because she thought that these words would hurt me. After all that is the thing that does most people’s heads in: their partner had sex with someone else. In fact the ‘she’ of my story went to that immediately she thought Danny had returned to me: in the hope that I wouldn’t be able to have him back.

It’s a shame really because if the person who commented had read more of my blog, you never know she’s probably going to buy the book, (sounds of laughter can now be heard!) she would know that because I think and reflect I learnt a long time ago that the sex was the least of my worries.

Now I don’t normally bite (although some of you know I may have a bit of temper sometimes) and I didn’t to that comment. I said how she must have been hurting and thank you for her comments but I was good where I was thanks. I wanted to add unlike you who seems to be sitting at the bottom of the bitterness pile spitting out vile. But I never.

 

My point is this: that these type of things are said to people who are not where I am (stronger)  who are trying to reconcile; and it makes my blood boil that the people (hurting or not) who don’t want to be alone in that painful place, try and take so many other people with them. I have lost count of how many times I have thought to myself ‘they didn’t fucking ask you that!’

I posted my post about bitterness which resonated with so many; and someone put ‘I am bitter’ ??!’ To which I wanted to put ‘Good for you!’ I never because I actually felt sorry for them: that they could recognise what they were, but did not want to move forward.

I will help anyone, I cry with some people when I read their posts (ever the empath) because I know their pain; but when the bitterness and hatred comes out it’s all I can do to not ask ‘So are you happy then? You who is giving all this negative advice?’

Now add to that the lack of tolerance for other’s opinions: I don’t ram my opinion down your throat: if you don’t agree you don’t agree. So why is it that so many people try and make me agree with their opinion? I try to give a rounded picture or just a simple answer but clearly some people take exception to the fact that I will not change my mind just because they try and bully me. Good luck with that I fucking hate bullies  (like the twat on one of the blog sites I follow, who clearly had no understanding of emotional touch points, or any emotional intelligence. In fact I am not even going to give her credence to mention her comments!)

So here is why I was thrown off: A man asked if he should tell the AP’s wife about his wife’s affair; he wasn’t sure what to do and did not know the woman. There were a plethora of answers and I answered ‘No, I wouldn’t, you do not know what you are letting out of the bag.’ Others had put similar, others had been sarcastic as to his intentions, others had said yes and so on; but for some reason a particular woman took exception to my comment. (Now she may have read some of this blog, she may have seen the discussion around this question that I posed on Twitter    read here and took exception to the words I used, but d’ya know what: I have been betrayed, I have been in pain, I have been hurt; none of us own this and we are all entitled to think and reflect and ask any question we want to. You can either think about it or not.

Well she came out all guns blazing: ‘So You think it is okay to let people live a lie, that they should have a chance to be checked for STD’s’ and so on. Full on. Now I admit it touched a nerve, because I am tuned in to words people use, and their motives behind them: she was trying to get me to back down, trying to intimidate me, and I am just not the right person to do that to. I was calm in my response (all be it a tad sarcastic) I told her that I didn’t think that I should be the one to make decisions about someone else’s life, and that was my opinion; but that I was lost as to why she was being so agressive. She came back: STD’s and more. Then her friend joined in, and the language was the same: accusatory, implying that I was wrong and in fact some sort of demon, and it also implied that they thought I would be intimidated by them. Guess what? I wasn’t.

They asked me how I could possibly think that way (they hadn’t asked anyone else, despite them giving the same answer as me). I calmly explained that none of us know what is going on in someone’s life we don’t know if there are issues of: bi-polar, chronic depression, manic depression,suicide, health issues (MS, ME, other disabilities) so NO, I would not approach someone I did not know and just tell them.

Only recently a whole family was murdered in England because the partner had an affair. Given those considerations that was the question that was my answer.

Now we get to the interesting part: they did not answer my measured response, but the other woman who had joined the hate party then searched out any other posts I had posted and commented on the post I have shared above in the link. She was incredulous: who was I to ask such a question (someone who was fucking betrayed!) and in fact it made her sick to her stomach: the whole post, so she had to stop reading. I asked her why she had gone back seven weeks to comment on this post now; and I commented that anyone may think I was being trolled. Guess what? She was an admin and she deleted me!

I find it truly terrifying that people who are managing these groups, and the vitriol that they often have in them are actually the people who troll others and spout the vitriol. As I said I shared the site on my Twitter account and I would say to anyone reading this post whose heart is in tatters please stay away from the vitriol: those people are trying to take you down with them.

When you are struggling, when you are having a bad day, when you have just discovered your world has been blown apart, think about what you want, or think you want, and choose where you want to be.

Addendum: in fact since I wrote this post I was asked by an admin on a RECONCILIATION site to not post my blog any more. I have to say it made me wonder how that was conducive to the other people on that site, given that this blog had had over 100.000 views at that time; with feedback from people saying how it had helped them and recommending it to others. I can only assume that it was because the book had just been released and someone had asked me where they could buy it. My old posts were left up and I then started to receive messages from people asking where they could read the rest of the blog. I don’t interact with that site much as I questioned its integrity, but only recently the very person who set it up (the same admin) was on the site criticising and being negative. Be careful: if the sites start to become bitter my sugestion would be to leave.

Due to this I have now set up a Making This Better group on Facebook that will welcome both the BS and the WS as they both need to be heard to heal.

Please be careful.

Rosie

Making This Better the book is now available including the journal entries for the first 5 years of our recovery & the whole 21 days of ‘The War’. Available internationally in paperback and ebook  at Amazon and Barnes & Noble also available at Xlibris and Apple Books for iPad and Waterstones Bookstores for click & collect

I would love to hear your feedback.