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I'm not in the habit of feeling sorry for women with super-model good looks, money and a jet-setting lifestyle I can only dream about, and it's even more rare that I would see us as having anything in common. But I do feel sorry for Elin Woods, wife to the Olympic-level cheater and fallen golf hero, Tiger Woods, and we have plenty in common.

I was mother to a toddler and pregnant with baby No. 2 when it happened to me. We lived in a studio apartment, barely making the rent, and I was 3,300 miles away from my family when the revelations came pouring in. The worst fears of any woman: Serial infidelity, some of it of the pay-by-the-hour variety, other encounters as a result of women met while he was at work, sans wedding ring, and (worst of all) scattershot use of protection and lies, lies, lies.

I sat in a midwife's office, five months' pregnant, teeth gritted, to ask for STD tests (he never had any testing, saying "G-d cloaked" him from disease.) I soon switched medical practices, partly because I couldn't take the look of pity in their eyes. I didn't take golf clubs to his car, but I could have done so easily. The shame I felt, the anger, the desire to climb in my bed and never come out of it; it was relentless. I would stare at the razor while I was in the shower, and imagine how it would feel for the pain to just go away. But I had a toddler to care for, so I kept going. I told my closest friend about what had happened, even cried to my dad on the phone, and joined an email list for women dealing with less-than-stellar husbands.

I was like a lunatic, searching for clues, snooping through emails, wondering (correctly, as it often turned out) about every phone call. I couldn't even cope with the marriage counselor, a gorgeous and sophisticated woman who wanted to meet with my husband "alone." I emailed at least two of the women I knew he'd cheated with; one of them knew me, knew I was pregnant, and still thought it was OK to call my home acting all innocent, have my husband over to her house and trade dirty emails via his work email account. I wrote to her about karma, and even though it's been just over a decade, I still hope she gets what’s coming to her. The other email went to the woman he'd been having an emotional affair with; she lived 30 miles or so to the south, and I let her know that I was sending him her way and that he was a STD-filled prize. (She never did reply, which is probably for the best, and of course I didn't send him her way, but I probably should have.)

I spent hours one day, combing over on an adult personal ad website where he'd had an account earlier (his user survey included this charmer: STDs were “not a concern” for him). Holding a nursing baby in my lap, I looked through member profiles to see, well, a profile of my husband's member. It was the lowest I ever sunk, before or since, but it was a kind of madness, wondering if he’d cheat again and at what point I’d know about it. I guess I felt like I could stop it if I never let down my guard.

For Elin Woods, she's perhaps got it easier in that the press aren't going to leave her husband alone long enough for an easy tryst, and harder because if he's seen within 10 feet of a woman, the headlines will scream about a new relationship, yet another porn star mistress. I waited four years for a woman to show up on my doorstep with a baby; for Elin, it is a near-certainty that one or more women, scam artists or not, will do so.

I spent four years waiting for it to happen again. And, of course, it did. It was never really over, and as the infidelity was interspersed with abuse, I eventually had to end the marriage. I didn't watch Tiger Woods’ apology press conference, but I've heard it all before. Saying you're sorry, even calling yourself names and going to “rehab,” doesn’t mean anything to the woman scorned. Trust, once broken, can’t be repaired easily, no matter how much money or fame you have. Making things right with his wife, getting her to the point where she can look at him and not see her pain and shame, is going to be the toughest course of his life. And hers.