SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi all - I’m sorry if my posts are repetitive or if I still feel the same types of things I might have already said since I started posting when I found out a month ago. I hope you don’t mind as it is therapeutic for me as I have not disclosed about the situation to many people in my life outside of a therapist. It’s not easy for me to talk about my feelings. Some of this contributes to me not putting up boundaries , I think. Anyways , today I am struggling with distinguishing between the person and the relationship. Logically , I do not want to be in a relationship like this. I don’t want to be hurt by the closest person to me (of course I don’t , who does ?). My partner did immediately cut contact with online EA partner, as a refresher he also met up with an escort. It’s a lot of damage done. I don’t want to be the type of person who accepts this in their life. Despite apologies and admission, and agreeing to look into a couples counselor , things just aren’t feeling like they’re moving in any direction. He is still the same person. He is still financially irresponsible (the biggest driving issue that led to us being distant from one another in the first place ). He is not working hard enough to change , and is taking too long to make an appointment for a couples therapist. However , any time I think about letting go and moving on, I feel immense grief and connection to him as a person. The great memories come flooding back. Letting go would feel like cutting off my own limb (sorry to be dramatic but that’s how it feels) . It’s been about a month I know I am still traumatized and I don’t have to make a decision right away and can take all the time I need. I just feel like I need things to move forward in one direction or the other. I need to see real changes, (which I can’t control), or I need to end the relationship (which makes me feel very very depressed and lost). I hope somebody here can relate.
Apart from the relationship this is bringing up a lot about my own self esteem. I thought I was a strong person that loves themself, and to continue with someone who has disrespected me makes me hurt for myself and question my own self worth. How can I pull myself out of this limbo ? What can I do in the meantime if I’m not sure about what I am going to do ?
Again thank you all for reading and I hope I am not repeating myself too much. I’ve mostly just been keeping busy with work but then coming home feels like this heavy part of my life that I am emotionally avoiding .

I can relate. I lived with a remorseless spouse for about a month before things took a drastic change. She tried to keep in contact and maintain a "just friends" relationship right under my nose while I was trying to figure out if our (at the time) almost 27 year marriage was going to survive. I put up with that and listened to her defend him when id say anything derogatory about him and not care what it was doing to me. It was pretty awful.

I eventually snooped through her messages, uncovered some more lies, and discovered her saying unflattering things about me. I know what you mean about taking a shot to your self esteem. I understand the pain you're going through.

What helped me with that was getting angry and fed up. I confronted her about her messages, watched her try to squirm out of it even knowing I had read them, then told her if she wanted him then she could have him. Just not while remaining married to me.

Then I called lawyers right in front of her and started setting up consultations. I immediately felt a sense of relief and started feeling better about myself because I was taking my agency back. I didn't want a divorce, but what I wanted less was to continue living in infidelity and uncertainty with a remorseless spouse. It was very liberating and I no longer felt like everything was out of my control.

It turned out to be the best thing I could have done, because one way or another I was getting out of a bad situation. It just so happened that my wife discovered that losing me was far worse than losing her AP. I don't think she thought I'd really do it, but id had enough.

I don't know what your husband might do if you follow my tack, but there's a saying here. Sometimes if you want to save your marriage the best thing you can do is let it go. Cut them free and let them choose. If they don't choose you, then do you really want to stay in a marriage with someone who doesn't want to be there?

I didn't.

You have to make up your mind how much you're willing to tolerate. I hit my limit, and while I really didn't want a divorce making those phone calls, finally deciding to do something, came with a great sense of relief. I felt much better about myself, regardless of the outcome.

I'm so sorry you're going through this hell. Most of us have been there. I think when you decide you've had enough and start taking action you'll begin feeling better about yourself, too. Set your boundaries. Tell him what you expect to see if he wants this marriage, then enforce those boundaries if you need to.

It is often advised here that you don't need a couples therapist. He cheated. He needs therapy to figure out why.

You may also need therapy to help you through your process. It may be helpful when you don't want to talk to people you know.

Maybe down the road you may want to consider couples therapy if you intend to stay a couple to navigate a new relationship. But not right now.

I hear you sister.

You have suffered a traumatic sexual and emotional abuse and it sounded you deeply, these are scars you often carry with you for the rest of your life and may very well influence every future relationship you will have of any kind, not only, it can rewrite every past relationship you ever had as well as the present ones.

That’s why it’s so important for you to heal first. Infidelity can never be undone, but you can dissolve the trauma and regain your center, so that black spot remains contained to that individual who betrayed you and doesn’t infect or tarnish the other people in your life or who you will meet.

It will stop making you bleed above all.

You have the urge to share your emotions and I say that is good.

You don’t need to hear advice or anything really, not as much as you need your emotions to be heard.

You have been heard.

Let that storm out without trying to contain it, it’s your nerve system trying to regain your center.

We are here to hear you and understand you.

It is often advised here that you don't need a couples therapist. He cheated. He needs therapy to figure out why.

You may also need therapy to help you through your process. It may be helpful when you don't want to talk to people you know.

Maybe down the road you may want to consider couples therapy if you intend to stay a couple to navigate a new relationship. But not right now.

Abso fkin lutely

Skip the MC. They typically will push you towards putting the affair behind you and focus on building a brand new shiny sparkly relationship :/ Stick with IC for several months and then think about whether you want to stay in the relationship.

I also suggest meeting with a few lawyers to discuss how things may turn out if you divorce. Knowledge is power.

Thank you guys so much. It is really helpful to read all of your words, and just knowing that other people understand how I am feeling. I will take your advice to heart and I do appreciate feeling heard. I am seeing a trauma therapist weekly. I will hold off on telling him that we need couples therapy. I guess I am struggling with what my boundaries are - the incident is over and he is no longer in contact with any other women but that doesn’t mean it won’t happen in the future. I am battling between my heart and my mind , and feeling weak for wanting to fight someone who could do that to me. I don’t know what I would need to see to be able to feel comfortable again. All I know is rug sweeping is not gonna cut it. I think the hardest thing to deal with is the conflicting feelings about someone. I have not been doing the "pick me " dance but I have been feeling like it in my head. Like devastated that he’s not going out of his way to try and right his wrongs.

That feeling is normal sister.

You want to be chosen for it would be calming your system to know that, despite the pain, he didn’t just abuse you sexually and emotionally since the beginning. Betrayal repaints all your history as a lie.

You believed with all yourself in the relationship, questioning if you were fooled from the start is as painful as the adultery itself. Is a multi layered trauma like most sexual and emotional abuses are. That’s why there is a high risk to develop ptsd and it taints the rest of your life as well as your past.

Thing is, the AP was picked, not chosen. He didn’t chose her over you. In a normal single dating the AP is usually a person who would lose the game every single time.

Their flaws are loud, that how a WS and AP "see each other", they probe for their same flow in others, and when they spot them they know they found another pig ready to roll in the mud. Is a mirror.

It can be anyone, it truly doesn’t matter how attractive they are or their value as a person. The WS doesn’t choose, they choose to betray themselves first, everything good they have, to soothe deep rooted insecurities.

Love is another thing, you may fall out of love for a person and in love with another, but you don’t cheat. When you fall out of love you say it and leave. That’s respect. For your ex partner. For yourself. For the future partner.

None of these exist in cheating.

Is not love just because there is sex, is validation chasing of a deeply fucked up person. Soothing their flaws through escapism and abuse of their closest one, rather than facing their issues and overcome them, because they fear they can’t. It’s the "easy" way out, because you pay the price of it all, not them.

You can’t understand it because you aren’t a cheater. So here the pick me dance comes into your mind. You think is a matter of love, sex, attraction.

Is not, is a matter of sewage and running away from themselves. The sewage is both disgusting and attractive as the way out to hide, and the mind makes up stories because it knows it all for what is really is, so that the sewer foul smell doesn’t get to you, if you can lie to yourself enough to convince you it smells like lilac.

It’s natural and it’s counterproductive exactly because you are dealing with a person capable of self deception to that extent. They deeply know the truth, and seeing your weakness and vulnerability is a hook to reinforce the story.

You want to be picked, that means your value is lower and their choice is a "betterment " they deserve better ( and a lot more bull following this point. Thing is, that is why it never works).

You accepting their abuse and corruption makes you step back. The stepping back is a mirror 🪞 that cancels the bullshit of the self deception and immediately their brain realizes that is not lilacs, but fouls sewage what they are smelling, as they always knew.

That’s why you hear to "save" your marriage you must be ready to lose it.

I like to see it even more pragmatically: your relationship is gone. From the moment your partner felt the need to cheat, it was destroyed.

You can’t save what is destroyed, is too late, you didn’t even know it was being burned to ash, you only had the intuitive feeling announcing you the disaster, but you were kept intentionally in the dark.

There’s but one thing you can do, if you decide not to leave. Rebuild.

And nobody can ever rebuild with a cheater. You can only rebuild with the person who healed from that and become a better version of themselves.

" There’s but one thing you can do, if you decide not to leave. Rebuild.

And nobody can ever rebuild with a cheater. You can only rebuild with the person who healed from that and become a better version of themselves."

Thank you , backfromthestorm. This should be a pinned post somewhere . True words of wisdom

Thank you , backfromthestorm. This should be a pinned post somewhere . True words of wisdom

You may want to thank a ex wayward wife for these, hikingout.

Living proof that change is possible, once you decide to love yourself and allow then to love others

I can relate so much. It’s been almost 4 months since I found out. We are working on reconciliation, but it is so fucking hard, and it feels like 90% of that pain and effort is on me and hardly any on him. I frequently ask myself "what if this happened to one of my best friends? What if one of their husbands did this to them?" I would be irate and would hate them. And yet when it happens to me, I stay. I do wonder some times what that says about how much I value myself…

I don’t have much other advice to offer except all of this sucks. I also feel like I need to get things off my chest, but have very few people in my life who I have shared with (and I don’t really want to share with more). It is so hard. Keep coming back here, because at least we can prop each other up.

@ shrug everything you said rings very true for me as well. We are the ones who were hurt and betrayed , and we shouldn’t have to be the ones to put in the effort to fix something that we didn’t break. But how many times is that the case , due to the wayward partner not being an emotionally mature person , as people who deal with their feelings in a healthy way are probably not as likely to cheat on their partner.
My therapist said "don’t stab yourself with the same sword that already hurt you". I’m trying to remember that. To not feel bad about myself, again I wasn’t the one who did something like this. It’s hard not to feel weak by not being able to let go. I envy the people who can just cut someone off and cheating is an absolute deal breaker right away. But the truth is no one knows what they would do until it happens to them. I know I will be true to myself one way or another , eventually. But in the meantime , it just sucks. Dealing with betrayal from your "person", then dealing with feeling like you’re betraying yourself by allowing the relationship to continue !

I understand.

You are doing the right thing for you.

I was in such a bad way I had to stay and stabilise. I could view myself as weak or lacking in courage or lacking dignity or whatever but I really don’t. I see myself as strong enough to get through a situation I would never have chosen or put myself in. I even like me and my decisions - I did great. Would someone else have made better decisions - maybe. Is better in the eye of the beholder - certainly. But I am in a better place. I like who I am. I’m certainly improved in many ways. I have new and better relationships with people. Have I wasted years - maybe - but I had to grieve and grow and change. So those where my chrysalis years.

I wil never forgive him for what he took from our beautiful children. Disgraceful behaviour from any person. He’s not the nice guy he portrays at all.

I now see him as weak, lacking in courage, lacking in dignity. Lacking. I no longer argue or fight with him - no point really. I have nothing to share. I like me. It’s pretty irrelevant what he thinks of me. He has very different values so he is unlikely to be able to understand me.

Whether this has been my way of coping or whether he is all of the above is a good question.

He feels I betrayed him by having told someone what nasty things he did. Which is interesting really. Yes he did say that! He apparently trusted me with bits of info and I betrayed him.

Incredible when you step back and can see the wood for the trees.

You made the best decisions you could with the info and skills you had at the time. You are here to tell your tale. Keep on, you’ll get where you were meant to be.

But I understand you.