SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

just want to know.....

You might get some replies as we occasionally have an "old timer" drop in just to say hello. But generally speaking, people who have been in R that long successfully, rarely have a reason to keep dropping by SI anymore. Which is a good thing. :)

I will say that since my wife and I first arrived here 7 years ago, a lot of the wonderful couples that helped to guide us along have moved on and are living their best lives.

Thirteen years for me. Not the 15-20 you are looking for but pretty close.

I'm pretty sure there are a couple of other posters who are R at least that long.

Atleast there is hope....

Thanks for responding.

More than twenty years. Happy and still going.

16 years and counting 😊

38 years.
It hasn't been easy, I still get mind movies sometimes but it's not as bad as it used to be.

We're celebrating our 50th anniversary next weekend.

33 years since DDay 1 and about 20 years since DDay 2 (not new affairs just newly trickled out truths and details). She was a serial cheater (now former serial cheater), minimizer, and massive rug sweeper (but I allowed the rug sweeping...because I was an idiot, now a former idiot).

We really started addressing things about five years ago. I got to the point about three years ago where I pretty much gave up and told her we would be getting a divorce. She begged and cried and pleaded and apologized, and I gave in and agreed to stay at least temporarily. I told her if she cheated again or disrespected me again or lied to me again I was done. I had to walk back the lying thing because she just cannot help herself, but as long as the lies are not about faithfulness or affair issues or relationship issues I can live with that, if I have to, I guess. (credit to Red Green on the partial "Man Code" quote).

I would say until that point we had not truly reconciled, we simply stayed married, and not at all happily married. Now we have truly reconciled. Better late than never I guess.

I am overall very happy now. She is now a model wife who goes FAR above and beyond to love me, respect me, honor me, cherish me, and (to some extent) to help me heal. I lost a bit of my worshipful adoration of her, but I do still love her, always have, always will.

I still have tough moments and suppose I will forever. But I am now finally (mostly) happy with my life and am satisfied with my decision to stay.

Best wishes to you!

It's been almost 16 years since my wife admitted her LTA. We are reconciled and doing well.

WOW
Thank you each for your time.

What in each of your situations/opinions was the turnaround for better?

BetterNowReally
- Did true R only start after you received all the truths?

I am short on your request by 5 years.

10 years next summer since DDay. Next fall for when I perceived that we were on a strong enough path of reconciliation.

90% of the time I am good.

I no longer "flatline" emotionally for days like I used to if a trigger starts to work up a memory or fear.

I usually can talk myself through knowing negative feelings will pass.

And I have learned that trusting my intuition is NOT me being paranoid. I may not be accurately assessing my world due to PTSD. But when my hunch is that life or people around me are "off", it is good to step back and ask what is that deep inner survivor trying to tell me. (Because the affair was not the source of the issues in my marriage and family life. It was the symptom big enough to demand attention.)

Last. If I find myself in that dark place of imagining the "what if our marriage had ended". Which can look either very shiny on one day, or very ominous on another, all I have to do is look around.

Almost every other married person is on a second, third or even fourth marriage. And HUGE number of them are NOT in a better situation.

Might I have found the perfect next marriage? Odds are low.

I have lived long enough to see and know that.

I am not sure I would have ever married again.

And since Mr Uxor wanted to work on us (I gave him a soft, comfy no drama quick divorce with a play nice as parents to the kids option, or end it with her now. He wanted us. Not the AP.)….this is and was worth an all-in try.

BetterNowReally

- Did true R only start after you received all the truths?

That was part of it, but it was not really enough.

True reconciliation did not start until she realized the full impact of what she had done to me, to us, and to herself, and gathered the courage and desire to try to make amends and change herself for the better.

The final step that really brought it home was when I gave up and told her I was going to divorce her. I wasn’t bluffing, but she did change my mind. She got desperate and finally made the effort necessary to change.

The other thing that was crucial for me was getting therapy for myself. I needed it badly but had resisted for many years. (I have some other big issues besides the infidelity and cruelty of my fww, including suffering horrendous childhood abuse, military service trauma, and the death of a daughter and a grandson).

I will be 60 in a few months but felt pretty tortured until about three years ago. Sometimes I grieve the tough journey that my life has been, but at least my “golden years” will be amazing (fingers crossed).

[This message edited by BetterNowReally at 3:15 PM, Friday, March 10th]

I will be 60 in a few months but felt pretty tortured until about three years ago. Sometimes I grieve the tough journey that my life has been, but at least my "golden years" will be amazing (fingers crossed).

Same, and Amen to that!

We're in our 13th year after d-day. W committed to R on d-day; I committed 90 days later. We're happy together and expect to continue until one of us dies.

Life presents triggers occasionally, and I wish W hadn't cheated, but the A is just one of many stories that make up our lives' histories.

Are you aware of the 'Positive Reconciliation Stories' at the top of the list of threads in the R forum?

I created a new SN just so that I could respond to this post. My former SN was SacredSoul (I was going through a pretty intense spiritual healing journey at the time) so, although SacredSoulSister is a wee bit cringe, I went with it.

My D-Day was almost 19 years ago, and R started about three weeks later. We're approaching our 35th anniversary. I'd say that the main keys for success for us were:

- Willingness to be transparent and honest, even when the truth was uncomfortable and scary. Both of us, not just him. I'd say that's the #1 key to our success.

- A really good counselor. We never did IC, just MC. Our MC was terrific, but we're discovering that the current SI advice to forgo MC until IC is well underway, or to at least do IC in tandem with MC, is spot on. Between Covid isolation and my H's aging mom living with us, some old childhood trauma came bubbling up for my H and he started acting out a bit. Nothing infidelity related, but there was a definite "ask for forgiveness, not permission" vibe happening and I was NOT about it. He just started IC all these years later and things are looking up again. So yeah, IC is important. For both partners, IMO.

- Patience. The first year was all HB and excitement. The second year is when it got harder for me. It probably took five years or so before the triggers lost their oomph. I think I STILL seek the excitement of that first year because I felt so alive, even though I was in enormous pain. That's why I still creep on SI. I pain shop. I have plans to do some IC and maybe some EMDR so that I can stop picking at the wound. (See? IC is important!)

There's more, but those are the biggies.

As always, I appreciate your honesty and time to respond.

Sisoon: Are you aware of the 'Positive Reconciliation Stories' at the top of the list of threads in the R forum?
-no I did not, or maybe I saw it before but here is ALOT to "digest"
Sometimes it is easier to take the short cut to just ask

Just to be explicit, I believe in both asking questions and reading here, not either/or. In some areas, I wish more people would do research before cluttering up a forum, but on SI, I'm pretty much a both/and guy.

BTW, SI doesn't lend itself to searching by design, as an aid to preserving anonymity.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 8:21 PM, Saturday, March 11th]

15th year this year. I treated the whole thing as a learning opportunity- about me, about him, about life and the human condition. He got curious too. Interesting and enjoyable journey together since. Thankful for that.

Edie,

When I first read this thread, I wished you were still posting.

Hi Sisoon! I just popped in strangely enough. Probably not for long as I see I’m still pretty shit-hot at killing threads. Nice to see you. 😊