SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello all, been dealing with the sheer magnitude of my husband's infidelities. Notice the plural? Yep. So what I thought/told was a short term affair would have been a walk in the park to what it has ended up being. First thank you for the support and feedback here. Allowed me to walk away and think about things, to pull at threads, and keep digging. I will spare you the play by play but ultimately what it is, is a year and a half sex addiction (longer if you add in porn addiction), of 3 escorts/ sugar babies; spanning 12 "visits". So the person I found in Arizona that didn't make sense, yep it did! There were two "Crystals" at the same time. So convenient (and yes real names). Through the PI and my own investigating, I have found two of the three women. They were all met through a site called secret benefits that he clicked on the ad while watching porn. So, adding to our therapy team, we have a trauma specialized couples counselor, a CSAT for him, and an APSAT for me. I have also started a women's intensive by Michelle Mays (author of Betrayal Bind) who is near me. I tried to get us in with them but they are booked up for individual and couples. He will do their men's intensive for sex addicts that starts in September. He is currently being evaluated for sex addiction but there hasn't been much debate by any of the therapists. I have meet with my trust attorney, have a family law fact gathering meeting next week and giving myself 6 months to decide on what I want to do.

I do have all info on these two women including addresses, phone numbers, etc and the one who is married I have his info. I am working on what I will say in contacting him. He may know his wife does this, as it is not just an affair but sex work. I don't know. But will tell him.

My anorexia is out of control and raging and when I put two and two together on a lie, I spiraled last friday, went to the one hotel he went to with the last escort and seriously considered taking my life. I am working with the therapists on that, including his therapist, and working on how I am handling this trauma. I am still in shock that all of this has happened and I am riding the emotions and trying to be present for our young kids.

With the timeline I got last week, we are setting up a poly with someone who specializes in this area. It was not a therapeutic disclosure that they like/want to do in this area but I am not waiting for 3,6,12 months to have that happen. I need my ground zero now. It wasn't the full scope that a disclosure would cover but it covers our marriage and the poly will be tied to that.

This is where I am today. I am here and I am focusing on my recovery. I don't trust him. I have taken away decision making of our joint lives, etc. that I could.

Thank you all.

What you have accomplished in this short time is impressive. Congratulations!

I know you feel beyond awful and over-stressed. That's normal. It's also normal to fall back into old patterns of dealing with stress, grief, fear, anger, and shame. Just keep repeating to yourself the truth: you really can survive and thrive after being betrayed, and you're taking steps to do that.

I know the pain is excruciating. I know it's hard not to blame oneself for one's partner's infidelity. But you can deal with the pain, though you have to give yourself time to do so, and you are not to blame. You didn't fail Your M didn't fail. Your H did.

Your life is worthwhile. Hang on. You can find joy again - maybe not today or tomorrow, but if you keep healing yourself, you'll be glad your persevered through this awful period.

Are you taking some time to be with horses? Healing is, in part, processing the pain of being betrayed. It just goes more easily if you do some things you enjoy doing.

I'm so sorry you are dealing with all of this. We know how brutally overwhelming, disorienting, and traumatic it can be to find out that everything you thought you knew about your life and relationship was lies.

I can imagine how out of control you must feel and I know how bad of a trigger that can be for someone with disordered eating. I'm so glad you're self-aware enough to have reached out to a therapist about it all. Please do your best to take care of yourself - those babies of yours need you. I promise you, even if it feel like it wont, it WILL get better. You WILL get past this. You are so much stronger than you think.

I agree with your desire to want to get to "ground zero" as soon as possible. That was my strategy as well. Obviously individuals should get to decide how much awful they can take at a time, but can't imagine anything worse than intentionally prolonging the absolute torture of the disclosure stage. In a lot of ways, the worst case scenarios that I imagined were much worse than reality.

You are right to not trust him right now. He has broken your trust, and once broken, trust is incredibly difficult to rebuild. Your instincts are good though, trust that. Trust in yourself.

Thank you both. I am working with my APSAT to deal with my attachment style and childhood trauma that is causing me more pain. I am told I can't go to him for connection/figure out what happened. He has to work with his CSAT to get there, that he is in the beginning stages of detox and can cause more trauma. Working on how to handle the hypervigilance and triggers and how I need to heal myself regardless of him.

I don't blame myself for this. I was miserable too and was just grinding it out as well. But I saw it as a season that we would get to and that there were so many outside (of us) variables at play that we just had to ride it out. That it wasn't about giving up on us. What I am cycling on is why wasn't I worth the effort? Why was I gamble (able) to him? And why now am I worth it? Why now does he "love me" so much? It was like a snap of the fingers and what prevents the fingers from snapping again? How can I trust him again? And right now his answers are fairly surface and he is baffled by the whys. And that is his work. He hasn't fully owned the sex addiction piece yet so he is still in some denial and minimizing of it. So that between him and his CSAT to work on. So, essentially, I have to be independent on him for my healing. I am working on having a team of professionals and joining peer groups/intensives to connect with others and to find some commonalities and answers. And I need to really dig into my childhood wounds as abandonment and not feeling good enough are clearly ringing hard due to them.

And yes, I trust me. That's my boundaries I guess. I am supposed to write my boundaries but they all seem so superficial to me and don't really make me feel safe. Sure proactive communication helps, him doing therapy and committing to the process is a big one but ultimately my boundary is I will listen to me. Thats what makes me feel safe. Me. He can make me feel "good" and why I go to him but he doesn't make me feel safe and actually hasn't well before all of this. I had been resign that if I got very sick I didn't see him being able to be there to support me for very long. I was realistic knowing how he builds resentment in himself and the self centeredness would not allow duty and love to trump all. I can't say how far back that realization went but it was over 6 years.

So there was a lot of the addict mindset I saw in him well before the acting out came about. If I am being honest with myself.