SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My husband got caught at Christmas texting my/our close friend and neighbour. He was very very depressed and had a breakdown (confided in her and not me as was seeing me as an enemy and making him unhappy - typical depressed thoughts) so went to to her to speak emotionally for 4 months, and then in December the text message got 'flirty' and her husband seen the messages and my husband then told me.

Fast forward 5 months, we have been doing MC and its working well, BUT, at times I have complete meltdowns and get very angry at him and it puts us back. I really want to stop this but I just cant seem to control my dispaire and sadness at them both doing this to me. These meltdowns do not help us as it triggers him too. He has totally put his hands up and said he was in the wrong and is disgusted with at himself but he was never looking for anything else but comfort and in Dec the text messages crossed the line to flirty (I've not seen the messages and I dont want to). He is not in contact and doesnt want to.

I'm now booking IC for me to deal with all this - but in the meantime does anyone have any kind words or advice on how to control these meltdowns? I try so hard most of the time but I feel like my emotions, body and brain arent connected and I have no control! (doesnt help she is my neighbour and lives across the road). It seems to happen after a couple of wines

Im really struggling and it doesnt help that Im also dealing with his depression (which he is getting IC for and working very well) and he still doesnt see she is a 'bad person' (this woman has had previous affairs and knew EXACTLY what she was doing) just a 'friend' that tried to help and got messy.

Positive stories only please - I need to stop dwelling on the negative our our marriage is over

Im really struggling and it doesnt help that Im also dealing with his depression (which he is getting IC for and working very well) and he still doesnt see she is a 'bad person' (this woman has had previous affairs and knew EXACTLY what she was doing) just a 'friend' that tried to help and got messy.

You need him to acknowledge that she was a very bad friend - to you and to him - and is an enemy of your marriage. You need him to get on your side, on your team, and stop defending someone who betrayed you and hurt you terribly.

I think the meltdowns are pretty normal for this stage. Take good care of yourself and stick to one glass of wine. Pick a friend that you can call to talk you out of the tower when you get spun up.

at times I have complete meltdowns and get very angry at him

That's the effect that the trauma from the A has had on your body and mind. It's normal at this time. We often reference the emotional rollercoaster that can whisk you off for a ride. It took me about a year to get where the emotions were easier to handle.

It sounds like he's still in the wayward mindset. Have you discussed in MC about him defending the AP to you and what that does to you? I believe that infidelity is abuse. Psychological and physical if they had a PA. He's ok thinking that the AP is a perpetrator of abuse towards you?

For me, learning meditation helped me to bring the focus back to my body and helped when my thoughts and emotions would spiral out of control.

The Body Keeps the Score by Bessel van der Kolk is based on trauma, not just betrayal trauma. He suggests things such as somatic yoga to help your body process the trauma.

Do practice self-care because this is so hard.

Trix,

Last December I had finally had it with the intrusive thoughts that kept pounding me at night and keeping me awake. I found an IC who specialized in trauma and I actually seeked out someone who was schooled in EMDR as I really felt I needed major help. We actually spent most of our time doing regular therapy and sprinkled in some EMDR techniques to help me prevent the mind intrusions from effecting me as much. Getting control of the power that the intrusions had on me was our first goal, then we had moved onto working on my lack of self esteem. Found some very interesting childhood issues that really seemed to be the primary source of my issues. I know some folks here don’t think EMDR is all it’s cracked up to me but it helped me.

[This message edited by Copingmybest at 7:00 AM, Saturday, May 25th]

Thank you so much for your comments. They were really helpful and its good to know that my meltdowns are standard behaviours for someone who has been betrayed the way I have, by 2 people that I loved. I do find it very difficult that my husband doesn’t see the cruelty and abuse to me by this woman (if you can call her that, she really is a weak and pathetic excuse for a woman) a ‘friend’ who I believe did start off helping him but ending up watching with her own eyes me, over the months and in turn my children become more and more broken from what she/they were doing….what monster does this? The 3 of us were innocent….and she didn’t stop, if anything she stepped the messages and contact more (encouraged by him). I have suffered terrible emotional abuse from both their hands, and when he doesn’t see this in her it breaks me a little more every day.

I have no idea why he continues to somehow defend her doing this abuse (he does say he is disgusted at himself but somehow not her even though so did the same thing). Is it the depression and the negative thoughts from the Depression that is still clouding his decisions? Or maybe having her back is more important than having mine.

Either way, he does not see that he is pushing me away by not acknowledging this, all I want is for him try and understand her for what she truly is and if he can’t do or even try to get this head around this, it means he is justifying what she has done which means it can happen again. I have no doubt she will return; she has done this previously (this is not her first affair) to her own husband and children so will have no hesitation breaking up my family. I know now I cannot and WILL NOT risk that pain again and I will need to defend my kids from her toxic behaviours so I will sadly need to start detaching to make leaving him less painful.

Its so nice to hear other stories on here of husbands post affair who get angry and reading their own messages to the Other Women and thinking what the hell was I thinking?? Why did I not see her being so nice was all false and was lying to me? – I hope to god my husband at some point soon does this – it would help me and us move forward so much.

I have so much fear inside, I’m scared of breaking up my children’s home, I have fear of them not seeing him as their hero anymore, I fear what his parents will say as they are good kind people, I fear that he may run back to her again and the pain starts again, and the biggest fear that one day his depression fog in his mind will lift along with her manipulative words clouding his head, his Rose Coloured Glasses ‘advice’ that she told him over the 5 months (she is very good and telling people what they want to hear, slick and knows the game well) but by then we will be gone and he would have lost everything – utterly everything he has built in the last 20 years.

I’m not scared of a new life being a single parent and starting new; new home, place to live, new job and maybe one day (although I have little interest in this) a new relationship with someone who will see me for my worth, someone who does lie, is loyal and wont play around with hearts, someone who just respects me for creating a safe and loving space for my little family. I am scared of losing my best friend and love my life (grey rock method and cold contact would be the only way for me). But hopefully IC could give me the strength to work through these thoughts and move on or leave, I know Im not prefect and I had faults and bad habits and behaviours in this marriage too – but I didn’t deserve this pain – no one deserves this pain.

I will look into EMDR, thank you, I have toyed with this already. Thanks again for your support and comments and sorry for the very long message.

Lost and broken

Meltdowns are a way that your body and mind tries to vent powerful built up feelings, thoughts and emotions.

A couples of wines may intensify any powerful emotion. Including a meltdown.

Alcohol does that. This is a fact.

I speak from my heart when I say please limit your intake during high stress. This is an important part of self care.

Friends, family, and or therapist: surround yourself with positive people. And rid yourself of negative souls.

At 5 months from Dday this is completely normal.

Especially when your H dorsn’t see what the OW/former friend did was wrong.

The first step in getting past your issue is recognizing the OW is no longer a threat. That is not easy - and it’s something only you can resolve.

Once she’s no longer a threat you can start to feel a sense of calm for yourself. It dies t happen overnight that the cheaters stop communicating and you are "okay".

Give yourself some grace and allow yourself to struggle with this but not always have to verbalize it. It will take time.

In my case I would say things very snarky in my mind — thank goodness you can’t go to jail for things you’d like to say but don’t lol. 😂

I will echo everyone else in that 5 months out unfortunately the way you feel is standard fare. It can get better together or on your own, depending on what happens going forward. You said this, which to me is a big red flag that his THINKING is still wayward - this is part of what can keep you stuck feeling like you do IF you are relying on him to make you feel better:

I have no idea why he continues to somehow defend her doing this abuse (he does say he is disgusted at himself but somehow not her even though so did the same thing). Is it the depression and the negative thoughts from the Depression that is still clouding his decisions? Or maybe having her back is more important than having mine.

WH did this - defend the AP. In my situation after d-day 2 (1 year of false R where the A was underground and I was being lied to hourly) was that I blew up the A - informed the OBS and talked to him extensively, shared some of the screenshots of info I had and answered his questions. He was suspicious that the A was ongoing (apparently she confessed to 1 night of bad behavior the year prior but OBS had not told me and I had not told OBS when I found out on d-day 1 about 4-5 months of a PA). WH had ended the A (and it stayed that way for 3 months until he went back again for one final round). During that 3 months when WH was giving her the silent treatment, AP sent me a bunch of text messages, one on Christmas Day, telling me her husband was not my friend so I should stop talking to him, and one of which blaming me for ruining her child's life by outing the A, which was total and absolute horseshit - my response to her 20 or so messages was a single line, something to the effect of "I don't know what is wrong with you that you think it is my responsibility to keep your child safe from your shitty behavior - fix your shit." Apparently that caused her to blow up my WH's phone (he would block her and she would get burner numbers so she could message him - then he would block and she would get a new one).

Anyway, after my response to her coupled with WH sharing her crazy-town messages to him, he told me that she was just a lost, lonely, and mentally immature person. That her messages to me were terrible BUT really, she is just losing it as her "world is falling apart" and it was almost like his position was that she could not help herself. Of course I know now that part of his thought process was that he was just such a fucking great catch that of course she was struggling with him pulling away and her own marriage falling apart - so I needed to just ignore those messages. And, this was his thought process, even through when pressured by me he "admitted" that it was terrible for me to have to deal with all that, but that really was just to shut me up.

So, part of the reason you are feeling the way you do IMO is because you do not trust someone who is willing to defend their AP in any way. And you shouldn't. His head is NOT in the right place. The bad news is you can't get it there for him. And, my experience is telling someone that doesn't actually change their mind. The best you can do is question him about why he would ever defend her in this situation and don't wait for an answer. Tell him you ask simply because you are wondering why he hasn't thought about that and that if he really wants to save your marriage that maybe he should think about it ASAP.

Does he think you all can still be friends????

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 1:57 PM, Tuesday, May 28th]

It’s not a meltdown.

It’s appropriate anger.

But place it squarely on his head, not just hers.

One problem, I think, is that your traumatic event isn’t just in the past, it’s right across the street reminding you every day. She is there, and your husband doesn’t see that that is a problem.

You are maybe getting retraumatized daily?

I’m interested in how you handle your emotions without a couple of wines, do you only have meltdowns with the alcohol? It might be useful to try and track your emotions at other times and your triggers. Allow yourself to feel the sadness and the anger, and what might be underneath the anger. Just sit with them, without rumination. Try some grounding exercises and learn how to stabilise your emotions yourself without discharging them in a punishing way. That way is like feeling dreadful and vomiting over the other person, so you feel a bit better but they now feel dreadful and can’t wash it off.

Individual counselling is a good idea, it can help you process some of your feelings as well as understand how and what you can learn about yourself and how you want to be in the world. Healing from infidelity can a bigger project than just healing, with new insights about yourself and post-traumatic growth.

Shirley Glass’s Not Just Friends would be a useful book for you both to read and discuss together.

Maybe try this exercise:

Think of a time or an event where you felt very happy. Remember it, the feelings, and the sensations.

Then think of an episode where you felt unhappy, ditto on remembering the sensations, sounds etc.

Finally think of another event where you were happy, and the sensate effects.

Hopefully, this helps you see how where you put your focus helps how you feel and how damaging rumination is. It may well be however that you are indeed being triggered by this woman’s presence in your street, your nervous system constantly being re- hyperaroused by the danger it feels she represents. But the main danger was in your house and sleeping in your bed. For some reason, going outside the marriage to seek emotional support. Hopefully Not Just Friends and its analogies of the boundaries windows and walls in the marriage can help your WH understand his deliberations at every point on the slippery slope. Hopefully also, you can be reassured that marriages do recover. It depends where you put your focus. That’s why the most valuable thing about the 180 is the focus one puts on turning to face oneself, flaws and all, and set about becoming the person you want to be, making the life you want to have. You cannot do much to change others, and punishing them certainly won’t, but you can do a lot about teaching yourself about your capacities, strengths, connecting with others in healthy ways, and ultimately trust in yourself.

[This message edited by Edie at 6:55 AM, Wednesday, May 29th]

Thank you again for the advice. And yes, its not easy having her just across the road and also Ive met her on my dog walks (so has he, twice, first time they said sorry I dont know what happened then got interrupted by another neighbour walking so walked off, the next time they just walked passed each other and nodded). When I met her I screamed at her WHY? and all she said was I dont know what that was all about, it was just caring, was never like 'that'. I dont think Ive hated or pitied someone as much as I do her in my life.

We have agreed to sell the house soon but at the moment his depression is not good, he has very grey episodes and totally withdraws and becomes cold (he has had these the full 18 years Ive know him, Doc has said it could be ADHD also). We discussed this in MC and he said its not you - its the darkness of the depression (and I mean really dark clinical depression) changes a person, its awful to see.

I have triggers daily when I dont drink, but I can self sooth and handle them easily, and its not everytime; Ive had 3 meltdowns in 5 months. I had quite a rough childhood that made me Anxious and he is clearly Avoident but we are both aware of this and working on it. He is very aware through IC that he finds it hard to talk about feeling and HATES any conflict but is trying really hard to open up and talk to me more (this was the issue with her and why he went to her to talk in the first place). He said he thought I was the cause of his depression and he hated me (still loved me but hated me) now he said he can see clearly it wasnt me but him.

My head is a mess. When will this pain stop?

For me, it was around 9-12 months before I felt the pain ease up.