SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

There is one particular trigger I've told my WW about. Her AP drove a 1996 Ford F-150. Many won't know that truck but as a car/truck guy, that model had a very distinct grill on it. I've told my wife that when I see Asshat drive by in his truck, or any truck of the same model year, it brings back memories/visions of them meeting up and all the detailed things my mind conjurs up that they did when they hooked up. It doesn't have the same effect on me that it used to, but the sadness still surrounds me at those times. When I have those moments, in no way, shape, or form do I feel sexually attracted to my WW. Well, let me just say, this last week the area I've been driving to for work has an exponentially large number of these trucks along my route. I get the feeling she's been wanting some intimacy lately but sorry, ain't happening. I do pretty well dealing with this on occasion, but this feels like a test, a really fucking cruel test. I distract myself with work and have begun finding new fun things to do solo to get through these times. I'm not in distress or anything like that, just needed to get this shit off my chest. Thanks for being great listeners y'all. 🙂

I hear you. My EXWW'S AP drove a white ram 350. Do you know how many of those there are on the road? Well, I guess he sold it and got a new truck, though I have no idea how he can afford it. As further old one, I hope they burned that rolling petri dish...

Coping,

OM is still in the area?

Remove his 3x3 grill.

Replace with some appropriate message, "I'm a scumbag who destroys families"

Survus,
Yes he still in the area. He’s our small town’s funeral home director. Everyone in the community loves him and thinks he’s such a wonderful and caring man. I guess he and my WW were too stupid to remember the old saying "don’t shit in your own back yard".

I think one of the most challenging obstacles for me in recovering from infidelity was in accepting that the experience had changed me on a fundamental level. And integrating that change has painful aspects - specifically because we had no control over it (undeserved) AND it created what I call a soul wound.

The closest comparison I have is when learning as a child that Santa was not real. It changed Christmas from that point forward - but unlike many other altering experiences not common with infidelity - it also changed every past Christmas. Whose laps were those that I sat on, where did all those letters actually go, and how many times - when in my growing confusion I had asked fervently - did my parents lie to me??

Santa ~ marriage, trust, security

Parents ~ liars

Of course it’s not that simple. Everybody wants to tell you why it was ultimately a good thing. And lots of stuff that previously made no sense (fat man coming down a chimney with toys made by elves?) suddenly makes more sense. We have the truth - and that should be a good thing. Right? But it’s the innocence that truth sometimes pushes out…that’s the greater loss.

And the one thing you know most of all, the exact same thing I remember recognizing as a child…you can’t go back. Everything has changed…and you can’t go back.

The point?

I think that’s a really hard loss to integrate. Certainly not something we want to think about on a daily basis.

So when we get a reminder - and we all have them - it’s intrusive. It touches that wounded part of ourselves while simultaneously reminding us there is no passage back. It hurts. And it often feels like it doesn’t play fair. ("I was just driving into work!"). Those moments point out not only the loss but the irrevocability. They’re hard pills to swallow - and it testifies to your aloneness, the recognition of an internal solitude, not just in the "trigger" but also in the fact that we feel so isolated in trying to accept how it has changed us. Why are we not better? Should I sell something? Move?

Infidelity is a death.

The sham is in thinking we can somehow cheat it - the death.

So many aspects die. Some obvious, some we are still trying to accept and integrate years later. But there’s a lot of power to be gained in that - in spite of the time it takes, in spite of the pain, in spite of a social norm that doesn’t recognize or understand this. It’s a journey of a dark night of the soul. Both the event and the subsequent journey breaks part of you.

Let it.

It’s not about some truck.

And if you let it break you completely, you’ll be amazed at how it also puts you back together. ❤️

[This message edited by truthsetmefree at 8:18 PM, Wednesday, June 19th]

Maybe do soemthing to break the trigger cycle. Contact a local junkyard and ask for they have any of that oder of trucks that you can come in and crush or take a bat to. Get the anger and pain out.
As time goes on even the worst triggers fade. Especially if you heal you. Ask me how I know.

My H conducted his A in a town some distance from home. The name of the town beame a trigger for me. At the time one of the major insurance companies was based in that town, and daily I got no less than 10 pieces of mail from there at work for payments and EOBs that my Drs got paid for services. Seeing that city on all that stuff initially took my breath away. Then it would make me irritated that it bothered me, then it got to where I flipped the envelopes around so I didn't see it. We continued to heal and recover. Changed jobs no more daily mail stuff. Then 10 years later I had changed jobs again and had to travel to said town for 3 days. I can honestly say it did not bother me and that town is know for some cool tourist stuff and on downtime we went and saw some cool stuff and had fun, when we got home I even suggested to my H that we do a long weekend trip there to enjoy the sights.
So while it frustrates you now know keep on keeping on, you will heal. That truck won't be on the road much longer anyway.

Coping,

Yes he still in the area. He’s our small town’s funeral home director. Everyone in the community loves him and thinks he’s such a wonderful and caring man.

Was their any downside for OM?

Does even OMW know?

Does your kids go to school with his kids?

How about a massive exposure?

It was a pale blue 1965 VW bus that WW's AP drove, and.later a 76 Mercedes when he entered private practice in his medical specialty. Both cars still wind me up a bit when I see these models, but not nearly as much as when POSOM was still.alive and still resident in our town.