SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I’ve been looking at various posts on this site for a couple of weeks.
I feel the need to share my story but I’m scared and overwhelmed. There’s so much to say I don’t know where to start. I’m so frightened about my children finding out that I’m terrified of leaving a search history trail. Because of this I’m scared of giving too much detail that they could realise it’s me. I am doing my best to leave no search history.
I am the BW.
I have children that I’m hoping are totally unaware of any problems between my husband and I. (Other than your average minor disagreements which I always try not fo hide from the children so they get a balanced idea that relationships have some flaws).
I am I think 3 years from d-day, everything is a blur.
I feel I should be doing better this far in but I’m just a broken person.
We are working hard to keep our marriage together, I do feel that we both want it to work and that my husband is genuinely sorry and has no intentions to cheat again, but equally my eyes are wide open to the fact that people surprise you. He was the last person I would have expected to have done what he did. It was the biggest shock of my life.
He didn’t have an EA, he joined a swingers group and met with people. I discovered it when I saw photos on his phone. I was far from family in lockdown and had no option but to cope and stay in the house which in some ways may have been a blessing but in other ways was incredibly lonely and tough. My children were in the house the whole time because of lockdown so I never got a chance to just crumble, I had to put a mask on the whole time.
I don’t even know where I’m going with this, I’m only touching on the minimum of the trauma that went on. I suppose I need a light at the end of the tunnel because I’m faltering. Any stories of couples who managed to stay together and live happily ever after?
It’s like all my foundations and stability has been swept away. I have lost all my friends because I don’t want them to know, they will hate him and it’s such a juicy story even the best of people would struggle not to spread it around. I never want it to get back to my children, they idolise him and I don’t want to damage their wellbeing. I’m so overwhelmed and fearful. I’m a shell of who I was, I can act happy and confident in front of people but I find it drains me more and more which makes me isolate myself more and more. I know I sound dramatic but my heart has genuinely hurt since I found out. He broke it. I can understand why they call it a ‘broken heart’ now.
I can feel really strong and powerful in how together I am one day and the next I’m just a paranoid under confident wreck.
I feel like I’ve been put in an impossible position, I have to live with a lie for the rest of my life, I feel totally burdened with it.
I really don’t want to consider divorce as an option, although I have said that my line in the sand is that if he ever does anything like that again it is 100% over. I feel very confident I would follow through on that. I do feel everyone deserves one chance though and I also want to be able to tell my children that I did everything I could if our marriage does fail in the end.
I’ve never posted about it. I’m nervous but hoping this site might help me. Sorry for the ramble.

Welcome to SI and I'm sorry that you're still in such pain. The Healing Library is at the top of the page and has a lot of resources. Are you in IC (individual counseling)? I recommend a betrayal trauma specialist, if possible. They specialize in treating people who have suffered betrayal trauma, and you have suffered trauma.Your foundation and stability has been swept away. You mention that there's other terrible stuff that went on. Any new information that you would learn would set your healing clock back to zero.

What is your WH (wayward husband) doing to help you feel safe? His consistent, transparent work over time helps rebuild trust and stability. He should be in IC to dig deep to figure out why he cheated on you and be working to be a safe partner. If he's not 100% in, then R (reconciliation) is going to be even harder.

There are some positive R stories in the Reconciliation forum, and there are positive D stories in the Divorce/Separation and New Beginning forums. There's good stuff and bad stuff on both sides.

Gently, it looks to me as if you're lying to your kids about their father. What if they find out on their own?

At this point, I think you ARE dooming yourself to living a lie for the rest of your life. There are so many possible ways to change this that I think it's best for you to talk with a good IC and a good attorney.

Don't try to control the outcome. Figure out what you want. Figure out how to get as close to that as you can. Be open to many options. Don't look just at positive R stories. Many BSes dump their WSes and go one to much better lives than if they had forced themselves to stay married. Many BSes are left by their WSes and go on to great lives.

I don't know if R or D or something else is best for you, but have faith in yourself to figure it out.

I do think you'll have to take off your mask. To heal, you've got to act in your own best interests, and stuffing yourself usually isn't anywhere near your best interests. If you look at the positive recon stories, I think you'll see that being honest - no mask - is crucial to R, even though it doesn't guarantee R.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 5:20 PM, Thursday, August 22nd]

I just want to say you can heal regardless of the outcome of your marriage.

Like the others, I wonder what he is doing to help you through this? Is he willing to discuss the affair as much as you need for example? It’s normal you aren’t over it and my concern is you are bottling it up to just keep things moving. Doing that leaves you behind because it abandons your needs in the process.

I also think IC would be a good idea for you. They can help you flush out the areas that you can work on and heal. And as you do that I think you will gain clarity over what you want and need to happen in and with your marriage.

You are not alone. There are many here that has been where you are. It takes 2-5 years to heal from infidelity, but I think those who try and get through it alone makes it harder - there is so much to examine and it’s difficult to do that without talking about it.

The positive message you need is you don’t have to be in this much pain forever. Figuring out what you want and need will help ease the feeling you are living a lie because you will be doing what is authentic to you, you will be calling the shots in your own life. That could look a lot of different ways- including demanding more more of your ws, deciding what kind of marriage you want moving forward, separation, divorce, or maybe some hybrid of more than one of these options. You are holding the power of your future, but as I said at the beginning of this post no matter what path you choose healing is available to you but it doesn’t just happen with time. It will take some effort. But it will be a worthwhile effort.

My fWW an I are R'd going on 5 years. She cheated just before our tenth anniversary.

If divorce isn't a real option for you, you will not be able to R.

from my post that made it to the healing library:

You have to be willing to lose your marriage to save it. OR You have to let go of the outcome.

What it means: This doesn't mean you should threaten divorce to get your WS to shape up. It means if you aren't genuinely ready to leave the relationship with an unsafe partner, they simply will not change. It might feel like splitting hairs, but it's very important. I don't think there is any skipping to the end on this one. This is where a lot of the mess happens. You may *want* to save your marriage, and most likely you will do whatever you feel will work best to do so. I'm not saying to not try that, I'm just saying that part of the work and lesson is that you have to be ready to walk away when you aren't getting the actions you need out of your WS.

EDIT: Full post https://survivinginfidelity.com/documents/library/articles/recovery/three-years-(and-a-day)-what-I-did-to-reconcile/

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 6:49 PM, Thursday, August 22nd]

Thank you so much for your responses,
Does anyone else find the responses terrifying to read? I’m shaking.
In answer to a couple of the questions, we did couples counselling and then individual counselling and then I had more individual counselling last year.
I touched on it on another thread, the first counsellor we saw, the couples counsellor, strongly suggested I didn’t tell anyone ever. I don’t know if she was right or wrong to do that but in my shocked state, I took it very seriously. It was like a massive extra weight for me, I didn’t want to tell everyone or be vindictive to him, but I also am the type of person who draws huge comfort from communicating. I hate having a lie to hold on to. I wear my heart on my sleeve, I don’t mean to but all my friends say I’m a bit of an open book. I spoke to the counsellor in the next session and said that it just wasn’t sitting comfortably with me to keep it secret from everyone, I was concerned close friends and family would pick up that something was very wrong but come to the wrong assumptions. I didn’t want to be burdened with more secrets just after finding out so many of his in such a visual way. Those photos are burned into my brain. Because she suggested not telling anyone in front of both of us I can understand why my husband has absolutely latched onto this. He’s in total agreement, why wouldn’t he be. I wouldn’t want people to know if I had done something like that. I did let it slip to my mum after a few weeks of keeping it quiet, I felt like such a failure, like I said on the other post, it then brought more lies because I didn’t feel like I could tell him that she knew. She knew something wasn’t right and I broke down.
In terms of the children, I’m not protecting them for their father’s sake, it’s for them. They are pre teen and young teen, it would rock their world and I can’t see anything good to come from it.
He has read lots of books, listened to audiobooks books, been prepared to talk whenever I need, been incredibly apologetic and has promised never to do it again. From what I’ve read here he’s showing all the signs of genuine remorse. I still love him, I’m not staying with him for financial security, I know I wouldn’t be well off if I just walked away but I also would be very surprised if he didn’t act honourably about setting the children up to be secure if we separated. As a very under confident person I’m surprisingly confident that I would cope fine with living on my own with the children, so I do feel I’m staying for the right reasons. We both want the marriage to work out and I do want the children to grow up with us together. But not if we are arguing/making a miserable atmosphere/environment for them (which we aren’t)
I think it’s just the fear of the future, taking that step of pure trust and hoping I don’t get hurt like that again.
I feel like I’ve exhausted the counselling side of things, it almost got to the point where I think it was keeping it too fresh and too much of a focus by talking about it with therapists.
It does hurt that I’ve had to step away from friends for fear of letting on about what happened. All of my friends have connections to his work and he could lose his job because of it. That would have a negative impact on a of us. I do fear he hasn’t had to deal with too many consequences. Because I found out in lockdown abroad, I couldn’t even give him a bit of a scare by moving out for a bit, and the children were old enough to have picked up on that.
The other steps he’s taken are that he’s told me I can look at his phone/search history any time I want. I don’t want to live my life like that, checking up on him. If he’s stupid enough to do it again and I catch him then I will tell him it’s over and I’ve told him I will have to tell the children why because I’m not prepared to fall on my sword and have them think I left him for no valid reasons.
At this stage I do still want to put 100% into staying together as long as he does the same. I just hope it will work out and I won’t feel so low for too much longer. I need to pull myself out of this but I don’t feel very strong.
I am so grateful for the advice you have all given me and the time you have taken to respond.

Welcome starareshining. I'm sorry you're here but glad you found us.

I too told no one on my first dday. I remember feeling like I was now keeping their secret. The burden of hiding, lying, minimizing left my husband's shoulders (and his APs) and became mine. Meanwhile, he was practically unscathed from the devastation he caused.

That led to Dday2. I'm not saying it's my fault there was another Dday but since there were almost zero consequences for him, he didn't feel any urgent need to actually end the affair. He figured he'd cake eat until I decided what I really wanted.

We separated at that point. I then told my closest friends and my side of the family. With family, I didn't go into details. Only, he had an affair and I've asked him to leave. BUT the difference in my pain and my coping now that I had a support system to lean on was amazing. Relieving myself of that lie felt liberating. Having love and support, friendship and even laughter saved me.

I'm not saying tell everyone. But you do need a support circle. You need to feel loved and you need to express yourself. It's hard because part of our resistance to telling the story is shame. Shame that really isn't ours. Shame we do not deserve at all. The first step towards overcoming this false shame is to tell someone.

I truly think you will feel better and heal faster if you have folks to walk this journey with you.

One question: did you WH discover his why's? I don't know much about swinging but that sounds like jumping into the deep end of the infidelity pool. What drove him to do that? How do you know that whatever led him to take that risky road has been resolved?

Thank you so much for your responses,
Does anyone else find the responses terrifying to read? I’m shaking.

I have been here a long time and I do t recall seeing anyone describe it that way. I do think sometimes it’s hard to read the advice given. I have experienced that. But I wonder a bit if you feel like you have opened Pandora’s box? Like you are doing something wrong in coming here in hopes of unburdening yourself.

Infidelity is very isolating and lonely. And you are especially in that mode. Maybe you made a good decision coming here to start to let some of this out.

My husband and I have reconciled. We are happy, but it did take a long time to arrive here. It’s normal the things you think and feel.

I am going to recommend a book to you called "rising strong" by brene brown. It’s not really about infidelity, it’s about vulnerability and connection, overcoming shame and recognizing how it isolated us. I think becuae of all the secrecy you may be experiencing shame in staying to a certain degree. And lots of people here feel that way. I think that book will start an awareness in you and it will help you identify some things you want to try to work on for yourself. Sometimes all the therapy is too centered on the affair, that it leaves out self exploration of how we have become who we are and how we view ourselves.

I hope this becomes less terrifying for you because I think you need a place to let it all out and with people who understand because they have been where you have been.

It can and does get better, but there is a crazy amount of processing to do. Maybe you will find this as a way of helping you through that. It feels like you have tightly grasped this secret, and maybe you are overwhelmed by people seeing this. It’s truly an anonymous forum here though, and we are here for you.

OP, Sorry you are here. Marriages can thrive after betrayal assuming the wayward spouse is truly remorseful and putting in the work.

Having said that, you seem absolutely traumatized and still in shock. You probably need a therapist that deals with trauma , I often hear of EMDR trained therapists being good at this. I think your goal should be to focus on healing first.

Is your husband putting in the work to understand why he did what he did ?

You don’t have to tell your children , it’s not lying. It’s a call you take as a parent. If you were getting divorced, then yes you should. You should only confide in friends that are mature enough to handle this and are ok if you decide to work on the marriage. Someone that respects your choices and your decisions. Most people don’t have that maturity , I have one friend in my circle that I knew had a balanced opinion.

Ultimately , you should do what’s best for you. Don’t be swayed or affected by the responses here ( including mine) . Everyone has their own stories, and their own trauma. Your husband is a cheating a**hole to all of us. We aren’t married to him. You are and you know other aspects of his personality. My husband cheated but that does not define his entire personality and our marriage.

Ultimately a BS needs to learn , grow and be stronger from this experience. Be smart and prepared for whatever comes next. It could mean a healthier marriage or divorce.

Does anyone else find the responses terrifying to read? I’m shaking.

There are umpteen potential reasons for fear. Would you mind sharing your specific reasons?

*****

What do you mean by 'positivity'? There are umpteen ways of viewing that, too.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:29 PM, Friday, August 23rd]