SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My whole story is this.

I cheated on my loving partner of 5 years to get easy validation from people on the internet.
I had upwards to 9-10 cyber affairs were I requested pictures from multiple women.

I had full blown fantasies that I spent hours indulged in during these chats. I lied about who I truly was irl, telling these girls I was single, made 6 figures, and so many more stupid things to make me more desirable. Because in reality I don’t have any of those things I was flaunting. I just have decent looks.

My affairs went on for 2 weeks starting small and quickly spiraling into me messaging girls in the chat room specifically to let them know my interest in them.

The night I told my partner I told her a complete fallacy that it was just one girl online and she didn’t really care too much. Next day I told her more truthfully, but left out so much.

She came home one day and told me there better not be anything else or that’s it. At the time I was too scared to correct my actions that I kept the secrets going.

One day I say her down to unleash all my wrongdoings I could remember. And even though she was devastated, again she wants us to fix this together. However now she knows I lie from fear of consequences.

A few days later we talked again where a lot of my answers were "I don’t know" as I hadn’t spent the time recollecting and I didn’t want to tell her something that wasn’t true off of instinct.

I answered many questions, and she gave me the benefit of being patient for me to work out all the details. Which I thanked her for in tears.

Since then we’ve been both working hard in therapy and in our relationship to continue caring and loving eachother.

One big thing though is I work out of state ALOT now. My affairs happened when I was unemployed, and I’m not worried about cheating as my body and mind have and are still beating me to what I believe might be the edge of death.

I can barely eat most days, my sleep is constantly disturbed, my anxiety/stress is constantly at peak, and I’m spiraling constantly.

While reflecting I’ve also come to terms that I’m a compulsive liar, I have always lied to be more "interesting" or to protect myself from consequences, and more.

I have taken the step to tell the people in my life that matter and are present in my life of a lot of my terrible lies. And while I’m proud of what I’m making strides to correct, I hate myself for allowing myself to do those things as the lies "don’t hurt anybody".

Back to my terrible choices of infidelity, and my corrections.

I have been spending the past 3 weeks writing a full disclosure as that allows me to remember and jot down whatever it is I’m remembering and flow. However I’m too a point where I’m questioning the legitimacy of what I’ve wrote on a lot of things as my affair evidence is deleted.

Many of the things I remember, and a lot of things are just general rundowns of what happened as they didn’t make enough of an impact to sit in my mind like a physical event would. (I’m not minimizing I swear, just trying to put it in a way that might make sense to readers)

Through triggers I remember more about the affairs, but only bits and pieces. Not what lead up to it, what came after it, so forth and so on.

I’m terrified to hand my girlfriend a disclosure that she accepts, and I have to go back and fix it. I feel like even though I’m working so hard to put it together, it will never be good enough.

I deal with a crazy amount of anxiety that I’ll put everything together and 4 months later ANOTHER DETAIL APPEARS THAT WASNT DISCLOSED. And I prolong my partners hurt.

I truly believe death would be an easier than the guilt and anxiety I’m fighting most days, EVEN THOUGH SHE HAS ONCE AGAIN SHOWED TO BE THE BEST PARTNER I COULD AND WILL EVER HAVE.

She’s amazing, beautiful, funny, talented, hardworking, and truly the light of my fucking life! And I felt that our lack of intimacy gave me the right to go and seek sexual satisfaction online cause it wasn’t "as bad as physical" or "she’ll never know so it’s okay."

I feel like a shitty person, when in reality I’m trying to remind myself I did the actions of a shitty person. I have the desire to be a better person and that should absolve me a bit, however I can’t get those good things to stick because I know how terrible what I did was.

I don’t believe I deserve a second chance, nor do I believe I’m going to be the best partner she has available.

I think about running away all the time, to escape my problems and allow her to move on and heal properly. But I know if I do leave she may never heal.

Overall I just don’t know what tf is going on in my head.

The anxiety and stress are winning, and I don’t know what do at this point while I’m so far away from home for so long.

Welcome to SI. There are some pinned posts at the top of the forum that you may find helpful. Also, I've bumped several posts by DaddyDom that you may find helpful. The Healing Library is at the top of the page and has a lot of great information and includes the list of acronyms we use.

For books, How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair by Linda MacDonald is a little over 100 pages and is a good start. Not Just Friends by Dr Shirley Glass is good, too.

If your anxiety stays spiked, you may want to talk to your doctor about meds.

I'm the BS (betrayed spouse) so I won't say much. Talk to your IC (individual counselor) about doing a therapeutic disclosure so you feel more confident that you've included everything. Your partner needs to have the information to make an informed decision.

I hope others are by soon to offer more advice.

Lea offered some great advice.

I wasn’t apart from my husband after the affair, at least physically. But he still needed a lot of space and I had a lot of work to do on myself.

The way you are feeling is normal. I remember feeling many of these same things. But you need to recognize that these feelings of shame and anxiety are not helpful to her or to you. So it’s important to try to shift by just doing the best you can in each moment.

I used to lie a lot in my youth. For a lot of the same reasons you mentioned. And even though that has momentum, it’s not as hard to stop as you might think. It just takes mindfulness and a commitment to yourself.

I found the book rising strong to help me learn about true connection and being vulnerable. How shame accumulated and held me back. What I would use this time to do is read, and if you can have IC via telegraph or something. Journal. Write here. Keep focusing on doing the next right thing.

This is the part where you learn who you really are and who you want to be. While that is terrifying at the moment, you are about to embark on a journey towards news ways of thinking, being, behaving. That is if you chose to accept that mission, which it sounds like you really want to.

Triptobetter

Welcome to SI. I'm sorry that you find yourself here, however, you are among many others who have made the same poor choices and actions as you, and who understand the depth of pain, regret, trauma... that we experience once our affair(s) are out in the open. How long has it been since you told your spouse?

At SI, we often inform folks that, in our vast experience, most affairs usually require 2-5 years of dedicated work to "recover," assuming that both spouses want that outcome and are willing to put in a lot of effort individually and as a couple. The first year is hell, an emotional roller coaster with constant ups and downs, and a lot of anger and pain between quiet and complacency. Don't make the mistake of thinking these quiet periods are "better" or proof progress in the relationship. They are simply moments where our spouses are tired of dealing with the constant pain and simply choose to focus on themselves and allow some of the pain and anger to just be pushed aside temporarily in order to allow healing and focus to occur. Once they recover, and they will, the anger will start again. Be prepared for these ups and downs.

The very best thing you can do right now is to be 100% honest about everything, and I do mean everything. I know how tempting it can be to get lost in the fear of forgetting details, since the difference between lies and actual forgetfulness doesn't exist after an affair. In most cases, "I don't remember" is going to be interpreted as "I'm lying to save my own ass," whether it is true or not. That being said, you cannot control what you do and do not remember, so the best thing you can do is write down as much as you CAN remember. When you doubt your memory, say so, and do your best. The more honest you are, and the more damning info that you voluntarily reveal with having to have it pried out of you, the more likely you are to get the benefit of the doubt when things are unclear.

Let me tell you this much. It is good that you are feeling the guilt and self-hate. USE IT. Let that be your motivator to make changes in your life, changes that will allow you to be someone you CAN respect. I know that seems impossible, and yes, it will take time, courage, self-honesty, humility, and a willingness to fail over and over again. But you can make changes, and you can respect yourself again. And this is VERY important because, let's face it, you are going to have to give your spouse a damn good reason to want even venture the thought of staying with you or caring about you again. The only way that will happen is if you prove to them that you are a changed person. It's not about what you do. It's about who you are. If they see someone wallowing in self-guilt, that does them no good. It only makes you more of a burden and still self-focused. But if they see someone capable of empathy, sacrifice, self-understanding, accountability... that may make a difference. And if things don't work out? You still need to be a better person anyway. The other option is to hate yourself for the rest of your life.

Go get an IC if you don't already have one. Start there for sure. I would encourage your spouse to do the same. Most people find it helpful to spend some IC time alone before starting couples therapy, and you can ask both therapists to "talk" and decide when it makes the most sense to move forward with couples therapy. The idea here is that you'll need to figure out your "why's" and what in life led up to these actions and behaviors. Likewise, she has to find help to deal with this unexpected and devastating trauma. So she needs to focus on herself right now, the same as you do, to put the pieces of her own life together before she has to worry about putting your collective pieces together. Each of you should heal a bit individually, then together.

I'll echo the advice to find a good IC.

I read 2 issues in your post. First, and I think easier to change, is lying. I wouldn't expect to stop lying overnight, but it is something you really can doo, and I think you'll be happy with the payoff. It's immensely easier to remember what you did than to remember what you did and what you said you did. 'Easier' doesn't mean 'easy', though. It's difficult, so the support of a good IC ic priceless.

The 2nd issue is that I think you're stuck in internal Drama Triangles mainly in the Victim role. I recommend reading about the DT (first named and probably first described by Stephen Karpman). It's something that's very human to do, but it gets overused by some people with low self-esteem. Realizing one is no better and no worse than everyone else is even more difficult tha stopping the lies, and I believe most people make that shift only with the help of a good IC. But stopping the lies and building self-esteem reinforce each other.

You've fucked up. There's no question that you can change, though. You can be honest with others and yourself. You can stop the destructive behavior and adopt nurturing behavior. You can feel good about yourself. You can change from betrayer to good partner. You can attract people who are good partners. You can learn to validate yourself and put what you learn into practice. Your destructive behavior up to now does not doom you to the same behavior forever.

Go for it, bro.

All of the advice shared in this post is really valuable.

Unfortunately, I share many of your feelings, but I have been diagnosed with AVPD (avoidant personality disorder) and ADHD which reinforce the feelings of shame and guilt by thousands.

It's a constant battle and I have to be aware of it every single second because what should matter above all is how my BS feel and I have to admit that there have been many times when he has selflessly comforted me while I was wallowing in self pitty, even having panick attacks - leading me to hate myself even more and to a vicious cycle.

I can't share much advise as I am still struggling with this, too, but I just wanted to let you know that many of us WSs feel that way. I think the key lies in not getting comfortable in self-pitying and self shaming, but rather try to use those feelings as a fuel to become better and heal from whatever led us to act in such despicable, selfish ways.