SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Thank you, TheEnd. I appreciate your words. It's good to hear your point of view and encouragement.

Hellfires post is totally toxic and totally unwarranted and totally not the way to go

Hellfire has been a consistent and extremely reliable contributor to this site for years. You would be foolish to ignore her sage counsel. She’s been where you are and is not in the least toxic. Sometimes truth stings at first.

Gr8ful,thank you for that.

Actually,brand new member, I was going through something when I made the post. I was in a deep investigation, having just found out my wh had cheated again,after over a decade of R.

I went back and read that post, to see if I had been too harsh. I hadn't. There was no malice,no vitriol.

I am blunt. I cut through the bullshit. By the time a bs winds up here,they've typically been lied to,and manipulated. I don't sugarcoat. Many here appreciate that. We all have different styles of posting.

Curious..are you a WS?

What's toxic is telling a new bs that decades of lies don't matter,as long as they're in a good place now. Or telling a BS that divorce at their age will be very hard,most people regret divorcing(not according to members in the divorceforum), and then using their kids to further guilt them into attempting reconciliation. It doesn't matter if it's been 2 decades. It's new to this BS. Also,cheating is a choice,not a mistake.

OP..I don't think he was thinking every day about the affair,or that he was thinking he was lying every day for decades. He didn't tell you. Lies of omission are still lies.

If you want to attempt reconciliation, that's wonderful. Truly. You do so by talking about the affair,he needs ic to figure out why he cheated(has nothing to do with you or the marriage), and you work together to move through it.

[This message edited by HellFire at 2:01 PM, Thursday, November 2nd]

Ma'am, though I did not find out years later, the shock and hurt of betrayal always begins on Dday for the BS, regardless of time past. In some ways it must be so much worse that it happened long ago as it must cast a dark pall over the decades in between. Question like, "Was it all a lie?", "How many more were there?", "How can I stay with a traitor and long term liar?", must all rattle around in a toxic, heart-breaking mix. Truth is, I could've been you but my sneaky 1st traitorous wife and her POS messed up and were caught inadvertently by someone who reluctantly informed me (thank God). I suffered through a tortorous decade of "trying" but the damage was too great.

As you work to process what has been done to you, I want to address this:

Perhaps I should have been more clear but the previous post was already quite long. We were not getting along at the time. Regardless, he was married and it never should have happened.

It is said here many times and on other forums as well, issues in the marriage may be reasons for diffucult days together but are absolutely no excuse for marital betrayal. None. Its like swatting a wasp with a hand grenade. The wasp is dead but there are no survivors.

Here is my best advice.....Take. Your. Time.

After all, if he could betray you and lie to you for decades, you can take how ever many months you need to gain clarity. If that means seperation for a time, so be it. In fact, Id encourage it. You need time to mourn both a marriage that was killed by betrayal and a future aborted. After all, had you known, chances are good that youd have legally exited the marriage and begun again with someone else, which is exactly what I did following that horrific decade (cue shivers down my spine).

Gather a support team around you. Dont go it alone. You absolutely should see a therapist that specializes in betrayal trauma recovery. Confide in trusted family and friends. See a Doctor for a sleep aid if you need it. Read the books and articles recommended here in the healing library. Take the time you need to gain the clarity you must have in order to move forward with your life. Maybe see a nutritionist to help combat the super charged stress that your body is trying to process. Seriously, marital betrayal pegs the scale of many stress analysis tests on par with death of a spouse.

I also want to address this:

I agree with him we are not the same people we were 20 years ago and we have both grown and matured and worked on it relationship.

Yeh, well, gently, in one way he is exactly who he was back then....a deceiver. Someone willing to selfishly betray and then lie to you for decades. That is who he still is and, as such, how can you trust him with possible decades more of your life...right?

So again, get that support team around you. Take time to process. All the time you need.

As for him, he needs to get his @ss in therapy to figure himself out. What in him gave him the right to betray you, lie to you, rob you of your agency, and live in that duplicity for decades knowing what it meant for the both of you??? Beyond that, what assurances can he make concerning a continued future with him now that he failed the only real test that matters...fidelity and honesty???? Hes gotta find this out and be completely forthcoming. Id also for sure require a written timeline of the betrayal along with a polygragh to ascertain a baseline level of truth concerning his claims.

On that note, if you want to know what you need to be hearing from him in the future, go over to the Wayward Side forum and read the posts of some amazing former Waywards on this site (HikingOut, DaddyDom, BraveSirRobin, etc.). They will give you tremendous insight into their road to recovery and reconciliation.

Note: I would not dismiss HellFire's input. It may be strong medicine and strike some as ascerbic but I have found her posts to be very insightful. After all, now is not the time to pull punches about what has been done to you. Not at all.

Strength, healing and clarity to you in the days ahead. Keep posting here.

[This message edited by DobleTraicion at 8:21 PM, Thursday, November 2nd]

Hellfires post is totally toxic and totally unwarranted and totally not the way to go.

I don't see this is toxic at all.

Looks like good advice to me.

OP, does your husband know about this site?

Anze43

I'm sorry for the pain you are experiencing. Not many things can compare to the discovery of Infidelity, whether it be from 20 years ago, or two days. Referring to your H's A as a "wet week" by another poster, is shameful. There is one common denominator that brings us all here, INFIDELITY! There will be many useful, and some maybe not so useful suggestions on here but try to keep an open mind and absorb it all. For a poster to make a comment like "Toxic" and "Unwarranted" about another poster is counterproductive.

I wish there were one answer or silver bullet to this madness, but unfortunately, that's not the case. We all have to deal with it in different ways. I can relate to your pain in a way. I too made a discovery of a latent affair. My D-day resulted in a quick D when I found out it had been going on for the last 3 plus years of our M.(totally unforgivable for me too) Then, 4 years after D, I found out through a mutual friend, the XWW, had been in an A with a co-worker during the first year of our M with a man who happened to be married at the time. The part that hurt the most was, he's the same guy she had her A with in our M. Double Whammy! We were married for 24 years, two kids and a plan. They then married 8 days after our D

Had I not been D'd for 2 years, I would have liked to see her suffer too, that's a normal reaction to the cunning, deceitful, arrogance they hid from us for many years. Hiding infidelity from someone for 20 years, is not the same as discovering your spouse backed over the family cat 20 years ago and blamed it on the neighbor.

Please know, that there CAN be something "fantastic" waiting for you in D, if you so choose. Whatever you decide on, we will ALL be here for support.