SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

It’s hard to not feel stupid and there is a serious anger phase in the healing journey, its anger towards ourselves. I had to see it for what it is, it’s a con job by the person we trust the most. They are living in a fantasy world and they manipulate everyone to play their role in the fantasy. None of us are willing to play that role voluntarily so we have to be duped in to it.

That innocent blind trust of my W is something that is gone forever, I will always have to pay attention to warning signs, it’s the new normal, you can’t un-ring that bell.

Before Christmas I was secretly texting her best friend trying to order my W the perfect gym bag. After Christmas I showed my W the text exchange and she said "I don’t need to see it, I wouldn’t have thought anything about it". I am thankful I have never given her a reason to question anything, my W still has that innocent blind trust.

Jasonch,

I am sorry I was late seeing this:

While i do believe it is my wife's cross i also believe it is mine to bear. The gravity of infidelity makes it hard to escape its mass and pull. i believe that the formula of time and distance (with some work thrown in) is the only way to escape. What i am wondering is if the weight of the cross gets less or if a person gets stronger from carrying the cross around. It more than likely is a combination of both.

I read this as you are carrying it because you suffer the repercussions. I don’t doubt that. You have been traumatized by her actions and may not know how to deal with that. I wonder if you have tried therapy? I don’t mean it in the way of you are deficient. I mean it in the way it’s hard to heal from infidelity and sometimes professional guidance can help you manage some of that. I wish my husband had gone, I think carrying it drove him to exhaustion.

My comments were more about it wasn’t my husbands fault that I cheated. Yes, we were very disconnected at the time, and he did have some to do with that. But a lot of it was unknowingly. He didn’t feel the disconnect and wasn’t informed of it. A person who has an affair has many other choices to deal with that instead of to cheat.

We’ve all been there. Without sounding like a pompous ass, there was a time that my job required a lot of travel for auditing purposes, now I manage the people that do almost all of that travel. But in 2018 and 2019 I was on a flight every other week and some months it was every week a trip, even if it was just a few days and back home for Th-F.

Well, in the process of all that travel, I had a lot of miles and hotel points that I accumulated with the thought of us using them for our personal travel. Well, in early 2019, my wife comes to me and said that she was going to a girls weekend, with two friends who were flying in from El Salvador where my wife is from, over in Tampa at Busch Gardens. Well, Tampa from Miami is a 4+ hour drive but a less than hour flight, so I offered up miles and hotel points for her and "her friends" trip. She insisted on driving and that it wasn’t necessary for her to fly, but she did take me up on the hotel points. Thinking girls trip, I went ahead and booked them a mini suite…little did I know that it was a lovers getaway weekend and my wife and her AP must’ve been so happy to enjoy that suite that was essentially on my dime. Of course, I didn’t know all that at the time but in retrospect, she gave me names of girls I didn’t know well, but I had no reason to suspect that she was lying so I didn’t bother reaching out to them. What the dead giveaway should’ve been was that one of them she had invited to our wedding in El Salvador and the other I had never heard of and she wasn’t even connected on Facebook with the second one, so it would be odd to have a girls trip weekend with one gal you barely even know and the other friend who really was more of an acquaintance than a friend. I mean, I only met this woman at our wedding for 10-15 mins and never spoken with her again and while I never have monitored my wife’s every conversation, I should’ve picked up on the fact that the names she gave me weren’t real. Her two closest friends and bridesmaids in our wedding, well I’ve known them for almost as long as I’ve known my wife and I had their contact info and could’ve verified the girls trip in about 2 minutes.

So yeah, in the category of how could I have been so naive/stupid, we’ve all had those moments and looking back on them, I just am bitter, hurt and angry that I was lied to about those events.

I have 4 years of stupid.

When I first met OW#1 she was a grad student with my H. First time I met her I told my H to watch himself, she’s very interested in more than just friends. We laughed about it.

I considered her a friend. She was at my house at our invitation. I was ok with their friendship - b/c my H "would not cheat"🤪. At least not with her. 🤪.

Year 4 it’s pushed boundaries and he refused to end the "friendship". I finally exploded and he did cut it off. But at that point grad school was finished so it was no more 4 nights a week they were in class together.

4 years I put up with "there’s nothing going on" and "we’re just friends". Funny how as a "friend" she called me to ask if I would be ok with my H going to a wedding with her b/c she needed a date.

And 15 years later OW2 told me my H admitted he "cheated on me with OW1". And it was the same girl b/c she (OW2) said "they were in grad school".

To this day my H swears it was an emotional affair. Nothing more. And yet he never admitted he did anything wrong regarding OW1 until after I told him I was D him ( at dday2 of affair2). Then he said "I knew my friendship with OW1 was wrong".

So yes. 4 very looooong years of that fight.

Looking back I should have ended it then (late 90s). I allowed the disrespect for far too many years.

There's something especially egregious about the WS allowing the worlds of the BS and the AP to collide.

Once of the things that really got me was when H told me that he was giving some tickets to a work friend and that they would be swinging by the house to pick them up. We weren't going to be home, so I put them in an envelope and wrote "Have fun!" on the outside, then taped it to my front door. I found out months later that the "work friend" was the AP. She never did come get them, but that he invited her to come by our house was an enormous violation.

I can't imagine having to deal with knowing that the WS slept with the AP in your home. I couldn't even stand the thought of her sitting in my seat in H's truck.

There's something especially egregious about the WS allowing the worlds of the BS and the AP to collide.

I agree, though I mostly feel it vicariously thru my kids. Even just typing that brings up rage that she dared to bring my kids around him, and then the texting my daughter…

I can only imagine what OBS’s story would sound like on here with my wife going all buddy/buddy and nannying her kids that she trusted with almost no one because of her CSA. And my wife knew that. So fucked up.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 8:07 PM, Wednesday, February 21st]

Hikingout --

I read this as you are carrying it because you suffer the repercussions. I don’t doubt that. You have been traumatized by her actions and may not know how to deal with that. I wonder if you have tried therapy? I don’t mean it in the way of you are deficient. I mean it in the way it’s hard to heal from infidelity and sometimes professional guidance can help you manage some of that. I wish my husband had gone, I think carrying it drove him to exhaustion.

My comments were more about it wasn’t my husbands fault that I cheated. Yes, we were very disconnected at the time, and he did have some to do with that. But a lot of it was unknowingly. He didn’t feel the disconnect and wasn’t informed of it. A person who has an affair has many other choices to deal with that instead of to cheat.

Thank you for the response. My reply was not directed at you per se. It was more of a response to how i think burdens are carried, and as it pertains to this thread stupidity. While the ownership of an act is for the person who committed the act it is most often the recipient that carries the lasting effects of it.

In the case of infidelity even though you know you were duped looking back causes me, and i believe others, to feel extremely stupid. That was the context of the original post. The naivety and trust lost go along with the stupidity and all of the other parts of betrayal that are carried. We all wear our scars proudly!

As far as the therapy goes -- i have been in it for coming up on four years now. It has helped. Finally, you can call me deficient -- that is just fine. i am just as deficient and sufficient as everyone else Thank you for your thoughtful contributions to this place.

Although intellectually I know I’m not stupid, I just find my misperceptions haunting me a bit and leading to some bad communication patterns with my husband. We had one of our « talks » a few days ago. The frequency of these sessions is way down which should be a good thing. But I find it hard to accept his answers because I’m asking myself whether I can trust myself to reasonably evaluate the information.

There was an incident two months after his A was supposedly over where the OP demanded to talk to him and he secretly went. She was being pushed out of the company and she was kind of losing it. He was very fearful she would report him to HR for what happened or reveal the A to me. He did offer this info up to me without me catching him. He says while in the car she tried to lean in to kiss him. He says he thinks she did it out of desperation to get him to help her and he pulled back right away, but reassured her he would still help her. I said she must have been embarrassed that he didn’t let the kiss happen. He insisted she definitely did not feel embarrassed.

At first that really left me feeling it was all a lie. This is a thought I fall back on a lot. To me anyone who tries to kiss someone and gets rejected feels some embarrassment. It made me think maybe he actually let her kiss him. And if that’s the case then the A was still going on. It’s kind of a downward spiral from there for me.

But, I was reminded in reading one of HikingOut’s other posts that many APs are delusional and interpret things in their own distorted way. So maybe even if it seems to me like it is inconsistent to be turned down and not to feel embarrassed maybe she created alternate explanations in her own mind that he still wanted things to continue between them. I want my husband and me to interpret these events from the past in the same way but I guess sometimes thats not possible.

OldWounds: the years later aspect makes angry. If he had told me 8 years ago these screwed up memories could have been made clear. Instead they are just a bit less foggy…

Stillconfused2022-

I don't buy into lost memories for those of us in the dreaded "Found Out Years Later" group.

My wife waited 18-years to confirm and confess to the horror show.

And that initial confession went from a ONS to the 4-year LTA over the course of eight TT months. It helped that my memory was good, and then I was aided by breaking out a calendar, and I tracked all of my work travel trips and her travel trips. With that info we retraced every weekend that family friend AP was free to visit our place or their place (two blocks away didn't help either).

So, I understand how it can take longer to rebuild trust (in yourself, which seems like the reason for the thread) or trust in him.

Finding out years later has its own sharp edges for our recovery.

Keep asking questions, even if you think the timeline is somewhat hammered out. Ask until you feel safe enough to keep moving forward.

OldWounds,
Thank you. It is all indeed very much wrapped up in the number of years spent with him spooning me lies and me lapping it up. We discussed the incident with his assistant frequently. He was pretty adept at keeping his facts straight. Also, she came back…through a side door in the company she rejoined. He got her pushed out again because her return was a violation of their severance agreement. But it still put me through an additional two years of hell. If he had told me way back when we could have gone to the OBS and with that pressure I’m sure she would never have dared to come back. At this point I feel very sad, like our chance for R was blown up. I do believe he feared losing his marriage and his family. But, it doesn’t change the fact that the wound is massive as a result of all of his choices. We are limping right now, maybe we just need the full 2-5 years from the date of me finding out the truth.

I haven’t yet been brave enough to post my story on here. Mostly because I am so afraid OW will see it and be so delighted about the devastation she has caused me.
But, I see your "how could I be so stupid" and I raise you mine…..she was my friend. She was in my house with her husband and we were in hers, every week. I thought it was weird that she started talking about how she walked around "wearing no knickers" I didn’t understand it. I even mentioned it to my husband " what’s that all about"? Of course. He said he had no idea 🤦‍♀️🤦‍♀️
I thought it was weird when she randomly announced one night that she would "rather be with a fat man than a thin man" Her husband is skinny as a rake. Mine is not. Again, I mentioned it to my husband later but I STILL didn’t get it. She was turning up at my house dressed like an aging stripper (she’s more than 20 yrs older than me) and it Never. Crossed. My. Mind.
So yeah. I felt stupid as hell. But, do you know what? I’m not. I am just a decent, honest, loyal human who couldn’t imagine on my worst day doing the despicable things that they did. That’s on them, not me. In this whole shit show, I REFUSE to take one iota of blame. They were two shit, selfish people doing shit, selfish things. I had nothing to do with it. I’m proud of who I am. They can’t say the same.

I've never seen a post from a BS saying they think they were smart during the A....

The only answer that makes sense to me is that it's very human to trust the one we love and who we, think, loves us. I know that's not satisfying at first, but as you gain persepctive, you'll see what I do: it's the most likely explanation.

*****

I think the burdens a BS bears are much different form those born by the WS. To heal, a BS needs to process the pain of being betrayed out of their body. Since being betrayed is traumatic, that means they probably will have to process more than the betrayal pain, but I see a BS's healing as relatively simple. Changes made by a BS are related to processing pain.

WSes have a lot of pain stored up in their bodies, to, IMO, and they need to process it just as BSes need to process their own pain. To heal, though, a WS also needs to change from cheater to good partner, and I think that's very difficult work, especially after doing so much damage to themselves, to the BS, and to their ap. The WS needs to change themself much more than the BS has to. That's why I think the burdens are different.

We are limping right now, maybe we just need the full 2-5 years from the date of me finding out the truth.

Every time I got hit with TT, it was a full reset. My wife eventually got it, but it cost us both some precious time — and so much of it is lost until a WS understands that holding back the truth only hurts the relationship more.

Be kind to you, take all the time you need. The deal is broken, you just have to figure out if your WH can earn enough trust back to make any kind of rebuild worthy of you.

[This message edited by Oldwounds at 5:50 PM, Friday, February 23rd]

Sisoon

I've never seen a post from a BS saying they think they were smart during the A....

I'm sure you've seen these posts on occasion, as have I. They usually involving the OP being a master detective (as well as handsome and wealthy to boot)... but they were obvious trolls.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 5:53 PM, Friday, February 23rd]

I feel stupid for having been duped my entire M. There were always red flags and I was witness to boundary crossings and flirting with other women before I discovered the A's. I didn't want to be "that wife" that constantly held a noose around his neck or wanted to show jealousy. Even after I discovered his first A when he hired the MOW at his company and said she would be riding in the car with him for training I felt uncomfortable and voiced it. I didn't think it was a good idea with his poor boundaries. We fought like hell over it. I always let him trample over my boundaries and never did anything serious about it. Guess he thought I would take it forever and stay forever.

Mine - from over 8 years ago now. But before I tell the story - think about this...I had to DIG through my memory to even remember it. Not because I have put the ignore button on those feelings and thoughts but because they just don't happen anymore. So much has happened in my life since then I really truly honestly had to think for like 10 minutes before remembering this. Honestly, I had the thought: maybe I didn't have any moment like this. Hahahahaha!!

Moral is: this too shall pass.

So WH and AP had already confessed to AP kissing WH at some party at their house while OBS (now Ex-OBS) was there. I was not as I was out of town. The kiss was her doing and went nowhere (confirmed by phone reconstruction) - and she sent a million texts apologizing, she told OBS, OBS was upset about it but said he was willing to move on (they all work together and were all close friends - especially OBS and WH). WH told me about it - and that he rejected the advance (true) and that she felt really bad about it and that she had been messaging him apologizing (again, true). IDK why at the time I didn't think it odd that she felt the need to have all kinds of communication with WH afterwards. I mean you told your husband, you apologized to WH for making the pass at him - done and done right? So finally she. stops all that and for about a year she goes silent - then she's back to confiding in WH about how her 3 year old marriage isn't going so well blah blah blah. WH tells me about it and I tell WH I think it's not appropriate for them to be talking especially since WH and OBS are good friends - he will get caught in the middle and it will all end badly (little did I know...how badly).

So, with her renewed communication and her past history, there is a party with a bunch of work friends - OBS is working but AP is not so AP is at the party "alone" (aside from all the work friends which constitute about 90% of the people there so she is hardly in a place where she knows no-one). We were supposed to go but I'm not feeling up to it so we decide to stay home when AP messages "begging" WH to come to the party. She's drunk he tells me and he doesn't want her to drive - So he goes and I still stay home, knowing the history, watch TV and fall asleep. Nothing happened between them that night (again confirmed by messages from the phone) but she wanted it to and it didn't take long after that.

I beat myself up for a long time about this and honestly IDK when I stopped but in hindsight I had no blame in this scenario at all. None.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 2:34 PM, Monday, February 26th]