SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I know everyone says "no contact, no contact, no contact." I get it; I'm doing that. But what else CAN I do right now?

I think you're doing GREAT!

One step at a time. That's the best way to go. Things are getting better and better. Settle into work more, settle into the apartment, get Marley, have a good time with your friends..... and ghost your ex. When it's time to be more sociable, then it's time- be it in 6 months or two years. Just work on you and let all else fall into place when the time is right. Besides, it's college football season.

I know everyone says "no contact, no contact, no contact." I get it; I'm doing that. But what else CAN I do right now?

What you are searching for is a quick and easy way out of your situation. There is nothing quick or easy about the ordeal you are experiencing. Many in your place try to drink away their sorrows, other bounce from hookup to hook up, regardless the avenue all fail to quickly escape. To your credit you haven't done anything so foolish.

There is no short cut. She will be in your thoughts for the foreseeable future. Survive each day. The pain does lessen as you come to accept who she really is vs who you thought she was. Frankly this experience will wear you out to the point you will no longer care about her. You will move on. Not a question of if, just when.

How can I be so sure in your case? Easy. You already took the hardest steps and in short order. So many others choose to languish in the misery they find themselves in. Also, I have already gone before you. My ex wife is at best a faded memory. I can confirm I have an ex wife but not much more than that. I don't remember any of the good times. Some of the bad memories remain but there are no feelings attached. I remarried. I rebuilt my life. Distance and no contact played a big role in my healing. You will find this too. Focus on your new direction - your new employer, your new dog and rebuilding your life. Survive each day. No more, no less.

When all legal matters are settled do not send any final message to your former wife. I am not suggesting this in an effort to be petty, but recognize it will only send her the message that she still has influence over you. When you no longer have any need to communicate with her stop. She will continue to reach out to you however. She will not want you to be happy or move on. I would recommend that you change your phone numbers, email etc. Would also recommend you tell members of your family to ignore any communication from her regardless of how dire she paints her situation. If you have mutual friends consider letting them go quietly. Chances are they are more sympathetic toward her than you. Firewall your life in any and every way you can think. You will not regret these precautions.

[This message edited by smolderingdark at 2:58 PM, Monday, September 6th]

@smolderingdark:

Thank you for sharing your experience and your advice.

It is interesting what you said about letting go of my mutual friends I had with my ex...I really had two that I was extremely close with. I continue to have contact with both of them (though none of this contact has related to my ex, or my divorce, or the past relationship at all). Both of these friends are two of my ex's best friends - she's known them for almost 15 years. The four of us lived together for a couple years. Both of these friends were my wife's maids of honor at our wedding. In fact, I served as the officiant at the wedding of these mutual friends earlier this year!

The divorce and breakdown of our marriage was really difficult on them, I know. Early on, they both pulled away from myself and my ex. After I moved, they started reaching out to me more. But it has been quite difficult on me...knowing that they are more likely than not going to take my ex's side no matter what.

What makes it even easier for me to let them both go quietly is that, in one of my last conversations with them, they both indicated that they had expressed their own reservations about my ex's relationship with Mark in private conversations...so they both knew, had an inkling that something was going on, and said nothing to me (and presumably to my ex). That fucking sucks to know too.

I think I will need to phase them out of my life. If I want a true "clean break" / "fresh start" I need to really hack away at anything that ties me to that past life.

What makes it even easier for me to let them both go quietly is that, in one of my last conversations with them, they both indicated that they had expressed their own reservations about my ex's relationship with Mark in private conversations...so they both knew, had an inkling that something was going on, and said nothing to me (and presumably to my ex). That fucking sucks to know too.

I think I will need to phase them out of my life. If I want a true "clean break" / "fresh start" I need to really hack away at anything that ties me to that past life.

You are correct.

Definition of friend - loyal, honest and trustworthy.

Just cut them off. You don’t need to let this linger. I’d block everyone in this category. I’d do the same with her family too. Stop the nice guy routine. You don’t owe anyone like this a thing. People like this will just walk all over you. Expect better and you’ll get it.

FYI - I have shared a major new update here: https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums/?tid=654632&HL=78991

That is good news OP. Now you can focus on moving on with your life.

You asked for some tips on things you can do in this stage of healing...

If you have not tried meditation I suggest you try it. There are several that get you in touch with your current 'state of mind'. As someone said you need to take time to greave. It's ok to not be ok.

One meditation I really enjoy is called RAIN. Look it up by googling Tara Brach and RAIN meditation. She has also a book called 'radical compassion' that i really enjoyed.

A very good reflective meditation to keep you grounded is to take 10 min and reflect on the following questions;
1. What do I physically feel now in my body from head to toe?
2. What am I currently thinking?
3. What am I currently feeling?
4. What is my mental state of mind right now from 1-10?
5. What do I need at this moment that will serve me?

Good luck on your new beginning 🙂

bump

Hoping CB returns. With a pic of Marley.

Hey - I'm here. Staying strong. Working hard. Buying furniture and getting ready to move into my new apartment in early October!

I am 100% no contact with my ex. I have no desire to speak with her, hear from her, see her, or be with her at all. She hurt me, devastated me, used me, disrespected me, and strung me along all to just throw everything away because she was too weak-willed to go through the difficult process of trying to communicate and work on things with me, or to just simply be honest with me.

I see Marley two or three times a week. I am adopting him (OFFICIALLY) the weekend after I move into my apartment. I'll get settled, get my furniture set up, my TVs mounted, photos ready...and then my sweet fur buddy and I will be hanging out and having a great time together. I can't wait for my new home!! Unfortunately, I still can't get image sharing to work on this website...and even linking to my Reddit posts that show pics of Marley hasn't worked...I don't know why I can't figure it out.

Anyway. More updates about me and my mental state:

Work is going well. Most people around my office know about the divorce and have been very sympathetic and understanding. People have been impressed with how well I've been able to work and how much I have accomplished here - given everything else going on in my personal life.

My therapist is great; she is working with me on mental exercises to help me calm my very overactive and anxious mind.

I am exercising regularly. I am running a half-marathon this weekend at Mount Rushmore! So I've been training for that. When I complete that, I will dedicate myself more to a strength/weight training regimen. I am looking forward to that. My appetite has been coming back, slowly but surely.

I still find myself struggling to concentrate on stuff...I am reading a lot, but only a chapter here or there at a time...and I can't remember the last time I wanted to watch a "new" show. I find myself turning to re-watching TV shows I have seen many times already--solely because I can find comfort in them and don't have to pay much attention.

Socially...this is probably the biggest struggle for me. 1) I definitely do not have any desire to date anybody (this is mutually exclusive from my desire to have sex, however...); and 2) I also am really having a hard time even wanting to do social activities with friends. I go out and do "friend" stuff at least twice a week though. But overall, I still just kind of feel like I am a black hole. Even though I know I am doing pretty well given everything that has happened to me in recent months, I find myself struggling to "be happy" and end up coming home from social events just absolutely exhausted from "putting on a happy face" all night. It's been really hard. I know it'll get better - and certainly will probably be easier when I have my dog full-time and can take him to dog parks any day to hang out and meet new people.

Thanks for reading my update.

That is good news! Give us feedback on your performance on the marathon. Whether you finish or not is still a big accomplishment for you considering what you've been through for practically half of this year.

Good luck and all the best!

You are still grieving. This was the death of your marriage. Don’t beat yourself up to try to be more than you can be. It really is just one step at a time. You can’t go around grief you have to go through it. Find yourself a good buddy that you can do things with and just hang on because you will eventually get there.

Don't force yourself to be someone you're not.

So unless you're someone who normally likes to go out and socialize, don't force yourself to do this. But if it's something you normally do and enjoy, but you don't feel comfortable going through because of the difficult process you're going through, then you can push yourself a bit.

You've done very, very well in getting yourself out of infidelity very quickly. So quickly in fact that your emotional state is understandably behind were you are. You had a shit ton of crap dumped on you emotionally. Don't stress about the lack of desire to socialize for now. Keep doing things you want to do. Six months to a year down the road I think you'll find you are in a much better place socially than you are now and will wonder why you were so stressed about it now. Keep walking your path.

Thanks everybody.

I need to stop piling on extra emotional stress for no reason. I need to just take this time to BREATHE a bit.

I posted originally in June(?) I think? and by August 1 I was packing up my car to move across the country. Just over a month later and I am officially divorced.

It is WILD how fast all of this happened; and totally understandable why I have such consistent and constant "emotional whiplash". I feel like I experience the five stages of grief in a cycle at least twice a day...

I do know that the best way forward is to go through the grief, not try to get around it. I am going to continue working on myself, and on being more confident and authentic with who I am.

Don’t think you have to go through the stages. You’ve doubted how you’re handling this and it’s always relative to something. (I will glibly allude to the fact you’re an American lawyer educated in the way of "common law"… unlike the rest of the world precent doesn’t mean all that much, specially to your recovery).

You do you. If you’re comfortable throwing yourself into work… throw yourself into work. If you’re comfortable being a social hermit… be a fucking social hermit. These "guides" to dealing with things don’t take into account the individual.

You know you, you do you. If you get enough human interaction at your job don’t let anyone tell you that social interaction is the way forward.

If you wanna only spend your time being a kickass lawyer and looking after the adopted dog then fucking draw the line there.

You do you.

I am going to continue working on myself, and on being more confident and authentic with who I am.

You have a lot of positives going for you. Your big problem going forward will be picking the right one.

In this there are no hurries. Living alone makes a great man. Lots of positives in doing that for awhile.

A couple of really fine posts, CB. Considering the timeline, you're killing it. Just keep at it. In time you'll be fighting to keep the ladies off you.

CB
How are you doing my friend
Hopefully all is well.
My best wishes

I am doing ok, for the most part.

I think there was SO MUCH going on in my life in such a short period of time that I really got caught up in it all and was very mentally distracted. I moved away, started a new job, stayed with my parents for a bit, got my own apartment, moved in, furnished it, adopted a new dog, all while working and trying to meet new friends and settle into my new home state. It really kept me occupied.

Now, things have calmed down in my life and I find myself feeling a lot of stress and anxiety again. Depression is settling in again as well. Feeling down, missing her, wishing she had been "better" and not thrown everything I thought we had away.

I am in therapy and it is helping. My dog is a wonderful companion.

But I still can’t help but feel those feelings of "worthlessness", of loneliness, of feeling like something is wrong with me for having been cheated on and getting divorced. I fear never finding love again, I struggle to have the mental energy and bandwidth to develop deeper friendships right now. I miss the companionship of another human being, I miss being hugged by someone that’s not just a friend or family member.

Ugh, I am all over the place. It is a weird time, and a weird space to be in for sure.

You can be sure we are all here to listen, and we get it, so don’t be a stranger.

It's all perfectly natural. You are coming down from the highest of high hits of adrenaline and are going through the withdrawals.

The analogy of the rollercoaster ride is very apt. You have been on one hell of a ride with more ups, downs, twists and turns than most people but now that you are off the ride and standing at the turnstile again, the brain is still up there riding those rails whilst the body is standing of terra-firma slightly swaying and going "wtf just happened!!".

You'll find that as you settle into new routines, your new "normal" that the sense of unease will lessen and your brain catches up. Muscle memory will get you through most days but you'll settle down.

You have all the time in the world though so just start taking things easy and go a bit easier on yourself. You are learning how to walk again afterall and still are adjusting to not being flung emotionally around those twists and turns and precipitous drops.