SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

..I feel your pain..

and after 34 years...? makes you wonder if any of your life was real... or mine for that matter.

smy

Shellshocked2021,

Sorry you’re here. It’s a tough one to find out all these years later. This particular forum doesn’t seem to get a lot of traffic. You may want to re-post your two most recent posts in the JFO section. I think you’ll get a lot more constructive advice over there.

Thank you.

I'm still processing. It has been traumatic for me after learning the just of it last March. I would have left him all those years ago in our only car with our unborn first child. To my family in another state - all done with him. Bizarre. My whole life would be different now.

Icantgetpassed-

I am the same way, had I found out while it was going on I would have left him. My life would be different, I often wonder how different?

I’m super late to this, but I also agree I would have LIKELY left my husband if I had found out when it was active. I obviously can’t say for certain, but there just wasn’t anything to fight for then. It’s quite a mind F isn’t it?

I too wonder what life would be like if I had discovered it back then. Maybe I’m alone in being partially grateful it happened the way it did. Not for my husbands benefit, but for mine and my children’s. It’s quite strange to be in this situation.

I found out post 6 years after FWH ended it. I often feel as though if I had found out whilst it was going on I would have left. You wanna fuck someone else, be my guest, but I ain't gonna be around for that and I ain't competing for my own husband.

However, I am surprised that I reconciled with a man that had a LTA. Go figure.

My life would be different, I often wonder how different?

Yes. This is true. Absolutely. For sure.

Life could have gone either way. It could have been much worse, could have been better.

I will never know.

For me it is not worth knocking myself out about.

I didn't know then, but I did the best I could to live under the those circumstances. Despite not knowing what she was doing.

I was either treated like shit or I got the cold shoulder. It was awful. And all the time everybody else got her full attention, the BIG smiles, hugs, kisses etc...

Six years after her first A started and about 5 months after the last one ended, she finally got her head unstuck, turned herself around AND we finally had a fair chance at a life together.

The years thereafter were not easy for her.

She went to confession, put up with living with me & my suspicions, living with her own guilt & her past.

That past obviously bothered her.

Thirty years later she finally slipped and said something. DDAY for me was not a straight confession. I had to coax it out of her over 3-4 days....Probably will never know everything as she was far too embarrassed.

However, during those 30 years, she knuckled down and became the best wife/mother/lover/partner that she could be.

I was one of the lucky ones, I survived.

I recently posted on another forum. It was suggested I post here. I apologize for the long post. I am new and not used to all your abbreviations yet.

I don't know where to begin or how to explain the horrors of the past 3 days. My husband had a one night stand 25 years ago with a 22 year old bartender. He was 34 at the time. It was 5 months after we got married!!! I was 30 at the time. He never told me about the affair! He has sworn on his children's heads he has never had an affair.

Fast forward to a month ago. His new daughter now 25, took a 23 and me DNA test. Her parents (divorced since she was 2) never told her her father was not her biological father. She contacted his niece and daughter (from a previous marriage) via Facebook prior to contacting my husband. My husband was contacted very shortly after them. He told his daughter and his niece to keep quiet since he hadn't told me yet. 3 weeks later he decided to tell me. He said he wants a relationship with this girl! That he feels guilty for not being there for her growing up. He has talked with her over 12 times in the last 3 weeks - all while I was unaware. We have two children together ages 22 and 24 both girls.

I have not eaten or slept for 3 days. I'm horrified on so many levels. He lied to me for over 25 years! He had sex with a 22 year old when he was 34. Our youngest is now 22! I cannot imagine this happening to her. How can he justify guilt when he was not told about this child? How can he feel guilty over the child and not his family of 25+ years??? I am shaking and crying all day long. I do not know how to feel anything but despair. My life has become a Jerry Springer show and I cannot find my way back to sanity.

I told him he was not the girls father but mainly a sperm donor unbeknownst to him. He does not know how I can be so cruel to an "innocent child". How am I not innocent? How are my girls not innocent? How could he tell other people he loves to carry his burden for him for over 3 weeks! My husband is not a terrible person. However, he has issues. He is a functioning alcoholic and was raised in an abuse family. HOWEVER - he has experienced nothing but love and support for the past 30 years!!

Is it wrong of me to ask he cut off contact? I feel guilty but it is not something I can deal with! Why should I have to deal with her? I told my children about the affair together via FaceTime because I was afraid of her contacting them or someone else confronting them. I told them to protect them! My husband told me it was because I needed to be in control and have them tainted against him. That honestly was NOT the reason. Someone needs to care about the repercussions of his actions!

I am in so much pain. I am humiliated. My heart is broken. My life it broken. He doesn't want it to come out. I feel like I just want to rip the bandaid off and try to move forward. His job is in Germany. I am in the USA. So we are currently separated by an ocean he cannot leave. He will not come home until May, 2022. I was flying over to see him on the 12th of this month but now have cancelled. My family is very close but I have not told anyone. I am truly struggling to get through the day. I need to talk with someone who understands. Please anyone out there that could even possibly identify with these chain of events!!!!!????? How do you make sense of a life you never knew was yours??

I’m hoping others come along and offer their words of wisdom. I only had a 3 year gap between the A and discovery, so I am unable to relate to a 25 year one.

Firstly, I am so sorry you find yourself here, and experiencing such a horrific shit show. All affairs suck, but there is no doubt that the conception of a child from one is one of the worst possible outcomes. You have a living breathing reminder of your husband’s unfaithfulness for the rest of your lives. A reminder you are only just now aware even existed.

There is absolutely no judgement in you not wanting him to have a relationship with the girl. Others who have been in this situation chose not to have physical contact with the "other child" as it’s called around here, from the day they are born. Some have found a way to be involved with the child and make it work. It’s not a situation I envy and certainly not one I’m going to tell anyone what they should or should not do. Fortunately the girl is an adult, and you have no financial obligations to her (there’s been some betrayeds whose income was taken into account for child support for the OC.) All that to say, I have no real advice, but wanted to offer some support that your feelings of not wanting him to form a relationship with her are normal and completely valid.

Finding out years later is an absolute mind fuck. Your brain does not understand that this happened 25 years ago. It’s like it happened last week. Then there’s feeling like 25 years of your life has been a lie. You weren’t given the opportunity to make the decision if you wanted to stay with an unfaithful man or not. Instead, you were kept in the dark about who your husband really is for decades. It’s a lot to process. I’m so sorry you are experiencing it.

The pain does eventually subside. I know it feels all encompassing right now, but you will see brighter days. Your situation presents you with quite a few obstacles, but they’re not ones you can’t overcome. I hope you stick around and keep posting.

Wishing you the very best.

Thank you @Underserving. I appreciate the kind words and support. It is truly a mind fu*k. I am doing my best to hold it together. Unfortunately, ignoring the OC right now for my mental health. I have to deal with me first. I have to get to some semblance of sanity. I know there is more to come. I am doing my best to be strong and prepare myself with my emotional armor. Again, I appreciate your being there for me and commenting.

I feel like my messages are falling on deaf ears….

You have ZERO obligation to the OC. You are right in focusing on your own mental health and well being.

How are you holding up?

..bump...

smy... so many years

Finding out years later is its own special kind of torment, especially when the wayward spouse has reformed themselves and been a great spouse in between the affair and the discovery of the affair.

Finding out years later is its own special kind of torment, especially when the wayward spouse has reformed themselves and been a great spouse in between the affair and the discovery of the affair.

I think it was for me early on as well.

After a while, I looked at all the things she did well for herself, our kids and me.

I think in my case, my wife has always been trying to make up for something — that can’t be made up for.

I just eventually saw it as part of her process of trying to change and heal from betraying herself and her own best interests. And, it doesn’t make it better. It just let me consider all the things that have changed for the better over time.

No one on the planet could pick my wife out of a line-up as someone who would break their vows. I didn’t tell our mutual friends back home — tough enough to heal a relationship with two opinions, much less inviting more people’s ideas about it all — and they still see her as the kindest, nicest, most giving person on the planet.

She is all of what they see in her. And the good our kids see in her.

She also obliterated my heart into one million tiny shreds.

Six years after her confession, I tend to allow the time she needed to fix as much as she could about herself and her choices.

I focus on how well we treat each other today.

I takes a while though. I think it takes extra time to assemble our reality than people who discover an A in ‘real’ time. We can’t really heal at all until we understand what our lives were, so that we can decide what we want our lives to be now.

Curious, do those of you who found out years later feel as if you were on the exact same playing field as other betrayeds after discovery? I can’t seem to word that how I want so I’ll explain a little.

I personally feel like I am unable to relate to the average betrayed’s experience. In my case, the AP was long gone. My husband was not in any type of "affair fog." He had already become a better husband and our marriage had already improved.

I’m wondering if because that was my situation, I am unable to fully empathize what most betrayeds go through in the aftermath of d-day. I don’t mean in terms of pain, grief, shock, or anger, as I know we all share those equally. It’s all that other shit I didn’t have to deal with. I guess I’m wondering if that naivety has caused me to be a bit more hopeful for R in other betrayeds situations than is realistic? My own bias to my own experience if you will.

I’m also curious the percentage of those who R after finding out years later compared to those who discovered the affair while it was active. I doubt those numbers exist, but I think it’d be interesting to learn.

I know this thread doesn’t get much traffic, but would love to hear other’s thoughts!

Do you....feel as if you were on the exact same playing field as other betrayeds

No, I don't feel we are on any playing field. Not at all.
No PLAYING on any field, left that to my spouse, apparently...

In 'real time' you may be in shock, but you have choices.
My children are adults in the thirties, I am trying to plan for retirement, we have 30 great years behind us.
The only choice I have is to make that decision to accept, to turn the page, and to MOVE-ON.

I could say that she got away with it....
But the truth is that the spouse carried around a lot of negative stuff in her head.
Like serving her own prison sentence for what she did.
It got to her otherwise she would never have told me.
DDAY, her specific words were 'I'm a whore'.
What she must have put herself through over the years, I don't wish on anybody!!!

Ditto on what Oldwounds said above.

Underserving —

Interesting thoughts.

I think for us, the found out years later crowd, there are slightly better and slightly worse elements contrasted with our SI members who discovered in the middle of things.

Slightly better is our spouse does have a chance to pull their proverbial heads out of the fog in advance of telling us.

Worse is how long they lied to us after the A was done.

It’s horrible to not know what your life REALLY is for such a long period of time.

That said, while my wife wasn’t in a real time fog, she still held on to some elements of the narrative she built DURING the A to make herself feel better about her shitty choices.

In essence, she healed on her own, but it was like someone setting their own broken leg — it doesn’t always work, and folks may end up with a limp.

That was the limited healing my wife did after the A. She still had a lot of changes she needed to make.

And, here is why I don’t think there is an advantage to either way we discover — be it in real time or years later:

Our brains are not good with the concept of time.

Logically, we can insist the A was (blank number of years) ago, but our brain deals with the pain as if it is all happening NOW.

My wife had made a great number of positive changes.

The reason she confessed, instead of her original intention of taking it to the grave, is she wanted our marriage to be as authentic and as real as possible. She hated living the lie.

All that said, I always knew something had gone wrong. I nearly caught them (AP was a family friend, his kids played with our kids, etc) once. So, I had YEARS of suspicions, and that is something unique to our fellow "years later" people too.

Ultimately, I’m not sure it helped or hurt our chances or my recovery to find out for SURE years after the fact.

It helped that my wife was certain she wanted me, wanted us, and was why she told me and hoped somehow we would be able to build back. But is that an advantage over real time infidelity? I’m not so sure. Because I still took the full 2-5 years to rebuild ME back to whole.

Oldwounds- Thank you for sharing your thoughts!

I was afraid it would sound like I was speaking on the advantages/disadvantages of our situation. That wasn’t my intention. I was referring to the differences in the aftermath of d-day, not really whether it’s better to find out later, or if it’s worse. To me, there ARE differences, and I’ve been reflecting on if those have skewed my view of the average betrayed’s experience. Again, not in terms of pain or grief, but the overall… well experience. (For lack of a better word.)

I almost feel "unqualified" to even help out in the JFO forum. Not because I’m still a newbie, but because I find myself unable to relate to so many aspects of their stories. Idk what it’s like to have the AP still in the picture. Or for my spouse to be defensive and blame shift. I’m almost positive he WOULD have been that way 5 years ago, but he wasn’t after d-day. While there was some initial 24 hour minimizing, that’s the worst I dealt with. I didn’t have to pick me dance because HE was doing that enough for the both of us.

Which omg this sounds like "I had it better than everyone else" but that’s not what I’m trying to do. 😂 I have felt like others have been unable to relate to me because their spouse was so awful after d-day, I want to keep myself in check that I also am unable to relate to probably most betrayeds. At least not fully. Not in a way that seems helpful, because I’ve learned the hard truth most waywards are terrible after d-day, and I didn’t have that.

I want to make it clear I don’t think finding out later is in any way better. It’s awful. I was a hot mess for a very long time and am only just now sort of coming out of that. I wouldn’t ever want any one to think there is any benefit to not disclosing their affair. I could go on forever about why that’s not the case.