It gets better.

Not gonna rehash everything, I’m a madhatter. After the discovery I just switched to lurking and less interaction here, and eventually vanished. But I’m happy to report it does get better when you put in the work.

I tried a couple therapists. It didn’t end up working out, after about 5 people telling me that infidelity doesn’t come out of nowhere and making it so that my husband was the only one at fault I admittedly gave up.

This is not to say however that I gave up trying. This may be a controversial opinion but I believe you can hold yourself accountable if you have the mental willpower. I still tell myself that what I did was a conscious decision, and ask myself how I am becoming a better person for my husband. I did a couple months of moping and drowning myself in piles of self-hatred and guilt and disgust. But then I realized it wasn’t helping anyone. We were both just sad and angry and nothing was happening. There was a giant burst of anger every other day.

Nothing was planned in regards to this, but we sat down one day and just talked. No more allowing inconveniences and annoyances to become out of proportion arguments. However - this is only after a giant heaping helpful of them. A grieving stage for what we once were, I suppose. It was hard, but we’re still here.

And not depressingly and begrudgingly. We are HERE for one another. We are happy to be with each other. More than happy I would say. My husband is a rock in my life and I rely on him as he does me. We make time for dates, we get excited to see each other, we unleash flurries of kisses and hugs on each other when one of us gets home. Life is good!

I feel hopeful for the future and we have both done a lot of work for one another. The work is never over, and not everything has been sunshine and rainbows, but it’s working out for us. I hope it works out for you guys too, however that may look like. Keep working!

2 comments posted: Tuesday, March 26th, 2024

Conflicted

Please see my past post for more history of my situation.

I found out yesterday that my husband has been engaging in deeply sexual conversations for the last five years yesterday. With multiple people online. With one of them it was somewhat emotional as well as sexual, and they had hung out in person once, but "just talked". He told me that nothing has ever happened physically in any of these interactions, but I don’t necessarily believe that. This is because he would ask to meet up, tell these people our general location, then the conversations would move to other apps like kik and snapchat and I don’t know what happened there because he deleted all of it.

I feel conflicted. He told me he didn’t do anything physically, and I want to believe him but I don’t really know. He said that asking to meet and making it sound real was part of the excitement, but that these interactions never went outside of the internet. When I spoke to him about it, he kept saying that I shouldn’t forget what I did, and that what I did was much worse. I agree with this, if it’s true. But I can’t help but feel hurt. Is this karma? I feel like I don’t have the right to feel betrayed or angry but I do feel this way.

Up until now we’ve been doing well. I have been open to all his questions, I have been constantly reassuring him, I’ve been doing my best to make him feel wanted. I thought we were on a good path, one that would come with more turbulence but that we were on the right track at least. Let me be clear, I do not think any of this absolves me and I continue to live with the guilt of what I have done. I don’t think him doing what he has done makes me any less guilty. But now I feel betrayed. I don’t know what to do. I want to be with him, I love him, and I’ve been fighting for him since my affair. Five years is a long time. We’ve been together for seven. That’s a majority of our relationship. I’m at a loss.

He had left his ipad while at work, and had confessed to me to speaking to a woman who was interested in him, post- my affair. He told me that I could read their conversation, which I did, and it was emotional amd sexual in nature. It lasted for five days, and he told me he didn’t want it to go any further and had not been responding to her for the last two days. He told me he couldn’t do that to me, and that I should feel reassured that he had this opportunity and never took it. I wasn’t happy, obviously. But ultimately I was just relieved it didn’t happen. With this specific incidence. I asked him to tell her that the conversation was completely over, and he did, and blocked her. This confession is what ultimately lead to me to check his ipad. And what I found disturbed me. Sexting, asking to meet, sharing nude pictures. It wasn’t every day for five years, but it’s been happening for five years.

He keeps saying what he did he doesn’t find serious because of what I did. He didn’t seem very remorseful, and kind of angry actually when I spoke to him about it. He gave me a dry apology when I asked for one, and a more sincere one later, only after I had gotten outraged at his apology. Today he seems more remorseful, but we began the day with him standing over me and saying "I didn’t cheat," in a confrontational manner. Every reponse to my questions of his actions is answered and ended with a "but you.."

I keep telling him I don’t think I’m absolved at all. But I’d like to see remorse from him too.

I don’t know, I’m rambling now but my head is spinning.

4 comments posted: Saturday, September 16th, 2023

Death of Silence

Hello, SI. This is my very first post. I really hate that I now know this website exists. Anyways, I’ve been lurking pretty much every day since D-Day and thought it would be more helpful if I involved myself, so here we are!

We are 1 month post-nuclear explosion bomb on our marriage (dropped by yours truly), and I pray that he gives me more months, years, decades. I’m grateful for every day he has given me since. I see a lot of you have been in R for much longer lengths of time, I feel a bit silly for making any observations as this is all new. But here’s my earth-shattering take: silence is terrible!

My BH and I have spent countless hours together in the car, in restaurants, and wherever else sitting in comfortable silence. At peace, enjoying the company of one another and whatever was around us. Maybe that isn’t so unique, but WOW did I take it for granted. I took everything for granted. Being that we’ve been together for so long I suppose one should hope that the silence was comfortable, however dealing with the "need to be liked by everyone" issue that I have, it has always been very difficult for me to let silence sit in any company. This made our quiet moments so special to me. And now I’m reaping what I sow. The silence now is deafening. Every second of it feels heavy and unbelievably cumbersome. This is the effect I have had on our relationship, I’ve tarnished something so precious.

I’ve tried telling him what’s on my mind, and it has helped. We’ve had long and short conversations, tears and laughter. There have been some instances however, where he’s told me he doesn’t want to talk. And we just sit with the big, scary silence. I don’t blame him at all, I know the talks while healing can also be emotionally taxing to him.

I know what runs through my mind in these moments now - self-hatred, torment, guilt, shame, fear of the future. These emotions I feel I deserve to sit with for quite some time. What worries me is what runs through his mind. I can’t bear to think of it and I only hope that his brain shows him mercy. He seems to have been in good spirits for the past few days, but I still worry about what is unspoken.

To the other WS’s with more experience, and maybe even hopeful R, how do you deal with the silence?

28 comments posted: Monday, August 21st, 2023