TL;DR: I was emotionally cheated on by my ex-husband in our entire relationship. I am diagnosed with PTSD from the cheating. I am incapable of intimacy anymore because I would be triggered. Is there hope?
————————————— the story, just like any other here —————————————
One year ago, I (26F) discovered in my then-fiance/husband’s (30M) phone three years of intimate conversations/flirting with his ex-girlfriend overseas. We were together for three years and married for six months.
We were deeply in love. He was my best friend. We went everywhere together. We are both agreeable people and barely fought. All my friends spoke highly of him. Before him, I was physically cheated on by another ex with multiple women, and briefly dealt with the trauma, so my ex-husband was like that person that heard you, accepted you and then cured you with love. I had always known he still talks to his ex from time to time, but because he seemed so trustworthy, and reassured me again and again “there’s nothing”, I never doubted him.
I don’t apologize for looking into his phone. I respect privacy, but I don’t think when you’re together and that close there should be any secrets. I would give him my phone any second because there’s nothing to hide. In fact, I asked to look into his phone, he was pissed but still gave it to me.
Most of the conversations between him and his ex are normal bantering, except there’s still a lot of vivid flirtation and intimacy. He asked her for photos and she sent selfies of her body from in a hotel room. Nothing explicit, but still very intimate. And he’d give all the compliments, the same sweet things he’d say to me, “cute”, “curvy”, “pretty”, “good-looking”. He spoke of her body in sexy gym outfits. When we had been serious for a few months, she asked him, “now you have a new gf, what do you do with our old stuff”, he responded enthusiastically “I have kept all of them with me!!! Won’t show them to her, haha.” Then they went down the memory alley to fondly talk about their romantic gifts to each other that they still own.
I scrolled through three years of this kind of messaging. It overlapped with our entire relationship. No matter how in love he was with me in the moment, things never changed between them.
I was instantly traumatized. I won’t repeat here the sleepless nights burning with extreme pain, intrusive thoughts, anger, and fear. The horrible nightmares. The incapable of functioning at work or performing basic tasks in life. I cried all day, all night while my ex hid away. Y’all know.
Cheating is abuse.
We tried to “work on things“ but it was too painful and we divorced three months later. I won’t repeat how he tried to “work on things“ and what an awful experience it was, just imagine someone who guiltlessly did what he did for a few years, how little understanding he has of the matter, how little he knew how he was deceiving and abusing another human being, and what awful things he had to say to defend himself. Assholes never know they are assholes. He still insisted that they are just “really good friends“, and I was overreacting. He refused to apologize because he thought he was not at fault. He said he has the freedom to make friends outside the relationship and it’s “none of your business“. When I struggled with trauma, he complained about why I wasn’t “getting better“. He said the most ridiculous things that hurt so much, caused so much secondary damage I’d never forget.
———————————— the present ——————————————————
I won’t talk more of him now. There are people out there who are inherently narcissistic and less empathetic than others. They still exist in the mass no matter if I bring one more to your attention. I filed for divorce, cut all ties with him, deleted everything, moved to a new place. I hated this man’s guts and just wanted him and all his influence out of my life.
For a while I was in a lot of emotional agony. Quarantine hit and I had to deal with everything myself. I look back at the past few years and everything went to shit. I deleted all the love letters we poured so much heart and soul in, because I now see at the same time he was reminiscing his romantic past with his ex. The images of his ex’s face and body was hard engraved in my brain, and I would get triggered by anything that remotely reminds me of it.
When I came out of the other side of the pain after a year, I can clearly tell there is a break in my personality. I used to be an open and trusting person. I befriend people easily and like people easily. But now I am a bitter nasty cynical bitch inside. My world view changed. I look at all men thinking that they’re either going to physically or emotionally cheat, both of which I have experienced. I look at men as though they’re animals that can’t stop thinking about women (apologies to the good people here). The contrast between who I thought my ex was (a great, trustworthy man who deeply loved me) and who he actually was on his phone completely broke my system of judging people. I honestly don’t know how I can tell if anyone or anything is real anymore. I was so sure he was different from that ex that physically cheated on me. I got married and committed my life to him. Look at what happened.
And the pain - however hard I try, every other day or so I would fall back into the pain of having my whole belief system turned over. I would re-live the moment of discovering the texts over and over again, and become extremely upset and uncontrollably cry.
I’ve tried dating, but I only came to see how broken I am now. Whenever I started acting intimately with someone, even just to tell a cute joke, flirt a bit, act cute a bit, like how I used to act around my ex, my brain would halt and I can’t function. It’s like that open, trusting part of me permanently died. When a man flirts with me, I would be reminded of the sweet, sweet things my ex texted the other woman, and feel nothing but disgust. I am not capable of intimacy anymore.
Last week, about a year after D-day, I was diagnosed with PTSD from the cheating. It was a huge relief, because I was starting to recognize I needed professional intervention for the trauma. But it’s also depressing. PTSD means there’s permanent change in your brain. I don’t know if I can ever fully recover from this, and escape trauma’s long tail. I’ve been cheated on twice now, every time worse than the previous time. My dad cheated on my mom their entire marriage which is why, my therapist says, I am so susceptible. I’m scared of relationships now. I don’t want to be with another person 20 years and find out they cheated. I honestly don’t know if I can live through that. I read stories of people murdering their significant other after being betrayed, and I honestly can relate. I don’t know if I am ever capable of trust or love anymore.
Does it get better? Can you fully trust and love someone else again, so carefree like nothing had happened to you? How do you even find a person to trust, since it’s practically impossible to identify a cheater? Can you recover from the worst?
