SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello all! Happy 2021 to you.

I'm curious if others have experienced the feelings I'm currently having, as I try to assess how much more therapy to save up for. :)

Context: 2 years from separation and I've grown a lot in this interval. I'm in a good place. My D-Day involved a long term (4+ years) physical affair with a good friend of mine, and what I would call emotional affairs with one other friend of mine, as well as knowledge of the affair among other friends of mine, so it was laced with quite a bit of betrayal and required a lot of therapy to move past.

Since then I've dated a few times, and have had an on-again-off-again relationship with one woman who I wrote about in the past here. I described her as a bit erratic at that time.

What happened was this: we were kind of dating again but telling one another it was temporary and that we would see other people when the pandemic restrictions eased. I would say the relationship is/was pretty asymmetric at this point, her having very nearly died in late 2020 and trying to get literally and figuratively back on her feet this year. While we were basically in love with one another, I was also mainly filling the role of a supportive friend during her recovery. Yes, plenty to psychoanalyze on my end there, but not the subject of this thread, so for now we'll just call this dysfunctional and move on.

So eventually she found a guy on Tinder and started hanging out with him "casually." Unfortunately, this guy, of the hundreds of matches she got, is a reasonably good friend of mine. I would say my reaction to this was not so much "what are the chances you'd match to a friend of mine" as "*of course* you'd match to a friend of mine," in the sense that she seems to attract this kind of drama if I'm being honest.

Now, there's a whole story here about how I did technically give a very half-hearted kind of permission for this in an effort to respect the two of them and not interfere in her rebuilding her life after a critical illness, but in the interest of saving time I'll just jump to the point:

When she finally declared that she did want a relationship with him, I suddenly found myself with many of the same feelings I had after my own D-Day: a kind of disgust at the thought of both of them, frankly intrusive thoughts/images of them having sex, talking about me behind my back and sharing intimate details, etc etc. Total breakdown of trust and extreme guardedness.

She wants to remain "friends" or on talking terms and I've told her that's just not an option because of how uncomfortable I feel around them. It's not at all my goal to end what they have or get even in some way - on the contrary this is in some ways an opportunity for me to move on from a situation which was in many ways bad for me, but I'm considering going back to therapy for these deeply-felt recurrent negative emotions which sometimes bring me to the point of nausea.

So I suppose I'm wondering: have others experienced acute, unexpected triggers like this after separation - and I'm not so much talking about being cheated on again, which would obviously be triggering, but instead in other situations in life/relationships where you didn't necessarily expect it to rear its head?

Hope that makes sense and have a wonderful week.

I was in a similar situation, and my advice to you is to follow your instincts and don't actively pursue a friendship with her.

I live in a small town and over the years I've dated several men who know each other. We are talking years apart from each other, so there was never any cheating, at least on my part. I have remained friendly with all of them, on a simply "Hey how's it going" basis.

Out of the blue, about a year and a half ago, one of them (who I dated for about a year, 18 years ago) reached out to me and wanted to go out to lunch. I was reluctant at first. He is a very nice guy, but he is a very fragile person. He never got over his wife's infidelity. He has over the years attempted suicide many times, as in call an ambulance and snatch him back from the jaws of death.

He was persistent so I joined him for lunch, Dutch treat, and it was nice to catch up with an old friend. But he kept asking me out with no notice, and would be disappointed if I didn't drop everything and immediately join him where ever he was.

I kept going, against my better judgement, because I did what I think you did. I didn't want to hurt his fragile feelings, and I appointed myself as the caretaker of that, even though I didn't really want to develop a relationship with him again. I sensed he was lonely, and thought I should help.

And then, as quickly as it began, he stopped inviting me places.

I too had these weird feelings of rejection again. It surprised me that I could feel rejected by someone I didn't really want. I had to rethink why I ever thought his loneliness was my responsibility, and why I was unable to say no to someone I didn't want to date for real. Or for that matter, go to lunch with.

I don't think it rose to the "I need therapy" level. It served as a reminder to me that when it comes to who I see, casually or otherwise, I need to put my own needs and emotions first. I need to trust myself when I sense something isn't a good idea.

Thanks Charity. My instinct is to just let them do their thing but no longer invest in either relationship and I think that might be a healthy decision as you suggest. As for therapy, I’m not plagued by these visceral reactions (almost like panic) in my day to day, in fact probably not in over a year until this happened, so maybe it’s not a therapy issue at all - more a boundaries issue.

It surprised me that I could feel rejected by someone I didn't really want. I had to rethink why I ever thought his loneliness was my responsibility,

Been thinking about this all day because I don’t think it sank in immediately. You’re right, this is exactly it. I feel her chaos is my responsibility. Or more accurately I understand that she created it, but I feel a burden to not make it worse. This is fine for a while as I subjugate my own needs to tend to hers (which does bring me satisfaction), but then something happens that “breaks the camel’s back” and the solution suddenly seems to be to end the relationship entirely because really I knew it was unhealthy to begin with. It ends and then I just feel overwhelmingly guilty, eg for how sudden it must have felt on her end, so I do an obsessive postmortem and try to find an opening to mend things. But mending never involves these root issues, so on we go.

Sorry, I derailed my own thread. Hmmm.

I’ve not experienced it myself but it reminds me of a question on OKCupid...”Would you date a good friends ex?”

My response is “No, my good friends are my friends for a reason.” However I know of a guy that dated pretty seriously one woman for 2-3 years, they lived together. She cheated.

Not sure how long after they broke up but he starts dating one of her very close friends (eventual bridesmaids in each other’s weddings). I don’t how long they dated. The two women are still friends to this day and this was 20+ yrs ago. Maybe the dynamics were quite different since GF #1 cheated??

I imagine that my dilemma would be in telling my friend that I was approached. I would want to be honest but not cause more trauma as you are describing either-even though I would not pursue it.

[This message edited by AnnieOakley at 11:58 PM, February 17th (Wednesday)]

After a different break up, some years ago, I experienced a trigger. It was a work situation where I brought a colleague in on a project and the client ended up preferring to work with him. It felt like being dumped or cheated on or rejected. I remember leaving a meeting and sobbing in my car. I knew it wasn't just about losing a client, that happens, it was triggering feelings of betrayal. On some level I felt like both were betraying me. I didn't bring my colleague in to have him charm the pants off my client - nor did I expect my client to jump ship when I selflessly brought someone in to help address his needs.

It was then I realized I'd maybe not fully grieved the end of the relationship (also due to infidelity, amongst other things).

Thanks Skeeter. That’s a really good example.

While I know my friend is not OM and my ex-GF isn’t cheating; and I know she (kind of) asked permission and I said yes, because yeah, I wanted that to be okay, and to think I was over it, and am always worrying about her mental health trajectory, and who tells someone who they can and can’t date anyway? - still, the sense of betrayal and resulting paranoia is really acute.

[This message edited by unspecified at 6:50 PM, February 18th (Thursday)]