SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Sorry for this. I agree with the others. You have a right to your feelings. He does as well and may be all over the map emotionally. He might be acting maliciously, or he might be trying to cope with a terrible situation he never expected.

Even if you are telling him you aren't dating, he likely may not believe it, given what happened. Being long distance, trust is essential and that's gone, right?

Given your situation, perhaps it is best to focus on your health and growing as a person. Maybe put off dating until you are in a better place.

Thank you everyone so much for your responses and help on this. I was really struggling and I do think it's just better if I cut contact and try to heal while he moves on. I do not plan to date anytime soon. I am trying out making some friends so I can distract myself out here.

I did try talking to my ex one more time about this to just clear up my confusion and figure out where his head is at and he pretty much blew up on me and told me to cancel the couple's therapy I scheduled. I think he's pretty much done and there's nothing left to attempt to salvage in terms of any feelings of love or fondness.

Thank you again everyone, your help was all really appreciated. I've adjusted my medication to a higher dose (which helped me in the past) and I'm looking into my other options as I'm really struggling with depression and dark thoughts as a result of what I did and what's happened since. I know it's kind of silly to be so upset when I'm pretty young and we were only together a couple years, but this is the worst heartbreak I've ever dealt with before so it's just been very hard to cope, especially now that I'm trying to cope alone. I'm also doing therapy more often and will be working on myself so that I don't ever do this to someone else again.

I still really love him but I think us talking is only making things worse for him and me. He deserves better. I'm disappointed and hurt and ashamed, but I also know I have (hopefully) a lot ahead of me.

Sissi-

I sincerely hope that you can view the fallout from your A as an OPPORTUNITY to truly learn & grow. My WH was cheated on & cheated on others when he was your age. Rather than take those experiences as an opportunity to really look into who he is and what he wants in life, he basically rugswept it all. Flash forward 40 years and his refusal to change HIMSELF (and continue to be someone comfortable with lying and cheating) has resulted in some pretty harsh consequences, including losing his integrity, his wife's love, trust, & respect - and his (almost 27yo) M.

Figure out who YOU want to be and then have your actions fall in line with that person. Figure out how to love YOURSELF and keep up whatever work that entails (even if it only starts with something silly - one thing for me was I had to tell myself that I WILL wash off my makeup before I go to bed bc that's what people who love themselves do! And bc I - and my skin - are worth it).

I am very confident that, whatever mental health Dx you have received, you will be a LOT happier in the long run. Find some therapy that works for YOU - and it's OK to change IC if you don't feel it's hitting the marks you need (IOW, it SHOULD be challenging and sometimes hard, but if you don't feel pushed enough or like you can fully trust your IC, find someone you do).

I also really recommend reading "the Body Keeps the Score" by Bassel Van der Kolk. It's a really good book about PTSD, including a fair amount of discussions about the interplay between trauma and other mental health Dx (eg depression). I'm no therapist and I have no idea if you have unhealed past trauma, but a lot of us do - and healing it can be a game changer.

I also HIGHLY recommend "Resilient" by Rick Hanson. I suggest trying to get it on audiobook (I got it free via my local library), as there are exercises that are easier to do if you don't have to open your eyes and read the next step from a book. Hanson is big on rewiring our brains to incorporate joy, which in turn can build resilience to the struggles all humans face (some -like infidelity- more difficult than others). If you believe that "the neurons that fire together, wire together", then incorporating joy and happiness can really help change our outlook and behaviors.

Godspeed to you.

Thanks gmc. I definitely have a lot of trauma and am very messed up, even before I cheated. I really just think there's something wrong with me, like fundamentally. I end up eventually hurting or angering or upsetting people pretty much every time. All my long term/serious romantic relationships have ended because of me and my faults (I never cheated before this one time) and I don't have any friends out here anymore and neither of my parents talk to me. I'm alone with my thoughts everyday because I have no one to talk to and it's torture because my thoughts are not kind to me. I also do really hate myself and don't think I'm capable of good things. Which is why I don't want to date again because I'm so messed up like this.

I know saying all that just makes me sound even crazier and worse but it's true. I want to be better but I don't think forming close relationships that last is something possible for me. I know I sound like a really negative, shitty person saying all that and being a cheater, that's just how I'm feeling in this moment. Usually, I can mask pretty okay as a normal person and don't usually tell people about my struggles and problems. Basically I'm saying that it was a miracle that my ex ever dated me in the first place because he's a really awesome person.

My therapist is really, really great. It's just that I haven't been seeing them as much because I had been doing a lot better before my episode and cheating and my ex leaving me. But now I'm seeing my therapist every week moving forward. Before the episode and the cheating, my ex and I had had a lot of issues since covid and he broke up with me for a week. That's when we started counseling and things were looking up but then he moved and then I cheated and ruined everything.

I will check out those books, I had not heard of the Resilient one.

If sissi was the BS and her guy was the WS, we would be ready to throw rotten tomatoes at him and call him a fence-sitter and a cake-eater.

Regardless of what you did, sissi, it is apparent to me that this dude is not willing to put in the work to reconcile. It takes a ton of work from both parties. And then, from what I hear, the BS never feels truly safe again.

Not everyone is reconciliation material. Even if you do everything perfectly as a WS, he may not ever be committed enough to this relationship to make it worthwhile. He could even hold this over you as his get-out-of-jail free card. What if you remain together and 20 years down the road you find out he had been cake-eating all along. Then he could potentially say, "You have no right to be upset! remember what you did to me in 2021???"

I really think you might e better to start over fresh with someone new.

I am going to go against the grain a little in this thread..

These are YOUNG adults who are not only dealing with the usual "young adult" stuff but also mental illness. He is not uncaring. he is not cake eating

This is a young man and young woman navigating the harsh and hard realities of mental illness, trauma, sex, love, recovery, betrayal, etc.

It is highly unfair to paint him as a villain in her story. And it's unfair and unproductive to paint her as a victim.

Sissi1898...the person who you need to work on reconciling with is YOU.

You need to offer yourself compassion

You need to offer yourself truth

You need to offer yourself transparency

You need to offer yourself healing

You need to offer yourself faithfulness

You need to work hard on loving and healing yourself so that you don't hold yourself hostage to what you did in 2021.

Because the person that you REALLY need to have a fresh start is with the healthy healed version of yourself.

[This message edited by prissy4lyfe at 11:50 AM, July 22nd (Thursday)]

I'm also doing therapy more often and will be working on myself so that I don't ever do this to someone else again.

Do therapy so that you don't do this to yourself again. <3

Also, ditto everything Prissy said.

[This message edited by 13YearsR at 1:57 PM, July 22nd (Thursday)]

I disagree, Prissy. I think it’s precisely because the BS in this situation is so young and emotionally immature that he might be hedging his bets and being petty with about mentioning his dates as a way of expressing his pain.

That's fine BtB. I respect the different perspective.

I still don't believe this YOUNG man needs to be villianized and his character questioned.

As far as emotionally immaturity...much much worse has been done by BSs in the wake of their WSs fair. I actually think he handled it pretty well.

They broke up. He was asked out. He didn't initiate. He was truthful with OP. He didn't have sex with the girl.

He is processing being betrayed and dealing with loving someone with a mental illness. What if she goes of her meds again? What if he does the work and she goes off her meds? What if it wasn't her mental illness? What if she can't ever regulate her meds?

I don't think he was being petty...I think he probably loves her and is scared shitless in the face of her mental illness.

I don't think this is petty. The same way I don't think OP intentionally set out to have an affair. I see 2 young adults trying to navigate a mental illness that already proven to be detrimental to them both.

[This message edited by prissy4lyfe at 6:35 PM, July 22nd (Thursday)]

I will say from multiple times, personal experience, getting someone with mental illnesses to comply is like getting a drug addict clean.

Usually it takes hitting that rock bottom. I wouldn't be surprised if the BS is trying to get enough leverage on the WS to get her to stay clean/get her meds balanced and listen to his opinion of how they are impacting her.

Hell, my wife and daughter aren't on meds and getting them to behave like adults is tough sometimes and they don't have chemical imbalances.

So, lets raise the question, has sissil been listening as much as she has been talking?

Have you been journaling your mental standing every morning and working through major swings and their sources the day before. My dad is bi-polar and he needed to reread journals to realize certain triggers and how to control his behavior when they struck.

Also, he had to learn to trust other people to give him honest feedback. He used to think everyone was trying to manipulate him with their feedback. Yes, you were manic yesterday. No, I am not just saying this so you turn into a drugged up zombie.

Does this sound similar to your experiences Sissil?

We ended up needing to find the things my dad cared about and mention them to get him to listen to reason. When his meds weren't being strictly followed there was almost no reasoning with him without tons of leverage.

If your BS is telling you about the dates, he is probably trying to get you to chase him. All BS feel devalued(replaceable, and don't you idiots come after me for a generalization that is so strongly documented). This might be him trying to push up his own feelings of self worth.

[This message edited by DoinBettr at 12:46 PM, July 23rd (Friday)]

and don't you idiots come after me

That was unnecessary.

Thank you everyone for your perspectives. I do want to clarify that I didn't stop taking my meds just because or because I felt I didn't need them anymore. There were issues because my old prescriber retired and I couldn't be seen with a new psychiatrist until a month after I ran out of meds and the office refused to give me any refills to tide me over. My new psychiatrist's office called my old one multiple times asking them to give me refills, and the old office refused. I've been medicated since I got my diagnosis and have been consistent in taking them as prescribed for 5 years. Until this issue occurring.

Because of the nature of my medication, I had to restart from a very low dose and as I was working back up to my old dose, I had an episode. I only mentioned all of this because I suspect being on the lower dose of the medication led to the episode happening in the first place (probably was not the sole reason, however). I haven't had a manic episode that severe in 6 years. Which may not sound very long, but that's my entire adult life so far. So it's not like I'm not managing my illness at all or ever plan to just stop taking my meds. I know that I need them, I know I am not functional without them. Sorry if I confused anyone by not being clear enough about the situation.

I know I'm not a victim, and my ex is certainly not a villain for how he's been acting. He keeps saying that he could be much meaner because I deserve worse for what I did. And he's right. I guess I'm just hurting a lot that he's already flirting with other people and agreeing to dates less than a month after dumping me. In the past, he had said if we ever broke up he wouldn't date for a long time. But that ended up not being what happened in reality. I know I did wrong and he was right to dump me, but it still really pains me. I'm going to work with my therapist (who is really great) a lot more frequently than I was.

I will say from multiple times, personal experience, getting someone with mental illnesses to comply is like getting a drug addict clean.

While this may be true in your experience, I don't think it applies here. I was off my meds for reasons that I could not have anticipated and were pretty much out of my control. Like I mentioned above, since being diagnosed and starting treatment, I have always taken my meds. I do not and have never needed anyone to get me to "comply" in taking my meds.

I wouldn't be surprised if the BS is trying to get enough leverage on the WS to get her to stay clean/get her meds balanced and listen to his opinion of how they are impacting her.

I don't understand this part of your comment. I did not need anyone to "get" me to get my meds balanced, the issue was I had no way to access getting refills. I was on my meds during this last manic episode, but on a much lower dose than I had been taking. I was on a lower dose because I had gone a month without the medication, so I had to slowly work my way back up to my old dose. The reason you have to start from the bottom is because taking a very high dose without having started lower greatly increases the risks of potentially deadly reactions. My ex never really expressed opinions about my meds in that vein, so I doubt he is doing anything to leverage me into taking my meds (again, no one has ever needed to force or trick me into taking them. I have always diligently taken them).

Does this sound similar to your experiences Sissil?

No, it does not, sorry.

BH here.

sissi1898 all I can tell you is that if you choose to date, you will get ten times the number of men wanting to get in your pants as he will women. And his telling you to go ahead and date is a sh*t test. He is baiting you to see if you will bite.

If you date, he WILL hold it against you. I'm a betrayed husband and I know exactly what he is going through. The first time my WW cheated I had her jump through hoops by the dozens... crazy stuff. I would tell her she could do something, and then she would do it and I would lose my shit. "See! I knew you would do that. I just knew it!"

I became a man I didn't like after my WW first affair, and that is where your BH is now. So, just my advice? Do not date even if he tells you you can.

Thanks TWO...I'm honestly at a loss as to why he continues to insist that working on our relationship/R and counseling together and both of dating other people can coexist. I don't want to date anyone but my ex. I'm just sad and incredibly lonely. Trying to talk to family and friends doesn't do much because all I want is to talk to him.

He asked if he could call me yesterday, and we talked just about normal things. I think he wanted someone to vent to about his job (high stress) or something. It was nice but the things left unsaid and how closed off he is re: his feelings about the ONS hurts and makes me worried and nervous. He hasn't really gotten angry or anything. The counseling isn't until September and I keep wondering/fearing if he's going to download dating apps or sleep/date other women until then. I don't know if I should have any hope or not.

But thank you for giving me your perspective as a BH. I don't want to make my ex any more upset and the thought of dating another person makes me feel ill, in all honesty.

You know, the thing about dating is that it's really a trial period to see if two people are right for each other. Here's the situation though, you're single, he's single, you fucked up and cheated. That's something that happens sometimes to young people, particularly if they haven't spent a lot of time thinking about what their core values are and building boundaries around those core values. Half of marriages end in divorce and I think infidelity probably plays a part in most of those divorces.

So, cheating happens and it's rampant. And it's possible that you and your BSO might reconcile... BUT, and it's a bit "but", your relationship is tainted by infidelity now. There's always going to be an asterisk. The naive, innocent trust of young love is gone forever. You would begin this relationship in the one-down position and who know when, if ever, that might change. Sometimes it changes and then years and decades later, the BS is re-triggered and you're back in the one-down again or even left.

I know it hurts like a son of a bitch... but if you ever want to have a normal life, perhaps the thing to do is to let this one go and LEARN from your error. Spend some time in this section reading as much as you can from other WW's and WGF's and see what you think. It's your call.

Good luck on your recovery. Remember that people can and do live perfectly wonderful lives with bipolar. Stay proactive and be kind to yourself.

[This message edited by ChamomileTea at 8:30 PM, July 31st (Saturday)]

I'm with CT - this may be a learning opportunity.

I'm not sure what lesson I'm supposed to be learning from this. I didn't really get into it, but my ex and I had a lot of problems before I cheated, we had been in a dead bedroom for over half our relationship, and he broke up with me for a week in the months before he moved, but we got back together. We had had some conversations and he had implied in one that he wanted to be single or in an open relationship while he was away for work, than just being in a LDR with me. Should I have just walked away before all this? I thought fighting for a relationship is what you should do. I always believed in what we had. But maybe he really had just been very unhappy with me for a long time. I couldn't/didn't talk to him much about any potentially negative feelings I had about our relationship because I didn't want him to break up with me again or get upset and never visit me.

I just feel hopeless. I don't see the point in doing much of anything, I frequently sabotage myself in nearly all areas of my life. I make so many mistakes. I'm too embarrassed at even the thought of trying to date and having to explain that I cheated in a past relationship. Who would trust someone like me? I don't even trust myself.

My reco is to forget everything you've thought about what you should do. Instead, think about what you want to do. Think about whether or not you really want to R.

Be brave - really consider what you want to do, even if you don't like the answer.

But it doesn't really matter what I want, no? I'm completely at my ex's mercy. It's all up to what he wants, and he's not given any indication of when he'll tell me what he wants. So I'm just waiting, probably just to hear "I don't want to try" or "I met someone" (which is somehow much worse).

I'm pretty deep in depression now, so it's really difficult/not possible to see the light at the end of the tunnel in this moment. It feels like I'm going to feel this way forever. I keep circling back to the stupid date. Not even a week after breaking up with me, then he didn't tell me for who knows how long. He did things with her he wouldn't do even when we were together. He spent more time with her than he did talking to me when we would talk on the phone. I don't know. I'm just sad.

Sad is a very normal emotion to feel when a relationship ends. You're gonna feel it for a while.

But IIRC, you guys are in fact broken up yes? If that's the case then my advice here would be to block him and just focus on YOU right now. Focus on fixing you so that you can be a safe partner again. If not to him, then to whoever comes after.

I'm a BS, and I can tell you that he has to work through all of this on his side too, and in a lot of ways that will be way easier for him to do with a complete break - not with a 'be friends' situation. I can only imagine that would help you as well. Maybe the stars align down the road and you guys wind up back together, maybe not. But whatever work you do on yourself right now will help YOU in the long term.