SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Bumped for uncomfortablynumb.

Thanks so much emergent8 - this is super helpful!

How are you, wounded healer? You come to mind sometimes, and I hope you are ok and healing.

Hi Grieving (and others),

Thanks so much for your thoughtfulness. But ugh. Not much has changed since my last postings. I continue to be poked, prodded, and tested by Dr's to figure out why I am experiencing exhaustion, brain fog, general disorientation etc. No answers yet. I waited 6 months for a an appointment in our area with a nuerologist. Had EEGs etc. Nothing showing up. I say all of that to say, I will be returning to IC. My family Dr. and now my nuerologist are still suggesting all these things could be trauma related. I still find it ridiculously hard to believe that such chronic and consistent physical things could be caused by the trauama of my infidelity journey...but I am running out of other options. Sleep is still being investigated right now...so it's sleep Dr's and IC. But I remain pretty much where I have been. Sorta stuck. I am glad this thread might be able to help new saddened faces as they show up here. It was a great discussion. I appreciated it at the itme and still do. Not sure I am any closer to figuring out acceptance personally...but I am still on the trail. And right now I will take that.

Thanks so much again,

WH

to figure out why I am experiencing exhaustion, brain fog, general disorientation etc.

My family Dr. and now my nuerologist are still suggesting all these things could be trauma related.

I still find it ridiculously hard to believe that such chronic and consistent physical things could be caused by the trauama of my infidelity journey...but I am running out of other options.

I wanted to note that I also could have written these exact same passages. I have been diagnosed with Complex PTSD and have a history of multiple severe traumas. Every single day of my life is like this now... constantly tired, can't concentrate on anything at all, I even feel dizzy sometimes or will get confused about what is going on. It's both annoying and a little scary, because sometimes it makes me worry that I'm losing my mind. I don't like feeling so loopy all the time.

I haven't found a solution yet other than to continue therapy, but I wanted to mention it so that you don't feel alone and don't think it's crazy or just you. Trauma sucks.

DD,

Thank you SO MUCH for saying this. Actually I can't thank you enough. You describe exactly how I have felt for over a year and a half now. YES. DIZZINESS. The feeling like you may pass out...but never do. Good times. It has been the loneliest thing to walk...and your post made me feel less totally alone in it today. It is by far the most bizarre thing I have ever experienced. I too am just trying to wait it out as the investigation continues. But that gets more difficult with each passing day. You, too, are not alone.

Thank you again,

WH

Wounded Healer, what has your wife done to understand why she wrote the things she did about you in the affairs? Has she been able to explain it in any sort of satisfactory way that has alleviated your doubts that she may have believed what she said?

Late to this thread, so apologize for that. Your story is certainly a powerful one to follow, and I admire your grace for confronting this $h1t sandwich with grace and dignity. You articulate the agony of betrayal astonishingly well. I hope your healing is at least making incremental progress.

One thing I didn't see in your posts is whether her AP1 felt any kind of consequences for pursuing your wife. He was single, but did he ever try to reconnect with her later?

[This message edited by 1994 at 8:35 PM, Tuesday, September 5th]

Well, I feel for you. I've [then 18M] also started my relationship with my W [then 19F] as a "knight in shining armor", to shield her from her family. She was belittening me sexually in front of her friends even before we were sexual. I've put the stop on that. Years later (even after great sex life as you describe) she thought that masculine affection is always bad and self serving, she kind of wanted me to prove that I love her by putting up with no sex. I am very assertive and straightened it out (for now). I hope she won't snap. According to your story, there is nothing wrong with your size. Your W just directed her hate/pain/contempt against you, because you where the easy target. And now you feel that your image of her doesn't match reality. But there is darkness and evil in her. Yeah, she has a childhood story, like all of the violent inmates in jail. Her way of being around you just doesn't show her full character. Try to reconcile that and work with her or just drop it.

[This message edited by Potentialforevil at 8:08 AM, Wednesday, September 6th]

Greetings again fellow travelers,

TRDD...sorry I missed your most recent question. To answer, (I may have alrerady mentioned this in this thread) the only "why" I have gotten/get in regards to the awful things she said about me to AP2 is that it was all an act to impress him. She was certain I would eventually discover her PA with AP1 and she was, admittedly, shamefully simply trying to secure her landing spot in family friend/AP2. She has persistently denied there was any truth to any of those things, that she thought, at the time, it was the most "effecient" way to hook him...sex talk and tearing me down in the process of building him up. This, of course, remains an absolute trip for me. I maintain that, even if she were employing some false script in her head in order to "hook" AP2 as her landing spot...there were endless other scripts she could have reached for. Why one that included direct belittling of me personally? Again, she claims it seemed like that would be most impressive to the AP2. If she could build him up AND tear me down simultaneously, it would provide the most effective ego boost to AP2 and get him and keep him on board to be her safety net. She totally admits and owns how utterly sh*tty and manipulative, and shallow that is. Claims it was fueled by utter terror and desperation of losing me/her security/family/home etc. And, in a very remote way, it makes some molecule of sense to me. But. It's near impossible for me not to believe that the things she said came from some deeper place than an act. We go round and round with this. But that, in short, is her "why".

Thank you again for your concern and for asking,

WH

Hi 1994,

Thank you so much for your kind words. They are an encouragement to me. One of my life's missions is to try and be an agent of real grace and dignity whenever I have the opportunity to do so. However, this has/is stretching me beyond my innate ability to do that. I am still committed to it...as I still do see the deep value in, remorse, and endless effort my wife is willing to make to amend for this. It is still the hardest thing I have ever attempted and I have to confess that healing for me is pretty much what you describe at the moment. Incremental at best.

Thank you again for sharing,

WH

ETA - No. The AP1 had zero consequences for any of his part in this. My wife contracted HPV from him...she texted to tell him shortly after he ghosted her to tell him that he has HPV. This is the remotest "consequence" he ever had. Total sidenote...he just recently got married. I had no other OBS to tell when it happened...but I have just started to think about the notion of telling his new wife that this is who she married.
Probably not a good idea...

[This message edited by Wounded Healer at 3:42 PM, Wednesday, September 6th]

Hi Pfe,

Thanks to you too for taking a moment to share a bit. Yes, it's a trip to try and have compassion on those who have been abused...when they start to abuse. And I have no doubt my wife's worst behaviors towards me are all tangled up in that to at least SOME significant degree. But, in pretty heavy irony, I always told a story from my wife's young adult homelife where her father lifted her off the ground against a wall by her throat and tried to choke her. She broke free thankfully. But it was at that moment that any shred of compassion or understanding whatsoever for her father's OWN horrifically abused childhood left her for good. Becuase, at that point it really didn't matter where (as you point out in your prison reference) that violence came from...it was just violence at that point. I feel the same way about my wife's worst behaviors towards me during her affairs...I have had and have tremendous compassion for the horror of her upbringing...but I had a similar moment to hers when I read that chat (and in some of the details with AP1 as well)...maybe my compassion for her didn't totally die like hers did for her dad...but it was definitely broken. At the point I am reading those things...it was just simple violence who's source no longer mattered so much to me. Interesting that.

Also...yes...the hardest thing by far in this process is reconciling who my wife was, what she said and did (particularly to and about me) during her affairs...with the woman I have known her to be her entire life prior (and to a similar degree...but not exactly...since). It is literally like an extended dissociative episode(s) happened in her life. I am not overstating it when I say that it is literally like an alien/demon/unseen force "took over" my wife for a year of her life and then split and left her with the wreckage it wreaked. Now...obviously I KNOW this is not true...and I KNOW it actually had to be HER that did these things...but to this moment I cannot reconcile the two. Strangely...it would I'm pretty sure be easier if she was sort of a crappy or even MEDIOCRE person/wife before and after these things happened. I could reconcile that. But it's just not the case. She was an amazing wife/mom/person outside of *that year. It again, ironically, is what makes reconciling the two so extrmemely difficult for me.

Thanks again for sharing,

WH

Acceptance took time.

But what I had the most difficulty with was allowing myself to be vulnerable to the same person who used our marriage troubles to solicit pity and sex from his AP. Who offered up quotes from our correspondence to court OW.

I can only say that you will never know what you don’t know. From stark facts to nuances in tone, interpretation and physical acts. I clung to the belief that if I could know everything, I could move forward in safety. Save yourself from that stupid rabbit hole.

The intention and meaning of her words at the time could have been a twisted manipulation to secure her safety net.

They could also represent what she thought. Or what she thought AP required to hear to move forward in the manner she desired. And so on, and so on.

In order to give herself permission to say what she said and do what she did… she basically said F@%k it, I deserve the outcome & I’m going for it. The cost in pain and consequences of the actions and words were either not considered, or considered and ignored. That’s the crux. What if that part of her nature comes around again?

The way you reconcile the person you see the best in and what she did is to accept she has the capacity to have integrity and to shed it.

Her explanation seems pretty surface to me. How much work has she done on herself?

We were on the slow boat too. You aren’t alone.

For me, I stood on the cliff for a long time watching, verifying, calculating the odds and marinating in his words to her and use of me (and our kids) to woo a bottom feeder.

In the end I had to choose based on the information I had. The work he did, I did and we did. In or out?

So I jumped. All in. And it wasn’t a beautiful swan dive into a a calm ocean of perfected future. It was clumsy, fumbling, scary and sometimes disappointing. But I believe it’s authentic. Each and every day. It’s good. There is something to be said for empty nester peaceful love. I like it.

I’m not afraid of him doing it again. Because if he ever gives himself permission to do it again, I know I will be okay. I’m myself and enough. It only to me 40 plus years to figure it out. His actions and words are a comment on him, not me.

I hope you get to that. It’s freeing