SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Thank you again to everyone who has replied with such heartfelt and helpful wisdom.
I don’t expect there to be any chance of R after full disclosure. I think he will always love me but he will see our marriage bonds as truly severed.
It may be the honourable and right thing for me to do to choose truth, it may allow me to live an authentic life, but the path leaves *him* broken and traumatised. Hence, my futile wish that i could just proceed on my original plan which was to remove me from his life so I don’t cause him this damage. I hear what you are all saying about how the damage is already done and that the lies are the corrosive thing whatever the outcome. It makes me feel sick to my stomach but I know I need to face it.
I have been referred to SLAA by my therapist but have not yet started or gone to a meeting. I went to a few AA meetings with my dad so know of the 12 steps (much good that did him). I don’t know whether I should wait and cover disclosure as one of the steps, or at least until I feel in a more stable mental place (I sometimes entertain thoughts of self harm and worse). Or perhaps the best thing to do is disclose as soon as possible so that those feelings of R that are emerging on both sides don’t become stronger.

I think that what I'm seeing from your tone and your posts is someone who really doesn't have a lot of self-love. Your internal monologue is seemingly pretty toxic. I mean, it is no wonder that you don't feel like your BH would ever want to reconcile with you after what you've done, because it is clear that you are struggling with the idea of loving yourself for who you are. I mean, you are presupposing that your BH will want nothing to do with you and you are using it to psych yourself out of doing the right thing.

Also, since you talked about your "plan", let's discuss, do you not think that your BH is going to be curious why things are changing in his marriage and why you have walked away? I mean...let me give you a bit of a perspective.

I had an EA from 2017-2019, although it is truthful say that there were stretches there of no contact, so it wasn't a consecutive two years...but also, I readily admit that had there not been an international border separating us...it would've been physical, so that doesn't make it any better...but I digress. I finally began to get my shit together when my wife told me that she had finally had enough and was done with my cheating ways in September 2019 and that we were heading for divorce. I was a pretty slow learner and my head was pretty far up my ass, but I knew that at that point she was dead serious. To be completely clear though, the timing of those things never made any sense. We did a lot of stuff wrong and we went to see a MC and while I found the MC to be really helpful, but my wife did too, but in a way that she was reaffirming her decision to divorce me. The super confusing part of it all was that we would go to MC and she would list her grievances with me like how I didn't help with the dishes or take out the trash, which the therapist and my eyes were completely solvable things.

Looking back on it now, for a couple months there I was trying my damndest to address all the concerns she had and then what shocked me was in December she told me that we were for sure done and that she was moving to the guest bedroom to prepare for divorce. What didn't make sense there was the timing, I had been no contact since the April 2019 timeframe with a broken NC in September, but for most of the year I had been NC and certainly for the four months prior. I mean, sure, recovery and reconciliation looks different to everyone and the timetables aren't always going to make sense, but this request for a divorce and her moving out of our bedroom never fit. As far as I knew, nothing had changed. We had been going to MC, I had been making all sorts of efforts to address her grievances (was doing a hell of a pick me dance I would later find out). By that point I had even begun reading here, been meeting with a therapist regularly to work on myself and address my issues. I wouldn't learn about my wife's concurrent EA/PA that had been going on from 2017 through early 2020 until Feb 2020. But the two interceding months between her moving out of the bedroom and me learning of her A happened to be absolute hell. Nothing in my world or life made any damn sense and my entire life for those months was upside down. My wife too thought that she could exit stage left without ever coughing up the reason for our marriage ending was actually her infidelity, when she was placing the blame on my cheating. I mean, yes, the dueling infidelities in my marriage complicates things at a level that your marriage is not experiencing, but nevertheless, I am hoping to drive home the point that your BH is already being put through the ringer with all your actions, whether you are seeing it from him outwardly or not.

Finally, the idea of killing R feelings by disclosure is a really terrible way to look at it all. It is okay to want to be with your husband and to have the desire to want to R with him. You shouldn't beat yourself up over that, because it is natural and normal. You are also working off the flawed premise that disclosure is going to be the end of your marriage. No one, I mean no one, not you, not any of us here, not even your BH knows that your disclosure will be the end of your marriage. I've been here on SI for a number of years now and I've seen a lot of instances where a BS had thought coming into the marriage that infidelity was a deal breaker for them and while that can still be the case for a good percentage of folks, it is not some hard and fast rule that infidelity = automatic divorce, do not collect $200 and do not pass go. More importantly, while disclosure is undoubtedly going to hurt your spouse, keep in mind that you already baked in that hurt when you made your choice to have an affair, the disclosure is one of your first steps toward healing yourself and being able to live your authentic life.

The overarching theme from your posts so far seem to be from fear of the unknown. Which, granted, fear can be paralyzing and the biggest challenge that I see you having is finding a way to overcome and conquer that fear. I mean, don't get me wrong, you should be under no illusion that your BH will take the disclosure well, but you truly won't know how he reacts until he knows.

Thank you for this insight:

I have been referred to SLAA by my therapist but have not yet started or gone to a meeting. I went to a few AA meetings with my dad so know of the 12 steps (much good that did him). I don’t know whether I should wait and cover disclosure as one of the steps, or at least until I feel in a more stable mental place (I sometimes entertain thoughts of self harm and worse). Or perhaps the best thing to do is disclose as soon as possible so that those feelings of R that are emerging on both sides don’t become stronger.

I want to pump the brakes a minute on all else and address the bolded phrase. Ma'am, nothing and I mean nothing is worth where self harming and/or self ending ideations take you. Listen now. Part of the reason I am here after many years of silence about my betrayal recovery was the loss of a good friend from the very thing you have contemplated. The hurt and destruction they left behind was exponentially worse than the infidelity. Please talk with a good therapist about these thoughts asap and/or pick up your phone and dial 988.

As to the avenue of support that SLAA can provide, please do get involved and committ. Again, what is critical here is the mental stability you referenced. Throw out as many lifelines as needed to build back to a place of stability. These may include therapy, SLAA, trusted family and friends, forums like SI, etc. I dont know if you listen to podcasts but there are excellent 12 step and infidelity recovery resources. I dont know your Dads experience with AA but Ive attended countless open AA meetings in support of a close family member and alanon for myself both of which made a tremendous positive impact. As to when to make full disclosure, in light of your prior comments, let your therapist and SLAA sponsor help guide you with that.

Please keep posting.

Thank you. @Bor9455, that certainly rings some bells as to how I have been acting this year (moving H to separate bedroom, etc). I realise I can’t just exit stage left.
Thank you for your concern @DobleTracion. I am ok. Sometimes need to haul myself out of a dark place.

I told BH today about the PA. I could not bear one more day. I was completely honest and I committed to being honest from today forwards. He was calm, logical, understanding, appreciative of the honesty - but then doubled over in pain and hurt as the images invaded his mind.
It will take time for him to process and I have very little hope that he will choose to give me another chance, given how many chances I’ve had before, and how things have only got worse and worse.
I feel like a murderer. He said that although he will always love me, he needs to approach this with a more objective view and take his feelings out of the picture, and consider what advice he would be giving a friend or relative in this situation. He was so sad and said there is no easy way forward- the thought of leaving the relationship makes him feel awful, the thought of staying makes him feel awful.

I don’t have a sense of relief, only a sense of acceptance of something that I could not avoid, and deep, deep sadness and fear.

I would like to help him as much as possible now, while respecting that he needs space and time. But any advice on what to do now to help him, would be so much appreciated.

I'm so proud of you, Splitlife. I know that was very, very difficult.

The best way that you can support him is by doing the work to get right with yourself, and to be a safe partner in the future. Which means you need to get started with the prescribed SLAA meetings as soon as possible.

Be available to your H. Always tell him the truth, even if you think it may be very painful for you to say or for him to hear. Don't withhold anything from him. Answer his questions. Ask him how he would like to be treated by you and then do that. Check in on him often, if he's okay with contact.

I know that it may not feel like it at all, but you took a giant first step towards your own recovery. It seems as though you've found your empathy to see your husband in total pain from the reveal, which is also, believe it or not, a good sign. Obviously, it would've been better for us waywards to not have to have affairs and have our betrayed partners learn of those affairs for us to find empathy and compassion, but we cannot go back and change the past.

Proud of you and you should be proud of what you have done by telling your BH. At this point in time, you are going to be taking your lead from your BS on how you proceed forward, but that should also not deter you from working on yourself. You need to work on yourself, heal yourself, because the before you betrayed your BH, you betrayed yourself by compromising and allowing boundaries to be crossed any number of times in the culmination of full blown PA. As we say, you gotta figure out and fix your shit before you can even begin to resemble a safe partner and a partner that is suitable for R. Your BH may never offer up the gift of R to you, but none of that will matter if you are not worthy of R. Whether you R or D, you need to commit to yourself that today's actions in telling your BH are an inflection point in your life of who you are going to be.

As for helping your BH, you are going to take his lead on things, but you can also point him here to SI. The JFO and General forums can help him. You wouldn't be the first couple to join SI and benefit from its collective wisdom. Even if he doesn't wish to join up, post and share the story from his perspective, which is completely understandable, given how raw it is, there are a ton of other good links with information and resources that he can find here at his own leisure. Also, again for you, have you read the books "How to help your spouse heal" by Linda McDonald and "Not Just Friends"? Those two books for me and my wife were both pretty quick reads and also helped us to work through some stuff early in the process.

Splitlife,

Good work giving BH a firm foundation to recover or divorce from.

There is also a chance that you just confirmed what he already knew deep down and while it is painful like ripping off a bandaid it is a needed step for healing.

Often spouses give up after trickle truth and it's burden on them and you that you volunteered means he might get to a place of trust in you.

I 100% affirm your choice to disclose. Come what may, you have given him the information he needs and is deserving of and you have taken a step forward on the path of personal integrity.

Please do get support for the issues you posted of earlier.

My heart now goes out in particular to your BH. Dealing with this is a pain like no other. I hope he too has a strong support system.

You did it! That must have been really scary and you were incredibly brave to take the step. I 100% believe that some day you are going to look back and think that this was the first step of a whole new positive life for you. Even your kids will someday reap the benefits of your transparency.

In the meantime though you must feel terribly scared and unsure. I hope you will post and take advantage of the support here, most importantly from the other WSs. It is hard for all of us to sit with discomfort, even though that is probably one of the most important life skills. Nobody teaches us that and we are all pretty lost when we have to deal with that feeling.

Sending many virtual hugs.

It may be the honourable and right thing for me to do to choose truth, it may allow me to live an authentic life, but the path leaves *him* broken and traumatised.

Yes, it will hurt him like hell but I truly think he will be better off **long term** knowing the truth.

Good for you, splitlife. You did the right thing.

When I found out about my ex-husband‘s prostitute habit, I confronted him, and he tried like hell to keep lying. I told him I couldn’t do anything with our marriage if he kept lying, and he kept lying, so I divorced him.

It’s been nearly 10 years since D-Day and nine years since I last saw or spoke to him. If he had had the balls to be honest with me, I might’ve still divorced him, but I wouldn’t still be plagued with questions and nightmares where my mind is still trying to figure out what the fuck was going on behind my back during at least half of our 20 year relationship/marriage.

No matter what happens going forward, if you divorce or reconcile, hopefully you’ve allowed him to move forward with clarity. I never got that option and as much as I hate to admit it, all those unanswered questions still haunt me to this day. It’s like his abuse has legs.

[This message edited by GiveTimeTime at 2:11 AM, Saturday, September 23rd]

@Splitlife

How did the weekend go? Dropping that bomb on a Friday couldn't have been easy, but how did your BH respond? Did you guys continue to talk over the weekend?

Thank you for asking. It has been a very very rough few days.
We have spoken a lot and slept very very little.
When we saw each other on Saturday morning he said that he knew he wanted a divorce. I am broken by this, despite it being fully what I expected from him, knowing him and his values and our past. He said that although his heart will always love me that his head says he must go in order to retain his self respect. He said he is exhausted and broken and no longer has the capacity to try to repair the marriage.
I have to respect his wishes but did ask that he takes a few days to let things settle before coming to complete finality.
For any other WS wondering whether this is a useful example of whether not to disclose….BS said over and over again how much difference it makes that I have been honest. Our talks all weekend have been full of pain and sadness but also love and clarity. He has been angry - mostly with the OM rather than directed at me (perhaps this might change). But we have held each other and even made love. I guess you could say we have reconciled emotionally but that the marriage is destroyed. It feels absolutely dreadful and it has been up there with the worst few days of my life; but I know this much: the honesty will last longer than the pain.
Being honest has also forced me to confront the damage the lies and betrayal have done full on. I have been in denial for a very long time about the hurt and neglect that I caused and for my BS to be able to finally express that, and for me to have to hear it - well, nowhere to hide any longer and it is a painful catharsis. I see the pain as burning off all the shameful parts of me leaving the real me left. I am broken and still so much pain and loss to come for us both. But I can hold my head up and say that finally I was honest with myself, and as others on this thread have said, it is an opportunity for a new and better path.
BS and I have agreed to give it a few days before we touch base again, to let everything settle. I don’t think he will change his mind about the future, and maybe he will become less kind as it sinks in, and I have to steel myself for that because it can take me into some very dark self-hating places, but in some ways it is what he needs to do now if what he wants to do is move on. All I want is for him to feel better. I know it’s too late to be saying I want to love him but I feel like my love for him got walled up by the guilt and now it’s all flooding out.

This last few days I now refer to in my head as ‘blowing up the dead whale on the beach’. A bomb has gone off, my life is raining down in chunks, there’s a lot of mess - but it was the only way to get rid of the dead whale.

When we saw each other on Saturday morning he said that he knew he wanted a divorce.

BS and I have agreed to give it a few days before we touch base again, to let everything settle. I don’t think he will change his mind about the future, and maybe he will become less kind as it sinks in, and I have to steel myself for that because it can take me into some very dark self-hating places, but in some ways it is what he needs to do now if what he wants to do is move on. All I want is for him to feel better. I know it’s too late to be saying I want to love him but I feel like my love for him got walled up by the guilt and now it’s all flooding out.

I'm not going to try and give you false hope or anything like that, but a couple things to keep in mind. Divorces are something that you actively seek out, initiate and execute, not something that is just given. Saying, "I want a divorce" has no real meaning behind it until one of you takes the steps to actually file for divorce. Even after that happens, you are still quite a long ways away from actually being divorced. These situations tend to be fluid and are rarely just black and white straight to divorce, although that has happened from time to time.

My point being that your BH is subject to riding the emotional rollercoaster. What you described of your Saturday was a little bit of the macro picture that you can expect over the next few months. The important thing for you to do is figure out yourself. What caused you to cheat? What things from your life prior to meeting your BH shaped you in such a way that your stated value of fidelity had some conditionality to it that shouldn't have been there? Your personal growth and understanding of who you really are will important to you no matter what outcome you may have with your BH whether D or R.

I get the sense that deep down you would really like the chance at R with him. If that is the case, I suggested some reading for you in the last post I dropped that can help you in that direction. Your BH may seem dead set on divorce, but as time goes on and the shock of the betrayal wears off, his stance could soften, but mostly through your actions. By demonstrating to your BH that you are taking this seriously, putting in the work, showing him empathy, compassion and kindness as well as not being defensive about any questions he will inevitably have about the disclosure you just dropped on him. What is important is that you make sure you get everything out there on the table. All the truth, the whole truth, the ugly parts, the deepest, darkest, nastiest and ugliest parts, get them all out there and share them. All of this hurts and your analogy about the dead whale carcass and a bomb seems to fit, but just make sure that you revealed everything about it, or else down the road, there will be a second whale carcass and that will be what kills any chances you have at R. I'm by no means trying to give you false hope that R is coming, but I can tell you this with a high degree of certainty, telling additional lies, protecting your AP or even yourself from embarrassment will seal the deal as far as divorce. Many will say that infidelity doesn't kill the marriage, it is the lies in the aftermath that do and I'm a firm believer in that camp. Now is the time to be brutally honest with him and everything.

I will also add, brutal honesty is important and there are also going to be moments, especially given your lack of sleep and the emotions for both of you are quite frayed, it is okay to answer that you don't remember but you will get him an answer and then go to work getting that answer. I can't think of a good example right now, but maybe there is a credit card charge or a call log that he will ask you about. Say on the call log example, it's a number that isn't your AP but it doesn't jump out at you, maybe it was the doctor's office or the electrician that you guys had out a few months back. Do the work to find out the answer when you need to consult some other sources of information and give him the most truthful and honest answers you can.

BH here, 10 yrs past DD for long term PA. The sex & lies of the PAs are forgivable (with appropriate consequences). Should it ever be discovered you did not completely disclose you will destroy the family relationships. That’s what happened with me. I discovered completely by accident a year after the PA ended details that could not be explained away. People cause harm to others by selfish actions (myself included). The difference between a decent human being and a betrayer is the three A’s: do you have the humility and remorse to Admit fully, Apologize genuinely and Atone appropriately. I hope you can find the inner fortitude to make the right choice.

This last few days I now refer to in my head as ‘blowing up the dead whale on the beach’. A bomb has gone off, my life is raining down in chunks, there’s a lot of mess - but it was the only way to get rid of the dead whale.

I love this analogy. And I love the painful, beautiful honesty that I see in your words. I also second Bor's sentiments and advice.