SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I’m a little over 3 months out from D-day. My WH has been doing pretty much everything he can to repair. He ended it that day and has not had contact. He gave me full access to everything immediately. The AP was a coworker and he quit that job immediately and never went back. He read how to help your spouse heal from your affair. He did TT a bit- about 6 weeks ago he confessed the full truth about how he was feeling (he kept saying he couldn’t end it because they worked together but truth was he felt addicted) and also about childhood trauma and other incidents of acting out (which were before me). He took a polygraph which was truthful and per that, he has not cheated on me any other time. He’s seeing an IC, changed to a trauma certified one once he told me about that. He apologizes daily, is so remorseful and I believe he’s making every effort to save the marriage.

The issue is me. I’m not sure if I’m cut out for R. Generally, I’m easily hurt and don’t tend to forgive easily. This has been the most painful thing I’ve ever been through. Some days, I’m ok- even happy- and totally feel all in with R. Other days, I think no way in hell. How can I be married to someone who did something so painful to me? I wish I could be one of those gracious, forgiving people but I’m just not. My IC had me write out if I stay and if I leave. That exercise broke me, I wept so badly when thinking of us being apart. Actually, after I wrote that I had almost 2 weeks of feeling really positive about R, then the darkness came again. He’s begging me to stay, says he will do anything and I believe it. But he can’t give me the one thing I really wanted and that was a faithful marriage. Overall, I have more good days than bad lately but the bad ones feel so incredibly awful that I’m not sure I’ll ever be ok with this.

Am I just not a good candidate for R? Is this normal for a BS at this stage? Any advice is truly appreciated.

I don’t know the answer to the question but I will say that the one thing you want « a faithful marriage » is gone. You are grieving its loss and you should be grieving that. No matter what you do you will have had an unfaithful marriage. It is devastating. My father and grandfather cheated so I carefully chose my spouse as someone highly unlikely to cheat. As you said…the one thing I wanted was a faithful marriage. But I also wanted to be married to my kids dad. So those two things have been in conflict. No matter what I was going to lose one of them.

The bad thing already happened to you. At three months I still had not accepted this fact. It was not that I couldn’t accept this fact. Some part of my brain wouldn’t even accept that it really happened. Even though I had been told point blank that it did happen. The bargaining stage of grief kept returning for me. I would subconsciously think that I could somehow turn back time and make the cheating not really true. I think some now smaller part of my brain still clings to that belief. I think I am generally a very very forgiving person, but this? Throwing away your marriage for a cheap thrill—or the idea of WS being « addicted » to another person. It is sickening and takes a really long time to forgive. Doesn’t mean you can’t but I would not beat yourself up for not having a fountain of forgiveness flowing out of you at this point in time.

So essentially you are grieving. From the outside looking in it even sounds like you are doing pretty well. You had a good week…that is amazing! It took months for me to even string two consecutive days together of feeling kinda okay. My mind would only let in the truth at very slow intervals. I would believe and process certain parts of the trauma, but some I just had to put aside and block out until eventually I became strong enough to slowly let in those bad facts.

It sounds like you are fully capable of getting through this (with a lot of time) if that is what you choose to do. Take your time. Let go of the outcome. Help educate your spouse on letting go of the outcome. IMO it is way to soon for you to really know if you are going to chose to spend the rest of your life with your WS. You can start by just deciding you are going to stay for the next 6 months, or whatever makes sense to you. Your head will get more clear every few months and then you can truly make an informed decision.

Just my two cents, and everyone is different.

Hi ADS, I'm so sorry you're here. It's been 3 months, you don't have to decide right now, and you can change your mind later even if he's a good candidate for R and doing the right things. I was able to R because I felt like our relationship was fundamentally sound (shared values, etc.), I'm empathetic so understood some of what he was going through before the A even though I hated it and hold him responsible, and we had a tween son only child who really needed us to try to work it out if possible. More important than any of that, though, I've changed. I will never put my self-respect or own mental health before my marriage (or any relationship, job, etc.), and my husband knows it. I am so much stronger than I ever knew, and if he screws up at all, he knows that I will walk away. As someone who was not always secure in our relationship, this change of perspective has been life-changing. It took a long time to fully crystallize, but it started not long after D-day when I realized I had power in the situation, and I had choices. You do as well, and there's power in that. Big hugs.

This was my experience of the whole thing.

When I found out, I couldn't really accept it had really happened because I wasn't ready to. So I was 100% in for R because I could not deal in any way with the idea the relationship was over. It is an enormous thing to deal with - and like you describe, how the heck are you supposed to imagine your life completely differently overnight? You just can't.

My WS was like yours and did everything perfectly for the first three months, and then he broke NC with the AP several times. Tricky circumstances as they still worked together, but basically he blew it. So even though your WS is doing everything right now - those first few months are panic mode for him too - you have to let things brew a bit to see what he does.

The real decision to R was something I made pretty gradually and there are a few reasons I decided to do it:

1. I still really loved him and he really loved me and I felt sure of both those things

2. Our relationship was still good - very loving, supportive and he was a plus instead of a negative when I was in pain.

3. In my relationship before him, my fiancé had died very suddenly and I didn't want to experience more loss

4. I came here and read the success stories and felt buoyed by what I read and I genuinely believed we could do the R work and come out of his better than we started

5. I didn't think the A was an "us" problem, but more of a "him" problem and he recognised that from day one and committed to resolving it.

6. I fundamentally did not believe on any level the A would have happened if we had not been long distance at the time.

7. My friends and family supported the R and nobody thought I should throw away the relationship.

8. This is the worst one but let me be honest - I was worried he would end up with the AP if I didn't (raw confession there but it's true, she was chasing after him and I figured he'd run for comfort)

9. I ultimately believed he was a good person who genuinely felt immediate remorse

10. He handed over all their communications and I saw evidence the A was more or less FWB with no romance or infatuation on his part.

11. I realised I was going to be in pain and have to suffer regardless, so whether we were together or not nothing was going to save me from that.

12. I ultimately didn't want to spend my life without him

So they were the reasons I stayed and fought for things. Ultimately for various reasons he didn't end up living up to the changes I needed to see (he struggled with the demands of R and tried to rugsweep) and we are separated now but I don't regret the choice I made because I made it for all the right reasons.

What I can tell you for sure is that R is a decision you don't make once - you have to keep making it over and over again and how you feel now will change a lot over time. I thought nothing could be worse than DDay, but over time the pain it brings, the trauma, is so much bigger than you think at the start. It's very tough. Likewise he will change over time and you will need him to "keep it up".

As for how you live with it - you have to live with it anyway. That is the proverbial shit sandwich. You find ways to process it, and then you live with something you can't live with. Because you have no choice. It does get better and relationships are kind of fluid. The old makes way for the new and he and you can rewrite things now.

7.

Hi ADS,

You described me when writing and yes that emotional rollercoaster lasted me a good year. We immediately started MC and that was the hardest thing I think I've ever been through. Fast forward and here I am 15 years later. Tomorrow is DD. Some years it went by and didn't affect me at all. This year, I'm not sure what happened but a little black cloud showed up a few days ago. I look at how far we've come. Our MC had us start date nights. Rough in the beginning because I just felt worthless. She had us write what we loved about each other. She put it a really nice way that you can build on a foundation with a little crack. And looking at it, it was just a little crack, that needed to be filled in before we started to rebuild. Thank God. Forgiveness, didn't happen overnight. WH admitted alcohol played a part and he didn't think he'd ever betray me but it happened. Even though it wasn't planned it still happened.

My WH did so much work and repaired it all on his end. Read 2 books about Affairs and made so much effort to keep me and our family intact. It is still raw for you. It's not easy. There are no magic words. Time heals wounds. Learning to trust is literally a day by day event. I really believe counseling was the best thing for us. I learned but I grew too. To answer your question, I can't say yes or no but yes this is all NORMAL. You made it to the 3 month mark, maybe set a goal to make it to the 6 month mark and see how things look then. Most important thing, communication is the key.

TAN
DD 09/25/2008
RD 09/28/2008

I felt this way for at least 2.5 years. Now at 5, not at all. That doesn’t mean I never think about the cheating, it just doesn’t sting so much anymore and I am always glad I stayed. For me, the pain of divorcing seemed worse than that of staying. I too, wanted a faithful marriage and I knew that I no longer had that. I was told multiple times I could get that with a new partner, but actually, I couldn’t. I wanted the entire picture, the intact nuclear family, to grow old with the father of my children. So, while I could have found a new faithful man for a pure marriage, I’d of had to give up other wants/dreams. In the end, letting go of a faithful marriage was easier. I had to adjust my wants as I couldn’t have them all. That all being said, I am
Proud of my marriage. I was a faithful loving wife who survived a lot of bullshit and am living a great life.

Welcome to the emotional rollercoaster ride from hell. At 3 months post Dday I was feeling exactly what you described. One minute I wanted R and the next I wanted to kick him out and never see his lying, cheating ass again. Was extremely fortunate in having a sister who listened to my endless rants - but was also my voice of reason. She gave me two very good pieces of advice:

1. Don't rush into making a decision - give myself time to deal with the trauma and shock of his cheating - taking care of myself was more important at the moment than making the R or D decision.

2. WS and I had been married 30 years at the time his A - she encouraged me to remember the man he had been for those 30years - a kind, loving husband and father. She acknowledged and sympathized with my pain - said she wasn't trying to downgrade his A - but did it wipe out the previous 30 years?

What really made me chose R was seeing his remorse and the work he was doing to repair the marriage. He started IC - never tried to shift blame on to me for the A - there was a little TT - but he quickly understood the harm that was doing and would answer all my questions over and over again.

I understand how hard it is to let go of the dream for a faithful marriage. After 30 years of marriage I thought that was what we had. I had to look at my marriage from a different perspective - I had to look at him from a different perspective. My marriage now included infidelity - and he was a man who had cheated - but I was not going to let that define him or our marriage. I just knew in my heart that the A was an aberration and did not reflect on the man I knew he truly was - and I wanted to give him the chance to prove it.

ADS - what you are feeling is perfectly normal - heartbreaking but normal. If R is definitely an option then watch his actions. Is he doing the work to make you feel safe and heard - is he making you feel he can become a safe partner for the marriage?

Infidelity is a huge betrayal - even the most loving, forgiving of people would find it hard to just forgive. R or D is such a personal decision - only you know what is really right for you - for now just take care of yourself - as the pain and shock begin to subside his actions and your heart will tell you what is right for you.

Wishing you the best.

MintChocChip-I also have to admit that there was a part of me that didn't want her to have him as she was also pursuing him and making it very clear that she wanted a permanent relationship.

I think I stole this from Sissoon and if not him, somewhere around here.

Healing can take 2-5 years. Healing. That means YOU getting the ground back under your feet, processing all of your feels and YOU rebuilding YOURSELF.

YOU healing is not reconciliation. That is step two. Should you choose it.

At 3 months out, you are far from healed. It's good that he is all in. That allows you some time and space to heal without living in constant fear that the betrayal is ongoing. But your healing should be your focus right now. If he wants to assist and wait and love you while you do that, good. But that's not reconciling the marriage.

Life isn't that clean, I understand. You heal but you are also still married and have a spouse that wants reassurance that you are all in. But for now, the marriage cannot be the priority. You must be. Therapy, self care, support systems, emotional support from your spouse, those are the things that help you heal.

I promise you, once you feel stronger, what to do with the marriage will become clearer. The scary part is wondering when a WS will bail while waiting for us to heal. But you have to let go of the outcome. Focus on you and your healing. The marriage itself is a secondary question you cannot answer right now.

tldr; give yourself a break. You can't possibly know what you really want right now. You're dizzy from trauma. Heal and time will most certainly tell you what is best for you.

[This message edited by TheEnd at 10:20 PM, Sunday, September 24th]

It’s too soon to make any decisions about reconciliation.

You are not required to forgive anything to R.

Take it one day at a time.

It’s a long slow process unfortunately

Don’t worry if you are a good candidate for R. That is not your priority right now. It’s only been 3 months. 3 months for me I wanted to divorce, cut off all ties, cut my leg off, anything to stop hurting. I’m not kidding, if cutting my leg off would have stopped the pain I would have done it civil war style.

What you are going through is normal, unfortunately. It’s ok. Don’t worry about forgiveness, don’t let your WS pressure you into it because it won’t be authentic anyway. It takes time, and it takes time for you to get your feet back on the ground. I feel often, that many BSs are so sacred of cheating reoccurring that they will automatically agree to R and then chastise themselves for not being able to R when they aren’t ready.

Truth is, if he’s going to again he will. And it doesn’t matter if he does or doesn’t. He already did. That’s it.

You need to take care of yourself, to figure out what you want. It doesn’t matter if he is the most remorseful person in the world. It really doesn’t. He knew what the risk was, and he still thought it was worth it. Too bad for him that it wasn’t. He can beg and cry and whatever to save it, but you still don’t have too. You decide if you want to, when you want to. It will take time, and actions from him.
Be warned, it’s usually like this at first, all tears and remorse and all of that, what will show you he is actually being remorseful is that a year from now, he is still giving his all.

And, it’s ok if you can’t. He could really mean it, and really change, and really try and be better. You still don’t have to stay. That’s a decision only you can make, but you should embrace the freedom of choice. You can’t handle it, don’t.

responses.

SC- it’s definitely grieving. I still wish to undo it. I almost demand it of WH, I just want it gone so bad. I don’t understand how someone can say they love you and can’t imagine life without you, yet as you said gambled all that for some cheap thrills. It’s unforgivable.

GS- we also have a young child and I feel like I owe it to her to give it a shot. I don’t want that to cloud my decision though. Everything seems clouded though, how do you even accurately decide to spend life and plan a future with someone who could inflict this level of pain on their spouse.

MCC- I’ve been following your story and appreciate your insight. I’ll definitely be watching for consistent efforts not words. I don’t care if AP has WH but I don’t want that trash anywhere near my child.

TAN- I’m sorry for how rough this day might be for you. Thanks for reminding me of going one day at a time. My IC always reminds me of this but I’m an over planner by nature so my future being uncertain is stressing me.

OTOSOH- I can’t even think about a new partner. I talked about this with IC. There’s no guarantees that a new spouse won’t cheat or have other issues. I guess this is the devil you know type thing

Nana- I’m struggling hard with not seeing him as the cheater. I know that’s not all he is and we did have nearly 13 years together before this happened. I wonder if he was always capable but just lacked the opportunity. We both spend a lot of time together, know each other’s whereabouts, etc. So it pretty much had to be a coworker and one as disgusting as he was and risk their jobs and families for this. I’d like to think those types aren’t easy to come by.

The End- thank you for the reminder to keep taking care of myself. That’s truly what I need to focus on.

The1stWife- thank you. I needed that.

HINHF- gosh, your words spoke to me. I would do literally anything to get rid of this awful pain. Anything. I want him away because he’s the cause of the pain but even then I know it won’t leave. I’m not even really worried about more cheating. Just the fact that he ever did, all the shitty, horrible, disgusting things he did to betray his wife and family are enough for me to hate him.

Thank you, all of you. This place means so much to me. I hate that everyone here had to live through this nightmare.

I am so sorry that you have had to experience this pain. Don't give up hope. Three months is so very early to have healed your heart and to be in reconciliation. It took me a good two years to feel really good. That is not saying there were not days or weeks that were great and then you feel down for a bit. I am so glad your husband is making the changes needed which truly helps in your healing. It was the hardest thing I had ever done.. I am so happy that I did though... that was 12 years ago. Be kind to yourself.. Your feelings should be all over the place right now. Do the two of you belong to a church? If so, reach out to your pastor, or maybe another couple from the church and ask for some help or guidance from them also. We relied a lot on our faith especially during those rough months. When my mind would trigger , I would immediately shift changes and focus my mind on the right things as much as I could.. by thinking about Jesus, thinking about others, and thinking about eternity. I would also allow myself a minute or two to grieve, and then would move along with my day. I would not allow it to destroy an entire day.. I kept myself very busy. I do remember when I chose to reconcile and my mother said to me.. you can change anything or fix anything as long as we are breathing.. Amen to that sista! You got this... I will place you in my prayers this evening. God Bless.

I don't know. I'm just sufficiently confident and willing to live with the remainder of uncertainty.

I'm 2 months out from D-Day and feel this to my core!
My question is what do you do, and ask of your partner when you are not sure you want to R?

I never really knew for sure. It was a scary time.

Immediately after DDay2 (which was after just a couple of weeks of false R) I sort of, for lack of a better description, split. My heart and my brain were absolutely at odds with each other. I've sometimes thought of this as being at war with myself. This was the only time I've experienced something like this in my lifetime.

The intellectual side of me -- perhaps my inner monologue if you will -- made the following arguments, usually in a shouty or berating way: She couldn't be trusted. She obviously didn't care about me. Staying was stupid. Habitual bonding with her was extremely stupid. I was stupid. Thinking things would work out was just wishful thinking. To be honest my brain made many good points.

My heart though -- the thought of leaving ached. I thought maybe we could still work out, and the thought of walking away from that ached tremendously. I longed for us to work out. I didn't want to leave.

I can't tell you how many times in that first year I flipped back and forth between R and D. My brain was pushing for D, my heart wanted R.

Keep in mind that my wife put in an effort toward R that I have trouble finding words for. It was herculean. Admirable even. I don't think I would have been capable of the effort she made if the roles had been reversed. She did all the right things for R, and she did them consistently over time. If she hadn't, I think I would have moved forward with the D route.

Here's my rough timeline.

Immediately after DDay2, I was about 70% D and 30% R. I had even talked to a lawyer and was exploring housing options.

After about 3 months I was 50/50.

After about a year I was 60% R and 40% D.

I think it took about two years before thoughts of D really started to fade. I'd say I was still 80% R and 20% D. But the two year mark is where the debate in myself finally ended and my heart/head finally seemed to be on the same page again.

I'm 11 years out now. Right now I'm 99.9% R and 0.1% D. There are still brief moments where I wonder if I made the right choice, but those are driven either by a trigger or fear and I usually decide pretty quickly that I'm happy with the choice I made.

[Edited because I saw a typo]

[This message edited by saturnpatrick at 11:08 AM, Friday, September 29th]

Thank you!

None of us can predict the future. Life is filled with uncertainty, no matter how much one hates that.

The 'soon' in my ID comes from my desire to get through the pain quickly. The quickest way is to accept it, feel it, process it out of one's body. Letting the anger, grief, fear, and shame course through your body gets it out. It took me a long time, because immense amounts of anger, grief, fear, and shame get dumped on BSes - but it was the way through the pain.

I knew I wanted R from the start, but I kept myself from committing to R until I saw totally consistent R behavior from my W. We had to resolve a lot of issues, and I didn't always got the resolution I wanted, but we did our best to avoid games and manipulation.

When I was about 4 years out, I skimmed Gottman's and Silver's The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work. One of the key indicators was what do the partners think of when under stress/angry at their partner. People who remember good times together tended to stay together.

When I was angriest after d-day, my anger usually got interrupted by good memories. I always told myself they were imaginary, but I knew they weren't. When I read about that, I just wished I had read the book shortly after d-day - it would have reduced my uncertainty about R.

So ... when you're under stress with your WS, what memories come up for you? What comes up for your WS? Good memories probably mean you lean to R? Bad ones probably mean you lean to D. Both D & R can be healthy, powerful, honorable choices, so the right answer is the honest one.

I believe Gottman argues that one can train themself to bring up good memories when under stress, if a person wants to change - and wanting/changing isn't required.

In any case, at 3 months out, if R is on the table, it's entirely normal not to know which way you want to go.

My reco is to focus on finding out what you want. If the A or WS's behavior after the A is a deal killer, the choice - D - is easy. If you want R, though, you have to live with uncertainty about your M.

I’m 3.5 years out and still struggling. I was considering having my own affair. Haven’t.

If it wasn’t for mid life crisis and the fact that I believe he was faithful until then I think I’d be less likely to consider it.

I didn’t know reconciliation was on the table for me for a couple of years. In fact, I didn’t commit to that. I committed to recovery and to working on the marriage - reciprocal to the effort I saw FWH putting in. Recovery has to happen regardless of what you decide to do. Because our son was just 15 and I knew 2-5 years for recovery…..I said I would work 3 years. NOT for our son, but because I figured if we couldn’t fix it by then, it wasn’t worth fixing.

For the most part, I’m in a much happier marriage with a much more present spouse than I was pre-affair. I’m grateful for that and that we were both willing to do that hard work. I second the Gottman books. We were fortunate to get them EARLY after DDay, that and a Gottman trained MC helped us.

Take care of yourself. Do everything you need to heal you.