SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Howcthappen-
You’re not alone. I feel exactly the same. Now 11 years out, 24 years married

I have a high needs 15 yr old, and I do not think I can handle him alone.

I will never trust anyone again. Honestly, this experience turned me into a person with avoidant personality disorder, probably. But one of the defining things about it is that I’m supposed to secretly want to be with people. I don’t, though.

I’m also a physician during COVID, so there is a ton of trauma there, too. We opened an OB emergency department and I was the medical director during COVID.
Watching pregnant women in the ICU gasp for air while I was getting attacked by family members saying we were diagnosing that for money and I was in on the conspiracy…..

Anyway. All this shit has been terrible. My WH has not cheated again, to my knowledge. I do check up on him randomly in ways he doesn’t know. But to be blunt, it would be a relief if I found out he was.

Because now we have this marriage that has been a mess for so long.

However, the more I talk to people married as long as us- the more I hear that they are all deeply sad, as well. Things didn’t work out like we were all told it would. People are terribly falliable and flawed. The last thing I want is to enter into another marriage contract with another fucked up person.

So I have the long game in mind. I’m pretty sure I’ll outlive him, and I’m pretty sure I’ll just be alone when he dies. It will be so peaceful. I honestly think I won’t want any companionship. In the mean time, he’s not evil. He definitely doesn’t care deeply for me, either. I asked him one day to tell me something validating and he just looked at me dumbstruck. He is not my safe place to land. We will continue to drive this family home with one headlight and two flat tires. I’ll do right by him and let him die in a god way with some peace, hopefully.

But then the rest of the time is mine. I don’t know what I’ll do with it, but I know I won’t be dealing with angry violent teenagers who punch holes in my walls, and I won’t be having to deal with another man-bro’s ego. Forget that.

I just want dogs and good food and cool trips and retirement in 20 years. Maybe he will survive and he can parallel play with me, like a toddler. But I’m playing my own game now. And no one else is invited. Except dogs. They can come.

Yes, I remained married and he "did the right things" and has kept his act clean I think.

But it was a deal breaker for my heart. But I cannot afford to divorce, I don’t want to date anyone else ever, and my kids need two parents.

So I’m doing it and making it work, prolly no better or worse than any other long term marriage.

If I didn’t have the kids and prolly $7000 a month in alimony to pay, I would have yeeted long ago.

I have considered setting a trap, yes.

But to what end? I would catch him, or not, and learn nothing that I do not already know.

If he didn’t bite on the bait, I would learn he wasn’t vulnerable - today.

If he bites the bait, I would learn he is vulnerable.

I already know he is vulnerable. His affairs proved that.

I didn’t read all the responses, but wanting to set a trap is a very normal consideration regardless if they are a model partner. I considered it just like all the other wild ideas we have during our healing.

I would not recommend it, learn to trust your gut and respond accordingly.

It’s understandable, but I guess you do know underneath that the security you’re looking for has to come from within. For myself, I developed sufficient self security to keep giving my WS rope to hang himself on, not to test him, but quite the contrary simply because I don’t want to spend my life in fear (although plenty happening in the world to keep that fed for sure). I had many triggers, still sometimes do, our brain trying to be alert to a repeat trauma. I really focused on what we were both doing to make ourselves better people and our marriage affair proof. Our infidelity ptsd is going to make us hyper vigilant and in some cases even slightly addicted to the adrenaline of the rollercoaster ride. Your anxiety feels like a trauma response, that’s not been resolved. We have as humans a negativity bias to look out for danger, but a traumatic event can make that unhelpfully entrenched. The great thing about the neuroplastcity of the brain is that you can retrain the neuro grooves of anxiety you may be experiencing, which feels like good insurance but actually simply keeps you secretly unhappy and on edge, into less catastrophic imaginings. Hoping for the best but preparing for the worst (having your ducks in a row) helps that positivity bias as does mindfulness and being present in the here and now. I’m sorry you feel alone here sometimes. It’s a very diverse group of people and opinions here, that’s the beauty of it. As Brene Brown says, if you go looking for reasons why you don’t belong, you will always find them. And the converse is true, also.

[This message edited by Edie at 8:47 AM, Wednesday, February 7th]