SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So my wife cheated on me 15 years ago. In many ways the pain is as sharp now as it was then. Unfortunately I've learned that this is a lifelong issue. A treatable thing but it doesn't go away.
On the D-Day I came home from working the night shift. House was empty, Kids at school and wife at work. I moved the mouse to wake up the computer and there was an email she had failed to send. I started to click it off but something caught my eye. In it she talked about how hot her boyfriend was and how great the sex is. I have to admit it was an interesting sensation. My brain both locked up and yes was flooded with a thousand thoughts, all at the same time. I've never been more stunned. I wasn't expecting this at all and simply had no reality to hang on to at that moment. I didn't know up from down. Everything all at once was thrown into confusion. It affected the present, yes in that moment, but suddenly my entire past with her came into question. It's affected me deeply and like I said quite frankly I've never gotten over it. I have a hard time forgiving her and cannot forgive her AP at all lol. But this single event messed everything up for me and continued to be a problem. I doubt now she even thinks about it, unless to think about how nice the affair was. Her mind gets off Scott free and my mind will forever wonder if my current partner is out there...

Since you have stayed, but still feel immense pain, you need IC with a trauma specialist. It is tragic that this appears to be part of your every day life for 15 years.

I am so sorry you are still dealing with this. You will have great advice and sympathy from a wonderful group.

I am sorry you are still struggling after 15 years. That could indicate a number of things.

Did you have discussions with your spouse about why and all that? Did she answer your questions or expect you to sweep everything under the rug?

What did she do to help you heal? Better communication? Access to passwords? Counseling?

What have you done to help you heal? The cheater can only do so much and then it is unfortunately left to the betrayed to heal.

Do you think your wife has sailed through life without remorse? If so, that could explain where you are now and why you feel the way you do.

BTW you can still D or end the marriage. No one is required to stay. Especially if you are miserable and unhappy. It doesn’t have to be due to the affair but just a recognition that this is no longer the relationship that you want/expect/need.

Unfortunately too many cheaters believe saying "I’m sorry and I’ll never cheat again" makes everything ok. They do not understand the trauma and betrayal leaves a permanent scar and does serious damage to a relationship.

I hope this helps you see that your happiness comes first. And not in a selfish way but in a way that you want to be fulfilled and loved and feel joy from your spouse. And if that’s not what you are getting, it’s time to evaluate yourself and make some decisions.

A treatable thing but it doesn't go away.

It can potentially go away, but whatever method you use has to be very different from all the things you’ve done to date, because they haven’t worked. Just ramping up the intensity of any current approach isn’t going to work. It will have to be different. One of them is divorce, by the way. It needs to be on the table.

I don't think it ever really goes away, it just becomes more muted as you learn to control your reaction to what happened.

You also have to decide if continuing in the relationship is actually worthwhile.

Maybe it was at the time, it's unclear exactly what happened and a lot is in the details. However, the important thing is, you're still struggling.

You should seek individual counseling, simply because of that.

I would question, simply, because of how you wrote your post, whether you both simply rug swept everything. If you did, your partner, that's probably not a safe partner, which may explain why you still feel things so sharply.

I gave up getting answers on my WW's A, rug-swept it, and actively avoided thinking about it for 20 years but you can only do that for so long. Eventually a trigger brought it all flooding back.

Once she agreed to R, I signed on with my WW's therapist for IC and MC. She enabled my WW's blame-shifting and rug-sweeping. She was a doctor so I figured that she must know what she was talking about. You just have to "move on" as she said after three months. You know what grown-ups do in the bedroom so why agonize over it? I couldn't conceive of losing my marriage so I ate the prescribed shit sandwich.

But any time I thought about how I could forgive things I didn't know about or understand my mind went into a spiral that I couldn't control. So I avoided thinking about it and called that acceptance. "Move on," she said. So I did. But you can only keep things swept under the rug for so long.

It was only 20 years later after reading "Cheating In A Nutshell" that I understood that a lot of what I thought and did back then was a response to the trauma of betrayal. I think the failure to acknowledge and treat that trauma is the reason we see so many BSs suffering many years later.

Betrayal shatters your reality and puts the lie to the faith and trust it was based upon. I think that if you're going to piece your reality back together you have to examine every fragment of it. Nothing is unimportant. Nothing can be rug swept. The only other option is to throw it all away and start over.

I don't think it ever really goes away, it just becomes more muted as you learn to control your reaction to what happened.

No trauma goes away. The body remembers.

Pain can be released, though, and it can be released in a way that keeps it from ever coming back. Doing s takes work and a belief that the pain can be released. You've got decades to live the work you have to do will take only a small portion of those years.

IOW, I agree with HouseofPlane.

All the pain and feelings have to be dealt with. Did you do any work after Dday or just move on?

I don’t think it ever fully goes away, infidelity is the worst thing that has ever happened to me in my life. It’s like a death in the family, you learn to live with it but it doesn’t go away.

[This message edited by Tanner at 4:46 PM, Sunday, March 31st]

Vashta, what happened in the aftermath of DDay? What did you guys do (and not do)?

Wow. Many thanks to the replies. I will collect my thoughts and make a proper post.

Hi Vashta,

Welcome to SI. I'm glad you found us.

I remember the feeling of discovery as well. I too, came across a message that made things pretty clear all at once that there was a sexual affair happening. I had no idea or suspicion prior to that either. I kind of felt detached from my body for a bit.

15 years is a long time to still be feeling the pain as sharp as it felt back then. The fact that you're still feeling this way, and the fact that you wonder whether your wife ever even thinks of it, makes me wonder if this was ever really processed and dealt with or whether it was something that was just swept under the rug in the hopes that it would go away on it's own.

Regardless, I hope you'll stick around. In my experience, it really can get better, and I hope it does for you.

Hope you are well, Vashta. Let us know how you're doing.

Thanks you all for the response. After I found out she continued to see the AP for some time. I had made attempts at reconciliation but she was more interested in her affair partner. I however was more interested and keeping my two sons under my roof. I knew that if we split immediately she would take the boys I would be paying a crap ton in child support and be sleeping on a couch somewhere and a very small apartment. And I still would not have my boys with me. So I tolerated this Behavior. Reflecting on it now I think it was highly improper of me to do so. Never ever stay for the kids. But at the time I was blind to the situation and damn near bat crap crazy because of it LOL. we drifted apart over time I stopped trying to reconcile and we became roommates for a time until we split up. We get along fine now to be honest. And I have tried my best to find it within myself to forgive her. But I know I can say the words I forgive you. However in my heart I know that I do not. And that saddens me because I was not like this before this event. My heart was never this hard.

Unfortunately this occurred before YouTube was really a thing. So yeah no discovery phase, no nothing. And yeah the marriage failed as a result.

After I found out she continued to see the AP for some time. I had made attempts at reconciliation but she was more interested in her affair partner.

This is just plain cruel, and in my opinion not deserving of forgiveness. Do you need to come to terms with it? Absolutely. But for her to have you watch as she goes out after you already know to have sex with him is heinous.

And that saddens me because I was not like this before this event. My heart was never this hard.

It changes everyone. You shouldn’t be so hard on yourself.

And I have tried my best to find it within myself to forgive her. But I know I can say the words I forgive you.

Feeling like you need to tell them you forgive them really does get in the way of forgiving them.

If you ever really do forgive them, if you ever just stop dragging that shit around, they’ll know it whether you say anything or not. That will be enough.

So this happened around 15 years ago. I'll admit that I did almost nothing right as far as recovery goes at least as far as the YouTube videos I have seen on this subject LOL. And somebody up above and one of the comments said something to the effect of shoving it under the carpet or whatever. That is exactly what I did. It was incredibly painful and I quite frankly did not know how to deal with it so yes I sort of buried it for years. And so recently the stuff is being coming up I'm not sure what triggered me but you know how triggers are guys and girls. It could be anything. For me anybody wearing a mechanic shirt you know the type of uniform mechanics wear. That sets me off because this guy was a mechanic. At least the one I know about. I have no idea how many there might have been because I only caught with one. But I don't know if he's the only one or he was merely the latest one. But I am now in counseling for the first time about this subject. She is very good and we have been working together for a few weeks now. I recommend any of you if you have the capability to get a therapist to talk you through these things. We are working through the emotions Right now I only have two emotions regarding this event. Anger and sadness. Anger is unhealthy for such a long time. And sadness is simply too hard to bare. Even after all this time I'm not sure exactly how I'm supposed to feel about this LOL.

Glad you're in IC now. Therapy can really help you process the emotions in a good way.

Vashta,

I’m like you in that my WW continued her affair in the worst possible ways after the first dday. Often leaving me to take care of our kids and coming home late under the guise of she needed her space because I was suffocating her. By that, it was because I had the audacity to demand she stop seeing AP. Well after 6 months of that hell, I quit, and got my dday2. Nothing she did is forgivable during that time. Hell, she even had sex with AP on the morning of two of our kids birthdays, Mother’s Day, and my birthday.

I see this a lot with BHs. Rugsweeping. Not always, but from this forum and a few others I have been on, BHs who attempt R seem more likely to rugsweep everything, not work it out and just soldier on. And, usually they end up like you 15-20 years later still stuck in the same place as though DDay happened yesterday. It’s good that you are finally getting the help and support you need. Don’t quit. It will be hard, it will probably get worse before it gets better, but with the right IC and time it absolutely does get better.

I can personally attest that I rugsweept a lot of my other non infidelity problems, and when the A got exposed I crashed and burned. Now almost two years later I am in a much better place. WW and I have dissected everything about the A, start to finish and back again. It helped, truly. It was awful going through it, but I don’t regret it and I don’t harbor the same pain anymore. I say this because in my opinion and experience, it’s the only way to achieve healing.

Nothing about an affair is forgivable. Nor is it fair, nor will there ever be justice. You have the power to decide what you want, and what you can or can’t forgive. Some people can forgive mutplie affairs with numerous people, others can’t forgive looking at racy pictures. Both are acceptable outcomes. The only thing that matters is for you to be honest with yourself, give yourself grace and patience, decide on your own terms what you want and can handle. Me, I’m choosing to find forgiveness, because it’s what I want. I’m not there yet, and I probably won’t be able to forgive everything, but I can accept it at some point because WW is doing her best to fix everything.

It’s unclear to me. Are you divorced? Married living apart? Still married and together?