SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello everyone..

I just need to let this out. I know/hope someone here will understand what I am going through right now.

I feel so disgusted towards my WH.

I feel so angry whenever I look at him.

Triggers, mind movies, flashbacks etc etc on peak for the last few weeks. Tried my best to overcome them as much as possible. I thought I was doing okay. 🥺

He is trying his best now to be a safe partner (except the IC part) slowly but surely, but who knows right? There is always a doubt especially if you have been lied to over & over again. Not even sure anymore what to believe.

I am no longer doing IC. I stopped for now. I feel like it doesn't work for me (atleast not now). He doesn't do IC (I gave up convincing him).

One of my dearest friend told me yesterday that she feels like I am giving up. She felt like the "I don't give a f*ck anymore" vibe from me while I was telling her what I am going through for the past couple of weeks. All I could say to her after that was "I'm tired. I'm really tired emotionally and mentally." And that hit me hard. I bawled my eyes out.

I just don't know anymore. 😔
I tend to overthink now because of this betrayal trauma. I'm really exhausted.

Does anyone had similar experience or experience this kind of phase? I know I am less than a year since Dday or is it because "Dday anniv" is approaching?

Also, I've been meaning to ask this --- why some of SIers are saying that the year 2 is much worst than the year 1?

Relationships should not be this hard. Reconciliation should be the complete responsibility of the ws. If you are not getting anything out of your relationship then it sounds like emotional hell. You can’t live like this indefinitely. It will affect your health. If he refuses IC I would be very suspicious, or at least, angry. Obviously he is allowing you to do all the work. Do you honestly think you have anything to work with.

At about a year, I could see that my XWH wasn't doing the work to be safe. He v was basically waiting for things to calm down and he could go back to the way he wanted things to be. The thing was, I didn't want that.

What do you want the rest of your life to look like? How can you accomplish that?

I felt anger and disgust for a very long time. IMO it's normal

When I took a minute to really think about my WH betrayal, that's exactly what I felt.

My WH had an affair with a co-worker, who lived on the opposite coast. Her husband also worked for the same company, my WH worked with him a couple times a year, not one iota of guilt. OW was pregnant with her BS child during the EA, talk about disgust. My WH loved the attention from a Co-worker's wife who was pregnant with his child. I couldn't wrap my head around it.

IMO give yourself some grace during this time, time will help, it just sucks going through it.

Year 1 vs Year 2

Year 1 I felt so much everything. Anger, sorrow, disbelief, grief, loss, everything.

Year 2 I felt nothing. Just blank. They call that the POLF. Plain of Lethal Flatness. The Healing Library defines it pretty well. It was just vast nothingness. Filled with pitfalls and tests. Twists and turns. With no end in sight.

It was around that time when the dust from the Shock and Awe was settling, that I decided to focus on myself and my own journey. And slowly heal.

Both Year 1 and Year 2 were Hell in their own rights, but very different circles of Hell.

I don't have advice because we are on similar timelines.

I posted something SUPER similar to this a week ago , I think I titled it "Getting more disgusted as time goes on"
I will be 7 months out soon and let me tell you something, the disgust is real and it is HARD to stomach most days. I told him yesterday that when I look at him , I don't see him how I used to and he IS doing all the right things right now and it still doesn't matter. He shared his body with someone else, broke our vows, lied, and cheated... he knows he deserves for me to feel this way, he doesn't fight it he just tries to be better. I share my feelings with him and tell him everything, sometimes I will even tell him what I post on here all the gritty mean things,
I would maybe suggest sharing what you're feeling? Maybe tone it down so it isn't as mean as you feel? I am not the best at doing that.

I am also worried about year 2, I have heard horrid things about it too..... the affair season starts in May, I am already getting anxiety, I am just glad I threw away all the dates he saw her. I had them all written down and I ripped it all up and deleted the evidence so I couldn't pain shop.

Wishing you the best in this hell.

Choas nailed it, couldn't explain it better. Also, Year 2 was the "new normal." This is my life, regardless of R or D.
I'm so sorry you are struggling. I'm 5.5 years out and still feel flickers of disgust.
I struggled until year 4, by 5 I consider myself mostly healed.
Hugs to you.

I think the feelings of anger and disgust are your run of the mill feelings at this stage. I’m a little over 6 months past Dday and experience so much anger and disgust on a daily basis it’s physically exhausting. I try harder some days than others to just go "about my day" but his ridiculous choices continue to eat at me. I will also be dreading the upcoming months as I approach the first day of his A and then the first anniversary of Dday. Then we head into year 2 (apparently even more of a doozy). Ugh!

I can very much relate to this feeling from that time in my recovery (((HUGS))). Everyone has given you pretty much the same type of stuff I would be writing...this is all a very normal part of the process.

The first year I was trying to just survive all the bombs being dropped from everywhere!! I was rolling over every rock...checking every place I could to make sure I had all of the evidence I needed. I was on a mission!! By year two...it was all done...and then I looked around and went...now what?? I was now faced with THIS realization of what the REST of my life would be like...and that exhaustion from all of that previous year's discovery had me DRAINED. The POLF was something I had never experienced before and I wasn't sure my M would survive it. Thank God for this site and the people here who helped me through all of this .

It wasn't until year three when I felt like MAYBE I could take D off of the table.

For ME...the approaching Dday anniversary was much more anxiety driven than the actual DAY itself. My H had a 9 1/2 week A. I had a finite time for when he first met the adultery co-conspirator to when he left her country and the last time he saw her...so A season is a 68 day timeframe in the year. The first few years...when January 1st rolled around I would start getting anxious knowing that I would have to face A season...which doesn't begin until May 11th. Then it started being May 1st that I would get anxious. Now...after 10 years...it is "meh". I LIKE "meh" ! This was all about ME and MY recovery.

As for my H...the disgust and anger were there at the beginning...but changed as my recovery changed. I always saw my H as a STRONG person of integrity. He was a Marine for gosh sakes...their motto is Semper Fidelis...Always FAITHFUL!!! Yet here he was...this WEAK...PATHETIC...PIG who destroyed our precious M just to get his sexual fantasy of USING a woman who was a stranger met while working alone overseas??!!

Neither of us went to counseling after Dday. Neither of us told anyone about my H's A. I found SI a few months after Dday...and what a Godsend it was ! The anger phase hit about 6 months after Dday...and frankly...it scared the heck out of me! I had never felt so out of control with rage like that before! I read somewhere that anger is a secondary emotion...brought on by a primary emotion such as guilt...hurt...etc. That made sense to me. Once I could focus on the primary emotion that caused the anger to erupt...the anger started to subside .

The disgust was a little harder to get over. One of the things that helped ME was that I was determined to FIGHT...for ME . I came up with a mantra from the beginning...that I was going to OWN the A. There was not going to be ANYTHING that THEY did that I wasn't going to TAKE BACK...or in other words...OWN . I figured they had taken enough from me...I would be DAMNED if they would take any more!!! I started going through triggers like a bull in a china shop...crashing through them like the fragile little pansies they were !! The cool thing about this was...my H not only was ALL IN with helping me to OWN these triggers...he actually came up with some ways to help me OWN some of them too ! This was when I realized how much he desperately wanted to help me HEAL from this horrible thing he did to me...and I made the decision to LET HIM . WIN-WIN . The disgust changed to admiration again...and he became the person who is WORTHY of being called my HUSBAND . NO W...or FW...in front of the H...he IS my H...period!

Please remember...this is a marathon...not a sprint. We all heal at different paces. I have read where the consensus is that it takes about 2-5 years to heal from an A. It took me about 7 years to feel completely healed...but I was healing a little every day .

EVERYONE on here wants to HELP . We all come from various backgrounds though. I have been married twice and cheated on twice. I went for D in my 1st M and R in my 2nd. There is no right or wrong answer...whatever works for YOU is the BEST answer! Take the advice on here that works for you...and leave the rest .

I have felt SO much disgust towards my WH, I still do from time to time 17 months out but way more seldom and not as badly as I used to. I think it's absolutely normal to feel disgust. It still can stop me completely in my tracks and give me thoughts like ' I can not do this, I just can not accept he is this pathetic/disgusting/horrible/false/pick any ugly adjective'. But it passes with time (at least for me it has) and like I said, it has diminished as well.

Regarding year two, I'm almost half way through year 2 and no, it's no walk in the park and has it's own set of challenges, but there is no comparison to the first year, especially the first 6 months at least for me in terms of suffering. I guess it depends from person to person, but for me the first 6 months were utter hell every minute of every day. I was barely functioning I was so traumatised. Suicidal, not sleeping, or eating, could barely function at work. Crying, screaming mess. Second half of first year were also extremely rough and affair season and DD was difficult for me. These days I am no longer a blubbering mess on the bathroom floor, however the POLF has hit somewhat. I seldom rage or cry hysterically anymore (still happens but rarely). Hysterical bonding (which was fun in a crazy way and very intense) is over by now, all the teary eyed deep conversations we had after DD baring our souls after years of disconnect in our M (not in any way an excuse for what he did, just something we also needed to adress) have pretty much stopped (we are still in MC and IC both of us though). So I guess I am less of a mess, but also feeling slightly less reconnected and hopeful in some ways? I'm feeling more meh and less 'we can do this' in some ways, but feeling way more balanced and less depressed and shattered. After DD we made a lot of significant changes in our M as well as in ourselves, and I think that gave a sense of urgency that held me afloat during that horrible time. Now there is less of the initial chock and pain, but also less of that feeling of urgency (in a good way) as time has gone by. We have stuck to the changes we made, it's just that the newness of those changes has worn off and become everyday life and doesn't feel as special? If that makes sense?

I am going to t/j this. What about wives like me. While young, with very young children, I was told he was cheating while traveling. I had to swallow fear, anger, everything and just get on with life. I stupidly stopped college when we married and we began having children. I had no way to provide and my husband made a very good living so I did absolutely nothing…for years. One day, out of the blue, I told him I knew. He couldn’t think fast enough to make up a lie so he confessed. I had no idea what to do with that info…so I, again, did nothing. Between those two things I finished college, got a job and got opinionated. He does not get a free pass anymore although the A, As? are never discussed, they altered our marriage.
My only suggestion to you is to get to a finish line at some point. Either M/R or D. The crap a bs deals with after an A is a damn anchor dragging behind. It does seem to take years. I guess I got to mine when I confronted him but I know there is more there. I just don’t have the interest in getting it. After a while, if they grow up and become a better person, you might become a long hauler on here with a story about your R or D. I am thankful my H is still in my life but my rose colored glasses got stepped on the day I knew he was capable of cheating.

Hello Everyone,

I've read all your replies. Thank you so much. I really do appreciate everything.

All I can say for now is that this group keeps me sane. One of the reasons why I am "surviving infidelity".

I couldn't collect my thoughts at the moment but I am just really thankful for making the time and effort to be here for me, especially, to us newbies.

Virtual hugs!! ♡

Just to add my 2 pennies worth, to give you another story from someone in similar position. I’m same as you in terms of still fairly new into this healing journey, I’m currently 9 months post d-day and only found this SI community this week!

It’s honestly been the worst time of my life and no one will ever truly know the damage caused that we have to live with and navigate unless they’ve been in our situation.

I went through an initial phase of love and hope fairly soon after his admission which now looking back I can safely understand better as being desperation mixed with trauma/hysterical bonding.

I definitely feel disgust and anger toward my partner lately now the rose tinted glasses have come off and I think my brain is not fully acknowledging the level of deceit he’s been capable of. He wants to reconcile and claims he’s all in now (even though we were meant to be all in from the start?!!) but honestly I’m feeling so unbothered by him lately and done with this emotional rollercoaster I’m not sure any person is worth this pain or tolerating the level of disrespect required to have a LTPA. I’m not doing anything right now in terms of being fully into R, I’m just waiting to see if the fog can lift and clarity will come - like you I’m securely on the fence right now which for me I think it’s a protection thing to not get hurt again.

Hopefully you find the right path for your healing journey whatever that means for you. No decision is the wrong decision as it’s what is right for you at the time and no decision has to be final either. You can fully embrace R and decide you want to D later down the road. Or you D and change your mind once you’ve had time alone to get back together again.

Life is too short. Focus on you and what you want (and I’ll try and take my own advise too rather than continue wallowing) xxx

Anger, disgust, contempt, lack of respect - been there. I’m over 6 years out from D Day and I can say that that has pretty much faded into nothingness in the past year or so. However, I did eventually D him around year 4. It was too much for me to take personally. And too much for him to deal with my pain.

Now I have to actively remind myself what he is capable of so that I don’t get screwed over. I have young children so unfortunately it is not a cut and run situation.

It will pass, but it’s normal to feel it for long long time. And very very tiring. Take really good care of yourself.