SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

It has been a messy few weeks. My father died and with his death I had to let go of any possibility of reaching closure on his infidelity in his marriage with my mom. Then, on the day he died, my WH decided to reveal his cheating (my WH’s cheating, to be clear) to our adult son (who flew into town for the funeral). Our son then revealed to my WH that he had seen his grandmother’s phone and text messages in recent years and discovered that she had been cheating on my father. My husband shared all of this with me the day before my fathers funeral, where I had to give a eulogy and was already under strain. None of this was malicious on anyone’s part, but it kicked up a million emotions and made me even more of a mess.

So last week I was using his computer for a legitimate reason and decided to type the AP’s name into the search box on his messages. It is something I have done infrequently in the 2 years since his "big reveal" of the cheating from 8 years ago. I have systematically deleted everything with her name over the past 2years with the goal of moving on. Why do I still check it sometimes? I’m not really sure—maybe pain shopping? On this occasion a new text I had never seen popped up which revealed his new secretary had maintained contact with his AP over some professional issues both 2 years and 4 years after the cheating. (at a bare minimum, there may actually have been more interaction). The new secretary would ask my WH questions on behalf of the AP and my WH would respond by text with brief professional answers. For me this was contact by proxy and infuriating and upsetting because I didn’t know and was never told. My husband basically said he forgot which may actually be true. There were other bigger attempts at contact and these he actually had revealed to me. During the "big reveal" a ton of awful information came out and perhaps these smaller facts were forgotten.

Nonetheless, other BSes know how painful "new" information of contact and facts being withheld can be and I raged one night and felt pretty devastated the next day.

The part I’m mad about is that the MC decided to spend our whole session on my choice to go looking for information. I agree I should try not to do that but I felt very ganged up on by the MC and my WH. They totally left out the context of the, I don’t know what the right word is, but maybe mindfuckery. that had gone on during the two week period and that it wasn’t me 100% at fault and my husband totally innocent. It leaves me not wanting to even go back to marriage counseling as it seems slanted toward his well-being and completely unfair. Maybe i’m being juvenile and overly sensitive and not taking legitimate criticism well. But, at this point I don’t really feel trusting of either of them. I would love some feedback from SI folks, which is a perspective I am more inclined to trust. Should there have been some discussion of the pain created by WH or was it okay to spend the time instead on changes I need to make in my behavior. Just feeling a little lost right now…

I’m so sorry for your loss. Adding learning that about your mother on top of it, that must have absolutely sent you for a spin. I also experienced the loss of possibility of closure when my father died, it reminds me to keep short books with those I love. I hope you can find peace.

Regarding the MC session: you know I’m going to back you, but I’m just going to ask a couple questions. What was the MC’s reason for focusing on your looking for information? Was it to protect your husband’s feelings, or was it coming from a place of wanting good for you and saying that was some kind of regression? If it’s the former, fuck that, he broke trust and you can do what you need to feel secure and you shouldn’t apologize to anyone ever for that, including to an MC.

If it was the latter, would you agree that the search was detrimental to you? If it feels to you like an obsessive behavior that you have stated that you want to overcome, then I could see pushing you on that. But if it was a simple matter that helped you, then see the above.

Do you have any sense of why this would have come up only now in a search that you say you’ve done before? Are you looking in new places or in new ways?

I'm very sorry to hear about your dad's passing. Sympathies to you.

Personally, I think you should have been extended some compassion. It makes sense to me that learning about additional infidelity and grieving your father would lead to you feeling a wobble in your trust. I'm guessing in that emotional state and with new information regarding your mom, you needed some reassurance. I mean, what is stable in this world if your parents are cheating on each other and your husband cheated on you?

I totally get what you were feeling.

While Bs's have the right to check and double check, sometimes we continue because it becomes a form of self soothing. The logic being "if I don't find anything today, I breathe easier. Today."

That's what you were looking for (I think). Some reassurance in your topsy turvy world at that moment.

Your therapist imo should have honed in on that. Your need to double check is normal given everything and that should have been acknowledged. From there, you all could have discussed other ways for you to get the reassurance you need. Like perhaps going to your WS with your stress and pain and getting reassurances from him. That may have quelled the urge to go look. Not that there is anything wrong with trusting but verifying. But learning additional ways to soothe and including your partner would be more helpful in that session than judging you.

PS: the snark in me would have responded that perhaps if I didn't keep finding little things, I'd stop looking.

[This message edited by TheEnd at 6:16 PM, Monday, May 20th]

First, big virtual hugs for the loss of your father, and for having to deal with a lot of unpleasant information coming at you at such an already emotionally fraught time.

I'm curious if you defended yourself during MC, or if the unfairness hit you afterwards? She will always be an enemy to your marriage, and he lied to you about her in the past. IMO, it's perfectly reasonable to verify every so often that your trust in him is well placed. Trust, but verify, right?

I experienced something similar with my H. He had to have professional contact with the AP about once a quarter, which had been going on for many years before I found out about it. I just assumed that they never had any reason to speak, though they still worked in the same building. He always told me about any personal contact that she tried to make, but he didn't think that he needed to tell me about professional contact. My guess is that your H didn't think it was a violation of NC because it wasn't personal, and it wasn't direct. Had the secretary been relaying personal messages, it would be a different story.

I'm curious if the information that she sought was only available by contacting HIM, or if she could have asked someone else. That makes a difference, too.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 8:09 PM, Monday, May 20th]

Contact is contact, even through a third party.
He didn’t forget, this is AP for hells sake. I don’t believe that any interaction that involves AP is "forgettable". How difficult would have it been for him to say "hey my secretary contacted me about professional matters involving AP, what is the best way for you for
Me to handle this?l
No, just talked about it and while he didn’t hide it, he certainly didn’t disclose and let you find her another bomb. He just didn’t want to bring it up.

Your feelings are extremely valid, and I
Disagree with looking infrequently as pain
Shopping, that’s just surviving and pain prevention.

I want to take real time to respond to individual posts. I am going to do that separately but briefly wanted to say I am incredibly grateful for these responses. It is just incredible that folks on SI can understand exactly what you are asking and offer such compassionate, thoughtful and balanced perspectives. I am so appreciative, thank you.

I think you need a new MC. So many of them do not understand the trauma of infidelity.

I do think that if the affair was over 6 years before you found out that all you learned is that when it came to work he made her talk to his secretary. That shows that he had boundaries in place before telling you. (Not that he should have waited 6 years to tell you) I think it's plausible that this didn't stand out to him once you knew, especially combined with the fact he did let you know of times she tried to contact him on a personal level. We can't sometimes help that work would still expect communication, and I think him assigning that to a third party showed clear intention on his part that he was finished with having anything to do with her, which is positive.

A MC who has the understanding of the trauma infidelity inflicts would not have ridden you through a whole therapy session. I get that what was revealed didn't help you feel peaceful and I think a good therapist will kind of guide you towards peace. But, once someone cheats, transparency is needed. And these details triggered you. Our MC was okay with trust but verify. Because sometimes something new is uncovered that is damning or more recent and you deserve to know. Over time if you keep checking and nothing is being found this can also help you build trust.

Ink: Thank you for response. You are right that her intent is the question. My gut tells me it is the two reasons you specified combined. She was trying to help us AND catering to him. This is a maladaptive pattern I have and she addressed it. But generally she kinds of shies away from confronting him. I think we all kinda do that. I had a male patient last week who I was prescribing meds for, he asked to bring his steady girlfriend to the next appointment and when they came I had to act for the next 45 minutes as their de facto marriage counselor. At the end of the appointment my advice was go get a real marriage counselor. But during that 45 minutes I was confronted with the exact situation we have had in MC. The man was a little narcissistic (not to mention my actual patient) and the woman was empathetic and in pain. I tried to cater to them both but knowing he was the tougher customer there was a pull to be more deferential to him. I tried to fight that instinct. Our MC is smart, I think she knows this dynamic is in play and tries not to pull her punches with him but she ends up doing it anyway.

On your second point about me being obsessive, yes. I am like that, I gather lots and lots of information as a coping tool. In general as well as this particular case. So, I need to work on that.

On the third question. WTAF…. It is like ithe text reappeared out of the ether. I had deleted everything. Maybe he deleted it a long time ago and therefore I never saw it, but it definitely came back from the dead. we have had a lot of desktops/ipads/phones over the years all connected to the cloud so maybe that can just happen?!? I can’t imagine my husband could be responsible now b/c I assume he would not want to get himself in trouble. I don’t think he would have intentionally brought it on himself. Weird…maybe some tech person can opine.

The End, thank you for that. It feels really good to have those feelings validated. I also wanted her to explain exactly what you said to my guys and because he can be pretty clueless. He seems completely incapable of understanding why I would ever have looked up her name in the first place. Not in a mean way but he is just not emotionally intuitive and I feel like he needs some coaching. I would have responded so much better had the MC said the behavior I engaged in was normal but what can we do to change the pattern. I probably would have just let that go but I was just kind of a puddle at that point. I was definitely self-soothing. Today when I wanted to check something I wrote my husband a note instead saying that I had considered checking something (for no good reason BTW) but I stopped myself in an effort to help break the pattern.

PS- it is sooo hard not to be snarky about this stuff

SS33

thanks for hug ❤️
What you said exactly…he thought it was not personal and not direct thus not contact. It happened again last week. It happens every year or two. There is no way for the AP to responsibly do her job without going directly to him. The only way out of this situation would be for us to move to a different state or for him to retire.

When it came up last week the AP had to go through his new new secretary who absolutely hates the AP. (I love her 💕). She has survived her own betrayal and is a kind lady who has helped ensure the AP cannot enter his "space". Everyone in their company knows what happened and who with because it blew up back when the AP was his secretary and she suddenly left the company. Or I should say everyone suspected.

HNHF: thank you for that. I viewed it as pain prevention too. I’m trying to sort out whether the amount of rage I experienced was good for me. It did clue me in to a new thing to watch out for. During the time this contact took place he had not yet come clean. When he did come clean there were hundreds of lies, omissions and sins he had to admit to. I’m not sure this one would have made the top 30. At the same time we did have explicit Q&A sessions where I asked the obvious…did you have contact of any kind whatsoever after the cheating. Hard to know whether these two texts (each about 8 words long) over the course of five years were intentionally left out or lost in his addled traumatized mind. He definitely has some PTSD from all this, I can see it. He was humiliated in front of everyone he had ever know or worked with and desperately wanted to "change the narrative" and pretend nothing had happened with his former, abruptly dismissed secretary. He wanted everyone (including me) to just think his wife was overly jealous and that was why the secretary had to go.

Hiking: yes, exactly. She’s no trauma expert. She is smart and very high EQ so mostly pretty good. But this really stung for her to take this approach. I guess I should discuss it next week and hope she gets it.

you are also right that the fact that these two texts were so impersonal and the fact that he put boundaries in place before telling me is in some ways a good sign. Thank you for responding

When it came up last week the AP had to go through his new new secretary who absolutely hates the AP. (I love her 💕). She has survived her own betrayal and is a kind lady who has helped ensure the AP cannot enter his "space".

I love her too! What a great ally to have in your corner!

I'm sorry for the losses you've suffered so recently.

Pain shopping or pain?

Almost nothing is 100% one thing or another, but ... Pain shopping - how much of your searching is aimed at allowing you to stay in the Victim role of a Drama Triangle? How much is aimed at mitigating pain?

On one hand, I think we take on Victim roles because we are already in pain, so the above may be trick questions....

You've been under extreme stress. Losing your father, losing the possibility of reaching closure with him, learning about more infidelities, and breaks in NC are closer to traumatic than messy. Now is a time for you to be kind to yourself, for your H to be kind to you, for your MC to be kind to you. I'm sorry you didn't get the support that would have been so supportive.

The next time you feel like searching, my reco is to ask yourself what you're feeling - mad, sad, scared, ashamed, or are your spidey senses tingling?

If you feel mad, sad, scared, or ashamed, I recommend dealing with the feelings directly without going into a DT. If it's spidey senses, my reco would be to search. You're a doc - you know your gut knows better than your head.

You find out new info snd that your H has not been fully transparent and the MC blames you?

Time to find a new counselor. Someone just for you.