SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

What mistakes or things did you do at the start of discovering infidelity that may have made recovery harder for you. I’ve listed a few of mine below:

1. Drank to much - made me feel like shit not to mention made my mental health worse (if possible).

2. Tried to fix marriage problems before WH had shown me how he was going to be a worthy partner. I have since rectified this.

3. Organised date nights for us way to early -we always just ended up fighting!

4. Tried to make myself appear more attractive (🤦🏽‍♀️). For example Went on a strict diet to lose weight and ordered heaps of sexy lingerie. This was obviously not the problem and I still don’t know what I was trying to prove by doing this.

5. Rushed into ‘R’ and tried to put timelines on everything. Recovery just doesn’t work like that!!!

6. Didn’t find this website soon enough 💚.

Do you have any?

😂😂😂😂😂😂

All of the above except the drinking.

7. Add in Queen of the Pick Me dance too.

8. Allowing my cheating husband to call the shots (ie he refused counseling, he was going to "decide" in 90 days if he still wanted to be married and I went along with it).

9. Not instituting the hard 180 while he continued to cheat.

10. Believing ANYTHING a lying cheating spouse says.

And my other huge mistake is not D him the moment he told me that I never loved him and married him for other reasons.

I actually laughed in his face when he said that. He KNEW it wasn’t true AND he said it to justify to himself why it was ok to have an affair.

Of course he deeply regrets saying it but just the audacity to spin such a lie and make me seem like a cold heartless witch of a wife defies logic.

I was guilty of the pick me dance, BIG TIME. I never held her feet to the fire. I let her have the easy path. I didn't make her fight for the relationship. I too didn't find this site until almost 2 months after DDay. By then I had already started down the wrong path and my confidence to correct it was fucked.

.

[This message edited by Littlepuppet at 4:59 PM, Wednesday, June 12th]

1.b-Relieve the pain by smoking...
11-Give D's ultimatum, leave home for 2 months (S).
By returning and not achieving any objective (regret, IC, NC, etc...); not having continued.
The "180" worked much better for me.
12-Four and a half years later, not knowing how to define what happened: EA (passive?)...or inappropriate relationship/attitude...active search on adventure on line/Apps...

* Drinking too much.. Took me over a year to reel this in. It made me more volatile and destabilized my emotions.
* I bested Michael Flatley with my rendition of the Pick-Me River Dance.
* I initiated sexual positions that they hadn’t done (and neither had we) b/c he carried an STD and we agree that was too dangerous for risk of infection. I am still humiliated for that one.
* Lost my job b/c I couldn’t manage my emotions. This was a double blow b/c I was really really good at that job and it paid well.
* Believed his words when his actions were the opposite.
* Buried my head so far in the sand it’s amazing I ever came back.

* Started drinking again after sobriety
* Not kicking him out after D-Day 1
* Hysterical Bonding (while he was still lying to me and cheating)
* Believing him about ending the A
* Not leaving after D-day 2,3,4 or False R
* Having a RA after his first A in 2008
* Attempting suicide
* Marrying him in the first place

1. Believed the lie that I was to blame for the affair, believed I was a horrible military wife, believed I was a horrible mom; H lied to me about why he wanted a separation - I thought he needed space. But he was already deeply involved in a PA and I was unaware. We were separated and living apart for 2 weeks before I found out the real truth - that there was an AP, and then I learned the identity of the AP

2. Let H come to our home daily - even though we were technically separated. Gave in and was intimate with him during this period - still believing there was no one else. (I know right? Soooooo dumb)

3. Fought and argued in front of our son. I STILL feel a lot of guilt over this and what he witnessed - he was 11. He is 23 now and tells me that to this day he truly believes that his anxiety stems from this period. 😭

4. GUILTY of the ultimate pick me dance

5.. Didn’t believe that I was good enough, pretty enough, young enough (I’m 4 yrs older than H), smart enough or educated enough

6. After DD I pain shopped like a MF’er, I had to know everything, all the things, and my mental health suffered for it. I’m the one who found out my home had been AP’s childhood home!!

7. Wished I would have reached out to OBS when I first suspected the A during the separation - when I did speak to OBS he told me he had known for several months. Wish that MF’er had told me.

8. I called AP on DD. I wish I hadn’t. She saw me at my weakest and I’m sure that made her feel powerful and in control.

9. Hysterical Bonding in the aftermath of Reconciliation - so. much. sex. I felt like I needed to reclaim my man, my bedroom, my home. Turns out because it had been HER childhood home I knew I’d never ever feel at peace there. (Not long after - the For Sale sign was placed!)

10. Demanded NC but he wavered - he wasn’t as "forceful" as I wanted. I can’t prove it - but I believe she attempted contact a few times after discovery day. After two weeks of this shit I made him change all of our phone numbers and delete his social media pages.

11. We did the dumbest thing that screamed "infidelity" to the whole world, we created a joint Facebook account. 🤦🏻‍♀️

12. Wish I would have found SI back then (2012)

What I did right:

1. Reached out and leaned heavily on my inner circle of close family and friends for support. I told everyone the truth - I wasn’t keeping his dirty little secrets.

2. Even though I felt like falling asleep and never waking up because that pain was so unbearable - I did not do anything drastic because I knew I had my son to think about.

3. Got my ass into IC immediately

4. STD testing, asked doctor for sleeping meds and meds for anxiety short term.

5. GOT MY OWN LAWYER. H had retained his attorney and wanted to do this amicably and convinced me that we only needed one attorney. But that attorney worked for HIM. I needed my own attorney to fight for me.

We reconciled - it took a very long time. We did have a 2nd Day in Dec 2022; but I had found SI by then and the support I received made me stronger and made me believe in myself.

[This message edited by Blackbird25 at 5:57 PM, Wednesday, June 12th]

Had a revenge affair with Blue Sapphire martinis.

Like most affairs; ended badly.

Like most affairs; caused a considerable amount of collateral damage.

I definitely did a lot of things that were "wrong". The big ones:

1. I slept with WS before STD results came back - fortunately we were both clean, but wow... HB was powerful. (I didn't know what HB was at the time and I had soooooo much shame about this).

2. I pain-shopped A LOT. Like so much.

3. I did not insist WS quit his job and in fact, both he and the married coworker AP (COW is the best term ) both continue to work for the same employer to this day (zero contact on a day-to-day basis, and lots of safeguards and very strict and specific boundaries in place on the rare occasions they ever even need to be on the same floor...but there is no doubt that this was the biggest trigger and impediment to R we had. 10/10 do not recommend people try this unless it is absolutely necessary).

4. I got pregnant with our first child during the first year following D-day. Like I said, HB was powerful. But also, we had been trying for almost a year beforehand and my biological clock was ticking HARD. I had made the decision I'd rather be a single mother than chance not being a mother at all.

Oh man, when I list it out like that, my story definitely reads like a "WHAT NOT TO DO" guide. I promise, I actually did some things "right".

Wow. A lot.

1. I ignored clear evidence that it was a serious EA and probably a PA and rationalized that it couldn't possibly have been more than an online fantasy.

2. Because of 1. I didn't do nearly enough digging or spying before confronting her.

3. I believed her when she denied that the A was physical when I first confronted her. I thought I was so clever. I pretended to believe that it was physical when I confronted her. Her outraged, "Of course not! We were just kidding around," convinced me immediately. I just didn't want to believe it.

4. We continued to sleep together and had frequent HB sex without any kind of testing. After all, it couldn't have been physical.

5. I still trusted her way too much after D-day. I could not conceive how much she lied and deceived me.

6. I switched from my IC therapist to her IC therapist for IC and MC once she agreed to R. This was supposed to better than trying to have different therapists coordinate. Her therapist was of the "shared responsibility" school and enabled her gas-lighting and blame-shifting.

7. I gave up way too quickly on getting answers - again under the encouragement of her therapist. Once I "won" the pick-me dance and she accepted some responsibility it became more important to keep the peace than get answers.

8. I didn't read very much on the subject of infidelity. I checked out a lot of books but got through hardly any. Too much that I didn't want to face up to, I think.

9. I wasn't able to find any useful online communities. The ones I found seemed too much like the "he-man woman haters club." That was not for me. I was desperate to R. When my W found SI I decided to leave it as her safe space because it seemed to be helping. I never read or posted here at the time.

10. Therapist prescribed rug-sweeping. "You have to move on." Once W accepted most of the blame I didn't want to think about it any more. Too painful.

[This message edited by Seeking2Forgive at 10:33 PM, Wednesday, June 12th]

.

[This message edited by Littlepuppet at 11:07 PM, Wednesday, June 12th]

.

[This message edited by Littlepuppet at 11:08 PM, Wednesday, June 12th]

Other things, apart from HB, Pick me dance, which by the way lasted a very short time, 1 or 2 days. I felt totally dependent.

As we literally say in Spain...-"losing your papers", (Tempers)

in front of my daughters, 12 and 17 years old at the time, and in MC, although I don't regret it that much there,something like Seeking2Forgive.

Let W change the phone password to facial recognition and not complain (it had achieved total mutual transparency last year)

Consider it impossible to have a calm, empathetic adult conversation about my fears and doubts.

Break my moral code of respecting privacy.Continue spying on the phone when I can.Go crazy for any "clues" found...sometimes I think they are provocations/traps...like giving the AP's phone a different name.Tactic used for me with a lawyer I consulted for possible D,-and a few days later she delete it.

And every day, I think I'm lazy for hanging in there and participating in this stupid power game.

[This message edited by Littlepuppet at 11:22 PM, Wednesday, June 12th]

I try not to Monday morning qb myself too much.

I think you have to make mistakes to learn from them first hand to absorb the lesson. So to some degree none of us have the capacity to come here and get all the right information and strategies and make the best decision every time.

.

[This message edited by Littlepuppet at 11:54 PM, Wednesday, June 12th]

Although well thought out, our relationship is based on the game of power, from minute 1, 26 years ago, from the moment we met.

We should talk more about transactional psychology.

I did the complete opposite of the 180.

(I was strongest in the "pick me dance.)

1. That an "EA" wasn’t as serious as a "EA/.PA" yes it is, and I had more than enough with the EA evidence I found.

2. That I needed absolute proof of PA. No, I didn’t. Even if her lies were true and it was only EA, it’s still the same level of devastation.

3. That I didn’t enforce NC because he is just a friend and I’m an asshole for thinking she would ever, and that she would never hurt me nor hurt our kids by having an affair.

4. Booze. I went from 190 muscle and hitting weights hard, to 230 and fat. Better now but it’s been a long journey.

5. Believing her after I had solid proof of her lies.

6. Keeping it a secret to "protect her" and still being loyal and pick me while she was cheating on me daily.