SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

It's been 12 years.

Something that has haunted me the last 6 or so years is the idea that I stayed with her at the cost of my own self respect. I've really kind of had this feeling to some degree since the beginning but more so in the last 6 years, and only this year was I able to put a description on it.

One of my options at the time was loyalty to her and the vows that I made. Also encapsulated in this option were the happier memories from our past, and the hopes for what I believed our relationship could still be.

The problem is that knowing the things I know, and also knowing there are things I don't know, I just have a really hard time respecting myself for staying. She was an awful partner at the time, and my decision to stay almost feels like saying "hey, it's ok that you treated me that way."

I’m sorry you feel this way.

Maybe you need to make a move to leave. If you are that unhappy you should have a real honest conversation.

You aren’t leaving then for any other reason than you are not happy and you deserve better. You’ve tried your best but you just think you would be better off without her.

Is that an option?

Are there still things that you don't know, that she won't tell you?

hopes for what I believed our relationship could still be

Did those hopes come true? Is she a good partner now?

I'm kind of reflecting here in real time so sorry for the rambling.

Did those hopes come true? Is she a good partner now?

I probably should have led with this. She's been pretty great since. Pretty much everything I hoped for did come true. I read stories on this site of waywards who just don't get it, and I feel bad because here I have a person who I really think is doing her best and I still grapple with the aftermath. Any waywards reading this - in my experience if you want R, you better stop the bull shit and 'get it' because then at best you have a chance -- A CHANCE! - of recovery.

No doubt her behavior during the A was garbage. Ever since she's been the model so many on this site hope for - listens and apologizes every time I want to talk, doesn't heap blame on me. A few days ago we even had one of those talks and she encouraged me to share, said she was so sorry, went on a bit how stupid her decisions were and also a bit about how she didn't deserve me and didn't understand why I stayed.

Back to the main topic

The pain is a bit like tinnitus - it seems to always be there lurking in the background. Often times it is drowned out by other things, but sometimes (usually if I'm alone -- and usually during the summer for reasons I'm sure you can all deduce) it is easily the loudest thing in my mind. It's when it is loud that I get frustrated that I'm still upset 12 years later and start wondering why.

I've grown impatient with my own recovery. Sometimes I think how it is a bit ironic how there are a number of waywards on this site who are impatient with their BS's recovery. Here I am, with my FWW patient as ever and I'm the one impatient with my progress.

So basically, I'm at a stage now of "What the hell else do I need for this to go away?" What more can I ask of her? What more reading can I do or bouncing of ideas off of therapists and/or this site is needed? Which quickly turns into "There must be something specific still bothering me."

With a bit more thought this afternoon, I recognized that I didn't roll over. I had met with a laywer, I had options lined up. I told her she could either stay married to me or keep seeing him but not both. I did demand respect. I 180'd her to the best of my ability at the time.

I think perhaps I'm just being too hard on myself for decisions I made in a difficult situation.

I think perhaps I'm just being too hard on myself for decisions I made in a difficult situation.

What I think you are grappling with, is that you heavily compromised your own morals, and this is possibly what is eating away at you.

I just had a quick look at your OP, and it does not mention anything about her A being a PA (apart form the kissing at his front porch that you caught). Was that ever cleared up? If it was not, perhaps that could be another point of your slow/non-recovery. That you did not get answers.

Another point could be that your WW did not quit her job immediately, and spent another year or two working with AP (albeit in different shifts, but still had overlaps), and that caused you to stay in a state of high alert all that time, and you feel that you let that happen.

Go easier on yourself. Give the younger version of yourself more grace. You did what you think you had to do under those trying circumstances. If you had known what to do from the get go, you would not have had to post on SI.

If you had known what to do from the get go, you would not have had to post on SI.

Great point.

The co-working thing didn't last long. He got fired within a few weeks if I recall correctly.

How physical did it get? She has outright confessed to grinding on him, I believe with the intention of getting him off. She also confessed having kissed him at least one other time (the time she spent the night at his place). Various things she has said over the years lead me to believe they never had penetrative sex. I think the truth is somewhere in between. I've stopped asking for more details long ago because the degree doesn't really matter to me -- the line was crossed, and at a time when I was getting turned down for anything sexual.

I haven't read through my original posts lately, and your comment led to me doing so, maybe with an epiphany this time around. I keep that link because, on the occasion I read through it, I see all of my failures and mistakes. For a long time I saw this as a learning tool -- a reminder of what not to do should thing go south again.

But on this read through, I recognized how hard I am on myself.

I first came to this site thinking our marriage was a little rough and I was somewhat threatened by another guy, but the narrative for me at the time was "I better look for some advice and shore things up before anything bad happens". In real time I had two DDays as that thread progressed and I uncovered more and more info.

In myself I saw a person who was naive, stupid, foolish, making decision after decision on wishful thinking and idealistic hopes. In a handful of those I defended her when a lot of you were telling me it was probably worse than I thought. I see myself as weak at the time. I kind of hate the version of me from that time, especially with the wisdom, experience, and self confidence I have now.

And I think this is the root of my current feelings. A part of me now believes that the solution to that self-hatred would have been the opposite of what I did at the time: left.

Therein lies the nuance: I wish I could have felt more like a badass, but I also like where we are now. At this time I don't see how I could do both, so the cost of one is the loss of the other.

You owe yourself a learning curve.

We all develop self-talk. IMO, we probably all have nurturing and attacking self-talk. I believe we control our self-talk when we actually hear it. You hear attacks on your self-respect - attacks on you.

The attacks are wrong. You did the best you could, and IMO, you didn't sell yourself out. Staying true to what you want is respecting yourself in my book.

Love - any relationship - requires letting go of some things one wants to get other things one wants even more. living one's life doing what one wants when one wants to do it is fine. That's self-respecting. Compromising one's life to get the companionship one wants from the person one wants it from is also self-respecting.

Self-respect is very important in living a good life. I think you know that having contempt for yourself for staying is unsustainable. If responses on SI don't resolve the problem for you, a good IC can help you figure out what you will ultimately do.

Without rehashing all of the details, your wife’s A may be harder for you in part because you witnessed at least part of it on the POS’s front porch. No mind movies there. Plus, she was doing this so brazenly.
FWIW, I commend your courage for sticking it out with the extreme disrespect she showed to you.
A lot of wiser folks on this site would probably advise you that you are in a position to forgive the debt she owes you. While her shitty self-control and poor choices are not a reflection of you—no matter how that may feel—that’s cold comfort since you were the victim.
She could never repay this debt, but it sounds like she’s really trying to.
Simply put, you can choose to continue to stay with this damaged person. She’s not the perfect wife you dreamed she’d be; rather she’s a woman whose Id nearly wrecked her life. Understand that.
You are the prize who’s been man enough to accept this flawed woman for who she is and support her trying to right her wrongs. You also have flaws, and you’re facing yours with integrity. And you always have the option to pull the trigger at any time. You’ve just found the strength to not do it.
Stay strong.

I think in your last post you identified the issue. Your new self would have confidently thrown her out and never looked back and you are disgusted with the way your previous self acted weakly.
I say this because I did/felt the same exact thing. 20+ years ago and I did divorce her when I finally found where I dropped my self respect and dignity. But I still do look back on how I didn’t handle things correctly and my current self is not happy with my old self. I can’t help much as far as what you should do with that. Since I divorced I left all that bullshit in the dust and went on to have a much better life.

I would say the answer to your problem really is simple. Live in the now.

Knowing what you know now, what do you want to do NOW:

1. Do you want to remain married?

2. Do you want to be done with this (aka the long after the fact realization this really was a deal breaker)?

3. Or are you not sure but you think maybe you should be thinking about going?

4. Or, is what you are struggling with not about your marriage now at all?

If questions 1-3 are on the table, then there is no shame is thinking that despite what your partner has done to move through this with you, you are still unhappy with your decision to stay, you need to figure out what you want to do and just rip the band-aid off and do it, or figure out what your WS needs to do that will make you happier with your decision to stay and talk about it. Do not fall prey to the sunk-cost fallacy. You still have the rest of your life - if this isn't working for you then there is no reason to stick it out in this way - you only get one life so stop wasting it.

But, if question 4 is where you are at - this isn't about the state of your marriage now at all but about you forgiving yourself, then I think IC is in order (it was immensely helpful for me). Forgiving myself for doing all the stupid things I did...ugh what a whopper that was as I did a LOT of dumb stuff. If there is a cheaters handbook than I could author at least a few chapters of "What not to do when you've been betrayed: How to find your sanity when you're totally losing it" with personal examples galore.

I thought of myself as a relatively intelligent person (I have 12 years of post-high school education FFS - 12!!!). I thought of myself as a relatively strong person. I thought of myself relatively good at evaluating a person's character. And you know what - I was. But I also thought there wasn't much a person could get past me, and I was dead wrong about that - dead wrong. And figuring out all of these things about my WS, and finding out I was not the badass I thought I was - those were all massive blows to my ego.

I did the best I could with the information and experience I had. Period. To compare myself now, with the experience and information I have now to me back then would be like comparing an elementary school flag-football player with a seasoned veteran playing in the NFL. Zero comparison necessary. So is this where you are at - the NFL veteran you is criticizing the elementary school player's skills and capabilities and decisions? When put in those terms it sounds ridiculous right? Well yeah, because it is.

Or is it more than being mad at yourself for not being some kind of infidelity ninja-master who just kicks ass and does all the "right" things from the get go? Are you mad at yourself for staying because there is a part of you that still thinks maybe you should not have done so (see questions 1-3 above)? If so, I go back to my original question - what do you want to do now?

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 6:09 PM, Tuesday, September 10th]

Stating the obvious here but self-respect is just that... respect you give yourself.

It's within your power to gain self-respect.

Try not to fall into the trap of reviewing the past with your 20/20 vision and judging yourself from a completely different vantage point.

I'll assume you were traumatized on Dday. Did you crawl into a hole never to return? Did you create chaos and pain on the innocent because you were hurting? Did you develop a drinking problem that led to a DUI or injuring someone? Did you abandon your children? Assault your wife?

I'm gonna guess no. Instead, you picked yourself up and made the choices that were best for you at that time. You did what you were capable of doing. In the end, all you really did was continue to love someone who hurt you deeply. Then you spent these last years building and nurturing your marriage. How can there be shame in that?

The man you are today might handle things differently. If she were to affair again, you'd likely move right to divorce. But that is clarity gained through what you've experienced - not just infidelity but the hard, hard work of rebuilding your marriage. You have a different data set to make decisions from.

Trust yourself.

PS: if there are unresolved issues related to her past treatment of you, talk about it. You said you feel like she might think it's ok to have treated you that way since you didn't walk away. I'd air that out.

[This message edited by TheEnd at 7:10 PM, Tuesday, September 10th]

4. Or, is what you are struggling with not about your marriage now at all?

4 is where I'm at. A loose analogy everyone can probably identify with is this: I did some cringy things in high school but my life has worked out pretty well. Even though I'm happy with how my life turned out, I wouldn't mind if I could have the same outcome minus the cringy high school stuff.

Only in the case of my actions during the A it is magnified so much beyond "oof, cringe".

So it's time to the IC to see if I can forgive myself for the items below and probably more.

I'll type them out here in the even that maybe I vocalize someone else's feelings.

I hate that I assumed something like this couldn't happen to me or our relationship.

I hate that I believed so much of what she told me at the time.

I hate that I was such a trusting person.

I hate that I was gullible.

I hate that for a time I did the pick-me dance.

I hate that for a time, after it became clear to me what was going on, I thought I was deserving of what was happening.

I hate that for a time, after it became clear to me what was going on, I acted as if I was deserving of what was happening.

You said you feel like she might think it's ok to have treated you that way since you didn't walk away. I'd air that out.

She doesn't feel this way. This was more me trying to put words to how I was feeling, as if I were the one saying it was ok.

ThisIsSoLonely's comments around the 4th item and the self-judgement captured me the best so far.

I think as a betrayed we have to stop blaming ourselves.

I wasn’t gullible I was trusting and supportive.

I wasn’t stupid I was taken advantage by someone who never should have done what they did.

I wasn’t to blame for his unhappiness- he was.

I wasn’t responsible for his happiness - he is!

I wasn’t a bad person - however he needed me to be a "bad" person to justify his affair.

Funny thing — I can honestly say I am happier now (post affair) b/c I don’t put him first anymore. I put myself first. Lesson learned - I am responsible for my own life. He can only add to my life - but it’s up to me to be happy.

Before his 2nd affair I bent over backwards making him happy. Huh! Not anymore.

I am happy with my decision to R. No regrets. I feel very lucky I can say that.

I absolutely identify with everything on your list SP.
One day I guess I woke up and had enough of doing all those things and went on the offensive.
The thing is, you have to understand and also believe that you did those things because you trusted her, and you probably loved her more than yourself. You were taken advantage of because of that trust, not because of anything you did. You simply trusted.

Glad I could narrow it down - I would give IC a try. I can't recall how long it took or if I had some kind of major epiphany at some point, but I had a list of faults of mine too and have forgiven myself (and even pat myself on the back from time to time for being open to learning the lesson instead of just becoming bitter and angry).

Saturn

I'm going to say something that is often said to waywards that post here and seek advice from former waywards.

The shame you are feeling doesn't serve you.

That's who you were. You can't change the past. You can go forward being the man you now want to be. In tune with your own needs. Unafraid to make hard decisions. Unwilling to accept betrayal. Open, honest and with firm boundaries.

PS: The man you were was a man that loved and trusted. You sought safety (clinging to your wife) because we are biologically designed to do so. Your "cringe" is something most betrayeds who stay feel, I think. There is nothing inherently wrong with you. In fact, you response is almost universal.

If you really feel this way, you are in for continued years of discomfort.

If you don't see R as showing flexibility, strength, and resilience rather than capitulation, fear, and weakness, you will lose self respect.

I've called this the loss of "something integrity adjacent". I don't think I've lost my self respect. But I've certainly lost my formerly highly rigid moral framework. It's not compatible with R.

Edit to add previous post:

I called it not losing my integrity, but something integrity adjacent.

It really is something that you need to come through to feel more settled. I highly recommend the book "How Can I Forgive You" by Janis Spring. This really helps shine a light on the inner working of forgiveness. On how to accept that your fWS has done the work of recompense and that your offer of forgiveness doesn't mean condoning the previous actions, and that it doesn't ever actually have to be a complete forgiveness. You are allowed to keep a bit of yourself upset.

What I have changed in my mindset is that I don't view myself as caving (though I did cave a lot, ha!), I am patient and resilient in the face of injury (but now with firm and clear boundaries to prevent further injury). I am not simply accepting, forgiving, and moving on. As you have pointed out, you feel empowered to leave if you want to leave. Instead you are taking the path of earned forgiveness. You are measuring what your WS has done and is doing against the injury they previously causes and accepting that they are making sufficient effort to make you feel safe again.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 5:33 AM, Wednesday, September 11th]