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One of the many things I have been surprised by is how much details matter to my wife in the wake of the disclosure. I disclosed almost 20 years after the affair ended, but has enough detailed financial records to put together a pretty detailed timeline with dates and places. I initially thought my wife would not really care about the details, but would rather want start and end dates, frequency, and lots of discussion around what I was thinking and feeling. That has not been the case as my wife gets very fixated on the details and I am genuinely unsure why and looking for help to explain this

As an example, there are many hotels in the area where the affair took place and the AP and I spent some nights in various ones when my wife was out of town. I disclosed the locations and names of the hotels in my full disclosure, but accidentally omitted one hotel name. We are in the area for several weeks right now and we had one of the more intense discussions that we have had in a while. She was pretty angry and one of the things that surfaced was her indicating that she would wonder if a hotel we passed was one that AP and I had stayed in. I immediately looked up the name of the hotel in my financial records and gave it to her. Later I was wondering why this was such an issue for her as it could have been any number of hotels in the area.

I also included names if restaurants and dates the AP and I went to dinner. One is not far from where I am staying and it definitely triggered her when we went by it.

My theory was that it was a reminder of the affair, but I do not think that is a big part of the reason she wants to know as much detail as possible. I often try to think how I would react if the situation was reversed and she actually raised this question to me (ie if I had done this what would you want to know). I genuinely think I would be less concerned about physical locations and more interested in the what and whys, but I obviously have no idea as I am 100% sure no one can anticipate what they would think before their most trusted partner inflicts this type of trauma so looking for wisdom from the community. I want to very sensitive to this going forward.

FVL

For me it's the 40 yrs of deception and the fuzzy and forgotten details. Now I have to fill in the blanks and believe me, I'm sure they are worse than the truth. Everything is suspect. It's awful.

It’s realizing you were living one version of the relationship while your partner was living another.

I joke that my H thinks I'm his personal Siri. A habit I'm working on breaking. He will throw a thought out and I will jump into researching an answer. I love to dig into things. This habit does not help me when it comes to his betrayal. He gave me a few facts (I had an affair 42 yrs ago, bar where he met her, the year) No name. No detail. Now I had to go into detective mode to piece things together. Pissed me off that he wasn't motivated enough to do this prior to confessing. (unlike you)

when betrayal is surrounded by deception, it doesn’t just break trust, it breaks reality.

The problem of finding out so many years later is that he lied. For years he lied. How do I know what is really true? It's his word now. So, I am stuck with 42 yrs of digging to figure out what was real. Comparing my memories from a different perspective. The more detail he can give me (on his own without me having to ask is better) the more settled I become. For me it's not even the A details. It's more about where his head was at. What his thoughts and feelings were.

So trauma amplifies things in many ways. There are some books on it, I read them, and have even been cheated on and while I can intellectually understand it, I didn’t go through that as much. Probably because I understood the nature of affairs by the time I learned of his. My questions were truly a lot like you imagine yours to be in the aftermath of my husbands affair.

Someone who never cheated only has the past experience of fictional versions through books or tv in or some snippets of someone else’s relationship. So it’s more traumatizing because they can’t frame it the same way as if they had been ws themselves.

The pain of the affair is in the details for them. They are lost in the forest looking at the trees, trying to map it all. You have had a lot of time to have perspective over the bigger picture.

And when they can ascertain one set of details it often leads them to the discovery of other details which then drives that seeking behavior even more. They were completely unaware this was going on under their nose and I think some of it is about safety of being able to recognize it later, some of it is knowing exactly what it is they are trying to accept (and for some possibly forgive), and some of it is you have this secret world with this other person, eliminating that intimate secret is sort of part of the reclaiming. It’s also very hard for them to remember certain things because it’s so much information at one time.

Discovery often goes on this intensely for about a year when they are getting as much of the truth as can be given. It goes on longer for couples who have the trickle truth. (And while you aren’t doing that, the time disparity still may have some of those same effects)

But even in the most honest situations, there certain things they will go back and want to revisit. That sort of cycles through over and over until the pain of that part is sort of drained out. I don’t have a better expression for it. It’s like a need to accept it all in pieces because there is no way to absorb it at once.

You might be better poised to be grateful she is willing to try and get what she needs so that healing can occur. She wants to try and remain married, she wants to heal, those are all positive things and this is just the vehicle of what gets her there. I know you are grateful for that, try and tap into accepting this in the process to get to where you are going as a way to self soothe. Suffering is typically about non-acceptance. When I am anxious I will literally say to myself "I accept I feel anxious, I accept that I am not completely sure why, it will pass"

You and I have the knowledge that nothing good came from our respective affairs, not now and not really when we were in it. We fooled ourselves at times but you never really shake the artificial aspect of it. And we truly understand that it wasn’t a reflection of the AP or the spouse. It was what we were leaning into rather than learning real coping mechanisms.

Also this information is ancient history for you. I disclosed more real time, and I think both have their advantages and disadvantages. The advantage is you have had time to change and grow and get perspective. So she doesn’t have to suffer through the unwinding of the brainwashing you did with yourself to make it all work. But, on the other hand, you have detachment over it, and are completely focused on her pain. There is not the same brand of shared suffering and her watching your transformation in real time.

Also because you have all this room to focus on her pain it’s hard not to hyper focus on it. Every bump in the road feels like a crater to you. I don’t think it’s bad that you are filled with remorse, but it makes it hard to decenter your shame. I struggled with that forever, so I am not condemning you, but just be watchful of it.

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:20 PM, Wednesday, January 28th]

Well, as my BH put it, if someone has sh*tted in his most beloved sports car, he'd want to know every single place in the car that was contaminated by the feces. And betrayal is 1000x worse than that...

FVL,

BH here.

WW and I had reason to drive by her old workplace recently. She cheated with a co-worker. It was many years ago.

Driving by, and seeing the hotels in the area (they did parking lot stuff, too) literally made me nauseous. Not sure why. There are lots of other reminders for me that don’t affect me like that.

I think it’s because seeing those hotels and parking lots must be a reminder for her, as well. She knows the particular hotels and parking lots; I don’t.

Sitting next to her, and she’s remembering being in this or that hotel, with him, what they did. Probably good memories for her.

Which hotels and parking lots? I’ve never asked her, and am not really curious. Might be worse to know, exactly which ones.

Better to just avoid that part of town.

Best wishes.

Sitting next to her, and she’s remembering being in this or that hotel, with him, what they did. Probably good memories for her.

I very highly doubt it.

She is likely cringing inside wondering what you are thinking. It’s a reminder of a major failure, a stain she will never be able to remove.

Whatever fun she was having at the time now likely haunts her like the fool that she was. She probably just as much would like to avoid the area as much as possible.

I had an affair far from home but it was in a famous place you see in movies and tv shows often. Even the hotel itself. It literally instantly makes me nauseated.

Everyone is a little different about the details, for me, they were everything.

Since a WS lives the reality as it happens, it can take a great deal of understanding about the BS being denied reality.

You were not where you said you were, life isn't as your wife thought it was -- awakening to what REALLY happened in life can be a big deal.

I needed a full accounting of the time taken away from me and invested into someone else.

Each truth after infidelity (to me), no matter how horrible, was a step into the light. It is was very difficult for her, because she was certain the next bit of truth would break the back of the M.

I appreciated the strength she showed by revealing everything I asked and then some. Conquering shame was important to our R as well.

Sure, there was a lot of TT to start, but once she really knew I wanted to know it all, she told me all she could.

Human memory is flawed, so I still assume I got about 95 percent of it all.

Most of the places and spaces things happened are no longer triggers. Two years ago, there was one town we hadn't been to in a while, so I discovered I had one more triggering place to conquer, and I did. I was surprised how much it hit me, since we have been healed up for a while now, and yet, we got that one covered now too.

Hikingout:

I very highly doubt it.

She is likely cringing inside wondering what you are thinking. It’s a reminder of a major failure, a stain she will never be able to remove.

Whatever fun she was having at the time now likely haunts her like the fool that she was. She probably just as much would like to avoid the area as much as possible.

I had an affair far from home but it was in a famous place you see in movies and tv shows often. Even the hotel itself. It literally instantly makes me nauseated.

This very much describes my wife. We recently had to go somewhere that shares the same parking lot as the hotel she and her AP used, and I think it triggered her almost as much as it did me. I only have her word on it, but she tells me she has no fond memories or thoughts of good times when she thinks back to the affair. Only disgust and revulsion that she even did it. I believe her.

when betrayal is surrounded by deception, it doesn’t just break trust, it breaks reality.

This is accurate.

It’s like a need to accept it all in pieces because there is no way to absorb it at once

More importantly it is a hole in your relationship that if empty will be filled by imagination and traumatized imagination can be more awful, more sordid than reality. Filling the blanks helps, to crystalize one kind of disgust, still bad but is better than a galaxy of repulsive mind movies.

Well, as my BH put it, if someone has sh*tted in his most beloved sports car, he'd want to know every single place in the car that was contaminated by the feces. And betrayal is 1000x worse than that...

This is a great way to picture it.

I very highly doubt it.

She is likely cringing inside wondering what you are thinking. It’s a reminder of a major failure, a stain she will never be able to remove.

On my end the thoughts are terrible about her. Disgust is prevalent, pity, contempt, anger all flow . But then is falling into complete indifference, I really don’t care much as she is a complete stranger. She belongs to the other man since that day, so why should I care about her exploits?

I thought healing required me to understand my W's A, and details were the path to understanding. My beliefs were wrong -I never fully understood, and details were like external validation (never enough, ever).

And yet details were crucial to my healing, my W's healing, and to the success of our R - not sufficient, but they sure helped restore some of the bonds that the A severed..

My W's willingness to answer questions was critical to rebuilding trust.

Each answer showed my W was taking responsibility for herself, and that was critical to maintaining my willingness to R. (I hope that's clear.)

Each new detail gave me more info with which to verify other answers.

Some of the details were chilling. But my W's willingness to show herself in a bad light was one of the indicators I used to test her veracity.

*****

4 years out or so, I was listening to a CD, and my W sort of broke. She said that a particular song made her feel as bad as she did on d-day, and she thought I played it on purpose. I was shocked. The song never ever made me think of her A, and I certainly had no intention of rubbing her nose in it. I told her I was healed, and the A was in the past for me.

One can't know what's in another person's mind without communicating - and if you're dealing with infidelity, it's best to use words, because BS & WS aren't reading each other's non-verbals very well until a lot of healing has been completed.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:47 PM, Thursday, January 29th]

...willingness to show herself in a bad light was one of the indicators I used to test her veracity.

So very important. Your willingness to be open and honest about everything is a litmus test.

There's more to it, I think. The details are important to help understand what the affair was about. What did you gain? What were you looking for? What need did it satisfy? What was so important about the affair that you'd risk your marriage, her love, your family, your integrity, honor, etc.

It has to make sense even if it never makes any sense at all.

It’s realizing you were living one version of the relationship while your partner was living another.

I have been thinking about this since the other day. I have sort of traced a path of evolution in this statement.

At first I think a lot of my grief was losing the picture of who I thought he was. And that’s complicated because I realize I did this to him first. But the preservation to me of who he was in my mind was suddenly obliterated, which did not happen in the fall out of my affair. In fact I probably had him more on a pedestal do trying so hard with me to get through all of it.

And the idea of what our reconciliation path had been was suddenly a feeling of hypocrisy from him. What I thought was happening between us, long heartfelt talks, the depth of our communication, the amount of presence we were having together, to know that experience wasn’t shared, it felt impossible. How could I have missed it?

But over the years and further discussion really none of our marriage was much of a shared experience. We maybe experienced certain things similarly, but we have always been two people with different needs perceiving things in a very different way.

Eventually we learned to integrate it into shared experiences via better communication, a deeper curiousity about one another, and paying more attention to each others evolution, changing needs and more freedom to sometimes take our own space and after that space are more adept at returning fully and quickly (maybe trying to say our relationship is more elastic). We have more of an understanding of who the other is and how we experience things, which lends itself to being able to anticipate each other’s needs without making assumptions and filling in the blanks without realizing it.

There is still projection, that’s human nature, but that deeper understanding that we are never experiencing things the same way is more present and has become a gift that allows us to feel awareness and harmony with each others nuances. I find my experiences fuller when I am able to hear about how he saw it and the two things meld.

It’s natural what you wrote and I think that’s often the early years feelings. I just thought as a person further out in my timeline, I might give a glimpse of where that area became an area of growth first for me, and then one that expanded into our relationship. I am never glad how these things all were precipitated but there are rewards that come from the process of reconciliation that I think are mostly found in a new awareness that you cultivate through the natural introspection it ignites.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:11 AM, Friday, January 30th]

I have been pondering this the last couple days. I have very little memory of the affair due to time, substance and alcohol abuse that were concurrent with the majority of the affair, and a lifetime of compartmentalization. Absent my financial records I would have had very few details, but with those I have most of the dates and places. This did not cover the time spent at the AP's place, but I did my best to estimate the frequency of those interactions. This can be frustrating for my wife, but she believes I have disclosed everything I can remember.

The memories I do have are definitely not positive and I think I would have said that contemporaneously with the affair. I was using drugs and alcohol to numb myself. My wife wonders why I would have continued for so long if I was not having fun or enjoying myself. Her frame of reference is also how affairs are depicted in media - hot, steamy, glamorous, etc (definitely not my experience).

My wife did say the trigger is that it both reminds her and she thinks it reminds me even though she knows I do not remember much. Definitely one more thing that I tainted.

My wife wonders why I would have continued for so long if I was not having fun or enjoying myself. Her frame of reference is also how affairs are depicted in media - hot, steamy, glamorous, etc (definitely not my experience).

I think most people have a need to balance an action with its consequences, as if each has equal weight.

JFK's assassination, for instance, had immeasurable consequences for an entire nation. The act itself was committed by a lone gunman. That just doesn't balance out, and so the conspiracy theories are born (and maybe true).

It's the same with your affair, in some ways. The consequences are so tremendous that surely the affair was equally tremendous. The imbalance is difficult to accept.

Unhinged - that may be the best explanation I have heard. Resonated with me.