SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi All,

I have not shared my story yet. I am not comfortable with details, so I will (try to) keep it brief and focus on my actions rather than the A itself.

The A was last year, it spanned over approx 6 months, meetings were limited. No sex of any kind – a line I actively did not cross(yes to kissing, and briefly touching on 2 occasions) Massive amount of lies and gaslighting though.

At the end of October last year, I was confronted (again) by my BS. I confessed and went immediately no contact (in truth, I was already stopping everything). From there, in the span of 3 weeks, I left my job (the AP was a co-worker). I admit I needed some pushing in quitting, but nevertheless in 3 weeks I was gone.

I trickle-truthed all the way to the beginning of April. It was a random trickle-truthing, not always hiding the worst stuff.

I finally went into radical honesty mode this month.

I therefore confessed something else I had not thought in years and that happened at the very beginning of our relationship (over 12 years ago). After 4 months we were together, I slept with my ex bf. It was a one off thing. I regretted it immediately (we stopped straight-away). I can't remember anymore if that happened during a brief break-up between me and my current H or just days before we broke up (it was a brief break-up, we went back together after 2 weeks. And have been together ever since). Obviously, I took the responsibility for a full betrayal.

At the time, I made the decision not to disclose this event. I grew-up in an environment where these things would be labelled as "mistakes" and the right thing to do would be to take the secret to the grave and never disclose it. Because disclosing it would be just to clean one's conscience. I never thought about that event until a few weeks ago, after I read the post about "Keeping secrets".

In hindsight, I think that is where my "story" actually started and where I could have changed it. I feel if I had disclosed it back then, regardless of the outcome of the relationship, I may not have been a cheater today and my BS would not be suffering this much.

The two events are not really related and the circumstances were totally different, but I think the behavioural pattern is obvious.

Many years ago, we were at the very beginning of our story and it had been a rocky one - I had left my ex for my H. I was consumed by guilt for leaving my ex for another guy.

Last year, I was completely unhinged. Several years married, young children. I blamed the M for my frustration, I was exhausted by everything, I felt like a hamster in a wheel. The AP was an experienced wayward (although I didn't see it at first) and he played his cards well. I am not blaming him, I am the one who traumatised my BS.

As my BS said, if I had said the truth many years ago, perhaps now he would be with someone else and spared by last year betrayal.

We are still under the same roof, although things don't look well at the moment.

I am committed to change, I have embraced radical honesty and I am all in to do whatever it takes to save my family. Ultimately, I don’t want my children to take after me.

I can't pinpoint the deeper "whys" yet, but I know I have deep flaws. I have started therapy.

I know it is my duty to take the lead, to repair the wrongdoings I have done. I want to.
But some days, like today, I feel completely drained. I live in a hell of my own doing and I have dragged my family in it.
Last year I struggled with mental health and exhaustion. I come from years of sleep deprivation because of young children.

I am not the victim, I am well aware.
But my feelings are still here. And I can’t really talk to anyone.
I am not looking for empathy and I am not "sorry for myself" (in a self-indulgent way).
Any advice on how to "buckle-up" and be strong for my family? I am not always in this state, today is a particularly tough one.
Is it normal feeling this way? Again, I know I made my made and now I should lie in it. I don’t want to escape that. I just wish I had more strength.

LS,

I think you have to acknowledge to your BH that kissing is sex more intimate in some ways than actual genital sex.

If in your marriage kissing had lost passion and intensity then this can make your BH burn.

There is also a chance you contracted some oral STD since this OM may have been playing other women at the same time, keep checking for oral HPV related cancer.

Why did you have to quit and not OM was he a manager or such?

Hello-

So here is my theory- lot of what is draining you is there are internal beliefs you have about yourself that are not helpful.

What I mean by this is you already feel to your core you are bad. Likely this started somewhere in your youth and has snowballed ever since. So admitting things you have done is like confessing this to them and that is too painful for you to bear. These things you have done you feel represents the true you and you have learned somewhere that is not something you should show.

Ther is a great book called Rising String by Brene Brown that helped me understand this about myself and how I have been blocking my connection with others and helped me get I the path to integrate the idea we are all dark and light and we have been feeding the dark due to our core beliefs.

In fact this was so strong in me that when people were mad at me or judging me I felt exposed. It was like more people to know my terrible secret that I am a horrible person.

So my suggestion, which will seem very irrelevant to what you are dealing with is to try and remind yourself that there are lots of parts of you, and each day think of recent examples where you are the person you are hoping to become more fully.

Kindness you have given others. Having and keeping that commitment to yourself to tell the full truth. The more you do this the more good you will do. And as that happens you need to understand your behaviors more fully. Some self compassion can be gained in that. You may not forgive your actions but understanding them helps disassemble the narrative that you currently have of yourself. Therapy will help with that- but you have to commit to it regardless of the status of your relationship.

Letting go of the outcome is almost impossible or at first, but when you are in a place you know you have to change for you, and not just to save the relationship. You have to anchor yourself in that and do the best at the same time to communicate with and support your husband.

So to break it down:

1. Building a good personal recent history by honoring your commitments.

2. Seeing and leaning into your light (goodness).

3. Working diligently on self discovery and self awareness.

4. Anchoring yourself in your recovery being for and about you. Something you want with alll your heart.

5. Help your husband. Read how to help my spouse heal, not just friends. I reccomend reading here a lot because reading the forums helped me understand the trauma my husband was trying to navigate. Just remind yourself his feelings are normal and also he will be up and down a lot

6. Try and stay present and in your body. Spend time during the day in some sort of meditation. Not the cross your legs and clearing your mind kind. The kind where you quietly observe your thoughts and start realizing those are lying to you. There are lots of resources out there on distorted thinking. Catasophizing was huge for me and very draining. Negative self talk needs to be carefully revised. Our thoughts are huge in this process.

7. Gratitude practice - this one killed me when I was told to do it. My world was falling apart and you want me to find things I am thankful for? It’s probably one of the best things you can do for your brain to lean into optimism. Studies show in 21 days or so you can start re wiring your brain.

You are divinely lived and inherently worthy. You need to find ways to believe that and love yourself. I don’t mean that in a lean into selfishness way- I mean it in the way that it’s what every single thing we do and say and think flows from.

That’s a lot, but google some of it and even following a recovery program can be helpful because a lot of the things in those programs are about learning better coping mechanisms and having boundaries on your energy and all sorts of things.

Also you may decide to post here with a stop sign. It’s helpful to get bs perspectives but if you are feeling weak, you may want to wait until you are feeling stronger to invite them into your posts.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:45 PM, Wednesday, April 29th]

Hikingout - thank you. Thank you. I am truly grateful for your comment.

I bought "Rising strong" 2 days ago, after I saw you mentioning it in another thread.

Many (if not all) of the things you wrote resonate deeply.

The exposure I feel when someone (particularly my BS) is upset with / criticise me is so rough. I feel so triggered and difensive, shutting myself down. I am only at the beginning of "Rising strong", but it made me see this part of me straight away (although I am still scraping the surface).

During these past months (after first DDay) I sometimes told BS to have moments of "truce" because I couldn’t handle it anymore. It wasn’t that I was hoping to escape the aftermath of my actions. I am "ready" for that. It’s more that my instinctive reaction to him / close ones being (rightly so) upset / angry at me is "they are crushing me, I am being crushed". Even when I think I deserve that and I acknowledge the other party is right.

This is just a small part of the overall picture. But it’s something it has always been in me and I could never see.

Needless to say, I betrayed when I was in a difficult period mentally.

Thank you for all the advice. I will try to practise what you said.

I do feel a deeply bad person right now. It’s like the lid has been taken off, and I see only a pattern of selfish and arguable behaviour throughout all my life.

I am not saying this in a self-pity way. Just a fact. It’s really one of those days.

Lonely,

From the other side, a bit of perspective and some things that I think are universal about healing that might possibly apply to you.

First what you are feeling is internal conflict, which is a good indicator that what you have done doesn’t sit well with your deeper values.

You fell into the trap of some character flaws that allowed you to betray yourself.

In your history you left your ex for your husband then slept with him again.

I understand that you may have built a narrative however this is how I read it: you betrayed your ex and left him for another man (was he aware? Your ex or your husband?This is more important than you may think), then had guilt and slept with him once again, thus betraying the other man (future husband).

It’s a sign of emotional chaos that you are carrying with you since long, you may have projected that something in both man could fill a void but you also knew you could not have them both without hurting all of you, so indulged into infidelity and soon discovered that the void would not fill, it only deepened.

Is this read feeling on track with your emotions?

The up and down days are likely a battleground for your values and the shame and guilt of those choices , with the cement shoes of secrecy and lies, so it drags you down when you don’t have the energy to swim up.

Here is the thing than we share (WS and bs) the nerve system doesn’t understand time very well, it’s all a continuum of the whole story. That’s why when you find out even years or decades later it hurts like it just happened today, and that’s why it keeps dragging you into the past mistakes (feeding the pitfalls for future ones).

Good thing is, time is real, even if the nerve system doesn’t feel it, you do, and you can sync it to the present instead of drifting away into the past.

The only thing that matters is Lonely Guilty today. This is the same I would’ve said to your bs because it’s true for both of you.

Today you are not the same woman who caused the devastation of the past if you choose to stop living into the past and start living where you are now. In this moment.

Your nerve system will understand that is experience material and not the continuum that is building your ego the moment you draw this line.

That becomes your old ego-persona (call it as you want) and you acknowledge it was a failed experiment, not the woman you wanted to be, but the actress you tried to interpret.

So you are now a blank slate, you can rebuild your identity from here, for you betrayed yourself as well with the previous attempt (ego-persona), along with the people who were in your same ride, they were collaterals caught in the chaos.

Your current emotions are telling you that, if that was the kind of woman you longed to be, you’d feel fine. Emotional chaos is an alarm system telling you that is not it, is demanding you to tune into your true values and feelings,so the emotions will calm down.

I can tell you what it felt my healing from infidelity: " I just stopped overthinking "

4 words, and it is all there. I stopped living in the past, stopped "caring " in the meaning that it is only me and now the thing that matters, my goal and my growth, my values my direction. Not that the past wasn’t painful, it was the most devastating thing I’ve ever experienced in my entire life. But it doesn’t touch me know. It doesn’t define me. It doesn’t control me.

Because I don’t care to allow it to dominate my present.

I don’t see why for a wayward should be any different.

This killed my trauma and yes also the ego I lived and built for most of my life. But it feels lighter. I am a better person today, stronger and more driven because I choose my own path, I have my boundaries and I don’t live in the past or the future, those are learning lessons and general directions, nothing more, my agency is now.

Yours is too.

Chemistry is also a factor.

Your mind and emotions trigger chemistry in the pain as they triggered chemistry during the affairs.

This is a low and not a high, but it is still fog.

You can balance it out caring for your body. Exercise, diaphragmatic breathing, yoga and other light activity that centers you in your body will balance your body’s chemistry enough to feel better about immediately.

Those are hints, if you like gym like I do, go on and train hard, feels good. If you just get well by walking go for a hike and breathe, experience the reality through your senses, your body, not just the mind.

When you are living the moment and don’t overthink, the amount of energy that you have is incredibly high. Actually is not, it feels higher, because we don’t realize how much energy we waste on overthinking and worrying about stuff that is out of our current control, that drains you way more than a full day of activities.

Also the time perception changes, it doesn’t fly or stagnate, a day feels like a day because you live every moment of it.

And the clarity you get is the blam you need to heal yourself and your healing will help your bs to heal too.

You know what we need from our WS? Nothing more than to see them heal. In the end I mean, our pain has a lot of questions and needs and anger, and there will be moments where that asks to be addressed, it’s a reconnection process, however painful for both.

But no words, no answer, no talks will ever match the observation of behavioral changes.

You feeling safe and self loving means you can become safe and loving. You can both receive and give in equal measure, something you couldn’t do with the internal void that led you to cheat.

There’s no other goal than raise back whole, there might be scars but the fears are gone.

And what comes next, reconciliation or something else, doesn’t really matter, if you healed whatever will be will be just fine, because now there can be finally something, something else than the ghosts of the past, and it’s up to you both to choose it.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 9:32 PM, Wednesday, April 29th]

I understand you are just scratching the surface- but at least you are starting to scratch. It does unfold as you hold the questions. The couple of years after dday were the worst years of my life, but somehow I kept focused and eventually things became manageable, then there were areas I started to flourish. 9 years later I am still working on myself. Not as intensely as before, but in a way that has continued to deepen my peace, capacity for empathy, appreciation, and love. There is sunshine left in this life for you, keep going and make yourself proud. You can do this, and it’s okay if you are still at the beginning of your comeback. Keep reaching.

[This message edited by hikingout at 9:05 PM, Wednesday, April 29th]

Thank you again Hikingout for all the advice.

BackfromtheStorm: thanks for taking time to reply and to break things down without judgement. The part you described about the past does resonate. To answer to your question, my ex-bf was aware of why I was breaking up and he knew what was going on all along (although he did not know everything. He had a similar attitude, not many questions asked, better not to know, etc.). That's not to say I was an example of virtue. The opposite.

I see how anchoring myself into the present helps, and I agree that the person I am aiming to be / becoming matters. When I do that (and when I tried to internalise hikingout's advice) I do feel more resilient / resolute (which is what I really want to do / be). I guess I have to learn to practise what you and hikingout said as well as supporting my BS (and fully address and repairing the damages I have done).

Thank you again for the guidance. I will probably keep posting going forward.

Survrus - I did not go into many details, but to answer to your question; I quitted because my BS wanted me to and it was the right thing to do (although I struggled to do it). Further, my time there was already coming to an end.

Love is strange as it doesn’t fully die, is like an onion.

Layers upon layers and sometimes can make you cry.

But like an onion can sometimes sprout back again and rebirth.

You are who you are today, and I feel is not the same girl that was between two men back then.
Because you looked at your own ghosts and that is already changing you.

If you can meet the man you chose today for the first time it would be different.
Because you are different. We meet a partner on our path where we are now, not where we were or where we will be.
That’s what matters.

Okay I will skip about the work your husband and ex bf should also be doing because is their path and you already guessed by my question what I would say. (Topic for another time but your husband is half BS and half OM/AP he matters as you chose him, but he has a double work to heal himself and meet you again, your ex is out of the equation and so he should stay, finger crossed for his healing but his business, not mine or yours).

You decided today to thrive on your strength instead of indulging in your weaknesses.

That is the way to go, we all deserve to choose that in any aspect of our lives, is fulfilling and the only path to growth.

So today’s woman deserves to keep her head held high, and you can help her achieving this by living as her, as you are deep inside, unapologetically beautiful and present.

The world itself responds to this, you will see, your husband too.

You won’t have shame for neither love nor pain, you will be able to cry and feel your guilt but shame free because that girl is no longer who you are now.

Good luck.

And apologies for comparing love to an onion, it is fucking stupid but somehow also fitting, so I went for it.