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My BH works at the airport. His shift starts while I am still asleep. I woke up to him texting me that someone got paged with my APs name and he saw someone that looked like him. He is concerned that the affair never ended and that I am still gaslighting him. Now, my AP has a common name, BH never got close enough to see if it was actually him, I also have a hard time believing my AP would have the means to get a flight here. (He lives several states away. So I always assumed I’d never run into him again.) If it was him, it was completely without my knowledge. There’s no way for me to verify anything as everything and everyone is blocked and will stay that way.

I don’t know if it was him, I don’t know if my BH isn’t seeing things. All I know is that now he has to question again if the affair never ended. (Not that he ever stopped.) I know he would be a fool to blindly trust me. I am not mad or hurt or upset that he is wondering if it was AP or if I am still lying.

I just don’t know what to do. The affair is over. Even if we divorced, I’d never seek out my AP again. I have no credibility though. I feel like the boy that cried wolf. I am telling the truth and I know that’s all I can do. All lies eventually come out, so all I can do is keep telling the truth. I hate that he has no reason to believe I’m not still lying and gaslighting.

I can’t prove anything to him. I still have full transparency. He has 100% access to anything and everything. There’s nothing to hide. I don’t want him to feel like I am being defensive. I just feel like I’ve been trapped in something I can’t make better for him. All I know is that I haven’t spoken to my AP since July. I would never speak to him again. I’m terrified that he still has the ability to make my life hell even when I have nothing to do with him. I hate that I gave him that power by having an affair to begin with.

[This message edited by Iamtrash at 5:16 PM, February 23rd (Sunday)]

We have a saying in our house: when you are a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

That is unfortunately the consequence of infidelity. Go above and beyond in your transparency. Make sure to maintain as much communication as possible. Continue to reassure him and show him empathy for how he is feeling vs getting defensive for not being able to prove this to him.

It’s a tough spot, however with consistency and time it can get better.

IAT,

I’m terrified that he still has the ability to make my life hell even when I have nothing to do with him. I hate that I gave him that power by having an affair to begin with.

I hear you. Unfortunately the AP becomes a bit of a fixture. I'm 5 years out and my AP still looms like a distant storm cloud over our M. And so it will be. As time passes the triggers will become less frequent and you'll both hopefully learn to deal with them better.

Your BH triggered, and that will happen. Walkingoneggshelz gave you great advice about how to deal with it.

I'm sorry you are in this spot. As WalkinOnEggShelz said, the best you can do in this situation is to be as transparent as possible and as empathetic as possible.

Situations like this are an unfortunate consequence of our actions. When you poke an eye out, you have to live with the fact that it will be hard to see from now on. If you have an affair, you have to live with the fact that it has the power to hurt both you and your spouse at pretty much any given time.

My advice here would be to continue to focus on the "bigger picture", which is to continue working on yourself and your marriage. What your spouse needs to see is consistency over time, and to see positive changes in you over time.

The problem here (in my opinion) isn't your AP or what happened at the airport. The problem is that your BH still doesn't feel safe around you. He isn't sure if he can trust or believe you. All BS's know that transparency is kind of useless. If you really want to talk to your AP, you will find a way. So the question really becomes one of, "How can I restore trust?". And the high-level answer to that question is, "By becoming someone safer".

Every BS, at some point during R, asks themselves, "What about my spouse is different today than it was during the affair?". If the answer to that is, "nothing", then they are in the same place, with the same risks. I think what we (WS's) sometimes forget is that all of this transparency, timelines, NC and so on... these things don't indicate "change" of any kind. For example, if a drunk driver hits a car and then pays for all the damages, it doesn't mean he's not a drunk driver anymore. Paying for the damages is one thing. But he remains unsafe because he still drinks. In a similar way, all these things we do to "help" our spouses, are not necessarily indicative of change within ourselves.

Keep working on yourself. Ask yourself, your spouse, and your IC and MC, how you can go about being a safer person? If we stick with the drunk driver example, what if he were to join AA and get clean? What if he took medication that would make him sick if he took a drink? Better yet, what if he saw an IC and found out what factors in his life were causing him to drink in the first place? Ask yourself what would make the most difference to you? If he paid for the damages? Or if he turned his whole life around and removed the trauma and pain that caused him to drink in the first place?

Days and situations like this one will largely decrease when you become someone who has removed the core issue that lead to infidelity in the first place.

Thankfully, we have been able to talk about this fully and productively. I have nothing to hide, and it’s so much different than talking immediately after d-day. Lies always come to surface. Sooner or later. Now I have nothing to defend or protect. It’s much easier to be a decent person when you’re no longer trying to cover your own behind.

I hate that he had to be triggered like that. I felt immensely triggered by this event, and I wasn’t the one that experienced it. I still truly hope it wasn’t my AP. I fully believed I’d never have to see my AP again. There’s 0 reason for him to be here. There’s so many factors that should prevent him from ever being in the same state as me. I would have been in a terrible place if I ran into AP. I wish he didn’t have to go through that. Yet alone, while working.

What’s harder is that it’s scary to me. A few nights ago, it sounded like someone tried to open our door. No one was there when I looked. I told my BH and we shrugged it off. I assumed it was in my head. Then this happened, days later. It has me second guessing. I’ve been living my normal life. Working. Being with my kids. Going through our routines. Was AP here the whole time? Was he watching me. Unfortunately, neither of us can prove anything as BH never got close enough to see I if it was him. My AP has no business being around my home, my family, me. It’s a terrible feeling to wonder if he was here without my knowledge. It’s worse to know I caused this for us. BH and I have further discussed ways to ensure the safety of our family as well as what we will do if he were to find a way to reach out to us or anyone that knows us. He’s completely blocked by us, but if that really was him in the same city as us without our knowledge, we need to have a plan.

Much like the discussions about your mind movies recently, the waking moments MAY indicate that you’re increasingly ready to face/process some elements of your betrayal. I don’t know if that’s reassuring or not, I just noticed this is the second time recently you’ve brought up some degree of intense discomfort- Remember that such discomfort may accompany some real positive change.

Have you had any reason to think AP might try and show up? That is, COULD there be validity to him showing up in the middle of the night?

IAT,

Last summer I was in Europe with my BW. On the crowded Karluv Most in Prague and I thought I saw my AP, she even looked at me for a second and seemed to make eye contact. Freaked me out. I wanted to grab my BW and run the other way. I felt guilty like I had done something wrong. Panic. Calmly I stopped and took another look and it was a woman with very similar features, but definitely not the AP. I then told my BW and she laughed and reassured me that I was being paranoid. But I could see she was upset too, and likely just trying to keep herself calm in her response to me.

It is the gift that keeps on giving......

Mind you, stalking to your home, that is something else. I also had to deal with that with my AP, about 6 months after I broke things off. We had even moved in the interim and she sent me a nice note by mail to my new address....That was when we went to the lawyer for a stop and desist letter.

JB-

I have had no reason to believe that AP would show up. He lives several states away. He also lacks the means to care for himself (yet alone, the financial means to travel). But that was at the point of d-day. Who knows at this point? All I know is that BH was convinced it was him (he’s never seen him in person). I have my doubts, but it doesn’t take away the trauma my BH felt, whether it was truly AP or not. It also worries me. We have young children. If AP truly is showing up unexpected, with 0 reason to be here (he has no family or friends here, to my knowledge), there is no good to come of him choosing to come here.

MrClean-

I didn’t realize how triggering it would be. Instantly sick to my stomach. It was hard feeling like BH (rightfully) thought I could still be lying, but honestly, it was harder for me to feel like AP could have been here. I allowed this to happen. I actively participated. Now that the affair is over, I feel this need to protect my BH, my children, and even myself. I have a disadvantage. I don’t have any way of knowing where he’s at or what he’s up to unless I were to run into him. In this instance, there’s very little I can offer to help my BH (aside from listening and understanding his pain to the best of my ability) since I wasn’t there to verify if it was AP.

I just hope I am not a fool believing I will never have to see or hear from my AP again.