SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Please forgive me if this seems a bit of a shambles. It’s been 3 years since D-Day, and finding out about the other woman he was seeing when we first started seeing each other. I thought I had married my soul mate, after my ex husband cheating on me, and it would be my happy ever after. It was soul crushing.

Since then, I’ve spent the last 3 years working on myself and my ability to trust anyone, let alone my husband. I’m tired of it, so bloody tired. During Covid it was easier to manage, we both worked from home, I always knew where he was etc.

The last 12 months have been hell though. I keep finding things that are just wrong if you are in a loving commuted relationship. Private messages on SM commenting on a woman’s breast or bottom. An OF account. Suddenly non stop talking about a new woman at work. Disappearing messages set up on messenger. I found all these things when trying to quiet the fear, and it just amplifies it.

After a disastrous MC session last year and being told my betrayal trauma was ‘my issue’, and I needed to work on it myself, I can’t talk to him about any of these things. I physically choke when trying to bring it up. As such, my anxiety is through the roof and I’m struggling to function.

I had toyed with the idea of hiring a private detective as I refuse to put myself through what I went through with my ex husband, but the MC has put doubts in my head of measuring what I find acceptable.

So today, I put a VAR in his car. I was physically shaking, and have been anxious all day about it. I’m concerned for 2 things.
1. I find out he is cheating.
2. He finds it, and there’s nothing to it and I’ve just stuffed up my relationship.

Everyone seems to think that if I’m at the point of considering these things, to just leave, but I wonder how much of my ‘betrayal trauma’ is at play. I don’t trust anything. I need actual evidence to believe what I’m seeing/hearing/feeling. How do I stop this? I’m feel caught, and alone.

Sounds to me like you have enough evidence to justify a var. if you need to know, you need to know.

Personally, I think you already have enough to come to a conclusion. I don’t know why your counselor is discouraging you from hiring a PI. I would think they would support you in getting to the truth?

My psych is concerned that if I don’t find anything, when will I stop looking….

This is something I have grappled with for a long time. The manic episodes with my ex husband when I didn’t find anything and he was essentially faking his want to remain in the marriage was extremely damaging. He just became more adept at hiding things as I went on a search for answers. It wasn’t pretty. Our relationship finally came to a head when I found them by chance in a park together.

The post infidelity trauma that I’ve been working through for years is still there. And it makes me doubt everything.

I find out he is cheating.

I keep finding things that are just wrong if you are in a loving commuted relationship. Private messages on SM commenting on a woman’s breast or bottom. An OF account. Suddenly non stop talking about a new woman at work. Disappearing messages set up on messenger.

All of the above are the actions of infidelity. Hiding. Lying. Talking about a woman's body. The interest in a woman at work. Messages that disappear.

All cheating behavior.

I'm concerned that you aren't allowed to bring it up,because a terrible mc told you it was your problem that you can't trust him. Completely dismissing the reason for that distrust was distrustful behavior.

You have a lot of evidence of cheating behavior, but you seem to need a smoking gun. I think the var was a good idea.

Of course, if you find nothing on it, it doesn't mean hes innocent. All of the above is cheating. Keeping your mouth shut isn't a good strategy. Who cares what another person said? They were wrong. Bring it up.

The post infidelity trauma that I’ve been working through for years is still there. And it makes me doubt everything.

You're still in infidelity.

Married men don't obsessively talk about a woman at work,unless they're interested in her.

Married men don't talk about other women's bodies. It's disrespectful to their wife.

Married men don't have secret OF accounts. Do you know what that is? I didn't. I do bow. Interactive porn. The men pay her to do certain things. Money is given. Private messages. Phone calls. Private videos. Sure, some aren't interactive. But the point of OF is to interact with the female.

Married men...men who have cheated..don't delete messages. Transparency is a cornerstone of reconciliation.

You're blaming yourself for not getting over the past, when he's still doing it.

I believe you already know the truth but are scared to act on it. I agree with others, you don’t need more proof.

The last 12 months have been hell though. I keep finding things that are just wrong if you are in a loving commuted relationship. Private messages on SM commenting on a woman’s breast or bottom. An OF account. Suddenly non stop talking about a new woman at work. Disappearing messages set up on messenger. I found all these things when trying to quiet the fear, and it just amplifies it.

It is not a fear….it is a reality. This is cheating. If he truly believes it is not wrong, he would be doing it in front of you and showing you it. And it is all the more horrible because he knows your past damage and chooses it anyway. He just believes you to be so beaten down and dependent on him that you will just take it quietly. Please show him how strong we all know you can be!

One way or another all of us are asking you the same thing. Do you want to live with this torture for the rest of your life? If you are being manipulated as badly as it sounds, it is going to tell on you physically so that, after a while, you will pay a permanent price for the stress you are under. I think it makes sense to put a VAR and try to find out what he’s up to. If you find nothing then get yourself to some therapy because you are so traumatized from previous issues that you cannot seem to get past it. On the other hand, if you find enough, this is time to get yourself to IC to help you learn to leave. You should never, ever choose a life that torments you

How you feel, right now, is because you are being gaslit. You won't ever heal whilst you are still in it.

Thanks everyone for your insights- I have taken them all on board. This isn’t a relationship I feel safe in, clearly. It’s not acceptable that he’s doing these things and that I’m going to these lengths to quiet my mind. I don’t like being sneaky, or dishonest, and that’s exactly what this relationship is making me.

Constantly feeling as though he’s thinking, ‘as soon as something better comes along, or something easier’ is not fair on me or him, but that’s how he’s set us up.

The recording had nothing on it, but it was only in his car for one day.

You sound very worried about whether he will discover the VAR. Maybe the PI would be a slightly less stressful route instead of being on edge that he is going to confront you about recording him. I would think that a PI is less likely to be caught? Just thinking what could minimise your stress at this difficult time. Also, if there is something to find, a PI might give you clearer evidence?

Not that I think you really need any more evidence, but we each have our own threshold. Are you in IC? That might help you see things more clearly.

Charlie99

From my own personal experience I know infidelity leaves us with a trauma that takes a long time to heal. I have shared that I found infidelity-sites because I was 99% certain my present wife was cheating, and this is NOT the woman that I caught in bed with another man. In my instance – and this is only MY instance – I realized with time that there were issues in our marriage, but not infidelity. Well... there were trust issues due to my inability to trust, along with other "normal" run-of-the-mill marital issues most marriages need to deal with.

I dealt with my trust issues be redefining how I trust. I still (20 years later) use a trust-but-verify approach. In the early days when I started this I might ask my wife where she was going. If she said the gym I might check our online-membership (logs when you check-in), or her gym-bag when she got home. After doing this a few times I sort-of got the trust to believe her when she said she was going to the gym at certain days and times. I apply this method to many things in daily life. Like the mechanic that fixes my vehicle: First time I used him he told me what was wrong, gave me an estimate and when the repair would be done. When that worked out and he showed me the worn-down parts he replaced he gained my trust.

I don’t necessarily think trust is the issue though in your case...

Your husband had an affair 3 years ago.
If he realized the extent of pain and damage he would not be making inappropriate comments in private messages, he wouldn’t have a hidden OF account, he would realize that talking about a woman at work would hurt you.
Yet he does all these things...

I think the issues in your marriage are more related to him not understanding what he did – not having shouldered accountability.
I think the issues are communications. Like why didn’t you ask him about the inappropriate PM’s and why didn’t you to communicate your whys and what’s and reach a conclusion?

We can possibly argue about levels of cheating. As in – is looking at a woman undress on OF really cheating or is it simply on the border of cheating. But that’s not the issue IMHO. What I find evident based on your post is that your marriage hasn’t dealt with the past infidelity, and if that isn’t done its doomed to remain in infidelity. You don’t really need to prove he is still cheating because he is... only not in the way he did previously.

I think you need to put your foot down. Either on yourself – or on your marriage. You need to think long and hard what you want, and I would hope the conclusion is to get out of infidelity. Once you have that destination you could see if he wants to make that journey with you. If not... well... You still need to get there.

You already have enough evidence he is shady.

You don’t need "proof". The fact you are not on solid ground MEANS YOU ARE NOT SURE ABOUT YOUR RELATIONSHIP!!

and in my opinion, after your first D, you learned not to blindly trust. So now you are trying to prove to yourself that you can trust someone WHO HAS PROVEN THEY ARE NOT TRUSTWORTHY!

Stop doubting yourself. It’s not a "trauma response" that is causing the problem. It’s the shady lying cheater you are with who is causing the problem.

FWIW I reconciled with my H. But I told him there is no opportunity for a discussion or conversation if I suspect anything going forward. If I have a suspicion or good reason to suspect something, the marriage is over.

It’s up to him to prove to me I can / could trust him. If not, then it ends. Simple. Very clear.

For the first two years after my wife's incidents, I was so hyper-vigilant that I questioned every single behavior that even remotely caused a tingle of suspicion. Took a bath in the morning but a shower a few hours later? Took too long coming home? Not fast enough to reply to text?

I stalked, I tracked, I searched, I questioned... I was an absolute wreck. It was almost a full-time job, and it was EXHAUSTING. It took such a long time to be able to get past that and rebuild trust. I still have fears that could be called irrational at times, but I also know that it's going to be that way for a long time, and it's up to me to decide how comfortable I am with that. But our relationship has grown and improved drastically, which definitely helped foster trust over the long-term.

The point I'm trying to make is that if you're feeling hyper-vigilant, it's because you don't feel safe. You do what you need to do in order to feel safe, and your partner owes you transparency. If he isn't willing to give it or you still feel he's hiding something, there's a big problem.

As in – is looking at a woman undress on OF really cheating or is it simply on the border of cheating

OF is different from most porn sites. It's interactive. You can talk to them. You pay them. You pay to subscribe to their channel. You pay for extras..like videos and pics..you can make special requests, that they send videos or pics,of them doing a particular act. You can pay for a phone call. It's not like pornhub, where you watch videos. OF is a totally different thing. IMO, interacting with another woman on her OF channel is cheating. When you pay a woman to make a video of her doing xyz for you, that's cheating.

Thanks Bigger, I really appreciate your feedback. FWIW- I didn’t confront him about the messages I found because I looked at his devices secretly. As much as we have an open device policy, I know if they suspect, they will delete. I learnt that from my ex husband.

I also called him out recently on a much bigger issue relating to his ex wife and her financial abuse and how it is still affecting us, when he didn’t know I knew about it, and then got angry because I overheard the phone call he had with her discussing it. He then told me he didn’t tell me because he didn’t want to argue about it, and the money relates to something she did when they were together, and wasn’t relevant to me.

Unfortunately the MC telling him that it’s my ‘betrayal trauma’ and that I need to give him a chance, and let go of what happened. Completely invalidating of my experience and minimising of the requirement to rebuild trust.

I’m making steps to exit. I don’t know how firm I am in this at this stage, but I need to at least have a plan in place. I just hate doing this to my kids, who think the world of him. Putting the VAR in his car was my effort to ‘trust but verify’, and instead it has left me with more questions. I will put it back and leave it there for a few more days, rather than just one.

OF account? That’s cheating to me.

Seems time to get a new MC…

We haven’t been back. I’m not willing to put myself through it again.

I told my IC about it and she was horrified- and this MC is part of her practice. It’s unfortunate as the previous few sessions we had had with her she had seemed to be a good fit.

I’m not feeling safe. I just wish I had the strength and means to call it. I am exhausted from watching everything that goes on, for signs.

Have you been to a lawyer to see what D would look like?

I've bumped several posts, including one about boundaries and consequences. Have you discussed boundaries and consequences with your WH? (I consider OF to be infidelity.)

I just wish I had the strength and means to call it.

I hope this is something you're working on with your IC. You're kind of like Dorothy Gale with the ruby slippers - you do have the strength (or ability to get home) - and it's been with you all this time.

I get you, though. It took me 18 months to get to the place where I ended it. Of course, XWH crossed a hard boundary I'd set and that's why I said I was out, but I was pretty much there anyway. (I was trauma bonded.)

Are you able to go on anxiety meds? The cortisol that's thrumming through your body isn't helping with the fatigue, either. Anxiety can also make it difficult for you to make decisions.

I’m on meds, have been since my first divorce. We have increased my dose though recently.

I know what a divorce will look like. It’s helping my kids through it that scares me.

What affects me the most, is the constant thought ‘how will I know?’.

Thank you for bumping those posts. I’m off to read them.