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One thing I’m struggling hard with is trying to enjoy the memories pre A … the feelings you first get knowing you met "your" person, the first ILY’s, fun outings as a young couple, moving in together, proposal, marriage, having children, buying a first home, building a life … all that history, all those memories just fuckin destroyed! And for what?! What could possibly trump all of that to make it worth your while to cheat?!

I tell my WH all the time that he didn’t just "step out" for a few months … but he literally destroyed everything we’ve built. I’m sitting here wondering if any of my past 13 years with him were real (how sad). I hate looking at any pictures of him and I at our "best" because it reminds me of what I don’t have now and wondering if I will ever feel happy and secure in any future relationship with him.

At the end of the day, I honestly don’t care if my WH and I end up together, he destroyed us, not me. I just want to know that I didn’t "waste" these past 13 years (literally my entire youth) with a monster in disguise. My life with him and the memories together just feel so tainted. Hoping this feeling will pass 🤞🏼

I understand you. I’m a couple of years out.

I feel the same. I think I have written about this before. During his affair my husband rewrote our history. I read some of what he wrote (to no doubt garner sympathy from the person he was having an EA with). I guess he had to alleviate his cognitive dissonance. The past couple of years have meant I need to understand my reality. And sadly that has meant me rewriting my history and the history of our marriage to alleviate my cognitive dissonance. I will sacrifice the marriage rather than live in cognitive dissonance and lose my very being.

Gottman gets couples to talk about how they got together. Often there is still fondness when they discuss getting together. My fondness has gone. I feel hollow. I have told him I wish I’d never met him. I wish I had just had a fling with him at most. Apparently this is very upsetting for him.

My husband is really upset about how I have rewritten our past. He looks back at photos and he has even rewritten the pictures we took during the time he was cheating as fond and loving memories. The ability to do this blows my mind. I get we can feed our minds and our feelings aren’t reality but it doesn’t sit well with me.

He says he looks back with a mixture of disgust, remorse and feeling stupid about his choices. I just look back with great sadness. I don’t find joy in any photos (and I have thousands printed out as photos were a major love of mine). I feel empty.

However I don’t feel I wasted my years. I’ve got amazing children and they are priceless. They are the reason I get up and keep going. It’s just a shame their father couldn’t see how his shit choices would affect us all. Poor form on his part. Especially now he apparently really wants the marriage. Or the tatters that are left anyway.

IMO, your experiences were real. I understand questioning the reality of your experiences, but the fact the your WH was lying doesn't negate your reality, again IMO.

Gottman gets couples to talk about how they got together. Often there is still fondness when they discuss getting together. My fondness has gone.

One of the things that puzzled and angered me was that memories of good times together interrupted my anger, grief, and fear. It wasn't until I was 4 years out that I found out Gottman views that as very positive for R, and we R'ed.

After being betrayed, I think one's goal should be to find the best solution for you, no matter what that solution may be. IMO finding the solution is a matter of aligning head (logic), heart (desire), and gut (intuition). I think the best path makes itself known by signals one sends oneself. The best approach is to accept the signals and let your body process them.

If you don't feel warm and fuzzy when you think of the best times you had with your WS, I think it's a sign R is not for you. I expect you'll get signals that are positive for R and others that are positive for D and for waiting to gather more info.

The key is having faith in yourself to make a good decision. Keep focusing and acting your own best interests.

I’m gonna kind of piggyback on what Sisoon said. My memories of our earlier years I still look fondly upon. But in the years leading up to DDay, even prior to the beginning of her affair are trash to me. Even though she wasn’t active into the affair, she was thinking about it and any positive memories I have of that time seem fake to me. During her affair I thought we were actually reinventing ourselves and growing the marriage after a lull time. We had what I thought were some really good times. All fake to me even though to her they were real and positive. It’s just that she was having her own fun at the same time and couldn’t stop it.

[This message edited by Copingmybest at 8:20 AM, Saturday, July 6th]

I totally feel you. When I think of those early times, I only see my WW having better early day experiences with him. None of it has any meaning or joy whatsoever for me, I have no good memories of us anymore.

Tainted memories are a lot harder to cleanse than good ones are to dirty.

After the first dday, I was still able to look back at our history with fondness. I still loved him. After dday2, that broke, and I couldn't even look at photos of us. And as time has worn on, I can stand to look again, and like Abcd, I just feel a sense of loss and grief.

As for my view of when we got together, I see all kinds of red flags now that I was naive about (I was 18 when we met). WH asked me at one point if, knowing what I know today, I would still have married him. And I when I said obviously not, he was very hurt. Because in his mind, that version of him was innocent and therefore deserved me. I 100% regret marrying him. I feel like he was never committed to marriage the way I was, and I wish my younger self had seen that.

That said, I don't regret the life I lived aside from the person I chose to marry. The trips we took, the house we built, the child we made - these all hold positive meaning for me. I just wish I could've done them and invested 30 years with someone who appreciates monogamy as much as I do.

I have made peace with those tainted memories but I am not longer with my xWS. I believe he cheated most our M. I found out more after I left too. When I look back at photos I am detached from them and see it as I was happy during that time but he was not being authentic. I will always cherish my children and the good times were still good times even though I was being lied to.

My youth was absolutely wasted on someone who never deserved me. But I have become a much stronger and wiser person from it. I have boundaries that I never had before and my coping skills are a hell of a lot healthier than there were back then. I continue to grow and learn as a human being.

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 8:17 PM, Friday, July 5th]

My ruined photos/memories are of our wedding. Every time I see our wedding photos, I think "and in just two years, she cheats." We have reconciled pretty much with Dday only coming years after her infidelity, but I can't enjoy those wedding pics at all. Unsure why that is the worst. There are other memories/photos from that time that aren't as bad.

I just don’t think about the past before DDay much at all. The marriage I have now started at DDay.

I struggle with tainted memories..whether it's the time of year, places .I feel like everything during the timeline of his PA was a lie.
It turns my stomach to see photos of us together , often times of me looking at him with adoring eyes.
My memory is sharp, sometimes to the point of being a catalogue for others to reference when they can't recall details. It's a blessing and a curse.

I see photos on my phone that pop up and attach them to his affair. Example, taking our youngest daughter to visit a college in her senior year , only to realize that just days before, he was with his AP while pretending to be on a business trip.

This happens to me almost daily and it has been almost 7 years since Dday.
I wish I could erase these invasive thoughts

It takes time to figure out whether good memories and narratives of the past are salvageable.

My husband and I had been married 20 years when I discovered his 6-month affair with a co-worker. I am about four years out from DDay.

At first, in the throes of hysterical bonding and trying unconsciously to "win" him back, I brought up all the good memories we had had over 20+ years together. I think I was also in shock that someone could blow up two decades of a happy, if not perfect, marriage packed full of many good memories.

Once that stage wore off, I was plunged into so much grief and confusion and doubt. I didn’t even want to think about our pre-affair marriage because all the happy memories were tainted either by doubt that they weren’t real and that he might have been lying to me then too, or by sadness that if they were real, it didn’t mean enough for him not to throw it all away. The affair loomed so large that it felt like a complete and total break in the relationship, and I didn’t even know how to think about our prior years together. I just focused on healing myself and on repairing our relationship in the now (my husband has been a pretty good candidate for reconciliation overall).

I still have a ways to go with healing and reconciliation. I think I’m on the longer end of the spectrum for both, due to my personality and past trauma. But I do sense a longer narrative of our relationship emerging in my mind that incorporates and melds the good memories before his affair, the affair and aftermath, and our post affair relationship. It’s a choppy and imperfect narrative that is still infused with more grief and doubt than I’d like, but there’s healing and good feelings too. It helps that we have two great kids that we’ve enjoyed raising together.

All that to say, if your husband is a good candidate for reconciliation and you go that path, it’s possible to get those good memories back in time. But regardless, what you’re experiencing now is a natural and healthy stage of betrayal grief, and I think you have to acknowledge and accept the feelings you have right now. Which is a hard and painful process. Hugs.

First of all , a big hug 🤗 for you !
I found out about my WH virtual sex anffair almost 3 years ago and he destroyed everything I hold dear .
I feel the same way with you . My WH had a 5 months affair with an old college friend after 4 decades of marriage !
I could write a book with all our memories … like yours .
We met in high school, our first date , engagements , wedding , our family together , first house , our years and years of vacations, just the two of us as empty nesters … and he threw it all because an old college friend ( not even an ex girlfriend) reached out and seduced him .

I found out about her text , hence the short 5 months. It could have been much longer and I still feel as if I don’t have a real closure on their affair . A big "what if" is always hanging on my head and it is soul crushing .

He is remorseful now, couldn’t believe what he did but he was in such a thick affair fog at the time, he couldn’t think straight . Sadly , we, the BS are the ones that need to pick up the pieces and rebuild our trust, confidence and intimacy again .

Stay strong ! You have this wonderful community here that will always support you . You are never alone here …