SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This topic came up on another thread and it got me thinking again about that awful day so long ago. Its kind of apropros for me as its Dday season for me anyway. I stated on that thread that I believed BS's initial reactions were all over the board and thought it may be instructive and possibly cathartic to write about what your initial reaction was to the revelation of infidelity on Dday. It may help others to know that they are not alone in the way they reacted initially, regardless of what form that took. Did you rage? Weep? Shut down? Run? Confront?

Ill start. When a mutual friend told me that he had caught my wife and "best friend" together it was like a switch flipped inside me. A disconnect. Like a breaker failed. A fuse blew. And I shut down. Retreated inside myself. Went into survival mode which was nothing new to me. I used the same strategy growing up in a chaotic and abusive home. It was my crisis "modus operandi". Oh, I confronted all right. Coldly not hotly. Icy not fiery. She did not deny. Got dissumulation, gas lighting, blame shifting. Really sad honestly. Wildly immature.

As Ive said before, from that day on, I decided to take the survival of my family on my own shoulers and "white knighted" it. Stuffed the rage and bitterness for years which was honestly terrible and set me up for a lot of personal repair work over years of time.

So that it in a nutshell. I retreated into myself, detached emotionally, got cold not hot and proceeded to white knight my family's survival.

How about you? How did you initially handle Dday? Feel free to share.

[This message edited by DobleTraicion at 1:50 PM, Sunday, August 31st]

I confronted, she admitted, then I foolishly started doing the pick me dance. She wanted to still be "just friends" with him. That lasted about a week, and when I saw it wasn't getting me anywhere I started calling lawyers and real estate agents. Not bluffing and with purpose. That's what I should have done right from the get go, because it really turned the tables in my favor. When she saw I was serious she broke down in a way I'd never seen her break down before. Her attitude changed almost instantly and she dropped her AP like a hot rock. She told him to gtfo, blocked him on everything, and has been NC ever since.

BS's, How Did You React On Your Dday?

Not Well.

How did I act on D-day?

Well, I was stunned and I’m sure in shock. My wife said she had something we needed to talk about, and I could tell it was something serious. You know, something along the lines of: "I think you should help out more with the laundry or your dishwashing skills needs improvement." I’m not joking, everything in our life (as I saw it) was amazing. Life was great, our relationship was great. I was woefully unprepared for what was about to cross over her lovely lips.

I sat down on the floor of our bedroom, my mind racing over what I might have done wrong, while my wife sat on the edge of our bed. She, very calmy, began unfolding her 1 ½ year affair with her co-worker. Her co-worker (married as well) was the choir director of our church. My wife was the organist, and I was the youth director. So one might guess I had reason to believe we were close and trusted friends. I was completely caught off guard.

Whether it was due to shock or smart processing, I did not react negatively. I listened, I calmly asked questions and, for the most part, she answered them honestly. When she completed her admission all I said was: "We’d figure this out together." I was not angry, nor did I feel hurt. I think I shut my feelings down so I wouldn’t say or do something that couldn’t be undone. What I was, was lost, mentally wandering in a dark, stark land with no glimmer of light.

Oddly, the strongest thought that was running through my mind as I listened to her is that this was the bravest thing I’d ever seen my wife do. I know that is a weird response but that was the thought that was playing over and over in my mind as she answered my questions about intimate details that were ripping my guts out.

It was a quiet night as I sat in the evening trying to process how this could have happened.

Anger and hurt would come about 3 months later as I emerged from this dank underworld caused by my wife and my friend’s actions.

Thank you for the question.

I absolutely lost my mind I threw his cell phone in his face and told him to get out. My screaming at him woke up the kids everyone was rattled. I had no coping skills. From there became my downward spiral of insulting him and cutting myself. I ended up in the mental hospital 2 times that year as I kept catching him seeing her. Finally I gave up and went into a major depression was put on mood stabilizers and anti- depressants. I became numb and a non person in the years that followed. R was a nightmare and he put me in False R 2 years later. I remained in limbo for 5 more years due to my fear of leaving and finally separated in 2019 and left for good in 2020. I will never entertain cheating from anyone again and I’m not R material at all so the relationship needs to end any time cheating occurs in my relationships going forward.

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 3:32 PM, Sunday, August 31st]

Evening of July 3rd. He had a work meeting and texted be home at 6 pm. Later texted be home at 8 pm. Tried calling but he did not answer. I then fell asleep and woke up at around 11:30 pm and he’s still not home.

Right then I knew something happened-and I was prepared. I had an idea for no obvious reason he may have been with someone else. Just a gut feeling.

He comes home and thought he was going to sneak off into the guest room. Except I was in the kitchen waiting (with kids upstairs asleep). I asked him very calmly "hey where have you been?" And to his credit he was honest and said with the OW.

I took it on the chin and didn’t get knocked down. I calmly asked questions. Basically it didn’t mean anything (of course it turns out that was a lie).

Now it’s 7/4. I’m sitting on the floor of my bedroom crying my eyes out, having been awake for the entire night, devastated, destroyed, etc. and he literally steps over me and goes out to a BBQ until late that night.

He then leaves on Sunday on a church mission trip (superstorm Sandy damage for those that live on the east coast). He comes home from that trip after not seeing me for a week and says he wants a Divorce.

I’m being kicked to the curb for the much younger OW.

Stupidly I have him credit for being "honest". Turns out he was just your ordinary lying cheating mid life crisis affair guy. Nothing special.

And at dday2 I was equally calm and in total control when I learned he was still cheating. When I told him I was D him b/c I had nothing left to give to the marriage, I said it w/out emotion or accusations. I was just mentally done.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 5:12 PM, Sunday, August 31st]

Thanks for these. This is instructive and helpful. If any WS's would like to relay their BS's reaction on Dday, feel free but only if it doesnt cause you undue pain.

Asterisk

Thanks for sharing although I winced.

If you ever want to start a thread about infidelity cloaked in religiosity and church culture, Ill definitely pitch in.

We were in bed, waking up. W said something. I asked a question in response. She revealed her A.

I jumped out of bed and stood in the cold air dressed for a warm bed - I was cold. I called W's supervisor, who was with a client. I told supe's H, who answered the phone, that it really was an emergency. I told supe the basic facts; she asked to speak to W. She told W to go NC with ow immediately (i.e. no 'closure'). All the while I was standing in the cold room dressed for a warm bed.

We moved to a warmer room where both of us could sit several feet away from each other. W was paralyzed. I drafted an NC text message. W approved it. I hit 'send'. The ap immediately began to blow up W's biz VOIP line and cell phone. We both started picking the phone up and immediately shutting each call down. Eventually ow went to texting, which W ignored.

The ap texted; somehow W read it. The ap (I use this construction because I hate capitalizing anything that refers to ow) said she wanted the gifts she gave to W. W collected them and put them into a paper bag. OBH and ap came to our building, ostensibly to pick the gifts up. I met them in the vestibule outside our building's lobby, because I thought they might want to storm our apartment if they got into the lobby. I was right - they tried to push past me, but the door is locked by default.

I stayed in the unheated, cold vestibule dressed for the heated apartment. :-) Obh was also a therapist. He and ow kept trying to get me to agree they should talk to my W, because a therapist who just dumped a client was committing malpractice. (I did not poiny out that a therapist who let a client fuck her, as my W did, was committing malpractice, too.) I kept asking them to leave. Finally they did. I did not take the opportunity to tell either of them what I thought of them, since I believed anything I said would give them insight into what we were doing, and knowledge is power.

W called her IC while I was dealing with ow and obh. We went to the session. Her IC started by confronting W and supporting me. I described what I was thinking and feeling; W's IC told me I was normal. She told me I really was free to D or R; she told me to take all the time I needed. She said sex was up to us, and she told W that she certainly could say 'no', but she also asked me what I wanted, and she told W that based on what I said, 'yes' would make R more likely. So W's IC became our MC.

I became quite unproductive at work in my own micro-business. My income was minuscule, and I started social security at 63, with the plan of paying it all back when I reached full retirement age (which I did). I had a hard time facing customers and prospects. I retired when I turned 70. I had plenty of energy; I just hated doing what I was doing. I liked retirement immediately, but I wish I had put more cash aside. IOW, the A had a major effect on my ability to provide for a satisfying career and a comfortable retirement. Mind you, I know I'm a lot more comfortable than many of my peers.

It took me 3.5-4 years to regain my optimism and to enjoy life again. Our finances limit what we can do somewhat, but most of the financial limits mesh with other limits - I'd love to spend time seeing sights in the UK (I love a couple of companies in Islay, for example) and Europe, but arthritis in my hips and knees would make that impossible even if we had unlimited funds. I'd love to spend weeks going to Concertgebouw concerts, but music just doesn't sound right through my hearing aids. I'd love to hear the current Chicago blues bands, but it would take us days to recover from hearing them when they get really good. (They may start at 9 PM, but they rarely warm up until after we want to go to bed.

IOW, if some magician offered W and me the option of being 50 again and still together, knowing what we know now, I think we'd do it. :-)

I found the evidence (a credit card bill with a purchase from a place that could only be something for me, which it wasn’t, or for someone else, which as I knew it wasn’t for me I had my answer) at like 2 in the morning cleaning up the kitchen. It wasn’t hidden but I’m sure he didn’t leave it there for me to find. I went to our room, turned on the lights (he was sleeping) and asked point blank who he was cheating with. He denied he was and I held the bill in the air and lied - I said I’d called the store earlier that day to contest the charge as I did not recognize it and they told me what was purchased. Total lie. I had just found the bill 5 minutes earlier. I then said "so again, tell me what you bought and who it was for." His response, which honestly should have clued me 100% into the next 2 years of misery, was: "If you already know what it is why are you asking?" I then said very calmly but sternly "because I want to hear it from you."

He confessed to a 3-4 month long A with his married coworker. The gift was some sex toy type gift for her use when he wasn’t available to make her feel satisfied. How romantic (cause you know he’s so awesome you have to pleasure yourself constantly when he’s not around. Sigh) he answered my questions pretty much honestly (as I way later confirmed via forensic recovery of his phone) and then I left the next day (because I was working out of state on a contract for the next 3 months and had to leave). In the morning when he took me to the airport his honesty and sorrow had changed to defensiveness and anger. I flew back to my job and had a total meltdown on the way there and spent the next months (years really) waffling between total gut wrenching misery and anger…and it turns out, false R. I am a fairly calm person who has fucked up her share in life so I think I was hurt and angry but also feeling like I could get to forgiveness as I’d taken heaps of forgiveness from others in my own life.

My initial reaction was nothing compared to what was to come so while I find the question interesting as I hadn’t thought about that moment in a long time, not indicative of all that occurred afterwards.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 10:20 AM, Monday, September 1st]

I had found a message on his watch the morning before and before I could come back to finished reading it had been deleted. I started doing research all day that day and figured out who she was and came home that night and didn’t confront him but laid in bed with him and took care of him while he was sick. The next morning he took a shower and I got his phone and found all the deleted messages, I opened the shower door, yelled some things and told him to get the fuck out and couldn’t believe after almost 20 years this was his decision. He jumped out screaming nothing physical had happened it was only a few weeks and texting and I calmed down not to alert the kids and we got in the truck and left the house so they didn’t hear us. I immediately text her and told her to never speak or text my husband again and then called her later and checked their stories. His phone never was out of my sight. We had our sons first sporting even of high school that morning that was important to him so we packed up and sat together with our families and supported him and then did the same for my daughters event. We went home that night and I screen shotted every single text between them and then deleted them from his phone and blocked her and deleted her number and we started our journey of figuring things out. Some days were calm some were horrific. It has been over a year and a half and we have had ups and downs but he has not wavered from remorse and regret, he immediately went no contact except the one time she called him from another number and he hung up when he realized it was her and called me immediately and I called her and she said she just wanted to apologize and it was understood he didn’t need an apology only I did. He quit his part time job he had with her and we work hard every day at getting back to where we were and digging into what his past demons are that allowed him to become a person that I don’t know and that allowed him to do this. It was a very short term, emotional affair but he understands that means absolutely nothing, it hurts just as bad as if he slept with her every day for months. It is a work in progress but I feel like we are both in it for the long haul with him pulling the majority of the weight and dealing with all my questions, rage, crying, more questions, nightmares, good and bad days. I hope one day I can say I am healed but we are still trying to get to that point.

Thank you all....reading every word and processing. Sobering indeed.

This is long. Sorry, but you asked.

In a nutshelI, I was stunned. I know it’s a cliche, but it’s the truth, I never saw it coming. I opened a computer file looking for a formatted resume that I could modify for my use and instead found a file of correspondence to a guy. There were two flirty obsequious thank you notes for the lunches he took her to in the city where he worked, a city almost 2,000 miles from our home but an hour from my invalid MIL’s place. Turned out that the trips to see Mom that I paid for and encouraged her to take were spiced up with lunch dates at a cozy little midtown restaurant. There was also a memoir of sorts that traced their dating history back to college, their reunion 14 years earlier and the current heart palpitations centering around his aspiration that "perhaps there’s hope for us yet." Thus, I discovered that she’d been conducting an emotional affair with the guy she dated before me.

How did I handle it? I was an Air Force instructor aviator at one time and we had a saying, "Prior planning prevents piss poor performance." My grade would have been piss poor.

I was home alone. Kids at school and wife at work. I could hear an army quick marching in my ears. My pulse had gone from 62 to 98. I guess I was hearing the blood pulsing in my veins. I kept asking myself, "How much trouble am I in?" I was driven by a jolt of adrenaline and started looking for evidence. I went to our storage area where I knew she kept her old calendars from college and other mementoes like her Beatles concert tickets and the like. I found the calendars and holy crap there he was taking her out AFTER we were dating and when she said he was history. Then I found a letter from him that she had kept from the summer before we dated. This was the only letter among her mementoes. It was not romantic, just newsy. But why keep it? She wasn’t over him, obviously. I found our phone bills from the previous 5 months. She was calling his office almost every Friday morning when she was off work. I found her address book that she took when she travelled. Yup, he was in there. I was so shocked that I couldn’t put together how I was feeling. I wrote out all the words that described my emotions: angry, anxious, afraid, confused, foolish, humiliated, ashamed, stupid,(more than 20 others). The word "trust" kept coming to me but it wasn’t an emotion. I knew it was a breach of trust that was the problem, but again, that wasn’t an emotion. No kidding, my thinking was so compromised by shock that it took me three days to come up with "betrayed." It took another couple of days to hit on "devastated."

After leaving the cockpit I’d gone to law school and did lots of different types of law, but primarily prosecutions and aircraft accident investigations. I knew how to investigate and how to interrogate. Intellectually, I knew I should wait to confront until after I gathered more facts. But I knew that I could not sleep with her for one more night if I thought she had been physical with him. There was no evidence of a PA in the writings. So when she got hime from work I asked her if she was having an affair. She denied it. I gave her copies of her writings. She looked at me and accused me of violating her privacy. I reminded her that it was on our family computer and we had all agreed that nothing on there was private. Then she said with some emotion, "Can’t I have a friend?" I said that she had tons of friends but she cannot have a boyfriend, a secret boyfriend. I didn’t know about EAs at the time. This was 1996. She said that nothing physical happened. I said that guys will eventually move to sex, especially an old boyfriend. She scoffed. Funny thing, I now think he was too loyal to his wife to take it physical but that was the only thing stopping my wife from making it a PA. I was way too ready to wrap things up and conclude that she was just having a little fantasy fun. Here is the dumbest thing I did that day, among the plethora of stupid crap I did, I asked her if she wanted me to forgive her!!! She readily agreed. I didn’t even know what she had done, when it started, who else knew. I was in deep denial. I did demand NC. She said that she’d just ket him drift away. Here’s second most stupid thing I did, I agreed. SI vets will not be shocked to learn that he didn’t just drift away, though she did stop dating, writing, and phoning him. Without a NC letter he didn’t know the game was up. He always addressed letters to her work so who knows how many letters and later emails came there? I know he contacted her again when LinkedIn became a thing.

Hysterical bonding ensued over the next few days. I continued to investigate. I got the phone company to send me all our billings, 3 years worth. Lots of long conversations on those Friday mornings, some lasting 50 minutes. I cursed myself for letting her know that I knew about the calls. I could have put a recorder on our phone line. I searched our computer. Found the creation dates of the letters and her memoir. I called the AP and pretended to be her boss. She had a trip planned to see Mom. Asked AP if he had a contact number for her. He did. She had given him her sister’s number. So on day 2 I asked whether anyone knew about her secret boyfriend. She said no. I said how about your sisters. Again, no. So I asked, what would your sister think when some guy calls her house looking for you? She was shocked that I called AP. Her answer may be the first instance of "I don’t know" being deployed. It also confirmed for me that she was lying. She doesn’t leave loose ends. Everything is planned, and well in advance. Her sister knew.

I was already in good shape having just retired from the Air Force and was already in a rigorous training program, lifting weights, running, and biking every day. I wanted to make a good impression at any interview I might get. I was also shoveling snow. After DDay I started shoveling the sidewalks and driveways of all the neighbors. I went to two a days at the gym and doubled my run time. I decided that if I discovered any PIV activity that I couldn’t have sex with her, she would be tainted and if I could not enjoy sex with her then why be married? I thought about suicide but while I didn’t care to live, I would not let my kids consider the possibility that I would voluntarily leave them. But I prayed every night to die in my sleep. I sometimes felt like I had fallen from a great height and broke every bone in my body. Once while shoveling snow to exhaustion in the very early morning hours, I stopped to lean on my shovel and I began to collapse as my hands slid down the handle. It felt like my bones were melting. Yeah, I was a mess. And here’s another truly dumb thing I did. I didn’t seek counseling. I didn’t tell a soul. I was just too humiliated to tell anyone. This was the very early days of the internet. There was no google no web based research. I listened to radio shrinks, Dr Laura and Dr Joy; and I went to the university library. I so wish I had SI. I never got close to understanding what truck had hit me until I found this site.

Well, the main one was about 10 years ago and I was going to surprise him by fixing his computer. I got the surprise. I found all these dating sites he was on, pretending to be someone else and engaging with different women. I was so shocked, he's never been that type of guy, not flirtatious, not romantic, not a womanizer....ever. We'd been together 15 years at that point. So I copied all the screenshots and sent to myself, and then started reading his email. I don't think I checked his phone then, I checked that later and got the next revelation of a long term EA with an old girlfriend who lived on the other side of the country.

This was late at night, he was sleeping, and I went through the roof. I started screaming, yelling, throwing things, I basically scared the shit out of him because I'm like some kind of anime monster when I get really mad. And here's the strange part.....I don't remember the rest. I don't remember how it ended up, I don't remember after that point, I don't remember the next day. I do remember telling him if I ever found or saw anything like that again, I'd be gone. And of course he knew I meant it. I've checked periodically since. The EA is basically just a friendship I ignore now but at the time that hurt too because he was much more romantic in language with her than me, sent her nicer gifts. MUCH nicer gifts. So I basically turned into a rage monster and I think I scared him straight, but I don't even remember much of it. I do still check the computer and phone occasionally and I can be triggered even 10 years later. I'm not really concerned about affairs, but I just don't want to be deceived and left flat. I don't think he'd do that but I didn't think he'd do the other shit, so who knows. I DO think he's clean so I don't dwell on it. He was going through a very hard time with a demented parent and was very depressed and this was some kind of outlet. That was gonna stop or else. It's just strange I don't remember what happened after but I've had lapses of memory before in other bad times, I think the brain protects you from too much trauma and shuts it down at some point. At least with me.

I don't think he ever wants to see that side of me again though. Sometimes a bad temper is a great thing.

Dday was 3 days after our 25th anniversary, a day that we hadn't held hands or even kissed. Our kid was out of the house, so I sat WS down (not for the first time) and said, "We need to talk."

He said, "I'm not sure I'm ready to have this conversation right now."

I insisted and said, "Please, just tell me what's going on, even if the truth will hurt me."

I took a deep breath and asked him three questions:

1. Are you having an affair?

2. Is it still going on?

3. is it M***?

He answered yes to all three. I went into shock - chills, shivering, heart racing - and then I started quietly crying. He asked if he could hold me, and I shrugged, so he held me. He was also pale and shaking. After a while, I knew we had to pick up our kid, so I pulled myself together for that. We were already sleeping in separate bedrooms, and I laid there that night in so much pain that all I could think about was wanting to die, so I texted one of my best friends and said I really needed someone to talk to, if she was free. 10 minutes later, she called me, and I told her what I'd learned. She'd been cheated on and dumped 15 years earlier, so understood, sympathized, and helped me calmed down. Quite honestly, she saved my life.

WS left early the next morning for a bike ride, as usual on Sundays. I found out many months later that he also met AP that morning (as was their habit), they had sex, and then he told her that he'd confessed to me and would need to stop seeing her.

On Monday, we were both awake at 4am. He came down to my room and told me he ended things with her. We kissed for the first time in 1.5 years, and I asked him loads of questions. Over breakfast, I texted him to clarify some details, and his responses appalled me. After he went to work and kid was in school, I felt intense rage. I took some wedding photos and lingerie, put them in his charcoal chimney starter, and set it all on fire (outside). It was cathartic to watch it all burn. I also self-harmed for the first time in my life and then made and appointment with my IC because I knew I needed help.

I already had a debilitating chronic illness at that point, so for the next few weeks, I just told everyone I was having a flare up (which was often true - the grief was brutal) and spent a lot of time in bed except when I had to take care of my kid.

That dday was only the beginning, though. I had no idea what I was setting myself up for when I agreed to try R. It's been a wild ride since then. Hard to believe it will be 3 years since that Dday in just a couple more months. Somehow I have survived it all, but it's not over yet. I still have to get through divorce and seeing the kid off to college, so I have to hold on a couple more years.

[This message edited by NoThanksForTheMemories at 6:13 AM, Monday, September 1st]

D-Day #1. I was in shock. I'd suspected something but didn't really believe that an affair was possible. I was calm, collected, asking questions, trying to understand. That first afternoon and night I was stunned into numbness. The tears, the rage, the emotions all came later. I struggled and suffered for years with an unremorseful spouse who was unwilling to do the work (although I didn't fully appreciate this at the time), and because I told no one other than one close friend so my support system was limited. I carried that enormous weight alone.

D-Day #2. I'd suspected something this time, too, and my kids found the undeniable evidence. When I confronted XH, I simply asked "are you having an inappropriate relationship with C____?" He stammered some lame non-answer, so I asked him again "are you having an inappropriate relationship with C____? It's a yes or no question." He still couldn't be fully truthful, so I said "you need to leave." And he did, immediately, without so much as grabbing his toothbrush.

As soon as he walked out the door, I felt an enormous sense of relief wash over me. The stress of suspecting another betrayal was lifted, and I felt relief in knowing I could walk away from the marriage with my head held high and without any doubt about whether I was doing the right thing. This happened over Christmas, so the first business day following D-Day I filed for divorce and have never looked back.

I’d been suspicious of SOMETHING for a while - things were way off between us. But he had some medical things going on and his career had sort of stalled, so I was giving him a LOT of leeway.

He was gone for a long weekend for a work thing that felt suspicious but I honestly thought he just didn’t want to spend the weekend with me. :-( My best friend since I was 11 years old died that weekend from a complication from the same cancer I had fought (and won) and it hit me so hard. I called him and he talked to me on the phone for over an hour and offered to come home. I told him no, the work thing was important and I would see him on Sunday. Thanked him for taking my call during the work event. I actually remember thinking how great that he would prioritize me and maybe things weren’t as bad as I thought.

Sunday he arrived home and put his phone on the counter to charge and then went straight to our bedroom to unpack. For some reason I was compelled to look at his phone. It was a work phone and was password locked (as was my work phone) but it hadn’t auto-locked yet when I picked it up. Texts about missing him with little kissy faces from someone with a man’s name and man’s picture- beard and all. He never added pictures to his contacts, so that stuck out. But I thought "holy crap. He’s gay. That’s why he is so unhappy with me."

I walked into the bedroom and he was in the walk-in closet. I asked if I could ask him a question and he cheerfully said "sure". I asked if he was having an affair and he said no and walked out of the closet (the humor in that was not lost on me in the moment). He saw me holding his phone and my expression and he knew the gig was up. He admitted to it but lied about the duration. I asked how long he knew he was gay…. He then admitted it was a woman and that she told him to put her in his phone like that so if I saw it in his call list I would think it was some guy at work.

BTW, the name was a variation on her name. Think Erica to Eric, or Jordana to Jordan. That idea.

It took hours to get a semblance of a story - he was deep into protecting her. It took 12 or more hours to get her name from him. He trickle truthed for weeks. False R.

I WENT NUTS. I have never been so out of control and had no idea I could have that much rage in me. I also took to cutting. I got IC that week.

It took me months to regain my control - it was not pretty. Went on anti-anxiety, dropped 30 pounds, lost my job due to non-performance… it was bad.

But yeah, rage. So much rage. So much pain. Worst time of my life.

On the upside, I still remember when my BFF died every year but I no longer associate it at all with DDAY. It’s just about her and my love for her on that day now. Time helps so much.

[This message edited by BearlyBreathing at 2:33 PM, Tuesday, September 2nd]

Thanks for all who've shared their Dday experienced and reaction. Outside of the obvious common denominators, i.e. pain and shock, the accounts show betrayeds whose initial reactions vary greatly from emotional shut down to raging.

I postulate that a common truth is shared among all betrayeds and this is that the human soul (mind, will, emotion) is just not built to process betrayal. What sets up the betrayed even further is trust. The fact that you have given this other person your trust (something that many, like me, have a very hard time doing) for the most important committment youll ever make and then have that trust shattered, well, as Ive said before, it put me on tilt mentally and emotionally for a very long time. The mental/emotional retreat with resulting icy demeanor I mentioned became my default state which has only been mitigated by years of hard work, therapy and, I must say, a new enduring love with woman who has proved herself to be worthy of my trust over and over (she too is a survivor of a brutal betrayal). Theres a lot of healing in that kind of love.

Thanks again to those who shared their Dday(s).

ETA - got to thinking about this again. Considerations include marriage being the largest committment youll ever make + investing the largest amount of trust in one individual youll ever make = the greatest level of vulnerability you will have in your lifetime. When that vulnerability is used against you and all is revealed in that moment of time, well, its no wonder what results is a monumental upheaval with resulting emotional response taking many forms.

Ill also say that, if Im 100% honest, Ive never made myself that vulnerable again. Even now that Im in a wonderful marriage, a sliver of my secret self is held back. Kinda my hole card if you will.

Anyway, just a thought pursuant to the above.

[This message edited by DobleTraicion at 7:13 PM, Tuesday, September 2nd]

ETA - got to thinking about this again. Considerations include marriage being the largest committment youll ever make + investing the largest amount of trust in one individual youll ever make = the greatest level of vulnerability you will have in your lifetime. When that vulnerability is used against you and all is revealed in that moment of time, well, its no wonder what results is a monumental upheaval with resulting emotional response taking many forms.

This is spot on. In a single instant everything it felt like I thought I knew and believed was shattered. A complete upheaval of my whole world. In that one instant of revelation.

Ill also say that, if Im 100% honest, Ive never made myself that vulnerable again. Even now that Im in a wonderful marriage, a sliver of my secret self is held back. Kinda my hole card if you will.

Same here, and I don't think I'll ever be able to make myself that vulnerable again. I don't think I'm capable of 100% blind trust with anyone ever again.