SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi, I am here because I desperately need to connect with people who understand the unfaithful perspective without judgment.

It has been almost 2 years since discovery. My marriage is currently ending in a highly contentious divorce. On the other side, my former AP is also married but it looks like his marriage will survive (idk!)

We haven’t had physical contact in almost two years, but we are completely stuck in an intermittent phone loop. Every time we speak, it feels like it resets my grief and withdrawal clock back to Day One.

I am mourning the loss of my marriage and simultaneously experiencing deep, disenfranchised grief for the AP.

I know the intermittent contact is keeping me trapped but the emotional pull feels impossible to break right now, especially with the stress of the divorce.

How did those of you who were deeply attached to your AP finally break the cycle for good? How did you navigate the grief of losing them while your life at home was unraveling?

Thank you for reading all of this and I am open to any and all advice. Please be kind; I am fragile. Thank you!

I'm probably not the best person to be advising you, Lost, so: I'm sorry in advance--but I didn't want you to have to go any further with no reply at all.

For my part, I haven't been able to break my bond with my OW. It has survived countless efforts to terminate the relationship--most recently (as of about 5 months ago), my OW declared our relationship "over"--nominally because she felt she couldn't trust me any longer and trust was the foundation of our friendship. We've actually adhered to a policy of NC ever since then because she took the decision largely out of my hands. However, I still ache for a day when my M has R'ed and my W (hopefully) will let me reconnect with my OW in safeguarded, bounded, and transparent friendship--salubriously ordered as inferior to my spousal relationship. That longing is one thing that arguably makes me a terrible role model at the moment.

What seems to have worked for many of the folks here is deciding that their AP didn't matter or merely afforded them a distraction or other fungible services or goods and/or that their AP was in some way manipulative or transactional or unpleasant or evil.

I don't have those "luxuries"; my OW mattered to me and still does. She changed my view of myself for the healthier. She wrote her name indelibly on my heart. My OW was sweet and compassionate. The wholeness of her person brought me joy. I've understood from her that she at least once felt likewise of me. However, if you truly want to empty your AP from your heart and move on, and you can follow the precedent set by others, I encourage you to do what works. AI LLMs have made all kinds of recommendations to me for strategies to help me "grieve" the loss of my OW so that the pain of her absence isn't so crushingly terrible. I have rejected those techniques. I prefer to soak in the sadness of the loss of my OW because it is my only connection back to her. Without my cultivating that pain, the intensity and frequency of my recollection of my OW would gradually diminish with increasing time. One day, I would think of my OW and realize I hadn't thought of her in a week... then in 2 weeks... then a month... then a year. Eventually, I would blithely accept the loss of her. I won't let that happen. Unless, that is, I return to her once more, solicit her friendship again, and she refuses me. Then, I will need every tool MS Copilot and ChatGPT and Claude etc. can throw at me to numb the pain and make myself forget how blessed were the days I shared with my OW.

I'm also a poor role model because I married the 2nd woman I dated as an adult. However, nothing helped me get over the pain of having been dumped by my first adult girlfriend like Bible reading and then meeting my 2nd girlfriend--the one who became my W.

I'm sorry you're hurting! I'm sorry for what your mistake has cost you. I wish you well!

I am a number of years away from my affair (recently disclosed), but have spent the last 18 months doing a lot of IC to help me understand what helped drive my choices back then and one thing I have realized (with lots of help from my therapist) is that the AP was really interchangeable with just about anyone who would have been available.

I would not have said that during the affair because I was confusing the dopamine rush that served as the painkiller to the emotional pain I was in with the feels. I have had to unpack some painful childhood/FOO trauma that helped me identify the root cause of the emotional pain I have felt and why I was so poor at being able to talk about and process it at the point in my life when I had the affair. That has really helped me to step back and see that the main attribute the AP had was she was available and willing.

Other more experienced posters will likely write about limerence. One might think two years after the affair ended to still have some limerence, but the continued contact really impacts the ability to get out of the fog. If your AP is committed to reconciling he really should be in NC, but regardless you deserve much better than someone who is in a committed relationship with someone else. I highly recommend IC to get to root cause of why you had the affair and I think with some work you will have a very different view of the AP.

I am sorry for how difficult this is for you. I know the focus is usually on the trauma infidelity inflicts on the BS (rightfully so), but I am a believer (with lived experience) that the WS has a different kind, but very significant trauma due to the infidelity. I often think I could find peace if I was the BS way easier as I continue to struggle to make peace with myself as the WS. Adding a layer of difficulty getting over the AP would seem to be excruciating so very much hoping you can find a way to see the situation with a clearer lens.

Thank you Unconventional and feelingverylow....I am brand new to this site and have no idea how to respond to you individually. And also I am struggling with a number of the acronyms. I think I understand them, but do you know if there is a list I can reference? Thank you both so much for responding and also for sharing a part of your stories with me. And also thank you for your encouraging words. This is a very difficult situation to navigate - particularly when the feelings are so strong still for the AP :-( I'll respond more to you both individually once I can figure out how to do it! Thank you again for taking time to write me :-)

Look under "the healing library" for a searchable abbreviations list. You can't send private messages until you have posted at least 51 times.

I remember crying so hard at first that I was shaking all over (I'm 49 years old and I don't think I have ever cried that hard) and alternating between hyperventilating and wanting not to take another breath in.

Now, I have mostly rumination, although I try to think of my OW ("other woman") fondly as often as I can. But I am hoping to return my OW to my life--as merely a friend.

Oh! I should've suggested moving, changing jobs, and blocking your AP ("affair partner") from calling you, and parting from friends and places who/that would remind you of your AP. If vehicles were used for A ("affair") related meetups, consider replacing the vehicle.

And I guess I didn't actually complete the thought I had meant to complete about my very short dating history. I was trying to say: it might help you to recover from your A ("affair") to "get back out there" into the dating world--with singles--if you are heading for a divorce anyhow. The connection back to my dating history was that I have little experience with breakups, so... take anything I tell you as advice with a hefty helping of salt, as they say.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 12:39 AM, Monday, October 19th]

: it might help you to recover from your A ("affair") to "get back out there" into the dating world--with singles--if you are heading for a divorce anyhow.

I think it's generally better to work on oneself first before jumping back into relationships, so that you resolve what caused you to commit infidelity in the previous one.

Lost, you just need to break off all contact with this person, and wait. The grief will come and go and you will be fine, even if it hurts a lot for a while. It's temporary.

I would write him a short note to end all contact. But if it were that easy you would have done that.

There are some things that opened my eyes to what was actually happening. Dr. Frank Pittman wrote some great articles about the typical psychological reactions to having an affair. It helped disprove to me that what was happening was because it was special. When in reality, it was a predictable response to the affair itself. The other is the Wikipedia explanation of limerance which helped me understand the OCD tendencies involved as well as the issues surrounding abandonment.

It’s very hard when you are down to find your way up. But the way is not through your ap or other relationships, it’s through the rebuilding of yourself.

Identifying all my hopes and whys of the affair, I could start finding some things to work on. It all came down to the relationship I have with myself.

NC=No new hurts. It’s paramount that you go NC so that you can go through the withdrawal of this poop and find your anchoring to not go back. If you let this man keep contacting you, you are doing yourself a huge disservice in finding true and lasting happiness.

Take that step and if you can try and get in therapy. It helped me to talk out loud and see how my thinking and narratives in my head were really just stories. It also helped me figure out where the wounds started and start to heal them.

first. I am sorry Lost-
What you are going through is so freaking hard. But welcome here. you will find many many insightful people that can help. i would recommend just forcing yourself to go no contact. Send them a message letting them know that this is your final message and to not try and reach out. and then i would recommend actually removing their number from your phone and then changing your phone number. and then removing everything about them from your phone. Phone numbers- messages- emails- call logs- all of it. if there is no trace of them in your phone and you have a new number- its a lot easier IMO to go NC because you dont have an easy way with out a lot of work to have contact with them.
and then treat your desires and flashes of thinking of them almost like a trigger for someone that was betrayed. acknowledge what you are feeling. IE " i am really missing AP... i wonder what they are doing...do they miss me..." ect - its a trigger to an addiction- you're craving that dopamine hit, that feeling of desire, excitement, value. Tell yourself (out loud even if you have to and are alone) the truth about what that connection cost you. and that what you are feeling is temporary. especially if your affair partner is reconciling it helps to remind yourself what they are doing- they aren't choosing you now. and while they were fully committed they were also ok with massively betraying their partner. even with your betrayal you also deserve someone who is choosing you OUT IN THE OPEN.
and then get busy!
having things to do, hobbies, work, exercise- all of these things will help.
and as others have said- really do some hard digging on yourself.
what were you feeling in your life before the affair? what did you think that the affair would give you? what feelings were you seeking out in the affair that you were hoping to get from the AP? what lies or justification did you tell yourself to allow your betrayal to take place to begin with?
for me- i used chatgpt a lot- and i still do. i gave it the rundown of my affair and asked it "why the hell did i do this?" this helped in the early days to be able to really get into my why and how - which i was then able to take to therapy and dig deeper. using chat helped me to because its not going to judge you but it is going to ask some pointed question that all of us betrayers definitely need to look at. it also gave me a lot of good prompts for myself for journaling- which has been really really helpful for doing the work and helping with intrusive thoughts.
also- keep writing here- it helps