SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Thank you BSR for your insight.

Things have come up that my WH adamantly denies. He is so sure he NEVER did something and yet I have evidence to the contrary. When shown the evidence he goes into a crazy frenzy trying to disprove the obvious. I believe that he truly believes he didn’t do some things because he has blocked them from his memory and/or brainwashed himself that he would never do such. The first occasion was a photo which the AP posted on social media. It was a photo I took on my phone when we were on vacation so I knew he sent it to her. He spent hours trying to prove she could have gotten the same photo off the internet. Finally, he asked her and found out that yes, he did in fact send that to her. So even knowing this, when I recently found a number of calendar entries (deleted entries) from his phone about breakfasts, dinners and happy hour dates with her – he is again 100% sure he never planned such things on the dates in question. I believe they did not actually happen. There is evidence to support that. Something came up, plans changed, he deleted them from his calendar. BUT at some point HE WAS PLANNING THOSE DATES. This he refuses to acknowledge. Any insight?

My A was 4-5 years before dday. I know that my brain went into self-preservation mode and because the A was long over in my head and practically in another life time I forgot A LOT. I was 100% positive there was nothing physical. I would have sworn on my kids lives but BH wouldn’t let me. His gut told him otherwise and his gut was right.

So many of the details came back to me after extensive digging in BH’s part. I should have been more proactive and tried to make more sense of things that were nagging him but to me everything seemed normal and I wasn’t getting the same vibes he was. For the most part, once we found evidence of the A I didn’t deny that it happened. I couldn’t. However, I did feel such shock and disgust with myself. I couldn’t actually remember doing those things. I couldn’t believe I was a person who could do such things.

Owning my actions has been the hardest thing for me since dday bc they didn’t feel like my actions. I also know that I revised a lot of memories even as they came back. I didn’t deny to gaslight or make myself look better. I denied bc it came to a point I could not trust any memory I had. Even memories that I shared with BH- I was so sure things happened one way and he had entirely different memories of the same event. It has made me very insecure and I don’t question my BH’s distrust at all. How can I expect him to trust me when I sit here and I’m unable to trust myself?? This may be one of our biggest obstacles going further.

I took a polygraph. BH knows me and he believes when I said that I didn’t have a PA he knows I truly believed that I didn’t until we found evidence that proved otherwise. The next thing we are discussing is hypnosis.

The holes and uncertainty in my memories don’t bother me as much as it does my BH. Although I’m perturbed and it’s upsetting for me, I find it easier to say “the past is the past. We both know I am not that person anymore. We both know that now I truly love my husband while during the period of the A’s I did not. We both know that I would never do anything like that ever again.” Knowing all of that does not make anything better for BH. He still needs all of the answers and I don’t feel equipped to give them to him.

In one last instance that took place this weekend I voiced that I was concerned that what we knew to be my last physical encounter with AP was rewritten in terms of the timeline and I didn’t believe it happened when it did. The thing that set me off is that I was so positive I did not sleep with AP while his wife was pregnant. I said it had to have been a different time because of that fact. This is what my brain was convincing me of. However, when confronting AP my BH informed me that he had asked him if we were together while his wife was pregnant and he cried and answered in the affirmative. While this threw me and it upset me that I did in fact have sex with AP 3 days after our first wedding anniversary, I will not deny it anymore.

I was never attempting to gaslight but since dday I spent a lot of time convinced I was a better person back then than I was. The memory issue is confusing and hard. In my case, I think I was more shocked that I had a PA than my BH was bc he suspected and was looking for it and I couldn’t imagine ever doing anything like that to him. In my case the hard evidence is really all I have and sometimes memories come back soon after and other times in waves and it turns into TT. It’s all fucking complicated but I’m not denying the evidence. I’m just absolutely disgusted with myself for who I was back then and I make every effort every day to be a better person for myself, BH and my kids.

Yes to all of this ^^^

My A was only a year ago. I shot myself in the foot by omitting and lying and trickle truthing when I first confessed in the middle of a guilt-ridden anxiety attack.

I wrote a timeline and spent a while on it to make sure I wrote down everything that happened.

Not even an hour after we had discussed the timeline together I started to remember other things. Nothing that changed the narrative but small details.

Other times I will have no recollection of something happening at all but if he asks me a question I begin to think and I can't tell if I convince myself that something else has happened out of my own shame spiral ('Im such a garbage person I must have done that too') OR if it actually happened and I'm trying to convince myself that it didn't and my memory is just shitty.

All over again I feel like I can't trust my own memories and then I feel like I'm being un-trustworthy again with my BP because I could potentially be hiding something again even when I'm not sure it's real.

Thank you so much!

Aside from your cheating and lies to your spouse, did you routinely lie about other things in life too?

First of all, thank you to all of you who take the time to answer these questions. It takes courage and is much appreciated.

My WW and I had our first D-Day in August of 94 and the second one in February of 95. There was no computer help in those days and the counseling we received was abysmal, even harmful to R.

So we both buried our heads in the ground so we could raise our son, hoping it would all go away. Every few months I would get triggered and the arguments would begin.

Over the last few months I've decided that this cycle needs to be broken once and for all. WW began IC last week and I'm insisting on a polygraph.

She has agreed but is in fear that she will fail due to being nervous. Over the weekend she even said she is bringing a prayer team with her.

My question is, for those of you who have taken a polygraph would you recount what that process was like?

Thanks in advance.

Aside from your cheating and lies to your spouse, did you routinely lie about other things in life too?

I didn't lie about anything near that magnitude, but I definitely exhibited a pattern of minimizing, blameshifting and lying to avoid consequences in my day to day life. I always had an excuse where my failure to accomplish goals was either beyond my own control or someone else's fault. I've never found it hard not to cheat again, but the lying is an ingrained pattern I'm still actively working to reprogram.

Thanks BSR

That’s exactly what I needed to read

(Hugs)

I have had a terrible lying problem in my life. It was usually white lies but sometimes big lies and never about anything that had anything to do with the other person. I realise now that the majority of my lies were to makes me seem cooler, or more accomplished or a broken person who needed rescuing or sympathy.

All of it was to get attention and validation that I could not or refused to give myself. This then was one of the dysfunctional coping mechanisms that festered and oozed inside me and contribute to my A.

I wanted to ask if this is something any of you may have experienced in your process.

In the beginning, I would often be left to cry alone in my pain and traumas from my wife’s affairs. My wife had a tendency to remain selfish, and in shame. She was still avoidant and very much completely lost as to the amount of pain I was in or her role in it.

As time goes on, lately I’ve noticed my wife asks many questions regarding how I saw her, who she was to me, and how it impacted me. She cries for me often when she realizes it. It’s as if she's going back in time, and trying to see things now with a different lens. I am no longer crying, or asking questions, or trying to understand. I have healed a lot and have been very focused on a few other things of my own with healing. But it’s almost as if…well, I can’t find the right words to explain but, it’s like I was there, I healed a lot of it…and now she’s there months later, revisiting and actually seeing it/feeling it. I don’t know if this makes sense?

She has even had experiences where she sees others behave a certain way toward me, and she sees herself and who she was in them. Like my mother for example…she sees how my mother treats me, and sees just how much she was like my mother toward me too. And she cries for me in that too, and holds me while apologizing. I’m not crying in those moments, I’ve seen these things for quite some time and have been working through them bit by bit, but now she’s crying and seeing it for what seems to be the first time…

This post may be all over the place, I wasn't sure how to explain it right. My apologies. Have any of you experienced this in your road toward healing?

Yes. Absolutely.

I think this ties into what I wrote in another thread about forgiveness, and why I'm not ready to be forgiven or to forgive myself. I saw the world through such a selfish, distorted lens back then. I cannot believe that I refused to go NC with OM for months after the A, that I didn't see how much pain my BH was in. Or that I did see it, but didn't consider it to be important enough to change my own behavior. I was blind and cruel, and yet I sold myself on the idea that I was trying to be compassionate and fair.

I have to recognize that "me then" and "me now" are both me. In the moments that I really absorb the impact of my toxic choices, it's more like reliving than remembering.

Hey BSR,

Thank you for your feedback. Having been in this for over a year and just now seeing her 'get it' emotionally and cry as if it just happened has been pretty interesting to see. Sometimes I'm completely confused as to how to even respond. I do see what she's been doing all this time though. I'm like her 'shield' in a way...the barrier she uses to not have to see herself completely. Glad she's doing this now. The wayward healing process can be so different from ours at times. It's been interesting to watch and learn from.

I sold myself on the idea that I was trying to be compassionate and fair. (...) I have to recognize that "me then" and "me now" are both me.

I can definitely see how she did this too, and how she is going to have to make sure she bridges the gap between her 'then' and 'now' being simply, her. One person.

The wayward healing process can be so different from ours at times.

And yet, I also see a similarity. I think to the BS, it's perplexing -- the WS was right there at the time, they had all the facts (which the BS usually did not), so why the delayed reaction? But as hard as it is to believe, we are such good liars and compartmentalizers that sometimes, we succeed at deceiving ourselves. I hesitate to compare it to D-Day because I don't want to minimize that experience, but there is an element of being blindsided when we discover that the way we see ourselves bears so little resemblance to who we really are.

And yet, I also see a similarity.

Definitely that too. I was actually going to mention in my response initially how our work (BS & WS) can run parallel to one another, and then also oppose in certain ways. For example, this morning my wife and I had a break through moment. I didn't allow her to use me as her shield in a response she gave me to an A related question, and she allowed for herself to actually see the truth in facing her selfishness.

Well, right in that moment I pointed out how our individual work is running parallel and opposite. We are both facing ourselves, and our brokenness, BUT she is having to face that she is not the victim and take accountability for her wrong doings (something she has never done in her life) and on the reverse end, I am having to see that things in my life weren't always my fault, it wasn't always me that needed correcting, or me that caused it or could have done better (something I always thought my entire life.)

there is an element of being blindsided when we discover that the way we see ourselves bears so little resemblance to who we really are.

Yes. That's actually how it comes across...like she's having a moment of realization that she's never seen before. She looks stunned and shocked by it.

[This message edited by maise at 5:35 PM, September 27th (Friday)]

WSs?

When discussing your cheating with your BSs, did you lash out, become defensive, angry?

We’re you frustrated that they no longer believed you because you lied so much?

I encounter this a lot with my WH

I think my question kind of goes along the lines of one above... but did it take time after Dday for you to realize the actual damage done? We are 4.5 months out, and this last therapy session seemed to hit my WS differently. He got quiet and kind of withdrawn. Our therapist used the term Trauma. And I feel like that hit him like a ton of bricks. I don't feel he was ever really in a "fog" after Dday... like he went NC, no issue. It's not been like he missed her or anything. But it feels like he just now got it. Got what he has done, the damage caused. But I don't know if that's what it is, this far past Dday... or if he if just tired of hearing about it?

IMO “fog” and “not getting it” are 2 sides of the same coin.

I’m at least somewhat glad there was no cake-eating for you, AAD, but regardless of how WSs proceed, anecdotally most of us are undoing life-long emotional habits and behavioral cycles.

As such I don’t think a “delayed reaction” should be at all surprising as we repeatedly remove layers of self-deceiving veneer and see the ugliness beneath. Up until that point 20YrsAgo, I think you’ll see that frustration and defensiveness.

I am in a distinct situation from most posting here, I believe, but do still feel some of that frustration you mention- That frustration though, is generally self-directed because there are SO MANY times she can’t believe me that are legitimately true. And so many of those things are experiences that pre-date the A that can no longer be treasured in her perspective because I threw her (and the associated experiences) away.

I think leading up to remorse there’s a lot well documented anger and defensiveness from WSs here- It’s the self-preservation mechanism that interferes with being held to true account for our selfish actions.

ETA: AAD I’d suggest asking your WH if counseling felt different, and if he thought he responded differently as well(?)

[This message edited by JBWD at 7:31 AM, September 29th (Sunday)]

I will ask him today when he returns from the ranch. He still gave me a hug, kissed me and told me he loved me. He still called me and texted me from the ranch as he could (reception is an issue there). It was just IN therapy, he was holding my hand, then he let go and tucked his hand under his leg. And after he normally holds me in the hallway and kisses me for a long moment. Those were the slight differences. He also didnt try to say anything back. Normally he will reply back with his thoughts or feelings. He just kind of shut up, which is very odd for him.

I am hoping that he finally is starting to see. His ex wife cheated on him and left him. So he says he understands. I told him it's different because we are different people and he didnt have to deal with trying to work through it to come out the other side. He didnt share a bed and life with her after. It's a daily in my face thing I deal with, by choice, but still.

That does sound different- I commend you on your choice, I can only imagine how hard that is.

If what he describes comes out as shame it becomes a tricky point. Because I think (and have said before) that the intense low of that shame can fuel a lot of the low self-image and consequently self-indulgent tendencies that have hurt us in the past. In my case it gave me license to wallow and additionally focus on “my hurt.” Instead of the woman I’d stabbed in the back.

He’s in a much better place and I just illustrate where my shame took me (further into Shithead Town.) But I will say this is really the most damaging/painful place for a WS confronting their past, and consequently one to be aware of as a couple working. Definitely a good topic for you both to discuss: I hope that, painful though it remains, it is at least a point of progress.

Well I spoke with him, and it wasnt shame. He was angry. Miscommunication. He was mad over something I said, which was not in context to how he took it. So it wasnt the progress I was hoping it was, which hurts. But at least we got the issue sorted out. And he did handle the anger well. He didnt lash out and still was in contact with me and told me he loved me ect while he was hunting.

During much of my WHs affair time, he had almost no interest in talking to me. I would try to talk to him and either get no response, or he would act like I was of inferior intelligence to him and it wasn't worth his time to talk to me. He says he thinks he subconsciously felt ashamed and embarrassed and that made him withdraw from me. He now tells me he thinks I am smart, fun, insightful, etc.

I'll say based on what I know about the OW and what I've seen of the conversations, I don't think they were particularly intellectually stimulating, but of course he acted like they were fascinating. The first EA was almost all sex talk. Not much true substance. The others were similar. All were by far less successful than me. This just makes his attitude/behavior towards me even stranger.

So my question for the waywards is, if you treated your SO in a similar way during your affair(s), what was your reason why?