SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

You're doing great, sweetie; you got this!

Sending you strength & hugs,

Lala

Update: I broke it off with him yesterday. It went about as well as it could have, I told him straight up that I deserved better and he agreed, got his things, and left quickly.

I had an incredible friend by my side while he was here which helped immensely. I'm feeling sad today, but the pit that's been in my stomach for almost a week has finally gone away. I'm really looking forward to moving on to the next chapter of my life.

Once again, I can't thank everyone enough for the advice, tough love, kind words, and overall support. You all helped give me the strength to do the right thing and I'm so grateful. Wishing all of you peace and happiness.

So proud of you for making a decision and acting upon it so swiftly. Your friend is amazing, keep the good people in your life. Looking forward to an update about your better life!

Well done.

You have all our support. I admire how strong you are because I know this has to hurt. Keep your chin up and we hope to hear you're doing well!

Great job. Keep us updated as to how you are doing!

(((((flowerceremony)))))

Proud of you - I know that was hard.

Onward!

Flowerceremony, There is nothing more attractive in my opinion than a person who knows their worth. You are definitely not the loser in this situation. Bravo!

I wish I'd had the strength you do to break it off. You should be proud of yourself. Give yourself time to heal before moving on and keep us posted. Remember we are always here if you need us :-)

Don't know if you are still checking your thread, but I just wanted to check in and see how you're doing. I had a similar experience many years ago and I was devastated. I did notice that I didn't see any reference to being in love with your wayward boyfriend. Maybe you are handling this well (I hope so).

Sofarsogood, thanks for checking in, and thanks to all of you who had such kind things to say after my last update.

This week hasn't been easy but I'm doing ok. I loved my ex so much, more than I've ever loved anyone. Even though I'm furious at his actions and know I made the right decision in leaving, there's a part of me that still loves him, and I think it'll take a while for those feelings to dissipate. I haven't spoken to him since we broke up and I don't plan to, but it's been very hard to transition from sharing my life with him every day to suddenly going no contact.

The sadness, anger, devastation etc. come in waves for me randomly. I was able to get out of town for a couple of days with a friend which helped a ton; more memories come flooding back when I'm at home. Right now it sort of feels like I'll never be able to move past this - logically I know that's not true, but it's hard not to let the feeling of self-doubt that I can get through this creep in.

Any stories/words of encouragement/tips about moving forward from a situation like mine would be appreciated!

Since this break up is recent you know it will take time. And it’s ok to love him. Just know he didn’t have the ability to love you in the same way - a relationship filled with respect, monogamy, truth etc.

Your love will fade. You will see he wasn’t an adult and didn’t know how to behave like one. And you can’t fix him — only he can fix himself. Which maybe he will one day.

I’ve met his type before. It wouldn’t surprise me if doesn’t have 2-3 waiting in the wings and he’s moved on. Because guys like him only blame everyone else for their troubles. And it’s all about his happiness than taking the time to figure out his issues.

He’s very selfish in that respect. He will always put himself first when it comes to cheating.

flower .. you are so new to this whole world of betrayal. You're at the starting gate. You're still in the emotional roller coaster phase of pain, emptiness, anger, hate, love, uncertainty, self doubt, sometimes in rapid succession. That's happened to all of us. Every one on here has lived this and endured.

You can expect the first 6 months of this to be particularly bad. (Not that you're no longer with him, just because of everything that you had planned and had invested in this relationship).

You're so young yet so wise. Believe this: In 10 years, with an additional 10 years of wisdom, you'll look back and think what a disaster any real relationship with him was going to be.

That takes away none of the pain. You really do have to believe you'll be much better with time. If you're into workouts, that'd help for exertion wrings out so many tensions and anxieties.

You're so good and he really wasn't. Hold your head up high, with complete confidence of who you are (as you were before "you knew"), be a good moral person and you'll find a person who really deserves a smart devoted woman as a partner. A good moral woman has a radiant beauty that all good men are attracted to.

Good luck, and please return for more support as you wish. You really dodged a bullet. The pain may be greater than anything in your life to date, it would have been so much worse years from now.

You've already learned so much and grown so much (albeit extraordinarily painfully).

You have reinforced your own value and held strong to what you deserve in a relationship. As you experience the pain that comes with breaking off this relationship that was with someone who was not who you thought he was and not what you deserve, celebrate your strength and good sense in owning your own value.

This will propel you toward future joy--both alone and also with others on the future. Be assured of that!

YOU ROCK!! (((Hugs & a fist bump to you)))

I'm glad you were able to get away. In my past situation, my wayward kept trying to re establish contact with me and tried making up all kinds of excuses for his behavior. I stayed strong, but it wasn't easy. He offered the "no contact whatsoever" with her, but I felt that just her being in the proximity was going to make that difficult. I almost wish he would've just told me he was moving on with her and left me alone. He eventually realized that what he had risked our relationship for was a massive mistake, but for me it was too late. He wasn't the type of person I wanted to be with. Sometimes they do realize some actions are unforgivable.

Read my tag line below. I was you! Life will be great once you find the man who you are meant to be with.

It was not him. It never was. I look back now and realize the person I thought I was supposed to be with did me a favor. Life with her would have been misery. I’d never feel safe.

My wife makes me feel safe every day and I try to return the favor as often.

Hey flowerceremony,

My XWW cheated when I was in my 20s. I was not as strong as you and took me a while to D her. I refused to let my XWW actions influence my views on women, dating and marriage. Some people are broken, some are not.

I’m happily remarried to a wonderful woman. I even shoot weddings as a second job :)

You will be happy again, I’m 100% sure of it.

Thanks so much for the support, everyone. I'm sorry that so many of us have been in this position, but I appreciate everyone who has shared their story of betrayal and the happiness that comes after healing from it. Your encouragement really does help those like me who are still at the starting line.

These past few weeks have definitely been some of the toughest of my life so far, and I know there will be difficult times ahead as I keep working through this. When I broke up with my XWSO, he gave me a long letter he had written about our relationship and his "guilt over the trauma he caused me." Parts of it were sweet, parts of it were infuriating, but it mostly just sounded like it came from a truly broken person. As difficult as it is to be in this position, I value myself too much to stay with a guy who clearly has a lot of work to do on himself - I can't fix him, nor should I put the burden on myself to try to do so. He said he hopes I can be happy one day (sort of sounds like projection to me)...I told him I had no doubt that I will be happy again!

Right now I think my biggest fear is that I won't be able to regain trust in others, or even in myself. Even though I know he's the one who's broken, it feels like a part of me has been broken too, and I want to be able to trust myself, my choices, and the other people I let into my life (romantic and platonic). I'm currently in IC and plan to work on this with my therapist, but any advice from those of you who have been there would be welcome.

Honestly don't know about the ability to trust other people. In fact, one small part of why I'm staying with my WH is the whole "devil you know" thing. I don't think I could ever trust another man. But by your actions under this duress, you know you can trust YOU, to live your life authentically, and really, that's the important bit. Anything else that comes at you; you got it! Happy Trails on your new chapter.

I value myself too much to stay with a guy who clearly has a lot of work to do on himself - I can't fix him, nor should I put the burden on myself to try to do so.

You're already doing so well!

One of the hardest parts of healing is learning to trust yourself again. I agree with the other poster, focus on trusting yourself above anything else. I wish I had more advice other to say, with everything it takes time. Hoping for the best for you. You're going to be even better than ok.

In IC trust was addressed and my therapist asked “Why do you have to trust anyone right now? What’s the rush?” which opened up talk about my fear for the future, fear of wanting a partner but fear they will hurt me again etc etc and paraphrasing like crazy here but that moved into the mental and physical exhaustion BS go through when betrayed, our mind and body literally shut down in preservation. Trusting someone new takes the kind of mindset and energy that BS simply don’t have so soon after infidelity trauma, just thinking about it seems impossible because we’re just so mentally exhausted right now and still hurting from recent trust broken.

Time, you just need some time to heal first.

Harder to do than say but don’t worry about this right now, about trust, live for you in the present more than living for the future (relationship speaking.) Right now focusing on healing, recovery and personal progress is more important than jumping into a new relationship and worrying about trust issues. We all have to try to trust one day but there is no rush to do it now so no need to put the energy in to worrying about it.

There are so many incredibly uplifting, empowering, enlightening apps out there focusing on positivity and good mental health. Just search through the App Store and see if any of those will help you at this stage. Exercising, enjoying things you really like more often and just taking care of you and eventually trusting someone won’t seem so impossible or scary.