SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This is on my profile in "Your story" but here it is again.

My wife had poor mental health years before I met her. It was not either of our first marriages (my first ended with getting cheated on) and we entered knowing it would be tough, but we were devout Christians who believed God joined us together to grow together. She worked on her mental health here and there over the first few years but she is highly sensitive and reactive in ways that have been painful for us since the beginning, especially with my own anxious attachment, and in the last several months things came to a head. At the beginning of the summer she (according to her) voluntarily entered into a dissociative state from me for her emotional protection and couldn't find a way back to me.

Because of our difficult past relationships and hope in this marriage, we always struggled with enmeshment, but in July she reacted to the emotional volatility associated with our enmeshment in the polar opposite way. She could hardly stand to be in the same room as me and could barely even text necessary things. We lived in separate ends of the house (the guest room for her). She acted like a caged animal if we got near each other. I'm sure I had been insensitive to her emotional fragility at times and was often not able to make her feel heard, and it annoyed her how clingy I could be, but she reframed the entire marriage as unsafe oppression even though there is no real world reason for it. She refused to work on it anymore and said her only hope was that we could stay away from each other long enough that both of us can get healed and maybe someday meet as two whole individuals and try again.

For 6 weeks I lived in a lonely hell while she began medicating with things like 4-5 hours in the gym in the middle of the night. Then I found out that she started going to Atlanta (1.5 hours away) late on Monday nights and staying out to the wee hours to swing dance and hang out afterwards with the gang there - violating my trust because it had long been a misgiving for me with my abandonment and infidelity trauma that she would dance with other men, especially the very (for her) thrilling and physical-contact-heavy type of dance that swing dance is. She left the kids asleep in their beds under my care all these nights. I found out later that she had started making male (and a couple female) friends on Tandem, a language transfer app, and started chatting with them a lot in the night also. She was very isolated from people in our close knit church community while she was in this dissociative state and her extrovert self started craving attention.

She started wearing clothes that were a lot more revealing of her figure in this time also than she had ever felt comfortable doing for moral reasons, and started primping a lot more. I was quickly losing the woman I knew and I feared she was seeking the male gaze, or at least had "shaken off the shackles of restraint" that she had always claimed; she had expressed that her previous husband had encouraged her to dress like a "slut" (I didn't see anything that bad in the pictures she showed me) and she despised him and herself for it. Now she was back to wearing those same sorts of things, which wouldn't have bothered me if that was the way she'd been when I met her, but the contrast was striking.

Then I found out I was getting laid off from my 20 year career in a month. No sympathy or anything from her, which made that news harder for me.

After this period of six weeks or so, I knew she was about to go out of state on a trip to stay with friends (a priest and his wife) for a few weeks for space. I was hoping it would give her some peace and direction to resolve some difficulties in our marriage. Just before she left she told me in a fury that she was divorcing me. The fury and fear was because someone we knew from church scared her into thinking I was tracking her location (I wasn't, though God knows it was all I could do not to). After six weeks, I had finally for the first time the day before looked at our phone records and seen that she'd been chatting with that person who had assured me he was staying out of what was clearly a tenuous situation. She started telling him, his wife, and a few other dear friends that I was controlling and emotionally abusive. She left immediately, a day earlier than planned, and I kind of thought I wouldn't hear from her until the paperwork showed up.

After she got to our friends' house she calmed down and apologized for initiating the divorce talk that way, although she said she had been planning to do that ever since she found out I was getting laid off (ouch). I told her of my desire to reconcile and I didn't hear a response.

Turns out, a couple weeks later while she was still visiting those friends out of state, she got on Tinder and began a series of three one-night stands and fooled around with three other dates. I'm telling you, this is absolutely a change that's unfathomable by anyone who knows her; her life has been characterized by hangups about sex and modesty and things, and she usually held the most conservative line on all that stuff. She's a germophobe too, and the idea of swapping fluids with all these strangers...

At any rate, she got back into town. Almost immediately I found out that she had a Tinder account (the free trial apparently ended and charged our joint back account) but I hoped against hope for better. After a week living with that interfering church friend's family, they kicked her out because she spent the night with a Tinder date. So she and her two small kids (to whom I've been a devoted father for 3 years) ended up needing a place to stay, and in compassion I let her back in the house until she could get her feet underneath her. I'm sure I was hoping to buy some time and maybe eventually change her mind.

Two weeks later I hear voices in the guest bedroom. She had invited a Tinder "friend" to watch a TV show and he jumped out of the bathroom window. We talked all night long and the Tinder stuff came out. She later revealed (under my questioning) that she actually had sex with two men here in our house since she'd been back, one of them when I was home and asleep in my bedroom. Talk about feeling violated. The second of those was a very bad encounter and she decided to stop the one-night-stands, so the guy I caught with her was actually someone she still insists she didn't have that kind of interest in (yet). The tally as far as she admitted it was 6 full sexual encounters and 3 others (who knows what that means). She's still in contact with one of them in the other state but "he's just a friend." I think he's 10 years younger than her.

She did seem somewhat ashamed and apologized to me because she knew how it hurt me - the guy who'd already been anxious because I'd been cheated on in my first marriage!! - and said she was not rationally processing anything in that time, utterly vulnerable to her brokenness and trying to fill what she believes is a social void with (mostly) meaningless sex. Thankfully she got tested and came back clean.

So now I'm stuck with a massive case of betrayal trauma (or so says the Internet). One of the worst parts about it is that she still denies that it is infidelity because she told me she was going to divorce me, or at very least that she was in a fugue state and wasn't really in control of herself. She still hasn't filed for practical reasons. But beyond that, just the betrayal of her abandoning the marriage, unilaterally moving on to all these destructive and meaningless relationships without my knowledge is a knife in my heart.

At any rate, for now until she can afford to get somewhere else and we sell this place, we're sharing this house and trying to be friendly and light, though not really engaging much. I'm not sure how I'm able to do that other than the fact that if I'm not here I fear she'll resume her destructive nighttime escapades, catastrophic both to her and her small children. I would still reconcile with her (if she'd commit to some major therapy work) but she is just as intent as ever to end our marriage. She's broken and thinks she's trying to make improvements but I fear she's not yet at the bottom. She hasn't faced her shame yet, and couldn't handle it if she did--she's still saying she doesn't "regret" the behavior but coolly states that those encounters were mistakes and bad choices that she is glad she learned from. Full of denial.

This has all really messed with my head. It screws up my future, too. I can't look at romance or women the same; the ones I'm most attracted to, the seemingly wholesome and trustworthy ones, won't want my 47 year old self with two divorces, and even if they did, I could never be sure---I would fear they'd only be available because they've done the same things she did to me, and can't be trusted to be faithful to me no matter what, or actually ever have truly loved me.

Thanks for reading.

[This message edited by WorthLessThanCounterfeit at 3:25 AM, Wednesday, December 3rd]

Welcome to SI and I'm so sorry that you're joining our group. There are some posts pinned to the top of the forum that we encourage new members read. Please take a look at the Tactical Primer - it is very helpful. Also, there are some posts that aren't pinned that are very good reads. You may need to scroll through a page or two, but you can find them by looking for the bull's eye icon.

You and your WW (wayward wife) are still married, so I consider it cheating. She probably said that she was divorcing you so she could say that you're divorcing before she left so she could go sleep with whoever and not feel like she was cheating. Frankly, she was cheating before that.

If you can, IC (individual counseling) with a betrayal trauma specialist may be helpful. Bonus points if they also have infidelity experience. You should be tested for STDs/STIs (and so should she). If you're feeling depressed or have trouble sleeping, ask your doctor for some meds to help you short-term.

She's rewriting marital history, which is very common for cheaters to do.

Stay hydrated and eat. Exercise can help you process your emotions through your body. Whether that is walking, getting a punching bag, going to a mad room where you take a sledgehammer to stuff, etc.

Worth,
Sorry you had reason to find this site. Seems your cheater has exempted herself from all of your wedding vows, not just those concerning fidelity, and has laid aside duties to her children as well. She’s giving you nothing to work with, you can’t save a marriage by yourself.

Go to the healing library here and check out the simplified 180. When someone pours gasoline all over themselves don’t get between them and the bonfire.

You’re dealing with your drama by being as antiseptic and medical about it. Let me phrase it another way - you are a victim of massive abuse. There is nothing to save - you need to escape before her actions kill you.

There is no nice way to say this. She is using psycho babble on you. She is having a ball and leaving your heart in the dust. You need to get on meds for anxiety so that your vision clears waaayyy up. At that point you, and your lawyer, can see the separation and divorce through and get you out of this hell you are living in. There is nothing for you to hang on to and it’s making you sick.

Thanks, all, for your words. I too am sorry you're here. Even jerks deserve to be divorced rather than cheated on (I'm not saying you're jerks!); by the way, that's nearly a direct quote from my WW from a few years ago. So far everyone I've heard from tells me I really was cheated on, even though I still feel under her charm enough to doubt if that's the right word for it. But yes. It was infidelity.

I appreciate the hard words. I definitely feel abused and gaslit and who knows what else. Yes, she's very convinced by psychobabble herself and (would you believe it) is in training to be a counselor. "Physician, heal thyself!" I know there's nothing to save at this point but I won't betray who I am to kick her out on her ear. That would feel like me violating my own self and my values. I know she's never going to love me again, so I'm not really kidding myself. I do still love her the way she was, the way she now tells me was an abuse victim's illusion to maintain my approval (I'm certain that's not fully true, but no matter).

My big questions relate to how I go about purging my mind of the world I lost. The world we were building together. The world in which we shared values and laughed and dreamed dreams of our future. The world where we ooh'd and aah'd over cute houses we'd like to live in someday, and places we wanted to go together, and ways we wanted to serve God together.

The one person who I should have trusted to the ends of the earth is the one who saw me naked in every sense and still rejected me. It doesn't take a clingy, anxiously attached person to feel the weight of all that. She wasn't sympathetic to my anxieties about being close to other men (whom she says she prefers over women friends), but felt judged and resented me for it. I was not perfect, but I do know this: almost every woman I know would want a husband who adored, sacrificed, and tried to avoid displeasing them as I did for her. So now all these men she's trying to "befriend" for validation or whatever, all the hookups, all the counterfeits...I'm somehow worth less than them to her.

Did I mention I don't have a job? How am I supposed to be able to throw my whole mind into that when it's shattered by all this? I was on antidepressants for a while after my first wife filed and it took the edge off my brain...unfortunately I really need that edge in order to get a job.

[This message edited by WorthLessThanCounterfeit at 3:46 AM, Wednesday, December 3rd]

If you have a place to stay get on food stamps. They are of real benefit for someone in your situation. If you drive and have a car you can Uber or Lyft. You need to be proactive about a job. Since you suffer anxiety you need one that does not put too much stress on you. I hope you have family. You need local support.

[This message edited by Cooley2here at 5:05 AM, Wednesday, December 3rd]

My big questions relate to how I go about purging my mind of the world I lost.

By taking action to get yourself out of infidelity. Look up the 180 and the soft 180 in the healing library. It will help you start to focus on yourself and detatch from your WW. The 180 isn't about trying to change your spouse. Only she can do that. It's about changing yourself and regaining some sense of control and agency. If she sees the changes in you and responds positively then that's just a bonus. The main focus is to better yourself and start operating proactively from a place of strength instead of just reacting.

I'm so sorry you've found yourself here, but glad you found this place. Most of us know what you're going through, and it's one of, if not the most difficult and painful things to deal with in life. There's a wealth of collective experience and advice here. Some of it may seem kind of harsh or hard to hear, but it all comes from a good place, from good people who are or have been in your shoes.

Don't beat yourself up if you feel like you've made mistakes in how you first handled this. No one is ever prepared for infidelity, and when it hits, it hits like a building just fell out of the sky and landed on your head. No one is given a guide or handbook on how to deal with infidelity when they get married. Take what you can use from the advice given and discard the rest. There's no one "right way" to deal with this, but there are many basic things that can apply to most situations. Hang in there, man. Things will improve. I know it doesn't feel like it right now, but you will get through this.

[This message edited by Pogre at 3:33 PM, Wednesday, December 3rd]

This is a tough comparison but you have cancer. Nobody wants a cancer diagnosis. People who get cancer can generally approach it in two ways: be the person that you can be and fight or give up. You seem like a very intelligent, methodical, loving person. You really have just one option, so it’s time to buckle up your belt, make a list of what you need to do and get cracking.

You need a lawyer, a job and lots of practice on how to grey rock.

Everyone feels helpless. This entire site is made up of people who felt helpless, chose to fight and are now here helping others through the same situation. If all of us didn’t so can you.

You got this!!!!!!

Pogre and Sharkman, you and the others here are inspiring. At first I looked at your profiles and saw how long you've been here and wondered why in the world you would stick around in such a painful place. Were you not healing? Do I have that long before I can begin to move past this? But reading your remarks gave me the impression that you have turned your pain into strength and compassion. I want that for myself.

I found this place about 7 months ago, which was about a month after my d day. I'm not what I would consider healed yet, but I am healing. I'm beginning to understand that could be a lifelong work in progress. 5hinga will never be the same for my marriage again, but I can rebuild a new one, and hopefully come out the other side in a better place.

When I first got here I was lost, completely devastated, and had no idea what to do. I found a lot of understanding and support here. It helped so much to realize I wasn't alone, people can and do get through these situations, and there were things I could do to improve my situation. Just typing it out, getting it off my chest and receiving support and advice was so helpful to me. I'm still working through my situation, but things are improving for me. My wife has really turned the corner, in part because of some of the help and advice I've gotten here.

The main reason I'm still sticking around is because I'm still on this journey, still healing, and the help and support I received was invaluable in helping me maintain my sanity. This community works so well because so many different people from different backgrounds and experiences participate. I feel like the least I can do is pay some of that forward, even if it's just helping out by giving some input, feedback, and sharing what's worked/working (or not worked) for me, even if I'm still fairly early into this process. Just keep in mind that everyone's situation is different. That's why it's often said here to take what you can use and leave what you can't on the pages. There are others here with a lot more experience than me who will likely be along to pitch in as well.

Yes, I'm certain that there will be no close parallel to my situation anytime soon on this board. I'm sure it's not just me, but I definitely feel like my wife is an extremely unique individual and it would be hard to duplicate the unique set of circumstances. But there are certainly correspondences and certainly common feelings that give me support.

The reason why so many are still here has nothing to do with not healing. It’s because when we were neck deep in shit, others who had dealt with it before helped us. So we give back.

Yes, I'm certain that there will be no close parallel to my situation anytime soon on this board. I'm sure it's not just me, but I definitely feel like my wife is an extremely unique individual and it would be hard to duplicate the unique set of circumstances. But there are certainly correspondences and certainly common feelings that give me support.

Not sure if this will make you feel better or worse, but your description of your wife sounds like a pretty run of the mill cheater to me. Everyone has their own unique elements, but "good girl goes crazy" is almost a trope. My ex and I were religious, she still entered into a 3 year affair with more twists and turns than I have time to talk about here. It’s truly awful, and the time periods to heal are longer than anyone would like. But it’s either heal or surrender.

You are so early, you are in shock. Take care of yourself. Eat, drink water, avoid booze and drugs, sleep. Keep posting, you will get great support.

WLTC,

Do I have that long before I can begin to move past this?

Realistically you are looking at 2-5 years to RECOVER, meaning that long before your world stops crumbling down around you. If you were to choose Reconciliation, that typically takes FAR LONGER, and, as you’ll see if you read enough around here, can stretch DECADES if you don’t get the full truth and the adulterer doesn’t complete an inner transformation.

I suggest you read all of Pogre’s posts. There you will see a (rare) example of what true remorse looks like in his wife. So many betrayed accept so much less, and pay so very dearly for it. If your wife looks like an analogous to Pogre’s, you’ve got a legit shot at R. If you don’t, well, I hope you don’t have to learn the hard way….

I was married for over 26 years with never even a hint of infidelity when my wife went off the reservation out of nowhere and had a fling that lasted for 2 weeks before I caught on. When we first met she wouldn't even use curse words. To say it was shocking would be understatement. I was completely clueless. I never thought she would ever do something like that. It really was as shocking as having a building fall out of the sky and land on my head. The emotional devastation was equivalent to it, too.

It's going to take quite a while to heal from this. Infidelity is traumatizing. 2 to 5 years to recover is the general rule of thumb. Right now you're still in shock. You'll be riding a roller coaster of emotions for a while.

gr8ful wrote:
I suggest you read all of Pogre’s posts. There you will see a (rare) example of what true remorse looks like in his wife. So many betrayed accept so much less, and pay so very dearly for it. If your wife looks like an analogous to Pogre’s, you’ve got a legit shot at R. If you don’t, well, I hope you don’t have to learn the hard way….

I don't think there's anything "lucky" about infidelity, but I am fortunate enough to have a very rare example of a wife who is truly remorseful and 100% in on fixing our marriage and herself. I made some big changes as well. We had a rocky marriage for quite a while before she had her affair. That's no excuse for what she did, and she fully acknowledges that. The key thing about reconciliation is BOTH partners have to be 100% committed to the relationship for it to work.

It wasn't very smooth for me at first. There was some blame shifting, minimizing and trickle truth for about 2 weeks, and she didn't really snap out of it until I made divorce a very real possibility. I had appointments with lawyers and real estate agents lined up when she broke down and begged me not to go through with it. Shortly after that is when I discovered this site.

I learned early on that going through the humiliation of doing the "pick me" dance to try and win her back was a wasted effort. Like I said earlier, you can't "nice" your spouse back. It sounds counter intuitive, but I had to be willing to let my marriage go before I had any chance of saving it. I set hard boundaries and conditions before I agreed to pause proceedings and so far she's enthusiastically agreed to everything. Including cutting ties with a couple of long time friends. Anything less and I would have moved forward with it. I was not going to remain in infidelity. One way or another I was getting out of it. If you put divorce on the table, just make sure that you're ready to follow through with it if she calls your bluff. IOW, don't use it as a bluff. You need to mean it. Backpedaling on that could blow up in your face. If she shows real change and sincerity down the line tho, you can always pause it.

Yes, I'm certain that there will be no close parallel to my situation anytime soon on this board. I'm sure it's not just me, but I definitely feel like my wife is an extremely unique individual and it would be hard to duplicate the unique set of circumstances.

As InkHulk said, there is nothing unique about your situation or your wife... in fact, just based on the title of your post alone, I knew almost exactly what your post would say. Stick around long enough and you'll see that some of the worst WWs were women who used to be (or at least presented themselves as) "good Christian girls."

You mention that her mental health was poor before you met her and managed better or worse to varying degrees through out your relationship. Based on this, and everything else you've described, you likely ignored more red flags than a Soviet parade during your courtship phase. She seems like she is very adept at manipulating you and using psychobabble to justify her actions.

I think your wife is using you to be her meal ticket/babysitter while she behaves like a rebellious teenager with no responsibilities. You don't mention her age in your post, but it sounds like she's much younger than you (especially if she has small children). She was contemptuous of you when your lost your job because you became of less use to her if you're not making money.

I suspect going to continue to drag her feet for as long as possible--perhaps throwing you just enough crumbs so you hang on to hope--until she finds a new man that she can leech off of.

My advice, in this order, is:

-Get tested for STDs

-Hire a lawyer and looking into filing

-Stop enabling her behavior. If she wants to act like a single mother, then she needs to stay home and care for her children like a single mother. If her ex-husband is still involved in his children's lives, then he needs to be informed about what's going on and step up to provide them with the care they need... because that's his responsibility and you aren't going to be around much longer.

And lastly...

I'm most attracted to, the seemingly wholesome and trustworthy ones, won't want my 47 year old self with two divorces, and even if they did, I could never be sure---I would fear they'd only be available because they've done the same things she did to me, and can't be trusted to be faithful to me no matter what, or actually ever have truly loved me.

There's a saying that my Mom uses a lot and that I have adopted as a mantra: "It is better to live alone than with a psycho for the rest of your life." I think it would be better for you take some time for yourself to focus on your own wants and needs, and to perhaps figure out what attracts you to women who stab you in the back. Sometimes, people who go out of their way to project an image of virtue are the ones that hiding a dark side.

[This message edited by BluerThanBlue at 3:34 AM, Thursday, December 4th]

I haven't disclosed a ton of the parts about her that I find unique. Maybe this will help.

From my point of view, part of what makes her feel so different from the usual "good girl gone bad" story is the way her black-and-white thinking, compulsive honesty, and people-pleasing tendencies all seem to collide in her. She doesn’t do moral ambiguity well; she flips from one identity or rule set to another, almost like she has to fully inhabit whichever lane feels safest in the moment. And it’s striking how her personality can shift depending on what she thinks is expected of her—she’s warm, agreeable, quick to adapt, and almost painfully honest even when it costs her. That rigid honesty mixed with suddenly changing boundaries feels less like rebellion and more like someone who never learned stable internal guidance. When I consider her relationship with her dad—detached, alcoholic, not abusive but emotionally inconsistent—it makes sense. She’s even said she has "daddy issues," and it shows in how she gravitates toward male attention for security while also being terrified of disappointing anyone or being controlled. Her sudden openness, her emotional morphing, her desire to please, her all-or-nothing shifts—they feel like the coping strategies of someone who grew up learning to read the emotional weather in the room rather than trusting her own compass. So when she makes drastic choices now, they don’t feel like deliberate self-reinvention; they feel like the same survival patterns she’s always had, just playing out in adult form.

Yeah man, mine too.

Welcome to the shittiest of all shitty worlds of infidelity. There is nothing new under the sun. What you just described has been written here over and over and over again. The sad thing is all of us didn’t recognize the Soviet parade as the nukes rolled past us. The good news is you can find a ton of help and camaraderie here.

Keep posting, and take care of yourself.