Finally telling my mum

Dec. 2021 after 4.5 years reconciling I tell wh that I want to separate until he proves he is a safe partner. He lied to me. A big lie and it threw my trust out of the window. Now in all this time I have not said anything to my mum. My girls haven't as well. She has had a lot of shit with my brothers and I didn't want to add. But I told her over the phone that we were likely to separate and that he had lied and cheated. We are not close but she never said anything to me after. I was a bit hurt but I just accepted it Anyway this long Labour weekend, I catch up with her. She states she is sorry about what is going on with my wh with his job. Wh is on leave and was painting her bathroom. I just start saying that while it is awful, because he lied to me I am keeping myself safe and we are still separated and talk about it. I make a flippant comment about hoping he doesn't go on tinder with all the time he has and she is a bit shocked and claims he never would So I say will he has while we were married so who knows. Turns out she probably didn't have her hearing aids on last year when I talked to her. She is 92. So I told her everything about his cheating, lying stealing going back years. And that is why I am focussing on me and keeping myself safe. I finally told my mum. Not having any family member to talk to about wh cheating has been really painful for me. I told her not to worry about me but When I left, it was a huge weight off my shoulders to tell her. That not only had I gone through stage 3 cancer, redundancy of my dream career but the trifacta of wh's being caught and then years of cheating being disclosed. She now gets it. And I am not being a callous bitch to my wh, but taking care of myself. Just was a big thing for me and wanted to share.

0 comment posted: Wednesday, October 26th, 2022

Turning 60 and my project of self love

This is a bit of a ramble in thoughts as I continue to work through my own recovery and beyond. As few people in my real life know about what I have gone through with infidelity, I thought I would write this down to share to motivate me.

I am turning 60 this year. It feels so weird sometimes. Both my body and mind have taken a real hit over the last 7 years with cancer and the trauma of infidelity. In all this shite, I have had a bit of a mantra about loving and trusting myself, sometimes when I have been curled up in ball from the pain of infidelity, it has helped me to rock me to some sort of sleep. I am way past that now (mostly) and actively working on how I can demonstrate more self love as I grow older in a city where skin clinics are multiplying constantly and wrinkle creams are constantly in my face. I want to genuinely celebrate getting older and loving the changes to my body, including all the wrinkles and most of the time, I am ok with it. But then I'm not. Seven years ago, it was a real possiblity I wouldn't make it and getting through the five years post cancer on meds was a celebration or would have been more so, had it not been overshadowed by the discovery of a f***load of cheating. So as I approach 60, it is my project to work on actively loving my aging self, my scars, my wrinkles, and my slowly greying curly mop as I plan to stop colouring my hair. Using any ideas that make sense, are doable and especially fun - mindfulness, stretching, exercise, gardening, dancing, making sandcastles with my grandson, walking / tramping (hiking) in the bush (forest), laughing and even planning to travel again beyond our shores now our borders are opening properly again. Embrace the crone. I am present and alive and I can do this!

8 comments posted: Wednesday, June 1st, 2022

3 - 5 years recovery time

I don't post much but lurk heaps. Last year I was into my fourth year post DDay1 and 2 and actually realising I was really recovering. Reconciliation was occuring but that was still a work in progress but was definitely progressing. Then my FWH had a big thing happen at work and rather than just tell me outright (ground rules for me are no surprises, tell me upfront etc) he lied to me for a couple of days until forced to tell the truth by circumstances i.e could not say he was sick for any longer and that is why he wasn't at work. Then when I brought up the lie, he gaslighted me and I stewed on this and got very pissed off and told him so and discussed it in MC, with great support from our MC. This had a major impact on my recovery and our relationship which is now at the point of us living in the same house but I have separated from him as he needs to work on himself and I need to work on me. The problem was I felt a complete idiot (or in my words, a complete twat) because when he came home early from work, I was working from home and when he lied to my face, I completely believed him because I trusted him again. And then after two days that he was home "sick", I got confused as he is never home sick, so stated if he was sick, we couldn't have our grandson over, That is when he owned up which he would have had to do anyway.

So I have been spending quite a number of months reflecting including how I had felt I had recovered by relaxing and trusting again and was I just being a naive idiot again and can we stay together. I am still unsure about the latter so have taken some of the 180 advice in respect to my relationship with fwh. But I have recovered in the sense that I know that rather than being naive and blindly trusting, I have integrity and treat people respectfully. I trust myself and do sense check others for trust but it doesn't always happen straight away and I can make mistakes. In my country, there has been a consistent message over the last two years since Covid, to "be kind to ourselves and others". It has been really helpful as I have practised being kind to myself as I work on myself (I have been a very harsh self critic) and be mindful. So whether we reconcile or not, I really take on board the wise ones here saying it can take 3 - 5 year to recover from the cheating or in my case discovery of past and present cheating. I am in year five now and feel like I am stronger and more resilient. There is hope

3 comments posted: Monday, April 11th, 2022