How to quiet my mind

Hello SI

This is my first post but I have been on the platform is December after finding out my husband had been cheating on me for over a year.

My story: my husband and I (both 32) have been together since we were 17 but married 2.5 years ago. We’ve been together for most of that time, barring 2 years during university where I broke up with him, but got back together when he reached out professing his undying love for me.

We had a beautiful multicultural wedding in October 2022 - it was one of the best days of my life. As someone who never romanticised weddings and hate being the centre of attention this was odd for me say but it truly was the happiest days of my life. The 2 years we were married before I found out about the A we’re also the happiest of my life. I grew up in an often chaotic but tight knit household with and alcoholic, violent and narcissistic father. My background meant that I can be a very anxious person and have a lot of trauma related thinking, something that I started seeing a therapist for in 2023.

Moving in to our own home of calm was beautiful for me and my nervous system. I was healing slowly. My husband was (and is still to some extent) the poster child of a good husband. He was kind and listened to my anxieties, he did his fair share of the house work, he cooked more than I did (one of his passions,not mine),he was patient with my moodswings, loves my family and patient with their eccentricities. I felt included in his family - everything was perfect.

However in September last year while I was away on a work trip I received an instagram message from someone I had never heard of - claiming they were dating my husband and had been talking since 2021?! Not for one second did I believe them as they had a fake account, they couldn’t give me even the most basic information about him like where he works, his phone number etc. they did however send me a screenshot of Snapchat conversations of somewhat explicit nature. I do not have Snapchat so did not know what to make of this. I immediately shared this with my sisters (who are my support system) and they dismissed it as a prank but my sister who does have Snapchat said actually that does look like his account. I also immediately sent screenshots of the conversation to my husband asking him what is going on? He said he has no clue who this person was and was panicking that someone was trying to scam us. I spent the next 2 days at the work retreat feeling sick to my stomach, worried I was going to go home and he was going to announce that he had been seeing someone and wants to leave me. When I eventually go home and we talked, I was a mess. He said he didn’t know who this was and that maybe it was someone from when we had broken up (almost 5 years ago at this point). I didn’t ask to see his Snapchat or phone at this time as it did t cross my mind (I trusted him). Over the next few days I was shaken and sort of felt that maybe something has happened but it was finished now.

Fast forward to October 24- we then went on a family holiday for my MIL milestone bday and he felt very distant the whole time. Often distracted and snapping at me. Any requests to spend time alone or do activities alone were dodged. I started to get a feeling in my stomach like something was very off and decided to discuss when we got home. However soon after we got home his grandma got very ill and had to be taken to hospital so everything else was deprioritised.

Then came our 2 year wedding anniversary, I had come down with a bad winter flu and could barely get out of bed. He bought me flowers and gifts and cooked for me and took care of me. One day when he went to work, I had that sickening feeling in my stomach and decided to turn his iPad on and take a look. I’m not sure what I was looking for but when I looked at the photos folder my whole world felt like a dream. I saw a hidden folder with lots of photos of other women (I can’t remember the time stamps now but definitely during our marriage) but quite a few and more than that there were dozens and dozens of explicit photos of himself he had sent (to who??). I was shaking and barely able to breath, I called him immediately and asked him to come home and explain. He tried to deny it on the phone but said he’s on his way. While he was on his way I started to piece reality - that he was having some kind of online affair with women and it had caught up to him. And that whoever messaged me last month was trying to expose him or get revenge?

When he got home the story was much worse - he told me he had been messaging someone and had MET with her 4 times since July 2023 (less than a year since we were married) for obvious reasons and that this girl claims to be pregnant. My whole world came crumbling apart. During this conversation a lot things came up - like the fact that when we were apart he had a gambling addiction and suffered a depressive episode post that. That he felt sometimes suffocated and stressed about life in general, that while he wanted children he wasn’t sure if he would be a good dad etc etc

Over the next week or so I was a zombie, I was had night terrors, crying all the time, not sleeping, not eating etc. and also terrified what I would tell our families. All through this time he was there to feed me, hold me while I had panic attacks at night, making sure I drank water etc. I was basically a baby in distress.

While this was my home life, I was still managing to be somewhat functional at work. I have very strong dissassociative tendencies (learnt from my childhood) which means I am able to perform normality well. A week after this discovery, I was at work when I got a phone call from my husband saying we need to talk and it’s urgent - I stepped outside to find out that this person that had messaged me 2 months ago had TURNED UP TO MY PARENTS HOUSE and had told my father that she was dating my husband and is pregnant. Things quickly spiralled after that and I found out that this girl has been in contact with both his and my sister - while we were on holiday - saying the same story. She has tried to contact mum on social media but my sister had deleted the messages.

After this event I tried to contact her - via social media and a number she left with my dad. The number turned out to be fake. But she did reach out to me on social media and we had a phone call (instagram call?). Where she repeated the same thing, said she wanted to

Keep the baby for religious reasons and that she had to do what she did because she ‘wanted my family to support me the way her family has been’. After this conversation, I asked her what she aimed to gain - did she and my husband have a relationship: how she was going to proceed with the child int he picture. She said she is not interested and was ‘going to walk away’. This made me literally laugh out loud - I pointed out that bringing a child into the world is not like playing house and while she might want to walk away maybe her child, the child’s now father and family may not want to. The next day she messaged me saying she found talking to me stressful and ‘wanted to protect her peace’ and didn’t want ‘me or my family to contact her’. All of which is strange as I was not the one that hounded her or my family on social media and stalked her.

Anyway, It has been 5 months since then and I we have had no further contact with her. Neither has my husband. I have not left my husband which to many would be a shock maybe. But I am here. The initial shock, trauma and shame has reduced. Oddly the APs dramatic actions brought everything to the fore front, my husband himself went to his own parents and confessed what’s been happening. Having both our families support has been very healing - both have sat me down and said they would support whatever decision I make.

I guess this where I’m stuck - I don’t know what that decision is. 5 months on I’m still just in pain, while I’m no longer having night terrors or panic attacks my mind is constantly ticking. I’m constantly going back and reliving the events of that day he told me. This leads to me spiraling and having a panic attack and crying. Or I’m worried she’s going to turn up at my house or his parents house. I’m worried there is someone out there that knows where I live and I know NOTHING about them. We don’t even know if the pregnancy is true?? No proof was ever given.

We have recently started MC and it’s proven a safe space for my WH to talk and express his feelings. He finds it very difficult to talk about it and says he was basically ‘sleep walking’ during that time and that he felt awful after each time he met and slept with her. He is very accommodating when I want to talk or am having a spiral about something, he can answer questions when I am direct about what I am wanting to know but he doesn’t know WHY. The closest we have got to was that he was suppressing his feelings (what were they?we don’t know) and couldn’t talk to me in fear that it would let me down. He holds me when I cry and apologises that he hurt me and sorry that I am in pain because of him.

I guess that was just a long rant with no question, partly this is the first time I am sharing the full story with someone outside of our therapists and that in itself is useful and feels like a release.

I guess I want to know how to stop my brain over working all the time, how do I get rid of the images, photos conversations that constantly show up in my brain and then I try to investigate for answers within them. How do I keep hope on days I feel like just crying and not getting out of bed, how do I trust again? How do I stop hurting?

If you stayed with me so far, thank you. This forum has saved me many times over the last months even as a silent reader.

3 comments posted: Sunday, March 9th, 2025