SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I stayed with my WS to preserve a life for my children free from the hurt, shame and pain of divorce. I sealed my pride up inside, swallowed my self esteem and my masculinity while she carried on her PA the first year long distance, and then her EA for 3 more years. Blinders can cover the pain and eventually you just get numb. It took 27 years for her to finally come clean, admit to the affair, the sex, the plans for a future with him and all the deceit that goes with it. She finally acknowledged she allowed herself to be used and tossed aside. She finally felt the pain of her betrayal in our marriage. She finally realized she, In her words,"whored" herself for something false and only my commitment to this marriage and my vows kept it together. We are reconciled but it took many years and a second crisis for it to happen. She is remorseful, ridden with guilt and empathic to my journey, but still doesn’t want to talk about it. She did say to me, "it’s been 30 years, will you ever get over it?" To which I replied, "well, it’s been 35 years since our last of 5 miscarriages and to this day you talk about feeling cheated by only having 2 children. Will you ever get over it?" That question has never come up again. The pain does diminish, but it, the memories, the emotions experience are for ever imprinted upon our souls. Time does heal us but none of us who were betrayed ever get amnesia.

Bump.

Bump

I would be interested in reading some perspectives of the newer posters on this thread as well as that of DaddyDom himself. How do you feel looking back on this thread and would you write it any different given your journey since?

I wrote this about one year in. Even now, roughly 8-9 years in, I'm surprised how applicable this still feels for me. To be fair, I've always been a great observer of people. Whenever I took a new job, I would always look for the people that stood out, the ones that people liked the most, trusted the most, and respected the most. And then I'd learn what about them makes them great, and then adopt those elements into my own regimen. A year in, I had been observing everyone on SI, both WS and BS, and I had started to categorize the people who failed to R, those who were trying but stumbling, and those who had actually "R'd" and were relatively happy in theirs lives and their continued relationship. And then I learned from them. It took time. I was a slow learner. This post was based on what I had surmised at the time, and for me, there just seemed to be a clear progression of steps required to pull your head out of your ass and become a human being again. I saw how people, myself included, would backslide into previous areas of "the fog", and how (and why) they struggled to progress. But I also saw several WS and BS that had made it, and put a high priority on their responses on the forums. They had successfully walked the path that I was on, and in order to save myself, I had to learn how to adopt their wisdom and apply it in my own life. And again, that took time, and failure.

I don't think that I would change anything now. What I wrote was accurate, in my opinion, at least. If anything, I struggle with how to help others navigate the tricky path from "I'm a bad person" to "I'm a good person who did some bad things". For me, and I think for most people, it really takes a "reboot". You have to come to terms with (and have a level of comfort with) the most stubborn and painful parts of your life and of yourself, which is something that doesn't come naturally. You have to create that for yourself. You have to create a new "you", one that you craft yourself, and you and only you decide who that person is going to be. Will you be fair, honest, trustworthy, giving, humble and vulnerable? Or will you continue to hurt yourself and others with the part of your personality that allowed you to bebase yourself in the first place, and to hurt the people who love you the most? You'd be surprised how tempting it is to choose the latter. As shitty as it sounds, it's what we know, it's our comfort level, it is who we identify as. The trick to recovery is turn that shit around. Stop seeing yourself as a liar, for example, and instead, see yourself (your new self that you are creating) as an honest person, and someone who is sick to death of the lies he told before. But from this day on, that man will no longer exist, and this new you will take its place. The absolute best outcome, regardless of R or D, is for the WS to turn their life around and become a better person. It's a win for everyone involved. And it will literally change your life. But you have to want it, more than anything. And then ride that train to the end.

Bump

@DaddyDom . wow! thank you so much for this post. Made me very emotional for sure.
We are 4 days post the "whole truth"... disgusting painful day it was. But I am so glad its all out and we can begin our healing journey. I am so grateful my beautiful BS is wanting to R. Here to the future and practicing my 3 R's (I am currently reading Linda MacDonald - how to help your spouse heal).

Still here....

DaddyDom,

Thank you so much for your insightful posts. I am new here and I know you posted this quite a while back but I would love to hear more about your getting it stage. How did that happen for you? With my BS, I feel like I get it sometimes but not enough, not in the way she needs me to. What helped you get to that stage?

Hi! Me again. I wanted to answer you from my perspective because Daddydom does stop in here and there but he isn’t usually here on a regular basis anymore. Maybe he will come by and see his post has new responses and add to things.

For me, this process took months and over the years my self awareness deepened. I had to start by recognizing the justifications I used.

First, I started by looking at why I felt entitled to have an affair. Simply put, I felt I deserved it because of my supposed sacrifices, that they were greater than those of my husband.

But, that was not really true when I began to unwind it. Not getting everything we want or overdoing in any area is not a hall pass.

I recognized over time that I didn’t communicate effectively my needs. Instead I just over gave, people pleased hoping it would make him love me more, earn the things I wanted. Now, that is highly individual, and unlikely to fit you. But maybe you carried resentments.

Then you have to own those resentments and the ways you could have dealt with them differently.

I also had to recognize why I was in such a low point I needed external invalidation. I failed to find things to light myself up, to take responsibility for my own happiness l, to recognize what I need and get those needs met in a healthy and wholesome way.

And so you can see it shift here from blaming him, the relationship, and taking accountability for how I was managing my life, my feelings.

I think most ws also need to redefine how they see love. Most of us see it as fond feelings. Love is an action. Our butterflies about someone come from our investment in them, our appreciation of them. It’s our job to live ourselves too when things get hard that’s the biggest coping you can have. To be compassionate with oneself. To be kind in our thoughts about ourselves. To learn to nurture both the child that still lives in us and our soul who is wiser and calmer than us.

What I learned is our relationship with ourselves is what is reflected in our relationship with others. If we live ourselves we have it to give, if we respect ourselves, we have it to give, if we can be honest with ourselves we will value reflecting that honesty onto others.

In addition I was missing crucial relationship skills, I read books and listened to podcast and all sorts of things to build my knowledge of how to have a healthy relationship.

In the end, my whys could be simply written as I didn’t feel the love and connection in my relationship because I didn’t believe I deserved it and I had no idea how to cultivate it.

And I had to look a lot at my values and learn to live by them. It took a lot of practice to strengthen my character and to become consistent and reliable.

It’s a long road, bud. But the first step is admitting things about yourself you didn’t recognize before. Therapy will help with that. And you must never throw this on her or the relationship. You have accountability. Keep writing here it was a critical tool for me to explore these thoughts and get feedback on them. It’s also helpful to read in the other forums , because there are lots of people here who have been betrayed and are articulating their pain and sometimes they could do that for me better than my husband at first. It helped me ask questions of him, to hone in on where he was.

In other words the process of self discovery and change is not a quick fix, but it is well worth it because I have Breyer relationships all the way around now.

hikingout,

Thank you so much for your reply. I could see myself in everything you wrote but especially on these points:
a. I thought I deserved to have the affair because of the sacrifices I put into the family. And now, when I think about it, she carried most of the load and put herself second for the family. My so-called sacrifices were so superficial and yet, I used them to justify my actions.

b. I also never communicated my needs and became resentful when I felt they were not being met.

c. Taking responsibility for my own happiness is so enlightening. She has told me multiple times that nobody owes me happiness and I need to get it for myself. I don't think I truly understood it until now.

d. Your point on love is so important. We have seriously discussed reconciliation but I am still scared that I will fail loving her, because I do not have the feeling as strong as I had it when we started dating. Then because I lack this feeling, I start believing that I can't love her. I also am 'ashamed' to consult books on how to love my wife, because I think it should be automatic and natural to love your wife. Does this make sense? If so, how did you get over this hump?

Joining this forum has been a godsend. I keep learning new things on how to better love my wife. Thank you.

Your point on love is so important. We have seriously discussed reconciliation but I am still scared that I will fail loving her, because I do not have the feeling as strong as I had it when we started dating. Then because I lack this feeling, I start believing that I can't love her. I also am 'ashamed' to consult books on how to love my wife, because I think it should be automatic and natural to love your wife. Does this make sense? If so, how did you get over this hump?

Love is only strengthened through effort. No one gets married and just keeps those strong feelings without cultivating them. I am not talking about forcing ourselves. I am talking about noticing, appreciating, listening, being intentional. What you will find with a good woman like yours- the kind that puts herself second to her family is that emotional support, giving her bids of affection throughout the day (well right now that may not be the right thing yet. She is going to be up and down for a long time right now and may not want wheat she may perceive as love biking. Love bombing is a form of manipulation), I am talking about in general, why you don’t feel as strongly.

I can tell you as a happily reconciled couple that we have learned to cultivate this and when you are intentional you would be so surprised as to how much stronger and deeper your feelings and relationship can be. This will not happen overnight. It’s going to be a long road to get back to center to really begin to reconcile the relationship. You should look at the next year as a time of recovery and personal healing. I am not saying so not put effort into her or the relationship, I am just saying it’s going to be a while before what I am talking about with your connection to start to fuse back.

One book that really helped me see some of what caused my lack of feelings of connection and how to learn to be vulnerable and take emotional risks was "rising Strong" by brene brown. But I feel like starting with how to help my spouse heal should come first. There are some articles in the healing library here too if you haven’t checked those out. Also, John Gottman books are awesome when you go to working on your relationship skills. I don’t especially love how they handle infidelity, but for the most part his books are very enlightening.

Short term relationships are easy to feel the stronger feelings. But they are still so superficial. To go deeper and love someone well will create feelings inside of you that are much stronger than that and fill you with purpose.

I also want to say it’s not unusual to feel that fear of wondering if you can fall back in love. That’s not always just about the affair but the years of neglecting to do this that led you down this path of disconnection is still there. It took time for this to build again for us. I wouldn’t trade who I have become or what my relationships are like for anything. But I will always regret critically injuring my relationship and so deeply traumatizing my husband in order to do this worthwhile work. There was a regular poster that ended all her posts with something that I will repeat here because I think it’s so appropriate:

Proceed with valor.

Oh and look into avoidant behavior and maybe learn a bit about attachment styles. Those are some good things to do deep dives on. You will see this is a layered leqrning experience, some things go over your head until you master other things. Make it your job to fix yourself. The best way to earn back the relationship is through consistent better behavior and your fears cause you to hold part of yourself back. She needs to see all parts of you come forward and see that in practice over a long period of time.

hikingout,

Thank you so much. I have bought both the Brene book and the Healing Your Spouse. I have also bought the Esther Perel 'State of Affairs' but it is more academic and while some insights are incredible, I do want to learn more about myself. I do think it is helpful at some point but not now.

Thank you.

Bumping for new member

Bump