SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

For the Waywards that still work with AP of still come into contact with AP. How do you handle this? Is it difficult for you? Does this change as time passes? What has the timeframe been for you?

Dday was late-Fall 2017 and our working together allowed us to continue the Affair for months after Dday. I am not proud of this but answering the question. It took me months to realize the damage to other people and myself. I would say I was officially through with him in the Summer of 2018 and would feel sick every time we passed or were in a meeting together. We had an unexpected encounter a couple months ago while out-of-state on travel which he used to try to lure me back in but the feeling is no longer there for me. There will always be temptation for those that don’t do the “real work” to discover why they did something so horrible. In my situation, He’s one of those that hasn’t done any real work. He’s great at the facade but he will remain damaged and willing to damage others. For those willing to do the work, I would equate it to the grief process Denial (affair fog), Anger (Lots),...Acceptance. I reached Acceptance at one year and no longer have fond or angry feelings for him. I have compassion and sorrow for his wife. I no longer hate myself. I should have handled things differently by not allowing him to re-enter my world. It was a big mistake and caused months more of a delay in healing. He tried to get me to be his “friend” a couple months ago and I almost fell back in hook, line, and sinker. The way to handle is to ignore former AP and seek therapy.

You read so many BS talk about this when dealing with their WS so I wanted to ask. Why does it seem so hard to end an affair? Is it so addictive that ending it causes withdrawal symptoms? How does the AP get so intertwined in your mind and life that it takes so much to separate and get over them emotionally?

William. For me, I was addicted to him. He invested a lot of time in “building me up” and I lapped the ego kibbles up out of disgusting desperation. He set an elaborate scene (honestly unbelievable but I wanted to believe it) of what a pure monster of a wife he had been with for decades. In my sick mind, he was saving me in the original affair and I was saving him in the post-dday affair. We had spent so much time together that it was difficult to break away and not be constantly reminded by my surroundings. During my initial recovery, I thought I missed him. It was withdrawal. I have never done drugs but I would have done anything to feel happy again and unfortunately I did. Thing is I wasn’t happy. I was aware of who he was and it was too hard to try to make up lies in my head to justify the wrongs. I was only missing the good feelings that formerly accompanied our time together. I started replacing routines and now I don’t have as many “good” thoughts of him. I have actually had periods of time when he is forgotten so I know it’s possible.im no longer one number from calling his burner phone and I no longer have my old number. I never thought that I could part with the tangible momentos from our trips together, but I did. It is an addiction but only as long as one chooses to feed it.

ArtPatched -

DDay was in December 2018 for me

I seem to be going back & forth from Denial (affair fog) and Anger. I know that I don’t want to break NC and am committed to that. However, I struggle daily with going from fond memories to pure hatred for AP. I want NONE of these thoughts. I continually try to replace these thoughts and focus on BS and our R. However these intrusive thoughts are still there. I believe everyone when they say in time, the thoughts will fade....... It just really sucks & is pure hell in my mind right now. And I know whatever I am feeling that my BS feels it 1000 times worse.

[This message edited by hurting1110 at 6:14 PM, February 1st (Friday)]

For WS:

Did you think of your BS when you were with AP?

Feel any guilt or anything?

Do you think of your AP when you were with your BS?

My WH had an A while overseas and he says he doesn't think of her and ended it about 10 days before he came home. Which they didn't know that were coming home and had about 2 months left that we knew of. Then one Friday they gave them plane tickets back.

For WS:

Do you think of your AP when you were with your BS

Initially, at beginning of A, I thought of BS and felt guilt. I also thought of AP when with BS. Then, I allowed my mind to compartmentalize everything. I guess it was just a mind trick that I played on myself to not feel the pain of guilt. I was truly living a double life. Towards the end of A, the pain & guilt returned & I couldn’t hide from it anymore. I then attempted repeatedly to end it but repeatedly failed. I was addicted.

I have a question that I have never asked my wife but only after reading many post from WSs has this question came to be. Why do WSs fall for the lines like "We have a dead bedroom" or "My wife/husband does not love me". So here comes the questions.

1. What reason did the AP give on why she/he wanted to cheat? Explain how this charm affected you.

2. What did you think about that reason when you first heard it?

3. What made you decide to go from EA to PA? If you were getting your "ego kibbles" from the EA, why go PA? What were the steps that led to those decisions?

Did you disclose everything that your SO wanted to know? If it was TT or word vomit all at once, did you really give it all up? Yes or no, would appreciate your thoughts.

1. What reason did the AP give on why she/he wanted to cheat? Explain how this charm affected you. He didn’t classify it as cheating at first. He said he wanted to be happy and that she didn’t want him anymore.

2. What did you think about that reason when you first heard it? I felt sad for him. (Stupid, I know)

3. What made you decide to go from EA to PA? If you were getting your "ego kibbles" from the EA, why go PA? What were the steps that led to those decisions? It happened in layers. There was a foundation of emotions built (on lies) before he made any “heavy” physical advances. He made innuendo on day one which showed his lack of respect for me.

As a mad hatter, (my x cheated first), no he never told me everything. He gaslighted our entire relationship.

As a cheater. I vomited a lot of details shortly before dday but there was a lot that I thought of later that I kept to myself.

I know for a fact that the AP lies to his wife because we went through his script of what he planned to say. I got mad when he changed the script and placed the blamed on me. (I still took him back, stupid stupid stupid) He never told her everything and I should have, but that’s in the past. His current side piece was a “good girl” and kept to the script.

I did, but it was TT, and he only got the full truth a few months ago, 30 years after the A. I came clean about the sex right away. At the time, it was the height of the AIDS crisis, before there were any treatments, and diagnosis was a death sentence. I had had unprotected sex with the OM, who claimed he had never slept with anyone else; surprise, surprise, I discovered shortly afterwards that that was a total lie. So I knew I had to tell my BBF that I had been exposed to the possibility of HIV, even if I could have lied to him about the sex otherwise. (I keep typing "which I don't think I could have" and then deleting it, because I told him some other enormous lies, so as much as I want to believe that, I guess I can't say for sure.) We were each other's first and only, so this was obviously devastating news. What I *didn't* tell him was the full extent of the sex or the emotional involvement of the A. I admitted that we'd committed other sexual acts, but I minimized their frequency and intensity. I admitted that I told the OM I loved him, but I made it sound like it was something I said back to be polite, rather than multiple affirmative declarations. And I told him the sex was only one time, and practically a misunderstanding -- a brief encounter that made me feel violated afterwards. In reality, it was something planned that I participated in fully; one night, but multiple encounters and positions, and a romantic declaration of consent.

Why did I TT? I'm afraid it was the usual reasons. I was trying to evade responsibility for my actions and avoid/ control their outcome. During the A, I had managed to shut out any thoughts of consequences. My BBF and I were in a long distance relationship (different colleges), and I had gotten permission to date the OM casually. With each new physical activity, I convinced myself that what I was doing might still fall under the terms of our agreement. By the time that I was clearly over the line, I was so adept at lying to myself that I just blocked out the inevitable fallout. OM was graduating and moving across the country, so we had agreed at the outset that our relationship had a defined end date. As the end approached, he wanted to stay involved. He never point blank asked me to break up with BBF, but he amped up the romantic declarations and manipulations. I felt guilty that I was hurting him by ending it (I know how ludicrous that sounds now),so I had this crazy idea that I could ease his pain at the end of the PA by staying friends with him. At the time, I didn't even understand what an EA was, or that I was in one just by staying in contact, regardless of whatever new boundaries I thought I was imposing.

In the time between ending the PA and telling my BBF about it (which was a few weeks; we were still hundreds of miles apart, and I wanted to tell him in person), the denial started to melt away and I could no longer avoid facing what I had done. Honestly, I thought my BBF would break up with me as soon as I told him about the sex. I had always thought he had the upper hand in our relationship, and that he was fully capable of walking away. He had broken up with me when I graduated from HS, saying that long distance relationships rarely worked, and he was the one who, after we got back together, said we should be able to see other people. I figured that admitting I'd slept with OM would be both the beginning and the end of the conversation, and after some harsh parting words, I'd be on the train home the next morning. So while my memory on this is hazy, I think I decided to tell him that I had slept with OM once (selling myself on the idea that multiple times in one night was technically once) and then brace for the breakup. I was prepared for BBF to be furious. I wasn't prepared for his devastation. It destroyed him. He was sobbing uncontrollably, and despite the risk of STDs, clung to me for HB sex. When I realized that he wasn't instantly firing me, I went into total damage control mode. I couldn't face telling him more things that would break him, and I rationalized that he already knew the worst thing, that I had slept with OM. So these two completely contradictory thought processes kicked in: 1) I've told him the most important thing he needs to know, so I've been honest with him; and 2) there's no way I'll ever be able to be completely honest with him, or he'll leave. Everything I told him from that point on was designed to give him a version of the truth that I thought he could live with, rather than the genuine honesty he deserved. After several years, I even sold myself on the lies, and believed I had been truthful.. except for a few minor details.

So how and why did I finally come clean? Unknown to me, my BH never recovered from the trauma of the six months between DDay and my final agreement to go NC with OM. He was aware that OM had not wanted to end it and was looking for an opening to get back together, even though he was thousands of miles away. I was getting ego kibbles from having two men vying for me, both of them long distance, and justified that I had a right to be "just friends" with OM because I no longer did anything physical with him or said anything romantic. I was absolutely not a candidate for R. I didn't break off contact with OM until BBF and I decided that we either needed to break up or commit fully by getting engaged. NC was a hard condition from BBF, so I agreed, but we stopped processing the A and rugswept the fallout. The damage had already been done, and the trauma followed BH through our entire marriage.

As midlife hit, BH became depressed and decided that he needed to finally find a way to get past the mind movies and insecurity that the A had caused. I had no idea that this had been going on; as a typical rugsweeping wayward, I thought that we had put it all in the past. He started to ask me questions about specifics of the A. He thought he was just refining small details if what he already knew. I panicked. I hadn't thought about many of the things he had asked me in years, and I had genuinely forgotten a lot of the details, but subconsciously (and increasingly consciously), I knew the key pressure points. Those were things I had long ago decided to take to my grave, and there was literally no way he could ever find them out except from me. This was when, thank God, I found SI. I read about how there's no such thing as a good lie, and the critical need for honesty in order to heal. I wish I could say I sat down that night and told him the full truth, but it took about a month of TT for me to drag it out. It was almost like I had to fight and outsmart my own brain, which had spent 30 years double-bolting those doors and throwing away the keys. There are really important things I truly, truly can't remember, things that you'd think would be so significant that I couldn't possibly forget. I can't remember most of the night of sex, just flashes. I can't remember anything about what I said when I called OM and declared NC. I can't remember how many times I engaged in specific sex acts. But there's a lot I could and did finally tell BH -- the flashes I remember, the words, things OM said and that I said, what I was feeling when we were together, the real story behind the lies and minimizations. When I got to the truth behind the last and worst lie, I was just as scared that he would leave me as I was that night in 1989. He had even better reasons to leave me than he did then -- I tricked him into marrying me, letting him think he had the whole story of my A. Letting go of that outcome was the step I could never have taken without SI.

I am so grateful that my BH wants to pursue R with me, and so remorseful about the TT. I can't believe what I put him through.

[This message edited by BraveSirRobin at 10:12 PM, February 4th (Monday)]

I’m hoping WS can help me understand.......

When a sexual relationship starts, the brain is flooded with neurochemicals that foster feelings of excitement, obsession, and impulsivity. Oxytocin and dopamine are incredibly influential at this stage. When these chemicals rage in the brain, a person can often do nothing but think about their new lover- doodling their name, daydream about being with them, and take every opportunity to be near them. Does this therefore mean having an affair is ok? No! Having an affair is a violation of a couple's assumed or stated contract regarding emotional and/or sexual exclusivity.

Ironically, if most “cheats” are asked their views of sexual infidelity, most will state that it is wrong, immoral, and damaging to a person and a relationship and fear it happening to them.

So why do it then?

I’m guessing, it’s because it feels so good! Once that initial step is taken to commit adultery, spouses expect it to feel sneaky, deceptive, immoral, and unethical. Yet they quickly realise it actually is a rush to have a new lover, and crave this feeling, despite the consequences and risks.

If more than 90% of people believe infidelity is unacceptable, why are 60% of people engaging in it?

Why when an affair is exposed and the infidelity sits in the room like another person or an object that was propelled into the scene like a bomb, ravaging lives and life becomes polarized into before’s and after’s...... do cheats start to dig deep into every bad thing that’s ever happen to them in their past and use psychology as an excuse for them having an affair? When all it really was was chasing euphoria and excitement! Cheats, cheat while knowingly doing something wrong from the beginning of the affair.... it’s not a surprise to them that unpardonable illicitness has happened outside the relationship.

Are people who cheat using psychology as a BS excuse to cover up the reality that they simply just wanted their cake and to eat it! They thought what no one knows won’t hurt!

It ultimately comes down to the fact that cheats do care about their partners (so they don’t leave them) but they do not care enough. They cared more about what they wanted in the moment than how it would make their partners feel or how it would impact them.

I have a question that I have never asked my wife but only after reading many post from WSs has this question came to be. Why do WSs fall for the lines like "We have a dead bedroom" or "My wife/husband does not love me". So here comes the questions.

1. What reason did the AP give on why she/he wanted to cheat? Explain how this charm affected you.

2. What did you think about that reason when you first heard it?

3. What made you decide to go from EA to PA? If you were getting your "ego kibbles" from the EA, why go PA? What were the steps that led to those decisions?

I think it doesn't quite unfold that way...I don't know what was on his mind at first, but I wasn't really thinking I was going to be cheating. However, yep...he told me he and his wife were "physically incompatible", and his focus was more on the lack of affection rather than sex. Though it sounded like that didn't happen much either, it wasn't something discussed all that deeply.

As far as why I believed it - it seems to be a common problem. So, I guess I didn't question it. Especially when you get in the later years where we all are. Menopause and all that stuff. Long term marriages that the spark went out a long time ago...those are things that happen so I didn't question it.

Anyway, it wasn't really discussed that much, the "charms" were flirting, and teasing, and fun stuff...it was a welcome thing that I was susceptible to because of the emotional state I had been in for a long time.

Well, the PA wasn't something I planned, and I have gone into this in depth other places...but the gist of it is that by the time the PA happened, the whole thing felt like a "relationship" to me. The physical part felt like a next step.

t/j

BraveSirRobin

Your post could be a post from my WS.

It is the first time on SI that I have read a post from a WS that came clean about her A 30 years later.

I have often wished I could get an honest version of my WS's side of the story.

After 30 years I think we are at this stage:

After several years, I even sold myself on the lies, and believed I had been truthful.. except for a few minor details.

There are still too many gaps in her story.

You have helped me understand better, how a lot of things were those days, what happened and why there are still those gaps.

Thank you for posting your story.

[This message edited by iamanidiot at 3:49 AM, February 6th (Wednesday)]

IAAI -- I'm glad my post was some help to you. I read through your thread, and you have my sincere sympathy. Long term lies like your WW's and mine are a lot to absorb. My BH is still in the thick of it and really struggling.

I guess the only thing I can do to reassure you is to confirm that it really is possible that your WW forgot those critical details. That's pretty cold comfort, I know. I can't tell you how much I wish I could pull out my missing memories and answer my BH's open questions about the A. I mean, don't get me wrong, it was hell for both of us to go over the sordid details I do remember, and if all my memories suddenly emerged tomorrow morning, I'm sure I'd be in a state of total panic. But if that did happen, at least I know now that I would have a sacred obligation to get it all out on the table. At least he would feel more secure about the full extent of what he's dealing with and what he's being asked to forgive. At least he wouldn't be tortured by the "what ifs" and the possibility that my subconscious is standing guard over something even worse than what he already knows, something that could suddenly emerge and gut punch him after he's finally struggled back to his feet. I'm sorry that you had to go through that, too.

Thanks again for reaching out to let me know that you found something useful in what I had to say.

Hi Hurtexpat,

This

I’m hoping WS can help me understand.......

I wish I could.

I'm still here trying to understand

Alas I can't.

I didn't want the A. I just felt so pulled. The conscious gave out and the subconscious took over. I couldn't stop thinking about her. I asked her repeatedly to leave me alone. She didn't. She wouldn't. I lapped it up. I felt so stroked. She told an old guy that I still had it.

So I don't have answers for you. If you find them let me know. I want to know why I did what I did just as much. Until then I'm still here trying to learn.

Nature of the affair,

I'm not sure why this one surfaced this morning, but I'm curious to know for anyone who may have been in a similar affair, did you even think about this?

Scenario: My WW's affair was 99% conducted online, sexting, pictures, etc. The only time they initially were face to face was:

1) On Fridays for a few minutes during school drop off/pick up. So probably nothing more than 20 minutes and all convo was clean and about small talk.

2) a Few instances they were about and about in the town and planned/came across each other and again "talked".

3) Obviously when they had sex, which were hit it and get it sessions.

So this morning as this hit me, I view this as deplorable. It's as though its like a pizza order, just random sex. 80% of their messagesw ere about sex. So they didn't know each other, didn't spend time with each other, didn't spoon, coddle or cuddle. Just lets talk about and have sex.

For those in this type of affair. Did you realize you were having essentially an extended one night stand with a random stranger? If so how did you rationalize this was okay? The thought that she in essence rolled dice to "find" a stranger to get banged by is gross.

Hi Brennan. Sorry to hear you are struggling today. My A was similar to what you described. I met a man online, then in person in a bar, then had sex with him a few times at his place. We met on a dating site and I let him believe I was single. So to him, it seemed like what most OLD situations are. On my part, there is nothing that justifies what I did and in no way did I think it was right. I lied to my husband, lied to the AP, and lied to myself. I hid my phone, texted him late at night under the covers, and did all manner of stupid, selfish and truly shitty things.

I am not in a position to judge what any one else does (especially sexually), but before I got married, I had all manner of sexual encounters from ONS to long term relationships (and most things in between). The gross part of the A for me was that I promised that the sexually free part of my life was dedicated to one person and I gave it to someone else.

We are rapidly approaching “affair season” and dday.

When does this and other affair related dates just become another day on the calendar?

As WS’s, what thoughts do you have on those days? How do you help your BS get through it?

Any experience with ddays, affair dates etc being on significant family calendar dates or dates of importance like holidays etc? How do you get through that as a couple?