SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Yesterday was the 1 year anniversary of DDay 1.

I was completely taken aback by my reaction. I was expecting it to be just another day, and didn't really understand "triggering", but as the day moved on me, I was consumed with anxiety like I was waiting for something awful to happen.

I was in the kitchen the day AP called me a year ago, and spent the night in there crying on the floor. Yesterday I could not go into the kitchen at all - I literally ordered everyone dinner for delivery and just stayed in bed and didn't even wash.

I also flipped out at WH and packed his bags and asked him to leave. My reason being that I feel so bad still and I started to feel like I am never going to feel better, or that if he loved me this would never have happened, or that if I was lovable no one would ever have done this to me and worse, that he will eventually cheat on me again because why the heck would anyone want to be married to such a sad sack?

It was just like regressing into a nightmare and I felt absolutely terrible.

WH refused to leave, although I asked him to a hundred times, he just sat by the bed and said he was never leaving me. He stayed with me all day and night. He sat awake all night while I cried and told him how much I hurt. He cried too.

He reassured me that I never looked ugly, not even after not washing and crying all day and that I was his favourite person and he wanted to be around me no matter how miserable I was. He reassured me that his affair only happened because we were separated by distance and a pandemic for so long, and he had problems inside himself and weaknesses he didn't understand and that that made him vulnerable and it was never any shortcoming on my part or his love for me that caused it. He said he loved only me, had only ever loved me, and never wanted to be with anyone else and that if I left him he would be alone forever just hoping I would come back.

I want to believe him, but I can't understand how anyone could love the version of me post-affair. I used to be fun and sexy and full of laughter and self-confidence and optimism. I used to think I was a pretty great person. Now I am a damaged person who cries and is angry all the time.

He told me today is a low point, and that was to be expected, and it will all be better from now on. I feel like he will just stop loving me because of the mess and the misery of R. He says it's not misery, and being around me makes him happy no matter what and he is just grateful that I am still there.

Our R has been hard.

It started off so well with him energetic and willing to do absolutely anything. We did everything the books say - and started counselling and made great progress and felt closer than ever. But we had obstacles no one foresaw.

1. He had decided to give up his job and move to be with me and get away from AP (I was studying overseas) but it took eight months to find a new job, during which time he was seeing AP every day and working closely with her. Torture for me as she would not stop declaring her love and hassling him.

2. AP was obsessed with him and would not leave him or me alone the entire time, with really bad stalking, blackmail, threats, tantrums, violence and so on. Interspersed with sweet love letters and begging him to help her because she was going to kill herself. The strain on us was immense.

3. There was TT, not in terms of the details of the affair, but in terms of him initially telling me he had no feelings for her when it came to light over time he had a deep psychological dependence on AP brought about by a close emotional bond formed over 6 months of friendship before the affair started.

4. When we had a fight due to AP stalking and him refusing to report her, and I asked for a divorce 8 weeks into R. He got blind drunk and slept with AP again, after which R unraveled completely.

5. He then had a complete nervous breakdown, which took 6 months for him to even be slightly functioning. During which period, R was completely on hold as he could barely get through a day.

6. Before coming to me for our fresh start, he relapsed a third time, by entering into sweet "goodbye" emails with AP, who he was meant to never have any further contact with. This started off on her "checking in" on him at the office as he had been so sick and then her legitimate work emails started getting personal and he responded in kind.

So it has been very, very hard and after a few months with me now he is still only functioning at 60% after his breakdown. "No contact" only began then, and it feels to me like R itself hasn't really begun yet because he is still only functioning at 60%. I feel so many feelings over all of this which have not been processed.

I don't want to start IC and I can't really explain why I am resistant. I think because I feel like it's him I need to work this through with and not a stranger. He's still unfit to start MC, but that's on the cards for future.

I never expected this past year to be so hard or for him to be capable of hurting me so much, and now I see I am damaged, he is damaged and the marriage is damaged and the grief I feel for so many things is overwhelming at times.

I can see how much he loves me and regrets all this, but don't know how I get to feeling okay about it. I read the forum all the time and it's a great help.

Sorry for ranting.

You have been put through the wringer by your husband. His relapses have been utterly destructive. It has only been several months since he went NC so everything is still very raw and your feelings are absolutely justified. It is time that you sought independent counseling with someone versed in infidelity. You need to heal. You need to get your bearings so that you can decide what you want to do with your marriage.

Your husband talks a big game and sounds like he is doing and saying the right things now. But from your timeline, this behavior is only recent. It sounds like the AP is finally out of the picture. Your husband certainly needs professional help given that he can still not function at a level greater than 60%. How is he able to maintain his new job given his present emotional state?

After your mind has cleared, you must decide whether you wish to continue your marriage with him. You need a good IC to help guide you to that choice. Beware of counselors that ignore your pain and simply tell you to suck it up. Stay away from MCs until you decide that you wish to save the marriage. There are so many factors you must consider in making the choice to stay. Don't do it alone. Again, you need an IC that can cut through the crap and help guide you to a decision that is best for you. You owe your husband nothing.

Wow so sorry, you need some space during a nasty trigger like that. I know that the one year antiversary from Dday 2 or the last discovery I started to improve emotionally. I just want to encourage you that it does get better. Look at what you have made it through so far, you are strong and a real bad ass.

Thanks so much. I think it's right that recovery doesn't begin until the last discovery and last betrayal. For me that feels like a few weeks really.

I remember finding this place and reading posts when it first happened and although devastated was also thinking at the time "this is not that bad, we will be okay, he is sorry and we will fix it".

I really didn't understand the depths of the damage done to me. It's only as the threat was removed and the panic lessened that I began to really understand the wounds that were now mine forever to keep.

I think the anniversary was so hard because in my heart of hearts I don't think we are going to make it.

I think he loves me and regrets it and wishes it had never happened but that he is also not a real candidate for R. Ironically, the weaknesses that caused the cheating are the same ones which make him no good at the process required for R. For example no self-awareness, poor empathy, unresolved shame....

He wants to love me by making me drinks and stroking my hair and being around every day and cooking dinner. He doesn't want to love me by showing up in his life as a healed, strong, healthy individual who put his big boy pants on and became a safe partner.

He wants to rug sweep.

I am not sure if that's temporary because he's dealing with severe depression and lacks the capacity (this is his take) or if he just wants to rug sweep. I think he probably just wants to rug sweep. He's too uncomfortable with his feelings of guilt to properly face this.

As bad as it sounds, you do seem at a pretty normal give only 1y out..... Took me 2 years easily to stop totally losing it like you do, so give yourself a break, let your emotions flow within reason.... And as far as your H, you definitely have a right to tell him straight up what you expect of him, and that he needs to get with the program or be ready for divorce....
You have to be fully willing to end your marriage in order to save it. Hang in there and be strong

WH refused to leave, although I asked him to a hundred times, he just sat by the bed and said he was never leaving me. He stayed with me all day and night. He sat awake all night while I cried and told him how much I hurt. He cried too.

Okay no person who doesn’t give a rat’s ass about their marriage would do this. ^^^

It’s been one year and you are struggling. We all were (for those that reconciled or attempted to R).

I was you. For 3 years I doubted my H and his commitment. One of the few things I did correctly was to remind myself 100 times a day to stop living in the past. Look at the present. Recognize the changes. See the difference.

It is damn hard!!!! Reconciliation is not EASY.

But your H was present for you at a very critical point in time in your life. He didn’t run. He didn’t leave.

Start to build on that to help you in your healing. Just keep reminding yourself "he was there for me".

It is SO HARD not to live in the past. But that was what kept me from healing and moving forward. Rightfully so because my H was D me. Funny how I was the last to know - and he had it all planned so he and the OW could sail off into the sunset and live out their fantasy life.

I definitely have residual issues from that. I have a post nup that financially protects me. I have hoarded money for 8 years since Dday to protect myself. I maintain my own social life apart from him.

In any event Reconciliation is a long process. I hope the second year in is better for you.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 9:44 AM, Tuesday, November 16th]

A year past my discovery of the affair I was no better off than you, and I did not believe my WW had the capacity to be a wife to whom I would want to recommit.

She has made effort and progress, and so have I, and so have we.

Today, I’m glad I gave her that chance.

It is a work in progress.

Slowly, imperceptibly, my consecutive good days extended and the interruptions by bad days, or strings of bad days, became less. Now, sometimes I do not realize why I am irritated or feeling distance from her, only to realize "oh, it’s the antiversary of the day she ……… with him." In the past, those dates never snuck up on me, I was hyper vigilant to them, counting down to them. So, I consider that progress. Perhaps one day the day will pass without notice at all.

It’s hard to let someone who hurt you so badly back into a position to do it again. But, nothing ventured, nothing gained.

No one’s path is exactly like anyone else’s, but I would say that a year from discovery, and far less than a year since you had a person even really trying to be a partner in this reconciliation, where you are is no reason to be discouraged.

Thank you everybody.

Post Anniversary, I took a couple of days off work.

I spent the first day in bed, crying, feeling angry and frustrated and scared and sorry for myself.

I spent today having a weight lifted off me for the first time in a year. This was partly down to the advice given here and the feeling of being heard and understood (thank you everybody).

The weight came off because I had an epiphany.

I had believed this date had to mean so much, and I had attached a meaning to that in the sense of expectation from him.. I wanted him to be "fully enlightened" and to have "done the work". I was frustrated by how many setbacks R has had when my faith had been placed in it. I was angry for my losses and for the agency that was taken away from me for so many things.

I have run around these past months feeling like the solution to me feeling better was wrapped up in him somehow. For him to earn my trust back, for him to make me feel safe, for him to make good choices and fully "get it" and most of all for him to jump through hoops to prove to me that he loved me and only me. Anger upon anger was building in resentment and disappointment and each of his failures felt like "proof" he obviously didn't love me enough.

@The1stWife your posts in particular really helped me because they reminded me I am loved, and that he got us into this mess because he has flaws and weaknesses. A quote comes to mind, "we rarely solve problems from within the binary which they were created". And my H is in the binary which he created the problems still.

For a year I was spoon-feeding him R and healing. Yes, he has been sick and is coming out of a breakdown, but even without that considered, since all this began it's been me finding the right books, courses, forums like this and so on, me creating plans and ideas, me posting here and reading endless resources. Not just trying to solve our healing, but trying to direct HIS. It's been me doing all the work.

While he has been preoccupied with mainly dealing with the fallout. He had to cope with me finding out about this. Public humiliation. A psycho AP and deep psychological damage from abuse with her, which had triggered childhood abuse. With doing difficult things like filing police reports and getting his work involved. With moving job, country, life to get away from AP. All of this, whilst having a breakdown. And trying his best to love me but not having the right tools for R.

I hadn't done IC because I felt "why the fuck am I going to counselling for something he did if he can't go himself?"

I just suddenly felt this weight lifted when I realised that no one can actually decide my healing but me. I don't have to go the rest of my life with someone I can't trust, I can choose in time if I trust him and go if I want to. I don't have to heal him to heal me. I don't have to feel "unsafe", if he doesn't want to help me feel fully safe with him, then I won't, but I can make my own safety. I don't need him to meet my emotional needs -IC can do that. I just felt like control was given back to me.

It's my birthday in a few days.

Last years birthday, he and I were 5000 miles apart.

I have a selfie I took that day of my face, only a few days after DDay, and my eyes are haunted with pain. I decided this year, I will take a new selfie and my eyes will be strong with resilience.

Last year, as I said, he was 5000 miles away a few days after DDay. I spent my birthday with AP calling me on every phone in my house (she had infiltrated his HR file at work and found my details) and she was using Voip or something to call and text incessantly, and I was crying and begging her to stop and leave me alone. My 16 year old kid was next to me watching this shit unfold.

Meanwhile 5000 miles away, crazy AP was actually calling and harassing me from the porch of WHs house! She was simultaneously texting and calling him too. WH and I were on the phone to each other with me crying saying, "please make her stop" and him saying he was so sorry, she was crazy.

He tried to get in his car to get away as she was kicking on the door and broke off the handle and ripped the screen door right off. She literally jumped on the bonnet of his moving car. He called a colleague who came to help, and the colleague let him hide out at his house, and mutual friends came to "take care" of crazy AP. This went on from 7pm to 3am in the morning, and when WH finally came home, he was texting me from the dark in the hallway of the house, in fear she may see the light and attack him again.

What we have lived through is almost incredible. Like a terrible movie.

I sit here now and realise I have a fresh page and a new chapter and I am going to be HAPPY AGAIN. I am going to start dressing up again and doing my hair and eating and going running and being ME again because this situation can't define me anymore.

I am going to stop spoonfeeding WH healing or R. He can have a partial R if that's what he wants. If he wants better, he can learn to sink or swim all by himself. He is still loved, what he chooses to do will be his to decide.

I called a counsellor. Some online service and spent 2.5 hours (poor woman!!!) just venting. I vented ALL my sadness for the things which were taken away from me. Big stuff, like the hundreds of days WH was "friends" with some other woman and giving her time, medium stuff like a ruined birthday, and silly little stuff like being unable to do certain things anymore because they upset me. I got raw empathy I badly needed.

Today I feel ready to make year 2 way better, and let go out the outcome of the M

Thank you all

I think you truly understand what I was sharing.

I think things will continue to improve for you.

If you choose to remain married you will be happy. But if the marriage cannot survive the aftermath then you know you tried your best.

Either way your happiness is your top priority. I think you see how many of us survived this train wreck period.

We chose to be happy. Despite the affair and all that occurred.

Keep posting on your progress. And I hope you have a very Happy Birthday!

It sounds like you're finally separating your healing from his actions. I think that that is great! Congratulations, truly.