SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

OMG - thankfully I am not the only BS to notice this. I remember thinking my FWH eyes had actually darkened with time. They were once a warm hazel, with a noticeable glint, but had become almost black. Like stones. Dead and lifeless. I too, like so many thought it was stress and depression. Least that was what he kept saying. He was tired, always so tired. Yep that’s what living a double life does, it’s exhausting, stomach churning and soul destroying. And the eyes don’t lie. I look back and think even my eyes looked different. Disconnected from my smile, lonely and weary.

When I had access to his phone after d-day there were over 500 selfies of him. All smiling, smirking or pouting, but he looks so odd in all of them. Not just because he’s always been so introverted, but because of his eyes- they were so empty and made his smiles so fake and creepy. I remember him seeing them and realising he wasn’t this amazing god like adonis afterall. He promptly deleted them in embarrassment.

I still have photos of him on family holidays taken during his LTA and the change in his eyes from before the affair photos is so obvious it’s scary. He really does look like a different person, made worse by the fact he became so thin and gaunt. I can’t believe nobody else noticed. Sadly even now I still think his eyes look different. Cold, glazed and full of shame. I am not sure they will ever sparkle again.

I find it hard to look into those eyes and not be reminded of how black they became. Just another gift from infidelity

He was just annoyed at me all the time. Short tempered. Snippy. Critical.

He would not look at me directly - so avoidance was the norm for me.

But he sure had a sharp tongue.

Same here. I didn't notice that his eyes looked any different, it was just that he really wouldn't look me in the eye. If he did, it was because I somehow annoyed him or he was telling me all the ways in which I was not "there for him". Those instances usually came out of left field.

I cant believe this is a post. It confirms Im not crazy. My WH had come to my house after leaving me. I cant describe the energy coming off of him. Almost evil. Ill never forget his eyes. I almost felt sorry for him because it was obvious something was wrong. We've since happily reconciled but Ill never forget that night and Id recognize those eyes again in a heartbeat. Aweful.

My husband couldn't look me in the face, much less in the eye, when he came home after cheating.

I recognized what I saw at that moment, the moment I saw it.

I pushed it aside on behalf of our children.

I stayed, largely on behalf of the children.

I should not have stayed on their behalf.

I have been thoroughly disrespected and disregarded by all and everyone in that arena, including my husband and my kids, in thanks for sticking around.

That endeavor was and has been overwhelmingly thankless, pick your inquiry about the same.

On the other hand,

sticking around and making sure that 'the family' was more or less an intact presence kept my iminently distractible husband ("Where are my car keys? Where are my house keys? DID SHE JUST SAY THAT I COULD TOUCH HER TITS???") engaged long enough to get the kids raised.

And barely that.

And not one second more.

We're one hundred and eleventy years old and Mr. Precious Feels is *still* trying to figure out *Who He Is* and *How to Life.*

And I am BONE. TIRED.

[This message edited by marriageredux959 at 3:48 AM, Monday, April 11th]

Resentment. That is what her eyes clearly told me.

If I am being honest, there were probably more telling descriptions, but I was unaware due to my own lack of attention that I was putting into the marriage/wife. If there was ever a person who was on cruise control, just going through life, it was me. I have to take responsibility for that part.

But she used that, deceivingly, to her advantage. And as she got deeper and deeper, the resentment grew at a steady rate until it was more than obvious.

I would say distant, empty and cold. Nothing there. Sometimes, hatred. XWW said she never hated me. The look said she did and I didn't know why. After DDays I told her she looked at me with lizard eyes. She chortled like that wasn't possible. It was and she did.

I didn’t notice anything with his eyes (on a daily basis) but I did notice that if I asked him a question that was about infidelity etc his would close them when he answered.

Still pisses me off when he does that face.

So much of this rings true for me. It's nice to know I wasn't just imagining or reading too much into things. WH would come home from work, sit down and start staring at his phone. I know he tends to get hyper-focused, so instead of just starting to talk I would say, "Can I talk to you?" Or, "Can I ask you a question." He would say, "Sure" and put his phone down...for a moment. While I was talking, he would invariably pick up his phone again, shift his eyes to the TV or even worse, start to doze off! Yes, he would close his eyes and doze off while I was in mid-sentence! If I called him on it he would say, "Sorry. I didn't try to doze off. It just happened." Or my favorite, "I thought you were done." Right. I was in mid-sentence but I was done talking. Now I realize that when his eyes drifted back to the phone, it was probably to read a text from her. Sometimes he would start texting back while I was talking. I now know that she would get upset if he didn't immediately respond to her texts. So basically, keeping her happy was more important than giving me a shred of his attention. When he did appear to be listening to me, he would just stare at me. Nothing seemed to be getting through. I would ask a question and get no response. He would say, "Oh, I didn't realize I was supposed to respond." Yeah, because he never even heard what I said. He was sitting right there, but his head was elsewhere. His eyes would look right through me when they weren't closing so he could doze off.

I made all these attempts to talk to him, but he still claimed a lack of connection drove him to the A. Over the last few weeks, I asked him to think about all the times I tried to talk things out and he ignored me, shut me out, snapped back or just fell asleep. He said he didn't see those as efforts to work things out. He was too absorbed in the A and trying to "keep the peace" at home so I wouldn't get suspicious. He says he can now see that clearly but was blind to my efforts. Yeah, he was blind all right. His cold, dark, vacant eyes were blind. I will say that his attention to me and his eyes have changed dramatically. He makes a point to put his phone way off to the side when we start talking. He actually leans forward in his chair to show he's being attentive. And yes, his eyes have changed. I feel like he's seeing me again. We have a lot of work to do, but I feel like it's a start.

He looked cold & lost. He has often shared with me since that he felt lost and disconnected from his own thoughts and emotions. I guess for him, since what he did was so out of character, disconnection was the only way he could deal with his affair.
I have often wondered what he was like around his AP. Since I never met her and never saw them together, I have no idea what kind of person he was when he was with her. I do know that he used to get angry at her when she freaked out on him when he needed to come home to me.
Affairs are just so damaging in so many ways.

Before I knew…I would look at my husband and just think his eyes never had a twinkle or smile for me anymore. When we were trying to reconcile after he had just spent to past 2-3 years with prostitutes, bringing them to our second home during Covid. I swear during one of our first times during sex he looked up at me and gave a command (that I didn’t follow) and he didn’t even SEE his wife, his eyes literally seemed as if they glowed red for a moment as he was seeking to be pleasured🤮. We hadn’t been intimate in so long, at that moment I think he thought I was just one of his prostitutes. I will NEVER forget that look and the command he uttered. Luckily for me, I no longer have to work on this bad marriage!

Absolutely, yes.

He looked . . .
shifty
haunted
like he had the weight of the world on his shoulders

There would be flashes of anger, guilt, deciding which lie to tell . . .just a lot going on behind the eyes.

I wouldn't say there was disassociation, though.

Yes. I've also seen it with alcoholics after just one sip of beer.

The only explanation I have is that it is demonic.