SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Chamomile Tea, thank you ❤️

My goal was to be able to think about the betrayal and not feel the intense pain.
What I did was to write out the complete story of WH affair, the complete timeline as far as I knew it with every intensely hurtful gory detail as a document on my phone, adding to it when each new revelation. It ended up like a book, but I needed a comprehensive narrative to keep my mind from spinning. It included all the facts as I knew them along with my interpretation, which evolved over time as my understanding evolved. I edited my commentary as time went on, and it became less brutal and a little more forgiving as months and years went by. Using the accessibility function on my phone, I would have it read back to me as I was driving to work each morning. It sounds like I was torturing myself, and I was, with the goal that I could listen to it without it causing me to break down, and eventually so I could listen and not even have my heart rate rise. I let my closest friend and my therapist listen to it, and I even put an early version on SI at some point, but was too embarrassed at the time to even read the comments and interact. I’m sure my therapist thought I was crazy. He was right. I felt completely crazy at the time. At one point I added after each sentence: "His actions had nothing to do with me or our marriage. It had everything to do with him and his character flaws."
With each reading, the events didn’t get less hurtful, but I became a little stronger.

I listed all the most hurtful things he said, along with why they hurt me so much. I shared these with my husband when he was able to handle it. He’s a recovering alcoholic so he wasn’t strong enough to hear it at first.

I wish you only the best.

Hello to all of the strong men and women here who are doing their best to survive and cope with the betrayal of infidelity. I joined this site at the end of August only 3 months after finding out my mate cheated on me. I found out from a phone call from my oldest daughter because the OW called her to tell her about the cheating. It’s a small world and she actually worked for a previous shared employer who happened to also be related and also by my unique last name, which she found on Facebook, she was able to connect the dots and get to my daughter. I am not married to him and have been seeing him for 3 years. We made it official in March of 2021. He’s been lying to me for most of our relationship and that’s a really tough pill to swallow most especially because we share a deep faith in God. He has been so deeply rooted in church and God since he was a little boy. He posts all the time on Facebook and he used to text me daily on Bible scriptures and how to live according to God’s Word. So, this has been extremely confusing for me. I will say that the help from friends and family have allowed me to see things more clearly. Most importantly, though, has been my relationship with God. It’s helped me to make self care a priority. I walk with God almost daily in the morning around my neighborhood and I talk to Him and I thank Him for my blessings and also cry to Him for help. He is answering my prayer even with clicking on this link to read all of your posts. Knowledge is power. One thing that I’ve learned in this process is that we have to do the work to heal. Our thoughts can and will consume us if we let it so we have to be careful of what we allow into our minds. It is also extremely important that we forgive our transgressors. I have not done this fully yet, but I am in the process and admittedly I have a long journey ahead of me. We are attempting to work this out and he appears to be remorseful and leading us in prayer every night before bed. I can see some changes, but he is a very private man and I do not trust him nor will I ever blindly trust him as I did. The old me has died. This is a hard pill to swallow because I loved that woman. I loved being in love. So, there is a lot of mourning that I’ve been doing with the loss of her and reinventing who I am today.

Here are some books that I’m reading. He is also reading the book on infidelity and is a chapter ahead of me, which is a good sign.

Transcending Post-Infidelity Stress Disorder-The Six Stages of Healing by Dennis Ortman, PhD

Forgiving the Unforgivable-Overcoming the Bitter Legacy of Intimate Wounds by Beverly Flanigan

Both books are extremely insightful. The first book has been explaining the similarities of the trauma we’ve experienced by the betrayal to Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, for e.g., the flashbacks of the act and how difficult it is to get those thoughts out of our minds. I can say that I’m not getting those as much, but I think it’s because I kept probing for the details and how he said it played out wasn’t exactly what I had pictured so it changed the script for me and allowed me to sort of put it to rest. I don’t recommend that you do this because once you hear an answer to a question it is very difficult to erase it from your mind. For e.g., he admitted to me that sex with her was enjoyable before me. I just can’t get that thought out of my head most especially because I did so much to enhance our intimacy and honestly I am settling in the bedroom on some level, which I expressed to him. So, this added insult to injury for me that he had the nerve to cheat. Now what I am about to say may sound a bit odd, but through my faith I believe that I will be thanking them both for cheating. I say this because it unveiled the truth of what we were doing in our relationship and it has forced us to dig deep into past wounds that have shaped us into who we were trying to be together. He suffers from abandonment issues and the thought that I would leave him one day so he self sabotages and self medicated through sex, porn, and attention, in this case from a woman he was sexing before he met me. From talking to the OW, he never chose her and she was upset that he chose me. So, she wiggled herself back in and he was too weak and blind to thwart her advances. He was also feeling the pressure she put on him of knowing my daughter and the ability to tell on him. She sent him pics of her privates and this triggered lust in him as well. All of it is so twisted. She says they had sex twice, once last October and again on May 4th of this year. He says it was only in May and that he ended it and she promised to make his life hell so she exposed it all on May 23rd. Admittedly, she told me he never chose her. So, I’ve been on a quest for truth since I’ve found out and now it’s not so much about the details of the act, but where I’m going from here. God gave me such peace on the day I found out and I even ministered to her and to him. But the betrayal has set in and I was in such despair and pain the first month. I had to get everything out of my home that had anything to do with him and return it to him. I bought Bible scripture decals and placed them all over my bedroom walls to remind me that I am loved by God unconditionally and that my room would be a source of healing for me. I burnt sage and cleaned my home of any unwanted spirits and anything from our relationship. I began to meditate using the Calm app that has grief meditations. This was so healing for me because it showed me how to grieve the loss of my old me who was murdered by his act of cheating. In my search on the internet for help is how I discovered the book on infidelity that I shared with you all. I also learned about the stages of grief and realized that I didn’t have the opportunity to experience the bartering stage with him because I had broke up with him the next day. So, three weeks of extreme pain and heartache lead me to his doorstep to allow myself to go through the bartering stage. I wanted my life back before the betrayal and that’s what this stage is all about. He had honored my request to leave me alone when I ended it. He’s also in the field of law enforcement so he didn’t want to do anything that would jeopardize his job by not respecting my wishes to leave me alone, but I wanted him to fight for me and to validate our relationship. So, this is why I went back as well. In any event, from June 13th until today, we have been trying to heal and to reconcile. I’m coming to grips with the fact that I’m not in love with him anymore. It’s a very different relationship that we have right now. He wants to just have a clean slate, but I can’t just erase the past. I’m pressed on healing and getting through these books. I continue to look for resources and I thank you for what you’ve shared as well as I will explore these resources too. Thank you for allowing me to share my experience too. This is the first support group I’ve ever joined so I’m trying today to include this in my healing tool belt as iron sharpens iron and so we become wiser from sharing our experiences and coping mechanisms together. You all are in my prayers for healing of our mind, body, and spirit. I pray for our relationships too and that we do what is in God’s Will in the end and that we stay true to ourselves along the way.

You aren't alone. LTA survivor here. With multiple DDays with the same LTAP. AND...18 months ago had to hire an attorney to send her a Cease and Desist due to her cyber stalking and attempting to reach out w/fake profiles.

Each time it set me back to a place so dark I had to crawl for miles just to see Ground Zero and it still felt so far away.

It sucks. It is hard. It is not fair and I spend a shit ton of time resenting the fact that while the LTA wasn't my fault it is my responsibility to heal from it. Eventually I realized that resentment was a poor use of what little wear withal I had left.

When those waves hit - and they still can hit hard - I do the following (in no particular order)

* Document that shit. I have a spreadsheet. Date, event, trigger, feeling/emotion, notes, etc. Sometimes a pattern will emerge so I can avoid the thing (or deadly combination of seemingly benign things) in the future. Even if no pattern emerges, I can free my brain so to speak. I can tell myself now that this thing is documented I don't have to relive it just to try to remember it. I can write it down, free the brain space and know that [God Forbid] I can access it should the need arise
* Straighten my crown. Now this looks different for everyone. In the Land of Chaos it means putting on my sparkiest of undies even if I'm wearing sweats and scrubbing toilets. I also put on lipgloss. Even if I'm just doing laundry. This makes me feel bad ass and bullet proof. I also have a bracelet I bought. Cheap off of Amazon. A simple silver cuff. But on the inside is inscribed "keep fucking going"
* Take myself out for coffee. Yes, coffee. I slowly sip and let my mind go blank. Just to slowly sip the coffee. Each sip is savored. Each sip forces me to stay in the moment. Each sip gives me a moment of peace when my world is in turmoil.
* Do something physical. Go for a walk, mad clean (there are days my tub gleams from all the scrubbing), crochet (I actually can make something useful, see the progress in real time, and get to stab something with a stick and twist)
* Cry - there is no shame. And it purges your system. It takes more energy to hold it in than to let it out.
* Use my emergency Rx of Xanax if necessary. There is no fucking shame.
* Make a note in my IC book. I go monthly these days. Many times jotting the issue down can allow me to forget it momentarily. And if the situation resolves itself, I can cross it off. If not, I don't have to mentally relive it in order to remember it. Like the spreadsheet I mentioned above but for a different purpose
* Remind myself that this too shall pass. Just because I'm feeling this way doesn't mean I have to unpack and live in this feeling.
* Have an exit strategy. If I am in public and all the above isn't working for me for whatever reason - leave. In my case, I find what places are close [even if a McDonalds] in case I need to go elsewhere and regroup. They have coffee so it 2 birds with one stone.
* Accept the fact that healing is not linear. And it can be a bitch.

This is what helps me. You will have to figure out from all your responses and independent research what works for you. And understand none of this is a magic potion. None of this will be miracle cure. It will though allow you to find the right tools for your toolbox to help you when it is all too much at times.

Hi Booney, Your post really hit home for me. I am 3 years out from discovering an affair of potentially 5-6 years. I cry a lot and get angry. So you are pretty normal in your response. I keep telling myself no matter what happens, I am gonna make it. Just keep working on yourself and forgive yourself for struggling. It hurts a lot.

Thank you for your post Chaos! Great advice!

Booney, your response gave me so much to think about and so many feels. I feel like a part of me died too, I can never go back and feel as whole and content as I did when I was a naïve fool in love. There are so many similarities in our journeys. I have been so frustrated by my attempt to control how I'm handling this. I expected so much more of myself, but all my weaknesses have been laid bare by this.

Like yours, my H has stepped up in ways that still catch me off guard - offering to cook for me or with me, doing dishes, helping around the house in ways he never even considered before - it seems doing things is much easier than feeling things or talking about things. I try to pay attention to the ways he is trying and not stay shattered by the ways he isn't able.

I read what you wrote about the kids knowing and had to cry a bit, because you are correct, on all counts. I know that as long as I have unresolved issues I will still struggle and that is a huge one. I keep it in my pocket for now, I know at my cost but also as a gift to all of us. Each time a new person knows, I'm embarrassed and feel like I have to explain myself all over again, and I barely know what I'm doing as it is. I still struggle with telling my mom, she's able to handle it, but I'm not sure I'm able to handle her pity or how much anger she will have toward my WH. I'm so tired of it all at this point. It has been an exhausting journey to I'm not sure where yet. I guess this is my version of rug sweeping for now, while I get my bearings. It's been so long now it almost seems a moot point, to tell anyone else, but it seems there is healing in the telling too.

I think Chaos' post is one of the best I've read, and I will keep coming back to that list to make sure I'm doing it justice. There are so many fierce, wise people on this forum, it really helps to have some other kind souls to help shine a light up ahead and offer support and suggestions when we need them the most.

I hope you had a nice time away and maybe a chance to reboot. I hope that things just keep getting easier. The first person I told about all this, after saying how sorry they were for all this mess, said I hope you find a soft place to land. I think of those words often. Wishing you the same.