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My DDay was in early 2017, but I did not get the full story back then. During the following years we had quite a lot of heavy discussions, but WS kept insisting on his original very minimized story. I didn’t have proof that there was more to the story, only indications and a gut feeling. Only in January this year, 5 years later, he started to offer more honest explanations. Unfortunately, those were only half-truths, and the trickle-truth continued throughout the year. There is no way for me to know whether I have the full story now (by "full story" I mean honest answers to my questions). The only proof is in his head, and all I have are his words. After all the lies he said during and after betrayal, I feel I can’t believe anything he says that sounds too good to be true or anything that seems implausible.

The information I got this year completely devasted me and rewrote my/our past. I’m talking about the past 8-9 years during which I made important decisions based on premises that I now know were false. This is especially painful for stuff that happened after DDay. I did not make an informed decision about reconciliation. I was trying to be realistic about reconciliation efforts, but since my reality was false, I now know I asked for too little. I married him not knowing what I know today. I don’t know whether I’d go for reconciliation and whether I’d say "yes" to him if I had known the truth. Nevertheless, the past cannot be changed, so now I’m just trying to play the hand I’m dealt.

People say with every new information, the healing and reconciliation process restart. That is so true. I’ve re-experienced all the feelings people go through after DDay. Behind those feelings is just deep sadness. I’m so sad for everything that happened and I’m so sad that it did happen. I’m sad for every instance of the betrayal, for everything he felt during that time. I’m sad he chose to lie after DDay, to drag us through 5 years of false reconciliation, and through plain torture. We missed out on so much during the years of betrayal, but we missed out on even more during the years of false reconciliation. I’m sad he wasn’t honest with me before he proposed to me. He knew what marriage means to me, and he managed to ruin the most basic ideas and dreams I have about marriage, love, family.

The sadness is preventing me from moving on, and I’m determined to get rid of it. I had enough. Lately I read so many posts here from betrayed spouses who re-experienced betrayal trauma or who regretted their decision to reconcile, years and years later. I don’t want that to happen to me. Betrayal sadness needs to go, and it needs to go for good. Of course, I’m realistic and I know it will never completely disappear. And that is fine as long as it is no longer a dominant emotion in my life.

The question I have is how to kill the sadness efficiently? What worked for you? The things I read are mostly focusing on some variation of personal happiness plan – basically, do the things that make you happy. There are plenty of things that make me happy, and I’ve been doing them for years. That didn’t really help. The thing is, that happiness is a very shallow one. Something that makes me smile, something that makes me feel good temporarily, something that does not have a long-term effect on me. It’s like taking a painkiller instead of treating the cause of the pain.

This is truly a year of hell for me. I’d appreciate any insight, advice, comment, book recommendation, support, anything...

[This message edited by Hannah47 at 11:07 AM, Thursday, November 17th]

I’m sorry you find yourself here and back to day 0 due to your WH’s TT. It must be horrible.

I’ll have to disagree with you on one point: I don’t think you need to get rid of sadness just yet. I think you’re probably sick of hurting for so long and just want to feel better. But healing from trauma is a process, I think you need to be kind to yourself and give yourself a chance to process all this new hurt. If you had one leg broken one year ago and you’d break your leg today again, you wouldn’t tell yourself "I need to push through and walk on it because I had enough". Give yourself permission to be sad.

As to how to try and mitigate the sadness effects, what worked for me was to focus on myself and what I like to do in life. Since dday I’ve done a variety of things that made me feel like life is worth living. Progressed my career, meeting exercise goals, self introspective work, started devouring books again and I taught myself how to paint this year, some people say I’m good. Each achievement, big or small, started to tell me a different story contradicting the sadness. Yes, perhaps I didn’t marry the only man on earth to be loyal and faithful (I used to think this about my WH prior to dday) but that doesn’t reflect on me, who I am and what I’m capable of. Yes, I may end up divorced and alone, but I have built a framework which would enable me to be pretty happy on my own too.

I hope you find peace!

After all the lies he said during and after betrayal, I feel I can’t believe anything he says that sounds too good to be true or anything that seems implausible.

I’m sad he wasn’t honest with me before he proposed to me. He knew what marriage means to me, and he managed to ruin the most basic ideas and dreams I have about marriage, love, family.

It might not be a YOU problem. It might still be a HIM problem, or at least about him.

These above are just two little snippets, but what they're saying is that you don't trust that your WH is currently an honest broker. From your perspective, he's pulled a bait 'n switch and now you're stuck with this inferior specimen who has misrepresented himself and is possibly continuing to misrepresent himself.

There only two ways to go if you think about it. Either the cheating was a deal-breaker and your WH is just NOT what you want in this life, or you learn to love the man he is rather than the one you believed he was. Is he finally being honest or is he still lying? Has he made the kind of real and meaningful change to his character which would make him an acceptable partner as he is today? The past is past. It can't be changed. But if you don't BELIEVE in your heart of hearts that he is worthy of your continued love and devotion than how could you possibly ever be content with your choice to stay?

I don't think you're dealing with some kind of inability to be happy. I think you just don't believe in this guy yet. Maybe you're justified in that and maybe it's lingering distrust, but it does appear to be about him and not about you.

The sadness isn't preventing R. Processing the sadness - feeling it and letting it go - is a critical and requisite part of the process of R.

Thank you for your replies, it means a lot!

@Luna10

I think you’re probably sick of hurting for so long and just want to feel better. But healing from trauma is a process, I think you need to be kind to yourself and give yourself a chance to process all this new hurt.

You are absolutely right. However, I just can’t live like this anymore. If I would have to use one word to describe my life since DDay1, I’d use the word "torture". Every single day when I wake up in the morning, my first thought is about betrayal. This has been going on for more than 2000 days. I can no longer recognize what is processing the pain and what is rumination. It has to stop. Me being so sick of that is a very strong internal motivator for change.

As to how to try and mitigate the sadness effects, what worked for me was to focus on myself and what I like to do in life. Since dday I’ve done a variety of things that made me feel like life is worth living.

This is crucial. There are many things I like – I like exercising, vacations, shopping, music, going out, gaming, etc. However, none of those things truly fulfill me. They are like the painkiller I mentioned. For me, life worth living is the life in which I love and am loved. I feel sadness is a roadblock to such life.

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@ChamomileTea

You are right it’s very much a HIM problem. I don’t know whether the betrayal is a deal-breaker for me, but I do know it would be better if he had told me everything during the first few months after DDay1. This way I cannot know whether he’s finally honest now or whether he’s still lying. I even considered whether the stuff he admitted to this year are lies he told just to confirm my suspicions, to make me stop ruminating about them. Complete mind-fuck.

Has he made the kind of real and meaningful change to his character which would make him an acceptable partner as he is today?

Yes and no. He definitely made some necessary changes, but for some changes to happen I believe we need to be in a better place. Not just for him to be more comfortable in expressing things, but also for me to be more receptive. I look at him and I still see the old guy who did and thought all those horrible things. Just a trivial example: he compliments me, and I think whether he really means it, or he’s saying that because he thinks I want to hear it. This is one of the reasons why I think the sadness needs to go asap, as I feel it is preventing me from being receptive. I used to look at him through rose-colored glasses, now it is as if I look at him through sadness-colored glasses.

Sometimes I even wonder whether I still love him. On a rational level, I know I do, but I just don’t feel it. I can’t remember when was the last time I felt that warmness that I used to feel for him all the time. Perhaps it is a negative sentiment override. I do think there are some resentment and contempt at play here, however, I analyzed my emotions, and I concluded that the primary emotion behind all of that is sadness.

I think you just don't believe in this guy yet. Maybe you're justified in that and maybe it's lingering distrust

Yes. I don’t know whether I’m justified. Perhaps he really didn’t do enough for me to start believing in him (and us), perhaps it is my sadness-colored glasses / lingering distrust. No way for me to tell until I eliminate the influence of sadness.

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@sisoon

The sadness isn't preventing R. Processing the sadness - feeling it and letting it go - is a critical and requisite part of the process of R.

I absolutely agree. The hard part for me is to identify where is the line between processing the sadness and ruminating. And of course, how to let it go.

For me there are two types of sadness in infidelity. The betrayal and dealing with the hurt forced upon us, and then the sadness of the loss. The betrayal sadness I had to work towards through processing the feelings, triggers, and letting them go. The loss is like the death of the M, this sadness will always be there but fade over time. Its like the loss of my Dad I miss him and the loss will always be there, its just not the daily struggle it was early on.

Before I chose to D, I would wake up every day and my heart would break again. It was likeci gotvto taste what life was like pre-infidelity for just a moment vandalism the I would remember. It was no way to live.

Leaving was what really began and sped up the healing process. Although I still get bouts of sadness, they never last and are usually gone after a good night's rest. And I am never sad about my EXWW, only about the life I lost (minus her).

I think I am content now. The A has changed me and I don't feel joy anymore, but I feel peace. And after everything I've been through, peace is good.

I am confused. You are sad because your WH lied and denied for years. After already betraying you, he betrayed you further. So what is your plan to respect yourself after his additional betrayal? Is it just to...accept things as they are with him? What is your boundary on this lying?

How to get rid of sadness:

1. Always respect and honor yourself by enforcing boundaries and not tolerating hurtful behavior.

2. Never seek to distract yourself (i.e. shopping, vacations, gaming) and instead choose to nurture and fulfill yourself. You are responsible for creating a life you enjoy.

For me, life worth living is the life in which I love and am loved.

So single people don't have lives worth living? Attaching your worth to someone's love is a recipe for endless sadness and hurt.

Learning who we are and what brings us joy--independent of others + learning to love and value ourselves without validation from others = true happiness, happiness that no one can ever take away.

You need a good IC to help you with this.

I was taught to let feelings go by feeling them course through my body and by not stopping outward expressions of the feelings. Crying is one good way to process grief. I know it may seem like you'll cry forever if you let yourself start to cry. You won't. You can process only so much emotion at one time. But a LOT of grief comes with being betrayed, so it takes a long time to process the feelings - but it only feels like forever. You do come to a good end.

@Tanner

Thanks, this is actually quite helpful. I like the analytical approach to sadness. It might be worth it to try to break down the sadness I feel into smaller elements which will be easier to handle and resolve, one at a time. Like that squirrel in one of my Thankful Thursday posts.

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@Justsomeguy

I’ve been following your story. Although our situations aren’t quite the same, I do see similarities which made me think whether I’d be better off alone. That is, whether that path is the only way for me to find peace. My husband asked me would I mourn our marriage if we divorce. The truth is, I wouldn’t. I would mourn the marriage / relationship I thought I have. And you can’t really lose something you never had. However, I’m not convinced that 100% of it is fake. Things are rarely black or white. I don’t think that everything we’ve built since DDay1 is false, no matter his lies about the extent of the betrayal. So, I’m not ready to throw in the towel just yet. I think we didn’t give this reconciliation thing a real shot. How could we when there were still lies about the betrayal...

Nevertheless, I’m thankful for people like you posting about their experiences. It is always good to get confirmation that there is good life on the other side! I used to think I can’t live without him. It was a huge deal for me (and for our relationship) when I stopped being afraid of losing him. It helps so much knowing and believing that, if we divorce, I will be just fine.

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@OwningItNow

If it wasn’t for my self-respect, I’d still be a betrayed girl who knows maybe 20% of the things that were going on during the betrayal. I pushed for truth for so long. In retrospect, I was probably too patient. Nevertheless, after the trickle-truth during the first half of this year I made it clear I had enough. I gave him until the end of this year to come clean about everything. He did deliver. No worries, self-respect and boundaries are not an issue here. I want to deal with sadness for my own good, no matter whether we’ll make it or break it.

So single people don't have lives worth living?

If they are anything like me, yep, they don’t have lives worth living. This is why I emphasized for me in my sentence. There is no such thing as "life worth living" objectively. Each of us decides for ourselves what is a life worth living.

Attaching your worth to someone's love is a recipe for endless sadness and hurt.
Learning who we are and what brings us joy--independent of others + learning to love and value ourselves without validation from others = true happiness, happiness that no one can ever take away.

I’m not attaching my worth to anything. I’m talking about a life worth living. In fact, the mere fact that I do respect/love/value myself, my wishes, my dreams, my ideas, my everything, I want a life in which I love and am loved. Because that is important to me. This has nothing to do with my value, it is about what I value.

You need a good IC to help you with this.

There are broadly two camps of thinking – individualistic and collectivistic. Individualistic thinking emphasizes what you are writing about – independence, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, among other things. Collectivistic thinking sees nothing wrong with dependency and reliance. Collectivistic thinking is closer to me since I believe it makes more sense evolutionary. Humans are social animals, and the ability to be interdependent (do not confuse with codependent!) is what made us so successful as a species. I see nothing wrong with being interdependent – it is normal for couples to be affected by and to need each other, to depend on each other. In that sense, I think there’s nothing wrong with me if I want/value a life in which I love and am loved.

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@sisoon

Definitely check. I’ve never held back my feelings.

There are broadly two camps of thinking – individualistic and collectivistic. Individualistic thinking emphasizes what you are writing about – independence, self-reliance, self-sufficiency, among other things. Collectivistic thinking sees nothing wrong with dependency and reliance. Collectivistic thinking is closer to me since I believe it makes more sense evolutionary. Humans are social animals, and the ability to be interdependent (do not confuse with codependent!) is what made us so successful as a species. I see nothing wrong with being interdependent – it is normal for couples to be affected by and to need each other, to depend on each other. In that sense, I think there’s nothing wrong with me if I want/value a life in which I love and am loved.

There's nothing wrong with wanting to love and be loved. That's obvious. But you appear to be basing your system of romantic beliefs on emotional dependency and surely you can see that it MUST eventually fail. Even if your WH was a perfect specimen, we can't live our lives for other people. We can't help it that we get sick, get old, and that we die. If your model is two halves making up a whole, how can you be whole if your other half won't hold up his end, if he flakes or otherwise falls away?

We're not talking about species survival here. We're talking about sustained levels of contentment and joy in a modern world. If your view is that happiness means two interlocked halves equal one whole, you're always at the utter mercy of the other half, the half that you have only the illusion of control over. OTOH, if you are complete and whole within yourself, you are free to simply enjoy being with someone who reciprocates the love and care you'd like to have in your life. It's two wholes working together in harmony.

Maybe the place to start would be challenging your earlier perceptions and seeing what still makes sense after what you've learned about your mate. I can say quite honestly that I had no inkling that so much of what I had held as unassailable truth wouldn't hold water for me today.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 8:57 PM, Saturday, November 19th]

I had a fantasy of perfection that masked the reality of my life.

I wanted to be in love until my last breath. To my one and only person. I thought that was the best love. The others not as good.

Romantic Love feels great but it's not everything. There's love of all kinds. You can show love in so many ways. What's important is to stay open to goodness wherever it comes. Don't limit yourself. Life is an adventure.