SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I live with a feeling that something is being hidden from me all the time.

I always triple check and try to catch my fwh in a lie…. I haven’t caught him.

But I live like I will and I just want to catch it before I’m blindsided.

All the lying….all the steps taken by both parties to lie to me…..I’m just so doubtful and untrusting. I don’t think I could trust someone new either. It’s been 3 years now and none of my surveillance has found anything. Still I live waiting for the other shoe to drop.

I hate it here.

Will I ever be free?

[This message edited by Howcthappen at 1:38 PM, Monday, January 30th]

Sorry to hear you’re still struggling. Have you done any therapy post dday? What actions is your WH taking to reassure you of his commitment beyond devices transparency?

I’d start looking into that first. I know that I’ve spent close to two years being obsessed with WH’s phone, location etc. In this time though not only did he not complain about it, but jumped on the "crazy wagon" with me and went a few steps further to reassure me, he used to send me pictures from meetings, screenshot his diary every day so I know what meetings he had, never miss a call from me (he disclosed the issues we had to his line manager to ensure he had his support), once he had to stay and work overtime and called me on FaceTime and kept me on that call so I can see it was genuine, all in all he always thought of ways to be extra transparent without me feeling like I had to dig.

What made a real difference though were real life commitments such as going to therapy himself, financial joint commitments, financial transparency, high impact actions that nobody would take unless they plan to remain married and he would only remain married if he stayed faithful. (He ditched his car and got a low key one, we bought a property together).

Meanwhile I’ve done therapy for about 3 years too which helped me grow, realise what I’m really made of and my true value.

I’m not saying that I never check anything anymore, I’m saying that it is quite rare and I don’t live my life in fear of another affair, I know that if it would be to happen I’d be fine and I also believe I have seen demonstrable growth in WH, has more depth now, which would make another affair unlikely to happen.

snap!

I feel like that at times. Im near 6 years out. But that could mean nothing. So many people on here have returned on SI where their spouse has re-affaired. I know hes not having an A but i feel like I need to look at all his communication devices whether its a work phone or laptop or his personal phone. He works from home most days so i shouldnt worry right? He had a 6 month A with co worker. New job as soon as A was discovered. I was blindsided like everyone usually is. Did not track him at all. Did not think i had to. Did not want to. Im no psycho so why would i have been tracking him. I worked 5 days a week 50+ hours of work including dealing with Admin and marking. Busy teacher busy life.

I thought we were making a life for each other. Saving for retirement and enjoy life as we go along. We didnt have children at the time...couldnt..It was me and him against the world. Now it is me against the world. Yes i chose to stay with him. Yes he is doing everything possible to make me feel safe, love and adored and Yes I love him. But no I dont blindly trust him anymore. I feel like im the psycho creep now that has to keep an eye on him. I dont want to be but he effed me over so I kinda have to be. Heres hoping that I come to a point in life where I dont give a sh1t and I decide to live my life to the fullest without feeling like i gotta watch his every move.

He recently got a huge promotion at work and now he will need to go to the office more. Thats kinda ticked me over. He will be managing a team and he will have his own secretary. Mind movies especially looking at the real lives of people whose spouse had an A with secretary. I never used to think about these real lives affected by an A. Now it constantly triggers me even the slightest bit and especially watching these seasons or movies on netflix. Every single one of them seem to have some kind of infidelity in them and usually at work with a co worker.

So going back to your question 'will I ever be free?'. Probably not. The real question you need to be asking yourself is...Can you live knowing that you will never be free from all this?

All I know is that I gotta try however long that may be and give it this one more last chance.

I should add. I did this pooh pathology test thats gone viral. Thought i would check it out. You can just google search it. I did it because clearly i have nothing else going in my life

Anyway, the results came back that I am the piglet character (Anxiety). "Anxious people, like piglet, often feel scared and unsure in the world.Reassurance feels safer. Piglet finds safety in the company of his friends and you can find peace and calm by building close relationships".

Guess that sums me up. Pre A discovery I know I would definitely not be the anxiety filled piglet. Great

FYI

He has been doing the work. I just know how much he lied to me so it’s really difficult.

What I think people don’t understand is that my husband never stopped being attentive to me our sex life was great no money issues ….nothing but a few times he seemed irritable and dissatisfied and got extra angry

Because he was able to "act" like nothing nefarious was going on and because he was attentive to me while cheating makes it hard for me to attribute his good treatment and demeanor to him being more trustworthy.

I wonder if he will never be able to make me feel comfortable again.

[This message edited by Howcthappen at 5:48 PM, Monday, January 30th]

Why does he say he cheated?

He definitely needs to show you how he is a safer partner now. His anger or esteem or whatever issues he leaned into to justify his poor choices have to be addressed.

What is he doing to earn some level of trust?

To break free, my first breakthrough was understanding my value. How awesome I am with or without this person. In other words, letting go of the outcome of the M.

I checked and played detective until I was strong enough to realize the only thing I can control is my response to this adversity. I will never be able to control another person to make them be 100 percent safe.

WS needs to earn trust via changes and consistent actions and you have to get your feet black underneath you.

That’s essence of it, the actual work takes time.

Eventually, I saw enough work from my wife, I stopped playing detective when I knew I’d be great regardless of my relationship.

Hellfire-

I was gone for a year and I was not always available by phone without reason….he says he was feeling like he hadn’t accomplished all that he wanted and he was approaching his 50th birthday. High stress job, no wife to counter the daily grind. I am a very affectionate person and he eats it up…… however it was a complete drought for weeks at a time—-he worked out at the office building health club to fill time and she started paying him attention. 🤷🏽‍♀️🤷🏽‍♀️

Ego kibbles were like crack cocaine. Grabbing the shoulder looking at him like he was the second comingg- so midlife crisis textbook bs.

She was 51, desperate, lonely, never been married, a serial OW…. Had been jilted the 18 months prior very low self esteem

My husband was the same as yours Hocthappen. Knowing what I know now, I suppose there were a few signs but nothing that stuck out to me at the time. I trusted him. I believed in us. I thought things were good. It meant I was totally and utterly blindsided on D-day. One of the biggest mindf*cks of the whole thing for me was not just being unable to trust him, but feeling like I was unable to trust myself either.

I did the same thing you did for a while too. The constant hypervigilance is exhausting and distressing. My husband didn't object to my checking but I know it did make him sad sometimes. It made me sad too. None of it feels good.

Hypervigilance is a symptom of trauma and infidelity is certainly traumatic. The fact that you're experiencing such a high degree of hypervigilance years later though (in the absence of a continued threat - it sounds like your spouse is doing the right things) makes me wonder if you're experiencing either PTSD or CPTSD. Both are very common following infidelity trauma. I would recommend seeking out a therapist experienced with CBT (cognitive behavioural therapy) or EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy. Both have shown clinical effectiveness in treating the negative thought processes that you are struggling with.

There is no shame at all in needing help.

I was in the same situation, totally blindsided. We didn’t have money problems (when I mentioned financial commitments I’m talking about an additional property post dday), WH spent ALL his free time with me (affair was work only during office hours). In fact when I told my BF that I caught him cheated she said "when?! You’re always together, he always says he’s happily married, he never wants to spend time away from his family and he’s a really good dad".

However IC brought to life the fact that WH was conflict avoidant. He built resentment in the background rather than bringing anything that bothered him up for discussion. Which meant that when someone sent a signal that she’s attracted to him, he gave himself permission to cheat because "I’m entitled to it working so hard and my wife doesn’t appreciate it anyway". It is even more complicated than this but this is one of the things he discovered about himself.

Everything that he discovered in IC checked back to what I knew and the fact that he now is changed beings some safety back into our marriage. 100% trust will never return but I’m fine with that, I shouldn’t have offered that in the first place.

My WH not only lied but continued to lie for another 4 months post dday. I’m talking traumatising shit where he and the AP corroborated their story to gaslight me several times. My IC diagnosed me with severe ptsd post dday 2.

However safety will not come from knowing your WH will never cheat again. Safety comes from knowing that if he does you’ll be ok. And a good IC can support you through that process of focusing on your healing and feeling that you are your own safety net.

[This message edited by Luna10 at 6:39 PM, Monday, January 30th]

I don't know the answer but I feel for you. I livein that same world.