SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Never thought I would find myself here. I didn't even know these types of online communities existed until last week. But here I am.

I (BW, 48) found out on June 25 that my husband (WS, 47) of 15 years, my exclusive partner for 26 years and father of our 14 yo daughter, was cheating on me when I woke up to a barrage of texts blowing up his iPad at 5:30 a.m. I knew he was out late the night before -- with the guys, I thought -- and thought at first the texts were coming into my phone, that he was out somewhere and needed help. Once I saw my phone screen was black, I looked at his iPad beside his side of the bed and saw the messages rolling in -- "I don't think I can do this anymore" -- "I didn't even get a hug or a kiss goodnight."

WH walked in the front door a couple minutes later as I was getting dressed. Immediately copped to it when he saw my face. Said he was with her every weekend night, and a couple of weeknights, for about 8 weeks (since late April). She was a former coworker of his, 22 years younger than me and literally young enough to be our daughter. Claimed it was all sex and alcohol and no feelings and that it was over - that he cut all ties with her literally that night before coming home, and it was just a terrible coincidence that I happened to see her messages blowing up his phone after he left her house to drive home. Insists up and down that a couple of weeks into the affair he realized he'd made an enormous mistake, which ultimately resulted in him cutting all ties with her at the end of 2 months to return to our relationship and try to work to save our marriage.

WH and I both have FB accounts with lots of mutual friends, but WH also has an Instagram account; I do not. 3 weeks after DDay, I remember his Insta account and take a look at his posts during the past few months. Quickly found one dated a week after DDay, reading "Just lost something precious. I'm so fucking sad. But I hope they will remember me as I will remember them." Asked WH about the post after I could stop hyperventilating over it. He admits it wasn't just sex, that he liked her "enough to give me pause," and that the affair went on as long as it did because he was trying to figure out why he cheated, whether he still loved me, and whether he could return to the marriage 100% committed. He claims to have gone through this thought process while with her, and that he's now entirely recommitted and more strongly committed than before to our marriage. He claims never to have cheated before, and I previously would have had no reason to disbelieve that, but who really knows.

It's been almost 6 weeks now since DDay, and I'm just gutted. Confused. Feeling worthless and alone. I've been with my husband my entire adult life, since we were both 22, and I have no desire to be with anyone else, now or ever. Either we try to R, or I go it alone with my daughter (who is terrified of WH & me getting divorced, btw). WH since DDay has been making a tremendous effort to show his sincerity in wanting to R, including going completely NC with AP, starting MC and agreeing to begin IC, but I just feel so hurt, betrayed and rejected by him and I don't know if I have it in me to really commit to MC myself, or to want to stay in this marriage at all. I'd rather be alone than in a mockery of a marriage.

How do you make the pain subside? How do I decide what the hell to do next?

Welcome to SI Stranger81

What you are feeling is to be expected. Please read the pinned topics above and the healing library. Infidelity is the worst thing I've ever experienced. It is very traumatic and requires time to heal. None of this is your fault, no matter what excuses or blame he places on you, he cheated on you.

He admits it wasn't just sex, that he liked her "enough to give me pause," and that the affair went on as long as it did because he was trying to figure out why he cheated, whether he still loved me, and whether he could return to the marriage 100% committed. He claims to have gone through this thought process while with her, and that he's now entirely recommitted and more strongly committed than before to our marriage.

I'm sorry but this is strait from the "cheaters handbook". It's wayward bullshit "while I cheated, I was trying to figure out if I wanted to keep her on the side or commit fully to the M". "Now that I'm caught I'm committed to you". He's not and was not committed to you or the M.

R would require several things, 1 send a NC to her with you present and stay NC. STD testing, full written timeline, full disclosure, no defensiveness just to get started.

Welcome to SI you have a safe place here.

Hi Stranger81

So sorry that you find yourself in this situation but very glad you have found your way here. I am a relative newcomer myself being only 3 months past Dday but can honestly say that this website has been such a lifeline during this time, and the advice although sometimes souding harsh will be correct.

If you have not done so please read the Tactical Primer (at the top of this forum) and read about the 180. I found both these articles to be very helpful and totally accurate.

Finally you need to give yourself time to process what has happened and decide what to do next in the best interests of you and your daughter. I was so glad I did not make an instant decision (despite the advice of friends) and gave myself time to try and work out what was best for me.

Post as often as you need and you will get support from members, personally I found it helpful to understand that I was not alone or unique in this situation, and that many others have gone through the same feelings.

Best wishes for your situation.

Hi stranger81,

I'm so sorry you are going through this. Being betrayed and finding out that a person you loved and trusted is capable of deep deception and selfish choices at that level is gutting. You have found a supportive community here.

He admits it wasn't just sex, that he liked her "enough to give me pause," and that the affair went on as long as it did because he was trying to figure out why he cheated, whether he still loved me, and whether he could return to the marriage 100% committed

Please don't let his waffling to be committed to you confuse you.

YOU are the prize here.
You should not compete for his love.

He is the flawed partner who decided to flirt and intensify that flirting into an emotional and sexual affair. He is the one, who after 26 years, thinks its okay to keep "auditioning" girlfriends. He is the one who is confusing infatuation with love. He is the one who is able to fool himself into believing that a relationship with a girl who could he his daughter might have actually worked out in the longterm.

He has done all of this behind your back.

As a person who is capable of such selfish and destructive choices and who is so incapable of more empathy, he is deeply flawed.

This is not about you being lacking. This is about him trying to fill holes in his own soul in very damaging ways. This is about him lacking integrity and boundaries.

So, definitely take a pause and reflect on whether or not YOU are willing to try to give R a chance.

If you are, he has a lot of work to do.

Consider putting a pause on MC and just doing IC for both of you. You need support from someone who specializes in betrayal trauma, and your WH needs to do a deep dive into why he is still auditioning partners 26 years into a committed relationship, why he is so desperate for an ego boost, and why he avoids being truthful.

Focus on care and kindness for yourself.

In our lives we juggle a lot of balls in the air. I remember having to practice a lot of forgiveness for myself in those early weeks while I struggled to just do the bare minimum. I was in emotional and mental survival mode for quite a while. I did a lot of mindfulness and just being kind to myself.

You are supported here. Keep posting.

sorry to have to join the best club that you never wanted to be part of.

This is a HUGE Trauma, and it takes a long long time to recover from this and it takes a lot to heal ourselves. First steps for you should include a trip to your Dr for full STD testing which is a pelvic and blood work. Also covering your trauma response, unable to eat, unable to sleep caught in fight/flight response. Meds may be needed. Sleep is essential. If you are not eating or sleeping that makes everything worse 10 fold. If you can't eat get protein shakes and make sure you choke 2 down a day. Getting good sleep is essential to clear thinking.
Ask your Dr for a referral to a trauma therapist.

See an attorney learn your rights, understand his obligations, and what D & S looks like for you. Understanding what your options are will help you decide what you need. What are your boundaries. You probably don't know what those are yet, but what are your hard lines in the sand. What would he have to do to make you walk. Start there. Journal Make lists.

Check out the healing library here it will help you understand the level of trauma you have been subjected too. It will make you feel not so alone and crazy. Keep reading and posting here.

Hi there, Stranger.

Welcome, you are among friends here. We have all felt the incredible pain of betrayal and we are hear to listen and understand. All of us are at different points in our journey and have different perspectives to offer. Your husband's affair is so incredibly textbook. As you work through the process (it very much is a process with the average person taking 2-5+ years to feel somewhat "normal" again), you can share your thoughts and fears and there is no other group that validate, relate, and commiserate like this group here.

Many people experience the stages of grief; I know I did. You will search for answers and understanding. "How could my person do this?" And sa he desperately tries to piece back your relationship and get you to forgive and go back to normal, he may offer all kind of "reasons". He may even blame you, what you did or didn't do. It really boils down to one thing: he wanted to. He received external validation and the O(ther) W(oman) was convenient. Your relationship with him was comfortable and safe and predictable. She stroked his ego and "made him feel alive". He got swept away and prioritized his impulses over you and your daughter. In my opinion, one of the most important things to internalize is this had NOTHING to do with you. The most beautiful, richest and smartest among us have been cheated on. Melinda Gates, Beyonce', Gwen Stefani, MacKenzie Scott, freaking SHAKIRA -- have ALL been cheated on. It is because their insecure men prioritized getting their ego stroked over protecting their family. YOU ARE THE PRIZE HERE. You are a loyal woman who prioritizes her family every single time. If there is any chance at reconciliation, your W(ayward) H(usband) will need to figure out how he could possibly throw away his wife and daughter for a couple of cheap ego strokes, an illusion.

Your husband has a lot of work to do. He needs to do all that work regardless on whether you and he reconcile. It sucks, but you now have a lot of work to do too. That really is the major injustice of this all. He hurts you and now you are going to have to take painful action steps to heal. I think of it in phases. You are in the emergent phase. The initial discovery phase where the ground has dropped out from underneath you and you are having physiological symptoms that are interfering with your day to day life. You need to work on getting those under control. These are the things that I did that really made a difference:

-Abstain from alcohol. It is tempting to try to use it to distract or drown your pain. It makes it worse and you will need to feel the feelings to get to the other side. Drinking only extends it.
-Get in IRL (in real life) support. Tell a trusted friend what is going on.
-Drink water. Eat food. If you can't manage actual food, drink a protein shake. If you are dehydrated or malnourished, you will not have the wherewithal to take on the difficult steps needed to heal.
-Visit your GP, tell them what is going on. This was embarrassing and hard for me to do, I was 20 weeks pregnant on my first dday. My doctor was able to test me for STDs, prescribe me with antidepressants and sleep aids. It made all the difference in the world.
-Find a therapist. This was a life saver. It was especially helpful because I would relate conversations between my WH and me and she would be able to point out things that I didn't realize.
-Get some space from your husband. As he realizes how he has massively effed up his life, he will automatically start to try to manipulate you to get you to stay put. Love bombing, apologies, grand gestures, some even threaten their owns lives in an attempt for you to not leave them. This is them putting their needs above yours and makes it difficult for you to process. Ask him to stay with a family member or a friend so that you can gain some clarity about your recent past and what you want for the future.
-See a lawyer to see what your life would look like if your do split up. This does not mean you are going to divorce. However, fear drives our behavior and causes us to endure terrible situations. Knowledge is the antidote to fear. See a lawyer to gain knowledge.

It is a wild rollercoaster ride, you will feel all over the place. That is OK. That is normal. You WILL be okay...eventually. It won't be tomorrow and it probably won't even be 6 months from now. But if every day you take an active role in your healing, you WILL BE OKAY. At this point, your husband is somewhat irrelevant, he has his own work to do. Maybe you will reconcile, maybe you won't. It is really hard to say at this point. You can't even tell if your WH is a good candidate (SPOILER ALERT: most WHs are not good candidates) or not. Your focus at this moment needs to be extreme self care (and your daughter obviously).

I'll tell you that I am at the tail end of my divorce. I had a "soft" dday in Oct 2017 and another one in January 2018 (I had been told but I allowed myself to believe my husband's bullshit) with the final confirmation in May 2020. I just now started the divorce process in May 2023. My husband's infidelity turned out to be part of a pattern of prioritizing his own impulses and did not seem to have it in him to make the hard changes necessary to become a safe partner. This has been a long, painful process for me, but now I am a really strong person who can see bullshit from miles away. I really like who I am now and I consider myself healed. I am okay now. You will be okay too.

Please continue to post and share -- we are here for you! Also, while there is a section for waywards, I would recommend keeping this site to yourself. I think giving him access to your thoughts and fears and then to our responses would give him better fodder for manipulation. One day this will all just be a shitty memory. I am rooting for you!

Welcome to SI and so sorry you had to find us. You've gotten some really good advice. The Healing Library has a lot of great information, including the list of acronyms we use.

Forgetting to grab a gallon of milk at the store is a mistake. An A is thousands of conscious decisions to betray you, and then tack on all the lies.

How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair by Linda MacDonald is a primer that your WH can use. It's a little over 100 pages, but is so informative.

Welcome, and like everyone else who has responded, I'm sorry we had to "meet" this way. As I don't have a lot of time right now, my short advice is this:

1. Don't bother with a NC letter if you have to ask more than once. Forcing your WS to send a NC letter/voicemail/whatever to the AP is worthless. Ask him one time if he has sent anything you can read re NC already. If he has, and you read it, there is zero reason for him to send another. If he has not, ask, tell him you want to see it or want to be present for it and see if he does.

2. If your WH can move out temporarily for awhile, have him do it. Even if its a weekend. Have him go stay somewhere that he has to be accountable for his actions - with family or friends. And let them know why he is staying there. You need a moment for yourself - trust me. This doesn't mean to ignore him if he tries to contact you. It is to give you a little space to breathe.

3. Talk to a lawyer to see what your situation would be if you divorce financially and otherwise. This is informational only so you have all the information you need to make a plan for yourself in the event you decide to split/divorce.

4. I have a rather unconventional feeling about staying "for" the kids. As a child whose parents who ultimately divorced (my mom had an A with a married man and got pregnant), the best thing my parents did for us was split up physically. While I am 100% sure my parents had many a conversation about the demise of their marriage (they tried to work it out for awhile) it was not in our earshot. While the initial break up was hard, it was like ripping off the bandaid. When they were physically together the tension was so thick in our out - it was very stressful. I was under 12 when all this went down and I still remember how it felt during those times.

You have received all kinds of info - take what you want and ignore the rest. This time (for me) that you are going thought was just insane for me - I had a very hard time concentrating on anything. My WH also said it was just sex until I saw all the I love yous and what not - then he admitted it was a lot more emotional than he every let on - I was crushed, but here I stand now, just fine. You will get there, but unfortunately it will take time.

I've been around SI a long time, and I learned from the best - one of whom was tushnurse, who responded above.

R is eminently possible. It doesn't require forgiveness. It does require your H to change form cheater to good partner; that's a LOT more IC than MC. It's almost all IC.

You have a lot of work to do, too. IMO, your work is mainly about processing the anger, grief, fear, and shame - feelings that come with being betrayed - out of your body. The thing is: being betrayed brings up every bad feeling you've ever felt, and people often have a hard time doing that work, so you have to get through the barriers to processing feelings while you have to process the damned feelings themselves.

So don't be surprised if you want the help of a good IC, too.
*****

We used to talk here about requirements for R; that was years ago. The outline used to be:

NC - no contact
Transparency - WS keeps BS informed of location, companions, and activities at virtually all time; BS has access to WS's media (computer, phone) at all times

Honesty - answers all questions truthfully, no more lies

IC for WS - almost universally accepted as a requirement by BSes here

IC for BS - if/when BS wants it

MC - controversial - some BSes argue MC only after IC has taken hold; others argue a good MC is useful earlier. A 'good MC' deals with the BS's thoughts and feelings about the A before anything else and places responsibility for the A on the WS, not on the M or any supposed 'unmet need'.

Other requirements as negotiated - date nights, sex, chores, etc.

I based my thinking about R on those requirements because I thought they were great.

If your WS will sign on to meet those requirements, he might be a good candidate for R.

*****

The biggest question, though, is: what do you want?