SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello,

so this is my first post. I'm a wayward who has life-long mental health issues pretty much that have caused me to self-isolate and maladaptively daydream and I'm also prone to passive suicidal ideation.

I'm usually very passive but I suppose in 2022 I started engaging in unhealthy sexual behaviors that I can't really mention here after a lifetime of pushing my sexuality aside and in 2023 I started talking to men online without really thinking I could get into a relationship, I was just going crazy from loneliness.

I started two relationships at the same time, one with my now husband whom I lied to and promised exclusivity to and the other with my AP whom I told about my BP. I met my AP towards the end of the year and stopped talking to the AP almost completely around that time. I felt guilty and after some prompting told my BP about the affair 13 months ago. Objectively our relationship wasn't salvagable, I wasn't ready, there was nothing holding us together after essentially just one date but we decided to get married a couple months ago.

The thing is I was passive for most of our relationship and reconciliation, I started feeling more and more broken as more and more trauma piled up on me. A lot of the time I feel dead inside, all of my passion, all of my drive, all of the convictions and my faith are all gone. I feel like I'm a burden on my BP because I rarely feel well. It's heartbreaking to lose all this time as newlyweds to reconciliation troubles and trauma and I just need to get out of this cycle somehow.

Thank you for reading

Are you in or have you tried therapy?

Do you feel your depression is situational or chemical? Are you on meds?

If it’s situational is it the shame of the affair you are having issues processing? You have a great outline of events but can you give a little more background on your mental state? And what have you done already (if anything) to address it? This may help us suggest new things.

I know I didn't write a lot of details. To answer the questions:

I was in therapy umtil recently but currently I have no access, I'm not on meds and haven't been for years. I don't know if I even have depression. I have an autism diagnosis but both my BP and I question it. I've been molested as a pre-teen to young teen by a family member and my BP claims what I have is CPTSD.

While I was cheating I felt great and I know that sounds horrible but I never had much fun in my life and I liked all the attention. But after the affair ended the guilt kicked in and then the confession happened because my BP confessed some stuff to me. He never thought I'd confess cheating back, he completely trusted me. And I just kept trickle truthing and blame-shifting for months because I kept thinking he was being too harsh. I didn't understand just how much damage I'd caused. Finally understanding it caused some kind of shock in me, I think.

Since then, I've been declining in a lot of ways, giving up practicing my religion which Was really important to me, avoiding people again, I have no ambitions anymore. I also have memory issues regarding all kinds of times even very recent events. I generally think a lot less of people now including BP and myself. I don't know if that's signs of depression or shame spiralling. I don't enjoy being with my BP nearly as much as I used to and that's the worst thing out of all the changes.

I can't think of much else to write

Shame is a hard thing to deal with.

I am a CSA survivor as well. Multiple offenders, separate instances. I also grew up in a dysfunctional home with emotionally abusive mother and sister. And a quiet, detached alcoholic father.

Guilt is healthy in the way of "I feel badly I did that". It can precipitate us to change.

Remorse is also healthy because then we can have empathy towards the other person and work towards amends.

The problem with shame is it’s a moral judgement on ourselves. Where guilt says "I did a bad thing", shame says "I am bad" and then it accumulates from all the situations moving forward from thinking that.

So as someone who also suffered CSA, I never felt like I had any true innocence. I was sexually precocious from the time I was five and by the time I was a pre-teen I was obsessed with sex and that led me down a path of promiscuity at times. When I married my first husband I felt safe with him because he didn’t seem interested in me for sexual reasons, it was a great friendship. But then I divorced him because he didn’t seem interested in me sexually after we got married and getting him to have sex once a month was like I was molesting him. We divorced when I was 21 years old.

I went into the darkest time of my life at that time and did a lot of things like sexting online (it was different then we had AOL dial up in those days and the internet was just growing rampantly in the world of chat rooms.)

Anyway, I did a lot of things back then too. And I felt this depression of it wasn’t worthwhile to live, I felt I had ruined my entire life. And it was so hard to get out of that negative spin. It never really manifested that same way after I got myself together but later in life, I got in that same headspace and acted out by having an affair. And all those feelings came back on steroids. I masked it instead of learning to love myself. And here I sit at going in fifty and have just now learned to truly love myself and how to process those feelings.

I shared all that because I have mostly had a great adult life despite these struggles and you can too. I have a wonderful husband who I believe we were meant to love each other in this life. My kids are all awesome, successful adults. I have had great success in my career. And have gotten to do a lot of really epic things that I never could have even dreamed of as that messed up feeling young woman.

What I am saying is this: you are worth loving yourself. And I think that you can’t be happy around your husband because of the shame you feel for what you have done. I mentioned remorse at the beginning of this post. It’s hard for that to coexist with shame.

So what you need to do is stay calm and try and be present in whatever you do. Remind yourself that you are safe. Humming can help because it’s known to sooth your nervous system. There are some great videos online about using tapping to release feelings. Find things that help you stay in the present by learning to self soothe as much as possible.

A book that helped me was "Power of Now" by Eckhardt Tolle. He helped me see our thoughts lie to us and how to get mindful over them so you can slowly change them. He also has some great podcasts.

The fact you are here, trying to help yourself is a great sign. We are all made of dark and light, we have all acted on our worst instincts. We have all made bad decisions. What matters now is you keep reaching for the next right/best choice. To slowly climb out of our hiding place and become the person we wish we could be.

For me those initial steps were basic- move your body, spend time in nature, try and eat and sleep well, and find things online about self soothing, coping, because you need basic strategies to start. Depending on where you live you have also just been through the most depressing season there is- winter- and a lot of us had a hard one.

Keep writing here. I will watch for you and help with what I can. Obviously it would be better if you could see professionals, but I do understand it’s not always possible to do that.

[This message edited by hikingout at 6:36 PM, Wednesday, March 12th]

Welcome to SI.

hikingout is a terrific mentor and I support her advice.

My first instinct is to recommend that you find something that allows you a mental reprieve from thinking about the A all the time and that brings you some joy. Reading for pleasure, a hobby, baking, caring for plants, game nights with friends, volunteering, leisurely walks in beautiful places. Resuming practicing your religion. You deserve joy, and it will help in your recovery.

Thanks sister- and I think that is a perfect addition. Having outlets are hard to want to do but if you persist and do them and try and be present in them, it’s crucial!