SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I think most of us wish there was a handbook on how to navigate infidelity (I know I do). I understand and appreciate how unique we all are … with different emotions, ways of approaching life, etc.

For those that have made it out of infidelity and onto "the other side" … what did you
,your spouse and your M look like every step of the way? What was it like to experience that initial shock and the immediate aftermath that first year after discovery, what did year 2,3,4,5,6+ look like, how did you feel along the way, what mistakes did you make, any regrets about your choices, are you happy with how you handled things overall, what were your accomplishments during this time, if you could go back anywhere along your journey would you change anything, etc?

I would love to hear especially those who R’d, but I always welcome to hear those who come from the D side of things.

I know I’m asking a lot, but I’m interested in a detailed "play by play" of your journey if anyone has the time or is willing to share.

Great idea!

I got married young. I was 20 and he was 21. I married him because he adored me and was my KISA, and because I was craving connection and security.

Year 1: I got pregnant almost immediately after our wedding after we had planned on waiting at least five years. It truly was my mistake. He wanted to stop and I told him it was fine. It wasn't fine. Instead of getting out of the military like we had planned, he had to reenlist. He was mad, scared, and he didn't trust me. He thought I did it on purpose. He abandoned me emotionally and I was left to navigate the pregnancy and birth of our child practically alone while he acted like a petulant teenager.

Year 2: He had a ONS while we were apart. Then he got sent to Desert Storm before we were reunited. We were apart for almost a year. When he returned, I thought his weirdness was due to war PTSD. It was, but it was also guilt. He asked me for a D. I begged him to reconsider. He changed his mind.

Years 3-5 Things were pretty decent during this time and seemed okay.

Year 6: He got out of the military and we moved home. He asked again for a D, out of the blue. I told him to knock it off. We had another baby, planned this time. Because a baby fixes everything, right?

Years 7-10 We bought a house and seemed to have a pretty good life. The internet came along, and he started using porn and AOL chat rooms. He found a woman who was interested in NSA sex and he would sneak out of the house to meet her in the middle of the night. I had no clue. He'd tell me that he couldn't sleep and went for drives to clear his mind. This went on for about a year. During this time, I was diagnosed with trichomoniasis, an STD. I gaslit myself into believing that it had lain dormant since before we were married or that it had been contracted outside of sex, which is possible, but very unlikely. I don't know if it's something that they test for in pregnancy, but it being something he had recently caught and passed along to me didn't align with my "reality", so I dismissed it.

Years 11-13: Pretty much going through the motions, rearing children, I thought everything was fine. He was spending a lot of time in his "secret sexual basement".

Year 14: I had a sexually-charged EA with the next door neighbor, H's best friend, that H knew about in real time. H pushed me to make it a PA with the condition that he could then have an A of his own. This was to assuage his guilt, I'm sure. I didn't. EA ended.

Year 15: H began his A with COW. Things REALLY began to deteriorate. I thought he was having a midlife crisis. We started MC, which he intended as a means to get out of the marriage. It had the opposite effect. We were doing good work, I was owning most of the problems in the marriage and he was letting me do that. I thought I was a bad wife. Looking back now, I know that I had withdrawn a lot because I couldn't trust him because he had hurt me so badly in the beginning of our marriage. My distance was a protective response to HIS distance.

Year 16: DDay. He confessed to all three As because he couldn't stand living the lie. We separated at my request because he wouldn't end his current A. A month later, he did and we began R. We were both all in. We worked hard. We did tons of MC and we enjoyed it. We bonded hysterically for a year.

Year 17: I was diagnosed with genital herpes and had a pretty terrible initial outbreak. I'm grateful that the diagnosis happened then, when we were already working so hard and had made such great strides. I was horrified, of course, but pragmatic. It's not curable so I worked pretty hard to come to terms with it, with the help of our MC.

Years 18-28 Life was pretty good. We "graduated" from MC. Promotions, bigger house, kids grew up and moved out.

Year 29: We moved H's mom in with us because she was in bad health and we thought she probably didn't have much time left. (We were wrong. She's still kicking.)

Years 30-35 H's emotional health deteriorated as childhood CPTSD surfaced. He acted out by spending too much money on a hot rod and drinking. That's what brought me back here. I consider it financial infidelity because of "excessive expenditures without notifying the other partner". We had to refi our house to pay off the credit card debt, which has caused us to go from a comfortable lifestyle to penny-pinching. We asked mom to move out. We moved my mom in. We have NEVER been alone for longer than a couple of months for our whole marriage.

Years 36-37: The absolute best of our marriage. We did a couple of sessions of MC and realized that we're beyond that. We know what we're doing. We also did a little IC. I'm realizing that I have ADHD and sensory issues that have affected our intimacy. Cannabis helps a LOT with that. Our connection is deep and real and honest. And fun. We're having a lot of fun. Our kids are grown and detaching from us, so they're being decentered. It's an adjustment, but a good one. We're excited about the next chapter.

My mistakes:

Gaslighting myself for the first 16 years, but I wasn't equipped to do anything else, so I don't beat myself up about it anymore.

Doing the pick-me dance before DDay, before I knew what was going on.

Not setting myself up to be financially independent, which caused a lot of fear and affected my decisions.

My triumphs:

Demanding that he move out when he wouldn't end the A, while still reassuring him that what I wanted was R. For our dynamic, this made all the difference.

Focusing on myself during recovery. I took a writing class. I did a lot of self-help work. I played roller derby for five years, which made me feel like a total badass; I was surrounded by strong, strong women. I found a solid group of good women friends.

If I could go back to the very beginning knowing what I know now, I'd change a lot of things. But that's impossible and I'm happy with how things turned out. They led me here and life is good.

[This message edited by SacredSoul33 at 10:01 PM, Wednesday, March 12th]

While I think the behaviors driving infidelity are remarkably similar, I think that the path to recovery is a very individual thing.

My playbook was helped by finding this website 3-weeks after discovery, a large pile of books on relationships and an MC, who turned out be a BS like me (although he didn’t tell us that until much later).

The first three months were pure shock and awe, even with some information from here and other places.

Infidelity happened to other people.

We didn’t tell our closest friends, the A happened when we lived in a different state. To this day, most people who have been lifetime friends with her think she is as pure as the driven snow. I’m good with their perceptions, my wife is a great human being who failed and fell a long way during her A.

The next 3-6 months were anger and pain. The first year ended with me feeling quite numb.

Somewhere in year two, I concluded the pain was going to be too much and being married to the biggest trigger to my pain wasn’t helping. My wife understood and we started packing things up and agreed to throw in the proverbial towel.

For whatever reason, we kept being kind to each other.

That was the big turn.

I realized I was good, regardless of my marriage status.

We went into one good day at a time mode — and started trying to string as many as we could together and started over again if we had a tough day.

Year three was seeing if we could shift the focus to the present, to focus on who we were becoming versus staying in trauma mode.

Year four, the pandemic hit and we were trapped together 24/7 — and we simply supported each other every day. It turned out to be good for us to spend so much time together.

I think part of our playbook is, whenever I have a question about the past or the A, I ask it. We dropped the masks, the games and we’re finally very honest with each other. If I get hit with a bad memory or dream, I share it. If I have a bad day, I never pretend it’s a good day.

I process every bit of sadness or anger that hits me regarding the past. I don’t bury anything.

We support each other on tough days and celebrate the good ones.

Years 5-8 were all about building on the M, overcoming what most folks don’t — I understand divorce as option that is always available. My family has utilized the D quite a bit, my mom has divorced a couple of times, two of my brothers have divorced, one of them a third time (all had infidelity involved one side or the other).

It will be 9-years after dday in June, and our M has never been better.

As I often say, I’ll always hate the A, I’ll never be glad we had to rebuild, and it is a scar I’ll always have.

I will also add, consistent kindness and care, by both people, really adds up. We both needed healing in very different ways, but we needed it.

Overcoming the horror show is not recommended, and yet, it is possible.

A better M a better friendship, worthy of both of us happens every day we wake up and choose each other.

My first two year play-by-play is sort of in my profile.

The three year update is in the healing library.

https://survivinginfidelity.com/documents/library/articles/recovery/three-years-(and-a-day)-what-I-did-to-reconcile/

4 year

https://forums.survivinginfidelity.com/topics/662007/4-year-update/

5 year

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/topics/664802/5-year-update/

More emotionally and covering specific mistakes...

1) Before/at the very beginning of the affair I was too trusting, but that's how I thought marriage was. Either you trusted them or you didn't, and if you didn't trust them, you get divorced. Very black and white thinking is something I sort of live with in general, but I have changed a lot since then but still have a strong sense of right and wrong, but a less draconian sense in what to do if something is wrong.

Emotionally I was just in denial (hence the user name).

2) Didn't listen to people about doing MC too early and got a bad MC. I think this is a very common mistake. I think there is a big appeal to blameshifting for everyone early on. The WS likes it, the BS gets a sense of control (if I contributed, I can fix it), the MC gets a lever for compromise which is all an MC really cares about because the whole process is based on the belief that you are dealing with two honest people who like each other and want to get along better. Not that one of them is abusing the other and will take every advantage available to them. So that's a big pitfall.

Emotionally flailing for any sense of control or safety.

3) Thought that our situation was "ok" for modified/work only no contact. This should be limited to extreme cases where changing jobs would require a complete change in lifestyle. It's extremely niche and if you think about this one long enough, you should be able to see there are equivalent enough job opportunities for almost everyone. In my wife's case, she has a widely transferable and reasonably well paying skill set. It was dumb of me to back off on this again and again thinking "she should just choose to do it for my sake". I should have just stood on this one sooner.

Emotionally becoming worn down.

4) Not asking for a divorce sooner. But, I think this one is impossible and something you just have to deal with first hand. You won't ask for one until you are ready for one, and you won't be ready for one until you have suffered enough, and the WS will let you suffer until you have suffered enough. So, I don't really know where to file this one. This produces almost nothing that could be called actionable advice for a BS. BE MORE PISSED! I guess.

Emotionally broken. But afterward relieved, then happy to find a path forward.

After that, things really turned around. I don't think I've made a mistake since, but maybe it hasn't been revealed to me yet. You never know for sure anymore.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 10:58 PM, Wednesday, March 12th]

I misunderstood the assignment.

Thank you for sharing! Just like how a fresh BS needs a timeline of events to help them piece everything together, it’s nice to see a healing timeline from those that are further out. 17 months feels like a lifetime, but I know this is still the beginning of the road for me. It’s humbling to see the work that can be done through patience and perseverance.

ScaredSoul33 - you understood the assignment 😁

Thank you for posted this!

SacredSoul:
Our stories have so much similarity! This makes me feel less isolated.

Thank you for sharing your journey.

d-day + 0 - d-day + 90: shock, roller coaster going down - the switches between going up and going down got lower and lower (i.e., I felt worse and worse as the year progressed), lots and lots of Q & A, frenetic sex

90 days out - committed to R, plateaued at a very low point, lots of Q & A and sex

90-420 days out - still plateaued with a very slight improvement in mood, less Q & A, not less sex, but not as frenetic as at first.

420-720 - accelerating progress in mood

2 years - pretty sure R would succeed, could have declared victory, realized I could not figure out how to punish or get revenge on my W without hurting myself in the process

3.5-4 years out - declared victory - I woke up one day realizing I no longer wanted to see my W punished, no thoughts of revenge

4 years - now - triggers progressively less intense and less frequent (can't remember last trigger that shocked me pr when it happened); triggers come up basically as annoyances when I'm dealing with crap I can't figure out how to deal with

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:19 PM, Monday, March 17th]