SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So I am three years out.

If you have ever had a family member or good friend die -you may have had a feeling when you wake. You wake up and for a moment you don’t remember they are gone, then you remember and you are sad.

I have that every time I wake up. Remembering what has happened. It makes me cry just thinking about that feeling now.

Has anyone got any tips, hints etc?

I often wake with a start at 3am and again that happens. Every day for 3 years. It’s too much.

I remember those days all too well.

Waking up and the first thoughts were "He cheated. He was going to kick me to the curb for the OW. Why have I stayed? I must be an idiot!"

It then takes every ounce of strength to get out of bed.

3 years of that pain. Until I decided I had to heal myself. And I wasn’t letting his affair impact my life to that degree for one more second.

I stopped the fight in my head about reconciling. If it didn’t work then I knew I gave it my best but it’s just not going to work.

I stopped obsessing about the OW. She could no longer impact me because she was no longer important.

I stopped allowing myself to replay the same conversations in my mind over and over. I stopped having conversations (repeat conversations mind you) with my H about the affair.

I stopped allowing myself to get triggered by things and letting it ruin my day.

I made sure I did one thing for myself. Cup of tea or read a book or met a friend for coffee or whatever. Just one thing (even for 10 minutes) that brought me joy and peace.

I can tell you I had a beautiful garden for years (since sold that house and moved).

I decided the longer I let his affair devastate me, that meant I was allowing it to control my life. Instead of me controlling my life.

Hope this helps you. I had to work hard to change my mindset. But I can tell you I am very happy now and have learned I am in charge of my happiness — it’s up to me to make myself happy.

Thankyou for your response. I am working very hard on your suggestions.

I have joined several groups.
I have friends texting all the time - I’ve worked very hard on this.

I couldn’t give a s*** about the affair partner. I don’t compare myself to her at all.

I have given up on it working out. I don’t think he has got it in him. He’s worked out I will never love him like I did and isn’t happy I don’t wear my ring etc.

My self esteem is good and was good very early on. This reflects on him not me. In fact I’ve been faithful all through our marriage - I’m a Damm good catch! Honest, loyal, hardworking, happy to almost anything, know my own values etc.

Triggers pass by. One makes me chuckle. As it reminds me he’s pretty pathetic.

I have started 2 hobbies. If he’s not available to do something I go anyway.

My phone doesn’t stop ringing tbh

Yet I wake and the grief hits me.

I have an issue with loss. I’m adopted. Maybe that’s why. My life shattered into a thousand pieces. And many pieces are lost forever. I’m not sure what else to do. I like me, I really do. I’m pretty cool tbh but I have an undercurrent of sadness.

Maybe I felt like a team and now I feel alone. I’m not sure.

I felt really loved too. Now I don’t.

I had really bonded with him and genuinely thought he was a great person. Now I don’t.

I felt what we had was special. Now I don’t.

Maybe that’s part of it?

But I know I’m cool

I also know cheating on someone you said you love and chose to marry is really pathetic.

And anyone daft enough to fall for married people’s lies well they aren’t someone I need waste time thinking about. I’ve laughed at enough married men’s lies in my teens and 20s to know the cliches

This is still hard though even when you know it’s his circus with his monkeys.

[This message edited by Abcd89 at 1:15 PM, Thursday, June 12th]

I’m at 4-1/2 years and yes, while nearly every morning I awake to the memories of the affair and the damage it caused, I have learned to detune its affects on me. I love to learn so when I wake up early, I make some coffee and watch a lot of YouTube videos on how to build things, learn about history, whatever. Lately I’ve been watching a guy who does property restoration for people down on their luck. It’s uplifting seeing someone who offers to clean up out of control yards and properties and help them get back to a reset position. I could see myself doing that. I also focus now on things that being me joy. I love building things and being creative and a lot of that is done through my work so it’s also an income generator which is icing on the cake. No, I don’t love "to work" but I get enjoyment out of the results of said work.

Thanks coping. I talk to people through my work and get satisfaction from it.

I love my morning coffee and I try and do my crossword as I enjoy puzzles. So I get out of bed okay.

Sometimes I wake at 2 or 3 am or sometimes 5 mins after I fall asleep and I gasp and reality hits. And my heart breaks once more.

IDK ... for me, I think (but not sure), deciding R had succeeded was key.

I didn't force myself to decide. Rather, from time to time I looked at myself and our M, and at some point 3.5-4 years after d-day, I found I felt secure. After that, the A was no longer a curse, perhaps.

Hard to explain.

Abcd89,

It may be his circus and his monkeys but the damn peanut shells all all over your floor and the sticky cotton candy is all over everything. Often the clowns are still getting in and out of the little car too.

The only way out is through. Grieve the special bond you thought you had, grieve the spouse you thought he was, grieve all of your losses.

At 5 years out (2.5 from divorce) the dreams do not come as often. For the first three yers it was just as you describe. For the next year they were fewer but more visceral. i would often wake up already in tears, heart racing. Now they do not come as often and *most* of the time when they do i can get back to sleep.

Cry the tears. Let your heart be broken.

Sisoon - that makes sense - maybe you were happy with what you have created? So the past wasn’t so painful?

I’m pretty sure I am grieving what I have lost. That cannot be replaced. So I’m a bit stuck as to where I go now. I didn’t choose a spouse due to money, or their job, or due to being bigger than me with huge muscles. I just wanted a decent man, who tried and works hard in whatever role, who I could share my life with. I have a good job and a house etc, I don’t need someone - I just wanted to share everything with someone.

But it was a lie and my photos and memories are now just horrid.

Jasonch

That made me laugh! Thank you!
And you know who the biggest clown is…

The more time that passes the more I think reconcilliation probably isn’t for me. I knew this was a deal breaker. But I loved him so very much. It’s heartbreaking.

Jasonch- this week has been bad, I’ve cried a lot. You are right - You can’t go over it, you can’t go under it - you gotta go through. But it’s like it’s never ending. It evolves but never ends.

I remember that feeling waking up very well. What a great start to every damned day huh?
When I started moving forward with divorce it dissipated. Moving forward is what killed it.
Sitting in limbo, still not knowing what to do, or what not to do I think really feeds it.

Woke up at 3 A.M. feeling it this morning. I feel it every morning.

I go to bed and sleep for maybe an hour or less. Then I wake up and go into the living room and remember all the awful things he said to me and I cry. I am 2 and a half years out from the last dday, the one that broke me finally. Maybe this will pass, maybe not. How can someone you invested your life in since you were 17 treat you like a discarded dishrag. Abcd89 I wish peace and happiness for you, and hope someday I will regain that for myself too.

2am waker here.

It has been years for me. And that 2am wake up and feelings can overwhelm years later.

Eventually I got sick of myself. AND put my time/effort/energy in ME. I took myself on dates. I took long walks with earbuds blasting music or listening to an audiobook. I crochet (stabbing things with a hook and twisting) and made many hats, blankets and scarves I donated to a cold weather shelter. I window shopped. I dance like no one is watching. I scrubbed my bathroom tile with a vengeance. I stopped fearing triggers and started making plans on how I would handle them. I scrapbooked. I wore pretty lipgloss even if just scrubbing those bathroom tiles. I wore [and still do] pretty undies every damn day.

I [eventually] STOPPED with the pain shopping, I stopped reviewing all the call logs, photos, data that I had. I stopped comparing myself to LTAP (spoiler alert - she comes up short every time), I stopped letting my head droop and shoulders slump. I stopped myself from going down the rabbit hole.

I re-learned I'm pretty fantastic. WH could see and remember that or not - that was on him. BUT despite what was done to me - I'm going to sparkle.

So that feeling - feel the feels. You will know when you are ready to kick it to the curb and start owning yourself and your days. IC helps.

Cry the cries. Shed the tears. Purge your system. Then regroup. And keep fucking going. You got this.

I used to go to bed each night hoping that I didn't wake up, and wake up with a wave of grief and wishing I had died. What changed it was moving out and deciding that I was no longer going to put in any effort toward R. The trial separation saved me. The other day for a while it seemed like I might have to move back in with WS, and I broke down and sobbed for the first time since separation. My subconscious is that terrified by the thought (not that WS is doing anything horrible now, that I know of, but it's my state of mind).

Abcd, it sounds like you're in the beta region (look up "region-beta paradox") where you've decided that R isn't working out, but you're enduring the status quo. Are you still waking up next to your WS? That itself can be a massive trigger for grief. When R is degrading and you're still living together, I think the WS can become a constant reminder of what transpired, so your brain doesn't get a respite from thinking about the affair and the slow dissolution of your relationship.

Abcd89 so much if what you said I agree with and it sure hit home.

I used to think I was so lucky that this good looking guy I met when he was 19 was honest, down to earth, not a player, very good looking, very smart and funny as hell.

Now I realize he’s the lucky one. I rarely complained that I spent more than 50% of the year solo due to his job and international travel. Often he worked on international time so he’s working at 3 am whose the rest of us slept. One year he commuted to the opposite coast every week for 10 months.

I bent over backwards to make his life easy because he worked hard. He wanted to play golf - ok. Go to a ball game - no problem. His friends were so envious of him b/c I just didn’t nag or complain.

What did it get me? Two affairs and the verge of D, being the last to find out I’m being kicked to the curb for the OW and spending a year practically trying to reconcile and being treated horribly by him. Everything was my fault.

What did I learn?

It’s up to me to make myself happy.

I have to learn to put myself first.

It’s ok to say no and not allow myself to be badgered by him to get his own way.

He’s perfectly capable of doing his own laundry and errands. I stopped doing all the extras at dday2 and I’ve not gone back to doing them.

I gave him my absolute best. He shit all over it. So now I don’t extend myself. And he’s just so grateful I didn’t D him that he doesn’t complain.

At least I am happy. And I love him. I am who I am and if it’s not working for him he knows where the door is.

Your post really resonated with me as that was my reality for quite a while. I felt like Prometheus chained to a rock, having my heart break every morning. The real kicker was those few seconds of normal that were dangled in front of me only to be snatched away.

I lasted 6 months before I pulled the plug and filed. I knew it was slowly killing me and I knew that I wasn't really wired to get over it. The next year we nested and untangled which was sn arduous process. I don't recommend it. The real healing only started when i rented my first apartment. That phase lasted almost 4 years. Lots of pain and processing but always moving forward.

When I finally bought my own place, friends noticed a change almost immediately. They said I was lighter. I felt it too. I regularly thank God for ensuring I landed just where I needed to be.

I still have sad days, but not about the A or my M. I'm sad that I have a tremendous capacity to love and am a genuinely good man, but chances are I will remain alone. But those moments are few and I've learned to weather them well, allowing them to teach or remind me of things I ought to know.

Looking back, I'd estimate that I'm on the longer 5 year estimate for healing, but that is due to my unique situation. I'm not sure how it would have progressed had I been sharing a house with the very source of my trauma, especially one that lacks empathy.

Stay or go, you'll know when you know. I hope you find that path that's right for you. Rooting for you.

For me, it just took time + reading books, posting here a lot, going to therapy...

And it took more time than I wanted it to, but by six years I felt mostly healed, the intrusive thoughts weren't constant, and I more or less felt okay.

That's not to say it still doesn't happen on occasion -- recently, maybe a month or two ago, my FWS & I were joking about something, and I was like, "Wait, when did you...?" And then I realized it was with the AP. In the moment it was awkward and hurt, but it passed pretty quickly & honestly I can't remember how long it was prior, that something like this happened.

Sorry Abcd. "This too shall pass," but it might just take longer than you'd like for it to.

I remember those nights. I would have vivid dreams where exWW and I were still together and the infidelity never happened. I would wake up and reach out to her side of the bed to hold her but find her gone. Only then would I remember that, oh right, she had an exit affair...it was only a dream, and [i]reality[/i] is the nightmare. It took a while to flip that script, realize that my life was better without her, and find true comfort in her absence.

maybe you were happy with what you have created? So the past wasn’t so painful?

That probably was part of my recovery, but I believe that attending to my own healing played a bigger part in my attitudes, decisions, etc. I thought of meeting my own needs first, within the legal and ethical constraints that I obeyed. (I certainly wanted to hurt W, ow, and OBS, but I didn't.)

I’m pretty sure I am grieving what I have lost. That cannot be replaced.

It's impossible to replace what was lost, but it is possible to get the grief out of your body and into your past. The way to do that is to feel the grief. Let it course through your body. You may feel your grief is unlimited, but it really is finite. I firmly believe: if you feel it while connected to a strong base (ground, floor, chair or bed connected to floor, etc.), and you will reach its end. There rae times when crying is the very best thing you can do for yourself, and those times may be pretty frequent for a long time after being betrayed.

I lasted 6 months before I pulled the plug and filed.

I highlight that because each of us has our limit, and figuring out one's limits is part of healing. It almost doesn't matter what your limit is, as long as you choose it for yourself when you have to choose. Maybe you'll stick to the limit you thought it would be. Maybe you'll choose a different one. What matters IMO is making your own choice, not letting society make the choice for you.

Look around SI. You'll see people who are happy after both D and R. IMO, the happy people found the right outcome for them.

I believe you're asking one of the right questions - do you really want R? The 2nd question I recommend is something like, 'Is my WS a good enough candidate for R?'

Another reco: don't fear the answers. You are stronger than you realize.