SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

What worked for me and got me out of the warp I had myself in was this:

I know what I know

I figured out a few things about my H. Like his need for validation and ego boosts from other women. And "why" he cheated too.

After that it really didn’t matter if he had sex or didn’t or just had many EAs etc. My point is he was able to lie and cheat so I’m not blindly going to believe everything he says now.

I decided HE has to live with the fact he’s (was once) a liar and cheater. Nearing the last 35% or so of my life I’ve decided my happiness is most important.

I just refuse to let his crappy choices devastate me another second. I went from a doormat to a badass b/c of his affairs. Too bad I had to become like that (in a very short time) but I learned a few things along the way.

I’m sorry your wife chooses to be less than forthcoming. It may be just to protect herself from hurting you (again) or other reasons. She may not be aware of her own lies. She may lie out of fear.

Whatever the reason I hope you can accept the reality that she has issues with the truth and it’s not being done personally to hurt you.

She was in another man's bed weeks before our wedding day and continued in his bed for years after we married. I understand why many of you say that I should have considered divorce, divorced, separated, etc. It's just not an option for me.

As others have amply said, your wife knows this and therefore sees no reason to change, or "rock the boat" with truth to you. You have no choice but to accept you may well never be given the full truth, and all the pain that goes along with this.

If you’re a man of faith, I would advise crying out to God to heal you, and make Christ the object of your affections, and source of healing. I used to look to my wife as the primary source of my happiness. Not only is that completely unfair, from a Christian perspective it meant I was deep in idolatry. No more.

Praying for you….

Over the last 24 hours, I've come to realize that asking and begging for the truth only causes conflict between us and leads to more changing narratives and lies.

I have decided to focus on the one thing I can control—my own thoughts and actions. I will not allow my wife's betrayal to continue to destroy me or my life. As I see it now, she destroyed our marriage, and she has to live with the consequences of her actions. She lost the loving husband who prioritized her. Now, I'm prioritizing myself. I will do what I want to do, be with who I want to be with, and learn to be okay with being with myself.

For the first time in my life, I'm wondering if I'm being taken advantage of. I haven't had this thought until I found an inner strength to stop begging to understand the reality of her actions. There's no need for me to hear it. My wife has repeatedly demonstrated that she is either unwilling or unable to be honest.

My anger is no longer turned inward, and while I'm feeling sad, I'm feeling a strange sense of relief.

My wife just came into the room as I was typing and said, "So, you're back on the forums." It's remarkable how dealing with the truth is perceived as a threat to her. I offered to read to her what I just wrote. After I did, she got up and walked out.

I'm realizing that I'm finally allowing myself to know it's ok not to be okay after being broken by infidelity. I know that a significant part of my growth is coming from all of you. Thank you, my friends.

Bravo, LowTide!

Well done low tide for putting you first.

I've been lurking on here as I too am being trickled to death, and I can relate to your first post about reality.

I'm hoping I eventually come to the realisation you have, as more information about WS came out yesterday, and that the emotional affair actually started when I was heavily pregnant with our son.

This has given me hope that I'll be able to do what's right for me and my family eventually, and that somebody's affair will no longer be able to define me.

I appreciate all of you for being there for me.

This week, I reflected on past instances in my life when I was egregiously wronged by others, and I found that the cognitive-behavioral technique of thought-stopping was effective in mitigating my feelings of anger. Every time I thought about "them," I simply said to myself, "Stop. This is not productive." The technique, as simple as it sounds, has proven to be very effective.

I'm trying to implement the same technique when I experience intrusive, painful thoughts about my wife's infidelity. The problem I'm having is that we are almost always together—and the triggers just don't stop.

Last night, I asked my wife a simple question: "Why did you recently sit down with me, say that you wanted to finally tell me the truth about your infidelity from the very beginning, tell me a highly detailed account of the events—only to tell me a completely different story one week later?" Her response was, "I don't know." This scares the shit out of me—how easy it is for her to look into my eyes and blatantly lie. Today!

I keep explaining to my wife that it's hard enough dealing with her infidelity, for decades—but even harder to deal with her betrayal—her continued changing narratives and lies. I don't know who my wife, my closest and best friend, is—and I have no trust in her actions.

My way of dealing with this pain, for years, has been to repeatedly say to myself, "I want to die. I don't want to be here. Please take me. Give my body to someone who wants to live. etc.) For the first time in years, I am not going there with self-destructive thoughts, and the thought-stopping is working.

Despite my wife's past choices and her continued betrayal, I remain deeply in love with her.

I think the only way I will be okay is if we both have the benefit of professional help from a mental health provider who understands that honesty and transparency with infidelity are not only important, but essential for both the betrayer and the betrayed to ever recover.

The cognitive dissonance I'm experiencing, being an "expert" in dealing with traumatic events, and not being able to help myself, continues to eat away at me. As I said to a patient yesterday, a therapist herself, you're a person first. Well, that sounds good in theory.

I appreciate that you're taking the time to read this and be there for me. The aloneness I'm experiencing is overwhelming. I have an appointment with my psychiatrist this morning. Beyond pushing me to increase my psychotropic medications, I'm hopeful that he'll have something else to offer.

I continue to be, Trickled to Death!

Thank you so much for being there for me, my friends.

** Member to Member **

I think the only way I will be okay is if we both have the benefit of professional help from a mental health provider who understands that honesty and transparency with infidelity are not only important, but essential for both the betrayer and the betrayed to ever recover.

You're not thinking straight.

Are you aware the above approach makes your sense of yourself dependent on your W doing something specific? What if she no longer remembers the details you want?

You are responsible for what you think and feel. You don't control your W, and she doesn't control you. Even if you're letting her control you, you are making the choice to do so, and you can make a different choice any time you want to.

D – Don’t
E – Even
T – Think
A – About
C – Changing
H – Her.

Stephen Karpman's website on his 'Drama Triangle' has a page with links to free articles that can be read and downloaded. I urge you to read the articles linked to by that page.

I seek empathy—not condemnation.

Sounds like you've had a really good breakthrough, Low Tide! Well done.

Last night, I asked my wife a simple question: "Why did you recently sit down with me, say that you wanted to finally tell me the truth about your infidelity from the very beginning, tell me a highly detailed account of the events—only to tell me a completely different story one week later?" Her response was, "I don't know." This scares the shit out of me—how easy it is for her to look into my eyes and blatantly lie. Today!

I went through this with my WS but on a much more compressed timeline of changing narratives, and I spent a lot of time thinking about the same question ("why can't he just be straight with me?"). My theory is this: he doesn't think 2-3 steps ahead before acting. He is always *reacting* to the present, and when I would asked or pushed him on something, he went into damage control mode. His goal *in that moment* was to get me to calm down and stop pressuring him, and he would say whatever he had to in order to make that happen. He didn't think about what would come later because his brain flooded with anxiety that I would leave him, and he couldn't think past that.

I don't know if your wife has anxiety and is insecure, but my WS certainly checks both those boxes, and I think that's what drives his dishonesty. When he is calm and dealing with other people, he places great value on integrity and honesty. When his own situation is in jeopardy, those values are knocked aside in panic to do damage control of his image. Your wife is her own person, of course, so I'm offering this as something for you to consider in case any of it fits.

The cognitive dissonance I'm experiencing, being an "expert" in dealing with traumatic events, and not being able to help myself, continues to eat away at me. As I said to a patient yesterday, a therapist herself, you're a person first. Well, that sounds good in theory.

It is very hard to see ourselves clearly, and of course knowing a thing doesn't make it easier to put into practice! I think you are doing your best with the tools you have. Please try not to beat yourself up for that.

I will also defend sisoon - I don't think he was condemning you. I think he's trying to help you see your situation from a different angle. Most everyone here at SI has a tremendous amount of empathy for what we're all going through or have been through.

Good morning, friends.

I have been having a very helpful dialogue with a forum member in private messaging. I would like to share it with you so I can have your insights as well as his and, hopefully, maybe even help someone else along my journey:

"Keep talking! I'm listening."

These are the most powerful and helpful words I've read in this forum. You understand that what generally helps people the most is not what we say, but what we don't say. Simply being there and giving the betrayed the opportunity to articulate their thoughts and feelings, without judgment, is so helpful.

I'm trying to accept that my wife, the only woman I have ever been with, was unfaithful for years with another man, beginning in the weeks before our wedding day and continuing for years. What I have been unable to accept is that when I calmly asked my wife the simple question: "Why did you recently sit down with me, say that you wanted to finally tell me the whole truth about your infidelity from the very beginning, tell me a highly detailed intimate account of the events—only to tell me a completely different story one week later?" Her response was, "I don't know."

As I shared with you, this scared me beyond words—how easy it was for her to look into my eyes and blatantly lie, not only in years past, but today! These words, "I don't know," are haunting me.

I don't know who I am married to—beyond that, she is either unable or unwilling to tell the truth, and that she continues to betray me with changing narratives and blatant lies—trickle truths. I have lost trust in her and now see her as a stranger.

Yesterday I had a revelation with my psychiatrist. I came to understand that seeking further help from a couples therapist who specialized in infidelity would be useless or potentially even more damaging. For therapy to be effective, one must be willing to be honest and open. Not someone who is deliberately holding the truth hostage to protect her "dignity"—as she recently said to me.

For now, I must find peace in myself and accept the stranger I live with who purports to love me. She's made it crystal clear that "badgering" her was harming her. The fact that I am only asking for an honest, consistent narrative of what happened and why it happened—evidence-based work in the aftermath of infidelity, means nothing.

I am, for the first time in my life, going to try to find happiness with myself and not seek it from her. This is not marriage, this is triage. Trying to cope with a wife who claims not to know when she is telling the truth or lying. This is a sickness. I did promise to love her in sickness and in health. And I do continue to love her—strangely even more than I did before these lies! I understand why Dana Reeve cared for Christopher after he became a quadriplegic from a fall from a horse. Marriage is a permanent, genuine, and authentic bond—but not in my life.

The aloneness I'm experiencing is beyond words. But you being there, reading this, helps me to know that there are people in the world who are authentic. For this, I am so grateful. I can only hope that one day my spouse will be able and willing to be an honest wife.

Thank you so very much for caring.

This is a sickness. I did promise to love her in sickness and in health.

You’re certainly entitled to defining words however you so choose, but would you consider a street thug who beats the pulp out of others for fun to be merely "sick", and therefore should not be held accountable for their actions & choices by the justice system, and instead spend some time in a health facility until they’re "better" ?

Please understand my intention is categorically not to "beat you up", but instead to plead with you to value yourself. You tragically seem to be the epitome of the one who "lights themself on fire to keep another warm". Have you explored your codependency in IC? I speak as one who’s been there. Codependency helps nobody, and ultimately harms both self and the relationship.

I am encouraged to see you exploring looking away from her to find your happiness. You were not designed to find happiness in your wife. That’s why it’s failing. These are the seeds of breaking the chains of codependency. I hope you nurture that growth.

My husband only found his ability to tell me the truth when I was packing my car to leave him.

I'm glad you're continuing to have these breakthroughs, low tide. No one can do this work for you, so it's great that you are making progress. The stranger effect is relatable (I went through that experience, too). We are here when you need us.