SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello my SI friends,

I thought I’d come here and type my thoughts, hoping for some feedback or words of wisdom.

I feel like I’m at a crossroads. My H really has done a 180, he really has, he can reflect and open up to me in a way I never thought possible and because of this I understand him more than I ever have and he understands himself a lot better too. I know that if he could go back in time and change what he did he would, in a heartbeat, I know he deeply regrets and is sorry for what he has done, I see his pain.

Myself on the other hand, I feel that I’m at a place where I’m no longer consumed by my H’s betrayals, though I still trigger I see just how very pathetic they were. I’m also fully aware of risks and choices.

I know that I can have a good life with my H and I would really like to grow old with him, the authentic him and he’s actually quite awesome but, and there’s always a but, I don’t want to always bring the betrayals up, I don’t want to throw them in his face, I don’t want to hold on to them, I don’t want to be full of bitterness and resentment, I know I have a stinking temper you’ve all seen a watered down version of it but it’s not me, I want to be able to enjoy life. What happened happened and after all of this, everything we’ve been through, I don’t want my H to suffer, I don’t want to suffer either.

I feel like something is missing, what kept you stuck longer than necessary and what finally freed you?

Surrender.

Simple as that.
Accepting what it was and what it is.

If what it is is different than what it was you can probably move on, today, not yesterday.
It will come up sometimes, but is the past, a scar you chose to bear.

Unfortunately the wound is deep so the memories will be painful but they are just that, memories of a harsh trauma.

The crossroad is also simple, though brutal:

- You can forget and leave the pain behind, but you need to say goodbye to your husband for the rest of the life. Complete healing, a new life.
- Live in the present, with the new you, your new husband, and file the past under memories. It was a terrible past, it might be a decent future, but what is important is the present, live it to its fullest.

Unfortunately is the tradeoff, you have been betrayed, that is not a "mistake" it was a very damaging choice.
Hard things like this live in the memory forever, it does not preclude to you happiness if you choose so.

Follow your feeling, if it keeps coming up and you can't live with it, the path is separate from the person who hurt you.
You love him, he seems to finally love you. That might overcome the old wounds.

Feel it, only you can find the answer

I feel like something is missing,

Healing. That may be what's holding you back, keeping you from deciding which road to take.

This feeling that you've come to a crossroad and have to make a decision is both understandable and fairly common. I think we all want to find our way forward as quickly as possible, to make a decision and stick to it. Unfortunately, I don't think it's so easy.

Healing is going to take years. You might want to discuss the infidelity tomorrow, next week, or twenty years from now. This is the price of reconciliation. This shit never goes away.

It might help to view it not as a crossroads, with a singular choice to be made immediately, but rather as a long highway with plenty of rest stops and exit ramps.

My ten cents is this:

It’s ok to be angry.

It’s not okay to let it consume you.

If you stop yourself from re-living the past, you would be surprised how easy it is to live in the present.

I’m not saying it’s easy to avoid replaying things. But if you do, you should try to not let it consume you and push you over the edge towards rage and/or explosions.

My position is that every second I think of the affair, the OW wins. She wants me to be miserable, unhappy, etc.

So I’m the opposite.

I put myself first. I live my best life. I laugh often and spend my days doing things I love. It gets harder as you get older as your friends move away, people get ill and lifestyles change unfortunately.

Life is short. Put your happiness front and center.

I've looked at some of your posts, and I don't see when d-day was. I do see that you've been dealing with infidelity for a long time.

The SI rule of thumb for recovering is 2-5 years. If you're 2-ish years out, you just might need more time and more consistent R+ behavior from your H before you'll feel comfortable.

Thinking something is missing is a clue. My reco is: decide you want to know what is missing, and set your mind to work it out in the background. Once you know what it is, you'll know the next step.

Thank you all for your replies,

Thing is….im not angry anymore, I just want to live. It’s as simple as that.

I feel like my H’s betrayals are square shaped and I’m trying to fit them in my circle shaped brain, they just won’t fit.

It actually feels like the bad days when they come around are getting worse, it feels like this time is the worst there’s been. No outbursts, no rage, no name calling just talking and a feeling of hopelessness.

The crappyest thing is I finally get the man I always wanted but I also got something I never wanted, I got executed.

I have a feeling I’m never going to get to live with this and enjoy my life with my husband, the other option doesn’t look entirely good either.

I don’t know how you guys that have successfully R do it, I really don’t, I take my hat off to you.

Thank you for always being here. Bruce.

You need to decide the age old question - is life with him better or is your life without him better?

Only you know the answer.

Either way you live with the betrayal.

I’m a little more than 7 years out from DDay. We have reconciled….and, like you, I have the husband I always wanted now. Triggers still come up for me from time to time….but don’t consume my time as they once did. It took closer to the 5 year mark for that to happen for me. Radical acceptance….holding the fact that I have this wonderful husband who also cut me to the core with his A….gosh, our brains aren’t really designed to hold two conflicting ideas at the same time. Brains are designed to keep you safe.

I’ve come to a place where I’ve accepted that no one person can ever be 100% safe all of the time. Shoot, I didn’t trust MY gut during the A. If I had, I would have known so much sooner. I’ve not been the WS, but going through this experience has educated me that I could be. The one thing that makes us vulnerable to infidelity is being in a relationship. No relationship is completely safe….not even with yourself.

For me, the "not wanting him to suffer" was a tentative step towards forgiveness. OW….she can suffer….I’ll happily pop a cork and some popcorn and watch from a distance. I’m not consumed with that anymore….but if I happen to be on the road when the karma bus runs her over…..I’ll not complain about it.

You don’t have to decide today. For me, just seeing and accepting the present version of ourselves and the work we’d done together was enough. Tomorrow, if he’s not measuring up….giving allowances for the fact that I fall short as well….we can talk about it. And, if he decides to take that information and lean into me/us….I have my answer.

LBM,

That’s it!, I keep circling because I think if it makes sense and I understand everything then that keeps me safe, that’s how I keep safe, that’s how I’ve always kept myself safe.

Holding two truths at the same time is extremely uncomfortable for me, I guess it’s time to look up radical acceptance.

When it comes to AP, yes same. I will not put myself in competition with her, she is beneath me, if she was on fire I’d pull up a chair, open a bag of marshmallows and put my feet up whilst listening to disco inferno full blast to drown out the screams, I wish her nothing but the worst in life.

I can’t tell you how nice it is to be seen today LBM, thank you.

1st wife
I only had 4 relationships that I could call "girlfriend " and the last also questionable as I dropped her for my third (current wife ) briefly after she came back from the breakup when she chose her AP.

However, except the 4th girl (happily married with children today, know it because my stalking wife is in some sort of fantasy competition with her, while I have forgotten= ) all did betray me.

And it was devastating each time.

Except wayward wife (married years after her affair) who is obviously seen everyday so a different story, the other 2 ex wayward girlfriends are gone.

There is no living with their betrayal.
Gone her, gone the pain, the memories, they are irrelevant, my life and their lives are going on like we never met, they are going to die as a complete stranger to me, I would not shed a tear nor think about them until I die myself (except when topics like this bring them up. But is like they are not even people really, they are experiences, an abstraction).

I disagree, when you leave your cheater is a death sentence for anything you felt for them, but also for the pain they inflicted upon you after you heal from the trauma.

An ex wayward partner can become as irrelevant as a dog poo you stepped on yeas ago.
While you do remember romantic stories that ended, even if they ended in heartbreak, and you still treasure the nice moments as a good past, the cheaters fade completely, you just don’t remember them anymore because they are not worthy.

Is like flushing the toilet, gone.
And not going to be missed.

Backfrothestorm - I think it's rather idealistic to believe that by leaving a cheater they become as irrelevant as dog poo. I'm assuming you didn't spend half your life with each of these exes? Grow up with each of them? Experience numerous milestones with each them? Or have children with each of them who continue to see and speak about them daily?
I know for me personally I will never be able to erase my husband from my life even if I left him and that's what makes the decision so hard for those of us that have entwined lives with our wayward partners.

Evio, not completely agree, though I can see that if you coparent your kids it would be much harder to cut off your ex completely, so oblivion would not come as naturally.

I had people in my life who I was very close, family members really, so akin to a partner (that’s what partnership is, creating a new family. That’s what infidelity is, destroying the family you two created and sacrificing it to create a family with their affair partner).

Few of these people have done something really bad, still not as bad as infidelity but a betrayal of loved ones nevertheless.

They are gone, irrelevant, I know of one who died and he is technically my godfather. Never shed a tear.

Don’t hate him, don’t feel anything, is just a a stranger like we never met. Same goes for the other family member faded into oblivion.

I spent a larger part of my life with them than with my wayward really, and I loved them very much.

Betrayal is betrayal, there was no regret from their side, they are gone.

I met them in public few times, emotion elicited= zero.

You have love, real one so it is hard to believe the person who only pretended to love you can fade from your life.

But they do when you leave. You feel like that because your attachment is not broken (their is) you are a healthy person, so their presence in your life reminds you of why you love them and overrides all the evil things they did to you ( healthy people can’t really imagine their beloved ones to feel nothing or very little for them, but our waywards demonstrated that is exactly the case, because they can’t even love themselves).

Similar to Stockholm syndrome and narcissistic relationships, the victim feels empathy and a sense of belonging with the abuser.

And we are victims of a nasty abuse and sticking with our abusers after all.

Is way harder to feel nothing, impossible to forget as long as we keep them around, your nervous system cannot fathom it because it is outside it’s familiarity, it looks impossible (bu isn’t).

Want to test it? Take a few weeks off from your wayward husband, a vacation or a sabbatical month. No contact at all, no phones, no emails, nothing.

Just live your life with all your people but him.

I am willing to eat around the 3 weeks mark you could begin to realize he is not in your thoughts as much if at all and life is really going on just fine.

You might be even feeling better and renewed, and that is possibly something you unconsciously sense, and subconsciously fear to find out, because once you feel that, all changes and you might have to face something you’d rather avoid to accept right now.

That is valid for unremorseful waywards, I don’t know if this works with remorseful waywards, for sure distance doesn’t detach you from someone you love, but it is the best cure to erase someone who abused you mentally, emotionally and sexually: a cheater ticks all those boxes, so it works to get over them.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 4:03 PM, Tuesday, May 5th]

I am estranged from my father and my sister so I know what it's like to cut people off. The difference between my husband and my FOO is accountability and remorse. My husband has shown a significant amount of remorse and accountability for his affair. It happened 13 years ago now. He doesn't recognise the man who behaved like that and neither do I most of the time.

We live and work in a small rural community and have children with additional needs. If I was to divorce him I would have to interact with him and see him regularly...in fact he would only be able to afford a bedsit so his only way of spending time with his children and providing me with a break would be to see them in the family home so there really is no escaping him. And whilst he undoubtedly deserves this punishment, seeing him live like this, and knowing he is remorseful and has changed so much since his darkest days would make it incredibly difficult to feel nothing towards him. Maybe I am weak but I feel empathy for seeing how badly the man I loved screwed everything up. In fact if my sister and dad showed accountability and remorse, I'd probably feel forgiveness and empathy towards them too. I'm not saying I wouldn't have a good life without my husband and maybe even go on to have a better relationship or even marriage, I'm just saying leaving him would not completely erase the love I have and have had for him and the memories we have created.

As for the 3 week break, the only breaks I've had in 21 years has been the odd night in hospital so I don't think that's going to happen anytime soon!

I do get your point but I just don't think it's always that black and white. Humans are complicated. Relationships are complimentary. Love and forgiveness is complicated.

Even if I left my husband, I would grieve his passing...he has impacted my life in both amazing and horrific ways...he broke my heart but also helped create the most amazing kids I wouldn't be without.

[This message edited by Evio at 4:35 PM, Tuesday, May 5th]

Evio,

You are not weak, you are beautifully human.

He is remorseful and changed you say.

That is different than what I said. That did at least something to resurrect some emotions towards him, speaking of love here, we loved our waywards, is them who didn’t love us.

If you have this connection you can not forget.

And if he truly changed that connection isn’t unhealthy, is painful because you carry the wounds, but also wholesome.

Also cutting off a person means not seeing them for long enough for your nerve system to rule them out from your world.

That’s why keeping a unremorseful cheater is toxic, you can’t heal or detach with your abuser at your side. Or at least you can not do it easily, I managed, but was really really devastatingly hard to.

Love is not weakness, is strength, even bleeding love is. When you feel the person you offer it earned it even a second chance, I can only respect it.

You said something excellent here:

Even if I left my husband, I would grieve his passing...he has impacted my life in both amazing and horrific ways

Yes, when you truly leave is similar to them dying. You will grieve them, the person who you thought they were and the person you loved. Once that is done, they are "dead" only the unremorseful cheater still lives and survives, the worthy person is buried and only the low value unworthy individual who is capable of infidelity remains. And nobody fucking wants or care for a person like that, that’s why they can finally fade.

Remorseful and reformed waywards killed the cheater and try to be born anew. Completely different story.

I simply said :Unremorseful people don’t deserve something so precious like what you are capable to give.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 4:46 PM, Tuesday, May 5th]

Sorry backfromthestorm...I appear to have misinterpreted what you said. I agree that unremorseful people do not deserve a second chance and in that case yes I would cut them out of my life. If my husband did this again, seeing how much pain it caused me, I would definitely leave. As I say he'd still be part of my life through the kids but the empathy would be gone if he reoffended so it would be much, much easier to detach emotionally.

Nothing to apologize, you offered a beautiful perspective that I included editing my post.

I like this kind of exchanges, I am quite the assertive guy but I truly love opening my mind to different angles, and you just gave me one.

Thanks