SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

While not a big fan of "IC" aka Individual Counseling - sometimes it IS a good idea. Because (provided you find a good one - the counselor) you can have a person with whom to converse on how to be a good human and also to work out your "whys" and teach yourself or learn how to resist selfishness.

I just want to say without IC there would have been no chance of recovery for me. What is described here is not what you do in therapy really though.

One thing that people do not always understand is selfishness or being overly selfless are two sides to the same coin. A lot of the things that took me down mentally was being overly selfless.

I was a huge people pleaser and when I went through therapy I learned that this was based on low self worth, hustling for love and pushing my own needs down. When you do that long enough you can lose yourself in trying to fill that void.

People who are overly selfish try and fill the same void but by being demanding for fear of scarcity in love.

Both things have root causes. And it comes down to lake of self love, self respect, learning healthy boundaries.when we love ourselves well we can love others well, because our self love or lack there of is a fountain that flows into every relationship we have.

So therapy is designed more to understand yourself, what you want your life to look like, how to be gentler and kinder with yourself (because it’s all a mirror- self compassion allows us to have compassion for others- ever notice people who are critical of themselves do a lot of bad mouthing others?)

Therapy is not designed to make bad people turn to good people. It’s designed to help you become more self aware of your motivations, what things are in your way, how to cope with life better and decide how to strengthen and improve.

I didn’t cheat on my husband because I am a bad person. I cheated because I created an environment internally that made it possible. Unwinding how that was formed and how to form something healthier took tracing patterns through my life and learning the way I was working against myself.

I also think it’s worth mentioning that of course having a more intentional relationship with your values and priorities is part of that development, integrity being a core one. But those are tangible things that can be worked on rather than the overwhelming task of going "bad to good".

I never lose sight there is a bs that has had terrible pain inflicted upon them. But I know from experience the ws is also in a lot of pain that has to be dealt with so that you can be a good rebuilder and you can show that you have grown and changed. Even if a reconciliation doesn’t happen often there are children who can benefit from a great coparenting relationship and figuring yourself out is the first step to making true amends.

Staying in our shame and pain does not give room for the ws to really see and understand the pain of the bs. It makes too brittle and fragile to look at the product of our wrong doings. By getting underneath that we can be stronger people who can take that on. Shame creates defensiveness and that says to the bs you aren’t seeing their pain and understanding the impact of your actions.

I wanted to clear this up not to argue with anyone but to enlighten those who need this knowledge. I remember spinning my wheels so long because I could not figure out how to go from bad to good. But the truth is, you just keep building g in the good you already are and it feels good, it feels right, it allows that self worth and self love to come in. From there, you will naturally see that you have crowded out any impulse to do things that are so destructive to yourself and others.

Feeling low- thank you - but truth is I just happened to be where you and many other who come here are right now. I am just almost a decade out in my work and sharing that experience. Climbing out of that hole doesn’t come naturally or with an instruction book. I could not fathom self compassion for years after what I did, but it ultimately has been the key to being a better me and showing up in all my relationships differently.

I think a lot of counselors are not particularly talented in helping others. Make sure yours is a good fit. And I also think as a result a lot of bs have had experiences where they fee IC made things worse.

However- the hardest part for most to understand is that for a while what you are learning about yourself as the ws and trying to practice can actually seem negative to the bs because they can’t relate how what the ws is telling them they are doing in therapy is going to help heal the relationship.

I know as a beginner I was trying to learn not to people please and to try to listen to what I want and need more. Well you can imagine some of my awkward practicing of that went over not well at all. It’s important for both people to understand that to heal the relationship with the bs the ws has to heal their relationship with themselves first. If you can understand that and the ws actually does this work, what they are capable of afterwards in terms of loving other people amplifies exponentially.

As Usual, Hikingout fills in all the details:

I wanted to clear this up not to argue with anyone but to enlighten those who need this knowledge. I remember spinning my wheels so long because I could not figure out how to go from bad to good. But the truth is, you just keep building g in the good you already are and it feels good, it feels right, it allows that self worth and self love to come in. From there, you will naturally see that you have crowded out any impulse to do things that are so destructive to yourself and others.

It’s important for both people to understand that to heal the relationship with the bs the ws has to heal their relationship with themselves first.

FWIW - I have a 10+ girlfriend decades ago - that dumped me for another. Fortunately I didn't self-destruct but I did use my employee benefits for personal counseling. What I learned was I was "OK" and what the broken relationship was lack of mutual interests and life goals.

So Hikingout's words that you must "find" yourself first is on point. My bet is when you figure out the why, you will see the way to improve your moral choices as a natural consequence.

You post you wish to retain your relationship and marriage with your Betrayed Spouse. This is a possibility as others have done so even after divorce happened with the Betrayed. It took them a LONG time and an immense amount of effort accompanied with the pain.

In the two cases Of which I am thinking, both ladies NEVER gave up even after divorce.

If you go to your profile and enable "private messages" I will send you how to find their stories. Won't post here as this forum and SI has some strict rules that we must all follow.

Just - DON'T give up!

edit - grammar and sepell check

[This message edited by Hippo16 at 8:12 PM, Friday, May 1st]

Hopeless - You're not hopeless. Everything that happens leads to another experience and so do all our choices. This may seem like the end of the world, but it's not....it's the logical outcome of many choices that you have made over time. I don't say this to blame you, you know what you've done, but to encourage you to take responsibility for all your choices in this relationship in the past and going forward. You have agency, you're not a helpless victim of fate, and your husband has agency too, to do what he wants. While you both will probably try the best you can for your children - he doesn't owe you personally anything at this point and I don't know how much you can do right now to make it better. But whatever happens next, it's not the end of the world, learn from it and grow and be a better person. You KNOW what is right and wrong, you have to live up to this and hopefully teach it to your children.

You've had a lot of excellent advice here and I may repeat some things you've already heard. I would urge you NOT to put up any stop signs because while Waywards can give you support, the Betrayeds will give you the best understanding of what you have done, what the impact is, and how this may end....which can be in different ways. So please be open to it even if it hurts, sometimes the best medicine is unpleasant.

Here's the biggest red flag in your story for me. Whenever I hear that someone has been unfaithful during the start of a relationship - during a courtship - and then during a wedding.....I have to believe there was never a real marriage in the first place. Which is probably what your husband thinks. It sounds like the guy you REALLY wanted was the other guy, your AP, the one you invited to the wedding. I think that was an unconscious decision to put him in an approximate relationship to the GROOM. I think he's the one you wanted. Let's be honest. I've been in love several times before my husband, I've always been a sucker for love, but I never cheated on these guys....I've never cheated on my husband, possibly because of integrity....but mainly because I didn't want to as I was IN LOVE WITH THESE GUYS. And you don't cheat on someone you are really in love with. People in love don't cheat during their courtship, because you are besotted with each other, or should be, and same with the marriage and the whole honeymoon period. That's normal behavior. Sometimes the cheating starts with having kids, but up to that point, it should all be stardust and moonglow.

You don't seem to have felt this way about your husband or you would not have taken up with this other man at that time. And you would never have invited him to your wedding. It's not only that you were not in love with your husband, that's gross disrespect. So I figure for whatever reasons - they could cultural or economic or fiance seems like the "right type" or whatever....you decided he would be a good Plan B to have a marriage and family with. Stable, reliable, probably in love with you, good man, trusting, etc. And maybe Guy Number 1, the one you really wanted, didn't have those qualities and didn't work out. This IS what I think about your cheating on your husband at that point, which to me is a sure sign....you should NEVER have married him. This is probably what he thinks and he's right to think that.

You have to be honest about why you would practice that very basic level of faithlessness and deceit upon a boyfriend, a fiance, a brand new husband. Why didn't you love him enough to be faithful? For a year or more? So you need to start asking yourself those questions because that's where your problems with him start. Why did you marry this guy -honestly....and wouldn't you - at that time - really have preferred the other guy? BE HONEST ABOUT THIS because it's important to understand why you did this and made these choices. My mother made a bad choice too....her fiance died tragically and left her just broken. Broken over it. She met my father I think the same year and he pursued her and she unfortunately married him, and they lived unhappily ever after because she was not in the right mind for marriage and she wanted to get married to just about anyone because she was getting older and wanted children and some kind of stability. I suppose these kind of marriages can work if both people have the proper understanding of them, the same starting point, but if one thinks the marriage is based on love, and the other thinks...."he's okay", that's not gonna work. At some point the mirage breaks down. Took you some time, but it did break down.

I don't know why you cheated with the 2nd guy - for a year, was it....again, why do this? You have to understand yourself first. Was it perhaps a continuation of the first affair - did this guy remind you of the original AP. We often have "types". Were you bored with marriage? Were you sick of your husband? Were you thinking is this all there is? What was going on with you?

The whole thing of revealing this to your husband amid all your relatives and friends and the police is absolutely disgraceful and you don't seem to be taking responsibility for this. It's bad enough to be unfaithful in these ways, especially THE FIRST GUY which basically was a denial of your marriage, but to bring in all these people esp the cops on top of his head when he is dealing with the biggest shock and betrayal of his life is astounding. It feels like a sandbagging. I have to wonder if you have some unconscious anger or hostility towards him you might want to explore. No wonder he wants a divorce, I WOULD TO. And in fact, I think he should get a divorce. I think it's the only way you two are going to get clarity, because I think if you stay together, you're going to try to cover this up, love bomb him, explain things endlessly without real explanations, and you can't until you can answer WHY YOU WOULD CHEAT ON YOUR FIANCE AND HUSBAND WITH THAT FIRST GUY? And he would only stick his hurt and resentment and anger and lack of trust deeper inside....probably for the kids and....that is no way to live. That's a half life.

He can't understand why you would do this, most people can't. The logical assumption is that you never really loved him and that you married him for some other reason, whatever it is. He didn't know that, probably didn't really suspect it. And now he finds out his beautiful wife (whatever you look like a believed spouse is always beautiful) has shared the most intimate things with another man and invited him to the wedding. It's a negation of the marriage itself. That's what it feels like and it's very hard to work around that. It makes it seem like your 14 years or so of marriage was more like a job you undertook. It makes him see you differently and that can't be avoided. He doesn't know who you are anymore.

I think he should be independent from you for a while, you two can figure out co-parenting and you should be good to him in any divorce and I would not bother with recon at this point because this is the kind of thing that, IMO, only time can heal....time and distance help to create perspective. You have to know why you did these things to have fruitful discussions with him.
Maybe you really DON'T love him like one should with a husband - you may discover that, that's okay but just trying to recover what was before he found out the truth.....time doesn't go backwards. He knows and he'll always know, this is part of you, part of your history together and IMO, he has to have time and space to work this out.

You may eventually end up back together, I don't want to put that out as hope because I don't think that's what you should be striving for. I think you should be striving for self knowledge and understanding that hopefully you can pass on to him. And also....don't make him look bad to anyone else, like relatives or friends or work etc. This is something you created and you have to take responsibility for it and work your way through it. I think that's your job going forward. Be kind to him, be honest with him, be where you say you're going to be, do what you say you will, do not be a people pleaser but say the truth, be supportive of him - don't take ABUSE from him but try to understand how absolutely devastated he is. And do be a good mother to your children and provide them with the examples you would like them to model themselves after in adulthood.

And do keep posting here, I know it's painful but everybody starts from some rung of the ladder and works their way up. You can do it too. You're not evil, you're just screwed up and you need to fix yourself. In a year, there will be change of some type....and hopefully progress that you help create. Be active in your life and make the change you want and be honest about it and be fair and compassionate to him.

Good luck!

I think infidelity tends to be about validation. Based on what you share and the guilt you describe for your actions it looks like you have very low self-esteem, and that in turn increases your need for some external validation. It’s a bit of a vicious cycle – you feel worthless and you therefore seek outside validation, that in turn makes you feel worthless and that makes you seek the validation…

IMHO you need to find peace with yourself.
You need to accept you did what you did, but focus on moving forward rather than focus on what you did.
That does not mean accepting what you did by having affairs as "good", but it is acknowledgeding that you did have them, accept the totality of the blame and then focusing on how to move on from them and make amends for your actions. Those amends can be anything from a heartfelt sorry to actions confirming you have changed to someone who is aware they did wrong but are constantly working towards never repeating that.
You do that by finding the root cause and dealing with that cause.

I have never cheated so I can’t give you advice on that. But as a young man I did something that was morally wrong, and I knew while doing so that it was morally wrong… A friend and I vandalized a vehicle. What we didn’t know was that there were witnesses, and my dad got a visit from the owner. I was fortunate that he accepted my dad’s offer for compensation. My dad made me apologize and the shame I felt – both to the owner and my parents – was such that I never want to go there again. I can’t change what I did. My amend to the owner was an apology. My amend to my dad was to show him I would never do something so thoughtless again. Just writing this raises the emotions of regret and remorse. This is something I wish I had never done, but because I did it then AT LEAST it now serves as a reminder to me to never do something like this again.

Maybe your infidelity becomes something similar. You can’t undo it. There really isn’t any action that can make it even with your spouse. Even if he finds it in himself to forgive you and accept what amends you make then you will always feel regret at your actions.

Keep in mind that you aren’t healing yourself for him. You aren’t going to be open with your phone, your social media and your locations for him, but rather to help YOU recover. By living a life that is transparent you manage to deal with your issues and that benefits YOU most of all. Like if my original sentence about validation is true, then you start to find validation in being honest and open. You don’t need it from him – you find it in yourself.

So what can you do to help your marriage?
Talk.
Make it clear that you acknowledge what you did is wrong and totally 100% on you.
You can share that you might not know why you did it, but also that you hope to find out.
You two can talk about what sort of marriage you want, and see if you two really align.
You can offer him that he can leave the marriage and it will be dealt with in a reasonable way within the laws of your area.
You can ask him what assurances he needs. Keep in mind that early-days they will seem excessive and it takes a lot of effort to discern between what’s really needed and what might actually be some form of control or revenge… Like NOW and maybe the next 6 months he might need that you share your agenda and can confirm at the end of the day that you really went to see your sister, the gym, to work… but it’s equally reasonable that after some time behavior builds some trust.
The goal – if the marriage survives – isn’t to create fences that keep either of you fenced in, but rather boundaries that keep you both safe.

I am overwhelmed by all the responses I have received. Thank you for those who have reached out. I admit some are hard to hear but I feel it is a necessary step in the right direction. In writing my story, I know, my choices of words were not the best. I struggle to find the right words to say. My husband wants a divorce. I 100 percent support his decision. It does fill me with grief and loss. There is no going back. From what I am hearing reconciliation is far away but may still be in the cards. I do feel that. Some days it feels like the first day he found out. I have read through some articles in the healing library. I have also read the book by Linda McDonald on how to help your spouse heal and am currently half way through shirleys book not just friends. I have been working on my whys. My goodness it is hard. To face that monster who committed so many cruel and hurtful deeds. My therapist has been helpful in this process. My husband felt SI would help me find a way to heal. To talk to others that can help through some of things we are going through now. I have been isolating myself talking only to my therapist of my day to day, thoughts and feelings. I know shame and guilt is what drives me to hide away. I end with questions. Will he ever be ok again? Will he be able to trust another person he loves again? I am hoping this more than anything else. I honestly don't know what is going to happen with us. I do hope there will be an us.

Will he ever be ok again?

Hopefully. He seems to be able to express what he is experiencing and is not acting as a doormat. In my opinion, those things bode well for him healing. But some never do, hard to say exactly why.

Will he be able to trust another person he loves again?

Probably not in a child-like innocent way. I trust my new girlfriend (I divorced), but am being cautious. I trust my best friend, but am aware that betrayal could come from anywhere. It’s a sad state, but it’s accurate.

I honestly don't know what is going to happen with us. I do hope there will be an us.

"Us’s" can dissolve and still leave two fully intact and valuable human beings in place. Either one of you, or both of you, may benefit from that dissolution. It only works if you both really want to be there, and for the right reasons. I think it’s too early for either of you to say you are in that place. Don’t try to salvage an "Us" for the wrong reasons, like money, appearances, etc.

My goodness it is hard. To face that monster who committed so many cruel and hurtful deeds. My therapist has been helpful in this process. My husband felt SI would help me find a way to heal.

But you took the first step forward.

No matter what kind of shit you did or how awful the swamp you decided to belong for years is, you yourself know that is bad, and acknowledging and taking the first step out of that dark place is respectable.

You can’t undo the past, but you can choose to stop making the past define who you are. Keep climbing, is uphill but one day the stench of what you left behind will just fade into a repulsive memory, because you will not be the swamp girl anymore, you’ll become a worthy woman, someone who is different from her past self. And wouldn’t cross her boundaries to roll back into the swamp for anything.

Because if You heal, You will respect finally yourself.
And that gives you all the validation you will ever need, not the false one you have been begging for until now.

I read about you both and I think SI can be a useful resource for you both, but you have to honor your commitment not to read each other’s messages. Or it can become a double edged sword 🗡️. This is a very important test of trust for you guys.

I will respect that demand.

Point is that you can heal, but only you can heal yourself and only him can heal himself. Separately through an often painful process. WS heals the WS - BS heals the BS.

You can’t help each others as long as you’re both broken. But you can accommodate and accompany each others healing.

You can really benefit from full transparency here, telling exactly how you feel and what you did will help you pull out your ghosts give them form so you can finally exorcise them.
If you "curate" what you share because it feels too shameful and you are afraid your husband might read it and hurt, then you will never heal or benefit fully from the knowledge and understanding you could garner here.

I can tell you 2 things that are harsh but you must accept:

1- your husband is in an abyss of pain and completely destroyed in his identity, attachment and body/ mind.
Theirs is just about nothing you can reveal or share that can make it worse. It’s your own shame and mind telling you that maybe you shouldn’t come clean because you should only reveal what he can take, the rest is best under the rug. It’s called trickle truths, and it is going to put the final nail in the coffin of your relationship. All wayward partners tend to do it, but if you don’t realize that is a killer of any reconciliation hopes soon enough, you will be done with no appeal. Seriously.

I know you feel that you should eyedrop the revelations of your infidelity so it doesn’t crush him, but is not the reality.
And is not about just how bad or how sordid your betrayal was in practice, if compared to an emotional affair or "just a kiss / just a…" kind of justification betrayals.

For the betrayed partner there is no difference at all. Every single betrayal of any kind is a lethal stab to your heart. You die in that moment. It doesn’t matter if you were stabbed 1 or 1000 times, what color the blade was or what angle it pierced in. Each stab hurts, but the first one was already lethal, you died then, keeping the other secret is only ensuring that if by a miracle the bleeding begins to heal, the hidden stabs will hit it again when they are finally found out. And seriously, every cheater thinks that they won’t, but they will be always found out, even decades later.

You are ensuring you will kill him over and over and over again if you keep him from the truth. There is an excellent post called "keeping secrets" in general. Read it, is enlightening.

2- your relationship is dead. Infidelity kills all. It doesn’t matter if you stay formally married, divorce, together or split. What was before the thought of infidelity crossed your mind is completely and irremediably dead. Is not coming back as is not possible for you to go back in time and undo it. It is gone, no matter what you choose to do after. Cannot be fixed, cannot be resurrected, cannot be rebuilt.

Dead is dead.

Only thing you can look forward to, if you both can fully heal first, is a new, completely new relationship, built from the ground up, over the ashes of the old defunct one, but new in every sense.

That’s what is called reconciliation, but requires two fully healed people, and a lot of commitment and hard work.
It can be something that feels as redemption to you or it can be something that is just to painful to both of you.

You will only know once you get there.

Now about your "monster"

You are no monster, you are broken. The "monster " inside you is likely a scared little girl who is trying desperately to find solace in her emotional chaos by acting impulsively as she cannot value herself enough to establish her own boundaries and structure for her life.

Is not a monster, it’s weakness and fear that causes the emotional chaos.

Something in your life brought you to that point, something you might not yet understand consciously but you do feel emotionally, it was possibly a survival strategy that worked in your early years but it’s dysfunctional and devastating in your adult life.

You need to take that little girl by hand and she’d a light in the darkness to see that those ghosts hiding in the shadows are not really that terrifying once you confront it.
The adult woman can definitely face the ghosts that terrified the little girl, giving them their real names and let them go away as they should have done years ago.

Those ghosts are usually low self worth, people pleasing, perfectionism and all, their relatives. They are not hard to exorcise once you find the courage to confront them, it is hard for you to believe you are not the little girl anymore but someone else today.

I am sure you get this is not an apology for your choices, they sucked and you know it yourself. That’s also a hint you are not the monster, or you would feel perfectly fine with what you have done, not bad and in pain as you are now.

Real monsters do exist but they are truly rare.
Most people are just broken, you belong to that roster not the monster one.

Like your past mistakes that is all coming from your choices.
You chose infidelity back then. Today you can choose respect and self love.

It’s only up to you and you can definitively do it if you want.
I am confident it’s worthy.