SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Happy holidays everyone. It’s been a very long time since I have participated on SI but can say with certainty that had I not found this place, I may have done something permanent to myself.

I caught my fws in an affair with a family friend that was old enough to be her father 12 years ago. I went complete nuts and attacked the OM swiftly and severely. How I managed to not get into legal trouble, I’ll never know. I did a lot of other crazy stuff too. FWS was the love of my life. Childhood sweethearts and all. It was the most excruciating pain that I’ve ever experienced.

Sparing all of the details, I ended up having a revenge affair of my own that lasted quite a while. My plan was to leave my wife after my kids grew up. I ended up getting caught and realized that was not what I really wanted. My FWS has been a model citizen since the day I found out and completely changed her ways. Devoted her life to me and our family. She has not faltered once. I have done the same since my own affair.

I know that I’m no better than her since I had an affair too, but I still can’t shake what she did to me. It was in fact the catalyst that propelled my life into chaos. With that said, I also know I’m responsible for my own actions. I unfortunately saw some of the communication between them when I found out and it haunts me to this day. All the I love you’s and I want to marry you stuff. Even using my kids as part of their fantasy as if they were a family. This is what threw me over the edge and why I chose violence when I did. The sexual stuff was just the icing on the cake considering the OM was quite well endowed and seeing what she said to him about it. The pictures are etched into my memory between the two of them.

To those of you that are a decade or more away from an affair that have successfully moved beyond it, what am I missing? I love my wife but sometimes I still hate her too. Is this common with you all also? I’m sure she loves me and also hates me at times also.

We’ve done counseling many times and also individual therapy. Even with all of that, I still can’t shake the betrayal that was done to me completely. I hate the intrusive thoughts that will come and go periodically. I’m mindful that she is a betrayed now also and suffers from the same but I’d have thought by the twelve year mark that things would’ve subsided for me.

I guess I’m just asking for some advice and wisdom from some old pros here. Thanks in advance.

Hi, Uhtred. I'm an oldtimer, like you, and also a mad hatter (I had an EA). My DDay was 20 years ago.

I love my wife but sometimes I still hate her too. Is this common with you all also?

I don't hate him, but I sure do hate what he did to me and I get mad at him sometimes for that old stuff. I sometimes wonder where I'd be mentally and emotionally had I divorced. I like my life, I love him, I like him, we're best friends, but like you said, the infidelity is always there under the surface. It probably always will be because it was such a big part of our early years. And sometimes I feel like a chump for sticking around even though we R'ed well and I wasn't a pushover.

I suppose I've accepted that it's a part of who I am and who we are, and that I like my life much more than I like the possibility of a new one. It's going to hurt sometimes and I allow myself to grieve the dream that I had for a life without infidelity.

Hope that helps.

Thank you Sacred for the reply. I’m definitely familiar with the "feel like a chump" for staying feelings. In spite of the fact that I do love her. I think that was part of the reason for my own revenge affair. I didn’t want to feel like a chump. It’s not justified for me to have done so but I guess I rationalized it in my brain that way.

I am naturally drawn to your post because this is the order of events in my marriage too. I had an affair with a man old enough to be my father. I confessed and he had his own affair 18 months later that he as longer, and worse in details. But my worse is I am the one that lobbed that bomb first.

I found out, and like you he decided he wanted to work through it.

I imagine what you say can happen here to us as well even though from my perspective we are closer and more connected and have a great friendship to boot. But I am so aware that he has avoidant tendencies too or he would never have chosen an affair either.

I think maybe just sit and talk with her about what you are feeling. It is absolutely what I would want. And remember during that discussion that:

1) both of you were likely trying to solve pain by using escapism in the affair. Your pain was from her affair but do not disregard the possibility pain she was in was equally hard for her to cope with. It may not have been caused by you, but whatever it was felt real to her.

2. She probably doesn’t give a shit about his size. An affair is usually had by two people looking for validation and feeding the other’s ego in order to keep the validation they want coming. An affair is most often a sick thing where you pretend the other person shits rainbows because you need them to be "wonderful" because if they aren’t the attention they are giving you is not as valid. You are each others hype person yet you know limited information about them as a true romantic interest. Even if you knew them a long time. I knew my ap for years, it didn’t mean I knew him well enough not to super impose my vision of who he would be. Women especially cheat for these non realistic romantic fantasies and then we realize we are dumb as hell and the real romantic vision was always there in front of us. We didn’t appreciate it enough. My husband has always been there to take care of me when I am sick, makes sure I have the right coat or an umbrella, he is my whole history, my family. My pain blinded me from that.

What I am trying to say is that there are likely a lot of similarities to how she feels about her cheating and how you feel about your own. There was likely no real love (I professed mine too) but an addiction to the dopamine the affair was creating.

Have some solid talks, go to a professional together again if needed. It doesn’t sound like you want out of the marriage but would like to heal more. That’s a worthwhile endeavor. I hope when my husband has these feelings that he will bring them to me and we will work through them together. And if he can’t work through them then I will make every effort to help him go in without me. Because what I learned through it all is what it truly means to love someone and that is you hold their happiness equal to your own. I don’t want him to stay and be miserable, I want him to stay because he wants to. I love him more than anyone else on earth (well maybe outside of our kids but my kids are grown and off living their lives)

Don’t bottle it up, I think that makes it worse. Let us know how that goes.

[This message edited by hikingout at 9:42 PM, Friday, December 20th]

Hiking- thank you so much for this reply. It helps to be reminded that affairs are not love, they are an escape. It’s truly hard for me to grasp the escapism avenue because mine was more about revenge and reaffirming that I’m not a chump. It did none of those things for me of course in the end but I thought it would. My spouse’s affair was about her own need for validation. Stay at home mom, college drop out, self worth issues. It still makes no sense to me to this day. It was her choice to do all of these things and I supported her decisions. I’ve been fortunate to have been able to earn a really healthy salary in order for that to have been made possible. Unfortunately good money doesn’t equate to happiness.

I do avoid the topic when I shouldn’t and i will talk to her more about it from now on. She actually avoids it too because of guilt. I didn’t mention earlier but when I attacked the other man, I ended up in the hospital myself along with him but two weeks later. In the midst of my rage, I cut the top of my finger on his teeth and ended up with the worst staff infection ever and had to have a finger removed because of a really bad bone infection.

Visual physical reminders of the day that dramatically transformed our lives are there for us to view on a daily basis. My kids to this day think it was a dog bite I sustained because that’s what we told them when it happened. They were little and I invented this story for them.

It’s kind of sad but they are teenagers now and have retold the story on occasion to their friends about how a dog attacked and bit me and how I had to have my finger cut off. I have watched my wife cringe twice when they have retold it to a friend.

I think a trip is in order after the holidays for us to see a counselor again. I really appreciate the replies. It helps to know that I’m not alone out there with these feelings.

I can't offer much in the way of advice, but I did want to let you know I really relate to your story. I went back and read your first JFO post. I, too, was a fight sports guy (BJJ and TKD, with some kickboxing here and there) and am a madhatter as well. I totally get why you beat the POSOM senseless...and also believe that this act was not in your character. Violence, of course, isn't the answer, and you're insanely lucky you didn't spend time in jail. That beatdown was savage. FWIW, since it did happen, I do hope he has a physical reminder of what you did to him that he sees when he looks at a mirror.

I'm also a retired Army officer with some background in special operations. Being someone who is comfortable with the mechanics of violence does impact your character and self-esteem. How can it not? You tend to be confident that you can handle virtually any situation. But infidelity is a whole 'nother thing. When your FWW betrayed you...well, it probably nuked that whole "I can handle anything" belief.

My high school sweetheart, later promoted to fiancee (now long since gone from my life) cheated on me. My RA was very brief and barely qualifies (it does, for the record), but I believed--like you--that it was necessary to reclaim a part of my self-esteem. It made things SO much worse. Nuff said there.

Follow the sage advice you're getting here. Make sure your wife knows how you're still struggling. And perhaps go back into IC to square the circle of how you can reclaim that unshakeable belief in yourself. BTW, you're still that guy and not at all a chump. You just need to find him again.

Stay strong.

[This message edited by 1994 at 10:52 PM, Friday, December 20th]

Moving this year into 9 years ago. I didn’t find out until 2.5 years ago that the betrayal I knew about-which was already a lot-was physical too.

I still feel gutted when triggered. Yes I definitely feel seismic anger when I think of what was done and the cost I have to pay. He has never faltered in trying to set things right though his way of trying to set things right involved trickle truth and thus more lies and deception.

The holidays are throwing me for a loop so I would have been more upbeat and enthusiastic a different week.

I can understand your anger. I don’t know of horrible things said between them. But my fear that caring things were said between them drives my anger.
I find talking about things helps me a lot but this far out I get tangled up about how often I should be doing that.

I’m sorry for what you are going through. I also love my husband but am fearful I will have to live with this pain forever. What is an acceptable amount of excruciating pain? Sometimes I compare myself to friends who deal with chronic illness. They live with pain. Maybe I can too.

Please take care of yourself. Sorry for your troubles.

If you cannot get past your WW's betrayal then you cannot get past it. You are not 'missing anything'. You see your friends who are married to women who didn't ever cheat on them, and you cannot get past that you didn't have this for yourself in that you are married to someone who broke their vows. Meanwhile I do hope your WW is aware of her why's beyond poor self-image and whatnot.

I have to say this even though you probably don't want this to be a focus of your thread. I am just having a tough time getting past your beating up a physically inferior man (age plays into that) especially if you actually had to drive somewhere i.e., premeditated. What if his grandkids were there to witness? I understand that as men we do have to do hard things but I do hope you have some remorse for this too. What if, say, OBS had showed up at your house and physically assaulted WW.

It was as much as anyone your WW who participated in this affair, and she was the one who told lies about you--including lies to OM(s) to justify it. The OBS and their families are victims too.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 8:02 PM, Saturday, December 21st]

Uhtred,

Your wife is a 3 time cheater that you know of. Cheating with POSGrandpa and your best friend is tough to overcome as you have found out for the last decade. I fear that this is a lifetime burden you will carry as long as you are with her.

Don't sweat the beatdown Grandpa took. Using his own words he FAFO.

Peace

12 years is a long time to be in against mode. Sounds like you can't/won't get over it. When the kids are old enough, time to walk my friend.

Tomorrow is my 14th antiversary.

I love my wife but sometimes I still hate her too. Is this common with you all also?

I can get angry, but not about her A. I did think about a revenge A, but I rejected the idea very quickly, perhaps because my W offered me a pass.

*****

Your say your W is a 'model citizen.' What did she do to change from cheater to good partner? What did you do to make the same change?

IMO, you may have skipped step in healing. IMO, there's more work to be done processing your feelings as a BH. She might have redeemed herself, but you - every BS - still has to process the anger, grief, fear, shame, etc. out of their body. Part of that work can be done only by the BS; a good IC can help, but the BS has to do the work. Part of the work can be done by talking with your WS to get your story told and heard.

Here's the thing that bothers me: dumping one's WS can help prevent new hurts from the WS (unless the WS makes the split more painful than it should be), but the best course for the BS still is to deal with the trauma of being betrayed. No matter what, you've been betrayed by the love of your life, and that hurts.

So maybe you're telling yourself that you'll heal only if you dump your W, but maybe you're saying to yourself and us that you have more work to do on yourself.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 8:50 PM, Saturday, December 21st]

but I still can’t shake what she did to me.

I’m going to rephrase this a wee bit, "but I still can’t shake how what she did affects me."

I still can’t shake the betrayal that was done to me completely.

Same change here. "I still can’t shake how the betrayal affects me."

It is subtle, but there is an important shift here. From what she did (you don’t control that) to how you respond to it. This you 100% control, actually. There’s nothing else in your head but you, and it is all in your head. Also, from something that happened in the past, to something going on right now, in the moment.

I hate the intrusive thoughts that will come and go periodically.

A key technique is to shift your attention from whatever the thought is about, to thinking about the thought itself. Why now? Why is this popping up? Why am I purposefully sabotaging myself here? WTF?

You could have asked yourself the same questions during your affair. WTF? Why am I purposely sabotaging things? Throwing my morals in the shitter?

Consider that the answers to both sets of questions come from the exact same place.

There is a shit-ton of reading available on this. Highly recommend an audiobook version of Practicing the Power of Now by Elkhart Tolle, or any of his books. I guarantee you will think, "Damn, he’s talking about me."

Similarly, Peter Ralston has a series of good books out, including one called Ending Unnecessary Suffering. He’s an extremely talented martial artist that really focuses on consciousness work. Very pragmatic, lots of YouTube videos. Give them a look. Lots of other authors too.

The unifying theme in them is to grow yourself out of the place you are in. Not fix…grow. As a human being.

Best of luck!