SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Fully agree with Pink here.

Gently....what she said is right. You have grown past that person....and have spent most of this thread in that mindset.

I suggested earlier and several others.... you don't know him. You pushed back.

HO..this is not the man you married. Not the man who experienced your infidelity....this is a different person. You do t know the depths he is will to go.

I don't know that you need your bitch boots right now...but I do think you have to give yourself PERMISSION to out them on when you need to. You have the RIGHT to be ANGRY, MAD, SAD, PISSED, RAGE, etc. Because what this person did to you was disgusting and WRONG.

I have to go home from work now and strangle my husband

Assuming the OBS told you a completely different story than your husband. What gets me is the fact that your husband of all people should know that lying (now that the cat is out of the bag) is probably the most idiotic thing he could do.

Why lie now? To spare you your feelings or is he covering his own ass? You two just went through hell with recovering from your affair, why in the hell would he want to make the same mistakes AGAIN?

Hiking Out, I am...sorry. Sorry doesn't even really cover this kind of pain. You don't deserve this.

You may feel like this is some surreal dream for a while. I think it's the mind's way of protecting itself until it and your body are ready to feel the emotions that will follow.

Hang in there.

[This message edited by RosesandThorns at 12:17 PM, October 20th (Tuesday)]

Dee- I am confused. Have I led you to believe I think I would be spared pain? I have no idea what’s ahead, I have only known for two weeks on Friday. I am mostly walking around like I am on some sort of bad dream.

No, not spared pain. And maybe I read you wrong. If so, I apologize. I guess I just want you to feel free to express anything you feel without worrying about the caveats of being the WS first because that doesn't make what he did less traumatizing.

And yeah, the walking around feeling like you're in a bad dream is so normal and awful. I don't know what's worse, that part or when that lifts and the feelings slam you.

[This message edited by DevastatedDee at 11:30 AM, October 20th (Tuesday)]

I only got the tip of the iceberg from my WS too. The OBS in my situation wasn't much help I ended up hacking my WS's iphone and retrieved all the deleted messages. They are seared in my memory. I'm just so sorry you are going through this my heart hurts for you

I think the biggest difference if I can remember - is you voluntarily disclosed. You came to him with a whole different mindset than just about every different wayward. Most of us betrayed here rooting you on have experienced the opposite of what you are going through. The damn trickle truth.

My WH tried to tell me it was an EA until the COW reached out and hinted otherwise. Then it took another 3 weeks and a failed polygraph for me to learn the rest. My story sounds similar to yours, except she was single. She was building her future with my WH too even though he knew it was never going to happen.

I can’t say enough how sorry I am you are here going through this. It’s not that we want you to just be a bitch, it’s that we’ve been in your shoes, we understand the rollercoaster, and we “know” you well enough to hate to see you hurting.

hikingout,

My heart is breaking for you. Your feedback and posts on this site have helped so many of us. You have become such a role model for so many ... I hope your WH will take your lead and become the H you deserve. So sorry that you find yourself on the other side of this.

I don't know what's worse, that part or when that lifts and the feelings slam you

Ugh. I remember this all too well...when the latter of this came it took me completely by surprise. So horrible. I hate this for you H.O. My only hope for you is that the work you’ve done so far will aid in less of your traumas being triggered when the feelings do come.

[This message edited by maise at 2:22 PM, October 20th (Tuesday)]

Remember you called this woman as a bunny boiler. If her endgame is to be get your husband then she will do anything to split you up, especially if she sees her own relationship as necessary collateral damage.

I'm not saying she's definitely lying but the possibility's there.

I have noone else to talk to about this at this point, so I am back already. I have to think about who I can talk to in real life. I know H didn't do that with anyone either and looking back that should have been a red flag. I have also made an IC appt. I wasn't ready to do that but I think I need to do something besides type on this screen.

Some clarifications.

I appreciate the pushes forward. I promise I am open to feeling however I need to feel.

I wasn't open to getting all the details because I wasn't sure I wanted to go to all the places and I still don't. It's going to take me some time to take my WS hat off, it's been a long time, and honestly I never reached the point where I even considered being an FWW. I have been on this train for so long it's hard to just switch gears on this stuff. And, honestly when his affair started I was in a different part of my journey on that. I was still not where I should have been. I know that doesn't give anyone license to cheat, it's hard to wrap my mind around it though.

I remember my husband didn't want sexual details until we were somewhere around the year mark. Looking back that was probably like another DDAY to him. I remember him having a hard time after that, but I felt like we agreed I hadn't lied to him, he had asked me not to go into it. I am going to have to rip the bandaid off and go full throttle now. I dread it, but I can see how I am dragging this on for myself.

No, I didn't catch him lying yet. The problem is that I have kept the disclosures very controlled in what paths I want to go down. I didn't want sexual details and I hadn't gotten much into what stories he told her or whether there was love words or whatever. The OBS was just so fired up he was spewing things we hadn't gotten to yet. So, again either don't tell the OBS until you know more, or don't answer the phone! I didn't want to get those things from him right now.

I am going to figure out how to get some boundaries on this OBS situation, I do think we will talk again but I don't think this guy understands boundaries or he is too mad to have them right now. And, honestly his energy is so much for me to deal with right now. It's hard to feel empathetic towards someone who is beating you over the head with all that he found out.

I talked to H about all he said and there are discrepancies. I don't know what to do about that yet, if anything. The things H told me makes me think it's the OBS who is getting the minimized versions.

A few examples:

She said he was lousy in bed and had ED half the time. He said he had ED a few times early on and maybe a couple of times near the end. She said there were no I love yous, my Husband said there were. She said they fucked at my house a couple times in the downstairs bedroom. My H confirmed it.

They both say the last time was in March. I don't know if that was pre-planned and agreed upon but some of the other shit she said she is still looking to blow him up so I don't know why she would lie about that for him. But I realize it is a lie she would also think she was benefitting from.

I have a headache.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:04 PM, October 20th (Tuesday)]

She said they fucked at my house a couple times in the downstairs bedroom. My H confirmed it.

If you thought of your home as a sanctified space for the marriage and the family, this may be difficult to get past. It was for me.

HO,

Finding someone to talk to is hard.

I guess your H would be hesitant to post here as it would be a bit 'toxic' toward him.

If he wants to PM me to talk I am more than willing to lend a wayward ear and a nugget or two of advice (I know you asked him to keep off SI...), and no I will not be a conduit back to you.

If you thought of your home as a sanctified space for the marriage and the family, this may be difficult to get past. It was for me.

It's complicated. One, we had planned to sell the house already in the Spring. BUT it was because we were planning to go full time in the RV for a year or two before deciding what part of the country we would like to live in and maybe grow old in.

The RV itself poses the worst of it for me in some ways. We bought that as a new beginning and I sent him to live in it last week. I don't think we are going to be able to keep that thing.

The room itself is a guest room, but I consider it our oldest daughter's room. However, we have been in the house for 10 years and that was around the time she left for college. So, she never really lived in there. The door is typically closed all the time to keep the cats out of there. I have to pass the door a lot and now the closed door makes it feel sinister. I know, I just found out, but it's making me crazy. I don't know if I should open the door, leave it closed, set the bed on fire or what. I am not happy about this detail at all.

I will say that she's been in our house a lot, she would drop by to pick up stuff (bills mostly) or drop stuff off. So in another way her being in the house was a normal occurrence. She had our garage code even (H has already changed it)

Thanks Mr. Clean Slate. I don't see him coming here for help. At this point I don't want him here either.

[This message edited by hikingout at 3:31 PM, October 20th (Tuesday)]

For me it was that the spirit of the home as a retreat for our family and marriage, a private place for us, was so deeply violated. I still live here and it’s a great house but it doesn’t feel like home to me since DDAY. I can’t wait to sell it. I also don’t like living in it

I get it. And, who knows how I will grow to feel about it over time.

I don't have a lot of attachment to the house now because I had already started mentally moving on - purging things, etc. The last four years in this house have a lot of bad memories already.

My heart was in the RV already. It was untainted by my affair, it was almost like a vow renewal.

I do feel disrespected they did this in our home. But, in another way I expected this to be a detail, he is home alone all day. She doesn't live but maybe 10 minutes away.

WS did it in our bedroom and the AP had been in our home often also. We still live in the same home but I redid every single space to represent ME. I threw out the bed, had the walls painted, pulled up the carpet, deep cleaned, threw out every part of furniture that they had sex on or that she was on. I put inspirational quotes on the wall at first and tried to make it as “peaceful” as possible. I had many sleepless nights and triggered hard when it was dark in there. I had to sleep with the tv on for a while. This was in the beginning. I’ve redone my room again (after some healing) and what I did this time was create spaces that I want in it. I have a place for my workout/boxing, I have pretty lights, nice decor, a space in a corner with a teardrop chair that is my reading space, and have a space for my music. I put art above my new bed that represent me and my growth. My room is my favorite space now. I can be in there with no issues. The only times I may find myself slightly triggered now is if my WS is in my space...she was in my teardrop chair for example one day and I triggered. Safe space + WS in my new safe space reminded me if how I had to recreate everything bc of her violation of it so I asked her to remove herself.

Maise, that sounds like a good solution. I imagine no matter the outcome I still want to sell the house sometime after the holidays. We will have to see where things are then and what direction things seem to be going to get to those details.

This woman was in and out of my house all the time. Looking back I usually gravitate towards people and befriend them. When I had first met her we discussed books and I even read some of her suggestions. But for some reason I never took at all to her, she just simply wasn't the type of person I related to or would want to hang out with. She is younger than me, I am going to say by 7 or 8 years...but I don't think that was the issue. She just would work my nerves. When she would call H or come over, I mostly ignored it other than to say Hi and Bye. Our kitchen opens into his office and they would be there talking about things she needed to do or problems with tennants. I would be in the kitchen cooking with earbuds in. Looking back that was very unusual for me.

The worst part of who she is? We hired her after my affair because I needed to back off of my responsibilities. Hiking? Meet Karma.

I almost posted earlier that you probably need a real-life hug as well as someone who knows you to just sit and just be there with you. I would imagine a bunch of the SI community would converge on your house if we could. (That would be a sight!)

Is the reason you haven't spoken to anyone about this due to shame? To protect your husband as you were a wayward, working on R? Afraid to burden friends? I know it's hard to trust people. Just, this is a lot to carry on one's own. It's almost like getting hit upside the head with a 2×4 and then having to walk around with a beanie on your head to cover it up, pretending it doesn't hurt.

Burning the mattress sounds good to me. Or maybe take a baseball bat to it if you get to the angry stage.

I #ש%ing hate infidelity.

A couple (more) thoughts ...

First, I recommend asking the mods to move this over to G. You're posting as a BS in the WS forum. It's a guideline violation for a BS to start a thread in WS.

That may be important for you. Just as your healing required you to take responsibility for your wayward actions, I think it's important for you to acknowledge fully that you've been betrayed. You're a BS. You're a madhatter, too, but as a BS you get different support that you got as a WS. Opening yourself up to receiving that support is probably a good thing for you.

Second, I'm concerned about the problem with anger that you acknowledged. You feel what you feel. You're entitled to be angry when you feel angry. You have a good grasp on external reality - knowing when you're angry internally is part of reality, too.

I view anger as a desire for something in your life to be different. You've certainly expressed that, but you're not aware of anger. I think there's probably a disconnect there.

Third, your healing, IMO and in my way of describing it, requires you to feel your feelings and process them out of your body. That sounds easy, and it's possible to learn to do that easily, but learning is hard work.

More important, most of us pick up ways of living that puts barriers between our feelings and our ability to process those feelings. Being abused, for example, may require putting up barriers to feeling what one feels.

The result is that lots of people have to deal with lots of accumulated shit - the shit we all have to own, if we want to heal - before someone can deal with the feelings that come from being betrayed.

As you probably know, I think a good IC can help.

*****

I think you're doing the right thing in being compassionate and in taking your time. I think that's being compassionate towards yourself, and that's probably always the right thing to do.

Be well.

The issue is mostly I have not had time to sit down and talk to someone.

I do have some girlfriends that I have dinner with sometimes, and there is one specifically that I think I could probably sit down with. I also keep in touch with my best friend from highschool. Maybe I will give her a call this evening.

The other obstacle is we didn't tell anyone about my affair either, but I could do that. There is no reason I didn't tell people other than H didn't seem to want people to know.

But, it's been difficult to foster friendships deeply since the A because I have tried to mostly be home with H.