SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

6 years ago today I discovered by wife’s affair. We went straight to hysterical bonding, fear of loss, PTSD, IC, and reconciliation. We were tied at the hip for the next 3 or 4 years. On 12/4/23, my father-in-law passed in his sleep. He was 89. My wife just completed her treatment for breast cancer. Today my wife’s brother had open heart surgery. I took my father in laws death really hard. My anger towards my wife came back. I was mad at the loss of trust. I was mad again at the loss of innocence. I want to have an affair to show my wife how it felt. On DD, my mom was in the hospital for a heart condition.
I’ve been thinking about having an affair. I don’t even know how to go about it.
I started journaling again. I started going back to Adult Children of Dysfunctional Families meetings again. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring. This is what my Reconciliation looks like today.

I'm not far into reconciling but what gets me most stuck at times is my anger. I am okay most days sometimes great then out of nowhere I wake up so angry.

I wish I had better words for you.

You have a lot of things going on that is highlighting the mortality of those closest to you. Specifically tied with the other major stressor related to Dday. That's going to trigger hard. Have you considered more IC? How has your WW reacted to your struggles with these triggers? Did you ever do MC to polish up communication skills in your marriage?

qwert,

You are dealing with a lot of new trauma on top of your unresolved A trauma. My Discovery was over 5 years ago, but the trickle truth didn't end for years. My R went a lot like yours, with lots of family and kid and then pandemic drama adding to my worries and my ability to get my bearings.

My emotions are all over the place. I am finding less sharp edges to my emotions and more dull flatness toward my marriage moving forward, and more ambivalence toward life in general. It's hard to figure out who and how to be somedays, but I try to stay grounded to the person I have always known myself to be, and the person I want to be.

I could never get past the horror of thinking about having my own affair, the websites and pics were gross, the whole idea made my skin crawl. There was no person in my real life I would ever consider crossing sexual lines with, and I just let the idea of retaliation go. I still think living well is the best revenge, and treating others the way you want to be treated is still my golden rule, so there is no room for a revenge affair in my heart. Please be kind to yourself and look to address your pain and grief before you act on something that might make you feel worse in the end. I don't think there are many mad hatters here who will tell you their revenge A was a good thing, or helped them to heal.

Do I wish I could make my WH feel a fraction of the pain and heartache he has caused me? You bet. Do I think it is even possible? Probably not. He doesn't operate on that wavelength. I'm not sure it is even a option for compartmentalized selfish types like him. So we are not recovered, we are not quite in limbo, we just stay busy with our lives and business and our grown kids and new puppy and try to get through the day without hurting each other further. Sometimes it feels like a relationship of convenience, habit or lowered expectations, but sometimes I see a hint of the person I used to think was my best friend and soul mate. But I never see someone I can trust with my heart again. That is the conundrum I live with in choosing to stay, for so many reasons. For me, staying together makes more sense than splitting up, but both options have steep costs.

I can count on WH to support me and let me lean on him through family crisis after crisis and he has shown how much he can step up to help and care for me after my surgery and slow recovery. Are you and your wife able to lean in and help each other through all the tragedy this year has brought you? Your wife has lost her father, then scary surgery for her brother and is trying to survive cancer. You are trying to survive a terrible betrayal and the loss of your FIL and the health worries with your Mom. You both should be ragged edges right now, dealing with so much at once.

My family of origin is pretty dysfunctional and a hot mess. My mother is in the hospital with heart problems and pneumonia and it is making me feel more raw, vulnerable and overwhelmed. I am fighting back against turtling, or shutting down, which is not the best approach. I don't know what the right approach might be to deal with all that we are dealing with. But issues with my own family keep spilling into how I feel in my recovery, somedays it is just too much. Other days I feel like the only sane and stable person left that I know. Have you tried trauma counselling or EMDR to help you with the lingering PTSD from the A and the stress of the current situation?

It is good that you are journaling, and going to meetings for support. You have been through a lot, and deserve all the support you can get, as well as help sorting through the many emotions you are working through right now, with grinding grief from the loss of the marriage and life you thought you had and the acute grief of the loss of loved ones and stress of family health issues.

Long winded way to say you are heard, I hope for healing and better days for you moving forward.

Fellow former AC here. I'm sorry you're in a rough space right now. You're welcome to PM me if I can offer some insight into these two relational wounds. I'm the BW. I'm about 4 years out from DD. While, I can't speak for whether or not you should have an affair. I can empathize with the terrible dark feelings associated with these wounds and just wanting to feel some/any relief. As others have recommended, I'd get into IC asap, if you're not already. You're going through a lot. How's your self care? Step it up. I don't have this experience, but I think getting into an affair never creates the outcome that WS thinks it will. The truth will rise and it is seldom as pretty as the affair fog makes it seem.

What I can offer is that I've learned is that trauma attaches to trauma. When I'm reliving a childhood trigger, I start feeling ambivalent about R and vice versa. And, when you've grown up with a lot of childhood trauma and learned to depend on no one but yourself.....and flight or fight kicks in.....it is only natural for your brain to kick you into flight mode from your marriage. It makes it doubly difficult when you've not really learned a secure attachment as a kid....and then likely found someone who you thought was more safe and secure....only to have the rug pulled out from under you again as an adult. It is a horrible feeling. The A stirred up all kinds of unworthiness issues for me. Sometimes, I'm not really completely sure if I'm experiencing a childhood trigger or an A trigger....but I know when I'm there, I'd do virtually anything not to be. For me, I've had to think more strategically about what I want out of my marriage and making a conscious effort toward that. Even then, there are no guarantees. As someone else here wrote Ala Princess Bride.....you did good today, sleep well, I'll most likely divorce you in the morning.

For me knowing that I have the opportunity to choose is what gets me through. Gratitude journaling, trying HARD to be present and grounded here and now. EMDR helped me immensely. Though, whenever I tried a session about the A, the childhood would come up hard. On the flip side, AC's have a tendency to be some of the most interesting, self aware, and resilient people on the planet. Surviving life's hard knocks without the safe foundation in childhood and thriving makes you a special kind of super hero.

Hang in there.

I am so very sorry you are feeling this way. I wonder how much you are talking about the affair. It has been seven years but with d-day of the PA happening just seven months ago we are talking about it a lot. Whenever we go several days without some discussion the anger builds intensely. I think that if we ever stopped we might not be able to get by. In the fall I felt like I was ready to have my own affair with any man I could find. It would never have had the desired effect—letting him experience the magnitude of the pain he caused. But I fully understand the destructive appeal. Would talking more help? Of course they can’t undo what they have done but do genuine and frequent expressions of remorse help make the wounds sting any less for you? Sometimes I think maybe the talks about the A help in that way. It is a crutch I suppose…but what other medication is there? I feel very weak crying out my pain in those moments and maybe it is just a way to reinforce some messed up trauma bond. The whole thing is such a mind f#%^. I wish you some peace

Your WW absolutely deserves to experience the pain of betrayal. You, however, do not deserve to experience the pain of betraying your core values. And therein lies the rub. You see, the problem with being a decent human being, is being a decent human being. You operate with a setvprohram that bristles at screwing people over. Waywards, not so much.

In the end, we BS's are looking for justice, some sense of fairness. We want all this shit to mean something. For fuck's sake, all this pain must surely mean something... Yeah, that's not going to happen. I think the only real option is to turn inward and live a truly authentic life.