SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I had an experience recently which was made easier because of my wife’s infidelity. I’m not in any way saying I’m glad she stepped out, but there have been very few good things resulting from her affair so I wanted to put it out there to see if anyone else can relate.

Over the past 4 months at work there has been a lot of uncertainty for me and everyone else. The organization was going through a reorganization and a reduction in work force. It caused me a ton of stress. I’ve been through things like this at work before but this time I took it a lot better than I used to. Why? Because over the long process of trickle truth and false reconciliation with my wife, I developed some new coping skills. One big one was knowing and believing I would be ok no matter what. Something I didn’t really believe before. Another big one was letting the feelings come and go. Even now there are times when I,m doing just fine and then something triggers me to think about the infidelity. Heart rate goes up and the mind starts racing. I’ve had to train myself to let those feelings come and go, understanding they won’t last forever. Many times when I’d have those feelings I would think of and focus on the worse case scenario. So I trained myself to except I don’t know what’s going to happen, so I shouldn’t worry about the worst thing I can think of. That really helped me get through the work crisis. In fact I had a lot of decision makers make comments to me appreciating I wasn’t totally losing my shit like some of my peers. I ended up standing out in a good way.

I think those of use who have been through infidelity are more resilient than we were before, regardless of the outcome. While I’m not happy about how and why I had to develop these coping skills, I’m glad I have them now. Just wondering if anyone else has experienced the same thing.

Good post

Even now there are times when I,m doing just fine and then something triggers me to think about the infidelity. Heart rate goes up...

An interesting thing to do when this happens is to just put your awareness on that feeling. Not the cause of it, no labels, no thinking about the stuff that caused the feeling…. Just the feeling itself. That feeling in your in your core. That is the feeling of emotion. When you do that, it is oddly enough very mind-clearing.

At the risk of sounding like a fortune cookie, that which doesn’t kill us makes us stronger. I looked for something positive early on and came up with these two things. First, I reconnected with some of my old friends. I had let them drift away and then when I needed support I was truly screwed. I thought I didn’t need to invest energy in friends because I had the most wonderful wife and great kids. Second, I always thought that my wife was the better person. But I realized very quickly that I would never do to her what she did to me. It violated our wedding vows but more importantly, even if we had never taken vows, it was dishonorable. I remember when I had the epiphany that I had better ethics than she did.

Your story reminded me of Air Force survival training. They put aviators through survival and POW school. It well and truly sucked. We were physically and mentally stressed. A lot. Sleep deprived and starved. Interrogated and crammed into tiny boxes. Most of us said upon graduation that if they ever lost our records and said we’d have to do survival again, we’d offer back our wings. But the misery made us stronger, just like you experienced. We realized that we were stronger than we thought and we could cope with baling out into mother nature and if it came to that, the staff at the Hanoi Hilton.

My WW's affair hasn't killed me, but I still feel like a weak person carrying a heavy burden

Great post. I feel the same way about post Dday Tanner. I will not give her A one ounce of credit for the improvements I have made in my life. I give all the credit to my ability to fight my way back, and answering that wake up call. I never knew how strong I could be.

After Dday I was numb, I really didn't give a shit about much. I used that to build a fire line. In a wild fire they will intentionally burn off areas to try to gain control. I burned down a lot of the dead weight in my life. I cut my business back 40%, I got rid of the headache part, got employees hired at a competitor, and went into serious debt doing it. That 40% was eating me up with stress. Our business has bounced back in the last couple of years, got the debt paid off and more than that 40% has come back in healthy revenue with less staff. I changed my diet, I couldn't taste food for so long I cut out the bad and learned to eat better. I have maintained my goal weight for the past several years and grew a sweet beard.

I look back at pre Dday me and I am embarassed, I put up with way too much shit and stress. I was overweight, withdrawn, and hated my business. I would never want to go back there, but wish I could have found this courage without destroying my M. Nothing scares me anymore, I've been through the worst and came out better.

"My WW's affair hasn't killed me, but I still feel like a weak person carrying a heavy burden sad"

I am truly sorry you experienced this Eric.

For those of you who are thriving and healed I could not be happier for you!!!

I hope that we are able to instill hope but also not victim blame those who got the equivalent of totalled by infidelity. At best I have a "rebuilt title" on my life.

I would say that for me it did not kill me but iI am experiencing a probably stress related recurrence of a potentially life threatening physical issue. And I have significant trauma from my experiences with him and his legal and financial abuse after dd2.

I think that post/traumatic growth can occur but to me the infidelity I lived through is like me tooling down the road in my cute little car enjoying a Saturday trip to the farmer’s market and being deliberately out of the blue hit with a drunk driver deriving an 18 wheeler driven by someone I loved and trusted. And there were people along the road who I knew and trusted who knew it was happening and they did not warn me.

Some waywards are powerful destructive forces.

The A has changed me. I'm not sure for the better.

I do hear the Kelly Clarkson song in my head though.

" What doesn't kill you, makes you stronger "🎵