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I can not believe all that has been taken from me! My innocence, trust, my ability to go down the highway or a road without being triggered and etc..

What has it taken from you? Have you been able to anything back? What is gone forever?

Any responses are greatly appreciated!!! Y'all are the best!!

The sense that someone else had my back. Even though this may never have been true , I felt like it was. I know I have my own back, but that is new and scary for me. I'll get used to it and be ok. But that old feeling is lost.

My last (and most devastating) DDay took a lot away from me. Of course I went thru the typical BS traumatic emotional roller coaster for about a year after, but even as my fWH and I began to heal, I kept losing parts of myself along the way...
In addition to losing all trust for my H- and pretty much most ppl- I also lost my sense of who I was. I was a happy-go-lucky, always optimistic and goal driven woman. Strong and an independent thinker. Empathetic and freely giving and totally affectionate woman. Loved, loved, loved ppl and entertaining and social gathering on a weekly basis. Had a core group of close friends among many other great friendships. I was loved by many bc I loved EVERYONE. I was patient and rarely ever angry in general.
Afterwards, I still carried many of those traits, but slowly as I suffered thru the pain and agony of a life forever changed, I grew more bitter and truly negative and cynical. Over the last 4 yrs I began to close off myself to the world more and more. I grew silently depressed. Lost interest in doing all the fun activities I was into before, like socializing and exercising. I was no longer ambitious and I pretty much gave up on my promising career heading into a six-figure income. I was not optimistic and couldn't move my team at work with any motivating words. I became very flaky at work and with friends bc I would often not feel like being around anyone. I really just started doing the minimum in life to get by.
To answer your question about getting anything back... Yes.
My fWH and I did a lot of rugsweeping of important needs for healing (refer to my posts from last month). We were in R but we didn't do it correctly from the get-go. He'd been remorseful and did a lot of work with me to fix the brokenness, but I needed more closure that I never asked for back then. I stayed stuck in my "depressed" and insecure state because we couldn't talk about the A anymore this far out. We both thought I was healed enough. With a huge setback of major triggering seemingly outta nowhere last month, it forced fWH and I to go back and deal with the last bits of the incomplete story and lingering Q's from 4 years ago. Head on! Now we're dealing with things the right way. We're no longer rugsweeping and I'm quickly regaining my confidence and security in my M (something I haven't truly felt too deeply in yrs). I'm also starting to feel a bit more motivation to start my career back up. To start reliving my life in a more positive happy state.
I'm sure tho I'll be forever changed, I'm confident that if we keep up the good, hard work on R and our M, we'll be stronger, more affair resistant than before.
I'm starting to crawl out of my safe hole a bit more these days also. Gotta make some new friendships and get back my groove, lol.... Feeling more hopeful and I pray you can get back the precious things you lost, and improve yourself! I pray that all of us BS' can eventually come out of this shitstorm stronger than before.

[This message edited by BreatheAgain10 at 1:15 PM, May 10th (Saturday)]

Sometimes it seems like everything is gone. I don't trust my own judgment about anything. I feel stupid for pursuing R despite it being what I want most (well, 2nd most) in the world.

Every sappy love song that made me think of my WW 2 months ago now makes me think how hurt I am. I then get sick, reliving D-Day for the umpteenth time, and wonder if I'll ever feel that way about her again. I still love her dearly, but I just feel like my whole world has disintegrated.

Every love story on TV or in a movie seems doomed. Whatever optimism I had in me is gone, and I don't know that it can come back. Even the good days/times feel like they're spent with an axe hanging just overhead.

Good memories of the past were taken away.

It freed me from the illusion that what I was living was real.

It took away a woman who felt her needs out weighed our marriage and then when given the chances to make it right, simply could not. Amazingly, I credit the infidelity for eventually giving me back that feeling of lightness in my life that I didn't even know was missing.

This took me a very long time to realize. I had as much hate and hurt in my heart as anyone on this site, but if I can make positives out of this, anyone can.

Oh man...

Things taken away, just to name a few...

1. That feeling you had before the A - that nothing bad was even capable of happening to us. That as long as we had each other, everything would be OK.

2. That I had a "good" guy

3. Being able to say "He'd never do that to me" when talking to friends going through something similar.

4. Enjoying most movies (Seems like all of them romanticize infidelity in some way...or has a storyline containing it)

5. Simply...Joy. I'm finding new ways to find it every day, but it's hard to do some days.

My sense of security. My feelings of contentment. My illusion of being so very special. My dignity, my pride. My confidence.
My sense of self worth. My plans of the future. My Heath, my well being. My happiness.
I am trying to get it back. I really am, but it is the hardest thing I have ever done.

Here's what infidelity took away from me permanently:

1) illusions
2) lots of time that could have been used productively - connecting with my W, producing something - instead of healing (i.e. just getting back to where I was at the start of the period during which the A affected me and our lives together)

Well time for sure - so much has been spent on dealing with the pain.

I think I will stop now bc I am trying to make this day better then how it started.

I was seriously screwed up in my 20's. I was looking for someone to love me and I spent a lot (a lot) of time with men who were out to get whatever they could from me. It left me with a very jaded view on relationships and men. While I understand that has to be on me now at the time I didn't.

I matured greatly when I ended up pregnant and alone. Not really alone as my mom and step-dad came though for me in a big way, but single. DD was the best thing that happened to me and she saved my life.

When I met WH it was like all that didn't matter anymore and I believed in love and that I was worthy of someone loving me. It was like he "unbroke" my heart.

Now that's all gone. So that's what infidelity took from me. The thought romantic love is real and husbands and wives can love each other forever.

All of the memories I had of us falling in love. The memories of us laughing and being silly. After DD I could not remember those moments without experiencing betrayal.

Any sense of security.

A lingering doubt in the back of my mind that I am not good enough no matter what the situation.

the blinders I was wearing

..only 40 years of my life...with a woman I never really knew and a friend who only pretended to be.

..it took away my reality.. I have lived a lifetime of illusion.. lies and betrayal..

..I can't begin to express all that I feel has been lost in not only my life but in the lives of all those who were affected by this tragedy.

..my wife, my two sons, my parents and sibblings, my friend( who never was), his first wife who was our good friend for 10 years, his second wife, his parents and brother, his two boys.. everyone suffered, ..

..especially when bfOM came down with the brain tumour that killed him at 57 years of age.

..if I feel so crappy about all of this, imagine how his family is feeling..

..I, at least, have the satisfaction of knowing he paid the ultimate price for his 18 years of messing with my wife and my life..

..I can't begin to estimate the long term effects the betrayal has already had, not to mention the future of my family and his. Those long term consequences have yet to be measured or dealt with..

..what a fucking disaster..

smy

Most everything was taken away or changed.

Probably the hardest has been that the way I view our 33 year M and the way I view my fWH. I don't much like this new narrative of our life and I despise our changed sexual history. My fWH is not the person I thought he was to betray me like he did.

The infidelity has tainted my narrative, my outlook, my view of other humans. My life has been ruined by the one person on this earth who I thought had my back. I know I had his. I was completely fooled by him and utterly blindsided and it happened after 30 years of M. Who does that? This has turned me into a shell of who I used to be. I'm weaker and more fragile now and very tired...

[This message edited by whattheh at 5:59 PM, May 10th (Saturday)]

It took a year of my life away. A year that should have been among the best in my life spent enjoying all of our many blessing & raising our young children. But instead it was by far the worst year ever.

What didn't It Take away?
I Lost love, trust, faith, belief, the want to spend the rest of my life with My wife I loved more than anything! The idea we were special :(

My security, my self esteem.... Like a previous poster said, the ability to say "he'd never do that to me". It completely took away any innocence I had left, I enjoyed being naive. I can't listen to the radio anymore, every love song triggers me. I haven't even tried to enjoy a movie yet because I'm scared of being triggered. I can't even be happy for friends that are in good relationships, new engagements, weddings... I feel like romance is a sham. It took any joy I had.

It took away all of the colors of my world. My life is grey now.