SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am curious to know how everyone was individually impacted by their spouses affair.

What has the affair done to you as a person?

How did you cope/not cope?

Have you been able to heal?

What has the affair done to you as a person?

I have realised that if you trust another person they can let you down. Just because I trust someone doesn’t mean they are trustworthy. Trust in someone else is a position I put myself in and doesn’t guarantee that person should be trusted.

How did you cope/not cope?

I didn’t cope very well. It shattered me into a million pieces and I was more devastated than when I had suffered bereavements. I did lots of things wrong but I was also able to find anger and express it which had failed to do previously. I read a lot, thought a lot and wrote a lot. Writing down my thoughts and feelings helped me get through.

Have you been able to heal?

Yes, I have healed. I have a good relationship now and I also know my own boundaries and what I will tolerate from others. I accept that shit happens and I can get through it. I no longer beat myself up for being naïve and gullible, the crime is on him and he has to live with that. I am stronger within myself and my triggers are no longer traumatic, I shake my head and sigh.

Hi Riverrose,

What has the affair done to you as a person?

Initially I responded by digging myself deeper into co-dependency in an attempt to save my H and my M. Dday2 brought a sense of reality to the situation. IC has helped me to identify my co-dependency and gradually stop those behaviours. In a weird way the A has been empowering for me.

How did you cope/not cope?

After both Days I didn't cope terribly well at first, but I think I have a strong sense of self and an inner strength that after the initial shock I was able to draw on quite quickly. I really wish that I had had the wisdom of SI and sought IC after dday1, as I think things would have been resolved much quicker. We did spend a year working through things and talking helped a lot. I also had the comfort of a good church family. After dday2 I took more control - read A LOT, went to IC weekly and gradually stopped looking to my H for healing, which was holding me back.

Have you been able to heal?

I am well on the road to healing now. It's been 11 months since dday2 and I'd say in the last couple of months I have taken quite big steps in the healing process. It is without a doubt the most painful thing that I have ever faced. The pain has been phenomenal. Facing it and working through it has been hard, but in the process I am discovering a new me. The one thing that may take much longer to recover is trust. I am not sure I can ever trust anyone in the same way ever again. I'm not sure I can ever make myself vulnerable to that pain again. Maybe that's a good thing - maybe I was too blindly trusting. Still working on that one.

what the affair do to me?

It has put me in a place I never wanted to be, made me a person who doubts, who vacillates between hate and love, it has broken my heart.

how I coped was not healthy, as I did not have the strength to confront him immediately for different reasons, so I had to live through 3 months of observing his EA and PA, how I lived through that I didn't know how strong I could be. I do not recommend this, I wish I had exploded and called him out as soon as I knew.

Healing is slow for me, I have ups and downs, I am almost a year since DD1 and unfortunately there was a relapse a month ago where he almost managed to meet his mistress again, this has brought back all my distrust but I found out immediately about his plans so I stopped them within hours I found out. It now leaves me facing the fact that he could do it again, even though he now says he won't. so basically DD2 was a month ago.

Before this happened to me, I had no idea how much infidelity impacts your very soul and being, my case is a 42 year marriage, the last 3 years are the ones when he started to cheat, although I now know he was taking younger women to dinner and giving them money and mentoring , prior to starting to sleep with them, for 7 years.

some days I still can't believe he did this.

Great questions riverrose!

What has the affair done to you as a person?

It has made me question my own character and my judgement of other's. It's forced me to become introspective, to examine my own upbringing, question my self esteem and self acceptance, and how I relate to other people. Like Olivetree, in a strange sense the affair has been empowering for me and I'd never have thought I'd be able to say that until recently! My XW's mid life crisis has triggered my own, albeit hopefully a healthier one.

How did you cope/not cope?

I didn't. Total meltdown! However a mixture of therapy, reading, medication, exercise, working with animals, the passage of time and of course SI have enabled me to cope better.

Have you been able to heal?

I'm still a work in progress. Let's face it aren't we all?

I look forward to reading other's answers. They will all be different depending on what stage along the journey none of us wanted or expected to take are currently at.

What has the affair done to you as a person?

My wife's affair has literally destroyed me as a person. I always thought I was this strong guy, nothing and no one could break me. I was so wrong, I'm terribly broken. I'm a great Father, very successful, earn a very good income, likable, fairly attractive guy. I've never had ego or self confidence issues. But her affair has shaken me to my core. I have questioned everything about myself, and who I am. Going through this is the most painful and difficult experience I have ever gone through, by light years. I carry a ton of shame for staying, like I have sacrificed who I am. But I really think that is my ego and pride screaming, logically I know I made right decision. I always put my kids needs a of my own.

How did you cope or not cope

Not well, actually terribly. My rage was almost uncontrollable. Especially during the first 2 months after D-day. I raged at her often. I was either completely withdrawn lost in my pain, or raging at her for what she had done. Looking back, I'm thankful that I didn't lay a hand on her (I've never even thought about hitting my wife, or any woman for that matter), but I certainly wanted to on D-day, and a few times in the first 2 months. I'm also thankful that her former AP (she ended it about a month before she confessed to me) was out of state when she told me, and was gone for 2 months. I went to his house, and I didn't have the self control needed for a confrontation. I would have done something violent, that would have cost me so much in the long run. I'm glad he wasn't where I could get to him. I haven't seen him since the truth came out. He clearly doesn't want to see me, and I still worry about how I will react. React is a key word, I worry I won't have the ability to "make a decision", only react. If I react, it won't be good.

Have you been able to heal?

I'm 13 months past D-day and I'm not healed, but I have come a very long way. I read everything written about affairs, and affair healing. We went to MC, and both went to IC. I'm still in IC. As I look back, I can see stages of the process I have gone through. In the first 1.5 to 2 months, my rage was insane. I can see now that when she stopped being defensive (defensiveness caused by shame), and just took my rage (truly accepted 100% responsibility, and owned it) my need to rage dissipated. In one of the many books I read there was a quote, it said " anger is a secondary emotion, even though it may be warranted, it is the minds defense mechanism to mask the true emotion, pain, hurt." That is so true, once she stopped being defensive, and I was able to rage at her, unabated, i was able to start to express my hurt, the true depth of my pain. I think it took her going through IC and MC, and dropping her defenses, before she could get to a place to start to understand the reality of the damage she had done to me. In the beginning, all I had were bad days, suicidal thoughts were rampant in my mind, there was no good. But as time has gone on and she has done ALL the right things, I now have good days. Not that it doesn't hurt, because it sure as hell does. But I'm usually able to feel the pain, accept it, and refocus my mind somewhere else. Not always, I do have bad times still sometimes it's a few minutes, but of it gets to an hour, it ends up being the entire day, and sometimes a couple of days. But I try everyday, she try's everyday. I would not have stayed if not for our children, I would not have gone through this for any other reason. It would have been so much easier for me to have just left, and started new. I'm the breadwinner, so financially i would be fine. I could have wrote her off as [insert awful name here], and just started over with someone else. It has helped me to heal by, viewing our marriage as dead and gone, for me it died when she screwed somebody else. I have given "a" chance and only a single chance to her to redeem herself for our children. So we are working on a "new" relationship. The previous marriage was unrepairable. My wife had to accept her role as the healer, if she had not I would not have stayed, because I couldn't have moved forward toward healing. I asked her to read the book titled "How to help your spouse heal from your affair" by Linda J MacDonald. It really helped her "get it". I don't think any WS can ever truly understand the realty of the damage to the BS, but this book really helped her get a lot closer to it.

Healing-

Focus on "right now". I have a remorseful fWW. "Right now" is the focus. This isn't to say rug sweeping at all. But focusing on "now" is critical to healing, and I recommend to everyone.

What has the affair done to you as a person?

My WH's cheating (and the enabling behaviors that went along with it such as lying, gaslighting, etc) drove me to the brink of suicide. That was before D-day even happened. It slowly sucked the life out of me and etched away at my soul one piece at a time.

For me, D-day was a relief. I wasn't crazy after all. Everything was starting to make sense for a change. There was finally a light at the end of the tunnel for me regardless of whether my marriage survived or not.

How did you cope/not cope?

I had a really good IC guiding me through my healing. That and I had the support of people here on this site. I coped by knowing that the worst was over. For me, that worst was being kept in the dark. Knowing about my WH's A's empowered me to take back my life and to start living it on my terms instead of simply going along with him calling all of the shots. I made a decision to start living my life on my terms and according to my expectations. I realized that I was not a passive spectator in my life any longer. I was an active participant in it and that I had a full say and the final say about what I would accept or not accept in my life.

Have you been able to heal?

Yes, I have been able to heal. It wasn't easy and I did have to allow myself to go through the stages of grief while also overcoming my co-dependency issues so that I could stand up for myself and enforce my healthy boundaries. Doing so has made a massive difference in the quality of my life. D-day was a turning point for me and a springboard to a better way of living.

Great questions, although I had to check and see if this was a "happy endings" thread before posting.

What has the affair done to you as a person?

It has destroyed me as a person. I was a confident, happy man who was able to roll with the punches and deal with stress better than anyone I knew. I'm five years out and bounce between depression and rage.

How did you cope/not cope?

I tried to cope by looking at recovery as a marathon and not a race. I didn't try to force much. I tried to take it one day at a time and give my spouse time to come to me. I put my recovery in her hands. We went to MC, which failed. My FOO fell apart around the same time as DDay with my father's disability and my mother's suicide, so I never took time to take care of myself. One day I looked up and realized that five years had passed and nothing had gotten better.

Have you been able to heal?

Not even a little. But getting through the day is easier now, and I haven't cried in a while.

I think the biggest blow was to my self esteem. Before dday I was confidant I was enough for my H, as he was for me. I wasn't a "10" as he admitted just a few weeks ago but as a whole I felt like I was enough. Now I feel so insignificant and unattractive. I feel I will never be what "turns him on" no matter how many times he has tried to convince me otherwise.

My WH was on a dating site for 3 of the 4 years of our marriage. He reached out to over 65 women, and had 2 PA (probably more but after hacking into his Tagged account I only found proof of the two he finally admitted to after I caught him) his "about me" stated he was looking for a skinny girl that wasn't afraid to get a little freaky! Yea! How much time he put into trying to find a "friend with benefits" made me sick...just as sick was my naïve ignorance to all he was doing this whole time. Most woman say they knew deep down...I didn't, not even a little bitty bit. I was actually looking through his phone for drug related slip ups as he is a recovering addict.

His A's took away the beauty I felt was our marriage, the comfort of love as a mutual respect. My mental definition of him has been shattered leaving me wondering if I can fit this new piece of him into the mold and still embrace him as my soul mate.

Coping? IC, SI, books, journal, practicing mindfulness; trying not to rely on him for my own esteem; trying to be strong so if he does this again I will be ok leaving him; trying to focus at the same time on what went wrong in our marriage and if it is fixable; Trying to focus on me, getting healthy and becoming a better person for me. Trying, trying, trying

Am I healed? Hell NO! But I see slow progress, feel hopeful most days now, I've stopped my detective work, facebook stalking the OW (not coping), and become aware of the term pain seeking and how I do that (also not coping)!

What has the affair done to you as a person?

It completely destroyed my trust in people. How can I trust anyone when I couldn't even trust the person I knew better than anyone in the world, and he knew me better than anyone.

The other thing is I have lost hope that I will ever have the marriage/family I always wanted. None of that appears to be in my future.

How did you cope/not cope?

Counseling, Angel card readings, having good friends, my

work to lean on and of course SI

Have you been able to heal?

Well I am definitely over exH. Most days I don't even think of him at all. But this has effected my ability to have a normal relationship. I have had two serious relationships since. One was a man I didn't know was hiding the fact he had a wife

overseas. After I found out and ended that I spent two years single "getting to know myself and being ok being single". Then I met the most latest and it was another year of dysfunction. He admitted to cheating early on before we were exclusive (this was very confusing to me that he even admitted that). Problem is even before that admission I didn't trust him. Was always suspicious. Accused him of all sorts of things, how phone was a trigger for me, having female friends was a trigger etc etc. We haven't talked in two months and I did my own research, talked to both the women I was suspicious of and they say nothing happened and their stories line up with his. So I apologized via text and email but I don't know if he got it. Either way I screwed up. This is all because I don't trust.

Additionally to that, meeting men or OLD seems pointless to me now. I know I will never have children or have a family of my own so what's the point. Plus the chance of meeting another predator/narcissist seems really high.

I am tired of people saying "you need to be single and get happy with yourself". Yup I have

done that and don't need that advice. I am 100% ok on my own. I have a six digit career, own house, new vehicles, lots of friends, I travel. But I still go to the

company Xmas party alone and feel like a loser. It just seems like the life I wanted isn't the life I live. I know people are jealous I have it pretty good but they aren't here the nights I am alone. No kids, won't have kids, was always family

oriented and now I am a lone wolf.

I know this is extremely negative but it pretty much sums it all up. His affair pretty much ruined my relationship ability. And I really dread growing old alone but that's what I have to look forward to.

[This message edited by burnedcanuckEMS at 8:55 AM, August 31st (Wednesday)]

These are interesting to read - thanks for thought-inspiring post riverrose!

What has the affair done to you as a person?

It changed my entire belief in M and relationships. I naively believed M meant security, that I'd always have a partner to rely on, someone who would be there for me through it all. Now I view M as a financial trap and I view every romantic relationship through suspicious eyes. I've lost much of my optimism and almost all of my motivation to do much of anything. I've gained a new respect for what suicidal feels like and struggle daily with motivating myself to do the most basic of things.

How did you cope/not cope?

I thought I was coping pretty well at the beginning but I was just in denial. I coped by attempting to approach it pragmatically, intellectually seeking out every book and psychological theory I could find. The hardest part of coping has been allowing the awful emotions happen and to work through them - they are debilitating, heart-wrenching and more painful than anything I've ever experienced. Separating was helpful with my coping abilities but the awful drama of financial splits and D are hurting it. The most frustrating part is that every time I think I've reached a happier point, something else draws me back down.

Have you been able to heal?

No, not yet. I will and just believing that I will is an improvement. There are some things about me that will fundamentally always be different. But I will heal and overcome this and I know it will take years to do so.

What has the affair done to you as a person?

Made me a LOT less trusting

How did you cope/not cope?

I drank, A LOT, and turned to myself, cutting everyone but immediate family off. It took me 12 years to crawl out of that bottle and cope with my alcoholism.

Have you been able to heal?

yes and no. Am I angry? Not anymore. Do I think about what happened? sure but not a lot or every day/week/month.

I've never been able to open myself to anyone since then though. I tried dating a couple of times and never let it get part the first date. I still sequester myself away at home or work. I rarely go to parties or out for drinks after work (I'll have soda water or diet coke..no booze. Not falling into that trap again). I'm 47 with a great job and look decent and single. There's tons or good women out there and I don't want to be with any of them (no I'm not pining for my ex wife..eww). I just turned off that part of my life.

I've had self-confidence/inadequacy issues for as long as I can remember. The actions of my WW brought me down to even lower levels. I'm trying to work on my self image but it isn't going very well.

I found out seventeen years ago and it still bothers me. I get triggered and go into a time machine that brings me back to DDay. My W has never been completely honest with all my questions rug sweeping and changing the subject. I think that's why I still feel some pain.

What has the affair done to you as a person?

It totally trashed my self esteem and had me questioning myself and ability to trust my own judgement.

How did you cope/not cope?

I raged and cried and wrote. I had already read the first time around. I was also determined to not let him get away with BSing another therapist.

Have you been able to heal? There are scars. I still find myself picking at them so I know I still have a ways to go. Work in progress I guess is how I would have to look at it. not that we aren't all WIP but I feel this made me more aware of just how much work still needs to be done. I've accepted things I shouldn't for financial security. I've set boundaries and there are now consequences in place so if there is another DDay then there will be hell to pay on his end. I would have to say I am an eternal optimist as I still have hope that he'll miraculously reform. Maybe I am just tired. I don't police him at this point so I guess I have settled. He'll make a mistake if he is arrogant enough, selfish enough, entitled enough to go down that path again. When he does I'll catch it. Maybe that makes me the selfish, entitled one now.

The affair changed me irrevocably. I trust no one anymore I have become harder and more cynical. My self esteem was at rock bottom but I have managed to somehow begin to salvage that. I question my judgement and how naïve I was. I miss that I always saw the positive in things.

I did not cope well. I denied initially and between his gas lighting and my search for the truth I became physically ill. It consumed my life in a negative way and cost my children dearly. Most of my anger at him is about the time he stole from us when he was already planning to leave.

Healing has been a long process. Lots of therapy for me and the kids-discovering my strength and discovering myself. learning to set boundaries in all aspects of my life and loving myself again.Not sure I will ever let anyone in again -The thought of that pain terrifies me.

Did it change me? You bet, being further out from it though I can tell you that it doesn't have to be for the worse, or that you will never be happy again.

One of the things that happens to us as BSs is our self esteem takes a huge hit. We have been victimized underservingly in a way that makes us feel we could have prevented or impacted it. But as you start to be able to breath again, and look around you realize that even though it destroyed you, it was NOT my fault, and I certainly could not have done anythign to prevent it.

My trust in all others was destroyed. But the thing that came out of my own personal healing (more in year 2) was that I knew I was strong, capable, and worthy. Regardless of what anyone else said or did, my WH included, I knew I could always trust myself.

I also learned that I could be bitter, angry, and mad, or I could embrace a new me that rose from the ashes of the destruction and be a braver, stronger, more capable person. This is what I chose. Believe me the cynicism that I have now has allowed me to be proactive in my career, and dealing with my teens. It has served me well, and as twisted as it has become my sens of humor is awesome and wicked both.

It is the most painful thing I have endured, but I am also proud that I did, and that the person I am on this side of it is pretty spectactular.

Of course I was hurt, devastated, and for some time lost my faith in humanity. But you know what? And I hate to say this. But, the affair really opened up my eyes and served as a wake up call. My emotions and feelings had been off for so many years and in an instant they all powered up. So, all in all, I would say I am a much better person. Much more aware of my emotions and who I want to be.

Cope? I would hardly call in coping. For about the first year I had an insatiable desire to play detective and find out more, more, more. So I didn't cope to well. Still don't.

Healing is a process and I am far from it. I will have days where I feel great and her affair seems small. Other days its huge and I can think of nothing else. Its better though. Slowly but surely.

What has the affair done to you as a person?

It has totally destroyed my faith in anything pure. I am not the person I want to be it has turned me into an angry person who is very cynical about life.

How did you cope/not cope

I haven't learned to cope with it. I cry get angry see my therapist read as much as I can about sex addiction and write my journal. Reading back I am In a cycle of emotions. Meditation and exercise.

Have you been able to heal?

Not yet it is too early. But hoping to. It brought the question to mind what does it feel like to be healed