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So I have been trying my hardest to work through this. We have made no real progress at all. He doesn’t want to talk about it. And every time I try to he ends up blaming me and that hurts me more. I’ve tried to get through to him. I research ways to try and communicate better and how to save our relationship. There is no effort on his side to make anything better or to try to get help. He gets mad when I bring it up like “I thought we were moving on from this” ummm no we just haven’t talked about it because it ends up hurting me more and not making any progress. Two days ago she reached out to him again. I saw it on his phone while he was sleeping because it kept going off. So I messaged her. I know I probably shouldn’t have but I needed answers. She was open to telling me everything. And I found out he lied about how much time they spent together. He said 2 nights but it was 3 months straight. He would video call me and the kids at night then go see her....it just hurts so much all over again. And I didn’t even find out from him. How can we reestablish trust if he continues to lie....I feel so hopeless. All of it makes me sick and I want to be done. But when I think about leaving I grieve the loss of the future I thought we would have. How this would affect our kids. How I miss the good times and the man I thought he was. My heart hurts and I have anxiety everyday. I can’t sleep. I just don’t know what to do. I can’t get through to him to take responsibility!! To put in effort! To even be concerned with how I feel....I don’t think I can get past this. If I stay or go either way pain is all I will feel...I just feel defeated, hopeless, and heartbroken. I don’t know what to do anymore....

I’m so sorry. Yeah he is not R material at the moment. It’s enough when you say it is enough. I’m not in R my STBX wasn’t remorseful and I stayed way too long, but I can say that if things don’t work out there is happiness on the other side and I’m not in pain anymore. It takes 2-5 years to heal whether you R or D. Have you tried the 180? Detaching sure helps to see the situation with clearer vision and no rose colored glasses. You will get stronger too. Also put the focus on you and stop doing things for him. He’s not in the driver’s seat anymore, you are.

I've been there where you are. You aren't alone.

As far as your questions, I'll try to answer with what worked and didn't work for me.

When is enough...enough?

Enough is enough when you say it is.

How can we reestablish trust if he continues to lie

You can't.

How this would affect our kids.

Either way it's gonna effect the kids. Even if he turns into a saint tomorrow, what's happened still will effect them. Sure, there's ways to minimize it. Keep the conversations out of earshot. Answer questions in age appropriate manner. That's kinda getting the cart before the horse, though.

I just don’t know what to do

If you're asking us if you should get a divorce, we can't answer that for you. What I can say is some of the things I did.

When I couldn't sleep, I planned. Like a mad scientist. Swear it was 8 pages long. I felt that if I wasn't sleeping, that I might as well try to be productive.

When my wife wasn't taking responsibility, I did the 180. It was really hard and against all the habits I had grown accustomed to over the marriage.

Some of the quotes i heard here that helped me the most at that time was

"All the little things you do to show love. The treats from the store. The kiss goodbye in the morning... none of those stopped them from cheating, so they aren't worth all that much, are they?"

"Why did they cheat? Because they wanted to.

Journaling helped me a lot too. It helped me filter the lies, track my thoughts, plan, etc.

The biggest, most important piece of advice that I can give you right now is take care of yourself. Situational depression is all to common in betrayed spouses. Work out, eat right, don't drink to get drunk. Right now, you are demonstrating to your kids how to properly cope with horrible shit when it hits the fan. When you start thinking about doing crazy things, just imagine how you would want them to react if this happened to them after they're grown up.

Again, you aren't alone.

I lived with your exact situation except my H let me believe we were happily reconciling but he was happily still cheating.

Dday2 when I found out I had enough. It was important that I finally stand up for myself and I did.

He was told “I’m divorcing you. I have no other choice.” It was not a I versatile but a statement of fact.

You can continue to try. You cannot fix or repair the damage if he won’t engage. You cannot do this solo.

He’s hoping you will sweep this under the rug and never talk about it again. That shows you the level of selfishness and disrespect he has. Your marriage is NOT his priority. He is his priority.

I hope this helps you to decide to get something together that focuses on you. Your healing. Your sanity. Your pain. Your future.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 10:47 AM, October 24th (Saturday)]

Guy walks into a doctor's office, says, "Hey Doc, it hurts when I move my arm like this!"

Doctor says, "Well, stop doing that."

While I'll admit that this is no parable of biblical proportions, it does carry some truth for us BSes. We want things to go our way in our timeframe, that we twist ourselves into emotional pretzels, trying to compensate for our clueless WSes. A doctor should not care more about a patient's health than the patient.

Listen, you are allowing you WS to live two lives, his and yours. You need to stop giving him that power. He dies not the right to it. Forgive yourself for feeling how you feel and doing what you do. You are in the midst of trauma and you will process the best way you can with the best tools you have.

Thank you all for your reply’s and advice and sharing your stores and what you did to cope. I have read a bit about a 180 but I have a hard time with it because I feel that if I didn’t try to connect or fix things then we will get more distant than we are which seems impossible lol but that’s probably exactly what I should do. You guys really gave me some perspective that it’s pretty much in his court. I’m done trying to fix us if he’s not willing to even put any effort or make us a priority. Fix it was a priority for me but I need to just make plans and move on and if we grow even more distant and he continues to show now willing ness to move forward then I guess I have my answer. Thank you all so much.

Maybe I’m just having a hard time accepting the situation for what it is..it’s hard to let go of what used to be and the future we had planned...but those are just memories..I want us to work so badly that I’m blinded to the reality of the situation. I shouldn’t be putting in so much effort when he can’t be concerned about any of it or how I feel. I just didn’t think he was this person....

It is hard sometimes to see admit the truth of the situation to yourself. I was in shock and denial for a while.

Another question I have is...how do you deal with the hurt? It’s really difficult not think about how screwed up everything is. I hate being in this weird limbo stage of keeping things civil but missing him but being disgusted and angry and just broken. Should I just force the thoughts out of my head and bury it down? I feel like that’s what I have to try to do to just function but it’s difficult. The thoughts of this consume a lot of my time and energy. Even now I have military duty tomorrow and should sleep since it’s been a long day and here I am reading endless posts of others heartaches similar to mine grasping at any hope that the pain will stop. I wish I could just shut it all off. I have a lot of plans and things I have to do to try and keep myself busy but it’s hard to do the things I need to when every day I’m having anxiety and panic attacks and obsessing over what to do or who can I talk to about it all. Sorry I’m all over the place but thank you for your thoughts and advice. This has really been the only real support system and outlet I have in dealing with this.

Should I just force the thoughts out of my head and bury it down?

Definitely don't do that!!

If you bottle it up inside, it will either pressurize until it explodes or it will rot you on the inside until you're just a bitter hateful person. I'm willing to bet you've seen people that have done this and know exactly what I mean.

Coping with the emotions is tough. Very tough. I can't tell you the best way to work them out for you will be, as everyone is different.

I've seen folks post here that threw themselves into work and life seeking success and using that success to prove to themselves that they can make gold from crap.

I've seen folks post here that they used the emotions to work out and push themselves physically.

I personally used a journal. It didn't help completely. It did help a lot with my circular thoughts, as I could tell myself I already went down that rabbit hole and wrote it all out. But the pain was still there. It was like having a 100 lbs rucksack and taking 5 lbs off. Still carrying the damn rucksack everywhere, but it wasn't as heavy as it was.

Ultimately, you will need to deal with these emotions. You said you have duty tomorrow, not sure what rank you are, but it might be worthwhile to let the next level in your coc know if you think it might impact your performance. Most bases have counselors available that have seen this kinda thing many times before that you could utilize.

Even if you don't go that route, we'll still be here for you. As you've heard already, you really aren't alone.

Should I just force the thoughts out of my head and bury it down?

No you really should try and feel them and process them out. If you need a break from responsibilities I would definitely take it.

I’m having anxiety and panic attacks and obsessing over what to do or who can I talk to about it all.

This is your mind trying to make sense of it and process. My intrusive thoughts went on for about a year, but my STBX wasn't doing anything to help me and had taken his A underground. I know that the less time I spent with him lessened my anxiety.

The daily pain will eventually stop and you'll have moments where you feel happiness even if fleeting. It does get better it just takes a long time

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 4:11 PM, October 25th (Sunday)]

My line in the sand was that there be no sexual contact with anybody else. He crossed the line again, so I said I was done.

TBH, he wasn't doing the work, or just the bare minimum. I knew he didn't want to change. He showed he'd never be safe, so we're on the path to D.

It took about a year after the decision to D that I really started to recover. One thing that's helping is that I started seeing a betrayal trauma specialist.

I wish I had an answer for you. WH will talk as much as I want and is doing everything "right" except he's not giving me the disclosure I need. There's always a reason why he can't or I've "caught" him actively trying to sabotage my efforts. I get it's all in self preservation, but how many times can I link this site and tell him how i NEED the full story in order to move on? I'm very close to giving up. He is going to move out for a few months as a trial. I'm hoping we'll both get some clarity then. But of course, I'll be a mess wondering what he's doing all the time. But really, all his atrocities were done during the day at work anyway, so guess it could still happen even with him living here.