SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Yesterday was a pretty big moment (good or bad not sure), but I've been in a real bad rut the last several months. On the surface things have probably looked OK with my WW and I working hard towards reconciliation. On the inside, it's been death by a thousand cuts as the saying goes. Sad is the best way to put it. I finally got the courage (I think that's the right word) to share this with my wife and for the first time probably since I was a kid, I cried. I'm writing that again because it just doesn't happen with me....I cried. My wife hugged me and cried as well. I shared that if the stages of grief are accurate, then I'm surely in the depressed stage. I'm fairly successful at my job and am later in my career so there are rarely times where I face a challenge that consumes me enough to distract my thoughts from this. At home it's similar if I'm alone. I try to offset all of those things by keeping busy but as most of you can probably acknowledge, it's tough. What's incredibly frustrating is I've really had to do this twice. DDay1 I was told the A was a 1 time lapse of a kiss and for 12 years I always knew it was more and was afraid to ask. I finally did 3 years ago and got the truth (DDay2) which was not a kiss but multiple month affair including sex. The last 3 years have been difficult as we all know and experience but we've been doing the work. The moment last night seemed like an important one for us with a lot of emotion (not anger, we're past that for the most part) and tears that as I mentioned were never shed previously by me. I think the scene of me being so emotional finally hit home for her. She processed my anger pretty well, never making excuses, taking whatever I let out but what she saw yesterday I think scared her and made her realize how deep the pain I'm feeling really is Her response has been typically: "I don't think your happy and I'm not sure you can be happy with me after what I did". Implying that splitting would be best for me. I want to make clear that this was through tears and not at all from a perspective of trying to get out of this situation...I believe that. I told her I'm not leaving, I'm committed and the good news/bad news is I feel like we've moved into a new stage. Not a fun one but a new one we need to navigate. The only anger remaining from me is towards the AP and all of the irrational questions like: Why does he get to live happily ever after, etc. For reference, I chose not to tell his wife for fear of him alerting our friends and family. He did some really shitty things like sending letters to me at my work (anonymous but he wasn't too bright so it wasn't hard to figure out) and calling me and simply hanging up. If I confront his spouse as some sort of act of revenge or courtesy (I guess that word makes you feel like the motive is more pure...I'm being honest with myself, it'd be to ruin his life), even if she deserves to know, I can guarantee he'll just post the whole thing on Facebook...not worth it. But it's that type of stuff that still lingers. My question (thanks for the patience)is: Did any of you have that specific moment where you actually felt like you were progressing or was it more gradual or a little of both. Yesterday felt like that so I'm a bit more hopeful. I asked my boss if I could work from home today, I'm going to set up outside on a sunny day and see if we can keep the momentum going with some good old fashioned self care. A key lesson for all of us out of this is the truth is always the best way out. Had my WW shared it all 15 years ago, we'd probably be through all of this (grief processed, forgiven but not forgotten). It never goes away but we'd be into whatever our new phase of the relationship looks like. Because my WW handled this way, we've basically had to do this twice. Thanks for letting me unload the baggage

Man, I hated the dark spiral of depression stage.

Sorry you are there, but there you are, literally working toward the light on work moment with some sun.

Did any of you have that specific moment where you actually felt like you were progressing or was it more gradual or a little of both.

I had several breakthrough days and moments when I felt like I was moving forward, and had a few backward steps right after that. So, the progress is there, but more incremental than I wanted.

The tipping point for me was being healed enough to focus more on what was going well versus getting trapped in the pain loop. I kind of was able to measure progress then by how much time I spent in that pain loop, where we process one million times how our fate could be or should be different than the reality of it all.

These days, I don’t embrace the idea of infidelity making my life better, I embrace the idea that I am far stronger than ever, by conquering the adversity I never asked for or expected.

The finding out more years later type of deal does NOT make it easier, at all, either.

Your wife needs to own it a bit more, it is a little bit of a bail out on the hard recovery work to shift the healing of the M to you — that’s what the "don’t think you are happy or can be happy with me after what I did" can mean.

If a WS lives in that no win scenario place, or no matter what they do we can’t be happy mentality, it can mean they are having a tough time getting back to vulnerable as well.

Just something to keep an eye on as both partners need to aim for healing the M all the time to get to a relationship worthy of you both.

Keep venting!

Great feedback. Yes, there's some work on her side as well and honestly the fact that I felt the need to hug her yesterday instead of the awkward, I'm going to let her stew on this approach (that's how our incidents would go occasionally...petty I know but it is what it is). We are way past that, but I didn't look at your quote from that perspective. It doesn't make me fearful, just more work to do as you say. I didn't realize how depressed I had become until yesterday's incident and how much of a relief it was to open the "relief valve" and let it out. I woke up today with more energy than I've had in a long time. For those of you early on, get ahead of this. Find a way to make sure you have an outlet for your emotions. Unfortunately, in my case for a lonnngg time, because of the way we handled this (no friends, no kids, no family knew) we chose not to tell anyone. In hindsight, probably could have managed that differently and I think it clearly lengthens and maybe strengthens the depression. Another BIG issue is "idle hands are the devil's workshop", for me anyways. If there's space in my head for thoughts about this, they find that space. Staying busy is critical and it's hard to do that all the time....exhausting even because we all need down time. That's something else that needs to be monitored for sure. Hang in there all!

… we chose not to tell anyone.

Same.

I had some doubts along the way, but on the other side of Hell, I think it turned into a strength for our rebuild.

MC/IC, this little message board and my wife were the only humans in the loop on my emotional fallout.

It was our MC who left it up to us to decide, although he did warn it is hard enough for two people to figure it out, much less adding in family and friends, who tend to take sides or leave room for all kinds of extra miscommunication (adding to the drama).

I’ve been criticized here on SI for leaving my kids out of it — but to me, the intimate life I have has always been private. I didn’t high five my kids after I had a great day in the bedroom either — why bring them into my pain when they had nothing to do with their mother’s bad choices?

Staying busy can be uphill — but it is actually okay to let it catch up with you once in a while and process that shit out. I got to that point, I got to take charge. Why is this thought happening? If I can’t control it, process it and let it go. Find those triggers, hunt them down and close ‘em out. It takes a lot of time, I just found it more helpful to process them than try to outrun them or bury them.

As previously noted, keep venting! It helps.

If you don’t have a minute to get online, journal it out, write it out, get the thoughts outside of your brain.

[This message edited by Oldwounds at 8:38 PM, Tuesday, July 15th]