SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I haven't been here in a very long time… coming up on 14 years since initial discovery (Sep 25, 2011), so this time of year is always VERY triggery for me. We have reconciled, but the pain from these triggery times is no less intense since day 1-- just far less common as the years roll on.

I have an extensive set of documents from the A… journals, notes from therapy, messages between them, quotes and threads from SI I saved, etc, etc. I rarely go back and look at any of that stuff, but I have a strong attachment to it, and have not deleted any of it. I can't logically provide a reason why, but if I had to guess, it's "proof" this thing happened; justification or rationalization for why I feel the way I do, and a history of how we got here. It's probably 90% nasty, destructive material, so it's just stupid to hold on to it, but man… I am struggling to dump it and can't put a name on the fear behind that.

Anyone else have this 'lockbox' of artifacts? I need help understanding why the need to keep it, and maybe just some blunt advice that it needs to go.

Often enough we let trauma define who we are rather than accepting that it is merely something that happened to us. I'm simplifying, of course, because there's far more to it than this.

You're holding on to this library because, I suspect, you think by getting rid of it you're losing a part of your identity, an aspect of who you are as a person. Plenty of betrayed spouses experience the same thing, including me. We hold on to everything because we've allowed the trauma to define us.

In truth, however, it's just baggage. Letting go is liberating.

[This message edited by Unhinged at 3:13 PM, Thursday, September 18th]

DWBH - I'm right there with you. 16 years and I've got all of that stuff. Notes, confessions, journals, phone records -- can't bring myself to get rid of any of it.

I think one fear we all have (and in my situation it was and is the absolute case), is that we don't have all of the information; or that some things just don't add up or make sense. If new info or a new memory surfaces, will the file help it to all make sense? I know I would be kicking myself if another question came up, and I knew I had thrown away the answer.

I agree with your sentiment that it's somehow proof that something happened. My wife was one who denied and denied until I had proof, and I think if the proof were now gone she'd go back to denying again.

Because there comes a time, often, when Your spouse will claim they don't remember or will claim something never happened or will rewrite history.

This will feel like another betrayal even 30 years later.

Last spring out of the blue while we were walking my WW said she called OM1 by another name and said he was Portuguese. While I thought it funny it was also profoundly disturbing.

But having only things said and remembered I could not show WW anything

I am your person.

And I have a reason - in case it happens again.

If I D him no one would believe me that he’s a cheater. I had a hard time convincing people the last time.