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I had no idea. He was overseas for work 13 hours ahead of us here. So I still did my best to talk to him on his work schedule. I knew something was up when he wouldn't answer me. I just couldn't figure out what it was. Then all of a sudden he video chatted me and said 'I'm coming home tomorrow.' he was still supposed to be there for another month.

He came home and things were just off. He was angry, yelled. We fought. At one point he called me a bitch infant of our kids.

Well what he actually said is "you're acting like a bitch"

well in fairness I was. I was angry because he was angry. Energy matches energy type thing.

I really thought he would never cheat on my. Never. We were supposed to be different.

I plunged myself into everything around my kids and myself. Stopped eating like I was still a teenager and I have lost 30lbs, 3-4 sizes in clothes.

I decided to let him prove to me he still wants to be here with me and our kids.

He made no effort to make me feel special. For two years prior to the affair, I had nightmares of discovering that he was cheating on me.

Me too!

I had so many dreams like that. I was insecure, increasingly depressed and right before I found out increasingly anxious to where sometimes I would start to hyperventilate when he would try to kiss or hug me for too long. My body was screaming, as someone else here worded it.

He would say the right things but his actions said he had zero interest in me and he would always gaslight me around this and make me feel clingy, which I am anything but. I'm super independent and secure normally.

It fucking sucked. I never want to go back to that place.

@Skeetermooch yes! I also struggled with severe anxiety and depression, couldn't bear to have him touch me. He also denied that there was any problem every time I tried to discuss the state of our marriage. No problems at all, he's happy, there's nothing he wants to change. The unhappiness in our home was palpable, we barely spoke and never touched, yet he denied any problem. The revelation of the affair in a way validated my feelings, because for a long time I felt that maybe the problem was me; maybe I simply didn't have the capacity for happiness. Now, almost a year after DDay, now I know what it feels like to have a husband that's all in, devoted to me and our marriage 100%. THAT'S what I was missing all along and I felt it to my core; that my supposed life partner stood with one foot out the door and didn't love or cherish me the way he claimed to. He wasn't protective of me or our marriage, only out for his own interests. Having that devoted, protective, caring husband would have been bliss, if it weren't for the price I had to pay to finally get him.

I felt that maybe the problem was me; maybe I simply didn't have the capacity for happiness. Now, almost a year after DDay, now I know what it feels like to have a husband that's all in, devoted to me and our marriage 100%. THAT'S what I was missing all alo

Exactly. He constantly said, "You just don't like being married. You don't like sharing your life." And I absolutely believed him because I was very happy when I was single before I met him, and since the only major change was getting married and he sure looked perfect from the outside. He and everyone else were constantly telling me how in love with me he was.

Having that devoted, protective, caring husband would have been bliss

Yes, it would've been. It just felt so empty - him with his face in his phone or the computer every waking moment that he wasn't "at work" aka with hookers. The excruciating sexual encounters where he would just lay there and have me do everything and be totally not into it. Of course I was miserable. Of course I knew on some level something wasn't right.

[This message edited by skeetermooch at 2:54 PM, December 19th (Thursday)]

Looking back now , I recall some really off behavior from him .

I am the one who cooks in our marriage, except for him grilling what I have prepped

There is one dish from his home country that he likes to take credit for making and I have gone along with it anytime he want to " show off " his cooking skills but I do literally all the prep

It involves mashed potatoes put into a piping bag and to be honest , he uses too much in relation to the other items and I end up tossing out the excess.

So we were having friends over for dinner and he totally flipped out on me for not making enough potatoes

His reaction was alarming since he doesn't lose his temper often and this instance was just straight up scary how much he lost his shit...

well , this happened during the early stages of his infidelity and his behaviors sometimes were really just so out of charector

He has a really hard time when things like this come up in our therapy because it forces him to face his horrible choices

Can’t sleep - lucky if I got 2 hours per night. Can’t eat and lost weight I could not afford to lose. I constantly had the shakes. Nauseous. Cried over everything. Watching your life unravel right in front of your eyes. Powerless.

I also remember standing up to him and telling him he had to choose - her or me. He lied when he said “definitely you “.

I got the ILYBNILWY speech regularly.

And I think that he counted on me doing nothing. So when dday2 rolled around and I told him he had to leave , he saw the strong me. The one he completely underestimated.

He was definitely more distant, always on his phone, and more mean, which was unlike him. I actually had dreams that he was cheating - clearly, the signs were there but I refused to acknowledge them and my subconscious was trying to tell me to pay attention.

Exactly. He constantly said, "You just don't like being married. You don't like sharing your life." And I absolutely believed him because I was very happy when I was single before I met him, and since the only major change was getting married and he sure looked perfect from the outside. He and everyone else were constantly telling me how in love with me he was.

I heard that I was too independent and didn't make him feel needed enough.

Yes, it would've been. It just felt so empty - him with his face in his phone or the computer every waking moment that he wasn't "at work" aka with hookers. The excruciating sexual encounters where he would just lay there and have me do everything and be totally not into it. Of course I was miserable. Of course I knew on some level something wasn't right.

Yeah, I recall that time, when he was "suffering from depression" and I (being a normal human) was trying to be kind and understanding.

It's trippy to read other people's stories and see that this is all typical. They're so much the same.

[This message edited by DevastatedDee at 10:25 AM, December 20th (Friday)]

Exactly like skeetermooch. I knew something was off I prayed. I asked the kids to be extra nice to dad. We talked

He denied everything while neglecting me. Sex was zero. He became very very happy. While becoming bitter at me. This continued. He falls in love with Ow. Each time.

I felt I couldn’t breathe in. My chest was tight. I couldn’t make my chest relax. Couldnt eat sleep no memory no focus. Couldn’t read. Literally for years. I would massage my chest trying to make it less tense. It didn’t help I had to get on Ads for Ptsd

I know my husband. He was happy. Elated in love with someone else. Mean to me. Yet lying about it. I felt crazy. Scared. I knew our marriage was done. It was pure panic

My life was changing. I was changing. And I didn’t want to. This was his pattern each affair. It sticks with me. I didn’t exist to him. I later learned Xwh is Npd. It explains the coldness

It’s compartmentalizations x 1000

I spent so much time analyzing. Being a detective. Trying so hard to understand. To fix this. It was all gaslighting. He was a Npd. Playing his games. It was such a waste of trauma. Stuck in details. They were jokes.

I’m out now. These were the worst years of my life I had never heard of Npd. Now I know. He’s the worst kind. Laughs about it. I had no idea the ugliness

[This message edited by cancuncrushed at 10:53 PM, December 23rd (Monday)]

How did I feel? I felt highly anxious. I started to question myself. I remember not wanting to go to our works Christmas party because I thought I’d bore everyone there. I hated what I saw in the mirror. I was over compensating with my WH, trying to love him into being kind to me. When they first had sex I had a nightmare two days later that he’d fucked her. I developed pains in my chest.

All of this happened while I was ‘oblivious’. Clearly my inner self was screaming out.

I was out of control of my life, and I knew it, but I what I didn’t know then was why or how.

Makes me angry for myself two years ago. Wish I could go back in time and tell her the truth about her life.

[This message edited by Dragonfly123 at 3:53 AM, December 24th (Tuesday)]

I tried to verbalize, but words can be so inadequate. The most valuable attribute of my spouse was her loyalty. After 23 years together, she rubbed my face in her complete lack of loyalty. The person in whom I had entrusted with my deepest vulnerabilities ended up gleefully exploiting those in some perverse sadistic re-direction of self-loathing. The person I trusted more than ANYONE had become (irredeemably, I would soon discover) untrustworthy.

I had been through this before, so I understood her ethical repudiation was not about me, but that didn’t change the fact she’d dug a huge hole in our marriage, one that would require enormous effort to undo.

It fundamentally changed how I viewed her. She didn’t get that, and continued her diatribes on my behaviors that justified her affair, including the scandalous charge: “every day I get home from work, you’re there on the couch, having an after work glass of wine, eating cashews and looking at your iPad!”

We divorced four years ago.

The first time I think I felt that way. Five years later (behavior never stopped) and I’m having apocalyptic type dreams. I keep having one where I am at work and realize the world will be ending- I feel so hopeless and end up running, trying to find my children.

When I’m awake, I just feel empty and tired.

This post will answer the question in your title, but not exactly your question in the OP. I thank you for the opportunity to get this down in writing.

I felt awful during my W's A. I loved her, and she had abandoned me. I felt hollowed out and depleted. I didn't know what was wrong. I knew there was a 5 year old barrier between us because I had changed internally, but I didn't know how to break the barrier down - I still don't have the words to do that.

I couldn't tell if the problem was that she was in an A or just that she was devoted to her work. After all, I had been devoted to my work, and I expected her to stick with me when I answered calls 24 X 7 and when I was a road warrior - and she denied she was in an A.

I knew she was violating professional ethics, but I was afraid to discuss it with anyone because I was afraid she also violated the criminal code.

So ... fear, anger, grief. Terrible grief that I turned into anger.

Towards the end, I was angry, because she just wouldn't connect. Worse, I was asking for more connection when I would have disconnected if I knew about her cheating. I helped give her the strength to cheat. I was going back and forth between being willing to share her - with her work, I thought, not with another person - and wanting to become roommates.

I thought she wanted out, and I was devastated. I had begun not to care, which might have been even more devastating.

And then I found out how fucking stupid the A was ... angry, scared, ashamed, grief-stricken and inexplicably still bonded to her.

Not the best time of my life.

BTW, that internal change that was a barrier helped me deal with her A effectively. I changed from 'I'm No OK' to 'I'm OK, you're OK, they're OK' in 2005. That change made me understand from the start that she had agency and that therefore her A was on her, not on me. I had to do a lot of internal work to counteract thoughts that I had somehow caused the A, but always I knew at a gut level it wasn't me, so stopping the messages attacking myself for causing the A was easier than it would have been 10 years earlier.

[This message edited by sisoon at 12:05 PM, December 25th (Wednesday)]

WH was so critical of me all the time, for awhile before his A started.

Of course, this made me angry.

If you've ever had your house broken into a robbed, you probably felt a mixture of fear, anger, and sickness all at the same time. The thing that really is troublesome is even after you've been robbed, you still get nervous approaching your house again in the future. You always wonder, what will I find when I walk in here again? Did the robber return? I think with time, things do start to feel "safe" again, but it's not the same sort of safety that was felt before the affair.

Yes, it would've been. It just felt so empty - him with his face in his phone or the computer every waking moment that he wasn't "at work" aka with hookers. The excruciating sexual encounters where he would just lay there and have me do everything and be totally not into it. Of course I was miserable. Of course I knew on some level something wasn't right.

Yeah, I recall that time, when he was "suffering from depression" and I (being a normal human) was trying to be kind and understanding.

It's trippy to read other people's stories and see that this is all typical. They're so much the same.

It's pretty trippy hearing a woman describe a man exactly how I'd describe my WW. Talk about a gender bender.

I felt I lost all joy in living. I felt like a shadow of myself. I never felt so unloved.

[This message edited by pureheartkit at 11:15 PM, December 26th (Thursday)]

First I missed all the calls. Many mornings it was a short call ( so he could get off and talk to OW ) and no calls after work and if we did talk, he was already done talking about his life with her and didn't want to do it again so he gave me short answers or silence. He texted her and never sent me anything. He radio silenced me Friday nights and came home too late too tired to do anything.

He made me believe he had to work late or go in on weekends and holidays. I think he also extended the times he was away for work. He ran back up to " work " right after going away on a job. He used to want to spend time together after returning.

He told me they were friends, he had to watch her house and sick cat, he was trying to find work for her, she was helping him in his work. Her husband was fixing his computer. She was giving him clothes and walking with him after work to get him to exercise.

I felt completely sidelined, starved in every way. He even got his own meals and never asked if I wanted anything. It was like said above that I felt like a prisoner in a camp, hungry and neglected while he looked at me with contempt. Anything I asked for, he acted like it was a bother. I wondered when he would say he was going. I tried everything desperately. He would snap and say I was making things up when I questioned his moods.

Then he was coming in later, staying out all night, saying he fell asleep at the shop. He went to events without me. He went to penzic for a week without me. He was getting farther and farther away. If there were other people there, over the phone he was laughing and exciting. Back home he was moody and angry and easily set off. He argued with me over the stupidest things. He would beat me down with his words. I was never right even on the most obvious, easily researched things. I knew I was not dumb but I hated the fighting.

He wouldn't walk with me anymore. He was always walking ahead of me. He broke agreements to go places or do things over and over. He never asked how I was. If I said anything he called it complaining. I knew he was talking to her all the time and she was hanging out at the shop after work. He wouldn't answer the phone and lied constantly. I felt ill all the time. I was sad from neglect and my self esteem was so low. All the time he said it was nothing.

I looked at my messages on my phone. The last loving one was 3 years back. I thought he was never going to be that person again.

I became a hockey fan to fill up my time and I got interested in online gardening groups. He never asked about any of this. If I told him, he was only half listening, staring into the computer screen. He did so much of that those 3 years. He would put me on speaker phone at work and let me talk while he gamed on the computer or looked at online crap to buy.

I felt so unneeded, so unnecessary, even a bother to him. He let me do everything around the place. He stopped contributing. If we went to events he spent it talking to others. I felt like he hated me. He told me I was wrong for thinking that.

I remember looking at my wonderful garden, not feeling joy at my flowers. I was doing the work but my feelings were turned off, I was numb. I would do the same with my sewing. I would be busy and make things but lose interest or not care once the project was done. I was having nightmares.

I remember one night having sushi and he didn't say one word to me the whole time at the restaurant. He claimed this never happened. I felt so miserable. I felt like everyone was staring at me. I thought I never want to come here again. Turns out they went there frequently.

All the time I was right and he lied about it all. Now he minimizes and says it wasn't like that, he still cared.

D day I was so sick I threw up in the rosebushes as I was pruning them. I lived on herb tea and fruit and oatmeal. I couldn't sleep and had nightmares. I went under 100 lbs. My hair fell out in the shower. I thought how did I become so unloveable when we had been so in love. What did I do to deserve this. I felt ill every time I went over in my mind all the times he lied and gaslit me. Mad at myself for not going after them in the early days when the EA started.

It's pretty trippy hearing a woman describe a man exactly how I'd describe my WW. Talk about a gender bender.

Yeah, it doesn't seem to be all that different for men and women. So much of the same bullshit. I get it when I hear men say "she just laid there for me" because I absolutely experienced the same thing and felt the same reluctance to have sex that I was always the one asking for.

Lonely, I felt like I was drowning.

I had no idea at first but I knew something was up. I could just tell even over FaceTime. He wasn’t answering my messages as quickly. I had hoped they were just really busy. They worked overnight which was our day time.

I was also alone for the first time in my life. When we saltpeter our lives together 18 years ago, I went from living with my mom to living with him in our first apartment. We had never been apart. So I was lonely on so many levels.