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Even though I occasionally ruminate on my EXWW'S A, it is nowhere near as painful as it would be had I stayed. My EXWW is a unique case. She is abysmally oblivious to virtually anything that is not her. As a result, she struggles with even the most basic concepts around empathy. Trying to get her to understand someone else's feelings is like trying to get grandpa to program the remote. JK.

There is no magic bullet to getting out of the pain. It takes hard work and dedication. What I can tell you is this: although I occasionally suffer from loneliness it is nowhere near the suffering I would have endured had I stayed. But that's just my situation. Had I a better quality human as a spouse, who knows?

[This message edited by Justsomeguy at 3:59 PM, Sunday, May 12th]

I feel incapable of being truly happy for as long as the memory of the affair exists.

I just saw this quote online, and immediately thought of this thread.

"The most painful state of being is remembering the future, particularly the one you'll never have."

― Søren Kierkegaard

[This message edited by HouseOfPlane at 11:19 AM, Sunday, May 12th]

I feel incapable of being truly happy for as long as the memory of the affair exists.

Good catch, HOP.

Is being betrayed the only trauma that has been dumped on you? It wasn't for me, even though my life has been pretty easy. My previous traumas kept me scared for some years, but they eventually faded into the background. I may trigger when I come across a memory of my traumas or read a description by someone else of their own similar trauma, but it's very, very far from top of mind.

At 5 years out, my W's A was close to top of mind. At 5 years out, I probably wrote that I'll never forget it and probably will never be as happy as I was before the A. I was wrong.

I can't guarantee how anyone will feel in the future, but I do think a lot of us surprise ourselves in positive directions about how much we recover. The A will be an open sore for too long. It may remain an open sore as long as one fears it will.

But it is possible for the sore to heal, for a good scar to form, and for us to move on to a happy life. If you seek happiness, it will probably elude you. If you set your sights on doing right things, happiness may surprise you.

JMO. JME.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 10:26 PM, Sunday, May 12th]

The hard part of this situation, and of mine, is that the offense happened BEFORE their lives were truly entangled, and the true scope of the offense wasn't uncovered until AFTER. That brings into question the whole relationship.

But I think this is unfortunately a pattern with WSs. Almost like they like the idea of an intimate partnership, yet when life decisions come at them, they act out their resistance to actually being in a partnership.

Happened exactly that way with my WH. Had I discovered his very well-hidden issues and known of his true past at anytime during the 4 years we dated steady or anytime during the first 4 years of our marriage, it would have been so easy to D! Midlife career couple with no kids, not many entanglements. That changed when I found us a property like he and I had dreamed about (I thought) so that, instead of living in my cramped single girl cottage, we could have room for a truly shared lifestyle like he claimed he wanted - except then he had to commit to a mortgage. That's exactly when he acted out: the night he told me to go ahead and tell the bank we would sign a cash-out refi mortgage on my house, which put him on a joint note for my home plus commited us both to a new property investment - which he immediately urged me to start rehabbing. 8 months later, when I discovered the first part of his betrayal, it was way too difficult to bail out financially.

One therapist told me it sounded like the more 'trapped' he got me financially, the freer he felt to abuse our marriage! Sure seems that way in many cases. But it must be a coincidence, right? (I don't think so....)

Cantbeme- good to hear from you. I think most people here can relate with what you are saying.

I don’t know if this helps or not but two things: I have noticed the same thing as Sissoon, it seems peace comes further out than 5 years for most people.

The second thing is this-h and I have had this discussion many times. What we have learned is to hate it together. To be sad about it together. Yes, I victimized him, but I also robbed myself. I created it but we are coming to see it more as a shared loss. And I think that’s just settled in over the past year, which rounded out year seven.

You may not come to that conclusion. But I am saying it because there is still room that some of this will improve for you. I don’t think it ever fully goes away either, but I do think that you are likely not to your final destination yet.

You might think, well maybe hiking and her husband feel the shared loss because we are madhatters. It really doesn’t work that way. While he holds accountability over his affair, I still hold accountability for kicking it all off.

My affair irrevocably changed the course of our life together. I don’t believe there would have been another circumstance that would have led him to cheat. It wasn’t the right answer, we should have separated. And it still required repairs, but a lot of it just reverberated the shame and unworthiness I already felt. The damage of trust was much deeper for him.

Despite the scars in our marriage, there has been work we have done that created something deeper that would be hard to ever replicate with someone else. You will never catch us celebrating the affair but we do celebrate aspects of our relationship that we are proud of now. We are connected in a way I didn’t know existed. And again, that’s not because of the affair but the dedication to the work we have done on ourselves and together. Healing is so many layers, but what you have said I think is true for most, and I feel what you are describing is what my husband would have written at five years out. And maybe something similiar with some improvements at year six. Some of it he would still say today. So would I.

But for the one asking why would you ever stay with a cheater.

Because there is still love. There is still laughter, and passion and enjoyment. There are still times together with our grown kids that we are so glad to support them from the same side of the table. We have so much together that a lot of people never find. We have been together for almost three decades, there is history and knowing. We no longer take for granted that we are choosing each other every day despite it all and are learning to celebrate what is not what we wish it was. That takes a long time to cultivate.
It comes in layers, time, self awareness, and a commitment to align with that decision.

Finding out so many years later complicated the situation greatly for you, it sounds like you have healed a lot since we last saw you. Give yourself some grace when you are struggling. There is still room for more healing ahead. And if you are hitting five years, then you are around the anniversary of finding out and it’s natural to get hit harder at those milestones.

Bump by request of OP.

It's been another year, and I have to say I feel exactly the same way today as I did when I posted last May. I am starting to feel very depressed and perhaps ready to accept the reality that this marriage cannot continue. While life is good 90% of the time, the other 10% (maybe even 5%) is just really soul-crushing and painful and I am not sure I can keep subjecting myself to it for the rest of my life.

I'm tired of being triggered, I'm tired of having the same mental images replay in my mind, I'm tired of feeling so alone with my feelings, I'm tired of the injustice of it all, and I'm tired of being disappointed in my wife's responses whenever I voice these feelings to her.

Ugh. I'm getting ahead of myself. It's hard to parse so many thoughts and actions into a coherent post, but I will try to summarize.

We live a good life. No, we live a GREAT life. We live in a beautiful house with two amazing kids, no money problems, we travel a few times a year and love to vacation as a family, we have a great sex life, we laugh together and generally just enjoy each other's company. It's the life I dreamed of and the life I worked intentionally to build, from a young age.

The problem is, of course, the ghosts of the past that haunt me and this "great life" is built on a foundation of lies and trauma. So, so much of my life is triggering for me to think about because of how my wife acted and how long she lied about it and how badly it wrecked me when she confessed. Our early years are ruined for me because of the affair. Our wedding is ruined for me because of what I didn't know at the time, and because one of her other "lesser" APs was in attendance and knew she had cheated, while watching me tie the knot. Our life around the confession is ruined for me because my life was in ruins - while our kids were toddlers, we spent most of our time fighting and crying. I barely remember my kids at that age because I was so full of rage and sadness all the time, I was completely and totally consumed by the trauma of my wife's confession.

It took about 3-4 years for the trauma to subside and for me to decide I truly wanted to reconcile. We re-located, in a bid for a "fresh start", and it worked for a little bit. I was triggered way less often in our new home town and the excitement of getting settled into a new house and new town kept my mind off her A for a while. I was optimistic about our future.

However, over the past year or so, the pattern that has repeated is this - something triggers me, I get distant and withdrawn, my wife does not check in with me proactively, I get angry and eventually voice my feelings, she responds in a way that leaves me disappointed and more angry, and eventually enough time passes that we move on and start over again.

Recently, the triggers are piling up and I am really hitting a bad place in my head. My wife has joined a social circle here that triggers me badly - they're like the "adult cool kids" club, a bunch of MILFs who are always at the pool, drink too much and all seem very superficial. My wife is like halfway in this group - she doesn't like them, but she can't help but want to be a part of the social group. Many of the SOs of these women strike me as the exact same kind of good-looking, morally-bankrupt douchebags that my wife cheated on me with 10, 15, 20 years ago. I have zero interest in being friends with or hanging out with them, and I now actively detest going to the pool because I can't stand them and I feel judged (I am and always have been slightly overweight).

One of these guys, who is dating my wife's best friend (anyone remember our story for years ago? If you do, you might remember this is a recurring theme of my wife getting entangled with her friend's SOs), has particularly rubbed me the wrong way. He is a doctor and my wife suffers from a condition in which he specializes. During an evening when we were hanging out with this couple, he offered to be her doctor, which made me sick and panic, and my wife responded something like "that would be great!". The next day, I fully expected her to come to her sense and realize how inappropriate that would be, but instead she had already called his office to schedule an appointment!

I was sick over this, and very angry. I couldn't believe she didn't check with me first. Her response was basically "I am worried about my health, he is a professional, he wants to help". I remind her there are probably 50 doctors within a 20 mile radius of us that practice the same medicine, and that a patient/doctor relationship is very intimate in a sense, not to mention with lots of touching and time alone together in a room, and I am incredibly uncomfortable with this guy being your doctor and very upset you didn't check in with me before making this appointment. She eventually agreed to cancel her appointment and said she was sorry she did it. She is always sorry - she's SO GOOD at being sorry, and SO BAD at not doing the things in the first place that she apologizes for later.

Anyway, this same guy then texted my wife last week, privately (even though there is a group chat that includes me and his girlfriend) to wish her good luck and that he will be thinking positive thoughts for her while she travels to deal with a very stressful family matter. My wife shared this with me (good) but then acted defensive when I told her how upset it made me and how scummy I thought it was of this guy (bad). I am incensed - it's been almost 7 years now of processing her confession and affair, and EVERYTHING that we have read, all the therapy we have gone, everything on this site and elsewhere, should have caused a giant red flag to pop up in her head when she received this text. Instead, her words when she showed it to me were, "___ texted me, I thought you should know because you will probably be upset about it". I said "aren't YOU upset about it?" She said "no, not really, his girlfriend (her best friend) probably told him to do it. I don't want him to text me! I didn't ask for this."

My thoughts are you DID ask for this, when you agreed to be his patient you basically give this guy a green flag to try to break boundaries, you're just somehow still too naive to see it even after all we've been through.

Did I mention this doctor is single because his marriage ended as a result of his infidelity? Yeah, small point of context there, but I'm sure it's just like he says it was, "the marriage was already broken, it would have ended anyway". Any of you heard that story before??

It just makes me feel so mad and disappointed. And triggered. Here we are, in a new home, new town, and yet all the same patterns keep materializing.

Anyway, a few days after that (and just a few days ago), we're at a mall with the kids and we happen to walk past the retail store where she used to work when she had her affair with her co-worker. I was still reeling from what I described above, and now the invasive mental images compounded that and I got very upset, very withdrawn, and I've spent the past few days just stewing on everything all over again. When I finally vented to her (again, she never solicits my feelings proactively, I think she is just too scared) her response was to say "I'm sorry, I just don't associate with the person I was back then at all, it's very hard for me to think about it or talk about it". Gee, thanks. I wish I didn't associate with the person I was back then, but I don't have that luxury.

This brings me to where I am today and why I feel how I feel. My wife is absolutely great whenever the affair is not a part of our life, and I love her very much. However, when the affair IS a part of our life (and for me that is still very often, for her it is only when I bring it up and voice my feelings, which is rare) she is never what I need her to be in those moments. She is defensive, she deflects, she throws in the towel ("if you can't be happy with me then maybe you should leave"). What she doesn't do, the things I am dying for like a parched man in a desert, is to fight for me, to share in the suffering together, to mutually talk about what we hate about the past, to hear her specifically say how much she hates her past actions and to tell me again how remorseful she is and how much she wants me. Mostly just to be real, to speak from the heart, to empathize and connect with me and reassure me.

I want to be wanted. I want to be worth fighting for. I want my pain to be enough for her to feel her own sadness along with me, instead of being "disconnected from her past self" or arguing with me and getting defensive ("I've tried so hard, I've put in so much effort..."). She'll tell me she wants to do better, but she never does. I don't know if she's capable.

Maybe I am impossible to please. I probably am. I cannot get over what she did, and I know I never will. It will haunt me forever. It hurt me in such an incredibly vulnerable spot, in the absolute worst way possible, it validated all of my worst fears about myself and the pain is unbearable to think about sometimes. It makes me feel so pathetic and I feel like I have lost a lot of respect for myself in trying to reconcile, because I always had a very hard line in my mind around infidelity.

I need help figuring out how to move forward. I don't want to be divorced, or for my children to have divorced parents, or give up all the good things we have in our life together, but I also can't tolerate living with this for the rest of my life. I love my wife but I can't suffer alone through these episodes forever.

As I always lead with, if you’re done, you’re done — and I always understand why.

My wife and I are in a good place, but we didn’t get here because she was proactive.

Any spouse with any sense of remorse isn’t ever in a hurry to bring up the horrible pain they caused.

It does sound like your WS should recognize flags better. Divorced dude, due to infidelity, is not a healthy texting partner — but as you noted, she did tell you.

Reacting to triggers, I suggest you don’t withdraw and hope she reaches out.

Tell her. She can listen and be supportive that way.

Here’s the thing, even the most supportive WS is unable to understand the level of damage done to your brain, unless they experienced infidelity themselves.

She can help you heal the M and listen to you when you’re struggling, but you got to heal you.

Somewhere along the way, you need to focus on the good stuff happening today and leave the past where it belongs. I don’t mean pretend bad shit didn’t happen, I mean give it less energy and focus and talk with your spouse about the toughest triggers.

It ain’t easy, the biggest trigger is the person you’re married to.

Once I understood I can’t control people or outcomes, I go with the one thing in this world I can control: I control my own response to adversity.

When I get triggered, I ask myself why in the Hell is this particular trigger still haunting me? Then I attack it. Usually, it is something I tried to bury that will not stay buried, and if the trigger needs answers or support I ask questions.

The biggest reminder I had to do to heal was simply tell my brain the bad stuff isn’t happening today.

I focused on the now, or a better recent memory with my wife, kids or whatever else good was happening.

We can’t choose a permanent happy place or a positive vibe that lasts forever, I don’t buy into anything like that.

But we do get to choose what we aim for, each day. We do get to decide what we focus on.

Our stories are super similar, and you have always been able to put into words what I am feeling better than I ever could. That's why I chose my name, as an homage to you, after I thought you were long gone.

I just went through affair season, which is the only time I feel like I can bring it up without the whole "maybe you should just leave" stuff...(and affair season for her is considered a few days, for me: spring). But this time, when we talked about it, I got a measure of relief in 18 years I haven't gotten. Something of a new puzzle piece, and I haven't had a new puzzle piece in years- just been rearranging the old ones.

She mentioned that on the rare occasion that she does think about it, crossing her mind unwanted, she "blows it up" in her mind. Like, imagines the APs room physically blowing up, and she suggested I do the same.

I am not sure I can do that myself, but for some reason, I took so much comfort in the idea that she does that. That she doesn't look back on it with fondness nor anger nor anything...that she just tries to "blow it up".

I hope you get some relief like that as well.