SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I have been making a lot of progress on myself over the last 2.5 months. I've done a decent job detaching and focusing on myself. I workout, I'm eating good, I'm staying hydrated. I'm doing things for myself, I bought some decent jeans I like instead of just using my farm stuff, I've scheduled a consultation for a new tattoo. Im finally having long stretches of good days with minimal to no anxiety but today I am feeling down. There isn't anything in particular I can think of making me feel this way. Even with it being a down day, there aren't any tears or feeling of tears at the moment. Earlier on in this process I was lucky to get 30 minutes or half a day without bawling my eyes out and I'm historically not an emotional person.

Things appear to be going well between myself and my wife, at least to my knowledge. We still live together, it feels like we are getting closer, we spend time together, are going on dates both are doing things to work on ourselves including counseling. I have some concerns about whether she is truly remorseful, but I'm figuring out how to navigate that without investing too much of my heart.

This is all new to me and I'm not sure how to navigate days like this. Do I contact my wife and tell her? Is it better to keep it to myself? Any advice or any support to lift my spirits is greatly appreciated.

Edit: I thought about it and I thinks it's a feeling of lonely. Posting on places like this I think helps me either because it distracts me or makes me not feel alone.

[This message edited by TrashPanda7 at 2:37 PM, Wednesday, November 19th]

Healing from infidelity is a marathon and not a sprint. Betrayal trauma is a b*tch. We have a saying about the emotional rollercoaster - it can take you for a ride at any time. It takes years to heal, and even longer to R.

If you're able to get out of bed, you're doing well. Give yourself grace and understand that there will be times when you're down, angry, emotional, stoic, fill in the blank for whatever emotion. You can let your wife know so that she can support you.

Infidelity sucks.

You may have mentioned it in one of your other threads, and if you did I missed it. How long ago was your discovery day? It's been 7 months for me. The good days outweigh the bad ones, but I'm still having some down days. Sometimes it's a trigger, and sometimes it just kinda hits me out of nowhere. Those days do become more infrequent over time, tho.

What most people don't realize is just how traumatic infidelity is. I grossly underestimated it until it hit me. You just can't know how devastating it is until it happens to you. A lot of people experience PTSD symptoms. It's different for everyone and sometimes it takes less time, and sometimes more, but the general rule is 2 to 5 years to recover. That doesn't mean it's all downhill and pure hell the entire time, but down days are just a part if it.

[This message edited by Pogre at 3:46 PM, Wednesday, November 19th]

Pogre,

I don't know if there is a way to reply to posts or if I'm just supposed to do it this way, but DDay was September 11th. Then the second dday was September 17th when I confronted her about continued contact. No contact with her and AP started that day (to the best of my knowledge).

I was having borderline panic attacks, nightmares, things would just pop in my head and send me down a spiral out of nowhere. I couldn't focus, like today but much worse. I have a hard time staying on task at work. I would break down on the way home from work and I couldn't shake it unless I cried it all the way out which was usually the rest of the day and like I said, I'm not that kind of person. I hated myself. If this isn't allowed, mods just let me know and I'll remove it, but thoughts of suicide crossed my mind multiple times. I thought of my 2 year old son and that I couldn't do that to him so I called a friend the first time it hit me. 988 has helped too at different times. Halloween was the last time I dealt with that and I don't anticipate getting to that point again.

This has me really messed up but I've improved alot and after finding a couple places like this and on Reddit, my perspective has changed and my mind is in a much better place. I am fearful still, but in a place were I think I would be ok if I decide to walk.

The roller coaster of emotions is typical and to be expected. Your whole life was tossed upside down due to no fault of your own. You found out something that is extremely traumatic for your brain to process and it takes a long time.

This early on my advice is to not tell your wife what you are feeling because it may give her a sense of power. If she thinks you cannot live without her that shifts the Power Balance to her and that is the last thing you want. Right now she needs to be afraid that you are going to end the relationship because of what she has done

Early on I was afraid to say or do anything that I thought would upset my wife because I thought it would just send her running to him. I was afraid she would leave but after several months of counseling and research and soul searching I was able to turn that around. I made it crystal clear that our attempt at reconciliation was going to take an incredibly long time and divorce is still an option. Once I was able to take back this power for myself it felt like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders

I finally felt that my head was clear and I could make good decisions that were not based on fear but on what is best for me. If something was bothering me I spoke up instead of keeping it to myself. It takes a while to get to this point but you will get there

Someone once told me feelings are not facts and feelings will come and go and all we can do is ride them out

All of us are here to help you through this

When you get to a place where you are good with or without your mate/partner/spouse, then you have healed. Maybe not fully but significantly.

Feeling alone is a natural side effect of infidelity and betrayal.

The solution is for you to find your own identity, hobbies and social life. Things you can do on your own away from your partner/family.

This will give you a sense of freedom and independence and balance. The times you spend together as a couple are not due to boredom or habit. It’s because you want to spend time together.

I can tell you in the first 60 days after Dday I had to function but I was a mess. Physically I could not eat. I could not sleep more than 45 minutes a night. I was facing financial disaster if my H walked out and he was planning to kick me to the curb for the OW so my future wasn’t looking so good.

In any event you have to have patience and accept the slow healing process. But I think you are doing quite well given it’s only been about 60 days or so from Dday.

My first thread here was titled "d day was about 4 weeks ago," with me thinking that a fair enough amount of time had passed and we'd made good progress. Well, 4 weeks was really closer to "yesterday" than any real significant passage of time in these terms. 2 months is still fairly fresh, too, and it can be even tougher if there are still question marks, withheld information or a lot of defensiveness on the part of the WS.

You're going to be on the roller coaster for a while. Just know that's normal. I'm sure you've done enough reading by now to realize this isn't something you just "get over."

Posting here, venting here, and getting feedback was so helpful for me. Just telling my story in detail and typing it all out was very therapeutic for me. I did it in pieces. First the basics of what happened, then later got into some of the more gory details. Such as how d day went down for me. How I found out, what I did, and my wife's reactions and what she said that night. It was pretty ugly. She's wasn't crass or insulting, but she was downright thoughtless, cruel and heartless, and that went on for a couple of weeks until I decided I'd had enough and was ready to end it.

At 7 months now, the mind movies, reliving d day, and mental images of them together have calmed down quite a bit, but still happen. I just try to use grounding techniques, or sometimes what works for me is to just tell myself to "STOP IT!" What happened happened, and there isn't anything I can do to change it. Dwelling on it us just me torturing myself.

Just hang in there. You're not alone. We hear you. Keep posting here and vent away if it helps. Most of us know what you're going through.