SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

BS here.

yes. both times there was an event with my xwh.

1st- and awful accident that claimed 2 people's lives (the fault of the drunk driver that turned left in front of him and he had trouble dealing with it. 2nd, he had just retired from his first job and I reckon he thought he was free as a bird, who knows?

we will see what happens at the next life altering event.

BW here. Extra stress is a trigger for him to revert into wayward thinking/behavior:

PA after he proposed marriage.

PA/EA when I was in grad school and working full time.

Almost PA when I was pregnant.

Porn and cruising bars when his father was dying of lung cancer.

Posting on dating sites and meeting people when he lost his job and was forced to move to an undesirable location.

Multiple PA's when we were having finacial issues and our asperger's son was having serious behavioral problems.

BS here.

Yes the initial trigger was a serious health (life threatening) issue with me and long term serious health complications after.

He had zero coping skills. He self soothed/medicated with affairs and porn. Poor choices. Built up walls to protect himself. Shut me out completely.

He's now digging deep in therapy as to why he chose that route.

My BH thinks that subconsciously since we were getting engaged shortly after the affair started, that maybe I didn't want to be married to him or be with him but didn't know how to end it. I don't want admit that this could be a possibility. Maybe there is some truth to it.

CinnGirl, we got that from the book, After the Affair which is recommended in the Healing Library. When I read the real life example in the book, I could relate. Check it out!

oh so many things come to mind with this for me. Work stress was out of control, stress with kids, stress with home and then of course all of the physical pain.I have had consistent and ongoing acute back pain and issues. I had had a spinal discectomy, numerous injections spinal fusion and finally in the end rhizatomy to burn the nerve endings in my lower back.I just remember escape I just wanted to escape.so yes it seems there was a lot of trauma or life events that were occurring surrounding the time of the affair.I was also on anti depressants at the time, dealing with anger ect..... think had recently quit seroquel as well. so much going on at the same time and hsd dealt with so much for so long that I think I felt like i fell off a cliff and had finally had my limit. Absolutely not making excuses, this is all 110 percent on me and only me and the choices I made.. no-one else I own that and i need to fix it. poor coping skills, poor boundaries and really poor choices. .I own that

LA44 I actually just bought and started reading it!! Im only @p63, but I just leafed ahead and found it! Sounds like a helpful tool!

I'm also reading After the Affair with my BH. Very helpful book.

Sosorry, I definitely agree with the meds being another contributing stressor. I was being treated for BP2 with antidepressants that were triggering hypomania and traumatic flashbacks. I was nearly out of my mind. Your story is full of parallels with my own. Sorry you had to go through all of that pain!

CinnGurl and PizzaLover, it's an excellent book! My H bought it and read it and then I took it from there. We still grab it when we need extra help. I have lots of pages marked. The exercise on page 130 is not something you can rush through. I found it really made ME do my own part re: introspection.

I actually wrote the author a note to let her know we got a lot from it and she wrote back! She will do phone consults but they are way too $$$ for us.

Thanks LA44, no worries on rushing through it. I've learned through my IC to take each event and feeling individually to figure out my reasoning behind stuffing it away for so long. Its been such a cathartic experience to finally own those events. They became a cancer eating away most of my sense of self worth. Its a tough journey, but in a weird way, its been comforting and therapeutic. Its taught me how to feel again and that's just such a messy, painful, wonderful thing!

I was just thinking about how a lot of what I read has whole sections on withdrawing from the AP's and feeling romantic love for them, but it wasn't like that for me. When it was over, and I went NC, I had never felt any love or attachment to AP, but I never felt any hate or contempt either. As BSO always says, the opposite of love isn't hate, but indifference. I realized that AP may have poor boundaries and may even be evil and manipulative, but honestly, I could care less. He didn't force me to make terrible choices, I did that all on my own.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think he's a good person and I never want anything to do with him ever again. But I don't want to waste any valuable head space on him.

It wasn't him I was attracted to, I was just desperate to escape the hurricane that was my mind and life. I longed for safety and a place I could hide from my life and from myself. A place where my real life ceased to exist. It seems pretty pathetic to me now, how I could think it was OK to try and fool myself and my BSO that all was good and there was nothing bad going on. But I guess hindsight is always 20/20 and I can't change the past, just the path leading me towards the future.

Interesting topic CG.

I experienced life trauma (drama) both prior to and during the A as well as earlier in life. I believe my "trauma" pre/during A would not have been so traumatic if I had healthy coping mechanisms. And having the A, going against my morals and belief system was pretty dang traumatic iykwim.

Lately I've been working through childhood trauma that was rug-swept. As long as I have been on SI and in IC I have always been skeptical about the significance of childhood trauma in my decision to have an A. Just recently I'm starting to buy in that there might be something there after being told months ago by some VERY wise SIers, IC/MC, and my BH. Sometimes I can be a bit dense....or as BH says, hardheaded.

I don't think trauma is a reason or an excuse. I think it can tip the scale for a person with poor boundaries, low respect for self/others, poor coping mechanisms, emotional immaturity...insert issues here...

Knights, i Agree whole heartedly that its not the reason, but as you mentioned it is definitely just one more factor in the s***storm of how the A became "justified" in our minds. Its part of a perfect storm of events and issues that led to establishing poor boundaries and unhealthy coping mechanisms.

Boy CG, a lot of your story resonates with me also. There was absolutely no feelings whatsoever for the AP. Once I left there was nothing no feelings no desire to contact no desire to ever see you again nothing. and what's most frustrating as knights said, is that I went against absolutely everything I believed in, morals, ethics, integrity, etc..... and what's interesting as my BH would say is that I risked the very things I love the most for what....... nothing. he says it might be easier to understand if it least there was something there that I was risking everything for and it's kind of disheartening to say the opposite. Absolutely agree with CG in that it was truly an escape from real life and all the drama/trauma in my life. I have yet to really figure out the childhood issues in which the AP was a part of in that there was physical relations with him at a very young age for me and I can't really remember when that began or how old I was. BH is concerned with childhood sexual abuse based on our interpretation as best I can remember of how old I was and how old he was at that time.just wish I could remember.

Don't rush it Sorry, continue to do the work and it may come up through alternate channels. I've had things from my past that I didn't even realize I had burried, until I was addressing feelings from another time period and out of the blue, these relevant, important memories came to light. This happens a lot to me, I've repressed so much, it became second nature to file all things painful in the same closets in the back of my mind. I'm pretty sure its going to take a long time to sort them all out. Don't worry Sorry, you'll get there when you're ready!

thanks CG that's helpful and reassuring

CinnGurl, I just sent you a private message. :)LA

BS here

My MIL died in April of that year, the A started in October, 6 months later.

While WS and his mother were not close, OW was to a certain extent. OW would visit MIL when she returned to their hometown. MIL wanted WS to marry OW years ago.

While I feel her death was a possible trigger for the A, WS did have a better way to deal with his grief, he just didn't know it at the time.

I'm pretty sure After the Affair was the book I bought for us on DDay, I bought a copy for me and a copy for him. We used it as a workbook of sorts, I highly recommend it too.

I don't think of trauma as an excuse so much as just observing people do crazy things when in pain.

It makes sense to me that when our lives are functioning well, when we feel good about ourselves, when our marriages are in a happier place we aren't as predisposed to the underbelly of our fears and poor coping skills.

I mean there are many different types of infidelity. Its a little like understanding why someone who is a drug addict or poor steals vs someone like winona ryder shop lifting. We find the theft in any circumstance unacceptable and against the law but in the latter scenario it is more appalling.

I think it pays to understand how life events can cause fractures in a person's make up to be revealed or become more pronounced. I know the damage ends up being the same to the parties involved but it makes sense that some people find themselves in an unhealthy place making bad decisions.

One of the things that I have gotten most from the waywards here and in my life is the sense that we all of us can underestimate our abilities in some ways and overestimate our abilities in others. That when faced with a crisis of whatever sort that it was shocking how quickly they found themselves disabled. Its kind of like thinking you might be able to go two rounds but find yourself on your back in under 30 seconds.

So aside from the ensuing damage caused to loved ones and to the self is the sense that "I never thought it could happen to me, that I could find myself being unfaithful and omg I was so wrong and I find that frightening."

It is very much a cautionary tale I have taken to heart. Because I know after being on the receiving end of it, it is really easy to think.. oh I could never do this myself. And the waywards chime in.. "you really don't know until you are there, I thought the same way at one time." Not as a way to alleviate any guilt but as a way to say be careful and take care.

I know if I'm ever hit with some very serious life altering stuff and I'm in a committed relationship I am going to be more cautious with my boundaries at that time. I am so grateful for this space and for the waywards here. I've learned a tremendous amount.

[This message edited by Syzy at 9:15 PM, March 23rd (Saturday)]