SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

ernestine, thank you for sharing your cautionary tale. For me, I have resolved to be better, not bitter.

I agree. Life is choices even if your mother has left there is no guarantee that she would not be in the same place she is today her life wasted and bitter as you believe she is. So with LTA or one night stands, or just crappy things happening in your life it’s the choices we make how we react to them which will determine our quality of life after just cause you leave does not mean someone will be happy and have a better life people stay bitter and angry all the time and that can happen if you stay too, my point is we all choose what we want and I think some of our anger comes from not knowing about the A our choice our free will was taken from us and guess what I am bitter about that, but now I chose yes me I chose to stay to work on things so how can I be bitter I chose. It’s just like anything else in life if something is not making you happy it’s time to adult and make yourself happy in the end we have the control now because we have the power to choose and it’s no one else job to make you happy it’s your job to make yourself happy. And this is JMHO on the topic of bitter/angry vs. being happy.

Totally agree Mickeymom. I have chosen to give my H the gift of R. He is very grateful for my giving him this chance and he is running full steam with it. Yes, there are days the hurt sneaks back up on me but I have decided I will not grow into a bitter old woman. My time left is precious to me and I don’t want to waste It on unhappiness. It IS my choice and I can change if any time I want. My H acknowledges that. But I want happiness. An A, esp LTA is an awful thing to go thru but others in my life are/have gone thru worse. So I adjust my crown and move on. There are days it slides a bit but it will never fall off my head.

Peace in your lives. To those of you earlier on this rough road you may not have yet made your final choice. It is still yours alone to make

ernestine, Thank you for your post. That is such a very sad story about your mother and father and for you as well being caught in the middle of it all.

I wonder if your mother stayed because she actually loved your father and hoped that he would change. I hear a lot of similar stories about people from that era. They stayed for the sake of the children and hoped for the best. Perhaps it was too difficult to leave, financially, or a fear of being on their own without support. These are still the same issues that people have today as well.

I can understand your mother also being very bitter about what your father had done, I think most of us feel bitter about it. I also believe that we give our WS the chance to change and wait around to see if that actually happens. Our hearts want to stay but our heads are just waiting for any sign of a slip up. Let's hope that this isnt still on our minds when we are 80 like your poor mother.

We could all throw in the towel now and say that's it but for most of us we have spent at least half our lives with our spouses if not more than half, we have children and a long history. We want to try and make it work again to see if we can have that good partnership/marriage. If it doesn't then we know in our hearts that we tried our best and did everything we could. It is never too late to walk away.

I feel so sad for your mother, perhaps the aged care facility could have the doctor visit if she is feeling very low and depressed. Sometimes they can help. It is also difficult for you having to listen to her talk about your father continuously, perhaps you can say to her that you really dont want to hear it anymore, but if she needs talk about it then she should see a counselor.

Hoping that you and your mother get some peace. Thank you again for your post.

I stay because I live my wh.

Before dday, I thought I would always leave if he cheated. I thought I would instantly fall out of love but that didn’t happen.

The a is still there. It still hurts daily that it happen but it gets batted all the time because he is trying all the time.

He may not always do things the way I wish he would or may not notice things I wish he would however, he is trying.

Thing is, itmia up to me to voice my concerns over things and also to ask for things that I want. I have previously discussed with him that I wish he would notice more things that trigger me.

He will change the channel if here is infidelity. He will change sings that he knows bother me. He will avoid driving in areas that he knows bother me because it’s the location he would “park” with the slut.

The fact that he doesn’t notice some triggers is not necessarily on him, I can and probably should mention it to him but I don’t. Itankn him that I have them but he can’t do anything about it if he isn’t aware.

I do agree that ws’s compartmentalize the a, the fallout and it’s like it never happened. It’s one of the ways they were able to live two lives and not feel the guilt. Compartmentalization has its good about it but it has to bad as well.

I have had many triggers this week, including driving one of the exact same style and year of vehicle that he was having sex with her in. The whole time I was in it, I was looking at the passenger side seat and thinking about the time we discussed how little room there is for what they did and how he must have wanted her so bad if he was able to pretzel himself just so he could get some. He said there was loads of room and there is not-not did the position I was told was the norm anyway.

It’s a completely different thing when your ws is remorseful and fixed themselves and dies what they can to help you heal than it is to have a was who continues to out the self first and continues to lie.

In my case, it’s not just more infidelity that will have me at the lawyers, it is anymore lying as well. I refuse to remain in a m where I am constantly disrespected by lying and cheating.

I am giving him his gift of r and it’s up to him what he does with it.

I want to be clear, I am not making a blanket statement against R. I understand why it's so hard to walk away from a long marriage. And I'm glad some of you have found a path forward with your spouses.

My dad would never have been a good candidate for R. Classic NPD. Never respected my mother or treated her with kindness. Her own father was cold and unloving, she had (and has) low self-esteem.

Mickeymom, completely agree about choices. For whatever reasons, she is unable to choose happiness. I believe she feels most comfortable being the victim. Not happiest -- most comfortable.

amanda123, your second paragraph is spot-on. But by the time the 35-year affair came along, there had already been many, many others. He had lied to her so many times. I think she was just too scared to be on her own. And, like I said, had grown comfortable with the identity of being a victim. My brother and I have begged her to get some counseling, but she has a million excuses why she won't. I feel that she knows a counselor will tell her that it's up to her to make something of her life, and she doesn't want to, or is scared, to change. I think she has long-term untreated depression, which has been shown to change the brain. Negativity begets negativity.

I am truly glad several of you have spouses who are making the effort to rebuild.

My divorce is almost final. This became a deal breaker for me. My ex had a 2.5 year affair.

This is for those that ask Why?

The person who strays is selfish, immature, narcissistic, addicted, borderline, suffers from insecure attachment, you name it. And the person who doesn’t stray is the committed partner—mature, stable, and non-selfish. So, one of the misconceptions is that it’s a symptom theory, and another is the deficiency model.

Honestly. There is not one person who can fulfill all your needs. One of the big misconceptions is that affairs or trysts are flings about sex. And sometimes they are, but much more often they are about desire. And that is very different. The desire to feel special, to feel seen, to feel appreciated, to be laughed at or with. The desire to be desired. That does not manifest in a sexual act, per se. Affairs make you feel alive. Sometimes there are massive amounts of sex, and sometimes there is just a longing or fantasies. The kiss you only imagine can be just as powerful as hours of lovemaking, because it can carry the same charge.

Again, it’s not about the actual sex, but the sexuality, the energy, the aura. It’s the imagination and anticipation of it as much, or instead of, the actual experience of it. Secrecy also fuels erotic intensity, because it makes you feel like you’re doing something that is entirely yours. It gives you the sense of autonomy, the sense of freedom, and the sense of sovereignty. That in itself is already erotic. And then you add to that the sexual energy and BOOM it can be addictive.

The attention and desire they recieved made them feel “alive”

[This message edited by CaliforniaNative at 1:10 PM, May 20th (Sunday)]

CaliforniaNative

What you describe is yet another awful part of an A - in the LONG list of awful parts of an A.

It REALLY pisses me off that my WH got to experience all that excitement/pleasure/anticipation - the “thrill” of it.

And I get to experience PTSD.

I had opportunities to have an A. My WH accused me of it years ago (now, presumably bc HE was considering a PA). 5 yrs ago, another man kissed me... what did I do?

Why, I pushed him away, went back to my room, and CALLED my husband!

What did my husband do?

Continued his LTA PA.

It’s just so frigging hard.

When I feel I’m in a relatively ‘good’ place, facts like this creep in

And I’m angry all over again.... don’t want to be on the same earth as he is, let alone the same room.

Yes, the rollercoaster is real.

Yes, facts like that creep into my mind as well.

It’s all unfair.

I had opportunities also. I didn’t take those opportunities, why?

Because I have boundaries. There is no grey area where those boundaries lie. I took vows and I meant them. When the fling got rough, I didn’t turn to someone else, even when the opportunities were there.

There is defficiencies, but it’s not the m or the bs, it is the ws. They have deficiencies in themselves. They are all those things your mention Californianative-or at least some. Mine is not narcissistic nor is he borderline etc, but he was selfish and immature in his thinkI guess

The first thing who remembers about their first encounter was her grabbing his crotch. So, of course, you have to confine right? You wouldn’t want to upset her.

The stupidity if the wayward thinking is astounding sometimes.

Mow was being told by whether she didn’t deserve to be treated the way her bh was treating her. Obs suspected for many years that there was something up but either didn’t have a clue where to begin or was too afraid or lazy to look. I found the evidence in a week. She fell for him o we being told that she deserved better. The lying, cheating, selfish who’re deserved to be treated better than how she was being treated. So I asked wh, “how did I deserve to be treated then?” I got a blank stare and then a your right.

Like so many, if not all of us, so many thoughts go through my mind. It’s so upsetting because I was such a calm person before. I never felt I had a reason to not trust him and I never felt jealous of anyone or anything. Now? I’ve completely changed. I will never be that calm, trusting person again, I fear.

He is so good now. Tries so hard now. I don’t see any reason to suspect anything. He is the guy I always wanted. Ow-or at least appears to be, yet it can be so hard to accept that I can believe this change because of all the lies, manipulation and betrayal.

I finally know the why?

His words, I went down that path because I felt alone, I was lonely. He said you were never home and when you were, you were always on the phone. I cant deny any of that, it is all true. I am a part time working mother of 3 that worked shift work opposite my H and looked after our children who were chronic asthmatics one has epilepsy as well and one has a serious heart condition they have all spent lots of time in and out of hospital. When I did have the occasional spare few hours I took both my mother and his mother food shopping and dropped them home. I did some voluntary work for the childrens hospital on the rare occasion since we were there so often.

I told him he should have come to me and told me that we needed to spend some quality time together even if it was just a few hours a week, instead of getting on the internet and turning to some stranger across the other side of the world and having a LTA with her. I asked why he didnt come to me, he didnt have an answer for that.

Way to go, so it looks like its all my fault!!

Oh Amanda123, that sucks.

I got some of that early on... kind of bracing for more later.

Geez, being lonely bc our spouses are very busy?

seems like we should all just go out and have an A

Amanda-you know it’s fot nothing to do with you. He is an adult and knows cheating isn’t a cure for loneliness.

My wh tried the same thing. He said he was lonely but it was him that was fine all the time. He chose to have hobbies that didn’t include me or our son and then he decides he is lonely?

It’s so maddening.

Thank you gmc94 and deephurt.

It makes me angry when he doesnt accept responsibility for what he did. His LTA lasted for 16 years. It was on an off but it totalled that many years. I feel in his mind he is thinking that hey i did that because you didnt give me enough time or attention. Hell its not like I was out partying, socialising, getting my hair or nails done, going for massages. I ran myself ragged doing all the things that I mentioned, in maybe doing that I let myself go. There wasnt enough me time. My clothes were old he could never accuse me of over spending on myself because I always put myself last when it came to that. While he always looked great, due to me looking after him.

More sadness for me came with the finally knowing his why. OW always told me that she knew him better than I did. Well of course she did because he spoke to her everyday and he told her what was going on in our lives and what he was thinking. He never did that with me. I never knew what he was thinking. Now the real upsetting part. She told me that he didnt want me to make it when I had my bone marrow biopsy, she said he was hoping for the worst outcome for me. She said he never said those actual words, she said what he did say was "that is a way we could be together". She said to him dont even think that you shouldnt be thinking like just wait to see what the results, he said im just kidding!!. It all makes sense when I think about it now. Firtly I thought she was saying hurtful stuff to me because she was pissed off with my H for not leaving me. Remembering his words when he said to me about me being a gonner if it went to my bones. He said it so coldly like he didnt give a shit about me and whether i died. I was and am still so hurt about that. I confronted him the other night just because I cant get over what he said and the way he said it. He said he didnt mean it that way, I said ok then how did you mean it? What could you have possibly meant? He couldnt answer me, he said I wish I could take it all back. I told him what OW told me and he said that was a lie. He said I told her it was serious and that I was worried. I said really considering you were supposed to have been no contact then! I told him he was a liar back then and he is a liar not being truthful. When I initially saw the specialist he came with me. After she gave me the possibilites of what she thought I may have we got in the car and he sang all the way home listening to the radio, who does that? I know I am naive I thought maybe he was just trying to be his normal self and that there is nothing for me to worry about. But honeslty I did think at the time is he serious if it were the other way around I dont even think I could listen to any music I would so concerned.

I dont know maybe im overdramatising but because of the TT all these years amd me never really knowing the whole truth it has been eating away at me for the last few years. HIs last contact with her was April 2015 or could have been May. If it wasnt for her I wouldnt know a quarter of what I do know.

I too got the "I was lonely, you never had time for me" while I was working full time, doing ALL the housework, helping watch 2 grand babies a few times a week. All those years he worked two jobs, I was lonely too. But I did not run to the first person that showed me attention to get my needs met. I just don't get it. He said he never stopped loving me - I was there for love, she was around for companionship, friendship and hot sex. Well, that made me feel better, asshole. that kind of love I sure don't want.

Now? I am his everything. I don't get it. I think they did it because they were selfish and lazy. Too lazy to try to work on making the M better. My H said I never listened to him trying to talk about the things that he needed. Maybe I didn't. But had he sat me down and said, look I am unhappy. Enough consider other options including leaving you. Had he said that to me I am sure I would have listened and realized how badly he was feeling.

I am by no means taking any of the blame of his choice to have an A. I will take responsibility (50%) for the state of our marriage. I know I was a controlling person. I am working on that. But he could have talked to me instead of trolling the internet trying to find someone to meet. And then the first person that showed online interest and was close enough to meet he went with.

deep hurt:

I was such a calm person before. I never felt I had a reason to not trust him and I never felt jealous of anyone or anything. Now? I’ve completely changed. I will never be that calm, trusting person again, I fear.

This is so very true for me now. I will never be the happy, positive person I was for most of my life. The rose colored glasses are off and I look at things very skeptically now, including how I see myself. I still compare myself to her and I know that that is not a healthy thing for me to do.

one day at a time. I am trying to live in the present which is a very good place for me right now. I just keep sinking into the past tho. And that is not healthy for me at all

one day at a time. I am trying to live in the present which is a very good place for me right now.

You are so right that it can be hard trying to stay in the present.

I posted my story in the just Found Out Forum. The short version, is that my live in SO has been in a an affair for over 3 years, and this is the second time he's had an affair with this woman. I am devastated. How do you wrap your head around something like this?

I got the 'too little sex'.

But I wholeheartedly agree with CaliforniaNative

The truth is, it wouldn't have mattered if I had f***ed the poor bastard 3 times a day, he still would have found an excuse.

But for him, it is 'only sex' and he still has no idea why I've decided to D him. Because, after all, it was *just sex*, so why should I break up our family over this.

Amanda-I am so happy that you are healthy now. I completely understand how that is the worst part. It would be for me as well. I just had surgery-not life threatening at all-and when I found out he dropped me off and got right in the phone to her, I was devastated. The truth of what was said will be aimewheee in between what they are both telling you. You really can’t believe either.

Donna-one day at a time-that’s exactly what I keep telling myself. Each day is a new day to heal some more-hopefully. I have trouble staying in the now. Seems to be so easy for wh tondo but me, not so much. Sometimes I look at him and think what the hell dis I do to deserve this kind of pain and anguish. I often wonder if it’s wvwn possible to get to a point where I don’t think of it daily, where it doesn’t hurt daily.

When I get angry with him now, it’s always more angry than I ever would have been and my thoughts always go back to the a. It’s like I find a reason for the anger to be a relates automatically or I find a way to be able to think of ways to Blame this new anger on the a. I have to learn to not so that. I have gotten to the point where I don’t blurt what I’m thinking out, so I guess it’s progress.

I got the too little sex thing through our entire m, except for the two years prior to day-when they took it physical and emotional again. We still had sex but he would comment that it was okay that I didn’t like sex. It confused me then because I was asking why he wasn’t interested anymore. He doesn’t remember that of course.

My wh initially said he wanted six 5 times per week, then after years, it became a minimum of 3. Problem is, I didn’t see him enough for that and that was his choice.

Th me wayward mind is so confusing to me. I don’t understand the thought process.

I had options. I could have cheated if I wanted. I didn’t. I have too much respect for myself to sink to the level of getting my jollies at someone else’s very traumatic expense.

I honestly believe that my wh did it because he could. Someone offered and he didn’t see any reason to turn down free sex.

Whyagainshyher- your wh is a gigantic ass. It’s traumatix to have it happen once but to see that kind of pain and go back? That is truly heartless. I don’t know your reasons for staying and I am not going to diss you for your choice to stay. I’m just going to say that I would never stay if it happened again. To me that is showing me that he is not interested in changing and he would never care about me enough to not cheat. It’s the ultimate in disrespect imho.

deephurt, Thank you and hugs.

Unfortunately looks like a whole lot of us are still carrying the hurt and anger. I really dont know what to do to get passed that.

amanda-i am there with you. I still feel it and I don't know how to get rid of it for good. I am not even sure I should be trying. Maybe, because I am afraid of forgetting. How i could forget is something I couldn't fathom though.

I feel pain still everyday but its not the same, it is less. So, I wonder if its lots of time that we need. How much time is enough may be the answer we are looking for.

I see my wh happy. I can see that he doesn't think of what he did anymore. i can see how he wants to have it in the past forever. It is the past-for him. I haven't been able to make it completely our past. I struggle with it because of the enormity of the trauma.

I am a cha survivor. I blocked it out for years. After remembering the trauma, I tried to put it in the past. I got to the point where i didn't think about it daily. I rarely thought about it BUT my body didn't forget. I still had moments where my body remembered and responded long before my brain recognized the response. I still have those moments to this day-decades later.

So, I wonder if this trauma is similar. It will never be completely gone. There will always be something to remind some part of us. I am hoping that is not going to be the case. I worry that it is and I can't imagine feeling this pain for the remainder of my life. It makes me wonder if R is the right course of action after infidelity-even though I could never imagine being with someone else and plan on being with WH forever. It makes me wonder if the pain remains if you stay and may not if you D.

I have so many thoughts that seem to haunt me. I still have many unanswered questions-nothing terribly important but unanswered regardless. I can't imagine there is any LTA where all the questions are answered. There is just too much to remember. Who could remember everything I want to know.

WH needs new underwear. It came up today. I said it would make me happy for him to have new underwear. He asked why? I said because. He said why again. I said because I know where you wore those underwear.....ie.....I know he wore those specific underwear when he had sex with her. I know her DNS was in those underwear and I don't know how well a washing machine ever gets out all DNA. I also remember picking those underwear up off the floor (now knowing it was during his A) and I now know what I was touching-her vaginal flora. Sooooooo, his underwear are a trigger, especially if I am picking them up off the floor. Just like, random hairs on his clothes trigger me, because I remember finding a hair on him and assuming that it was our sons girlfriends hair-because she would often include some of our clothes when washing their clothes (they lived with us). I remember commenting that it couldn't be possible because too much time had passed and so he said it must have been and he just didn't notice. I now know, that day, he was with her. I know we were on our way out for the evening-dinner and a movie and I know that my reward for his guilt was dinner and a movie.

And so much disrespect with the gaslightlieg and TT after DDay.

Hindsight is 20/20 isn't it?

UGGG sorry. Verbal diarrhoea today. I am feeling sad about it all today-with a little anger.