SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My WH had a ONS 4 months ago. He came home and told me immediately, started IC and MC, and with minimal hiccups has been abjectly remorseful and focused on loving me better than ever before and figuring his own crap out (basically midlife angst). Our MC and the few friends that know all say we're doing great and are still a great couple that they are all optimistic for. I am optimistic too that all will be ok.

But. Now that things are better and he is more self aware and focused on us and himself, I can't help being so resentful of the waste of all of this. That he threw away the foundation we had for a ONS that wasn't even good and for a woman that he probably could barely identify in a lineup. I realize that it is a better scenario that I never have to see this woman again, that he never lied. Etc. Etc. But if just 4 months of counseling and attention could get us here, it just is so stupid that he damaged us this way. When we have good times, I keep wondering what the meaning of them are since we had so many before that night and he still screwed some chick in a hotel room one night. Sometimes when I look at him, looking at me so lovingly or touching me with affection, I think about what else he did with that mouth and his hands. Makes my stomach turn and my chest feel empty for a moment.

He is working so hard, even my friends and mom are telling me to work on all these feelings with my own therapist so as not to punish him further than he punishes himself. They say anyone can make a drunken mistake. So I feel like even my support system thinks, because bit was just a ONS, I should be more over it. And intellectually I understand that a ONS is not an affair. But it has been 4 months and I am sad that I still have mind movies and visceral reactions to things and I still look at him so often with pain in my heart. And I just wanted to say how I was feeling to people who might understand.

[This message edited by nextday at 3:01 PM, July 1st (Sunday)]

They say anyone can make a drunken mistake. So I feel like even my support system thinks, because bit was just a ONS, I should be more over it. And intellectually I understand that a ONS is not an affair.

So if I stab you in the throat while I'm drunk, you should get over it because it was just a "drunken mistake?". No. I still stabbed you in the throat, and if you're not dead, you're in a hell of a lot of pain.

So what IS an affair? ONS is still cheating. A very brief affair. It is. They met. They flirted. They made arrangements to fuck. It was everything an affair is. Just over in a day.

Do you have access to everything? Passwords etc? Are you sure this was a ons and not something more that he was afraid would be revealed, so he "confessed" to do damage control?

Your pain is REAL. 3-5 years to "get over it" on average. You are still raw. Go easy on yourself.

[This message edited by WhoTheBleep at 3:07 PM, July 1st (Sunday)]

You can replace ONS here with literally any other type of betrayal and it is the same. The Wayward throws everything out of the window for something fake and worthless. Remorseful spouses own their shit and do the work and become better. Betrayed spouses have to do the work AND recover from the blow.

It is garbage. It could always have been worse or better but that doesn't matter. The worst betrayal is the one that happens to you.

They say anyone can make a drunken mistake.

PLENTY of people never make that drunken mistake. I'd actively look for another therapist if they told me that cheating was a mistake and act like me expressing my pain and working through it was "punishing" my spouse.

It takes time to heal, no matter how picture perfect the Wayward is afterwards, they still stabbed you in the chest. Stab wounds take time to heal. Feel free to inform your friends and mom that on average it takes 2-5 years to heal from INFIDELITY of any sort. The statistics don't change because it was one night.

4 months out is a drop in the bucket. Don't allow yourself to feel bad about feeling bad. You are reacting in a perfectly normal and healthy way. ((nextday))

Your spouse still committed adultery. I truly feel using other words minimizes what actually happened. He committed adultery. Out of this horror show he had made one good decision. He told you immediately. He recognized it was adultery.

Your friends and Mother are trying to make the hurt easier for you. They do not understand the full impact of adultery.

Is he still drinking? If he cannot handle his liquor, He has an alcohol problem.

I am glad you are posting here. If your spouse continues to be remorseful and is fully cognizant of the impact his adultery has had on you. In time you will feel better. You can over come this. You are only 4 months out. If you both stay the course. You will be look back on this and think. wow. I have some amazing coping skills. This was the worst thing that has happened to me. And look....I am amazing.

[This message edited by Iwantmyglasses at 4:12 PM, July 1st (Sunday)]

My family also minimizes my H’s actions. I find it so very hurtful. Check out my profile!!!!’ They mean well. They want my family to stay together. They want me to be healed. They want to see me happy. I kind of get that now, but I know it can hurt.

Don’t compare. Unfortunate my H has had both ONS and affair. It all hurts even is the hurt or pain is different. You feelings matter and I agree that he hurt so much that night and it certainly was short sighted and drinking is no excuse at all. Your feelings Css are valid.

4 months is very early on. I hope you guys continue to keep working on it. Your family needs to realize it take a long time.

[This message edited by Jesusismyanchor at 5:49 PM, July 1st (Sunday)]

Thanks to you all for writing and understanding. He stopped drinking after that night and I stopped with him. We had both, slowly over the last few years, started drinking more and more and had gotten to where we were having something almost every night after the kids went down. For myself too, it was not healthy and so we have stopped and are rethinking our relationship to alcohol. We have agreed even in the future, when. We drink again, no more than a single glass of wine at dinner, and maybe nothing if we are not together. Frankly, it feels so much better.

But I really appreciate the reset on realistic expectations for myself. I just find myself thinking that there is nothing new to find out about that night, even the motivations we have hashed out over and over together and in therapy. With nothing new to discover/uncover, I feel impatient with myself about not knowing where this will end up. Will I really get over this in time? Will I ever skip through my life thinking how lucky I am? Will I ever crack a joke with him like I used to about how hot some woman's butt is in the coffee line ahead of us, which was easy enough to do when I had my ever faithful husband next to me? Or will our life just be fraught and heavy? I want to know how this will end up 2-5 yrs from now...

No one knows how you personally will fare. But to give you a window into nearly 2 years out, here's how it goes:

Will I really get over this in time?

I feel like you don't get over it, you get through it. I still think about it but not every day and it doesn't really impact my life if I do think about it 90% of the time. I can change the channel if I need to.

Will I ever skip through my life thinking how lucky I am?

I am grateful for many things. I keep a gratitude journal. I am lucky in a TON of ways and acutely aware of them all. I count my blessings every danged day. And yes, on occasion I do skip.

Will I ever crack a joke with him like I used to about how hot some woman's butt is in the coffee line ahead of us, which was easy enough to do when I had my ever faithful husband next to me?

Nope. Mostly because I am now very aware of the fact that talking about other people's bodies is kind of rude in real life. Even if it is complimentary. I overheard someone doing that to me not long ago and it did not feel good. Even if you feel secure enough to do this again, please just don't.

Or will our life just be fraught and heavy?

My life doesn't feel fraught or heavy right now. At least not my marriage (I am working on an intense project right now). We communicate better. We laugh together. We hug and kiss and hold hands a lot. Crying is a lot more rare these days from both of us.

Nothing is forever - good or bad. Change is constant. This is something I hold on to and it helps me.

Next day,

I am 9 months down the road after my WH had a one off, drunken infidelity.

For me, my WH has remained remorseful and is putting the work in. He is in IC and is recognising the weaknesses in himself that lead to this.

For the last few weeks, things have been mostly good between us. I still think about it a lot of the time but it doesn’t hurt like it did.

If you want to reconcile and you are both prepared to work, I believe it can be done.

I think that you should work on those feelings with your IC but not to stop you punishing your WH-that will come in time when you’re ready, but letting go of the anger(or some of it) will make you feel better. It’s like letting go of a weight.

Wishing you well

Stop listening to others who have not been betrayed and had to deal with infidelity in their M.

They do not understand the pain and trauma suffered by the BS.

So yes a ONS is a bit different than an A etc. but it is still a betrayal and still cheating.

It is an affair. A short one but an affair. It's taking a whole lifetime of love and building and shitting on it from a great height for fun.

My WW couldn't even remember his surname. Good huh? He claimed he couldn't remember her when I talked to him. I laughed at him. Cowardly little cretin.

I agree, family, friends, even cllrs will minimise this.

I don't buy the drunken mistake thing. My WW made 2 very early in our relationship which I put down to drink. I have been more drunk, more often than most I would expect and have never managed to find myself in that situation. I call bullshit on that. What comes out when you are drunk is what's inside you. Wayward or loyal. She gave up the drink but cheated on me again anyway.

Hi nextday, Sorry you are struggling with this. There is no rush for you to get over it. Don't be afraid to give yourself the precious gift of time to heal.

The book, Private Lies: Infidelity and the Betrayal of Intimacy by Frank Pittman, discusses the type of affair your WH had. This book might provide some additional insight to help you heal. The fact that your WH told you immediately bodes very well for a successful reconciliation.

My WW didn't even have the decency to be drunk when she had her ONS!!!

6 years ago, we are doing pretty well now although it was flat out UGLY for a long time. I pushed her very hard, made her jump through a lot of hoops, didn't give her ANY wiggle room. To her credit, she's mostly done everything possible to figure out her shit, including cutting off the very unhealthy relationship with her parents. She's figured out her why's and is probably healthier emotionally and mentally than she's every been in her life. She probably better than I am at this point actually.

There is still not a day that doesn't go by that I don't think of it and that it doesn't cause me pain. BUT, just like your husband, my WW told me and I agree that because he told you and you didn't find out that you have a pretty good chance of being successful with starting a new relationship with your WH because he told you.

There's no rush to make any decisions right now. The most important steps right now are to just breathe, take care of yourself, try to eat if you can, stay away from the alcohol (not that I was successful in that) and do whatever YOU need to get you through the day.

In the meantime, your WH has a LOT of work to do to dig his way out of this giant hole. He MUST work on himself and be supportive of you if he has any hope of you sticking around AND of you forming a new "marriage/relationship" since he killed the old one. He needs to get in to IC and figure out his brokenness and issues that allowed him to have the ONS.

Sorry you have joined us in the club that no one wants to belong.

I've never considered a ONS to be a special challenge. My FWW had a ONS sort-of fling while out of town at a trade show. They traded phone numbers, texted a few times, she went to a reception for the OM and his organization and slept with him that night. The next day, they texted a little more. A few days later, I discovered those text messages.

I understand that a ONS is not an affair.

True, but it's no less of a betrayal. It's still infidelity. It's still devastates. Don't minimize what happened. Don't compare your pain to that of others. No matter what our WS did, this shit is still of the charts. I've read from more than a few members who considered a ONS more than enough to run straight to the lawyers and never look back.

Unlike your WH, my FWW didn't confess, wasn't remorseful for a long time and didn't start IC until I made it a condition of reconciliation. She lied, blame-shifted, equivocated, got angry, defensiveness and basically turned into a psycho-bitch-demon from hell.

They say anyone can make a drunken mistake.

Infidelity is not a mistake; it's a choice. Blaming it on the alcohol is a piss-poor excuse. More often than not, infidelity is the result of a life-time of decision making, poor coping mechanisms, bad boundaries, FOO issues, and, sometimes, mental illness. It's not a mistake. You're WH didn't make a mistake. He made a lot of choices and took deliberate, conscious actions.

I feel impatient with myself about...

It takes time, nextday, to heal from a severe trauma. It takes years for most people. You're going to have to learn to be patient and be gentle with yourself.

I cannot say that people ever really "get over it." We simply learn to live with it. I've never gotten over my mother's death, but I have learned to live with her absence.

Has your WH read "How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair?" (Linda MacDonald) or "After the affair?" (Janis Spring). My FWW read both of these books. MacDonald's book was a game-changer for her.

Thank you to all of you for supporting a total stranger. I just am feeling so flat right now - a funny word for me to use today because it is how my WH has described his feelings over the last year that made him vulnerable to this ONS.

We are on a family vacation with my parents and our kids. My mom and of course WH know what happened, but not my dad. So my dad keeps offering us drinks even though we've said we're not drinking and my mom (who is wonderful and I love her to pieces) barely acknowledges that this even happened. So all looks normal, maybe we look even more loving due to all the work WH is doing to reach out and show his affection, but I am sitting here feeling so - disappointed that this is my reality. I appreciate having this place to lay it out there.

I just am feeling so flat right now - a funny word for me to use today because it is how my WH has described his feelings over the last year that made him vulnerable to this ONS.

I think your WH needs to dig a little deeper. Plenty of people hit 'flat spots' in their lives and don't resort to infidelity. Why did he choose to stop feeling flat by sleeping with a stranger? Most people just take up a hobby or something? They learn to whittle, start a revolution, play ping-pong.

I think you'll find that remorse and love-bombing are great in the short term, but answers tend to foster better long-term prospects.

He needs to keep digging to get at those 'whys.'

W

hy did he choose to stop feeling flat by sleeping with a stranger? Most people just take up a hobby or something? They learn to whittle, start a revolution, play ping-pong.

This right here, is the million dollar question ALL BS's want the answer to. It's mind-boggling. I don't get it. I never will. You don't have to understand, either, nextday.

Your WH, on the other hand, better figure it out.

I think your WH needs to dig a little deeper. Plenty of people hit 'flat spots' in their lives and don't resort to infidelity.

This is spot on.

There are many opportunities for a WS to latch on to something as an excuse (BTW, blaming others is an excuse) instead of an opportunity to dig deeper or to motivate real change. In your WH's case, he needs to keep asking "Why?" until he reaches a point where "Why?" isn't useful and the questioning turns to "What do I need to do with this?"

Given that he is trying to get you (and his mom and friends) to buy into the excuse that it was midlife and/or a "flat spot", his next question is "Why was I feeling flat?" If the answer is "Because I'm in midlife", then the question is "Everyone reflects at midlife -- why was it so challenging for me?" and "Why did I try to self-medicate through having a ONS? What specifically was I trying to self-medicate?"

When he finally asks enough Why's to uncover some character gap that is rooted in feelings/false assumptions from events long ago, you'll know that he is on the right track. However, that can also end up being an excuse.

For example, he remembers how his mom always sheltered him as a boy, but that made him feel that he wasn't ever good enough. Now, in midlife, he feels not good enough once again upon reflecting how his life has progressed and what the trajectory is. That made him feel "flat". This is a point of decision -- will he shift all the blame to his mom or will he own his own feelings/choices and embark on a way to put his past feeling into a proper perspective, find a way to affirm his worth and change himself from the inside out?

Him doing the work and creating change in himself is foundational to a successful reconciliation. Given that it has only been 4 months since Dday, it is still very early in the process. However, your WH needs to go beyond blaming midlife/feeling flat in the coming weeks if you are to feel that real progress is being made.

So I feel like even my support system thinks, because bit was just a ONS, I should be more over it.

First, it has only been 4 months. Healing is a marathon and not a sprint. Common wisdom/experience on this site is that it is typically a 2-5 year process. Be patient with yourself.

Second, if your support system is telling you that you should be more over it, they don't have a clue about the depth of emotional trauma that betrayal causes and they shouldn't be your support for this part of your life. If this includes your IC or MC, you may want to consider finding a different counselor who has experience with emotional trauma and infidelity.

I appreciate having this place to lay it out there.

The pain and frustration need to come out as part of your grieving and healing process, so post here as often as you like.

[This message edited by Crushed7 at 12:02 PM, July 5th (Thursday)]

Thinking about "only" a ONS- I actually have more understanding of a close friendship growing inappropriate over time. He had sex with a rando with no lead up, no slippery slope of emotion or closeness. The sudden shift makes for its own brand of upsetting.

Hi next day

I am sorry that you find yourself here. This site has been a godsend to myself and many others.

My husband too had a ONS and I also thought that I was lucky that it wasn’t a full out affair. Unfortunately my husband didn’t willingly come to me, I had to find out from my doctor that I had an what he thought was an STD. He sent me home with antibiotics and told me to speak to my husband. I remember telling my doctor that he got it wrong and that the lab test would come back negative that it had to be something else. After confronting my WH he fessed up. I did in fact have an STD. My pillar of society husband met her at a bar as he stopped in for a beer on his way home. In under an hour he met, left the bar and screwed her without any protection the front seat of the his car. He said guilt kicked in and he was unable to finish (ya right) dropped her back at the bar and came home. He only got her first name, didn’t give his or ask for her phone number. Nothing.

I think that it disgusts and hurts more that he would throw away our marriage and risk my life and our family for NOTHING! A nobody, just some nameless slut he had no feelings for.

Drunk or not, there are many many decisions that our WH’s made that ONE night. It wasn’t an accident or a mistake. At some point it became an intentional, deliberate decision to cheat. Make sure that he owns this. I think that it adds insult to injury that your family are minimizing your pain.

I am 9 months post d-day, my husband is remorseful, doing IC, moving heaven and earth to fix what he effed up. The problem is that I and you will never be the same people that we were before their infidelity. That trust and ‘innocence’ ( for lack of a better word) is gone.

No one but you knows how you feel but I was no where near R at 4 months out. My WH and I are both in the same house and to the outside world we look normal but I am still not committed to R. He has way too much to prove to me and only time can truly tell.

You don’t need to commit to anything, only yourself.

Please take as much time as you need to grieve your marriage. It really is like a death. You can change your mind ( and probably will) a hundred times and that’s ok.

Just focus on yourself and your healing.

You will get through this.

Sending you many ((hugs))

Your support system has good intentions, but they really are screwing you up when they minimize what your H did. I feel like the words you used also try to minimize the significance of your H’s cheating, too. It doesn’t matter if it was one night or 1000 nights, life changing damage was done. My H had a ONS & a 1.5 year friendship turned PA & TO ME the ONS is what haunts me the most. Anyways, it will take a couple of years (minimum) for you to work through the emotional rollercoaster, you may need to turn to a professional since your inner circle doesn’t get it/understand that this is a 2-5 year process regardless of it being a one night thing. And they are definitely wrong for making you feel that talking to him about what he’s done equates to punishing him 😒🙄.