SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

There are frequent discussions here about whether it is normal for the BS to continue to monitor their WS’s activities over extended periods of time. A question came to mind about this topic:

Are betrayed spouses more likely to be hyper-vigilant if they caught/or found out their spouses were cheating — or do you think that they are just as likely to be hyper-vigilant if their wayward spouse confessed?

I’d say it depends more on the personality of the BS rather than the method the affair was discovered.

I don’t think it matters. I think it’s the betrayal of trust that causes the hyper vigilance...the world has be upended and we struggle to trust anything. I think it’s probably part of the ptsd.

Hyper-vigilance and hypersensitivity are both common symptoms of PTSD. It's your brain doing it's job.

I haven't read much from members that would indicate to me that it matters whether a WS got caught or confessed. Trust is still blown in both scenarios.

I'd say it's also quite common for a BS to monitor a WS for a while. I can't remember exactly when I stopped monitoring my FWW, but I'm pretty sure it took over a year for a modicum of trust to return. Over three years later, I'm often tempted, but I don't waste my time. All the monitoring in the world won't stop a WS from taking an affair deeper underground or having another affair. Eventually, we have to let go and realize that we simply cannot control our spouses.

I never used hypervigilance to control my H unhinged. If I had my way, he wouldn’t have known I could check the things I could. I used monitoring to keep myself in reality. I knew I couldn’t control his choices or his actions but how else would I know if he was still cheating if I wasn’t checking? I didn’t want my monitoring to keep him from cheating - I did it so that I would KNOW and then choose my actions accordingly. If I didn’t monitor what was I to do? Take him at his word? I enabled findmyiphone a month after dday. I then deleted or hid the app that appeared so he wouldn’t know. When he found out (I can’t remenver how now) I was devastated!!! Now he wouldn’t go to OW’s house - not because he was done with those choices but because he didn’t want to get caught. If he WANTED to be with her still - I needed to know that! I couldn’t have him “behaving” because he was afraid. KWIM?

I don’t monitor anymore because I feel he’s earned some - a lot of - trust back. So when I trigger (like today when he left for hockey - he went right out of our driveway instead of left like I expected) instead of freefalling down that rabbit hole - I stop and try to tackle it logically. I typically use self talk “Can he get to hockey going right? Yes. Is it longer to go the way he did? No. So then he just went a way different than you would. Is that normal? Do we often disagree on the best route around our home? Yes. Okay - so is this really a red flag? No.”

So early out, I would’ve poured through cell records for the morning, I would have tracked him using findmyiphone. I might’ve even driven by the arena. All because I NEED to know if he’s still cheating. Now, I take a minute or two to think it through.

Sorry unhinged - didn’t need to go on like that - I was just always confused when people think BS’s monitor to stop the cheating. I think we do it to know once we’re betrayed - again.

I think it depends largely on how WS behaved afterwards. TT and multiple DDays definitely prolong hypervigilance period.

And what sassylee said.

My wife confessed about an A that hadn't been active for 18-years -- but I still monitored and checked communications as if it all happened the week before.

In our case, it showed nothing was currently going on, but it did reveal her boundaries were still as poor as the days of the A, so we got to address that in counseling.

I think I stopped reading, looking and monitoring once I realized none of that would change the outcome.

If she is going to be faithful from today on, I have no need to check stuff. And if she is going to fail, no amount of checking on her day-to-day life will alter her course.

[This message edited by Oldwounds at 10:58 AM, July 18th (Wednesday)]

My BAN group leader had said it was more neurological than anything, if it gives you some kind of control or helps you rebuild some trust even years out, I say do it. I still check my WW phone every day or two at 10 months out, I found out by looking through her phone, so I could see the connection there.

Honestly, I think people put their whole lives on their phones and there's almost always a digital fingerprint left behind. Logically, if there's going to be something to find, it will most likely be on their phone.

I had to spy to find out. I absolutely think it matters that he didn't confess.

helps you rebuild some trust even years out

This too...monitoring helped me to see that my husband was doing what he said, being where he promised...I’m not naive enough to take what I see as the end all and be all of trust, but his willingness to be an open book added coins to the deleted trust bank (especially after I tore the house and cars apart for a year looking for a burner phone...gah! That was exhausting!)

Eventually, we have to let go and realize that we simply cannot control our spouses.

This for sure - I feel so free now that I have let go of the outcome

and

I did it so that I would KNOW and then choose my actions accordingly.

Me too. For the time up until his heart attack and then after dday 2. In my case, I just wanted to know if he was serious and not continuing to betray. At that point, who cares? I just wanted to know so that I could implement my "get out" plan.

I don't think it matters how long a BS monitors, because as it's been stated many times here..."if they're gonna cheat, they're gonna cheat."

Are betrayed spouses more likely to be hyper-vigilant if they caught/or found out their spouses were cheating — or do you think that they are just as likely to be hyper-vigilant if their wayward spouse confessed?

I confessed. No TT either. Gave him access to everything, and I don't know what he does or doesn't do with it. He could be looking, or not. He is a very savvy IT guy so he could do probably even more than an average spouse in terms of really being able to get in there and dig. Doesn't matter to me either way, and because there is nothing else to find I am not hearing from him on it. Prior to the A, he had access to everything as well just likely would have had no reason to utilize the knowledge.

Yes, Hikingout!

My husband told me the relief he felt, not having to hide anything anymore, no more conniving and contriving and just being...and I could see the relief. Depression? Poof gone. Ad’s gone and there was a light that came back in his eyes...

I have definitely had a good deal of time being hypervigilant. The problems, though, are: (1) it's exhausting, and (2) my WW is smart and she knows the way that I caught her and she won't make that mistake a second time (so, my hypervigilance is a waste of time anyway).

In some respects, I don't spend my time "watching" her so much as I try and think of other ways that I could catch her if she were to stray again. The problem is that I am about out of ideas.

None of it is comforting. All of it is a colossal mind-fuck.

For me hyper vigilance is a normal reaction to trauma. I am a logical person and I know that my WH would be stupid to still use the same phone and methods of communications he did when I caught him by digging. He knows how I found out and he then continued contact face to face and through other methods (work IM) which I couldn’t check. So he proved to me that I can check all I want, if there’s a will...

However my hyper vigilance is an irrational reaction and no matter how many times I rationally realise that he won’t use the same channels again I still deal with the anxiety.

I don’t check to prevent an affair, I check because I know I have a cake eater. I check because I know that my WH isn’t capable to let go of me and have an honest conversation and divorce. He wanted it all.

I don’t know if I would have reacted differently if he would have confessed. Maybe. I doubt it though. It would have probably been more in control, I would have checked probably less believing that if he confessed then he wanted to end it.

I was hypervigilant for four years because my gut was telling me there was more...and there was. It stopped when I threw in the towel and kicked him out. Being blindsided by the betrayal on Dday1 put me in the mindset of, "If he did this, when I would have sworn on a stack of bibles he would never do that to me, what ELSE is he doing?" I don't think my thoughts would be any different had he confessed. It was the betrayal that triggered it, regardless of how that betrayal came to light.

I was hypervigilant for YEARS. I mean YEARS.

Even though my WH did so many things right, he TT me to death and even at five or six years out I'd find out another little tidbit, mostly lies of omission. Those lies caused my PTSD, which made matters 10x worse.

I still have access to everything he does at work as well as his phone, but the obsession reduced significantly. Some of that is due to WH being as transparent as possible in the workplace.

I think once you have been through the grinder of infidelity, with all the soul searching, snooping, and lie-detecting involved, you do become experts at spotting cheaters.

Sometimes I'm pretty sure I can walk into a room and point them out within minutes.

Then again, maybe that the definition of hyper-vigilance.

My Hyper-vigilance was in overdrive for almost a whole year after D-day due to my WH not confessing and me having to dig up the truth. Then I thought I was in R for 2 years . After False R I gave up and don't care anymore to be Hyper-vigilant.

I think that it depends on how you process the trauma, and what other traumas you have had in the past.

I do have an interesting past, and have displayed hypervigilance regarding everything; knowing that I am like that, allowed me to go to the phone and purposefully delete the app that I was using to keep track of WW location. But it was a conscious decision, an almost painful one, because, as my therapist said, “are you obsessed with that?” I might have been.

I needed to know that she was safe, but it doesn’t matter: three different offices, three locations that need special permit to get into the building, and computers that are out of bounds for me, meant that, if WW were to hide something, it would be impossible to find using normal techniques: podcasts while in the car meant that the VAR was useless, GPS in the phone meant that the phone stayed where it was supposed to be, etc.

So, I decided that I’m not tracking WW anymore, nor I am the marriage police. I can’t do that and simultaneously live my life, so I’m not tracking or checking.

I do remain hypervigilant, but that’s because I can’t trust her as I did before.