SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I was in a situation fairly similar to yours not long ago and I acted in a very similar fashion, that is I sought to find a rational explanation for my wayward partner's behaviour. I spent countless hours researching childhood trauma, over-reliance on external validation, limerence, brain chemistry and what have you. When I happily shared my newly found knowledge with my psychiatrist/psychotherapist I got a talking-to I wasn't expecting. Let mi briefly summarise what she said because you might find it helpful (perhaps your counsellor told you the same thing). She said that trying to intellectualise the betrayal trauma was essentially wrong, because while concentrating on the other person and trying to find rationale for their actions I was in fact suppressing my own emotions of pain, hurt, fear and anger. In the long run it would worsen my already bad emotional state and slow down my healing. Try to make the next few weeks/months about you, not your wife or marriage. I'm sure postponing any important decisions until you've found yourself in a better place will benefit both of you (whether together or separate).

I'm sorry for the slow replies. Please know that I am grateful to each of you who have taken the time to offer up help, advice, or even a wake-up slap in the face.

She also doesn't really know who she is (which can be expected from someone who's young) and thus she gets the validation she's desperately seeking from others.

I think you're absolutely correct here - probably more than you know. Her family life growing up was very tumultuous: Her mom had an affair with the neighbor (who was also father of WS's best friend) when WS was around eight years old, and eventually divorced to marry that neighbor. WS's father then married the neighbor's ex-wife, so effectively they swapped families. At the time, WS also had a one year old little sister, and basically became more of a mother than a sister as the family navigated that chaotic environment.

She jumped from relationship to relationship (again, seeking validation to some extent, I'm sure), and eventually married someone she was not at all ready to marry when she was only 20 years old. He became abusive very quickly in some horrendous ways, infidelity among them. She stayed for years. But after it eventually proved too much for her, she still never got therapy for anything she went through. She met me a couple years after their divorce, still, I think, having yet to really find out who she is as a person without having other people around her to get her value and sense of self-worth from.

None of these things are at all excuses for what she did. Millions of people have difficult childhoods, abusive relationships, and don't respond to it by betraying someone who would have done anything to see them happy. But it does help me at least try to understand some of the "why" behind it all, and to realize that none of this was my fault. That I did the best I could.

The thing that concerns me the most however is the suicide attempt. This is a HUGE concern. This is how she chose to deal with what's going on and should make you seriously think about how she would deal with future trials down the road.

Just to confirm, you saying she had a suicide attempt and stay at a mental facility?

I have to apologize, I noticed reading back through my post that I wasn't at all clear about this. I've since edited it - I was the one who attempted, and admitted myself into a facility for treatment. At the time I just simply couldn't see any future in which I could be happy again. I've made progress since then, although nowhere near the amount that I need to make. And for anyone reading this who is in a similar place, please please please remember that it is not a sign of weakness to admit that you need help. It is a sign of strength. It is a difficult thing to do, but you can get through it.

So really think about this, what has she given you in the short time you've been together?

I've been thinking about this on and off since I read through your reply. I'm sure I'm looking at the start of our relationship through rose-colored glasses, but I can genuinely say that she made me happier in those first two years than anyone else I've been with.

And yet... If I could go back now, would I give up every single memory we made together if it meant avoiding the pain I'm feeling in this moment? I probably would. Maybe that's just a response I'm making out of grief and anger, and the sentiment will pass, but if I had the chance right now to rewind time and never let myself fall in love with her? I think I would take it. And it is devastating to me that I find myself writing that. I know it's the title of my post, but god, I never thought I would be here. I thought I was safe with her.

Actually, "From then on, I started working on our relationship while she pretended to, lying a thousand more lies while right to my face, while we had what I thought were heart to heart moments."

This is such a painful thing to acknowledge. I think I try to run away from this realization every time I feel it creeping up... I often look back at one night in particular, in January. I didn't know it at the time, but it was actually the night she met him at the bar and kissed him. She had said she needed to be alone, took a drive, was gone for five hours. While she was gone, I tried to put my feelings down on paper for one of the first times of many over these months. When she got back, she locked herself in our bedroom - out of shame? Guilt? Inability to look me in the eye? I don't know, I didn't even know what she had done then. I asked her to let me in, to talk. She wouldn't open the door.

So I read to her what I had written. Part of it was this: "I am asking you to stay with me. To throw away your doubts about whether or not our relationship can be saved, and just go for it. Just try. Be next to me. Be with me. Work with me, together... Your biggest fear right now seems to be that you will pour yourself into healing our relationship, and months from now we'll realize that it just can't be healed. And that will hurt you, months from now. But if you don't try, with everything you have, right now, our relationship will fail right now. And months from now, you'll look back at this conversation with the knowledge that if you had at least just tried, we might have made it. We might be together, happy, all our questions solved, stronger than ever. You'll look back, knowing that you let your fear of getting hurt in the future prevent you from trying to save us right now, and that will hurt you so much more."

And you're right. I thought we were having a heart to heart then, or at least I was. And now, all I can think about is how stupid I could have been to plead with her to fight for us when she had been kissing him half an hour earlier. That was before she had slept with him. She heard those words, and still made the choice she made, and then came home to me and told me to my face how much she loved me.

My advice to you is to take any and all steps to protect yourself, your heart, your mental-health, your assets and your sanity and the surest way to do that is to cut the cheater out of your life, put her in the rear-view mirror, grieve the death of the relationship, even if it might just be real in your heart, as I am sure she does not have equal affection for you and move on.

You're probably completely correct. I do know that you certainly know more about this than I do right now. I'm still just trying to find my feet again.

It's likely that this is going to be the road ahead of me. I've told her that there is maybe - maybe - a 1% chance at reconciliation. But I can't look at her without a feeling of disgust right now. At times I pity her, I pity what she has become now, seeing the person (she claims) is more important to her than anything disappearing from her life because of her own actions. But more often, I just feel loathing, and hatred, and grief, and a tremendous sense of loss.

I've told her that our relationship is over. She is my ex. We've gone no contact, and I'm actually writing this from a hotel room half the country away from her with my dog on my feet, so I have literally put her in the rear-view mirror. Is that 1% chance still alive inside me though? I can't deny that it is. Our previous relationship is dead, and I'm grieving it now. Our anniversary, our first date, our first kiss, the first time she told me she loved me... those memories are buried. If there were to be reconciliation, it would be a new relationship. Hopefully with a new person - a new version of herself. If people really are capable of changing. I just don't know.

...your life will never be the same. This is what our WSs bring into our lives and there is no getting around it only through it.

I recently took some time to write down the effects this has had on me - the lasting ones, that I feel will never quite go away no matter how much progress I've made. The lack of trust, the inability to feel completely safe and secure in a relationship, the shattered self-esteem, self-worth, dignity... The constant doubt and fear. Perpetual, lingering panic. It's something I hadn't noticed before, but infidelity is absolutely pervasive in our world - I can't leave the house without seeing some reference to it, or watch TV, read the news. It's inescapable, reminders everywhere I look. I used to look at this person, at our relationship, and wonder how I had gotten so lucky compared to all of my friends. Now I see their relationships and wonder how I chose such an awful person to trust.

Knowing that you can give 100% of yourself to someone, 100% of your love and your dedication and your compassion, and in the end everything you can possibly give was still worth less than a few months of sex with him... That she was willing to throw away all the years of memories, and the dozens more years of memories we would have made in the future, just so she could sit on his couch and watch TV next to him for an hour... It's absolutely crippling.

God man. Your story made me cringe. I was you years ago. My wife was her. The reality is that you can’t fix someone who is hell bent on destroying everything good because they secretly know that sooner or later you will abandon them.

For whatever reason, some people need to self destruct. So her saying it’s over, she sees now that she was crazy and don’t worry it’s all good now is just window dressing. You might re-examine the reasons she left her first husband.

There is something horribly wrong with the way you ex thinks. And even after intense therapy she decides not to self destruct again, her insecurities will always be there and will manifest in different but crazy making ways.

At your age, you need this insanity like you need rectal cancer. Do your best to keep this toxic person out of your life. I know it is hard, but it will be so worth it

ETA. I wrote all this before seeing your last post. Everything I said goes double.

[This message edited by longsadstory1952 at 10:37 AM, August 19th (Wednesday)]

Sorry to hear about your situation SurvivingIndiana

Just a couple bullets:

You're co-dependent in an unhealthy relationship. You need counseling and to step back from the relationship until you're more stable.

Your GF has deep self-image issues. Infidelity is a very common symptom when seeking validation from others. Your GF is not a safe partner for anyone. She needs psychological assistance and you're in no condition to help with that.

Do not think that marrying a woman like this will fix the problem; it's been proven that it doesn't. Additionally, never have children with this woman. Broken people procreating just makes things more messy than they already are.

You'd do well to free yourself from the drama and spend the next months/years dealing with your emotional issues and learn to avoid choosing another emotionally deficient woman.

You have a bright future ahead of you if you choose it. You're going to experience difficulties in this life no matter what road you take. You can however learn from this and those experiences and come out on the other side better because of them. You have two goals right now. 1. Get out of infidelity and 2. (most important) take your life back. Accomplish those and your life will be brighter and happier. Focus and make yourself more successful in your job and in your relationships than you've ever been before. Take care of yourself. This life is about you now. I wish the best for you.

You have taken a huge step to get yourself out of infidelity and I think you are realizing the impact, not just temporary, but permanent, this has had on your life.

I think you have your feet pointed in the right direction.

Strength to you on this path you are forced to walk.

Thanks for clearing that up "that you were the one who attempted suicide".

Listen, what I see here is two broken people.

You keep mentioning all of these things that you were telling her she could do to help you heal.

My friend, she's BROKEN, she has enough on her plate trying to heal herself let alone trying to help you heal.

Also, now that you've clarified that you attempted suicide (not her) it's very clear that you are broken as well.

Relationships are already extremely difficult to flourish over time, and here the two of you are in betrayal, lies, and attempting suicide all in a very short time frame.

This is a very TOXIC relationship. I hope you can see this.

You have WAY BIGGER things to deal with right now than healing from her lies and betrayal.

You need to get into IC and stick with it and take this VERY seriously!!

Yes you were in pain from your relationship with her, we all get it, but to try to kill yourself???

You need to figure out why you chose this as a solution (a FINAL solution) to something that most people would have just walked away from despite how much pain they were in.

In my humble opinion, there's NO FREAKING WAY you can deal with your own issues along with trying to sort through this toxic relationship with her at the same time.

If you were my son my advice would be to go no contact with this woman for the next couple of years and to get into IC and work on yourself.

Let's also quit talking about her and your relationship with her. What are you doing to work on you?

You mentioned you "know" but calling what she did

"a mistake" minimizes the whole thing, a "mistake" is when you make a wrong turn on a street, she instead and despite being warned by you multiple times, willingly chose to betray you over and over again, every text message, every phone call, every kiss, every BJ, every sexual encounter, every time she put your health at risk (some STDs can even be transmitted via saliva), she did it consciously and willingly ALL of it, this is way more than "a mistake".

Again, of course this is your life and you said you're "not ready yet", but like others mentioned, you haven't been together that long, you were supposed to still be in the "honey moon phase", you're not even married and she's already cheating on you, life typically gets tougher and more complicated later on, she's already a proven cheater and a liar, dating is a trial and she failed miserably and hurt you in the worst possible way, you also admit "leaving her" is the "smart choice", so whenever you're "ready" do the "smart" thing, FWIW, after reading thousands of threads here and in other forums (other SI members have said this before many times), I have never read about someone who has regretted dumping a cheater, if anything they almost always regret not having done it sooner.

I myself was involved with a man years ago - and it was all about the "emotional connection"

Thank you for being open about this, and for bringing in a different perspective. I don't know why it would be reassuring to me to believe that she didn't ever meet with him explicitly intending to have sex, and that it was just something she felt almost obligated to do to maintain the emotional connection (as she claims). Obviously the emotional connection with him is just as damaging and hurtful to me as the physical - much more hurtful, actually. That she could spend months of our lives together watching me try to fight for us, and spend her free time, her emotional energy, her interest and attention on him instead is something I think I will never be able to fully put behind me. So why would I even care about her motivations for the physical aspect of it?

I guess it's because, to me, an emotional connection is something built up so gradually, over an extended period of conversations and openness and vulnerability. And I think it can be deceptively easy sometimes for a person to find themselves engaging in an emotional affair with a "friend" before they even realize it's happening.

Sex, though... Sex is definite. It's clear. There is a line in the sand, and you know that you're crossing it. You can pinpoint the exact moment of betrayal, the second a decision was made to ruin someone else's life for your own selfishness.

Nobody likes being the plan B in a partner's heart. If you have doubts that you are not her number one focus, you might consider alternatives.

For a long time, I thought I would never have to worry about this. He's twice her age, an utter asshole (from an objective standpoint, not that I'm biased at all), didn't even bother to learn how to pronounce her name correctly after all those months, and just absolutely unfeasible as any sort of long-term partner for her for a number of reasons. She is well aware of that, so until just a short while ago I was confident that I at least had some reassurance on this front - not that it was much consolation. She claimed that she never considered him to be any sort of viable or legitimate partner/boyfriend/husband, in the sense that she would was never tempted to leave me explicitly for a future with him.

But as I reflected on things just a little while ago, I remembered one terrible day, at the start of April, when she actually broke up with me over a single text message after spending two hours on the phone with him that morning. She then went to his house that night. She offered a heartfelt apology the next day, of course, and eventually I took her back, not knowing what she had done the night before. It's possible that her decision then wasn't at all motivated by any desire for a future with him instead of me - that she had finally decided to "cut me loose," obviously an emotional decision for someone, and then ended up at his house because he was already her emotional crutch during those months, so naturally she would go there. Sure, it's possible. It's also possible that she decided to break up with me because she wanted to feel out his position on a future together, as crazy and unimaginable as it sounds to me knowing who he is. I'll probably never know.

What I do know is I am at least fortunate in that she has not engaged in any of the "pick me" dance torment since she ended things with him. That she's the one who ended it with him in and of itself, I suppose is a positive thing. She's made it clear that I am her priority, regardless of what I ask of her. I have been utterly torn apart just reading so many stories in the past two months of people who have watched spouses expect them to somehow compete against the ongoing threat and presence of the AP for a future with them. I can't imagine the pain of that, so I am grateful that she's spared me that much.

while many will tell you to just move on, if you feel like it's not time yet, then just do what is right for you at this very moment.

The one piece of advice that's been really universal between the three therapists I've spoken with is that making any permanent decision right now - either to work toward reconciliation or to walk away - would be premature. In fact, their advice echoes much of what I'm seeing in some of the replies here: Just focus on me. Focus on my healing, my hobbies, my work, my health, my friendships. Marching straight forward into a decision about my relationship right now while pretending as if I'm in a level-headed mindset capable of making that decision would be a mistake. And any decision I made would probably just have to be reevaluated later on, when I am actually thinking at least a little bit straighter.

Of course, as everyone here probably knows even better than I do, just "focusing on me" is so much easier said than done. It feels like every time I try to clear my head, three more unanswered questions pop up. And it kills me not to have the answers, to not know all the details. To force myself to somehow be content with clumping everything that happened up into a big "she cheated" box and not indulging in the questions about what happened.

It might be that you are the most happy couple ever after this, since you do not seem to share the physical revulsion some of us had

I wish I could say that I didn't share it... But really I think it's just easier for me to suppress the revulsion here, in writing, where I can think through what I'm saying rather than speak from a place of emotion. It took me five weeks before I could even look at her again. I went so long without eating due to my physical sense of disgust that I passed out in the mental facility.

The revulsion is there, always. When I can bring myself to look at things calmly, I try to view her as what I think she is: A damaged, selfish, person who needs help. When I can't bring myself to see things calmly... Yes, I feel hatred, and revulsion, and the thought of her on her knees in front of him has made me vomit more times than I can count. I still see the images in my head every day, when I let my guard down. Every moment of what they did together is in my mind, on constant loop, ready for me to tune into it whenever I forget for a moment to stay focused on other things. Whether I can move beyond those images in my head or not is on me, though. And I'm really trying.

And go beat the shit out of the co-worker, he's a predator

The OM is a predator and mirrored her feelings in order to build trust for his own advantage

I have tried to push myself towards a place of acceptance. I know that forgiveness is ultimately more for my benefit than for hers, or for his.

But the fact that he will get to move on from this as if nothing happened, enjoying the knowledge that he’s a 50-something year old predator who got to have the time of his life manipulating the stupid 26 year old nurse into breaking her boyfriend’s heart, just so she could sit on his infected dick a few times... There are days when I am eaten up by so much rage I can't function. I was a happy person before this. Calm, easygoing, relaxed. I am capable of so much hatred now. I am so filled with it at times. And I don't like that. I don't like that I've become this new, different, angry person against my will. It's like she wasn't content to take away our relationship, she had to take away so many parts of who I was along with it and replace them with things I never wanted to be.

And her, too: I know she's making progress confronting her demons. She gets to use this as an opportunity to face her past and become a better person, to figure out how to move forward as a complete individual who is capable of genuine love, to find purpose and healing and be stronger in the end. She gets to benefit from this.

What do I get? I was already a good person. I was already capable of love. I was already complete and strong and purposeful. All of those things she gets to discover in herself now, I had. But I don’t have them anymore.

I suggest you both read: "Not Just Friends" by Dr Shirley Glass.

She read it about a week after d-day - it's now sitting on my dresser with all of her notes and annotations filling it. I haven't been able to open it yet. I really should though. Thank you.

No fiance or spouse can compete with the excitement, attention, and validation from a 3rd party. Nor should you have to.

It doesn't seem fair, does it? That we find ourselves being compared to these people who only have to show one side of themselves to the WS. They don't have to worry about who's going to do the dishes, or handle the cable bill, or walk the dogs, or (for so many of you) take care of the kids... The AP only has to be perfect in little two or three hour spurts, free from responsibility, able to be nothing but exciting and adventurous and completely without worry. It's no wonder that seems more appealing. Why couldn't she just open her eyes and realize that if she had bothered to focus on our relationship for even a little while, we had that same spark and excitement too - it was just buried under the stress of her dedicating all of her emotional energy to someone else.

She said that trying to intellectualise the betrayal trauma was essentially wrong, because while concentrating on the other person and trying to find rationale for their actions I was in fact suppressing my own emotions of pain, hurt, fear and anger... Try to make the next few weeks/months about you

I know you're right. Absolutely right. I guess I'm just struggling to execute on it. While a partner is engaging in an affair, I think it places an incredible burden on you to maintain the relationship, because effectively you're forced to do the lifting for two people. Even more than that really, because your partner is - whether you know it or not - actively undermining the relationship and working against you.

After spending months and months doing that work, focusing on our relationship, trying to hold things together and wondering why it always felt like I was fighting alone... It's hard to break the habit and just try to focus on me. I keep wanting to fix things somehow, as if there were a magic line in a book or a secret technique some therapist has tucked away that would resolve all of this. If only.

Report that Surgeon. I know how things work in the hospital, the Surgeons always think they are the top feeders. They are narcissistic and have egos larger than life. He is probably used to grooming the nurses, residents, and admin staff for pussy. Don't be surprised to find out this guy has a habit of doing that around the place, if you dig, you'll probably find more. You should report his ass, regardless if your GF wants to or not.

Now, onto this business of your GF of 3 yrs. Girls with abandonment issues carry that shit deep. It looks like you've done the reading on it, and understand how they will cast you aside to protect themselves from being abandoned. I've had it happen to me, things are going pretty well and boom they get spooked about something and they hurry up and discard you before they think you're about to abandon them. This shit runs deep, and unless she is willing work on this, you're going to have a tough as time of this as her partner. Im sure you already know, but they need loads of IC help.

I think the general rule of thumb here is if you're not married, no kids, no house, you should run. It sounds like you want to fight for her, but be warned, its hard to change people. Thats not to say people won't change, its just to say that its like pushing a damn 1000 lb boulder uphill, and not everyone can do it. That means for both you and her. When you don't have kids or a marriage and house in the mix, you have to wonder if its really worth pushing that rock any further.

She is now tainted dude. Nothing you can do, will clean that taint away. Not now, not 20 yrs from now. That shit may fade a bit, but it never goes away. If you've been snooping on here for the past 2 months, than you will see that there are people on here from 10 yrs, that came here 8 yrs ago, and end up being on here again for another round of infidelity. Don't be them man. Save yourself. You will find someone else, someone new who hasn't cheated on you. All the mental stuff she deals with is forever. Now is your chance to pick all over again. Someone you want to have kids with eventually, you can choose without all the mental shit that would make your life and that of your kids that much more difficult. Learn from others on here, and let her go. You will heal in another 1-2 yrs. If you stick with her, you are setting yourself up for a life of this bullshit. If not the affair one day, its something else with her mental health. You've been given a life line, I hope you take it and move on.

I don't know why it would be reassuring to me to believe that she didn't ever meet with him explicitly intending to have sex, and that it was just something she felt almost obligated to do to maintain the emotional connection (as she claims).

It’s pretty common. Wayward women will trade sex for ego kibbles.

It’s easy to blame the AP, but the truth is, she’s a grown adult and she knows what she’s doing. If it hadn’t been him, it would have been someone else.

I assume her AP is not married and has no GF?

What is unusual in your story is that she withdrew from you before the affair. In the vast majority of cases, they withdraw emotionally and physically from their BF/Husband as a result of the blooming affair.

I find this suspicious and worth investigating if you choose to R.

Finally, there’s this:

I feel like she’s doing as well as I could realistically expect someone to do, when the task ahead of her basically involves confronting everything about her past, her upbringing, and her emotional vulnerabilities and changing the core of who she is.

I feel like, if anyone could be deserving of reconciliation, it would be her.

No Waywards “deserve” R, no matter how well they turn around and do everything perfectly. You can leave her and hold your head high. “R” is a gift that no Wayward deserves.

Take it one day at a time, it will get better.

OP,

Save yourself from a future life filled with this garbage.

Take it from me, it isn’t worth it

SurvivingIndiana, I'm telling you this so you know you're not alone. I attempted suicide. It was 2 or 3 days after DDay1 with no sleep. I didn't intend to. Had no plan. I could never see how someone could think things were so bad they would take their own life. All I wanted was to escape the pain, dry heaving, blinded by tears. I failed. One attempt and never again. I'm not co-dependent - diagnosed by my Psychologist as not.

I have a lot more empathy for those who try and those who try and succeed. All they want is to escape the pain they can't seem to shake, too. I wish they would get help but I didn't. Five minutes before I tried I didn't know I was going to try.

My WW said she might have orgasmed once, as well. In 4 years of lots of sex. She claimed she never had enough time to accomplish it. She had lots of orgasms with me. But she had to rush home and there wasn't enough time for the nooners. Even when they were travelling there apparently wasn't enough time although they could have spent the whole night together.

I guess she had to service him so he would stay her friend. Someone you have to screw to keep as a friend isn't a friend.

There is no explaining the unexplainable. All this happened for me right after our 25th anniversary. I said before that you don't have much for entanglements right now. My XWW cheated on me before we married then after 25 years and three children. Consider your future.

Hi SurvivingIndiana,

As I read more and more of your post, it was very similar to my situation. My WW is a nurse and her EA partner and PA partners were both surgeons. I HATE doctors!!

Your descriptions of how she felt it was her price to pay for the emotional kibble was exactly the same thing my WW said. The PA partner was and is a snake. He knew exactly what to say and do to get a piece of ass. My WW knew exactly what would eventually happen. They started the same way as your story.

Text messages about nothing at first. Then him pushing boundaries a little, my WW pushed back a little, but she didn’t shut him down. Then, a night out with coworkers for drinks. Then he walked her to her car and kissed her. She didn’t fight it, and ended up at his place. They didn’t just have sex. He did things that showed he wanted to see how far he could push her boundaries. Unfortunately, she didn’t really have any

After their hook up, she came home to me, Mr. stable, reliable, dependable. He basically got what he wanted then tossed her aside. She was “heartbroken” about this. When she told me this, I literally laughed out loud. He just wanted an easy piece of ass, nothing more. He didn’t want to be her friend. God, it was so obvious to me.

Anyway, just wanted to say I completely understand where you are coming from. We are 5 years from dday, and still together, and are in a good place. The first 3 years after dday were terrible. It took an ultimatum and threats of divorce to get into IC to deal with her issues. I would highly recommend this for her.

I wanted to say in response to HalfTime2017‘s post.

My WW’s AP was screwing a few other nurses, my WW was just one. In fact, one of my WW’s coworkers texted my WW about 6 months after she slept with him, that the AP was trying to hook up with this coworker. Texting all this nasty/dirty shit. Guess where he was.....on his honeymoon with his new wife, also a doctor.

I was going to blow up his life, but karma took care of him. His new wife found out about his cheating, and divorced him on the spot. The AP has to pay back the cost of the wedding as it is a cultural thing. The AP took at $125,000 hit!

My WW also finally told him that I knew about their A. He smugly asked if he had anything to worry about. My WW said “probably”, and walked away. I’d like to think that for a while after, he was looking behind for me every time he got in his car after work! He knew me, and my size (I am a very large man), and given he is a weasel and a small man, it wouldn’t have been much of a fight. I wasn’t going to stoop to his level.

I also wanted to add, the why’s we’re something I agonized over for a long time. I came to realize my WW cheated on me because:

1. The opportunity was there:

2. She wanted it;

3. She was completely and utterly selfish.

I know vengeance is not a popular thing on this board, but I do want to point out that players and seducers like this AP will continue to ruin lives until someone gives them a taste.

Surviving, your wife could probably turn his life upside down if she was willing to go to HR.

Keep talking, and seek IC for yourself. You can’t fix everything.

At the end of the day she did it. She made the decision to sleep with him, not talk to you about her doubts.

She wanted this drama, the cravings were too much to ignore.

Keep up you 180, be that grey rock.

Time to look after #1 yourself. You become that selfish person. Exercise, drink water, IC etc. She wanted this.

One day at a time

Buffer

Sorry you'tr here SurvivingIndiana must be realy tough to go through all what you went through..

I have a question, did your GF write her infidelity story on reddit?

The reality is that you can’t fix someone who is hell bent on destroying everything good because they secretly know that sooner or later you will abandon them.

even after intense therapy she decides not to self destruct again, her insecurities will always be there and will manifest in different but crazy making ways.

I've had to come to terms with the fact that I can't fix her. It's probably the biggest step I've had to take in terms of my personal recovery process so far - but I took it in the belief that only she could fix herself (with IC, harsh introspection, etc.). If I kept trying to fix her, kept trying to show her how to make the right choices, really I wouldn't be fixing her at all. I would be creating someone who only knows how to do the right thing when someone is there to point it out to her. So I'm trusting her to fix herself now, whether or not that means any chance at R. I hate the choices she made, and I am disgusted by the person she became in those months. I don't hate her. I hope she finds a way to become a safe partner in the future, capable of love, even if it can't be with me.

It sounds like you think there's no possibility for someone like my WS to experience true/complete healing and leave behind their insecurities, though. Do you think there's any path toward fully fixing herself?

You're co-dependent in an unhealthy relationship.

My WS was (is) codependent, and it contributed to her decisions - I've recently started entertaining the possibility that I became at least somewhat codependent on her as well, and that codependency is shaping my choices now. I've had a lot of difficulty going no-contact and focusing on myself. I hesitate to make any sort of self-diagnosis (almost always a bad idea), but it might be something to discuss in IC.

You have two goals right now. 1. Get out of infidelity and 2. (most important) take your life back... This life is about you now.

I think you have your feet pointed in the right direction... Strength to you on this path you are forced to walk.

Thank you both so much for the encouragement. I'm trying. I reached an important milestone in my career shortly after d-day. I haven't been in the mentality to take advantage of it yet, but once I'm back home from the trip I'm on now, I plan on forcing myself to start making "me" the priority and moving my life forward. It was never a path any of us wanted to be on, or deserved to be on, but the longer I don't move forward down this path, the more time I'll end up spending on it.

My friend, she's BROKEN, she has enough on her plate trying to heal herself let alone trying to help you heal.

I couldn't agree more. As many mistakes as she has made since d-day, this is one that's on me. I kept telling her over and over that she needed to focus on herself, on confronting the uncomfortable truths about who she is and what enables her to make such vile decisions and hurt someone who cared about her as deeply as I did. But I never gave her the space apart from me to actually go through with it - to focus on healing herself. As long as I am in contact with her, she will indulge in her instinct as a codependent "fixer," which is to try to heal me. I can repeat again and again that, after so much TT, after so many lies, I can't trust her to play any part in my healing process, but her focus will remain on me while I'm a part of her life.

Also, now that you've clarified that you attempted suicide (not her) it's very clear that you are broken as well.

You won't find any argument about that here, that's for sure. I always viewed suicide through the "a permanent solution to a temporary problem" lens. And then I found myself at such a low point that even a permanent solution to a temporary problem seemed preferable to trying to endure that temporary problem for any longer. It was not the right decision to make, but I'm also aware that if I were to experience another betrayal like this again in my current mentality, I would still be a danger to myself. I have a lot of work to do moving forward to ensure that my strength is my own, and not reliant on someone else.

Let's also quit talking about her and your relationship with her. What are you doing to work on you?

Not enough, yet. But I'm trying to get there. I haven't been able to make the professional progress I should be making right now because I couldn't separate my personal struggles from my career. So I packed up my car and took off with my dog, hoping some time away would clear my head. It won't be an instant, magical solution to everything, but I intend to use this time to divide my professional life from my personal struggles and give myself a chance to progress. Hopefully diving into work for a while will leave me too busy to focus on the mental images of what she did. I'm eating healthier, planning to get back to the gym after this road trip (a pandemic is really not the most convenient time for this to happen), and I've picked up a hobby that I let slip recently.

It's not much progress. But it's mine, and I'm proud of it.

calling what she did "a mistake" minimizes the whole thing, a "mistake" is when you make a wrong turn on a street, she instead and despite being warned by you multiple times, willingly chose to betray you over and over again... she did it consciously and willingly

You're very right. In fact, I told her almost the exact same thing when she called it a "mistake." To me, a mistake is, if not accidental in itself, then at least accidental or unintended in terms of the consequences it produced. There was nothing accidental or unintended about her tearing apart everything that was important to me. She knew that would be the price of her actions, she knew that I would be the one paying it, and then she made the selfish choice that her validation over those months was worth forcing that horrendous cost on me. No one should call that just a "mistake."

SurvivingIndiana, I called my XWW an unpaid call girl. He called, she went, they fucked, she left feeling light and happy, happy.

As Jameson wrote my XWW was the same:

1. opportunity knocked

2. she wanted to, really, really wanted to

3. she thought she would never get caught (and almost didn't)

4. so she did it.

This is a very common theme. Totally and completely selfish, self-centred and lacking empathy. This is who they are. It isn't a sudden and limited brain fart. It's embedded.

Can it be worked on? Yes.

How long will it take? A long time.

Can you wait that long? Only you can answer.

And for anyone reading this who is in a similar place, please please please remember that it is not a sign of weakness to admit that you need help. It is a sign of strength. It is a difficult thing to do, but you can get through it.

This is regarding attempted suicide. It also applies if you have any ideation however small. I absolutely agree.