Today is the 5-year anniversary of my discovering text messages that my exWW was cheating on me. It's even the same day of the week (Tuesday). I can't believe it's been 5 years already. I remember reading on here that it typically takes 2-5 years to recover from infidelity, and thinking how that sounded like an eternity, yet here I am at the 5 year mark. My daughters both experienced duress due to our divorce and the breakup of our family unit, but they are both thriving now. I've had tremendous success in my career over the past 5 years, and I'm earning nearly twice what I earned at the time of my divorce. I've enjoyed my time that I get to spend with my daughters, and we have taken some incredible vacations together. Amazingly, I've pretty much recovered from the hurt caused by my exWW's affair and our subsequent divorce, the breakup of our family, and even her marrying the married POSOM. That healing process actually was complete sometime this past year.
However, I'm now reeling from yet a second bout of infidelity - this time with the first woman I allowed myself to completely trust and fall in love with since my divorce. She and I dated for 2-1/2 years, until she abruptly broke up with me in late August, over the phone, with little explanation, and didn't want to discuss it. She defriended me on Facebook the next day, and then completely ghosted me. I had no idea what happened for 2 months, and I was completely distraught and devastated over the breakup and the way she handled it by ghosting me and discarding me as if I never existed. I hadn't spoken with her since the breakup phonecall, aside from a brief encounter at the beach a week after the breakup and then again this past Sunday when she and her boyfriend (who she cheated on me with) and his buddies showed up at a sports bar where I was watching football.
It's funny how all that I wanted 5 years ago was to heal from my exWW's affair, and now that I have, I'm hurting from my exGF's affair. It's now been 4+ months since that breakup and 2 months since I discovered she was cheating on me. Many of the same signs were there, except COVID provided her with the perfect scapegoat for her to gaslight me. This time, I wasn't married, or engaged, or living together, and we don't have any kids together, so the split is much cleaner, but it doesn't hurt any less. In many ways it hurts more, because she knew about my past, and also because she is trying to steal my friends that I've known for many many years.
So, at the 5-year mark, I'm healed from my exWW's infidelity, yet I'm back to the beginning on my new voyage through this madness. I'm hoping this won't take another 5 years to overcome. I don't expect that it will for a few reasons - 1) because I've navigated these waters before and know there's life on the other side and 2) No kids, house, joint assets are shared with this woman, so there's a cleaner break.
Just when you think you things figured out again, life throws you a 100mph fastball to the head to knock you back down. I'm going to dust myself off, step back into the batter's box, and start swinging for the fences again. Maybe by this time next year, I'll actually have a amicable relationship with my exWW, I'll be over the hurt from my exGF, and maybe even be in a healthy relationship with a wonderful women who won't even dream to cheat on me? If you can put it out to the universe, the universe will deliver.
