Full disclosure: I'm not in R and my WH is not R material.
I agree with JustSomeGuy's view that it is "brutally honest"
And I want to clarify some of the comments about the book. Yes, the book was CONCEIVED from a bunch of letters received by the authors, who are advice columnists. It is NOT merely a "compilation" of those stories. Anyone who wants a compilation of infidelity stories can just come to SI (or Reddit or any number of websites) and get all they want of that.
The authors used the stories as a sort of springboard to delve into the RESEARCH about trauma, PTSD, relational betrayal trauma, etc.
That research is done by others -the authors of Nutshell combine it into a pretty straightforward (or brutally honest) look at the ways in which infidelity hurt & change the BS and the M, the difficulty navigating out of that trauma, and the particular difficulty(ies) of navigating it while still emotionally tied to a WS.
I think it's important for BS to have an understanding of what they are up against, particularly from a biological/neurological perspective. And for me, Nutshell was the only book that really tied together the TRAUMA with the infidelity. You can read Glass and MacDonald and Van der Kolk and probably get most of the same understanding - the dots are just not as well connected.
Personally, I found it tremendously helpful to understand, from a bio/neuro perspective, the difficulty I was having - even years after dday. To know there are solid, researched, reasons why infidelity is not a "forgive & forget" kind of trauma. The wounds run DEEP, not only emotionally deep, but the PTSD changes our effing wiring. One of my parents was recently Dx with dementia... turns out PTSD is a known contributing factor to dementia (there's an interesting 2018 study of veterans that concluded: "We found that in a predominantly male veteran cohort, those diagnosed as having PTSD were at a nearly 2-fold-higher risk of developing dementia compared with those without PTSD" [emphasis added]. IOW, Nutshell is not some advice columnists talking about how PTSD completely changes a person on a cellular level.... it's some columnists LOOKING AT THE RESEARCH and describing what was found).
If someone doesn't want to read it.... good for them.
If someone does want to... good for them too.
As to the OP - even tho my WH is not R material, I absolutely believe folks can be and are happy after infidelity. I believe in the human capacity to change... to heal... to recover and accept and move on to joy - with or without their WS. The point is to get OUT of infidelity.
ETA: I also think its important to note/remember that not all BS will get a post dday Dx of PTSD. Just about every human (if not every) will experience some trauma in their lifetime. That's normal. But not all humans have PTSD. Not all combat vets come home with PTSD. Some folks are more RESILIENT to trauma (something Rick Hansen does a really good job explaining IMHO, and Brene Brown touches on some of it as well, just off the top of my head). I think a BS who is not experiencing the deep ravages of PTSD/relational betrayal trauma, may come away from reading Nutshell with a "meh" perspective. Doesn't mean they are not traumatized by dday, they are better/worse, their WS is better/worse, or anything like that. Just means their history/experience/wiring may not be that which tends to prompt PTSD after the trauma of dday. On the other hand, for those whose trauma response is off the charts or who get PTSD Dx, books like Nutshell can be extremely helpful, validating, and provide hope for recovery & healing (and getting out of infidelity).
[This message edited by gmc94 at 8:54 PM, Saturday, October 2nd]
