SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi All,

I'm almost 16 years from DDay #1, 12/06, and 10 months from the *real* DDay #2, 12/21. I am mortified with understanding what the truth has been and that my WH lied to me about the entire thing for 16 years. DDay 1 was during our engagement and I was told it was an unsuccessful ONS.

DDay 2 (and about 10 more TT days) brought the truth that it was actually 4.5 years (from 2006-2010) and he continued the A after I forgave him in 2007 and we "reconciled", got married, and started our family.

Then he continued into a porn addiction in which case his porn actress of choice was a person he chose because she looked almost exactly like the OW...15 years of that.

All of that to say, I am struggling horribly with grasping and comprehending, let alone *accepting* that my husband never loved me:

1) like I truly believed he did.
2) like I loved him.

We are working towards R, but I'm simply stuck here and it's threatening to press me to death.

Practically speaking, how have you all managed to work through this facet and get to a place where it doesn't haunt you?

So sorry you were married under false pretenses.

Counseling for you is the best option.

It will help you restore your self esteem and confidence. It should help you prepare yourself for a possible future that may or may not include the cheater.

As you heal and grow, you will look at your life very differently. You may decide 4 years from now the marriage is hopeless. Not because he’s currently cheating but because of the past.

Your options in life are endless, just know what you think you want now may not be what you need down the road.

I am one of the lucky ones who R a d we are happy. But my H made some permanent changes and now recognizes the terrible mistakes he made.

But in some cases that is just not enough and the marriage ends up failing not just due to the affair, but b/c of other reasons that are now just magnified as a result of the affair.

I’m going to echo IC. What your H did really messed with your head and it will take some work to make peace with it. And that is important whether you do R or if you end up D, so important to do.

Please also explore why you want to R. There are good reasons, and there are bad reasons. I wanted to R, I see in hindsight, because I was terrified of D. But now I see that I would never have been able to R - it just wasn’t in my to let go of what he did, even if he became the poster child of remorseful WS.

How is your H helping you with this? It will be your work to get through it, but he can certainly help or hinder depending on his actions.

Duplicate

[This message edited by BearlyBreathing at 3:26 PM, Monday, October 17th]

It’s a sad painful story and I can see why you feel that your WH didn’t love you the way you loved him. It’s sore to think of it and it’s not an easy thing to accept something so hideous.
I think that’s all I can say on it; hard things are hard. It’s not easy but it is doable. You can do it but it happens slowly and unfortunately it’s painful.
My DDay was April 2016. Only now am I accepting that my WH didn’t love me. What I can recognise is..what love is not. What love is, I don’t know. Different people feel different things. For me, accepting that he didn’t love me makes sense. Hideously sad but I can do something with this knowledge, and not just bounce from the walls in my head..did he/didn’t he love me?. No he didnt. I think stepping from the fantasy into the real world takes time, and there’s a strength in it; something solid to stand on for me anyway.

I am so sorry that you are in this situation. The pain can take our breath away that is for sure. I will be honest there are times when those thoughts flood back in-- a show, a place,.. something that triggers it, but they are fewer and far between the longer times passes. The most important thing is if you are reconciling that he is in therapy.. not just a couple times, but for as long as it takes... his addiction is not something to easily overcome without help. While he is working on himself, I hope that you are taking time for you.. be gentle with yourself.. see a counselor also.. get exercise.. do what it is to help yourself recover. Unfortunately, there is no easy fix here, it takes hard work on your husband's part, and a beautiful heart such as yours if you decide to move forward.. In my instance, it took deep faith to help me move forward. I hope you find what helps you best. God Bless.

The1stWife - would you please share all the work that your WH did and how long it took to see satisfactory change in him before you felt safe and comfortable trusting and rebuilding with him again?

BearlyBreathing - Thank you. Yes, I am in IC 2x a week. He is in it 2-3 times a week with a Psychologist and a therapist. They both have him going back to his very first memories and piecing together the puzzle of his life to see how he got to where he was/is. So far there are many connections that have been made including that his affair was a form of trauma reenactment as the OW looked almost exactly like his mom did when he was a child. and the porn he was viewing, he choose to look like OW.

Apparently, there was a lot of neglect, enmeshment and there are severe rejection fears, a desperate need for validation, love, and attention, power, control etc. He does SA/LA calls daily, sometimes multiple times each day. He has a sponsor and is on step 4. I hope he is on the right track to healing.

Booney - You are so right "hard things are hard", that is really the crux of the matter.

Fof9303 - Thank you for your response. You can see my response just above to "BearlyBreathing" for the work that we are both doing. I am finally, for the first time in 16 years focusing on ME! He has spent the last 16 years focusing on him, while I was focusing on him as well. No longer. It is my time to heal and be whole again!