SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

..can you rate how happy you are now?

.. if there was one thing you could change in your journey to reconcile, what whould it be?

.. if you were able to go back in time, would you still push for reconciliation knowing what you would go through?

(these questions are for both bs and ws)

Thank you

FYI - If you haven’t found it yet, there is a thread pinned atop the Reconciliation forum with positive stories posted, and a number of those include what went well and what didn’t.

I know there are some happy R people here, and some happy D people here, but I think most people who get what they need from SI move on.

I imagine my active time here is about done — most of my days here now are to try and pay it forward for all of the kind souls who helped me.

can you rate how happy you are now?

I’m happy. My wife is happy. Good days and bad days like all other humans, but my life is going as well or better than I thought possible after rebuilding our M. The dynamics of our relationship have changed a great deal. We worked our asses off to get here, we each had to really, really want it to work.

.. if there was one thing you could change in your journey to reconcile, what whould it be?

I wish I would have realized far sooner that my wife’s shitty choices reflected on her and not me. I spent way too much time thinking there was something wrong with me or what I did. It was all about my wife’s malfunctions and I couldn’t have done a damn thing different that would make her a safer partner — she is in charge of her boundaries, not me.

.. if you were able to go back in time, would you still push for reconciliation knowing what you would go through?

Yes. And I would have at least tried, as I wanted to know I did all I could to hold up my end. Ultimately, we forged this thing into a relationship worthy of both of us. I will always HATE the A. I will never wake up one day and be glad my wife did what she did. My wife didn’t think she would get another shot at this, so I think what she did with the opportunity — to be better and do better — has really fueled our recovery.

I'm the BS. I guess we are in R. I would say that at the moment I am very happy (after YEARS of being miserable).

But being happy now, I still say that I would rather have just cut bait when the A's first happened. It is a strange place to be to be grateful for my WW and having feelings of deep love for the first time in years and wishing I had given her a chance sooner, and yet wishing I had the courage to D and walk away when all this mess first happened.

So at the moment, it is worth it, but also at the moment, I wouldn't do it again if I could go back in time.

BIG BUT....I fully expect that my happiness will go up and down and my thoughts on whether I would try for R again will go back and forth as my perspective on my life changes as I get older. It is a recommitment and will require my dedication and work and patience (speaking only for myself).

..can you rate how happy you are now?

WRT our M, happier than ever. Otherwise, life is mixed. I've been down for 2.5 weeks with bronchitis; 5 years ago, I'd have recovered in a week, tops. OTOH, our GS is about to start HS at an elite public school where the kids have a lot of work thrown at them. I can't describe how satisfying it is to see him get into that HS.

.. if there was one thing you could change in your journey to reconcile, what whould it be?

I'm pretty proud of myself, and I wouldn't change a thing. Somehow, when my W revealed her A, I immediately went into 'what do I want? how do I get it?' mode and stayed there. I raised issues as they arose.

.. if you were able to go back in time, would you still push for reconciliation knowing what you would go through?

I didn't push for R. My W started working on herself in an effective way just before she decided to reveal and end her A. She wanted to R from the start, and she started working on R immediately. I didn't commit to R until I was as sure as I could be that she was committed to R. I kept a firm boundary between what I wanted and what my D/R decision would be.

None of that means R was without conflict and pain. I experienced a lot of both. But rebuilding one's life after being betrayed is difficult and painful by its nature.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:43 PM, Wednesday, May 3rd]

..can you rate how happy you are now?

Very happy. I wont put a number on it because it feels weird to rate your marriage, and like any marriage there are good and bad days, but as a whole the number would be high. At 6 years out, the bad days have nothing to do with infidelity.

.. if there was one thing you could change in your journey to reconcile, what whould it be?

I wouldn't change much. I'd certainly avoid the whole thing if that was an option, but I'm also really proud of where we are now and its hard to say where we'd be had we not gone through all of this.

Oh, I thought of one. I'd have ensured both of us had STD tests BEFORE I slept with my H again. It all worked out okay fortunately and when we did get tested we were both negative, but it was obviously risky and generally speaking, I'm not a risky person. HB hit STRONG....

Sometimes I also wish I'd shared what was going on with with more people (we told virtually no one for a while). I think it would have been useful, for both of us, to have had more support. Again, I know there could have been downsides to this so I don't actually know if that would have helped or hindered healing.

.. if you were able to go back in time, would you still push for reconciliation knowing what you would go through?

I have zero regrets about my choice to reconcile. To be fair, I wasn't the one that pushed for R at the outset (that was certainly my husband), and I more went along with it to try and guage whether it was ACTUALLY possible. I don't think I ever would have PUSHED for R if he had not. I am too valuable to chase someone who does not see my worth.

BS here. To answer your questions:

..can you rate how happy you are now?

Overall, I am pretty happy with my wife and our relationship at this point. It took a long time to get there. For a long time I was simply willing to remain married to her, but now I am glad to be married to her.

.. if there was one thing you could change in your journey to reconcile, what whould it be?

We rugswept for a very, very, very long time, as in decades, and that was after decades of deception, lying, and trickle truthing. Once we really started to address the devastation of her multiple affairs and her atrocious behavior in the aftermath, it took about two years to get on a good path and then another three years of consistent loving words and actions from her to get me to the point I am today, which is a good place for me. I wish we would have dealt with all of this decades ago as we lost so many years of happiness together.

.. if you were able to go back in time, would you still push for reconciliation knowing what you would go through?

I never pushed for reconciliation. For years I was biding my time waiting for our kids to launch. One of them did not launch, and then did not launch well, and then died. I did not feel I could leave at that point because I felt it would be too cruel. I thought I could wait it out a little longer. Then one of my grandchildren got cancer and again I felt it would be cruel to leave under those circumstances (he has also since passed). I eventually decided I had waited in misery long enough and decided to divorce her. She pushed very hard for reconciliation at that point, and I gave in (and I am glad I did.) I would not really change anything, even though that is probably stupid on my part given everything she did to me, but I just do not have it in me to be cruel to someone I care about, even if they do deserve it. And it all did work out in the end.

can you rate how happy you are now?

Really happy! Our marriage is really good, our communication rocks, our life together is great and we have lots of fun. Our future plans are also super exciting. Infidelity doesn’t feature much in any tough conversations we may have from time to time and it is pretty much something that happened and it is now part of our history.

Individually I’ve experienced other traumatic events in the last two years, events that I sometimes struggle with and I do have episodes of sadness. My WH was actually a huge support during these times and perhaps his commitment and support helped heal some affair wounds.

.. if there was one thing you could change in your journey to reconcile, what whould it be?

I would have liked to take my time before agreeing to Reconcile, to take more time to heal and process it all first and then decide my path. I jumped into reconciliation immediately when he asked and he didn’t appreciate the gift he was given initially. Luckily someone on this forum became a friend and protected me from myself, I did adjust through the process and held my WH accountable for his actions.

.. if you were able to go back in time, would you still push for reconciliation knowing what you would go through?

Whilst I jumped on the reconciliation train immediately, I don’t feel that I pushed for R as such. In fact there were times when I lived from month to month ready to pull the plug.

I have no regrets and I am happy with my choice, I do believe we emerged a stronger couple with a more authentic marriage. WH still proves worthy of it and we are fantastic together.

Should things go wrong again I know I’ve given it my all and my personal growth will support me through hardship.

..can you rate how happy you are now?

I would say that we're very happy. Obviously things are not perfect because I came back here 20 years later to deal with unresolved feelings about it all. But as with any sad or tragic thing that has happened in your life, the fact that you still feel some sadness over it doesn't mean that you cannot be happy.

.. if there was one thing you could change in your journey to reconcile, what whould it be?

I wanted R so desperately that as soon as I felt that my WW was remorseful I was willing to sweep the whole thing under the rug. She did take responsibility but I was so anxious to stop thinking about it that I never really processed that. I held on to a lot of guilt and shame pushed on me by her and our MC early in the process. I accepted her lies and minimization because that was the story that I wanted to believe. But I knew there were things that didn't add up and I should have kept pushing until every question was answered.

If I could change it, I would have stayed with it until every question was answered. I would have stayed with my original male IC therapist instead of using hers for both IC and MC. And in going through that I would have realized what I do now, that she had more to answer for than she admitted, and that her A had nothing to do with me. Our marriage was always about me trying to make her happy. But there was nothing I could have done to fix her unhappiness. Because that was always within her.

.. if you were able to go back in time, would you still push for reconciliation knowing what you would go through?

Yes. Because we've had many happy years together since.

ETA: I should add that I'm probably fortunate that even though my WW didn't do all that she should have, she did take responsibility and was remorseful. She put in the effort to figure out the underlying issues within her that allowed her to do those things. But she did take advantage of my willingness to rug sweep and not really hold her feet to the fire over some of that.

This is really at the core of whether R is the right choice: whether a WS is willing to take full responsibility, understand the damage they've caused, and correct the defects within themselves that led to their harmful actions. The shorter a WS falls of 100% commitment to all of that, the greater the risk of failed R.

[This message edited by Seeking2Forgive at 7:53 AM, Thursday, May 4th]

..can you rate how happy you are now?

Very happy. My husband has done all the right things. He has done the hard work. He’s been honest and transparent. He’s answered my questions even though some of them were very difficult. He’s done everything he possibly could to help me with my healing. We never considered divorce or not reconciling.

.. if there was one thing you could change in your journey to reconcile, what would it be?
If it was possible to change anything, I would not be so angry at the AP. I’m still working on that. She initiated everything and pursued my husband for months until he finally gave in. I’m absolutely furious with her. I’ve read, and I’ve been told to just "put down your anger, put her out of your thoughts, don’t let her take up space in your brain, forgiveness is a gift you give yourself, stop living in the past, live in the present, and think about what my current truth is." I would love to do all that, and that is what I would change, but I have not found it possible to make the choice to stop being angry..

.. if you were able to go back in time, would you still push for reconciliation knowing what you would go through?
Absolutely. The alternative, which would be a divorce, would just bring more pain. Even though it has been hell, saving our marriage has been worth it, and I know my husband would say the same. Once he broke it off with her and moved back home, he was the one pushing for reconciliation. Especially after disclosure.
The thing that is standing in my way of being truly happy is my anger toward the AP and the fact that I cannot contact her because of her threats of suing me for harassment and bullying. I have not harassed or bullied her. Just the opposite. She has sent very threatening, harassing and bullying messages to me threatening a lawsuit if I contact her. She’s probably bluffing and has not even seen a lawyer. No lawyer would tell her that she had a case against me over a few Facebook likes but I feel like I can’t take a chance. I would like nothing more than to write her a letter, calling her out on all of her lies and everything she did to try to break up my marriage, my family and my home. I wish I had contacted her early on and my first communication with her was a letter stating everything I want to tell her. All the lies and every nasty, disgusting thing she did to come onto my husband at the workplace no less. She is truly one evil bitch standing in the way of my complete happiness. I already know what the replies will be to that statement. I’ve been told dozens of times to choose to put her out of my mind, realize that she is irrelevant to my life now, she is not a part of our lives, the past can’t be changed so I might as well just stop trying to relive the past and dwelling on it so much. I just don’t know how to do that.
I guess I didn’t really answer the question. My marriage is very happy. The part of me that can’t let go of my anger toward the evil AP is preventing me from being 100% happy.

Very happy and very happy I stay married. I think it helped that I have never relied on my marriage or any relationship making me happy. I am still that way. I can enjoy his company the life we created, but my happiness does and always did come from the entirety of my life and how I choose to live it. Not sure if that make sense, but I am one of those people that truly believes no one relationship or lack thereof can make me happy or sad. My husband and our relationship is important to me, but he and it are not my life. Never were.

If I could start reconciliation over again, I’d give myself grace to forgive sooner. I spent too long judging myself harshly for staying. I’d like to think I did it myself, but admittedly too much of the negative self talk came because I listened to outside voices judging me and my choices. It took too long to not give a shit and choose what I wanted, not what many thought I should be doing. They are not me, never were. They don’t understand what makes me happy and my needs. I learned to never judge anyone’s choices concerning infidelity. In my opinion, truly helping a BS consists of listening, validating feelings, and offering gentle warnings as to behavior they may be missing. Other than that, how one chooses to get out of infidelity or even remain living in it is not for me to judge. Most betrayed are judging themselves enough already.

Would I push for reconciliation again? Hmm… not sure I ever pushed for it or if it was just something that developed. He pushed for it. He worked for it. I was on the fence for a long time. My goal was always to heal. I was very honest with him stating that "I will choose what hurts the least". It was going to hurt either way. Healing takes time and I chose what felt best in the moment. Some days I couldn’t get enough of him. Other days I couldn’t get far enough away from him. That was his problem to deal with. It takes time, but the pain does retreat. :)

.. if you were able to go back in time, would you still push for reconciliation knowing what you would go through?

You are asking me if I wish I hadn’t had my three children. If they had not existed. Literally, if I would be willing to throw out the babies with the bath water.

You can’t separate out the decision, although it is tempting and fun to fantasize about a different past.

Its been 12yrs. If I could go back, I should have just D’ed. WW was remorseful, took ownership. But only after a brutal gaslighting period. Our relationship is transparent, but I don’t think she’s realizes the cost. She asks me tell her I love her, and I’ll say it, but I don’t mean it. I don’t love her. Not sure I know what love really means.

I miss the idea of meeting someone different than her. She’s not well-read, isn’t interested in what I am.

I stayed because of our young sons. Hoping that my staying would give them a better life. More opportunities to succeed. Not damaged by being children from a divorce. I now realize that it probably wouldn’t have mattered. In a small way, I’m resentful. They see her as pure mom, they don’t know what she’s truly capable of doing.

I don’t trust her. When we argue, I see flashes of her emotional irrational thinking that enabled her brain to rationalize the A’s.

Life is hard.

..can you rate how happy you are now?

I'm happy. But I'll never be happy like before. I still don't trust him like I used to, although he's never given me reason not to since the EA. We've come so far since then but I'm keenly aware the trust we had before isn't there like it used to be. The trust was once absolute. Now, if he repeated what he did, I wouldn't be devastated like I was. I'm hardened. At this point, he's more devastated than I am we can't get back to exactly where we were. We both know if we started over with different people, no relationship could live up to what we had. So why did he do it if it was so good to begin with? Good question. He really f*cked us up for no good reason at all. It's almost harder to forgive the stupidity than the affair.

.. if there was one thing you could change in your journey to reconcile, what would it be?

I can't think of what I would change. I was so pissed from the start all I wanted was him out of my life immediately, but he wouldn't go. It was torture. We had a sick daughter so I couldn't leave but I so wanted to.

But everything I had to say I said right away ... after the shock subsided that is. The PTSD followed me for a long time and still shows up sometimes. We're in year 5 now. We've been together for over 30 years. Really happy and both growing together the entire time.

But I said everything I wanted to say to him after the EA including that I would be so cruel I would make him hate me. And I was cruel. It was the only way I could think of to protect myself from him, to get him out of my life. But he still wouldn't go.

But honestly, our life, it was worth fighting for. I absolutely trust he feels the same way. And he has done "the work". He won't make the same mistake, for the same reasons, again. But he was vulnerable, and now I'll always be vigilant. Who knows, maybe that will change eventually.

.. if you were able to go back in time, would you still push for reconciliation knowing what you would go through?

Yes. Our marriage was too good to let go without fighting to get back what we nearly lost. Yes, definitely. And yes, it was hell to get out of that nightmare. But we are out of it. Scarred, but definitely out.

If I could start reconciliation over again, I’d give myself grace to forgive sooner. I spent too long judging myself harshly for staying. I’d like to think I did it myself, but admittedly too much of the negative self talk came because I listened to outside voices judging me and my choices. It took too long to not give a shit and choose what I wanted, not what many thought I should be doing. They are not me, never were. They don’t understand what makes me happy and my needs. I learned to never judge anyone’s choices concerning infidelity. In my opinion, truly helping a BS consists of listening, validating feelings, and offering gentle warnings as to behavior they may be missing. Other than that, how one chooses to get out of infidelity or even remain living in it is not for me to judge. Most betrayed are judging themselves enough already.

This really hits home for me. I had an epiphany a week ago that I am fighting forgiving him because it makes me weak or it's like I'm lowering my standards. I'm trying to go with my gut here but I don't want to be an idiot either. So nice to read something that strikes a cord. I am just 10 weeks out (2 happy ending massages)

[This message edited by oonly4me at 5:32 AM, Wednesday, June 7th]

Ghostrider, I know this feeling... I'm only 3 years since DDAY but I feel the same...

May I ask how long was the A, and how long did she do the gaslighting or trickle truth ?

As for me :

..can you rate how happy you are now?

I would say 4, sometimes 5/10.

.. if there was one thing you could change in your journey to reconcile, what whould it be?

I don't know. Maybe be faster to do the 180, took me a month to do it and scars that haven't healed yet.

.. if you were able to go back in time, would you still push for reconciliation knowing what you would go through?

I didn't push for it. At first I did, as I was doing the pick me dance (and she wasn't helping at all). I still resent her for that. But she begged for R after I did the 180. If I was able to go back in time, I think would have just left her, even if it meant losing the house.

[This message edited by iamjack at 8:31 AM, Thursday, June 8th]

Happy? Very. But not b/c of my marriage but b/c of me. I am happy with or without my H. If we had D I’d wound have been sad BUT I would have accepted it and moved on.

Change in my R journey? Nothing. I was not interested in R and my H had to work very hard to get me to reconsider my plan to D him.

One thing to come out of his midlife crisis affair was that I stopped being a doormat. I now don’t back down and I’m not afraid to express my opinion. I don’t do things anymore to keep the peace.

He’s no longer my first priority. I am!

1) I am happy. One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned through this process is that I’m responsible for my own happiness. I knew that before, but since I was very happy with my marriage pre-affair, I hadn’t been forced to put it into practice. Now I’m very intentional about doing what makes me fulfilled and happy. Do I have bad days or even bad stretches? Absolutely! But that’s part of life, and overall I’m happy and grateful. In terms of happiness with my marriage, I would say neither my husband nor I are at the pre-affair level of happiness and connection, though we have a depth of gratitude and appreciation for the relationship and for each other that we didn’t have before.

2) hindsight is 20/20 and I was too stunned and naive to realistically put this into practice, but I wish I had drawn a much harder and more severe line on Dday. I wish I had demanded immediate no contact and gone straight to the OBS. I also DEFINITELY would have required full STD panels for both of us before having sex, but like another poster on this thread, HB hit hard, and I was naive. I also wish we had begun IC immediately with a therapist experienced with dealing with infidelity, but we’re in an area where therapists are in super short supply and very overbooked. Despite our best efforts to get appointments, we’ve only been able to get around 8 sessions each of IC, and 3-4 of MC over the past three years, and most of those were only marginally helpful. So that’s not something I could’ve changed anyway.

3) Absolutely. At the beginning, neither of us pushed for reconciliation so much as we just hysterically clung to each other (we had a lot of other shit going on in our lives at the time in addition to the affair). I actually think it would’ve been healthier if I had taken a breath and stepped back a bit, but it is what it is. After the first six months of HB and mutual clinging, I was able to more soberly assess the state of the marriage and the impact of his infidelity. For another year at least after that, I realized the truth of what everyone says here—that you have to be willing to let go of outcome and work on healing yourself and see where it goes. But neither of us have ever given up on reconciliation or been ambivalent about wanting it, even though the fallout from his infidelity has been much bigger and more life-altering than we could’ve known.

In general, life is going well all-around so I’m pretty happy. I’d rate 7/10

To not reconcile at all. I’d have left after receiving the god awful flowers & ILYBINILWY note when he was deployed.

Absolutely not. I believe reconciliation is not a one & done thing. It’s something that you have to actively choose & do until the death of one of you. Reconciliation takes time and life is too short.

[This message edited by JpnHeartBreak at 5:57 PM, Saturday, July 1st]

@iamjack,

She gaslighted me for 3mo, but hid facts for another 3mo. She went from 1 OM to having multiple.

I think I had an insecure attachment model that I didn't fully appreciate. I rationalized staying because of my sons and the idea if I found someone else, I'd still have trust issues.

As my sons have grown, the idea that I needed to be with them has started fading. I don't think me being in the M or not would have had as much of an impact on their outcomes.

And I have sadly realized that I don't think she can ever fix the pain. She did too much. I have no empathy for her. When I screw up something, I just can't handle a critique from her.

Granted, someone new could have issues, but they would be between me and them.

She tells me she loves me, but words are meaningless to me. They are a cheap currency.

[This message edited by Ghostrider at 4:20 AM, Wednesday, August 2nd]