SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

You've used lots of words, so many that I'm not sure if you crossed boundaries or not. I wonder if you could rewrite so a 6 year old could understand what you want to communicate. Can you do that. I think it would help readers on SI.

I can at the moment make a TL:DR version of the story, and rewrite it better when I have time for it.

So TL;DR -

- I met my wife in 2005 and fell for her recognizing her as the love of my life. We were living in different countries and we had a long distance relationship until 2007.

- February 2008 I fly to her for Valentine's day, knowing already deep inside that she was cheating with me with a OM since January. I was in denial. She denied it but it was obvious. I walked into an emotional minefield where she felt powerful and overjoyed of my pain and humiliation, and kept humiliating me until I returned back home because I could not stand another minute in her presence. This was the biggest pain I ever experienced in my life, more annihilating than the death of beloved ones. It completely crushed my identity, my hopes and belief for the past, the future, trust, belief in love.

- I came back broken and was spiraling down the abyss, to take her off my mind I started getting busy with work and study, dating many girls, lost my belief and will to open emotionally with another woman as every time I let someone in, they betrayed me, so I became cynical towards people and relationships. I started to convince myself I am wrong, unlovable, and naive for expecting a connection that just does not exist in the human nature.

- It did not work, after short her memories resurfaced and I became miserable, I started wanting to end my life, that's how deep I wanted my pain to stop. At that time I came to believe that all relationships are just false and cheating is the norm, that true love is just a romantic lie people tell to hide their lowest impulses. And I hated my guts for wanting to refuse to accept that the emotions I felt for her (and I trusted she felt for me) where just an illusion, because I convinced myself that this stupid belief was just my stubborn denial of the human nature and I it condemned me to never find the happiness I just lost ever again. Nobody could love me because I was wrong, idealist, and incapable of changing. The betrayal and my sorrow it was all my fault, I deserved it.

- When I could not take it anymore I stopped dating multiple girls and allowed one in, who was not single but she did not tell me, I took it slow, started to feel a connection, kissed her when she was about to leave (she was from the same country as my WS, Poland).

- She then confesses that she had a boyfriend and was keeping it hidden from me because she wanted to end the relationship before moving on with me. That pained me deeply, again and I felt lied, again right when I was opening to feeling a connection with a woman, it turns out she is already with someone else and checking her options before ditching the other person, exactly like my WS did to me.

But I was desperate enough to accept her justification to wanting to break up in person before letting herself go (she was abroad and he was there): I rationalized that yes she wanted to meet me, but she never even touched me or showed her attraction openly until I was the one who acted when she was leaving my country, meet me for goodbyes and I thought we will never see each other again so I kissed her.
She kept it hidden and ambiguous but she also tried to keep distance to respect my boundary and my pain.

I wanted to believe her story because not to was putting me down again straight into the hell I was hoping I could climb out: My subconscious was screaming "Oee? Open up and connect with someone, find out they are disloyal and non monogamous. 4 out of 4, when will you ever learn people are just not like you dream? What you crave does not exist". I gave her a chance to clear things out before contacting me again.
looking back now, I see I was the one letting my boundaries being crossed down again. She should have told me immediately. She did not, so I should have walked off.

But because I was desperate and did not want to accept that my intuition was right, but she was the only person whom presence could take out my WS from my mind, I was hoping another person could remove my pain. So when she did and came back we started seeing each other, I was taking it slow because her secret already burned me, but on the same time I was craving to let her in, to light up the cold darkness I was cast in with her warmth.

- Shortly after we start seeing each other seriously and I start forgetting her, my WS comes back and tries to R with me. This make me realize that my feelings for her were just hurt by her betrayal but they never changed. I call the new girl immediately and break up with her. She understands, hopes I find closure and come back to her. 2 months later I meet my WS to see if I still feel or finally find closure, and I fall for her again. I tell the new girl, we stay friends, she moves on with her life.

- I then give up my life, career, studies to move to my WS country and start a life with her from zero, because I was afraid the distance will push her astray again (only recently I discovered she was already cheating right after she got me back, she just kept me as a backup option for whenever the OMs dropped her). I felt it in my guts, but I was in denial to admit her R was not honest. I wanted to believe in our bond and I quit my life to gave it a chance. Meanwhile my PTSd and betrayal trauma start destroying me physicaly: panic attacks, intrusive thought, gastric problems, eating and sleeping disorders, constant anxiety begin to impact my life and intensify over time.

- I hoped we will enter a fairy-tale of love and a life together. Her welcome there made me understand there is no fairy-tale, she looks half disappointed of seeing me coming for real, like I am intruding in her life. We get a mostly sexless relationship, she does not mind of sharing her contempt daily, she is only warm to me when she needs emotional support or we are on vacation, the rest of my life is a slow erosion of my confidence and self worth, until I become so low that I automatically apologize for breathing too loudly.

- I set myself to prove her my worth (I already feel unworthy), I build a life from zero, first small jobs, then private lessons, the a venture funding and a company. It is never enough for her, she expects more. My PTSD slowly becomes a daily occurrence, sometimes multiple panic attacks per day, I cut contacts with friends and family and live like a hermit because she is suspicious I might be cheating on her if I meet other people and I want to prove her that I am safe. (meanwhile she still flirts with ever guy who is "her type" behind my back, sometimes even in front of me).

- We get married in 2015, we live a sexless marriage (5-7 times / year only when she is into it, mostly on vacation), this only changes when she want to try for a baby, so she schedules it, unfortunately she got a STI from her OM from her 2008 betrayal, which causes infertility (she obviously infected me with it too) and she refuses acknowledge it or diagnose because she rejects any connection that could make her face again what she did back in 2008, she never wants to hear a mention of her infidelity and attacks me threatening divorce if she only thinks I am hinting to that taboo topic. She puts the blame on me and I am too low down to argue, I start to believe it and nod along like with anything she says.

- We move to adoption, a wonderful little girl, she become the only reason that rekindles a bit my life. I am sinking towards the bottom of depression by then, but she becomes a reason to fight for. My pain does not fade, but I can hide it in front of her, I do everything to help this child with her own traumas and she makes great progress, this becomes for me a reason of pride, even if my WS slowly starts to use the child as a tool to attack my self respect, ever more often trying to humiliate me in front of our daughter.

- One night last end of September, when we are at an adoptive parents family weekend, I am sick with flu and stepping in and out of the hotel to not ashame her "with my weak health" in front of other parents, I see her flirting with another man, and something flips a switch in me: "I see now. I accept it. But I will no longer tolerate this".
I go to bed, feeling that I only have myself to offer the world, I cannot be anything else. Like it or not, I do not care.

- I wake up thinking I would feel resentment in seeing her in the bed, but I feel nothing but peace. I do not realize it, yet that moment, but I notice I have no worries, no concerns, no expectation, it was a complete surrender of my ego, my social mask slipped off into dust, I was myself in the present, and I cared only for what I was living in the moment, I was not worried anymore for other people's expectation or feel any attachment for any particular outcome. I had a complete confidence that whatever the world was throwing my way, it's ok, it is going to be fine.

- I slowly notice people responding up to me differently: I feel it like it's natural, I am happy to listen and share with everyone in the moment. Men are friendly, women are curious, children gravitate around me, and I feel connected to everyone in a way I never experienced.

- My wife feels that too. In the beginning she gets silent, almost in shock, she stares in the void, I did not say a word nor behaved any different with her. Later she resumes her usual routine of attacks and humiliation attempts, she begins to question my sanity and tries to label me "mentally ill".
They all fall flat, best she gets is some jokes from me exposing how ridiculous her labeling are. Meanwhile my body heal, I walk with my heads up, I quickly recreate a new social circle of connection, work out and get fast in top shape, make business, thrive and feel alive.

- But the most important response is from my daughter, she starts to calm and feel safe in my presence. She looks up to me and she regulates emotionally. I am the person she immediately comes to whenever she feels distressed.

- In less than 2 weeks I notice a dramatic shift in my wife. She looks at me differently, her behavior completely changes, she falls in love asking "are we 20 again?" and she cannot get anough of my presence. That's when she starts to ask what happened, and slowly she begin to confess her past betrayals. She goes to therapy and discovers her emotional unavailability and avoidant attachment towards our bond. She is suffering now for the first time looking herself in the mirror, and she feels terrified I can leave her.
I am not divorcing her because of our daughter now, she is the most important one, and also because frankly I do not care. She broke me so much that my old identity was long beyond repair. I had to let go of all my fears and trauma, now I can see them, accept them, integrate my emotions and be fully present in the moment.

I do not feel anger or hate or fear anymore, I do have now my natural boundaries but they aren't walls, they are a door where anybody who can respect them is welcome, those who can't are kept out.

My presence co regulates both my wife and my daughter naturally as her therapist noticed. And I lost any attachment to outcomes, I have my direction, is she will work on herself for a true R, I am open to it, if not I will find my own path, I do not care anymore, either way it's fine.

I have been through my very personal hell, I thought I would die there and never see the light again. But when you reach the bottom and you feel forced to abandon all hopes, defenses and fears, you surrender your ego and your true self emerges from the ashes. You become able to accept your own flaws and others with no judgement, you can even see that what hurt you so much, the betrayals it was no evil, not even lack of love, it was two broken people with their own wounds struggling to find clarity.

And you can step over it, accept it and it will immediately change your life. You will never feel afraid of falling again into the abyss because you know what lies at its end. And even if you can't believe it right now, you will then realize that it's ok. That very same confidence will prevent you from ever falling there again.

It might not sound fancy or how you imagined, it may not even be your own path. But this is another way out, one that will make you whole, and ready to open yourself up for love and life in the way you were always meant to be.

- end TL;DR -

I will try next to fix up the long posts and make them more readable. This one will be easier to digest for the time being.

I gave a 5 or 6 sentence reply attempting to summarize what I could from your multiple massive walls of text focusing mainly on what jumped out at me. I patiently read and waded through all of that and you replied to me with another wall of text with more than a hint of hostility.

I'm not entirely sure the point of you posting all of that on this site, but it apparently wasn't to get any honest feedback, and I think after all of that I'm kinda done reading this thread. Whatever or wherever you are now in life I hope you're happy. Good luck with your relationship(s).

I gave a 5 or 6 sentence reply attempting to summarize what I could from your multiple massive walls of text focusing mainly on what jumped out at me. I patiently read and waded through all of that and you replied to me with another wall of text with more than a hint of hostility.

I'm not entirely sure the point of you posting all of that on this site, but it apparently wasn't to get any honest feedback, and I think after all of that I'm kinda done reading this thread. Whatever or wherever you are now in life I hope you're happy. Good luck with your relationship(s).

I do understand the confusion from the long posts written on the fly, and I took the point because it is fair (I made a TL;DR in the first post, that is easier to follow) and I will take time to rewrite it in a more reader friendly form, where you can get all nuance.

Why did you feel hostility in my 'wall of text' reply? Do you really believe it was because you offered a short comment? Or because deep down you know you felt entitled to superficially pass a judgement on a story that you admitted yourself "just focused on what jumped our at me"?

I offer you some food for thought about yours and some other reactions I seen here:

Truth to be told, while I did not post for sympathy, I did not expect so many attacks and accusation either. You were not the only one feeling entitled to lash out judgement, superficially so.

I am the BS and I got accused to be the WS. To be apologized right after because they superficially misread. But it still stings to get such kind of gaslighting on a space where you kind of expect people to understand what a person goes through when they are betrayed by their beloved partner. I am good because I am out of it, so I don't really care.

But if it was another person still into the thick of the suffering, getting bashed for their alleged "irresponsibility of choices" guilty of being betrayed and in suffering, as you both felt entitled to do, I invite you to think the kind of psychological damage your rush judgement would inflict.

I made clear my point already: I did not share my story to look for sympathy or comfort, I achieved that, already, I have been through my own hell, I came out of it, I found clarity and peace. I value my time, I would not spend over a day in writing that if I did not believe it could be helpful to somebody here to find their own peace.

I read this forums and felt empathy for many men and women who suffered or are suffering right now the same torture I knew so well, and I can see in some of these stories the same missteps, similar mistakes to those I did when I was gasping from air while drowning in my trauma. Kind of things you see as a lifeline when you are desperate and wounded, bu later may turn out to hurt you more and sink you deeper into the abyss. And you can and will hurt other people in the process if you are not aware of it, and clarity is something really hard to achieve when you are suffering from betrayal.

The key is simple even if it feels so hard: you must look inside yourself, like in a mirror. Accept that is not your fault. Accept that is not only the WS fault. See your wounds, both of you. Accept them, absorb them. You will then be capable of see why you and them followed patterns which lead to choices that destroyed you both so deeply. It's clarity, but looking yourself in the mirror is both the easiest and hardest thing a person can do.

But it is worthy. The pain dies immediately. You breathe again. You reach peace. And you will feel safe from going down that same patch again.

This is a very important way, perhaps the only real way, for a genuine R to happen, or if that is not possible, for your life to move on without regrets, but a whole, stronger you.

It should be clear now, I will fix the 'wall of text' when I can. I followed an impulse writing here, because I can relate to others' pain here. And I think this can help some. That's all about it.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 12:28 PM, Friday, January 9th]

The reason I wrote 'revenge' is that you describe multiple periods of (ab)using women, taking without giving, and you describe starting up with your 2nd love while you were still messed up over the woman who became your W. Perhaps I used the wrong word. In any case, you describe behavior that is unhealthy, and probably even nasty.

Were you actually committed to 'Her'? Did you formally break up or did you ghost each other?

The problem with long, stream of consciousness posts is that it's really difficult to find the salient issues.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:51 PM, Friday, January 9th]

The read that I’m getting here is that he wants to provide support, encouragement, and knowledge to other BS, not necessarily to look inside himself. There is a possibility that he just squashed his feelings way down instead of feeling and processing them. If that is the case, I think he is not exactly in a position to act as a guru here.

But I have been wrong in the past and I could be wrong again.

The reason I wrote 'revenge' is that you describe multiple periods of (ab)using women, taking without giving, and you describe starting up with your 2nd love while you were still messed up over the woman who became your W. Perhaps I used the wrong word. In any case, you describe behavior that is unhealthy, and probably even nasty.

Were you actually committed to 'Her'? Did you formally break up or did you ghost each other?

The problem with long, stream of consciousness posts is that it's really difficult to find the salient issues.

And in fact you raised a good point. Therefore I condensed it in a shorter (thought still long) Tl;Dr. So it can be followed in a 2 minutes read instead of an hour.

I described what a BS can experience (after betrayal and abandonment) through their own emotional hell. Like many here they search for closure or relief in new relationship. My own story is not comfortable, I disclosed because that is often an illusion, you will not get closure from the trauma, you will cause yourself and maybe others more suffering, because you are not healed yet. Even if you find a new bond, is often a trauma bonding, not a secure attachment, the risk it will backfire is high. It's not a lifeline, like many betrayed people hope, is moving from drowning into quicksands.

I did not describe multiple periods of 'abusing women' I told I approached love while 16 with high hopes and an open heart. She betrayed me in front of my eyes and that shattered me.

Then I closed myself to emotional involvement, I dated with girls, but I always stated my boundary clearly: I do not want emotional attachment with you, we date and that's it take it or leave it. This is fear of connection, but it is not abuse.

The same was after the third betrayal (the woman who is - for the moment at least - still my wife) the one who gave me PTSD.

But the pain was deeper, detached relationships did not take her off my mind, so I 'projected her loss' into another one, this is not real love or commitment, is trauma bonding. And that's another pitfall.

The behavior is unhealthy, because is the behavior of a deeply hurt person (yes the WS destructive choices was causing it, but the BS when deeply hurt can fall as well into a self destructive loop, which is not healing even if it soothes you temporary).

And I described my 'unhealthy' PTSD and betrayal response, showing everyone my life mistakes naked, because I finally found the peace and got over it, when I simply accepted and stopped blaming myself or her.

It's Trauma integration and complete emotional regulation.

And believe or not, it does co-regulate the WS more than any therapy.

It might sounds unfair that the BS needs to reach this state and "help" the WS (you do not have to, when you achieve peace you just do not care, you may very well move on, you will feel any outcome is either way fine), but it is the BS the person who is going through a deeper darker hell, and you need to reach the bottom to get out of it.

Those who can survive the Trauma it will come out no longer broken, but completely whole, like they never been in their entire life.

And this comes from a survivor who was inches away from taking his own life (my daughter saved me, now I will save her).

That's the message, is hope.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 7:29 PM, Friday, January 9th]

The read that I’m getting here is that he wants to provide support, encouragement, and knowledge to other BS, not necessarily to look inside himself. There is a possibility that he just squashed his feelings way down instead of feeling and processing them. If that is the case, I think he is not exactly in a position to act as a guru here.

But I have been wrong in the past and I could be wrong again.

Precisely.

I am out of the abyss, and a completely new person (in reality, just purely the person you were born to be, you just drop your defenses forever and live your life exposed, emotionally naked).

This grants you real clarity and peace.

This helps your WS to find their center and realize their mistakes themselves, not through force or pressure, they will co-regulate with you.

This will allow a BS and WS to reach R if they so choose. Or if the BS does not, it allows them to move on leaving the past forever behind, with no fears or trauma to bring to their next relationship.

There is no suppression of feelings, that used to be and that is what caused my wounds and my WW wounds and self destruction.

I am trying to show a way to natural and absolute emotional regulation. It's post traumatic integration, it's hard to explain if you did not reach it, but is a real thing, and it's a beacon of hope to anybody who is suffering this trauma right now.

Where do I go to get paid for writing erotic fiction by the word? Good grief.