SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hey LT —

I guess I had previously overlooked the idea that D isn’t an option at all for you.

And again, I understand hanging in there for your faith, and your want of keeping the M together — up to a point.

As I’ve noted before, faith and holding up my end of the vows is a big deal to me, however, I had to include D as a possible outcome. I had to include every possible outcome to heal.

It is important to add, I never weaponized divorce to get changes I wanted from my wife, that doesn’t work anyway. The changes to be a better partner had to come from my wife.

The reason D was on the table, because there was a time when the pain was too much and it wasn’t good for me or her.

Once I let go of holding on to the M (sounds weird) — I started to heal.

Once I understood I would be okay again, regardless of the outcome, it gave the relationship room to reset.

For your particular position, it sounds counterintuitive to mention D at all, but it could change the dynamic or the effort of your wife to help you heal the M.

Either way, it does sound like you all need another MC/IC who understands the pain of infidelity better.

FWIW, my MC asked us to avoid infidelity websites too, and I told him that while SI can be a trigger, it was far more helpful than hurtful.

Every once in a while, I feel like I'm starting to turn the corner and be okay. And then, thoughts of her ongoing betrayal revisit, and I'm back down in the dumps, feeling depressed. Is this grieving? If so, 25 years and I'm still grieving.

My wife's continued dishonesty, deliberately telling me lies, is eating away at me. Why would she sit down with me, tell me a detailed account of her first time being intimate with him, assuring me that I now know the truth, and only one week later tell me a completely different story? A different time, place, what happened, etc.

Through this experience, I've learned that while the intimacy is painful and difficult to hear, the lies are much worse. I have lost trust in her—my best friend!

I feel so alone at times that I don't know where to turn. Due to my work, I must present myself to the world as put-together and competent. But as a person, I'm broken. As I've said, it's like the cardiologist battling heart disease. Her ongoing lies—her continued betrayal—are destroying my life.

I only hope that with time she will understand my need for the truth—to understand reality—as much as she needs me to understand her need to bury it.

Can I ask you one question that I really need help with? What do you do when you have intrusive thoughts of your partner with their lover?

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/documents/library/articles/discovery/how-to-stop-mind-movies/

This article on Mind Movies is in the Healing Library and has some tips for this. For me, I did a lot of mindfulness exercises that my betrayal trauma therapist had me do. Another thing that helped me was learning meditation. It helped me to do some cleansing breaths and focus on breathing & focusing on my center.

It can take a while for you to find what works for you.

Have you discussed neural pathways with your psychiatrist? It's possible that you've thought in this pattern that you've developed a neural pathway that just goes there. It's like your brain creates a channel to those memories and it's like a well-worn path that your brain takes because it's the path of least resistance. I hope that makes sense. It's been some time since I was reading articles on betrayal trauma and neural pathways.

ETA: We're D, if that makes any difference to you. XWH couldn't keep his hands to himself.

[This message edited by leafields at 11:52 PM, Tuesday, September 30th]

I've been lurking on this thread, and I'm sorry you're still going through this all these years later.

I'm 6 months post D Day and I'm going through the same thing. I've written down a list of questions that if I was sat in a room with WS and AP, what I'd want to know. I've so far filled 2 pages full. His story changes and his answer to a lot of things has now become "because I was an idiot"

He started the affair with a work colleague. Our baby was 6 weeks old, my dad died suddenly and I was suffering from PND. The night of the day he died he went on a planned night out and slept with her in a hotel room. I needed him so badly that night and in the coming weeks, instead he was off seeing her.

I've become secretly obsessed with wanting to know every single detail about their affair, including the impossible question - why did it happen? I keep an eye on her family's social media accounts as that's how the affair came out. I've found out where she lives, and even have visited the car park they numerously slept together in whilst my world was falling apart, hoping it would bring me some peace. Even though it's just made things worse.

I need to just let it go, for our family's and our sake but I'm so hurt by it all. I completely understand where you're coming from.

I wanted to know everything. At one point our MC said "You need to get to a point where you feel you know enough to move on" and I said "No, I want to know everything because I need to know who I am married to and if this is someone I want to stay married to."

That paused that conversation for a few seconds ;) but it's true. If you think your spouse had only exchanged a few texts with someone but down the road you discover it was a full blown EA/PA that went on for weeks,months,years, well that kinda changes EVERYTHING

But, once you are told something you can never unhear it, so there is a risk in asking for details.

I don't know what's happening to me right now. Nothing feels real. Don't need the hospital. I'm safe but feeling completely numb. Unreality.

Can I ask you one question that I really need help with? What do you do when you have intrusive thoughts of your partner with their lover?

If you figure that out, let me know.

At almost 6 months out from d day those intrusive thoughts are becoming more infrequent for me, but I had a bit of a meltdown yesterday when unexpectedly triggered while showering with my wife in the morning, and it ruined most of the day for us. We ended up going to bed peacefully and reassuring each other, but it was a rough day for us both. I sometimes get stuck in a loop of reliving memories, both real and imagined, and it gets to be overwhelming for me. I got suddenly quiet, and in the interest of not beating a dead horse was going stay quiet and just suck it up, but she knew something was wrong and insisted I get it out. So I didn't hold much back. Like I said, it was a rough day from there out until later in the afternoon when I calmed down and we started really talking about it.

You're not alone in this tho. Not by a longshot.

I'm sorry you're struggling, too, Pogre.

This forum is invaluable because this topic is not one you can discuss with just anyone. I feel a strong sense of connectedness here. Thank you, my friends.

I was searching on YouTube this morning to learn anything I could to quell my unbearable pain and stop crying—and I heard something that I had never heard before:

Infidelity is not about what the betrayer did—but the impact on the betrayed.

I find this particularly helpful and validating because all efforts to help us have been directed toward my wife having to explain what she did and why she did it. And then being further betrayed by her changing, grossly inconsistent stories and lies. Feeling no trust and her ongoing deceit hurts me the most.

Not one mental health professional focused on the impact on me. This single statement validated my pain and has me thinking that it's okay to feel broken after she recently changed her narrative, in one week, from, "You were everything I wanted," to "I didn't love you enough"—weeks before our wedding day when she was in his bed—and for years thereafter.

On "our" wedding day, I was in love with the most beautiful woman I had ever met. Our wedding song was, "You're My Everything"—well, except for her secret lover. I just earned a doctorate and felt that I was at my very best. I was so proud to be her husband. How dare she confront me today and ask why I no longer wear my wedding band? Our vows meant everything to me and absolutely nothing to her.

I've got to address the impact on me and stop focusing on the self-centered, destructive choices she made that continue to destroy my life!

What are your thoughts about this?

[This message edited by low tide at 6:28 PM, Friday, October 3rd]

I’m going throw this out there from left field.

Is it possible that each time she tells you a different story, that she believes that’s the same story she’s been telling you all along? As in, mental illness?

I mean, a couple decades of lying I would think even the lie would solidify in her mind as the truth and would be repeated fairly the same way.

I can only associate maliciousness as a possible explanation otherwise.

OhItsYou,

Thanks for taking the time to comment.

I don't see her lying as malicious or reflective of mental illness (I'm in the mental health field). I see it as a way, as she described, as preserving her "dignity" and fearing my reaction—distress.

Today was a big day, it's the first time in decades that I realized that her infidelity was not about what she did—but how her infidelity affected me.

Instead of beating myself up, I'm allowing myself to be angry at her. And tonight, for the first time, when she said, "I'll find a place and leave," I said, "I'll help you."

I'm not sure where this strength is coming from, but I'm done being the victim. She will have to tell me a consistent narrative, or she can leave. I believe in evidence-based care. And I know that the literature is very clear, in order to have a chance at reconciliation, the betrayer MUST be willing to tell the whole truth and give the betrayed the opportunity to process reality and, ultimately, decide what's in their best interest.

I’ve struggled with the faith component. I eventually settled on treating as a lawyer would and for whatever reason it clicked in my brain. Faith dictates that a vow is between two people. She unilaterally dissolved the vow through her actions. The vow is no longer material to your spiritual, ethical or moral convictions as it simply ceased to exist when she dissolved it.

You still have your own spiritual directives, moral makeup and ethics. For example, it wouldn’t be right for you to enter in a new relationship because there are a number of factors that good people take into consideration when making a decision. The vow isn’t one of them any more, but you’re still a good guy and have to do things that a good guy would. Staying in the marriage isn’t something that I see governed by any of those things. In fact, if you take a faith based approach then know that challenges are put in front of you because God knows that you can handle them and that handling them is critical to making you into a better version of yourself. Fear and uncertainty are what the bad spirits want us to feel all the time. Do not give them that power. They suck.