7 years on
I am back to this forum to write an update, wanting to give some hope to those still hurting at the beginning of their journey.
Tomorrow it’s 7 years since dday, 7 years since my world turned upside down. We (as a couple) don’t actually acknowledge the date anymore, mostly because it’s all behind us, as much as such a traumatic event can be. The only reason I still remember it is because I consider this date to be the beginning of getting my power back, the beginning of realising what I’m made of, the beginning of a healing journey beyond my husband’s infidelity.
Last night I went for a walk on my own and listened to my playlist from that period. I used to listen to this playlist on and on and on, it was like self torture at the time. I don’t know at which point I’ve abandoned it, but I do know I haven’t listened to it for a good 4 years at least.
As I walked listening to music, the songs brought back the memory of it all, the pain, the desire to go to sleep and never wake up, the constant fight or flight (I was in constant flight mode, I wanted to run away but I could never identify where I would go), the loss of weight, the crying, the shaking uncontrollably, the panic and anxiety attacks…
So here we are 7 years later. For me, post dday has been an opportunity to find my bitch boots and put myself first, eventually.
I found a fire within me that I didn’t know it existed. I’ve grown my career considerably therefore I am now financially secure. I’m constantly told by my work peers that the reason I land these relatively high profile jobs is because I have hard to find soft skills (besides technical skills in my industry), combined with a desire to constantly challenge myself and learn more. I think this sums up my post dday attitude to life: constantly setting myself new goals (work, exercise, hobbies) and go in chase of them.
I am now in a good place and I am happy. I know I would have been happy if I would have taken the divorce path too. We reconciled and I have no regrets although I have made a lot of mistakes at the time, until I’ve woken up from the belief that the man standing in front of me was the same man I thought I married.
These days I trust him as much as I believe trust post infidelity can be: I mainly trust myself and I believe I’d be ok either way alone or married. He knows my trust is limited and still sticks to commitments made back then, although I never ask for it and I don’t need those things to happen anymore.
For example he went out with work colleagues a couple of evenings ago and he still sent me pictures of him with the team (something I needed early on and something he said at the time that he is committed to do forever). We both know why he does it but we don’t really talk about it anymore. We still have our location sharing live but I rarely check it.
I go on nights out with friends or away abroad on my own and I don’t feel the need to check his location when we are apart. At this point I trust myself to be ok if he does it again. I feel so confident about who I am and my value as an individual that my husband is a nice addition to my life, however my life does not depend on his existence, the desire to "prevent" another affair by constantly monitoring his whereabouts has disappeared. (Not that you can truly prevent your spouse from cheating).
He continues to express gratitude for still being married to me and still tells me from time to time he is forever in my debt for giving him the chance to show me he can change. I do believe he had a wake up call (eventually) and that coincided with me realising I need to focus on myself rather than focusing on saving our marriage single-handedly.
Next year both our kids will be adults (currently 17 and 23) and we have plans to scale down a bit and start spending more time on designing a life away from the corporate world the following year. A lot has happened in the last 7 years (including losing my brother, his brother surviving a heart attack and a couple of cancer scares for me) to make us realise life is short and needs to be fully lived. I hope we get there. We are best friends and have a lot of fun together, we are very honest with each other. We communicated well before this, or so I thought at the time, but these days it is saying it as it is. If there’s something I don’t like I tell him and I expect the same from him.
I know I’m rambling but if there is some learning to share from my journey it is this:
- Forget reconciliation or divorce for a bit, put yourself first, invest in yourself (financially, emotionally, physically) and the rest will come. If your spouse is worth the effort of reconciling they’ll move mountains to prove it to you. (I wish I knew this from day 1)
- "You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink it". Don’t coach your WS through reconciliation. Chances are you don’t know what’s needed anyway as you begin your journey. Hold them accountable, by all means don’t rug sweep, tell them how you feel, but don’t do it for them. If you need to constantly remind them to make that IC appointment or to read that book, to tell you where they are, to check in with you, to ask how you feel, then chances are their heart is not really in it and they are waiting for you to "get over it". In reality authentic reconciliation only happens if the WS wants to understand why they did what they did, truly accepts accountability and truly wishes to change and live a different life for themselves. Not for you, not for the marriage. For themselves.
- Find your anger but don’t let this trauma turn you bitter for the rest of your life. I’ve made a lot of mistakes initially post dday. One of them was not finding my anger soon enough. I don’t mean becoming violent, that’s abuse. I mean being angry for how I was treated, allowing my anger to turn this trauma into a healing path with a purpose. When I think of it, the best way to describe my attitude when I finally found my anger was " fuck it! How dare you think I was disposable and worth losing? How dare you making me feel worthless? We’ll see about that". That means (see first point): invest in yourself. IC for emotional healing. Exercise for physical health. Invest in courses to improve your earning potential or just because you always wanted to learn something new. Personally I’ve attended IC for 3 years post dday. I’ve started exercising (setting myself goals) and still do, I think my physical health is key to aging well. I’ve done all those things I wanted to do before dday but I didn’t want to "spend money" (ie. I didn’t consider I was worth it), such as removing some moles that aesthetically bothered me, straightening my teeth, getting spa days, going away alone or just with my daughter, investing in my friendships. The more I’ve achieved on a personal level, the more my self esteem grew and it made me realise my value. Don’t let a man dictate your self worth.
These would be key learnings I’ve taken from all this but it is hard to describe a healing process over 7 years in a few paragraphs, happy to answer any questions that you may have.
A last thought: don’t expect your friends and family to understand what you’re going through. Find someone who’s been through the same situation if you want someone who can relate. I found a real friend through SI, we still meet from time to time in real life and have a chat, these days not infidelity related. (Think more retirement plans related chats 😂).
My best friend at the time, whilst fully supportive, didn’t understand why I still wanted to talk about it 6 months post dday. My brother told me I should stop talking about it with my WH as keeping it alive was shaming him 🤦♀️. So don’t expect people to be supportive without experiencing infidelity themselves.
I’ll stop here but I hope everyone finds their peace and happiness through their healing journey.
24 comments posted: Sunday, September 29th, 2024
Maybe some hope
I write this in this forum because I know that a lot of people choosing to remain married and give R a go, struggle with personal healing and long term hope.
I’m… (I had to think about it and count on my fingers the years) over 6 years out from Dday.
Last night something triggered me slightly, and when I say trigger, I mean that moment when you stop and evaluate how things are going, you then wonder why you did that and realise your life, in some ways, is mirroring your life pre affair.
Let me explain: the year before dday my career was starting to take off. 18 months prior I was promoted to management and suddenly I was pulled from pillar to post and doing things that I enjoyed much more including travelling around the UK and staying in hotels from time to time. This was giving me some "me" time as I could spend an evening with myself, reading, having dinner with colleagues or alone, having a bath and falling asleep in the middle of the bed. This was a luxury as my kids were still relatively young at the time and between cajoling them to do their school work, exams, extracurricular activities, making dinner, spending time with WH and a full time job, I could barely catch my breath. So yeah… me time.
And then BAM! When I thought I could have it all, as hectic as our lives were, DDAY. My WH, the same one that I was felling sorry for for working too hard, was having an affair. Those nights I was away in hotels enjoying some time for myself, my WH was also excited about me not being around as he could spend his time on WhatsApp with ow. 
So anyway here I am today. My career really did take off and I am now in a high profile role, head of a dept with a team under me, in a high profile organisation. I need to attend a conference soon and I caught myself last night looking forward to some "me" time. I imagined my kindle, a nice glass of wine with a nice meal in a hotel restaurant and no interruption, no worries, just me. Exciting!
I then realise that a year or two ago the thought of leaving my WH alone over night would have freaked me out. But now, today I just don’t really care. Yes the circumstances are similar, he could spend the evening on WhatsApp having an affair again and yet I don’t feel anxious at all. It is all to do with taking my power back. I’ve worked so hard to remind myself how much I’m worth, if he wants to cheat he’ll cheat but that doesn’t change my worth and my capacity to get him out of my life.
At the beginning of this year I have also travelled with my dd, now 16, without WH. In the past (post dday) when I had to leave home overnight, the thought that my dd was there soothed me. This time she came with me and he was home alone. I was so worried I’d stress and end up glued to Life360 whilst in another country. But we had a blast, I had no clue where WH was (in the nicest way, I just did not check his location), I didn’t feel the need to track him or check up on him in any way, we had so much fun dd and I, and I was not anxious about where he may be.
Most importantly, whilst pre affair I didn’t check up on him due to my naivety and 100% trust, this time I feel like I get to live my life with my eyes fully open knowing that the risk is there, knowing that he could cheat, but also knowing my power.
So if you’re reading this: there’s hope, you will be whole again. You will reach a point where your quality of life is more important than where your spouse is or what he/she may be up to. Take your power back, remind yourself of your worth and the rest will come.
13 comments posted: Friday, April 26th, 2024
When you get “there”…
I need to share this because today I feel like I have arrived to a destination I have set towards shortly after dday and because of dday.
6 years ago, right about this time, I had my dday. From a reconciliation perspective you can find my update in my other thread.
But from a personal, individual, non relationship perspective here it is: on dday I had an full time job in a low managerial role and it felt to me that my biggest achievement in life was my family.
When it all came crushing down, it floored me to levels where I had no clue if I would make it on the other side alive. I had two ddays 4 months apart and was diagnosed by my IC with severe ptsd. Each time WH would exit the room or go to work I would have a panic attack and my heart would explode out of my chest.
And then one day, in counselling, I understood: somehow I have allowed myself, during my marriage, to become fully reliant on my WH and put him on a pedestal. Whilst I had a full time job, he took all the important decisions, including the financial ones and his betrayal didn’t feel "only" like betrayal, but like discarding and abandonment.
I have set myself a plan then, the mighty plan B that we all talk about, my healing and safety plan, and the two key elements below:
I will not become my WH’s warden. He’s free to decide if he wants to be in my life or not, another affair meant he’s out of my life, I will not waste my life trying to prevent it.
I will not remain married for the sake of financial reason, kids, assets etc. My WH earned, at the time, 3 to almost 4 times more than me. In order to know that I am healed I wanted to get to the point when a man’s existence in my life (reconciliation or not) is just because I want him there, not because I needed him.
The second element required me focusing on my career. Oh have I mention that I got sacked a year past dday? I’ve started chasing job after job since then, lost jobs to Covid, got jobs that I have no clue how I’ve held down with all the anxiety and panic attacks, lack of concentration we all experience following dday and those moments when you feel like you barely want to get out of bed.
And today I have arrived to my destination: I have interviewed last week for a role that is my dream job. A Head of Department at a very high profile institution with a team reporting into me and a salary to match. I didn’t expect to get it. I’ve just had the call offering me the job.
I cannot explain how overwhelmed I feel and how happy I am. It took me such a long time post dday focusing on my Wh, his actions, his whereabouts that this point where I’m now felt impossible. It was not. Today is day when I’m proud of myself!
Thank you all for the support back then on this journey!
16 comments posted: Friday, October 27th, 2023
6 years
It’s been 6 years since the rug has been pulled from under my feet and my life turned upside down in a matter of minutes. The memory of the day itself still brings me goosebumps.
If you would have told me 6 years ago that I’d be where I am now, still married, I would have been confused. Because I was THAT woman, the one that would NEVER stay with a cheater. My view on cheating was pretty black a white: people only cheated when their marriage sucked (lol) and I was convinced that I was able to prevent it by being the perfect spouse who compromised a bunch (lol again).
One thing I did definitely know though: I knew that cheating was never a marriage or a betrayed spouse issue because divorce is legal and we live in a different society than the 1800s therefore I never took any responsibility of his cheating (and WH did not try to claim it was my fault).
So with that in mind dday floored me. I was convinced that my marriage was good (regular sex, ILYs, constant communication) and my WH actually believed that too. He didn’t serve me the ILYBNILWY script but, in true modern fashion, he loved us both. 
Initially, once I decided we should try and mend things, I thought R was a simple process. He would apologise, I would accept it and we would move on. We all know how wrong I was.
After a second dday 4 months later and my acceptance that WH didn’t appear able to understand what it takes, he finally decided to take his head out of his backside and "win me back". Just as I checked out pretty much and started focusing on myself. 6 years later and we’re still married, happily may I add.
We’ve done hours of IC and later on MC, hours of talking about the A, endless crying sessions, dealing with ptsd, panic attacks, emotional flooding and the list can go on and on.
Here we are today: I almost forgot it was dday anniversary and only noticed it when someone mentioned the date in a meeting and it felt familiar.
We are happy. The A isn’t the centrepiece of our marriage anymore. I’ve built a nice career that enables me, should I need to, to fully support myself if I decide to divorce at any point. We openly communicate and have a much more authentic relationship than we ever had. We both have hobbies, common and individual.
I trust him as much as I would trust any man following the trauma of an affair. He is still my best friend and we laugh through life even when we want to cry because we’ve been through so much in the last 6 years (including losing my brother, WH was my biggest support), there is very little that can bring us down day to day.
Overall I have grown immensely and I realised that the way I have trusted and relied on WH prior to this was never healthy in any relationship, affair or no affair. Pedestals should not exist in marriages and I definitely demolished the one he was on.
If I would be to give one piece of advice that helped me post dday is this: for me, reconciliation post A was all about "what’s in it for me". I felt like I was giving up a major moral principle, not ever remaining married to a cheater, therefore I needed to understand how it would benefit me. I wasn’t willing to just forgive and forget, I needed to know what I was forgiving and see a better man emerging and a better marriage.
So if you are at the beginning of a R process maybe ask yourself, taking the emotion out of it for a second, what’s in it for you?
If like me, you can only remain married post dday if it becomes better than before (it was the only way I could come to terms with it) then identify what that means. Where are the required changes, what would you expect your spouse to do in order to achieve that? What do YOU need to do to achieve that?
6 years later we are in a much more balanced marriage. This wasn’t a power struggle. But it definitely was an opportunity to balance the power (previously sitting with WH) and ensure our partnership is more equal.
I could write about it forever but I’ll stop here. I hope everyone finds their healing path and their peace.
18 comments posted: Saturday, September 30th, 2023
5 years Dday anniversary
So it’s been 5 years. I only remembered because I saw Strugglbus’s update below and I knew we were pretty much a year apart in terms of ddays.
We are in a good place. Very good place I’d say. The affair is still there and it will always be a mark on our marriage history. But it isn’t as poignant as it was in the past. It became an event in our life that we dealt with and still do if anything comes up but that’s that. We all learn to deal and cope with traumatic life events and the affair feels like such a(nother) event.
We’ve put in a lot of work, a lot, to be where we are. I can totally say I am proud of how my WH chose to use this as a change catalyst. He’s not perfect by all means but he’s now a new person who is able to work on any area of growth identified.
A few days ago he said something that will remain with me for a while "being given another chance to remain married to you is the best compliment anyone could have paid to me. I know I’m not on a pedestal anymore and I don’t need to be. But the fact that you gave me another chance meant that you believed in me, believed that I am not the jerk who cheated on you at my core and that I’m capable of change, that is very humbling".
I’ve changed a lot too. I’ve reorganised my life in such a way that if anything else comes up I will not become the wreck I was on dday.
And that’s the beauty of it, we, WH and I are not together because we need each other anymore. Financially we could both live independently comfortably. The kids are 15 and 21 so not a reason as such. We are together because we want to. Because we turned our lives around and it is pretty fun. We have individual hobbies and joint hobbies. We paint and draw together. We travel. We discover new places. We still discover who we are and who we can become.
Not everything is perfect of course. I do trigger sometimes if I feel like perhaps my WH did not work on certain traits that led to the affair, we usually discuss those areas.
I’m also still working on my abandonment issues. Last November I lost my brother and he was pretty much my last connection with my FOO (my mum is in a different country and has mental health issues). This means that from time to time I do get panicky feelings of being almost alone in the world and feeling that if my WH does something again I WILL be alone in the world. I do have mental chats with "little me" during those moments and I remind myself I am an adult capable to protect the little girl I once was. It seems to work as a coping mechanism.
So if you are just embarking on this road know this: true reconciliation is possible. Your life will change forever and if I may say so, this is an opportunity to turn it around and build the amazing life and relationship you always wanted.
On dday (or thereabouts, perhaps once I woke up from the shock of my life) I knew that the only way I could remain married was if my life and marriage will become what I always wanted it to be. No more compromise, no more conflict avoidance, no more power grabbing, an equal partnership where we discuss each arising issue with an aim to resolve it. And we do all that whilst also having fun, life is short.
You do need a willing participant to build that though, don’t compromise on that, define your boundaries and requirements and stick to it. Good luck to all of you and I hope you all find peace.
9 comments posted: Tuesday, September 27th, 2022
