SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Backtothestorm - thank you for directing me to that. It's all so true.
Sadly WH isn't remotely close to facing into it. Everytime I want answers or for him to start comprehending the impact of his actions he crumples into a breakdown. I've given up trying to figure out if it's real or not and have told him I can't take on that emotional load. I have my own issues I have to work through as a result of his and AP's actions. I think that's why I felt the need to lash out at her because dealing with him is like trying to have a fist fight with a bowl of cold porridge.
Just beyond angry today that they got the weekends away, the dopamine hit and the fantasy and I got the confusion, shielding the kids, and now our life having to change in so many ways. And I need to coordinate it all because he is struggling to get out of bed because of his shame.

Sister I get you.

Anger is a good signal because it is the next phase of healing and processing the infidelity.

Right now it is directed at the AP and it’s normal, but she is not the right target for the anger (in part is because it’s a disgusting human being who gets validation feeding into your pain, as you are the paragon to destroy to soothe her low self worth. So she is a pos, no questions) for she is powerless to hurt you.

She is That irrelevant as a person, a woman, an adult.

The reason he she can hurt you is because someone else gave her that power by betrayal of his wife: your husband.

Willingly, knowingly, intentionally, he elevated that skunk that could never reach you or any other woman of value really, into your weak spot. He had the keys to your inner world, what you had as most secret because you chose him to belong in it, and he let the other woman in to vandalize it all so she would feel at least superior to you after she desecrated your world and left just ashes. And he did that with no hesitation, to get a pinch of validation from a low value female.

So you see who is the true villain here.

The AP is scum, but is a mere accomplice to the story.

This doesn’t mean that feeling anger towards the AP is wrong, it’s pretty natural, but the AP is just a weak pile of trash, a complete stranger that doesn’t know you, has no reason to hold a grudge against you or anything else that justifies the devastation that they enjoy inflicting upon you.

Imagine a person who randomly beat the crap out of someone on the street just because they felt like a shit about themselves and leaving someone else bleeding on the ground helps them to feel just a little bit better and less worthless.

Yes they deserve contempt and a memorable ass kicking, because this kind of people are trash, but they would be harmless without our partner holding us hostage to be beaten up, because in the end they are both cowards.

You are directing your anger towards her now because unconsciously you are still protecting your husband, the AP is an external threat, far easier and calming than the painful truth, that the evil was coming not from the outside, but from inside.

One day it will click, naturally, and you will address it correctly towards the only one who deserves the shitstorm and shall bear its full wrath.

Let the feeling flow, she is trash, you have right to hate her, is all good.

Not gonna lie here, Ieven after being over the full infidelity trauma, I would be really glad to have the AP alone with me for just 5 minutes, with no other soul around. that would last a lifetime for him and guarantee he’d never ever think to do such thing again to anyone.

And I am not likely the only one who would enjoy some good old fashioned tribal retaliation.

Still those people are worth nothing of your time and energy.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 1:10 PM, Wednesday, April 29th]

Backfromthestorm - I 100% hear you on everything. The five minutes alone too 😂 End of the day I know there is nothing I can do to her that isn't as bad as her actual life. Apparently she has problems with drugs and her ex is going after her money and property in a messy divorce.

I know who the real villain is. He is currently hiding behind the ill mental health " it wasn't me in my current state that did all those awful things ". Yes it was. Yesterday I plainly stated for my own healing he needs to provide a full timeline instead of the trickle of facts. I don't care that it's too painful for him to contemplate. Not my concern. He invited AP into my life without my consent and left me completely exposed and unprotected to both their actions when I didn't even know she existed. His mental health and healing is his problem. I need clarity and facts to move on so I don't constantly doubt my reality. It was so calculated - even lying to a good mutual friend about him needing some guy time with old mates and this poor mutual friend coming to me to argue my husbands case and tell me to let my husband just have this time. Their friendship is obviously over now. For someone who was having a mental breakdown he was very highly functioning.

hcg,

I am a little late to the thread, but have some things to add.

PART ONE:

First, you asked if anyone had to deal with an AP who was vindictive?

My husband has had seven affairs. One was a ONS, didn’t deal with her at all, AP#1.

Another ONS, never knew until 45 years later. I had met her once, but contacting her now is moot. Her sister is AP#7, she is AP#3

One AP I suspected in 1977, but he never admitted until a year after the 2023 DDay, in 2024.. She always acted smug and condescending towards me. She was related to my husband’s good friend, so I saw her infrequently. I didn’t speak to her after I suspected the PA. This is AP#2.

I confronted one AP. She didn’t admit much, but also did lie about the nature of their relationship. I lost my shit and threatened her. She went away and I never saw her again. AP#4

One AP was a close friend of mine. AP #5. I didn’t find out until 2024 about her. She pretended to be my friend from the first sexual encounter in 2005, in between the next one in 2010, and after that until DDay 2024. I called her. She said, "I don’t remember anything like that" and denied any physical affair with my husband, who had confessed everything. She just lied and lied.

AP#6 was an acquaintance. She and my husband had a months-long PA. When I confronted her, she didn’t lie not lie. The weird thing is that she was the one I would have expected to lie to me, because she really is a low life politician. Turns out she left the politician hat off and decided to tell the truth to me.

One AP was a friend for over 40 years. This was the most recent one. This is AP#7. What a piece of work. She lied about prior physical contact (back in 1979). She lied about what she said in her emails and texts to him. She lied about talking to him on the phone. She lied about inviting him to her house, and making sleeping arrangements with him in her bed. She lied about her husband and their relationship, saying she never had sex with her own husband. She lied that she is actually a lesbian, and not interested in men at all (I have known her for decades, and she has never ever had a relationship with any woman, only men).

So of the four I directly confronted, only one told the truth. Not a great average.

PART TWO:

In 2005, I caught my husband in the months-long affair.

He confessed some of it to me, but I had to call the AP for information. Fortunately she was not a liar about this. After that information came out, he was willing to talk to me. I had to be very careful about what I said, so to be sure he wasn’t making up things to match her story. It took him weeks to get it all out there - or, rather, as much of the story as he thought he needed to tell.

Despite many opportunities and offers of clemency, he chose not to tell me about three physical affairs he continued to hide. I even asked specifically about two of the APs, and he denied, telling me I was paranoid.

In 2023, my iPad synced to his phone after a random overnight update. I began getting his texts - and the very first one was his EA partner and him wishing one another good morning, and immediately talking sex.

I demanded the truth. He denied everything. I had to be a detective and get information on my own. Contacting that EA partner, my old "friend" of over 40 years, was a huge waste of time, energy, and emotions. Between the two of them the lies were ridiculous. I had proof written in their own hands, and they tried to make it out like I was crazy.

It was not until a year after DDay of June 2023 - not until June 2024 - that I decided I would no longer tolerate the lies. I was leaving. He broke down, and finally confessed everything, including all the affairs. Except for something that drove me crazy - he continued to deny the plan to travel to see her, despite the written emails and texts.

He was stubborn, claiming that he just couldn’t talk about this because he was so ashamed. He would cry. He would gaslight. He would stop speaking to me for days and days.

And I kept fighting through it anyway. Until June 2025 (I must have something about June). I told him that I had enough, I would no longer fight for the marriage, I would no longer try. I was done. He freaked out, and tried to say I "had to fight" - and I told him I would show the exact effort he showed, no more. And since he chose zero effort, I choose the same.

I left.

Three weeks, almost a month. I told him I would leave unless and until he figured out on his own how to stop avoiding this, how to have a rational honest conversation with me about this.

He was silent for the first week. Then he called me. He was getting therapy for the gaslighting and stonewalling. And he talked to me for a couple hours that night.

It was a slow shift. His therapist invited me to a session, and it was fruitful.

I am headed into June again.

I’m almost to 3 years. I’m insecure, still have waves of doubt, and feel shaky that there is still another DDay to come. It’s haunting me.

He has been very reassuring, and has made many changes. I feel like I’m waiting for the other shoe to drop. It’s probably in my head, but my trauma won’t let the vigilance go.

5Decades ,
I wasn’t even born when your partner started cheating but holy crap.

Just sending you a big hug.

Hcg,

You are the only person who matters right now.
As a woman, as a partner as a deeply wounded person.

I don’t feel heartbroken in feeling zero empathy for your husband mental illness, I bet my left one the moment he starts healing his cheater character flaw, his overall mental health will improve sensibly.

Is just way to convenient and functional at the same time to be nothing more than an excuse.
For sure he does believe in it himself, just means he is way more gullible to his own lies than you will ever be.

You smell smoke because there is something burning 🔥 his facade is on fire right now and he won’t extinguish with his fallback excuse.

Too late mr, now the fallout will give you a well needed cold reality shower

5Decades - I'm so sorry you've had to go through this. Nobody deserves this. I just don't think WH quite get that's it's somebody else's life and mental health they're messing up for their own pleasure. And that the reveal and the only sharing the information THEY can tolerate because of the shame just compounds it all. I'm the same - hyper vigilant. And reexamining everything in our marriage. What did I miss or what should I have done when my gut instinct was screaming at me in the past ( I'm convinced this is just the first time he got caught ) and if I had acted on my instincts then would I be less damaged now. Am I partially responsible for my hurt because I didn't self advocate? When the reality is the BS should never have been put in the position of needing to protect themselves from their partner in the first place. No one accepts a ring and exchanges their vows and thinks they need to put a bulletproof vest on too.
Sending you love.

Back from the storm - you're completely right. His facade is on fire. And he believes his lies about mental health because the only other option is to face what he is and the patterns he has always displayed. He's saying therapy and medication isn't working and he is not getting better mentally and is broken. Well maybe it's not working because he isn't depressed or this that. Maybe this is called consequence and having to deal with them. My 12 year old summed it up perfectly " if you can't face the consequences of your action, don't do the action "

Your 12 years old is on the good track.

Mind that consequences will fallout on children, not just family, friends etc.

Infidelity devastates other human relationships besides the partners, it damages all connections of the people involved, more or less directly.

Children of cheaters usually get one of two ways, either they become cheaters themselves or they get to despise cheaters wholeheartedly. Consequences of betrayal are contributing factors to how they will become.

That sentence means we can hope is on the good track.

Failing therapy about depression is not surprising, treating the symptoms hardly touches the causes.
I have been through ptsd that ended in depression due to betrayal. Nothing worked. I resolved the issue by accepting it. Faded away in an instant.

I told you what I bet. If he faces his own ghosts my money is his depression will also fade.

He can’t heal because he doesn’t want to heal the flaws that are his comfort zone. The cheater’s mindset and pattern.

Is the survival strategy of his ego and his inside child is terrified to abandon it.
Even if it doesn’t work, it’s all he knew until now

Backtothestorm - probably changing the subject of the thread slightly and hope it's allowed but I'm putting here what was helpful to me. I've got ptsd and anxiety. My therapist helped tease out that part of the anxiety comes from the disconnect between what story he is trying to sell me and what I lived. Once I had the confidence to accept I know what happened because I lived it and I can discount his version, a lot of my anxiety around that bit resolved.
Now just working through the anxiety that I didn't protect the kids well enough. I almost let them go to an environment that was unsafe but I was led to believe was otherwise. So just working through that I was doing the best with the knowledge I had and didn't know I was being completely lied to.

It’s your thread and this is a community to heal from infidelity trauma and if possible to get both partners healed and maybe reunite if they so choose.

There is just about nothing that you can write that is wrong or not allowed, we all know here the kind of emotional chaos you are dealing with, obviously emotions will wander around sometimes looking inconsequential, but you will find there’s a "logic" much later, they are healing steps, not rationalizing. All is good 😊

So ptsd and anxiety, I am familiar, half my life I dealt with it daily after betrayal, you could say we are good friends.

I agree in part with your therapist but I like to add this from direct experience:

My ptsd and anxiety (panic attacks on the hard side, constant hyper vigilance, depression deep and dark the last 3 years, suicidal thoughts and all the fun stuff ) came from the attachment wound

I am not chosen. I am not enough. I am replaceable.

Basically your nerve system makes you responsible for the shitty behavior of your partner because you loved and likely still love them, you have attachment and since that is deep and precious then it must be you that is the problem.

Protect the object of your love because it is just too meaningful of an emotion, at your own costs.

This coping ends up in becoming a life sentence for a crime you didn’t commit.

Truth is you are worthy, lovable and irreplaceable like every woman on this world (guys too I am just talking about your perspective), because you are you. Not "a woman" not "a wife" not "a relationship ". You are an individual with a unique life, history and inner world and you want to share it with someone who is also loving your inner world and wants to become part of it and allowing you into their own.

That’s what love means. Becoming one while being still your fullest and independent self.

And you protect the world of the person you love as it’s your own.

Your man never let you fully in, he persuaded you that he did, but he offered you a sanitized version of his world where all the dark corners he is too scared to even see, not speaking of sharing with you, where well hidden behind heavy curtains. He showed you a stage, not his true innermost universe. But he entered into yours, allowed him to get all he could and then invited someone else, who should never have been granted access, inside your world to plunder it of everything and set the feast on fire.

This is something not many people would ever recover from without support. Ptsd? Bare minimum, if you get set on fire it’s going to leave a mark, you need a lot of care to recover from that injury.

The starting point is to accept that it’s not on you. You are not responsible. You were never given the choice. There’s nothing you could have done to prevent it, because you were tue and honest, not deceitful and traitorous like your husband.

He invited in your home thieves and criminals while you weren’t looking, and then said it was your fault.

The moment you can see this, your ptsd and anxiety will die. They are there caused by your emotions who are screaming at you how unfair and wrong this is and you must acknowledge it. But their voices are drowned by the chaos of other emotion’s trying to make sense of the trauma and find again balance in what was the most destabilizing experience you are likely to ever encounter in your life.

That’s why I call it emotional chaos. You have everything trying to get you back into your center, but running all at once in different directions in both your heart and mind.

It’s a mess and it’s natural. You can integrate them one by one and you will regulate once you get yourself into a place of acceptance.

I know how hard it is because even after I discovered how "easy" is to step into the other side, I still remember how insurmountable felt back then.

I can promise you it is possible, when you "see" your partner for who he is, not who you wish he was, when you fully and completely "accept it " peace is coming immediately.

Is not a place of happiness, but is a place of calm, clarity and it is only filled by one person: you.

And that’s plenty and pleasant.

Try helping yourself starting with what it is easy: your body.

Chemistry is easier to regulate because your body, skin, breathing is your interface with the world, it’s made to sense and respond to here and now, not before, not after, now.

Some light excercise yoga if you like, breathing with your belly, a walk where you let your skin feel the environment, breath in life, see, and feel both the outside and your body’s sensations.

It will center you in this moment, and that’s enough to counter the anxiety chemistry with a ton of happy chemicals.

Rest when you can, by that I mean sleep. The moment you get this chemistry up it will be easier to get sleep without intrusive thoughts. That will also be a huge help.

And it’s a circle that is self reinforcing. Body is the easiest to take care of because you have practical actions you can take. And is a first step into reclaiming your agency back.

Get started and the emotional part will get also easier to manage.

It’s fresh but I think you can get benefits right away, it might help you out.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 11:38 AM, Thursday, April 30th]

Backtothestorm - thanks for the reassurance.
Everything you say resonates.
Oddly when he first started disappearing my instinct was to start running. Literally 😂. I've never been athletic and I was looking after my two children so couldn't get out on my own so jumped on the treadmill. Six months from that date and I did my first half marathon and I completely credit that with not crumbling under the strain of it all. Just to get the mountain of adrenaline and anxiety out.

As for WH. He's always had looser boundaries than me. I feel like I've always had to remind him of our marriage. I put it down to difference in culture. I was raised in a conservative country where marriage is still taken a lot more seriously than what I've seen in the uk. But this rupture has been like the light going on in a dark room. It's lit up all the past behaviours, linked all the times I've had that gut punch feeling and been persuaded it's in my head. And I realise I came into the marriage with deeper loyalty, love and respect than he brought. Everything has always been what he wants and what he needs. So this is not on me. This is not my fault. I truly believe he went into that reunion with intent. If it hadn't been the psycho mistress it would have been someone else. All because for a few weeks my attention was on work and my ill parent. All because for a few weeks I didn't drop everything when his ego needed attention. So I am starting to see him for what he is now and I will never unsee it. I am getting more and more clarity on who he is. And I'm not attracted to it. I'm more sad for the years and loyalty I invested in a marriage and a partner who just didn't see my loyalty and love and threw it away for some sex and cocaine and validation.

I think my body is just still catching up to my brain as it still registers him as a threat. But things are becoming easier to separate.

He is not a threat (unless you see risk of physical violence, in that case run, but don’t seem like the case here), he is irrelevant.

A partner is important, the most important and closest one to you, because they were chosen by you.

That’s why they are relevant and not a stranger or an acquaintance.

And you chose them because you felt chosen too.

You found out it was always truly just one way.
That is no shame nor waste of time. It was the good thing about you, he was simply never worthy and he couldn’t keep his act on forever.

Can’t be fake in the light of honesty and closeness, it only works for so long.

So he is not relevant because instead of proving himself to be as worthy as you deemed him, he fell pray to his ghosts, insecurities and flaws, falling out of grace.

Sure it hurts you, and you might even be a little sad when you realize you are a woman of value and he is or has become, a low value man.
Because you loved the good things he had.

He betrayed those as well, not only you but himself.

A wayward who realizes truly what they allowed to happen, is a person who fights tooth and nail to earn your respect back, not indulge in the same patterns and shame.

Is only up to you if you feel he can become relevant again or stay with the "just a guy" crowd. He placed himself there, it wasn’t you.

You are the person who matters and deserves self care and care.
He needs to go back to square one and fight for you if he really realizes he cares.

You are the prize, he is but a competitor.

That is all.

Sadly he still feels like a threat. He lied to my face while building a life with another family, prioritising another woman's children over ours, all while hollowing out our marriage emotionally and financially. And all while I didn't know it was happening. And the gaslighting could well be continuing. Two therapists have warned me about this. The tune could just be different. So I am constantly scanning because damn sure while he is still in my orbit and around the kids I cannot let my guard down.

As for ever taking him back even he if changes and works hard on his demons I can't see how. I'm angry at myself for accepting so little from him for so long because I thought that was his baseline, that he just wasn't romantic or sentimental. No holidays for us for the ten years before the kids, an impromptu proposal when his mother was terminal and he thought it would please her, no major romance. I'm not sure why I stayed. He knew how to pull my emotional strings I guess. But in those three months she got flowery texts ( " when you remarry at 48 it's for love " ), two weekends away in fancy spa hotels, she'd click her fingers and he'd be there. When I drove myself to the hospital when I was in early labour 😂 So I know now he is capable. And everything he does now to show his love- the gifts and the holidays booked abroad ( I've refused ) just feels like behaviours he has learnt with her. Everything is tainted. It doesn't matter now that he says I'm the most beautiful woman he has ever known inside and out. It's too late.