SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Had a productive, but relatively brutal therapy session on Monday. My wife expressed a fair amount of anger with the root of it being that she feels I took advantage of how supportive and kind she has always been. Specifically, I had a job with very long hours and gave up any outside interests once we had kids. Because of this, anytime I wanted to go out with friends my wife would always be supportive and never begrudged that.

Now that she knows some of the times I said I was going out with friends was really time with the AP, some of the late nights at work was actually time spent with the AP, etc she rightfully feels like I took advantage of her kindness and is pretty pissed.

I totally agree with her perspective and it got me thinking of all the shitty things I did to create time / space for the AP. If someone told me about their spouse doing even a fraction of the things I did during the affair I would rightfully think the person was just a huge asshole. I would like to think and my wife would agree I have not been that person for a long time, but when I think back on that time I have a hard time knowing that person is me, that I could be capable of treating my wife so disrespectfully, that I sacrificed any time with my kids to be with the AP, etc.

I am getting better at looking at that version of me without feeling like it defines who I am now, but wow the therapy session hit me like a ton of bricks. Seeing the raw pain and anger and knowing 1) it is 100% justified and logical, and 2) I caused it was really a sobering reminder of how lost I was during that time. I was abusing substances, drinking a lot, etc and I think that was a coping mechanism to try and numb myself so I did not feel the weight of what I was doing. The level of compartmentalization and my ability to create narratives to justify my behavior really astounds me in retrospect.

Wondering how others have coped with the realization that the infidelity goes well beyond the physical and emotional aspects and will invariable require the wayward to be a truly terrible and dishonest person. I feel like that part of me is dormant (hopefully extinct), but is still a part of me and it feels very yucky.

You can see from a different angle:

Betrayal is not competition between two potential "competitors " to pick the best partner as in normal mating / dating, relationship.

Is deception and exploitation of one mixed with self deception and deception/ exploitation of the affair partner (who often does the exact same things to you as well).

There is no care, no empathy or attachment in this.

You have only lies:

- lies you tell your partner

- lies you tell your affair partner

- lies you tell yourself

And you need all these ingredients for the affair to be enjoyable. That’s the spice that boosts your dopamine rush.

And also the low that make yourself wanting to vomit when you have to look yourself in the mirror and face what you know you do and the lies you told to the audience just don’t cut it I. The silent moment when you are alone with your reflection.

Because it is very unlikely that your value match your choices.

Unlikely you would not think how much would destroy you if the roles were reversed and you were wearing your partner’s shoes during the affair.

Unlikely you want to hear that sneaky voice scolding you about "wtf" you are doing.

It’s likely a most unpleasant emotion that is clashing with the craving for the next dopamine shot for the next meeting, because it will quiet that voice for a little while, at least until you are alone again with only yourself.

If you detach from your persona in that role and transfer those qualities to any other situation or human relationship/ interaction, or put anyone else in those shoes (the ones you wore back then when), so if that guy wasn’t you.. what would your judgment be?

I would bet it would match your above statement.

The harshest part is that for some reason, for some unresolved issue or trauma, you allowed yourself to be "that guy" at some point in time.

I feel that image is not at all what you want to be.

Because that person has betrayed themselves. So betraying anyone else is a piece of cake.

The good thing about it is that behavior do not define you. Is how you define yourself based on your inner self that generates values and behavior.

You are not a leave in a river, you have agency and choice, that’s what we call boundaries.

You are a different person already because you feel that guy and the thing that pops into your mind is "what an asshole".

Isn’t the kind of guy you’d rather punch in the fkin face if you meet him on the street? If yes then he is no longer who you are today.

That’s the version of you who can betray your values, yourself, your woman, your children, your friends, etc.

Something allowed that version to come to life and take the wheel.

That version disgusts you today, so it does not define you unless you refuse to dig what the hell allowed that "thing" to take control. If you kill your ghosts you kill that version of yourself for good as well.

And that guy probably deserves to die, you are the only one who can put it where it belongs, six feet under and spit on his grave.

Then walk through life with a clear example of what you never want to be.

I think that might be what healing could look like.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 12:17 PM, Wednesday, June 3rd]

It does feel yucky.

I think to a certain degree when one has an affair they hedge their bets. They tell themselves 1.they won’t find out 2. If they do they either won’t leave or I don’t care if they do.

#2 is more complex and problematic. It means either you either think that they can’t live without you, or you have no problems living without them. There is no justification for taking advantage of that. And in my case and many others it was only a lie I told myself so I could be selfish. There is no shortage of assholes when it comes to cheating, I was a major one

The only thing you can have any effect on is how you decide to show up after that. There is no taking it back. And after more healing, you will likely shift your perspective of this is who I am going to be from now on, I like this person and look back less on who you were at the time of your affair. And you will still have frequent thoughts of your regrets and remorse, but they don’t stick around and infiltrate everything anymore. Its hard to explain but for the most part its just a lot less emotionally loaded You will give power to what you have power to control. It’s a process.

So yes this is part of what we have to accept. And it sucks we have this in us or at least did during that time in our lives. Humans are complex and can be many things at once, and it does take time for both partners to be able to accept that.

But what I want to really say to you is that while you are describing a very brutal realization and another thing you are both working to accept/heal—-you sound much better than when you were first posting and also in those first few months after confessing. I can tell while you are completely remorseful your shoulders can carry more, which means to me you have done some work healing some of the toxic shame. There is still shame and there will be for a long time but you are showing up a bit different now and I thought maybe it would be encouraging to hear that. The better your shoulder can carry the better your wife can feel your reliability growing and that you are sharing her pain and not so caught up in your own.

I am sure it’s not at all perfect, nor will it ever likely be but I see some of the results of the work you are doing. I am not surprised, your commitment and dedication has been evident since the beginning.

[This message edited by hikingout at 2:13 PM, Wednesday, June 3rd]

FVL...my husband realised this as our reconciliation progressed and he finds himself disgusted with the way he behaved. Although he only met up with the AP 6 times, it was lies about working late whilst I was struggling with a newborn. He was there, but not there. He missed out on so much with the kids during that time and I missed out on much needed support (not just because of his affair, but because of his avoidance through work). He is ashamed of the man he was as I assume you are.
I also struggle with the yuckiness of it. I struggle to see how my kind, loving, supportive husband could behave like that AND have an affair AND keep it a secret. He is just not that man anymore and hasn't been for years. And I struggle with how much I let go, how low my expectations were. Had I have had a better childhood and better self esteem I might have stood up to his awful behaviour. But alas, he can't change the past and neither can I.
If you don't mind me asking, how did you manage to bury the feelings for so long? My husband said he just pushed it to the back of his mind but I find this so difficult to comprehend!

Thank you HO for the response and words of encouragement. Definitely feel like I am making progress / doing better. Still have occasional waves of shame, but am much better at identifying them and short circuiting the shame spiral.

Evio - my wife spent a fair amount of time in IC (and with chatgpt) trying to understand how I could compartmentalize so effectively both during and after the affair. We often talk about how a "normal" brain will have difficulty understanding these types of aspects of someone whose brain got wired a certain way early on and whose subsequent behavior / choices continuously reinforced those thought processes.

In my case, compartmentalizing was actually survival mechanism growing up. I could not change my environment so I learned how to separate painful emotions from my conscious awareness. I took that "skill" forward and used it to bury shame, keep conflicting realities apart, suppress guilt / anxiety, avoid self-reflection especially when it was emotionally threatening, etc. I became very effective at having a very functional life while carrying internal contradictions.

Fast forward to the affair which involved the biggest internal conflicts and my abilities became like a super power. During the affair my two worlds were so separate in my brain that I never really allowed them to bleed into each other. I honestly think I would have had a complete nervous breakdown had my wife discovered the affair in real time and those two worlds would have collided at that stage in my life and when the affair was so present. After the affair ended, I honestly had a period of 4-5 years when I have told my wife I am pretty sure I could have passed a polygraph if asked about ever being unfaithful. I never thought about the AP or the affair. I still remember the first time it hit me as it was at my wife's 40th birthday party. I had flown in a number of friends / family combined with our local friends for a weekend and at the surprise dinner on the first night I distinctly remember looking at my wife, realizing how much I truly love her, and thinking wtf have I done.

I was still able to bury any thoughts about the affair effectively for the next several years, but eventually the cracks started to get bigger and more frequent until the walls that keep them out most of the time finally crumbled and I knew I had to find a path forward that included being honest. I got to a pretty dark place when the weight of my actions really hit and it makes me realize why my brain was able to effectively compartmentalize for so long as I could not have processed this any sooner than I did.

I know this may not make sense when your brain does not operate like that, but I have come to have a strong belief in the powerful protective mechanisms our brain has to help us survive. I still struggle to recall details I should know as the trauma has fundamentally altered the way I remember that time in my life. I often wish I had better recollection when my wife asks me a question, but we are both getting comfortable with the concept that time and trauma have made remembering some of the most painful memories difficult. I was fortunate that I had financial records and could put together a detailed timeline as I am pretty sure I would have had difficulty with that had I not.

Hope you and your husband are doing okay. I feel like he is a kindred spirit so an very much pulling for you.

I don't know how he treated me during his short A. It was decades ago and I didn't have a clue. I do remember how he behaved for the next 10-15 yrs though. Disrespectfully, selfishly and immaturely. Yes, like an A hole.

We had our first child 1 1/2 yr after his A. He chose to work and party with the boys after work. Coke was popular back then and he would often stay out til morning. Home was the place he came when the bar closed or he needed to change before heading to work. I gave him way too much grace and forgiveness. After all, he worked hard and was faithful Ha! I picked up the majority of the child rearing. Was the designated driver for the family. Reheated his meals and pulled his boots off when he passed out on the bed or couch. I got to the point where I didn't expect much from him family wise. Looking back, I can see I let him off the hook way too easily and he took advantage of it. I kick myself for being so weak. He watches our son and SIL father their kids. He sees what he missed. It really hits home. It's sad but it's good for him. Better than anything I can say.

Now that the truth has been confessed and H is doing some outstanding work on himself and our relationship, I am able to see that much of his behaviors were driven by shame and fear. His need for validation and his feelings of rejection by his mom. He was excellent at avoidance and projection. One of my hardest hurdles is the resentment. Feeling like a fool and wishing I had that time back. His relationship with his kids has suffered.

He will often state that he knows he was not a good person and acknowledges his poor treatment of others. He doesn't like that person and swears that "that guy" is now dead. So far, he's doing a pretty good job of changing himself. I am a witness that it is possible.

I am still giving grace and forgiveness, but I will never play the fool again.

I have never posted on this side but felt compelled to here and no stop sign.

I took my kids out to a hockey game without my wife and my wife was so supportive of it. We had such a great time. After I discovered her affair and got a hold of all of the Telegram messages that were sent, I became oddly obsessed with dates/times. What was I doing at the time of these messages? The hockey game was a specific date to remember and during that time there were explicit pictures sent back and forth. It was almost the most hurtful, family outing to a game while Mom gets some RNR...and the RNR was actually just sexting and nudes. Similar to your wife giving you grace at work events when there was a separative motive

I say that not to dig the knife in deeper, but to give you perspective from what she sees. My wife, like you, was drinking a lot during that time and spiraling. I just didn't think it was what it ended up being. She's also in therapy and her therapist is hitting home with her and she has finally had her 'aha' moment and she now claims that dark period is dormant or hopefully extinct.

You screwed up, royally. You know that. She knows that. Admitting that fact and not blaming her or downplaying what you did is a huge positive. You should be proud of yourself for having perspective. The shame and guilt that you are experiencing is because you love your wife and what you did during the A isn't a reflection of the lack of love rather a temporary selfish feeling. Keep up the progress and bear with her during her recovery. She was an innocent bystander in your act so give her grace as she recovers. There will be great days ahead and there will brutal days where she can't stop thinking about it. Reassurances to her that that version of you is extinct is what she needs.

You seem like a genially good person. It was actually comforting to read because I've spent so much time reading the BS side of things, seeing this perspective is a little eye opening and there are some parallels I see from my wife. Keep up the progress, I really wish you well.

Wondering how others have coped with the realization that the infidelity goes well beyond the physical and emotional aspects and will invariable require the wayward to be a truly terrible and dishonest person. I feel like that part of me is dormant (hopefully extinct), but is still a part of me and it feels very yucky.

The discomfort you feel right now, the yuck, is the gap between who you were then and who you are choosing to be now. It is the sound of your empathy turning back on.

You'll have to learn to hold two truths at once. I am a person who is capable of calculated, devastating deception and cruelty AND I am a person who is currently capable of radical honesty, deep empathy, and healing. Both are you, but only one is your current timeline.

Ironically, I found the best way to cope with the shame was to lean into it. We are raised on a diet of movies and fairy tales where the world is divided into heroes and villains. And because of that, we walk around with this rigid concept of being a "good person" but a "good person" isn't a permanent identity, it’s a daily series of choices. We are deeply complex creatures capable of incredible kindness and horrifying cruelty. You reconcile these two things by letting your past inform your present.

Own the villain in your history, but put all your energy into the man you are choosing to be today. You can’t change the deficit you created back then, but you can pay the interest every single day by being the safest, most radically honest partner your wife has ever known. That is how you carry the weight without letting it paralyze you.

The discomfort you feel right now, the yuck, is the gap between who you were then and who you are choosing to be now. It is the sound of your empathy turning back on.

You'll have to learn to hold two truths at once. I am a person who is capable of calculated, devastating deception and cruelty AND I am a person who is currently capable of radical honesty, deep empathy, and healing. Both are you, but only one is your current timeline.

Ironically, I found the best way to cope with the shame was to lean into it. We are raised on a diet of movies and fairy tales where the world is divided into heroes and villains. And because of that, we walk around with this rigid concept of being a "good person" but a "good person" isn't a permanent identity, it’s a daily series of choices. We are deeply complex creatures capable of incredible kindness and horrifying cruelty. You reconcile these two things by letting your past inform your present.

Own the villain in your history, but put all your energy into the man you are choosing to be today. You can’t change the deficit you created back then, but you can pay the interest every single day by being the safest, most radically honest partner your wife has ever known. That is how you carry the weight without letting it paralyze you.

^^Good stuff^^

If someone told me about their spouse doing even a fraction of the things I did during the affair I would rightfully think the person was just a huge asshole.

I think the behavior is fairly standard when someone is operating a relationship outside of their M.

My wife's A went four years of her pushing me away and making me invisible, and then she kept it secret for 18-years to avoid responsibility for her actions in that time.

My wife can compete with any WS to ever walk the earth when it comes to being unkind and uncool.

She is all of the bad she did and, she is all the good she has become.

We're all the sum of the all wonderful and horrible things we do, and most of us not all good or all bad..

You've owned your bad days, keep making good new days.

In my case, my wife's actions since owning her choices far outweigh her worst days.

feelingverylow I am replying from the betrayed side so please take what is useful and leave the rest.

she feels I took advantage of how supportive and kind she has always been

this is such a painful layer because it means the kindness trust and flexibility offered in love were used to create space for the betrayal.

it got me thinking of all the shitty things I did to create time / space for the AP

From the BS side this matters because the affair is not only the physical or emotional betrayal -it is the ordinary life around it such as the excuses/missing time/ work stories moments where the betrayed spouse was being understanding while something else was happening in the background.
In my own situation some of the hardest parts have been later truths changing the meaning of old memories and decisions - not just what happened but how the hidden reality changes what you thought you were living through. So I think it matters that you are able to sit with this without needing your wife to soften it for you and the version of you who did those things may not be who you are choosing to be now but she still has to heal from what that version of you did.

This is definitely one of the big issues for my wife. Her memories of being a kind and supporting spouse have morphed into viewing herself as naive and foolish. I was a functional addict during the time and she often remarks that she was so blind to what was happening. The reality is I was working a lot so she did not see me much, was super busy with an elementary school age kid and a toddler, and trying to manage our household due to my absence. She also trusted the one person she should be able to trust implicitly. I was very good at hiding these parts of me and it has nothing to do with her being naive, but that is where she usually lands.

Her memories of being a kind and supporting spouse have morphed into viewing herself as naive and foolish.

This is her brain doing its job. Whenever we experience a trauma, our brains automatically try to figure out why it happened and how to avoid similar trauma in the future. Burn yourself on a hot stove, for instance, and your brain rewires itself to ensure that you don't do it again. Of course, that's a very simple example of the brain's neuralplasticity and related cognitive functions.

Her brain is rewiring itself, questioning the validity of trust on a deeply philosophical level. She's wondering if trust itself is naive and foolish, and likely concluding, at least to some degree, that it is indeed. Quod erat demonstrandum.

I think every betrayed spouse experiences a similar philosophical, almost existential, crisis. How could we not? If we're to avoid similar trauma in the future, we have to adjust our perspectives and temper our expectations.

IOW, it's entirely possible, if not probable, that she will never completely trust you again. That, my friend, is par for the course.

I very much get that she will never trust me fully again and that is most likely a good thing. I do not trust myself knowing what I have done. I worry I have fundamentally altered her trust in anyone. If you cannot trust your spouse who can you really trust. All I can do at this point is show up every day trying to earn a measure of trust back little by little.

I worry I have fundamentally altered her trust in anyone.

Don't bother worrying; you have fundamentally altered her trust in everyone. However, it's not quite as catastrophic as you might imagine. It may take her a while - as it did me, and many others - to find a reasonable and healthy balance between trust and skepticism. IMO, finding that balance can be a net gain. I trust my ability to appropriately judge character more than I did before because I've lost that naiveté and am now more in-tuned with my instincts.

It's not all gloom and doom when trauma becomes a teacher.

This talk made me remember when I was an asshole for a person who I love.

My brother and I are 8 years apart. I a. 5e older so in the self worth validation years of being teenager you are really in a shitty place emotionally, no longer a child, not yet an adult, wanting to be grown up and do all the cool stuff that older kids do, get freedom, discover sex feel independent…

You are no longer a child but you are still childishly clueless so you emulate the o,see kids (clueless themselves) and try what seems to work out to find a "role" for yourself where you feel confident (since your confidence as a teen is terribly shaky).

In short that’s the moment I. Life when almost universally we begin chasing external validation.

I would say those years are like the forge of our ego. We stop being genuine because both our insecurities and our peer insecurities teach us pretty quickly that some people will step on others to feel better about themselves (insecurity soothing) and others would be either stepped upon or would be dangling between the two extremes.

You can get out of this trial as either a bully, a victim or a sort of balanced person, depending upon your own insecurities and the level of safety your family of origin gives you in those years of fire.

If your insecurities and low self worth (hormones, fears changes in body and needs, they are a hit for our self worth) are soothed enough through love and support, then you survive this period becoming a fairly balanced young adult. If not you either get out a bully or a victim with low self worth, both craving external validation and suffering from low self worth (more or less masked).

Also situations in between but to set some goalposts this is familiar.

I was kind of in between, didn’t like bullying, was not bullied because I was bigger and stronger than most bullies, so I should have ended up in the cluster of relatively ok people, although due to childhood abandonment trauma my self worth took a hit anyway, so I ended up with frustration and unsatisfied validation needs in that period ( Was never very social and kept to myself due to this issue).

And of course teen years and a little brother, he is crazy for you, wanting attention company and Your validation.

I remember that at some point I withdrew it from him. Not for anything he did or because I was bored. I always had a great relationship with my little brother when we were younger.

Reading you and thinking about it feels very similar. I was nasty to him, formally ok but didn’t lose chance to humiliate or shame him for a period. Is not I didn’t love him, he was extremely close to me and I knew how safe his fraternal love was.

So I hurt him emotionally, humiliating, deceiving and just being a rude asshole unwarrantedly. He couldn’t articulate it but surely felt it.

And I think it traumatized him, as he changed from a very joyful, self sure person into a darker, low self worth kid, then teen and now adult.

And I think that was a betrayal of trust from my side, due not to lack of love, but because of my then low self worth and validation issues, having a loving person close who was a safe punching bag for my frustration didn’t make me feel better but it was soothing in the moment as every projected frustration was a validation hit in a twisted way.

And he wasn’t targeted because I didn’t love him, that never changed. He suffered this crap because he was my closest and he was there. He had nothing to do to deserve that crap, he was just the most available person in my life.

Today he is unfortunately a cheater, and a low self worth, people pleasing overachiever etc (you know the drill).

He was never showing any sign besides trust and secure attachment u til that time. I can see that then is when he changed, due to my issues and he paid the price.

I know is different from infidelity but it is still a kind of betrayal of sorts, due to a similar underlying issue (low self worth and need for validation at any costs).

It was a short period, few months probably, but it was enough to traumatize him (no diagnosis is my suspicion in retrospect).

He changed a lot, everyone who knows him noticed tha clear line before/after. Only I know what was going on in that in between period. I doubt he even remember it clearly.

Different situation from your story but there are parallels:
- low self worth and validation craving leading to frustration (unwarranted, caused by own self issues)
- hurting a person who you love for a quick validation hit (they are a collateral not a target, but they suffer our bullshit)
- all is done half subconsciously, is not that you want to hurt them or you don’t love them (you do) but no matter you know what you do will harm them you feel its worthwhile for your ego, and you dismiss the harm as "it’s not that bad - not a big deal "
- you don’t think a big deal about that, it stays in its own little compartment, though you know you are being an asshole. You avoid asking yourself "why?" And keep going, rugsweeping
- you realize much later how much pain or trauma you being an asshole caused to that person

That’s asshole behavior too.

Thank you, it might be 20 years later, but I feel I must talk with my brother.

I read your post to my husband and he relates so much to what you said and feels you express it better than he ever could.

He said he feels like a different man now not just in the way he shows up in our marriage but as a father, in how he shows up at work, in how he speaks to people. It's like he has finally become the man he always wanted to be.

Do you feel the same?

Evio - a lot of my time in IC is spent trying to get me to see myself as the person I am now vs the person who made those terrible choices many years ago. When I can do that I definitely feel like I am someone who can be a safe partner, loving husband and father, good friend, and overall good person. It feels weird writing that as I my brain from early childhood onward has been wired to think of myself in a negative light so reframing myself takes work.

I absolutely have changed so much about myself over the past several years to the point that I see people and the world very differently than I did for most of my life. I often think that if someone told me my life story as if it was a different person I can have a lot of empathy for what I endured and how it shaped me and I influenced the choices I made. Understanding that has helped me look at others very differently. I was raised in a household with very high expectations where anything less than perfection was viewed as failure. That plus layers of trauma really messed how I viewed myself. I never felt adequate as a husband and father triggering a lot of overwhelming shame on top of shame that I brought into our marriage as the result of some pretty gnarly childhood trauma / abuse.

One thing IC has really helped me understand is that the emotional pain I have been in combined with the complete inability to express that to anyone for fear of it being viewed as weak/failure was a major factor in the choices I made including the affair, substance abuse, etc. Trying to escape / numb that pain became an addiction of its own.

A long way of saying yes I feel like a much different person and have often said to my wife or in therapy how much I wish I could send how my brain thinks now back in time to my much younger self. I have so much regret that I did not work through these issues when I was a young man both for myself and much more so for my wife who is shouldering so much of the pain despite being totally innocent in all this. When I am doing better mentally I stop focusing on the negatives from my past and focus on looking forward and being committed to spending every day trying to be the husband and father my wife and kids have always deserved.

[This message edited by feelingverylow at 12:53 PM, Monday, June 8th]