SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Funny, I was thinking that I,d like to see a wellness forum for ongoing recovery before seeing this thread. It is lacking here.

My DD was in 2018. I can hardly believe it. This struck me hard. It changed everything and now I know that is ok. While I am at the long end of healing. It is probably because I have more to do than just recovery, I still have some self love to learn. AndI am not good at it.

That said I am not a mess, and often joke about being single. I am now ok with it and also acknowledge that I was alone for a long time before my marriage blew.

What helped me. People. Being real with people and getting the real stuff back. Finally realizing that I am not alone, no one looks twice if you say you are divorced. It is common place as is infidelity. And Getting rid of my judges, and having people say good, you are better off also helped.

And actually at the end. I decided no more trying. I did. It was not done to me. I was my choice. So I own my singleness.

I will be honest. I am not dating. I know I am not ready. And I am a bit scared to start. I haven’t shared a bed in 14 years.I have no idea what a good relationship looks like but take some comfort in knowing what a bad one does.

Will I meet some one some day?

Don’t know. But I have me, my kids and my dogs. I guess I am lucky enough.

And I am finally getting my ability to read back. I finally read a whole book. Trauma damage is reducing.

Hugs to you old timers. Nice to see you on this thread.

one of the nursing moms on the show talked about weening and how it messes with your hormones to the point of suicidal thoughts

I would take that with a grain of salt. It isn't a typical experience. I weaned with no issues at all, and so do most mothers. Cheating/heartbreak/abandonment, etc., that is what really messes with the emotions.

fablegirl: thanks for posting. Yes, I'm experiencing the zig-zag, start-stop, push-pull. Things better, then things worse. At the moment my son does not speak to his mother, nor do I, but my daughter has contact. Son, daughter and I do things as family - WW moved away, teenage children stayed with me. I often want to send former spouse a picture with a wish you were here with us greeting. Seven freaking years and I still want to share. But I catch myself. She wants nothing from me but a scapegoat. Son would see my sharing as huge betrayal. Always balancing this censorship with the thought that our children are doing great despite the affairs and the divorce with all that entails. Then I wonder if I did actually send her pics and "miss you" would she view it as "you're just rubbing it in may face that you programed the kids to like you and hate me." So, I occasionally pine for the old days of playing family board games, or all the things we did as a family. The grief shows up at the weirdest times: playing scrabble, hiking, visiting any of the old haunts, etc. All I can say is the bouts are shorter and less intense, but I doubt there will be a day when I wake up and say "wow, I haven't missed her or regretted xyz in over a decade." Living with grief is just one more think I learn to accept.

I had a fun one last week.

My current BF's parents live in my neighborhood. He was over at their house doing some home improvements in the afternoon, and I had to run to the pharmacy. While headed out of the neighborhood, I got stuck behind a car going REALLY slow, so I took a route different than my normal way. It happened to take me right past the road his parents live on. While cruising down the road towards my BF's parents house, I had this entire thought process and realization:

I thought to myself, "If I cruise by that house, and there's some cute girl car parked in front of the house and his truck, this time, I will not hesitate. I will not be afraid to confront given the first shadow of a doubt. I will not be fooled again like I was with the ex."

Now mind you, my BF is ever so steady and open and he has never for one moment given me any reason to mistrust him. And I never had thought patterns like this before I was traumatized by infidelity. I trusted my XWH implicitly before I found out what kind of person he really was.

But here I am, 18 years out of that horrible marriage, and my thought processes still have not returned to pre-D day conditions, and I doubt they ever will.

But it was eye-opening that I still have those fixin-for-a-fight worst-case-scenario thought patterns, even after all these years.

I've decided that it may be time to un-learn that constant defensive stance that was essential to surviving infidelity. While I will never be all-trusting or naive again, I will stop allowing the tape to play one more time and immediately prepare for battle. Next time, I'll think about the fact that it'd be nice, if his truck is there, to pull a quick left turn and plant one hell of a kiss on him to brighten his afternoon.

BTW, his truck wasn't there, nor was any cute girl car, so I prepared for a battle that didn't even occur. I'm going to work on only preparing for battles that actually have a reason to occur.

In Spanish they have a saying: "Mejor sola que mal acompañada"- better alone than in bad company. There is peace in solitude if one can allow it to wash over them.

I was fortunate that our Domestic Violence Center’s policy is that Emotional Abuse IS Domestic Violence. I and my children were seen by a counselor there for $1.00 a session. They are trained to help people quickly see reality and do things that help their emotional trauma so they can make daily decisions to stay safe. We were believed! and that helped us to quickly move forward.

I also went to a Mental Health hospital and went thru their 2 week outpatient program while my children were in school. M-F 8-4. That is like a year of therapy in a 2 week time period. 3/4 of the group was there bc of infidelity. They also move you very quickly into seeing reality and then helping to stay in reality, not make excuses for staying with a person gaslighting you/disrespecting you. The day included individual counseling / group counseling/ and learning specific tools to heal and care for yourself and children in the midst of this.

Also I read a book -Love Must Be Tough-as in Tough Love. It’s written by a Christian counselor who says you absolutely do not have to accept abuse, that doing the "pick me dance" is wrong on so many levels because you are an awesome person who deserves to be cared for and valued by your life partner! He says the finding out of infidelity should have a response of epic proportions and the WS should be hit with reality-lose family, home, etc. (it’s to try to wake them up to the magnitude of their betrayal, but also for us to accept zero disrespect.) He also states the WS has probably crossed the line of respect over and over in the marriage/family life. So although he hopes the marriage will be repaired in the long run (not necessarily a good thing) the main priority is for the BS to look at this as we are too great of a person to accept crumbs from our spouses. (Like many Christians, thinking they are supposed to love, forgive, etc). He says that stuff comes later, showing thru actions our value is #1 long term priority. -This really, really helped me stand up to my WS and to his behavior-especially when he tried to come back. I told him I wanted it all and until he went to IC for 6 months solid there wasn’t anything here for him and I couldn’t guarantee anything at that time. He said he would go to IC but never did, and I knew the kids and I couldn’t go thru this again.

Anyway, I ramble a lot, now.

Awesome you are writing on the infidelity fallout issue!!!!!!!