SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Just in case anyone needs to read this sort of thing…

Life is still peaceful in the little inexpensive downtown rented apartment.

Easter was peaceful. We attended worship service and made pasta for lunch. We found an amazing. gluten free white sauce when we were at Big lots of all places looking for something completely unrelated. I do know how to make white sauce. But this one is actually better than mine .

The dress was perfect for the windy day and the heavy ruffle at the bottom kept it where it belonged and not over my head…My bf complimented me on how it looked which is something looking back I realize EX WH did not ever do.

The lightweight dresser we picked up has been a great place to stash shoes. We picked up a cute Amish-made coffee table off of marketplace, so there is place to put the chess board. We will have to start playing again….

We are still eating off of a plastic folding table with a tablecloth on it. That will be the next thing to find and then a dine-on kitchen island with some storage. One thing at a time.

It is not the quality or quantity of furniture we had when married. But I do not give a rat’s left hind toenail about what I had to do to get out of the abuse/infidelity. It was worth it. Every sacrifice has gotten me here….

I am not saying that Divorce is always the solution. Plenty of waywards and betrayed’s on here do the hard work needed to reconcile. But it was the only way I could be free of infidelity. So D was the right solution for me….and here I am in this rehabbed former industrial downtown apartment with electrical outlets in the most awkward imaginable places lol. But this apartment has an approx $50 a month total utility bill. I am slowly paying down the astronomical divorce debt, and I wake up every day free of infidelity!!!

My now bf has interesting things to talk about and plans lovely things to do. This weekend we are planning to go somewhere and watch his team (where he is going to grad school) play basketball on TV and have a quick meal in between him studying.

We are going to Europe when he goes there for work in the Fall he will take me along. This will be my second European trip with him. So we have things to look forward to.

The weather has been a bit weird this week. It has shifted between 70 plus and below 35 degrees this week. It might have gotten cloudy weather-wise ", but there was still no chance of a drama llama showing up.

Tonight it will probably be pasta again and maybe some small bites of white cake to go with spring fruits.

Wishing everyone happy spring and much peace and happiness.

Really liked reading the updates on this thread. Happy Spring!

Sounds like you had a lovely Easter. Isn't the peace the greatest?

A trip to Europe? I hope you keep us updated. Places, experiences...I want to hear about it all.

Thanks Lea and Perdita and all who comment

It’s been really rainy where I am—cloudy but still no chance of drama llama.

We got a really nice bread maker at a Cub Scout yard sale and my bf is trying some gluten free bread recipes! He is a great baker. I haven’t had a chance to try it yet, but we are grateful to have this appliance to experiment with baking gf.
It was the end of the yard sale so they tried to give it to us. We donated of course. So win-win. It looked like whoever donated it to the sale never used it.

I just keep experiencing so many blessings every day. Every day away from infidelity is a good day.

I am having to deal with some responsibilities. Nothing bad but just things like getting a window fixed. Remember the birds hitting my window awhile back? Well a window inside where I was staying during the final aspects of the divorce just broke completely across one day. I need to get it fixed (not at the new apartment but where I stayed during the Divorce). Sometimes I wonder if it was from the bad mojo energy exwh dished out. But that’s a story for a sweat lodge or campfire some day..

I have decided to not take anything from my previous life except a few sentimental gifts from friends and family (nothing connected with exwh).

I am not sure where I will eventually end up as my home base but there are plans to explore options this summer. Regardless of what I lost and any challenges ahead, it is absolutely priceless to wake up free of infidelity.

People notice what healthier and happier looks like and it is out there the other side of infidelity!

I am sitting in a gorgeous modern US city in a clean trendy micro hotel that has cute little robots vacuuming the halls while eating Trader Joe’s mini gluten free cupcakes and drinking a cup of "free" hotel coffee trying to wake up. We picked up some tasty TJ’s snacks before checking in!

I brought a suitcase full of lovely clothes that fit my personality and meet my needs. One
of my favorites is a colorful soft pair of PJ pants that coordinate with most of my casual tops. My bf bought them for me so I can wear them if I want to go get some filtered ice or water from the dispensers near the elevators on every floor. He knows both that I am not a morning person and that would be taking a stroll whenever I got thirsty since the hotel has a filtered water and crushed ice dispenser.

We are making the best of the fact he is having minor surgery so we will be staying here for a few days.

***warning potentially triggering DV content***

About the clothes and why I have mentioned it before in my new beginning. I realized two things: 1) I tended to put everyone else first in my life with exwh to the point where I often did not have the basics I needed. Even when I did not know about his habitual lying and serial cheating, it drained energy from the relationship and me.

2) When he abandoned me for his secret second life when I was life threateningly sick he left me with hardly anything to wear (while lying and hiding life-changing assets and income).

A friend I made who was a dv survivor went to yard sales for me and another friend took me to yard sales so I could get the basics to wear.

That’s why having a small suitcase of attractive clothes that fit me is so monumental for me even more than half a decade later.

Some times life is far from fairytale fair. Some times the road away from infidelity is hard and treacherous. Some times the villain seems to have won. But the real hero’s journey for me is that I wake up every day free of infidelity.

I keep writing in case there is someone who needs to read this. I wish everyone on this site peace and continued healing. This site saved my life.

Lovely update, Shehawk. I hope the surgery goes well and recovery goes well.

The hotel sounds lovely. I was on vacation last month, and my hotel had its own cat. LOL.

The descriptions of life after D and you going thither and yon are awesome.

Thanks Leahfields. Recovery seems
to be going well.

We had a lovely time despite the reason for being there. Rochester MN is so modern and clean. The food was fabulous both there and back to where they will be recovering. We had baked bbq chicken wings with veggies and dip one night (light meal), gf pizza, and steamed cod with a midwestern super club sort of "salad bar". We plan to make a version of the wings when we have friends over.

I managed to somehow not pack my favorite sleep pants so this required a trip back to the store where we got them last time we were there and the purchase of matching sleep shorts.
You would think I planned it this way haha

We took backroads to where they are going to spend the rest of the week recovering. We saw some beautiful horses pulling the lightweight type buggies and colorful clothes on the line running from farmhouse windows to the ground to dry clothes without having to go outside to put the on the line! We shopped at an Amish roadside stand and got maple syrup that we will have with our French toast later this week.

Where we are staying this week has gorgeous flowers! So I am enjoying that!

Today we made a couple of steamed veggies: asparagus and baby broccoli. We will have one with either rice or rice noodles and a Thai seasoning for a meal today and the other with baby Bella mushrooms and rice or rice noodles for lunch tomorrow. I did a food box order to make things simpler.

It is really is nice being around people who lift me up instead of figuratively knifing me in the back.

I have decisions to make about where I want to live long term and what I see my life being like. But I have a good for now place to stay while I figure out who I am and where I would most like to live.

I would love to hear other new beginning stories of starting over. Where did you end up? What did you do to thrive?

No matter what is in my review mirror, I am free of infidelity and it truly is peaceful.

Thanks for the update!

Glad you dropped in to comment Justsomeguy!

We had company over at the apartment and one of the guests said the apartment was much nicer than I described and another said that they felt well taken care of. People have told me I have a gift for creating a beautiful home.

I am sitting looking out of the big front windows at the beautiful sunshine and putting in our insta pickup order for the week. We are focusing on eating healthy so it’s a lot of fruit and veggies, although I did include some cauliflower premade pizzas in addition to meal staples like the spinach salad and the ingredients for veggie quesadillas and stir fry’s. The guests were young adult family members, we had been out of town for the surgery, and packaging sizes are shrinking so by today things in the fridge and pantry are getting sparse :)

This weekend we will have time to make omelets, bacon, pancakes with real maple syrup, and to sleep in, and be grateful for the fact that my bf is recovering from his surgery so well!

I am focusing on something someone suggested to me: eating amazing food as a sensory experience to focus on pleasure and joy.

My bf bought me a lovely handmade opal set in silver necklace and earrings set. I am enjoying pairing it and other stone jewelry he has purchased for me with my new clothes.

It feels amazing to have stability and what I need. It was always elusive with exwh.

My bf and I easily worked out a budget that is sane and is live able despite the fact that I pay about half of my income towards divorce debt with a 7 year repayment plan. Somehow we are managing to thrive despite the serious divorce legal/financial abuse exwh managed to pull off.

I am going to continue to post from time to time in case anyone needs to read a comeback story. And I hope that others will considering staying in the forum and posting their comeback stories. I could definitely benefit from reading some
epic comeback stories!!

Please keep posting!

I enjoy reading your updates. Please keep posting.

Aww thanks leafields

This week we are posting and downsizing some more stuff that we don’t love or that is associated with the past. I am giving a lot of things away. People gave us a lot when we were rebuilding. So we are planning to return the energy. We are also selling some things we don’t need to be able to financially help someone we know whose spouse abandoned them and their children for greener pastures…she is not able to do things with her lawn for medical reasons so we want to help. Good SI mojo and prayers for our downsizing project is welcome! We want to feel a little lighter and be able to help out too. Maybe brighten some people’s day who need it.

And yesterday we went to look at some new furniture! At first we just needed something. Now we are talking about what we want to replace the temporary stuff. We didn’t buy anything yet, but we plan to look a bit more this week. It felt nice to think about what we really want and need. Exwh stole truckloads of marital furniture and scads of other valuable personal property and hid it from the proceedings (bonus he told the court I stole it from him). But that’s the past and we are looking to the future.

We went to a home goods store and picked up some stuff for when we have "company" like extra hand towels and we restocked the tea area in the kitchen. It all sounds mundane, but to be able to do that without wondering how we would do that AND pay for necessities is a great feeling.

It is amazing how things are becoming more orderly and how neither of us create chaos.
In fact it’s the opposite effect. I am convinced that the chaos came from non consensually living a life with infidelity that happened less than 5 years into an almost 4 decade long legal marriage but was concealed from me. It’s like a bad vortex that I just couldn’t rise above when I was with ex husband. I think it’s the energy of a good conscience versus that of deceit.

Wishing all peace and healing!

Life is still good. This weekend we enjoyed our local artisan trail. Saturday we started the day with a Colombian espresso long shot with a little collagen and non dairy milk, mine cold his steamed, then we headed to the coffee shop about an hour away and got a lovely lemon poppy seed gf muffin and some iced brewed coffee in our trusty travel cups. We got some light brew espresso (bright and sort of citrus floral) beans for a change so stocked up our coffee bar!

Then we spent a little time browsing a couple of yard sales and the local thrift store while we waited for friends to join us. We picked up a couple of things we had been needing (cheap stubby screw driver for those pesky places when assembling furniture) as well as some long-sleeve shirts and a lovely soft long soft t-shirt material skirt for a little extra sun protection. We got a mini pump for our camping mattress and a pair of handmade earrings. All that and a couple of local lemonades for the road set us back less than $25–and was a lot of fun for the $ spent.

This week we didn’t forget our sunscreen!!

The sun has been really strong after the solar activity and a lot of people who don’t usually get burnt are sunscreening and covering up.

We had a great bbq lunch with a friend and visited several galleries and the new book store and called it a day with a little chilled white wine we bought simply because of the cheerful name:sea glass.

Sunday we got up early and did omelets with some uncured natural bacon and nibbled off of a dried apricots and chocolate plate on the side and sipped long shots of espresso. Worship service was lovely and then we headed to the American Legion for more bbq because why not :)

We got a chance to talk with and listen to several people we knew today and to meet some new people. One of my favorite parts was listening to an awesome comeback story. It may have taken awhile coming, but the person had worked hard, put a lot of good out in the world after a stunning betrayal and the good is coming back to them thousands fold.

After browsing a couple of studios, my bf suggested stopping for ice cream! We got some amazing local ice cream and they even had crunchy gf ice cream cones.

When we got back to the apartment we got a chance to unpack and unwind. We had found a lovely bowl in the "seconds" area of one of the pottery studios to use for our "everyday" fruitbowl on our new to us painted wood dining table we had gotten off of marketplace this week. The bowl is a natural color clay outside and ebony colored patterned inside. Finally not eating on a folding plastic table is really nice!!!

The colors in the table are teal drawers and a mushroom sort of brown painted top and legs and black hardware. It’s all coordinating nicely with the muted washable ruggable rugs and the Norwegian zero gravity type leather recliner and the cream with black ikea sectional all also off of marketplace. It’s a blessing to have furniture again and we are grateful.

We hung a barn board look inspirational saying (yard sale find) over the new table and called it a day for the most part.

I had a hard road out of infidelity. The betrayal was stunning. I still have brutal scars. But the comeback story isn’t over!

[This message edited by Shehawk at 7:18 PM, Monday, June 10th]

So nice to see you thriving. What a great update!

I had a hard road out of infidelity. The betrayal was stunning. I still have brutal scars. But the comeback story isn’t over!

I love this so much for you. You deserve all the great things that have come and are still coming your way. I feel just like you hard road out of it but making a strong comeback it is absolutely amazing. What a fabulous update!

Life is still peaceful.
Conversations are still rational. Life continues to get better.

This month bf and I are negotiating a likely move for the better. We sold, gave away and otherwise rehomed a substantial amount of stuff that we know we won’t want to move and no longer felt fit our short term needs and goals [think random weights, 50 lbs of stone statues and 6 quart kitchen mixers and about 6 extra nice kitchen knives that we had collected between us haha]. We gave some of the $$ to a person going through an abandonment of them and their children and used some of the $ to buy the weight set they had actually been wanting which we found new last year’s model for a fraction of the price (believe in what goes around comes around or not but…)

We were also able to help a community effort to rehouse a veteran getting back into community life with some basic housewares stuff and a small dresser that we had replaced with new storage pieces. It felt good to be able to help someone else get their start over.

No drama, civil conversation, shared goals, open dialog about what is important and not and how to best get there. Rational decision making.

Our short to mid term goals will require changes and more downsizing (don’t want to have to pay for storage or extra space for things we don’t need and or love. But the end result will be rewarding.

We had a couple follow up medical appointments for him and all appears to be well. And we enjoyed browsing at a local mega yard sale. The yard sale day we took the opportunity to have a few nice meals out. One place he took us to was an upscale diner. I had the salmon salad and he had the pork ribeye. There were craft soft drinks but by then I had already had an espresso and a lavender lemonade already that morning so I will have to sample them next time.

One of the medical trips we stopped for authentic bbq at a place that had lots and lots of pig decor. I sort of ignored the creepy to me decor and focused on the pulled pork and array of sides… Loaded bake potato salad and green beans yumm Also we had a choice of sauces. My new favorite is Carolina bbq sauce. Although Memphis bbq I have had on a past trip is a close second. The gluten free brownie we shared for desert was amazing!!

We also had a lovely time another day getting appetizers at one place (bbq chicken nachos and a southwest salad) and sharing a desert at another place (chocolate torte) and a bottle of local dessert wine to recork and take with.

I am disconnecting more every day from what I now call my ex marriage and I am seeing how different life can be. I wish everyone who is reading this peace and healing. Don’t give up. Life can be so much better free of infidelity.

Well, into every story a little (lot of) rain must fall.

The new apartment flooded with water pouring out of the wall like a fountain during a rain storm on the 4th.
Or so I was told. I am not there but so grateful that bf decided to stay there and study instead of celebrating the 4th weekend.

He is acting like a grownup and handling the issue appropriately despite that management and maint have been difficult to contact and have not even made an appearance to check conditions. Imagine that. Dealing with a rational adult who does not devolve into weaponized incompetence at the first sign of a problem. I am not required to rush back. The water got collected, mopped up, dried out as best possible from inside the apartment, humidity reduced etc and a WiFi monitor ordered to monitor to make sure humidity stays low (since apartment does not have a smart thermostat).

I am pretty shocked and sad since this is the second flooded apartment in 2 years and the 3rd flooding (other was the roof once and 3rd time the ac unit both in an expensive apartment bf was living in). We have just had wild storms with torrential rain. On a positive note the flooding apparently did not ruin the furniture we had finally gotten for the new place. The last time we dealt with flooding was a second floor apartment. This one is a 3rd floor apartment. We were not expecting flooding. And it would have been devastating if he had gone away for the 5 plus day weekend and I came back to this.

I wrote a little more in a reply in off topic but I think we are going to take a different approach this time and talk with a lawyer on Monday about our rights. This is a new building but apparently there were known roof issues previously. And neither emergency maint or management have showed up to assess the damage much less deal with it. Not looking the most positive.

One thing both my bf and I have learned from what we each went through with infidelity is that it is critical to set expectations and not give the benefit of the doubt starting with when people show you who they are. I won’t be there yet tomorrow and he has work so I am hoping they decide to act given that rain is back on the forecast.

Ugh. So much for a relaxing weekend. But even though there is rain the drama llama is still no where to be seen.

Well flooding sounds crazy. Do you have renters issurance? Will that help?

otherwise, love the rest of the updates and hearing you drop the bonds of infidelity.
Good luck with the apartment.

Sorry about the flooding, and really sorry about the management team not being accessible.

it is critical to set expectations and not give the benefit of the doubt starting with when people show you who they are.

This is so very true.

Glad you were able to get away for the 4th.

I guess it’s time for another update.

Things are still peaceful with my now fiancé and I despite the fact that life is life. (I have known him for years, he is a former BS too, and he’s been slowly but steadily moving the needle towards me being willing to make a commitment )

In case anyone needs to hear this, life is really different than in my ex marriage. I cannot even begin to describe what it is like to not have the life drained out of me. As an example, despite having a responsible job and going to graduate school, my fiancé takes the time to make gluten free treats and keeps them in the freezer when in my previous marriage I was constantly accused of faking health issues and making up needing gf foods etc. He even sends them to me when we are not together.

We are planning to attend a Veterans program fundraiser in a couple of weeks to learn how to kayak and to spend some time in nature. Despite the fact that he is a busy person with substantial work responsibilities, he texts me just to say hello during the day. I never have to wonder where he is or what he is doing with who. He shared his phone location and quite frankly I never look unless I am wondering how long it’s going to take him to get to where I am and I am making dinner or picking him up from the train station.

For those who don’t know my story which contains triggers for DV, abuse and cheating, I was blindsided well into an almost 4 decades long marriage to find out that exwh had been having sex with people other than me with the first time he admitted to being less than 5 years into the marriage. I remained in the M after DD1 and exwh became an even bigger abuser if that was even possible. I think it was because he thought he could just drop the act and there would be no consequences. This cost me dearly.

He told me he would destroy me. But I am determined to survive for the people in my life who care about me. After he managed to get me jailed for contempt of court until I retitled an asset to him that he had told the court was worthless and that was not even in the divorce decree, I developed some alarming health symptoms.

It took me almost a decade to get free of the marriage. I was life threateningly sick DD2 when I slowly found out he was retitling assets into solely his name and having sex with random strangers, one of whom he was planning to take everything we owned and ride off into the happy unicorn sunset with. I took much too long to see who he really was. I gave him the benefit of the doubt and believed he would change (hoping). It cost me dearly.

I went in for a routine health check recently and my breast ultrasound was not normal. Apparently the stress of getting free of him and what I went through caused a recurrence.

I know what I need to do to address and hopefully beat this. I have supportive friends and family.

Regardless, I am deeply grateful to be free of my previous marriage. And deeply grateful for the members of this group who have shared their experience, strength and hope with me.

Edited for typos oops

[This message edited by Shehawk at 7:25 PM, Friday, August 16th]