SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hikingout -

How long did your withdrawal period for the A/AP last? Did you have or go into depression? What bits of evidence can I look for that my WW is finally starting to "get it," and be a candidate for R? I finally showed my WW the divorce petition and expressed that contact with the OM is still cheating, an EA. That healing for her and I - not just our marriage cannot begin until contact is severed. We have established some boundaries going forward to give each other "space." I have to stop worrying about how "I" am going to save the marriage/relationship and concentrate on myself. My WW has a load of crap she needs to deal with right now and I don't want to be a suffocating presence at the moment. Any insight you can give for this "period" of recovery would be greatly appreciated. You post are very valuable to me, so thank you!

Hi Brennan,

I will try and address your questions here. I was not a model ws in the early days, I did some things right and a whole lot wrong. I am going to give you the raw unvarnished view of this.

I need to put some framing here that may help you understand this better. I was already depressed before the affair. A lot of my affair was caused by wanting to leave my husband and family because I was exhausted.

I was exhausted because I put expectations on myself to be this perfect wife and mother, at great expense to my well being. I had lost track of who I was, what I wanted, and I largely blamed this on my husband. The reason is from the time I was a girl I equated receiving love with hustling to earn it.

When you are doing a lot of shit to get love and not feeling appreciated for it, it’s lonely. But my husband didn’t have these expectations, not really. I mean he had some expectations just like anyone would with their spouse.

All this to say, I had an exit affair in I felt through with the marriage. I didn’t want the ap either, it wasn’t I want to leave my husband for someone else, it was this entitlement I felt to escape and have some happiness. I went from feeling raggedy to feeling younger and attractive again.

I obviously could have done that on my own without an affair, and I could have done a lot of things differently. But I am saying all this because my only happiness got wrapped up into this affair quickly. It lasted two months, was mostly conducted on the phone apps, so it was easy to let my mind really make up a lot of bullshit.

So, ap gets caught, cuts off to save his marriage. And I felt like I was gonna die. Because he was great? Hell no. Because I was used to these surges of adrenaline, dopamine, and it’s a true addiction. I was barely functioning. I read here and I put myself in therapy immediately. Over the period of two months I saw I had an addiction, I saw I had projected a lot on the ap to fuel my escapism, and I knew I had really fucked up badly.

NC was never broken technically but during that time I still looked at his social media here and there. It was sick, I think I felt worse for his marriage than my own at this point. But my husband hadn’t learned of the affair so I wasn’t seeing the damage yet. I still felt he didn’t really love me, that he wanted someone to do all the things I did for him.

I didn’t know if I wanted the marriage, I will be straight with you. I had really exaggerated the problems in my justifications for what I had been doing. But it was at that two month mark that I came to decide, I need to tell him what is going on and we need to move through whatever is going to happen together. So I confessed. And I told him everything. That is the thing I did right. I didn’t get angry or defensive, I didn’t try and lie. There was some minimizing I seem to remember that was ridiculous but I needed to work through the justification by taking accountability for all of the parts. That took more time.

So, this point here is my rock bottom. I was definitely depressed and now I am watching my husbands pain. I missed the affair feelings too, but recognized that’s what it was and that it had nothing to do with AP. So this was probably through month 3 and 4. I stayed in therapy and I started posting here in earnest. Someone once told me that I was one of the foggiest ws they ever saw come though here. I don’t know if that’s true, I have seen some big denial but I am just saying this was many months of a process.

At this point I felt I did want the marriage and I started working very hard to get my shit together. I started OCD treatment to help with all the intrusive thoughts. We were both living in fresh hell during this time. I was struggling with my shame and he was struggling with what the hell to do. We spent a good deal of time in our own corners trying to recover. We talked, we had sex, but I spent a lot of time reading, journaling, going to therapy, doing my assignments, and trying to get to know myself again. I had to find healthier ways to cope, I started running which to me was a pivotal thing because I was producing good brain chemicals again and that helped a lot with withdrawal. I also ate food that assisted with it, and tried to get back into balance.

It was rough, and from and about 6 months to a year was a series of epiphanies. I realized I had blamed my husband for my own bad behaviors. I wasn’t feeling seen, heard or appreciated because I wasn’t living authentically. If you are just lost in the roles you play, it’s almost like "you" is gone. So I practiced saying no to things, and slowed way down to try and understand what I wanted again.

And I will say once I wanted the marriage again a few months in, I was consistent in my actions in aligning myself with that goal while still juggling the other stuff. It’s exhausting for the bs to be in the middle of that, and for the most part my husband did detach and do a lot of his own thing. He was prepared to divorce if needed, and I think that part was helpful. He didn’t do pick me, he told me how he felt, we had a lot of soul baring conversations, some that went late into the night.

I would say the withdrawal was managed, and I got my head out of fanstasy lane three or four months in. Which if you take into consideration my D-day didn’t happen until the end of month two of it being over, it wasn’t long at least until I understood it was physical (brain chemical) withdrawal and it was normal and could be managed.

I went all over the place, but I wanted to say it’s a process, the withdrawls is the step you are on but if you choose to try R, just hang tight and recover for a while, don’t do her work, don’t advise her, focus on you. If she has hit her rock bottom, she will want to fix herself. And if she fixes herself you have a good shot at R if you decide that’s what you want by then.

I think too many people try to go straight to fixing the relationship. That’s just an exercise in exhaustion, until you are working with someone who has deep remorse for their actions, understand they did this, it’s not the fault of the relationship or spouse.

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:04 PM, Friday, June 7th]

Hikingout -

Thank you for the insight. A lot of articles or forums really haven't discussed the healing timeline or their own experiences from the betrayer side. Just judging my patience with my WW. She is still stuck in self-protect, shame, and defense mode. Just need insights on how MUCH patience I should have during the process.

Any other waywards out there that would like to share their experience would be welcomed!

Thank you

The answer to your question- how much patience- I think that varies from person to person. So does how long it takes to get a ws to take their head out of their butt.

Is she NC? Do you feel she is pining for him, or you feel more like she is still trickle truthing you?

I didn’t trickle truth but there wasn’t voluminous things to say about what happened. I minimized a lot as I already said.

With my husband, his affair was longer and the ap was readily available to him. So I would t say he trickle truthed me because I didn’t catch him in lies really but the disclosure period was much longer and sometimes little details will be jostled that felt like it.

We both had a hard fast rule: if I catch you in a lie that’s it. That is still the rule.

It’s of course hard to set boundaries that strong because the minute it happens and you don’t enforce, well, they got ya. I wasn’t going to test it out let’s put it that way. I have know that is the one thing my husband has always hated is a liar.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:02 AM, Friday, June 14th]

She is NC with her AP. I do know she is still pining/ruminating for him. Trickle Truth is still there. My therapist told me to give her a month for her head to exit her posterior. During our last MC session I was angry and adamant about my boundaries of NC and honesty being broken - agreed upon for me to come home after DDay. Our MC took no quarter with her and explained that is why I have no trust or benefit of the doubt in regards to her. A little remorse/regret is starting to trickle out - but she is still stuck in the shame cycle.

A month is reasonable to look at progress.

The longer nc is in place the easier clarity will come bacuse she has just spent the entire time of the affair in a deep state of cognitive dissonance and when you hold two opposing beliefs at the same time, one being the fundamental because it’s about fidelity. it becomes an exercise of ongoing justification that creates a brainwashing effect. She has essentially brainwashed herself.

While it’s painful to you, it would be highly unusual for someone who believed they were in love with the AP for that bubble to pop upon discovery.

But with time out of that situation, she can reorient and will begin to reflect on all these nagging feelings she had due to that second set of beliefs )the moral ones) she held the whole time. She just spend a lot of time fighting those beliefs. (This justification and marital rewriting.

You can see it when she begins saying things like "I knew this part bothered me about ____" but I kept pushing it away.

For example, the first time ap tried to kiss me, I instinctually ducked. This was on the trip that I went knowing it was about to become physical. So that was my cognitive dissonance kicking in, that a big part of me reqlly didn’t want to do this, but the driving factors were so compelling that I pushed on. Or I would cry after a boundary push while we were long distance and just texting. The affair feelings were intoxicating but there was this whole other part of me that knew what he was and telling me to stop because it was wrong.

That push pull dynamic is actually part of the basis that creates the addiction. Let me explain:

If it were say cocaine. I might logically know if I tried cocaine it was going to cause me problems. Maybe I don’t really believe it’s addictive, and that I will just dabble. (Like flirting or having secret conversation with someone that isn’t my husband) well, a couple snorts and it feels great, my problems all go away. Next time I am feeling low, probably the next day, I am out seeing if I can find more. Next thing you know, it’s driving me. I go steal from my grandma or do other things I would have found unconscionable. I hate the cocaine and love it too because now my life sucks more and I need it more than ever to escape.

Affairs are more like that than I ever would have guessed. Once you take away the cocaine for some time you miss how it made you feel, you can’t find things in normal daily life that replace the feeling. (In this case it’s not the ap causing the feeling, it’s one’s one body chemicals - adrenaline, dopamine, etc)

So what it takes is both abstinence and finding a way to feel normal amounts of happiness from things you enjoy doing in life. And shame strangles that too for some period. Because now suddenly you are at rock bottom, with nothing to get your fix, and you are having to face the music and find courage and you don’t really understand yet how you came to this place.

So do I expect it to be better in a month? Some. Will the addiction be over, no probably not yet. I have seen it go that fast and faster, but not usually. But you will maybe see enough progress in that time that you may say "okay, I will give it one more month"

Or you may see nothing and be done. It’s really hard to say.

But this pining that she is doing is really withdrawal from her fix, she just would be unlikely to fully believe that at this stage. Part of her though, that opposing side in the cognitive dissonance might see that it’s possible that’s what’s happening.

For me, seeing that early into my recovery, it made some sense to me even if it didn’t seem like what was happening in the surface level. Like I never truly thought the guy was better than my husband, but I thought my husband was better than me and that the ap was more on my level. Not really an incorrect assumption since we were both cheaters.

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:04 PM, Friday, June 14th]

She has said that it really wasn't about him - but how he made her feel. So I guess her recognizing that is a step in the right direction. Earlier this week she had her head in my lap while we were calming down for the night and she said "You know I love your right?" A statement I did not solicit - which made me happy and sad all at the same time. We seem to be "stabilized" around each other. I'm giving her space and time throughout the day. I'm not pushing for information anymore because I know at this time it's an exercise in futility. We are sleeping in different rooms as well. So I'm hoping without my prescience being perceived a stifling, maybe she will start to react to me not being around and available all the time. But thank you Hikingout - great insight and information that is not readily available elsewhere. It's much appreciated!

For the WS here who have had their AP and their spouse together in the same area, room, space, whatever it was, how did you feel so confident things wouldn't come crashing down or that you wouldn't be discovered, what went through your brain?

For the WS here who have had their AP and their spouse together in the same area, room, space, whatever it was, how did you feel so confident things wouldn't come crashing down or that you wouldn't be discovered, what went through your brain

My affair was in 2006 so it would be difficult to get into what specifically I was thinking.
But the more I look at my behaviour the more I’m convinced I was trying to blow everything up. I’m working really hard now on unwinding my FOO and sexual abuse trauma and I think I’ve gotten to a point where I can confidently say I just couldn’t have nice things because they would always become bad so I was trying to control how and when they got bad.

Not sure how helpful that is for you

Thank you championrugsweeper !

My H still is trying to figure this part out too. He keeps saying he was "cocky" felt like he was a rock star , he’s a musician and we were both at one of his shows. To me I have no idea how she was able to watch him get photos of his daughter and I on stage with him …. It’s sickening actually. I think he needs to keep digging here.

Thanks for taking time to answer!

I didn’t originally answer because I didn’t have the AP in the same physical location, in fact he lived very far away. But my husbands ap was our employee and in our house regularly. Interacted with me regularly and often had just left when I got home from work.

But in some ways this answer all boils down to compartmentalization, entitlement, and the island of make believe.

Most ws just simply believe they won’t be caught. The reason is then they would have to consider the consequences and when doing something as underhanded as cheating on your spouse you block out a lot of logic.

I knew the ap was married but I dehumanized and minimized her the same as I did my husband. I didn’t really think of her at all. And when he mentioned they were doing things together, it didn’t phase me because it’s part the "relationship" from day 1. (I don’t like the word when it comes to affairs but it’s the best way to describe what you think is happening) I think some ws may go as far as feel jealous of the spouse (I think my husbands AP did because she knew me) but I didn’t know the AP’s wife, it was much easier to make her a nonentity rather than someone I thought enough about to even feel jealous.

There is so much suspension of reality, it’s just not hard for me to imagine how little to no deep thought went into any of what you are describing. To have an affair is to accept that other person is married, and unfortunately because he is cheating with you it’s easy to tell yourself they don’t love their spouse, or they aren’t happy with them.

And of course in the aftermath it is much easier for me to see that no one loved anyone in the situation. The AP and I did not love each other. And by definition of what we were doing we weren’t loving our spouses properly either. (I say it in that way because some of us do still have fond feelings about our spouse)

Compartmentalization wasn’t a strong suit for me. In fact, without making a generalization this is true for everyone, females are statistically worse at it. That’s why you see more men are cake eaters while more women it’s quickly an exit affair. Of course there are women who cheat for "more" with no intentions of leaving ever and there are men who are less good at straddling two worlds.

But for me, anyone who knew me sensed something was off even if they didn’t even see me often. With my husband everything seemed normal. I definitely think it’s because I am not as good of a compartmentalizer as he was. I thought about the affair all the time. I can clearly see my husband switched gears and was present with me when we were together. And it’s interesting because she lived two miles from us while my ap lived nearly a thousand miles away.

So I think it boils down to comparmentalizong and then in those instances where you were in the same place, I am sure he felt cool headed because the AP was also married and knew the deal. He felt she wasn’t going to tip you off and likely prepped her beforehand and they already agreed to what was going to happen.

Lots of truth bombs in there but I feel this is what you want.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:48 PM, Friday, July 19th]

Thank you H/O.

His AP wasn't married though, she was single and couldn't keep a man to save her life, multiple children, multiple dads. We were only in one space together and that was at his show one time and I didnt see her there. I just saw photos on her moms FB of them there wearing one of his band shirts.

When I asked my H it was hard for him to even give me an answer, he just said "I was cocky and knew she was head over heels for me and I already told her you would be there"

That right there tells me how little I meant to him at that time. He did tell me she was jealous of me for sure , I had and still do have many many many more things to offer than she did and ever will.

I am not good at compartmentalizing either so this one is harder for me to grasp... I will probably struggle for a bit.

Ah, so she went in as a spouse poacher. Sounds like she has always been a bad picker. And is use to accepting less from men.

Despite all that it’s still pretty much the same answer. I think the reason more females re bad at it is we are emotional beings. It’s harder for us to turn emotions off. And if you start a relationship with the paradigm they have a wife and family, she probably abided by it thinking she would reel him in later when she had him where she wanted him.

I once read brene brown saying that when we numb our emotions we numb both the good and bad. I try and grasp that because I do think I was numb on a lot of things in my affair. But perhaps the reason the affair feelings came in is they weren’t emotions, they were chemical reactions of adrenaline and dopamine. I did feel dead inside otherwise. But I was chasing that high from the time I woke up until the time I went to bed. I have tried to understand compartmentalization better since my husbands affair. He describes it more a being able to change the channel and shutting out thoughts from the other channel. I kind of get it but not completely. I think because for me it was addiction that there really wasn’t the ability to change channels like that. My husbands affair wasn’t really like an addiction. It was something he started, then didn’t know how to extricate himself because he picked a stupid choice in circumstances where it wouldn’t have been easy to break it off without me finding out. When Covid hit he was kind of relieved because I was home all the time, but kind of holding his breath as to when her patience with that would buckle.

I get the not thinking too deeply about what you are doing. I do get that, but I am like you in that my experience with compartmentalizing has been limited.

I mean as humans we all do it sometimes- I had to go to work when I had a sick kid at home, or I hve gone through problems at work and still needed to be present at home to make sure the kids had my presence. But this is a different level.

Question for the WS' on here, do you ever think of going back 'there' to her/them, even after all the good work?

My husband had an EA with my close friend and neighbour for 4 months. It was a comforting relationship for him as he fought severe depression (all hidden from me as the D made him hate me and 100% blame me for having it) but by Dec had changed into sending flirty messages. Her husband found their text messages of 'Love you like crazy' on Xmas day. He insists it was just comfort and never seen her 'that' way but had crossed the line into flirting/ego stroking and chasing dopamine. (I've not had any TT in 7 months and also through MC - everything he says checks out as he said he is being 100% honest). I also didn't see any of the messages (and I don't want to) as he deleted them all, of course.

We have MC which was worked really well and he has been having his own ongoing therapy. We communicate now (he hasn't been great at this as cant deal with emotions well and surpresses them) we talk now (we stopped talking) as he couldn't deal with conflict (he has attachment avoidant style) he has stopped people pleasing and his therapist has pointed out there is some ND going on there (personality disorder/ADHD). We now spend time apart doing stuff for ourselves, we have date nights, we listen, we are kind to each other. Just basic things that we had stopped doing but making us better for each other and ourselves.

He has had total NC with her from Day 1 (this he said he hasnt found difficult at all), has been supportive when I spiral (the shock gave me PTSD) and doing everything to find out why he crossed that line (he is disgusted at himself) and work on loving himself which is something that he has never done. The D makes it even tougher.

But I still don't feel safe, I have started my own IC that I hoping will help. My 'friend' has had multiple affairs over the years (I didnt know this) and I feel she is a bit of a preditor and seeked out broken man (but he still views her at the time as a good friend to him - although does understand that she was very in the wrong, along with him, by the end.

I just feel stuck, do they go back - even after all the work and they know what they have done? I know this cant be fully answered but just wanted to ask any WS on here what the general thoughts were. I just cant get my head around it all in why do all the work and see the amount of hurt you caused only to go back to somme equally broken.

Im trying to move forward and trust again and still finding it all very hard.

Thanks to all of the WS’s that are responding here. It amazes me how reading your responses does more for me than speaking with my WW.

My WW is always so vocal with my kids and others against infidelity and feeling like going to church is something I need to prioritize for the kids feels fake as hell. I believe in God, but no longer believe God loves me or deserves love. Couple that with her not wanting to answer questions that she feels like she answered once before last year in MC and I am struggling to even co-parent.

She says she wants R, unfortunately, I don’t think I will ever forgive myself for being in this position, so any future relationship is unlikely. I know that I need to forgive her to co-parent and my kids deserve that from me. I am in IC, but dealing with my shame, depression and loss of all self respect is a hill I may never ascend. I just need to make it in society 5 more years before I can become the "crazy dog guy hermit" that I am probably destined to be. To that end, here are my questions-

How did you navigate the difficult conversations with your BS through the anger, hurt and frustrations? Also, how did you know you were aware enough to have integrity and be trustworthy, or if it was all just a character you were playing to hide you from you?

How did you navigate the difficult conversations with your BS through the anger, hurt and frustrations? Also, how did you know you were aware enough to have integrity and be trustworthy, or if it was all just a character you were playing to hide you from you?

It was certainly an evolution. I had been a very avoidant person, and so the anger part wouod usually make me retreat in the early days. I was basically ever only comfortable whe. Everyone is happy, when the mood is light. So that took practice. It took realizing the damage I had done.

And I think the early days for me did smack a little of fake it till you make it. I wasn’t continuous any bad behaviors but people do not change overnight. It takes making deeper assessments about your self, learning alternative ways of dealing with things, and practicing/failing/practicing/succeeding so on and so forth. I didn’t have the answers that he needed as immediately as he needed them. I don’t mean like divulging details, which was hard, but the deeper stuff- how could I do it, why did I do it, what was I going to do about it, etc.

I think for me the biggest driving factor for change was the pain I brought to myself first. And I know that isn’t exactly right, I mean I destroyed innocent people. But I do think until you hit your own rock bottom you will just continue to make everyone else collateral damage.

But when you don’t want to be this person, you want more out of life, gaining integrity is easier. Because you want to be this person who feels better about themself and you know breaking your integrity will defeat you once again.

So I would say, the reason I knew I would be trustworthy is because I never wanted to go back to that. I never wanted to be the type of person who hurts others with no regard or consideration. I didn’t want to lose mys husband or my family. The more I practiced being intentional doing the next right thing, the better it felt. The harder I dig into my flaws and worked on them the more I appreciated where growth takes you.

And the more I learned about myself and my accountability for where I had gotten myself the better I got at explaining myself to my husband. The more I was able to articulate, the better he could follow my progress. It got to the point where I learned to bring it up to him as I had thoughts and we really started to go deep together. He started to believe what I had to say and we started mending our marriage.

Thank you Hiking!

Oh gosh - this question!!!

I begged my husband to man up and just fucking leave. I told him he was such a weak selfish prick, trying to have your cake and eat it too! Why did he make me make the decision.

I also didn’t quite understand, like why have an affair, tell me you are soooo unhappy and then want to stay married. And all other people that I know as WP’s (including my first now ex-husband) have ended their relationships or marriages.

But as we all know through this shitty life of infidelity every situation is different. My WH just has fucked up qualities that made him choose the infidelity path. But I truly believe in his own weird broken way he never stopped loving me, but just does not love the same way I do.

Webbit-

Makes total sense what you are saying.

I honestly think that many people confuse love with "fond feelings" or "someone that makes them happy"

I think what ws lack is the ability to love themselves and appreciate the good in their life. Chaos often means passion.

I think some ws have affairs for more (cake eaters) because they see it as a way of dealing with perceived lack. When in reality the lack they feel is not taking accountability for their own appreciation and happiness.

Some ws like me, have affairs not really to cake eat but to become fully immersed in an alternate reality to the extent they may begin to even feel like they will leave their spouse.

Both can use justification but in my type of affair I think we more often will throw the spouse under the bus. And we will often need to justify what we are doing with worlds like love or soul mates.

While a cake eater will often be a better compartmentalizer who believes they still love their spouse (fond feelings) and can separate the fantasy from reality.

All this to say, I think you are dead in with your husband. He said he wanted more sex, okay but if he had loved himself and taken responsibility for his own happiness he would be a lot more likely to figure out a way to create a relationship that creates more intimacy.

In that way I think most ws are like that. It’s because I don’t think many of us know what makes us happy or how to even begin to love ourselves. Until one can figure out their relationship with themselves they will be unable to remove some of the barriers they have to fully loving someone else. I suspect that’s the crux of how you love differently. You expanded other parts of your life in a healthy way to create happiness when it was lacking in your relationship. That tells me you figured out your relationship with yourself to a greater extent and therefore your capacity to love and live more wholesomely is much greater. So yes I agree with your assessment very much.

Question for wayward spouses,

I’d like to know what get out of the narrative my husband wrote out to explain to me his invite of his AP to our house for supper. At that time I said sure , she’s a widow, lonely etc etc. I never suspected anything. The supper happened four months into the affair.

He confirmed it was her on D-Day.

During our second year in R, this is what he wrote to me about that episode:

"I can not suggest that me inviting her here to our house made ANY sense. It was dumb to do and completely unfair to you and her.
She did not want to come, I told her, I wanted her to see my circumstances, the house, our relationship… the fact that we were civil to one another, not angry or mean. I did not want her to think ill of you.
Again, I wanted her to meet you and accept that you were pleasant, receptive and normal. But that we did not have an "intimate relationship", that we were doing our own thing.

In looking back, I suspect she was equally uncomfortable and ill at ease. Not knowing how to engage with you or whether you suspected anything between her and I. Maybe worried you were going to accuse or challenge her. I do not know if I wanted the two of you to be alone, I do think I wanted her to know you as an active, talented person. Someone (at the time) that no longer shared interests with me.

She was likely nervous, anxious to get out of there. Stressed about the evening, speaking with you and me putting her on the spot. I think, she was embarrassed and annoyed at having come here, angry with me for inviting her. We did talk about no longer seeing one another, agreed to just be friends… But that did not last, We did not discuss the supper much. She wanted to know why I invited her, and all I could say was "I wanted her to see where I lived, how we got along, that my life with you was not miserable, but rather just cordial. At the time, I felt we had no passion, no love. We were in a bad spot at that time.

I’m very sorry I hurt you in such a stupid manner. "

I sure had misgivings about that supper and frankly about his attempt at an explanation. I’m just curious at what you make of this.