SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I knew I was going to have a bad day yesterday because the date was triggering, my H got a hotel with his AP on that date last year. My H already had a golf session lined up for that day , he asked me if I wanted him to cancel his golf session and come home after work and I told him that I needed him to not come home and let me have my space.
I worked all day, took care of the chores, the kids and heated up leftovers for the kids and went to bed at 730p before my H got home.
Fast forward to the middle of the night, I woke up and it literally felt like someone was sitting on my chest, I couldn't breathe and I woke my H up and i just sobbed and sobbed for an hour. He held me and stayed up with me and we talked and he apologized and he did what he could but my gosh some days the weight of things physically hurt.

I received a text that sparked anxiety from one of my daughters friends moms (her number wasn't saved in my contacts) but the text started out as "I hate to be the one to tell you" immediately my mind went to someone telling me more of things I don't know about my H , clearly still a big worry of mine since now I question who I even married. I am working towards quieting those thoughts and unfortunately I had to stop counseling for a bit and I know I need to get back in.

even though the text wasn't affair related it had to do with my daughter and it was still upsetting and I felt like I failed her as a mom and I cried asking him how he could ever do this to me while they were so young and needed me so much. Some days I really hate him for it, I know it is my job to heal and my job to find a way out of infidelity with him or without him but I struggle so much mentally. I am realizing I am a huge introvert and I have withdrawn from a lot of people minus close friends and family, so much now just seems so fake and not important anymore. The A has opened my eyes and I feel like protecting my peace is more important than making other people that don't matter happy.
I cling to people that are honest, and that make my life a happier place to be and just dropped the ones that take from me mentally but now I feel like I am on an island and disconnected now that social media is gone and I wonder if I need to join a group , I think I need to get back into church.

I am so not looking forward to other dates I know for sure he saw her or even Dday, with the work that he is putting in on changing and the small bits of healing I have done I thought I would be a bit better by now but like you all say it isn't linear. Some days that we are busy and have things to look forward to , I forget for a bit and I am almost happy, then other days I FEEL ALL OF THE FEELINGS and those are my least favorite days. Those are the days that I feel like I am going to be crush under the weight of those feelings and I struggle to even function.

Our oldest daughters bday is on the 30th and he saw her last year two days before her bday and he saw her on our youngest sons bday so i have a few really important dates that now feel tainted to me and I do not want them ruined for my children, it is not their fault , it is all his and he can not undo what he did to us but yet I can't separate the happiness of those dates from the pain yet.

I guess I am just venting because I just do not see an end in sight when it comes to the pain and I don't want to look back in 10 years and feel like the precious time I had with my kids was spent depressed and sad the whole time. I am told on here to let myself feel the feelings and it helps heal but it is literally hell and I feel like im in this deep dark hole and I can't get out. Im sure I am not the only one that feels this way but it is the worst pain I have ever felt.

Even after 18 years it can still be painful but it does get much better. The trigger season is very hard so give yourself a break for falling apart. It's totally normal and honestly, I'd be more concerned if you didn't.

Much love and blessings heading your way.

[This message edited by crazycatlady at 5:30 PM, Thursday, August 29th]

I just do not see an end in sight when it comes to the pain and I don't want to look back in 10 years and feel like the precious time I had with my kids was spent depressed and sad the whole time.

I feel like this part was the most unfair about infidelity. For years I struggled, I did my best but still felt like those years were stolen from me. That I could not enjoy those years without the pain of the A's. I even made a post here about it. My kids didn't deserve to have a mother who became literally mentally ill after D-Day due to my xWS not ending the A and me always catching him. It was constant chaos. Then there is the whole separate issue of NPD that he had and how it affected me. I gave my all to my kids, but I feel like I could have been more present and patient with them and enjoyed them the way I should have had the A's never happened or been with a messed up NPD WS. That is something I cannot forgive. I was robbed of having a good motherhood during that time. Thinking about it makes me hate the xWS.

Crazyblinded

I agree that it is completely unfair and I know during that time that the kids were not his priority nor were they the best things in his life, just recently did he "realize" what we meant to him after his selfish ways started to stop. Some days it is all just too much to comprehend.

I cried asking him how he could ever do this to me while they were so young and needed me so much

I think this is an under appreciated consequence of infidelity. The emotional crushing of a parent to children, stealing the nurturing that would have otherwise been joyfully given to the kids. It’s atrocious and just fucked up beyond belief. But it is in the past, and all you can do is heal. And if you believe that you could heal better and faster without him, and in doing so that you would be benefitting your children in the long run, that is as good of a reason to D as any other I’ve heard. Not saying that is true, or that it isn’t, just another layer in the shit sandwich to consider.

Prayers for you, friend.

I remember at the end of his A he mentioned he was trying to be there for her because she thought something was happening to one of her children, like sexual abuse or something, meanwhile our oldest hasn’t had her trauma therapy that’s been needed for years. Instead we stuck our heads in the sand and hoped it would work itself out.

Wise people here once told me that eventually it won’t be the sexual aspect of the A that I can’t forgive but the bigger picture and the aftermath of what it did to me and our children. They. Were. Spot. Ok. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to forgive him for putting her and her kids "first".

When I bring it up, he tells me he didn’t truly care but needed to in order to keep the hits coming , that deep down inside it was all for show. Even then that also doesn’t matter to me.

What matters to me is the hours and hours he spent talking to her about her issues and her kids all the while our kids needed and deserved his attention and his time, I don’t care if the care was fake or not, the time spent baiting her was.

That. Is unforgivable to me.

What matters to me is the hours and hours he spent talking to her about her issues and her kids all the while our kids needed and deserved his attention and his time, I don’t care if the care was fake or not, the time spent baiting her was.

That. Is unforgivable to me.

This is definitely one aspect of my WH’s A that was completely unforgivable to me too. And he just couldn’t get that the fact that he said he loved her and that he endlessly asked about her kids and sympathized with her over their challenges—all while neglecting our kids and betraying and destroying their happy family—was important and devastating even if he didn’t really care at all and was just stroking her to get her to stroke him back. It was actually so much worse that he didn’t mean it or really care about her or her kids.

He somehow seemed to think that it would cause me to feel relieved saying that it meant nothing (like lucky me, right?), but the fact that he could say and do all of that and destroy our family and marriage over something that supposedly meant NOTHING just cheapened our relationship and the fact that he had said those words to me. It made me feel like everything he ever said was just a lie to get what he wanted from everyone, including me and the kids.

It also mattered that for that meaningless shit, he destroyed our lives, my life, and our family. It killed me that he was willing to destroy something so sacred to me and our children, the sanctity of our marriage and family, just so he could get his ego fed. It made his selfishness so boundless and monstrous. There was literally nothing that was so sacred or important not to sacrifice to it.

InkHulk is right, this is a very under-appreciated aspect of an A by a parent. He destroyed my ability to be the parent that I wanted to be while dealing with massive trauma. I not only had to mourn our marriage—I had to mourn the loss of the family that I wanted for our kids, and I had to mourn and feel the guilt of not being the parent that I dreamed of being and wanted for my precious children. I just lost my ability to focus completely on enjoying them and supporting them as I had wanted.

I might have been able to get beyond the A. I couldn’t get beyond him destroying my kids’ family and childhood. I couldn’t get beyond him taking from me my ability to be the mother I wanted to be. I couldn’t get beyond that he would throw us away for nothing, no matter how much he regretted what he’d lost and felt shame for it afterward.

But I have to add that my WH never got to real remorse. He never stopped lying and being defensive and DARVO-ing and hiding. Your situation may be different, but it may just be that you can’t forgive this either.

Either way, you are so amazing in your ability to honor yourself and your feelings in all this, Groot. You will ultimately make the right decisions for you and your kids and move forward out of all this. I’m just sorry that we’ve all had to go through this over their shit.

It's been two years since the day that changed my world.
I agree with everything everyone wrote. After all, it is something that I also experienced: time was stolen from me, from our children, from our family.
I have to say here, that years ago and long before my husband's infidelity, I had experienced this feeling for someone at my work place. Nothing happened, but I liked the small talk and the almost imperceptible flirting. But even at that point, the fact that my mind allowed me to think about someone other than my sweet husband, who was such a good father to my children, was enough for me to sit back for a moment and say to myself: "what are you doing? What are you doing to this wonderful man? To whom you are going to give the right to have anything to say about your relationship with your husband?…" and that was enough for me to flip the switch, slap myself and forget this nonsense. I instantly turned my back to flirting.
Because some things just aren't worth it…
My husband either didn't do this mental exercise or did it and just said "whatever....I'll do it". This to me was unforgivable. If I hadn't had that experience it wouldn't have been so unforgivable.
I've given this a lot of thought since then. The time I lost to overcome this stupidity, the time my children lost from me (one year of desperation) and above all that, although our kids did not learn anything, they nevertheless experienced at various times, the despair, the tension....
Yes, this is unacceptable!
But! Today I'm thinking that good for me for that too. Because despite this situation I stood strong enough to hide tears, nerves, despair, disappointment. I did my best. I was the strong one. ME! Neither HIM, let alone his AP. ME! And that, has nothing to do with anyone else. It's my achievement. Certainly, his behavior after the bomb he dropped on us, helped me. I cannot, and don't intent to deny that!
But, Groot, I am strong and you are strong. And we do our best for the ones we love. That makes us better than any AP……whether they left for them or stayed. There are far more important things in life than someone's insecurities, or flaboyant tendencies. So each of us must take responsibility for ourselves.
As for me...I'm not going through this again. If I owe anything, I owe it only to my children. This time, I owe it to my kids to be with their dad MAINLY because I truly love him. He is my best friend, my best company and yes I found love again, and I am in love with him, and I value our relationship. The more he stands by me, the more my love deepens and is actually deeper than before... But, I know that if something like this happens again…I will just stop loving him. Because my love now is fueled by the actions he takes to lessen my pain. its pure mathematics...I owe one chance to him, to us. If he does it again I will owe it to my self and to our kids to deal with it differently. Hopefully he understood how much I love him, as well as how defining this experience was to me and to that feeling of love for him. There won't be a next time. Next time there will be no discussion. And I think he knows it.

ps: there is an end to that pain and it is very near... you are one year out and at that point, I too, thought that this is not going to end....There are times when things are hard. But you surpass them because in the meantime, and through this shit, your value becomes something you came to know, it is almost tangible....