SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Well, I’ve been gone awhile but now I’m back. In case we haven’t met, roughly 18 months ago I discovered my WW was having an affair with her work superior. She broke it off upon discovery, he responded by destroying a bunch of my property while we slept. As my WW’s AP faced criminal charges and job loss, he committed suicide. A truly shocking story I still can’t believe I got pulled into.

My wife and I have been reconciling. For awhile things went pretty well. We read books together and talked more openly. Processed a lot of very intense emotions together.

Now a year and a half later, progress feels stalled. We get tired after dealing with our kids and fall asleep instead of deep talks and reading. Sex has gotten less frequent and even less energentic.

While my emotions are not as intense as they once were, depression can be pervasive. I’ve not yet been able to regain the personal confidence I once had. This experience really crushed me and I’ll be forever changed by it.

The sense of injustice is always on a slow burn. Virtually everyone who got near this mess paid a heavy price, except my wife. She got to have an affair, quit her job and become a stay at home mom like she wanted. I suppose she lost her reputation and dignity, but given all the other fallout, it seems out of balance.

And yet, there’s no way to right it! The thought of having a revenge affair turns my stomach. I can’t imagine knowingly doing what was done to me. I don’t want to be lowered to that, and I cannot stand the thought of more drama being put on our kids.

And with that, there’s no recourse. I told my wife a long time ago that I forgive her. I meant it. I’m trying to continue to choose to mean it but damn it is hard. And I also realize that my own resentment probably doesn’t help our relationship in any way.

Those of you who have had successful reconciliation, what helped to keep progressing at this stage? I know it’s a five year recovery. The first year was awful but I knew the direction to go. It feels kinda lost right now.

How is each of you dealing with the traumas of the A, the physical attack on your stuff, and the suicide? Who is working with a good IC? Are you in MC with a good MC?

What do you want to be doing now? What's keeping you from doing it?

*****

Forgiveness for me was giving up all hope of getting revenge on my W or AP. I don't know how that happened. I do know, looking for revenge without increasing my own pain was a part of my day for 2 years. At that point, I gave up that goal as impossible to achieve, but I still wanted it. Then, sometime between 3.5 and 4 years out, I realized I no longer wanted it.

What do you mean by 'forgive'?

Some talk about the "plain of lethal flatness" in year 2 of R. The adrenaline has subsided, you are not longer in shock, the reality of what happened has settled in. So now what? Some of it is time. Your systems are exhausted from dealing with all this. But also you need to dig in to your resentment and how to excise it. It is a poison pill, but totally understandable.

Are you in IC? Are you both in MC? MC might be helpful at this stage to help you break through. Also, re-read SISOON’s post. Maybe you haven’t fully forgiven her. That can take years. You might just be still on that journey and not yet at that destination.

It is good that you see what is happening and want to take action. Talk to your spouse. Does she agree?

Thank you guys for the responses.

Sisoon - no counseling has been going on for awhile, individual or marital. We discussed restarting it, but want to have clear goals in mind and a way to schedule it around 3 small kids.

I defined forgiveness as a commitment not to hold her affair against her. Not to say it didn’t happen or wasn’t awful, but that I will not condemn her for it. I must admit that I’m not always the best at putting that into practice, especially internally. But I remain committed to working toward it.

I want to find the place that I hear about where other couples find their marriage blossoming like it should have from the start.

Bearlybreathing - I’ve heard of the plain of lethal flatness. Maybe that’s what this is. I just don’t really know what to do about it.

My wife is committed to reconciliation and building the marriage. She struggles in getting out of her comfort zone, especially with intimacy. She also does not take the lead on relationship matters. But she follows where I lead.

She got to have an affair, quit her job and become a stay at home mom like she wanted.

You make it sound like it was all a big win for her, and I doubt extremely that that is the case. I doubt very much that she feels exactly zero shame for her actions. I mean, even if my wife looked at me and said "I feel zero shame about what I did" I would call bullshit on it. I am assuming she hid her affair from you until she was found out. That tells you how she felt about it and probably still feels about it.

Of all the people on planet Earth, the one who will always most remind her of her shameful act as you. You can tell her that you forgive her, but even still, she will look at you and know it is you that she hurt.

So you’re telling yourself a story about how she feels about her affair, and reasonably speaking we all know it’s wrong. Not even fake but accurate, just wrong.

Ask yourself why you are telling yourself that story.

I want to find the place that I hear about where other couples find their marriage blossoming like it should have from the start.

My M is certainly where I want it now, but it took longer than 18-months.

It really does take quite a bit to look at your wife….as your wife again.

I do like how you phrased it — a story you got pulled into. That’s a decent place to start.

I am not my wife’s shitty choices.

I simply loved my family the best I could with the limited information I had at the time.

So, the first thing that helped my depression was fully understanding my wife failing herself had nothing to do with me. This let me focus on what I wanted NOW versus how the M operated in the past. I realized I was still the same awesome guy who started my little family, and I understood I was not required to offer my wife R.

The power to choose is powerful.

I did not choose the horror of infidelity, but I absolutely get to decide how I respond to it.

Depression certainly was a part of the road back, it was part of processing all the shock and pain of betrayal. It is part of the reset. I reset expectations for me and aimed for what I needed from life, not just my M. I had to know I would be great with or without the M (that’s a liberating day, to truly let go of the outcome).

I did choose to forgive, but I understand those who don’t. In my case it really helps me to see the good in my wife and not ONLY see her for her worst days (I think that is what forgiveness looks like on a day to day).

I chose to offer grace and a final chance, and for R to work, both partners have to want the M. It was a relentless effort by both of us, everyday. Of course there are days where there is no energy or setbacks or the other responsibilities in life get in the way. It is exhausting, but that is what trauma recovery is. As my IC described it, infidelity is the emotional equivalent of getting hit by a bus, it takes a long time to heal. So, be easier on yourself.

18-months is still pretty early in the healing process. I don’t think I jumped into my own R until after two years, just to make sure the ground underneath me was steady enough for me to move forward. Year three was maybe the first time I thought the M had a chance.

whatbecomes

I defined forgiveness as a commitment not to hold her affair against her. Not to say it didn’t happen or wasn’t awful, but that I will not condemn her for it. I must admit that I’m not always the best at putting that into practice, especially internally. But I remain committed to working toward it.

HouseOfPlane

Of all the people on planet Earth, the one who will always most remind her of her shameful act as you. You can tell her that you forgive her, but even still, she will look at you and know it is you that she hurt.

But in reality - the idea of forgiveness is to release oneself from the pain of what is necessitating forgiveness.

"Forgiveness is the conscious decision to release feelings of resentment, anger, or vengeance toward someone who has wronged you, regardless of whether they deserve it or apologize. It is fundamentally an internal process of letting go of the emotional burden of holding onto pain, rather than an external act of reconciliation, excusing the offense, or forgetting what happened."

One thing you have to accept - you will never forget the affair and all the accompanying mess.

If your wife has any humanity - she feels shame, regret, remorse for being a person who facilitated creating an event that precipitated a human offing themself.

All this to say -- you are carrying a lot of baggage for this event in your life.

This is now part of your life and someday/somehow your kids are going to find out. Have you started preparing yourself for this to happen?

At 18 months, you are still on the trek to finding peace with yourself and your "lot in life." You are still on the steep uphill part of that trek!

I hope you have an ear (family/friend/??/counselor) with whom you can talk about anything in your mind regarding this series of events and what your future holds.

One more - You choose your path and way to happiness. You may come to the conclusion sometime in the future and decide to separate permanently your matrimonial bond. That is OK.

Read Oldwounds - "He made it." His story is (to me) a combination of never give up for what he wants, fortitude, perseverance, maybe a bit of luck? (Luck is preparation meeting opportunity) I would think also his WIFE also gave all to overcome and mature into a better example of what is good in a member of humanity.

Has your wife gotten On Board with figuring out her cheating and how to help heal your marriage? Has she show any empathy towards all the pain and agony heaped upon your marriage and Family?

If you keep posting here, folks including many who mostly only read will offer words to help you up this hill you have to climb.

FWIW - I still hurt some every time my brain

"goes there" and it's been over 40 years. But I'm happy now.

Give yourself more time - years even.

When your brain goes there - try and do something physically stressful (gym? manual wood splitting? 5 mile run?) to get your mind off onto something. Maybe a crossword puzzle? Start rebuilding the engine in your old Harley?

edit to add: Suggest you read your earlier post started on 2:49 AM on Tuesday, January 28th, 2025
All the stuff posted there still relevant

[This message edited by Hippo16 at 4:27 PM, Sunday, June 28th]

There's a lot of overlap between Oldwounds's experience and mine in recovering from infidelity, so rereading Oldwound's post is a good idea.

I'm writing to add that I brought up my lack of forgiveness in MC when we were 30 months out.

Our MC wouldn't even discuss it - 'It's too early,' she said. That's a direct quote.

SIers said R doesn't require forgiveness when I was new here. That made immense sense to me. IMO, the less pressure one puts on oneself, the more likely it is that R will succeed. As I wrote, I did forgive eventually - but that was 42-48 months out. And it slipped up on me. And I believe that lack of pressure to forgive helped me recover, reconcile, and forgive.

So I recommend no trying to speed up forgiveness. Let o come or not. Focus on processing your pain out of your body and building the M you want, piece by piece, day by day.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 5:43 PM, Sunday, June 28th]