SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi All,

First time posting although I have been on this forum since February.

I will try to be brief. It’s a particularly tough day, and only because of me.

DDay was end of October 2025. I have been trickle truthing all the way, until last week when it was all out. It wasn’t fully intentional. I admitted some things straight away, and the whole thing on a general level. But I seriously struggled with details. Like number of meetings, I did a lot of "sanitising". If I had a chance at recovery, trickle truthing probably blew it.

I landed on this forum at the beginning of February and it’s when I started understanding the real impact of my actions, how affairs generate from characters’ flaws (often dormant, but yet still there), and slowly I started "reforming" myself.

It isn’t easy. It’s awful. Not as awful as what I am putting my BS through ( I know I am not the victim here).

Two days ago, my BS asked me if it was all out. Not just about last year, but throughout all our relationship. I obviously said yes, because what happened last year was all out, and I had never been unfaithful before.

But then, as I kept questioning myself, my behaviour, my copying mechanism, something from the past came to mind.

In the early days of our relationship (over 12 years ago) we briefly broke up. During that brief break, I slept with my ex once. And I made the decision to never disclose this. I even forgot about it, deeply buried somewhere in my mind.

But now it’s out. I told my BS.

The second most heartbreaking thing (after the pain I am causing) is realising how deeply I am flawed. Who even am I?

I always thought myself a good person, and with the exception of last year and 12yrs ago, I have never lied or done anything dodgy. But now I see a pattern, I see how under particular circumstances I choose lying.

I don’t even attempt to write how desperate I am about all of this. Not only because of this new disclosure itself, but because I thought I was done trickle truthing. I thought I was done saying "it’s all out", only to come out with something new after a few days.

Not sure what I expect from the comments. I just needed to share a bit of my story.

It's a positive sign that you're here. Truly. Wanting to be better is a tough choice to make...one that you will have to constantly choose again and again throughout the rest of your life. You devastated someone you reportedly love. And you repeatedly did it by trickle-truthing. It will be hard. And whether your marriage survives, you still owe it to yourself to be better than you were.
Have you offered up a timeline with all of he details you can remember? Your partner may or may not want that, but the act itself is a good first step in becoming safe. Just naming your offenses is a form of accountability, even if no one sees them.
With that, you may offer up being subjected to a polygraph test to validate that all of the facts are out there.
But, gently, I do say that your post still looks very self-centered. Self-flagellation aside, it's still largely about you and how you feel.
Remember that regret is inward-focused (how your infidelity affected you) and remorse is outward-focused (how your infidelity affects everyone else, top of which if your betrayed partner). Notice the difference in verb tense. The impact on the people in your life will last for a long time. Don't lose sight of that.
It may also be helpful to get more details on your A. Nothing salacious, just for context.
Keep coming and keep posting.

1994,

Thank you so much for your insight, especially for highlighting I still sound self-centred.
I truly and genuinely appreciate it, because I wasn’t even aware of all my blindspots.

I will aim to reply better tomorrow

Who am I? It's a great question. I would also ask "Who have I been?" and "Who am I going to be in the future?". There is something that separates us from doing bad things based on impulsive feelings, the moral backbone. You can grow it at any time, it's your decision.

Nothing will be easy right now, but based on the experience of others, write everything down, excluding gory details. Write what you thought and felt, even if it is shameful or hurtful. Try to remember and include situations that were important for how things turned out (without blame shifting). Include situations that didn't end up as an affair, but were part od the process.

And more then anything, have patience. Big fkups like this don't get resolved in days or weeks, but in years, if ever. It will be hard, but remember who you want to be. Only patience, honesty and humility can bring healing.

Hi lonely welcome.

I read you, heard you.

In general there is a recent article called "keeping secrets "

Read it, might give you some valuable insight.

It’s important no matter how bad you feel right now that you don’t shut down yourself.
You want to be healed and stronger, a first step is to detach from the person who did that to your partner, and start to observe it from outside. I know it sounds difficult but it is feasible.

Keep going

Thank you all for taking time to reply to my post. I appreciate every comment, every insight.
These are tough days, so I struggle to write more at the moment.

@BackfromtheStorm thanks for mentioning that post about keeping secrets. I read it on Tuesday this week and it's one of the factors that contributed to me coming fully out with my spouse. I have just read it again to find the strength to keep going and not shutting myself down.

Before any poly, consider writing. TT is a marriage-killer, but it's impossible to remember everything of note, especially since our minds are good at hiding what we don't want to know.

Writing out a timeline is a good way to remember, especially if your BS has an opportunity to ask questions of you while you're writing it. And writing has a way of jogging many people's memories.

A TL also helps the poly. Polys work best with only a few questions. With a TL, the examiner and your BS can get a lot of info from a question like, 'Are you aware of writing any lie on your timeline?'

At the very least, you should write out a timeline of your affair--at each step not only what you did but why you thought it was OK for you to do it. Write the timeline out on say a word document that you can edit and revise as you remember and figure out more and discover more insights.

For your BH's sake as well as yours. The writing will help crystalize your thoughts yes, and the more you write, the more you will remember. This but also it would be instructive for your BH to not only know your actions but what you were thinking at the time.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 10:42 PM, Thursday, April 16th]

WBFA has given you excellent advice about writing a timeline, please read it carefully. The very act of writing things down will jog your memory and bring more into your consciousness.

I would add to that - you have to really believe and have faith that the truth is your ally, your friend, something that will not only help your BS, but will also help YOU. It probably seems like the truth is the very thing that will destroy your marriage, that if your BS knew everything they would leave you or stay and despise you, if you had to look directly at everything you did and thought and felt, that you wouldn't be able to live with yourself. You are learning through the effect of trickle truth that this belief is wrong, but your healing and your BS's healing will be much faster and more complete if you start to trust in the truth as your ally.

There are ethical reasons that truth is your ally and practical reasons, reasons that the truth is critical for your BS and reasons that the truth is critical for you. I think practical and self-focused is likely to be most effective with someone who is first starting to dedicate themselves to truth. Practically, lies are cognitively expensive - you may suffer in the short term when you are truthful about something you'd rather hide, but the long term stress is infinitely more. The architecture of deception compounds over time, even when a BS is not asking questions, the doubts linger and come up decades later. It doesn't go away until they are at peace that they have the truth, and that is hard not only on them but also on you. The act of lying (which includes hiding, minimizing, deflecting, etc as well as outright lies) is a daily, hourly, minute by minute declaration that the real you is not acceptable. I could go on and on. Lying makes you stressed, sick, and hobbled, even on days when nothing is said or discussed.

On the other hand, when you share the full and total truth with yourself and with your BS, and hopefully at least one person in your life who is absolutely on your side (therapist, pastor, friend, SI buddy, whatever), then you learn that these things you thought made you subhuman are something that can be dealt with. Even better, when you think about and share the details of your behavior, it's like putting together a puzzle that makes sense. Lying is something you can do - where did that come from? Where did you learn that is OK? Sexuality is not sacred - how is that something you came to believe (a lot of waywards have sexual assault or trauma in their background, but if you don't, at least coming to an understanding that our culture celebrates sexuality in an unhealhty way can be important). Etc etc. I like to remember that is the FULL truth - not only what you did and what the effect was, but that the reasons you did it are comprehensible and once you understand them you can change them.

That's a lot for now. I could write endlessly about the importance of a daily commitment to, practice of, and faith in the truth. It will set you free and heal you. It is not easy, there's a lot of suffering involved, but it is worth it, for your BS but also for you.

I can only add a small but important bit to what was said.

Why truth and details matter.

Purely from a BS side, I use plural as a stylistic form not as generalization

Believe it or not we knew when you cheated on us. Sometimes we might have not be able to put into words but we "felt it". Sometimes we knew but denied it. Sometimes we just hoped that you would wake up and make up if we feigned long enough, and you’d realize where your heart truly belonged.

All in vain. The only thing would have worked is to leave you, never to return.

And we couldn’t.

The damage cannot ever be undone. But once it’s out the pain is so severe that you will not find anymore an ally in the "I wish I could trust you, I really do" you will be forever under screening.

And there is emotions involved. Emotions make sure that every word you say is not just heard, is etched in stone in the memory. So every deviation and inconsistency will be spotted. Immediately. Only the truth fears no retelling, because it never changes. Lies and trickle truth always do.

So when the truth is curated or dispensed in drops, your bs is hyper attuned to sense it, trickle or incomplete truth destroy all the trust the truth and work you put into changing rebuilt until then.

The truth hurts, but never as much as lies and withholding it ever could.

Yes you are afraid if the BS knows all the truth they leave you, because is too much.

So you curate it.

I get it.

Still no matter how understandable that is, it also guarantees the trust will be never rebuild, and the chances of the partner getting to the "enough" skyrocket.

Don’t rush to please with truths that one may find "acceptable " take time to relive it fully, and offer it naked.

Painful but that’s the only right way

This last bit will sting but try to challenge it and see:

Lies and trickle truths are not protecting your partner, even if that’s the excuse your ego uses to explain it to you.

Who you are protecting is the cheater, the version of you who did it and that you remember so well when it did it. Lies are as much for you as 5th are for your BS. Ego rewrites the narrative as "yes I was the person who happily fucked another person behind my partner’s back… true, but for this and that reason, that person is not so bad, it just slipped but still a good guy/gal in the end".

Your ego saving that person can change the narrative and the memories if you can believe it just enough.

So you don’t have to change your self, you can keep going through your life as the cheater (just more careful, but unchanged) instead of becoming a stronger person who would kick the cheater’s ass at the very thought.

That is the difference between shame and guilt by the way, you are in the shame phase still, you will know when you reach the guilt. The day you can own it.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 11:53 AM, Friday, April 17th]