SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello. I made a post here 10 years ago about my marriage that I thought was over. I actually wish I knew how to find that post but it doesn't look like there is a way to go back that far. This will be a long post explaining my wife's affair and where we are now.

Here's a recap of my story:

We got married in our mid 20s. About 7 years later, we were struggling financially and I was focused solely on getting us back on track. In fairness, my wife kept telling me that I was not present for her and asked me how we could re-engage as a couple. When you are in dire financial trouble though, your mind focuses solely on that (we also had a young kid at the time). So I was definitely not the best husband during this time. Of course, my wife found an outlet for her emotional needs with a guy at her job that told her everything she wanted to hear and just showered her with compliments all day.

So they started an emotional affair which lasted 10 months. It was also physical (kissing, etc.) but never sexual (to the best of my knowledge, confirmed through their texts and her AP, whom I confronted). Our sex life also never dropped off during this period. The guy was also a self-admitted loser that couldn't believe my wife was interested in him. He was probably a 2/10 on the looks scale. She just loved to have so much power over him and that he worshipped her.

She never really tried to hide the affair from me, she was done with the marriage and I was at my lowest point. She basically told me everything they were doing and told me she would have had sex with him, but he didn't want to, so there was no reason not to believe her when she wasn't really hiding anything.

She was heavily drinking and just doing whatever she wanted. I was failing as a provider and a husband. I lost about 30 pounds during this period (not good weight loss, it was to the point I looked sickly thin). Of course I thought the best thing to do would be the pick me dance. During this time, I also found out from her that she had a one night stand before we got married. At the time, this barely registered with me since she was in a full fledged EA, so it took a lower priority (but would come to haunt me later).

I did this for about 9 months until finally I couldn't take it any more and told her that I had consulted with a divorce lawyer. She seemed fine with this at first, but at some point she changed her mind and said she wanted to be with me. I'm really not sure what turned her around because I wasn't providing much to her at the time, but I was slowly starting to turn things around at work and was getting back into shape (I used to be in very good shape and was slowly getting that back).

So after fighting for so long and then her being willing to come back, I thought I was getting everything I wanted. Somehow I felt I had won but I didn't stop to consider whether this was what I really wanted.

It took awhile for her to fully come back and I started to really improve things. We both kind of swept everything under the rug but never really addressed how and why this all happened.

Where we are now:

So fast forward 10 years! My life has turned around a lot. I now make 10X the money I did back then. I have gotten into great shape. We live a very good life. My wife has been a picture perfect wife. She has actively stayed away from potential situations that would be harmful to our relationship. She has stopped drinking almost completely (and never drinks without me). She now worships the ground I walk on and tells me this every day. We have no secrets (I hope) and are completely open with phones, etc.

In the last year though, I have really started to have some doubts about whether I made the right decision. Yes, everything worked out, and I now have a wife that I'm sure has a much lower chance to cheat than whomever I might have replaced her with if I had left her and gotten remarried. But I also feel like I have this permanent scar on my life, like I failed and now have a wife that is a constant reminder of that failure that will always be there. I mentally have swept everything under the rug for 10 years now thinking that it would go away and that time would heal this. To some degree, the time has healed my trust for her, but time can never heal or erase the failure of our relationship.

I should probably clarify that the scar I feel isn't from her EA 10 years ago, it's mostly from her one night stand that is now nearly 20 years ago! I knew the guy and he's about the most disgusting man you can imagine. If you saw him in a line up, you'd immediately think he's a fat slob that's been in and out of prison for beating women, and that wouldn't be far from the truth. We weren't married when she was with him but we had been dating a long time. The fact that she risked her future with me for a night with this POS is something that my mind simply can't reconcile.

I had somehow shut this out of my mind for a few years after her EA because I was happy to have my wife back, but the better things got, the more the PA (the one night stand) ate at me. To be honest, now that we are at our apparent happiest, my mind is consumed by her PA. It's not just something that I can't get out of my mind, I mean that my mind is consumed by it at ALL times, every minute of every day.

During the last few years, I have had multiple loved ones die (including my parents), and while the pain of losing them was hard, it is not even a fraction of the pain I felt (and still feel) over my wife's betrayal(s). This again has put doubts in my mind about whether I made the right decision. I have always considered myself to have very strong mental fortitude, but getting through my daily life is a constant struggle. I haven't really written about this or talked to anyone about it for 10 years (except for a brief therapy stint that didn't help), so I thought maybe writing it out would give some relief.

I was going to add a section about what I've learned, but I'm not sure it would be appropriate at this point. Yes, I still have a marriage but I'm not sure it is what most BS would want to have 10 years after D-day. From almost all perspectives, I do have a good life, so please don't get me wrong, I am thankful for where I'm at compared to where I've been. But I still question if I made the right decision to stay, what my life might have looked like. Could I have gotten rid of the scar by leaving my wife and starting over with a clean slate? Maybe, but I'll never know for sure. I do want to emphasize that the pain never goes away, never! Don't fool yourself into thinking that it might with time.

I just wrote this stream of conscious, so feel free to ask any questions because obviously there are a ton of details in a near 20 year saga that I left out. I'm happy to hear any advice people might have too. Thanks for reading.

Your story really drives home how the "pick me dance" is a recipe for disaster for the BS. Like clockwork, your WW snapped out of it once you were ready to divorce her cheating ass.

Glad to hear you’re in great shape and doing well career wise. So important to focus on yourself first. Always strive for self improvement and personal growth and NEVER identify yourself by a relationship with someone else…wife included.

One thing you mentioned is you wonder if you’d be happier if you had divorced WW and married someone else. Why, why, why do you feel you’d have to get remarried?? Do you know how much fun a single guy in great shape and a good job can have these days?

Anyway, have you spoken to your wife of your feelings? Be straight with her and have an open, honest conversation with her. Tell her you appreciate how good she’s been over the past few years but there’s some unfinished business between the two of you. She might sense something is bothering you and be relieved that you’re opening up to her.

[This message edited by Nexther at 11:14 PM, Monday, January 1st]

Thanks Nexther. To answer your questions about getting a new wife - at the time I was at a very low point and definitely not a catch, so the single life was not looking too appealing. It's more interesting to consider today being much more successful and in good shape what would turn up.

Also, I have slowly been opening up about this over the past few months but I have gotten a mixed reception. My wife claims that she considers her past actions traumatic to her as well and she has done everything she can to forget about who she was and what she did. I heal in a much different way. So if I ever ask her any question about the affair (even things that are out in the open) she almost can't bring herself to answer and starts to have a breakdown. She thinks that things are perfect now and if I am bringing things up I am just trying to rock the boat. There is some validity to this, but she is in the position of literally knowing everything that happened while I only know a subset (even if she claims to have told me everything she can).

I may need to ask her these questions / discuss the issues with her with a therapist present or something like that.

Sounds like she’s being selfish. She’d rather rugsweep the whole thing than help you heal. She gets upset talking about it and is more worried about her feelings than your pain.

Did you ever get a written timeline? Ever considered a polygraph?

Gently……While you’re much stronger now, it still sounds like she manipulates you.

Yes, fair points. Honestly I have been walking on egg shells for years, until recently. I am just now comfortable enough to start testing the waters of talking about it again with her.

Yes, she gave me a full time line and even put together a presentation with all the messages she had exchanged with everyone (that she still had). It was very long but everything did match up with what I had discovered on my own. She added in every tiny text she exchanged with any man in the past 10 years that I could possibly consider inappropriate. I don't think I need to do a polygraph at this stage, because I do think she is being honest about things, it's more about what she doesn't want to talk about.

Yes, this may be a subtle form of manipulation. Again, life is objectively great right now and she has been perfect. So it's a fair point she made that anything I bring up could potentially only ruin a good thing and not make things better. This may just be a difference between men and women, because I do believe her that she feels this way (meaning she wants to forget past trauma while I want to know everything).

Hold her feet to the fire in regards to allowing affair conversation. Did she go to IC? She’s not dealing with her shame.

Anyway, I’ll step back and let some of the excellent posters here chime in. Let me just end by wishing you and your wife a very happy New Year. All the best to the two of you!

I read your words to say you've rug-swept, Numbed, not that you did any pick me dance.

Whether you D or R, you can't remove the scars from your W's ONS or EA, and you can't change who she cheated with. If you want to heal, you need to dig into your feelings about your W's As. In order to R, your W needs to do the same, and she needs to change from betrayer to good partner, but that's her problem not yours. No matter what she does, your feelings are yours to deal with. A good IC can help.

I have these moments where I feel like I did D my H and got remarried. In a way it’s true. We have a completely different marriage and relationship and we are both different people now. So yeah, I D the man who cheated on me and "remarried" the one who is working on healing me, healing us.

That being said. I don’t think I exactly did the "pick me dance" I was not the best wife at the time of the A either. I was constantly annoyed by his presence, I was resentful and demanding and mean. When I found out about the A you know what my very first thought was "I pushed him too far" This is when I started blaming myself for what HE DID. I definitely started analyzing how I could be a better partner and wife and friend to him (remember I admit I was being pretty shitty, he’s never said I was but I definitely was)

I don’t see pick me here with you. I think many of us live with some form of shame. I sit here and think about the trauma my H caused me and how it broke me and why in the hell is he sitting here next to me now??? I’m like if this was a movie plot I’d be yelling at the person to get away! So yeah the shame of somehow accepting the person who hurt us so deeply and continuing to allow them in our lives and even love them scares me sometimes.

I think you may be doing a bit of pain shopping as well. I found a blog post that explains it so well I will copy it and put it here.

sisoon, to clarify, I did the pick me dance during W's A. Looking back on it is embarrassing. One night, she literally told me she was going to meet with AP, and I was in tears begging her not to go. This went on for a good 9 months.

Finally I gave that up and just accepted that we had to D. So I told her that and right then she came crawling back, which is so weird because she had told me we were done already, multiple times, during her A. Then I realized I had some power back. I didn't have to do the dance anymore, but I also didn't want to rock the boat. So I rug swept it for the next 10 years.

brokendollparts, thanks for the perspective. I have the same thought about the movie, like how have I let this person stay here, I'm the idiot in the movie everyone would hate.

It does help me cope to admit my part of the blame in her EA though. I was not a good husband. However, her PA is all on her, we were literally in the honeymoon phase (pre-marriage) which is why I'm having such a hard time letting that go, even after almost 20 years (again, I only found out about it 10 years ago though).

I have been reading a ton of stories from other people recently. I guess you could call it pain shopping, it's more anger shopping for me. My mind just won't let her PA AP out of my head, like a survival instinct that my mind needs to be so ingrained that it never happens again.

I read your thread and hope i didnt miss anything. Forgive and correct me if I did.

My wife claims that she considers her past actions traumatic to her as well and she has done everything she can to forget about who she was and what she did.

That may be fine and good for her, but not you, and to be frank, your needs take priority as she is the one who inflicted this damage on the relationship. It sounds like she is still making it all about her...her needs and her feelings. She needs to understand that she cannot unring that bell.

From what I've read, your WW/FWW sounds like she is very (subtly) manipulative, although she might be doing it on a subconscious level, meaning that she may be unaware that she it controlling the situation to her own ends, but rather feels she is doing what is best for her version of the relationship. In that sense, she is removing agency from you.

Look at her behaviours, not as HER behaviors, but in a cause/effect relationship. Don't project your motivations onto her, but look for the ultimate consequence/end to each discreet display on her part. You need to talk about the A, she breaks down into a sobbing heap, your protective instinct is triggered and you comfort her out of compassion or a sense of guilt. She gets what she wants, as you stop talking about the A and are unlikely to bring it up in the future. This is a very convert form of DARVO, where she may not be overtly accusing you, but rather implicitly making herself the real victim, thus you hecome the perpetrator or villain. Look for this type of behaviour outside of the A. Could there be a pattern?

You mentioned that she worships the ground you walk on. Not healthy, but Why? Is it because she feels a genuine love for you, or is that behaviour intended to distract from your trauma? Is it built on shame, guilt, remorse?

I also feel like I have this permanent scar on my life, like I failed and now have a wife that is a constant reminder of that failure that will always be there.

The reason you feel this way is because you do have a perminant scar. That's what infidelity does. It changes us on a quantum level. I remember years ago, I read a post about how the Japanese have this technique of repairing broken pottery using gold as a sort of glue. They equated the broken relationship to the vase, and the gold to the hard work of R. They marvelled at the beauty and value of the repaired object, but in reality, the vase was worthless if measured against its original purpose and the value lay in the gold. Things don't generally get better the more you break them. I'm not saying redemption isn't possible, just that it needs to be viewed through a realistic lens.

I think if you really dig deep down, you may find that you feel some level of regret in staying, and now feel guilty for feeling regret as a decade has passed, which compounds the issue.

I would recommend reading "Cheating in a Nutshell". It was the single best book I read, as it gave voice to the complex and often contradictory feelings inside me. The authors take an evolutionary psychology approach to understanding intimate partner betrayal and are pretty clear on their position that one should end a relationship after infidelity. I'm not saying you should leave, nor am I saying to stay, though you may be applying some sunk cost fallacy to your current situation. All I am saying is that this book might help round out your understanding in a way that allows you to forgive yourself for those feelings you have, even after decades, as they have been hard-wired into you.

My guess is that your WW'S behaviour will change if you detach and become independent, as she will perceive it as a threat to the status-quo, which seems to serve her well, but you, not so much. Ask yourself if her behaviours and feelings are genuine towards you, or are they transactional?

Good luck on your journey and I wish you well.

[This message edited by Justsomeguy at 6:05 PM, Tuesday, January 2nd]

justsomeguy, thanks so much for the insights. I think my post comes across a little one sided since I am just trying to address the issues on my side. She really has done a great job for 10 years now. She has done everything I have asked her to in order to make our marriage work. Yes, of course it's for her benefit too because she wants it to work, but I don't think that necessarily means her behavior is disingenuous. She has taken accountability for her actions and fully will admit to everything, but at the same time she hates talking about it (which is understandable to a degree, no one likes talking about the biggest mistake of their lives).

I am realizing that we probably need to go to a couples therapist and address this in a place she feels safe.

Her mind works very different from mine. I think she fears that if she says what she did (even though she knows I know already) that it will somehow be us reliving that part of our lives again.

I think if you really dig deep down, you may find that you feel some level of regret in staying, and now feel guilty for feeling regret as a decade has passed, which compounds the issue.

Absolutely, there comes a time when you just can't justify leaving any more. I've had my chance to leave and I let it go. I sometimes find myself wanting her to cheat again, just so I could leave, even though it would still be incredibly painful.

I had not heard the term DARVO before but I looked it up - that's very interesting. I'll have to look more into this because it does describe her breakdowns when talking about the affairs.

She really has done a great job for 10 years now. She has done everything I have asked her to in order to make our marriage work. Yes, of course it's for her benefit too because she wants it to work, but I don't think that necessarily means her behavior is disingenuous. She has taken accountability for her actions and fully will admit to everything,

Obviously, these are good things, but can you explain what she has done in the order to make her safe? What will she do if things were to go bad again?

Part of being a remorseful partner is helping their partner heal. Yes, your minds work very differently, but that doesn't excuse her from facing the pain that she has caused...on you and herself. There's a reference that many reformed waywards use when trying to help explain how to help their hurting partner--You have to get down on the floor with your betrayed partner. It makes PERFECT SENSE to me why you are struggling with the pre-marriage cheating. It has never been addressed. Right or wrong, you can apply some logic to why she cheated 10 years ago. But the one night stand?

Answer: It was never about you or the marriage. It has always been her issue. And she really hasn't addressed that. How are you supposed to feel safe with this lingering in the shadows? You said that things appear good. They could be so much better if she tackled these issues instead of trying to sweep that now huge rotting pile under the rug yet again. I can't tell you how many stories of people coming here....or coming back here....many years later due to nothing else but the unresolved issues from years ago that they hoped would go away. Unfortunately, most minds don't work that way.

I am kind of in the same boat in regards your comment about wanting to know everything. I’m a woman. My WH does not want to talk about it and it’s only been weeks after d day which makes me wonder how authentic he is about being sorry.

You wife gave you a deep wound, your wife put a bandaid over it. It still hurts but you don’t want to tell her and pretend that the band aid worked. Meanwhile, your wound is slowly infected. You bear the pain because it will make her feel sad.

I don’t know why the BS should feel guilty about rocking the boat. You have clearly rug swept and not addressed anything. Get into IC or MC. Process this properly ! Remove that freaking band aid and tend to the wound.

My take is that she has done a lot to make the marriage safe and it is understandable that she is confused/scared/avoidant as to why this is coming up now. It sounds like you need IC to get through this. Perhaps if you do that, you can also let your W know that at some point you may need to have her join you, where she feels supported to work through some of this. Tell her that trauma arises years later for many people and that it doesn't mean you do not love her or want to rock the boat. It just came back and it is something you need to heal from.

The reason I came here to SI was because I partially rugswept an event from when we were dating before marriage. Many years later we moved back to the area it happened and that triggered me. It isn't unusual at all.