SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

The time it takes to "feel better" again is something that is frequently talked about on this site and while it is profoundly different for everyone, I thought it might be helpful for some of us "old timers" to share theirs - whet happened and how they feel today/where they are today. I'll start with my own, which I think lasted longer due to False R. In a quick recap d-day 1 was 10/1/17 and d-day 2 was 10/1/18, with d-day 3 falling somewhere around the end of March 2019. I divorced him at the end of 2019 but we lived in the same house until the beginning of 2021 when I moved away. I started feeling better when I took control of my own life in 2019 and decided planning to leave him. I was truly at peace in 2021 when I ddi move away. WH and I still date, albeit long distance. And I am happy with my life and NOT AT ALL consumed by the A. I do not believe there is any coincidence between my staring to feel better and when I started to focus on ME and not WH. It made ALL the difference.

Rollercoaster stated in 2017. Got off the rollercoaster in 2021.

WH and I were together for about 7 years before I moved across the country to be with him. We do not have any children - WH has a disabled child with an ex girlfriend from many years ago - she and his child live far from us. WH's A was with a married co-worker. He also worked with the AP's spouse, who he knew and was good friends with before either WH or the OBS knew the AP. AP and OBS also met at work and married several years later. WH was in their wedding and socialized with them, although less so after they were married. The A started about 2 years after their were married and very shortly after the birth of their first (and only) child.

A started spring of 2017. D-day 1 10/1/17. After seeing a strange item on the credit card bill when I was home for a weekend, and suspecting WH was up to something for several months prior, I confronted. I was working out of state on a contract job for 12 months - it was month 10 when I discovered the A. Wh admitted it, said it had ended recently (lie), that for him it was just sex but she was also emotionally attached. He admitted the sexual activity always took place at our house, and there really wasn't a place in our home they didn't have sex the 2-4 times a week they could. She would come to the house when she got off work and they would spend and hour or two before she would have to leave.

I was devastated and crying, unable to focus on my job (which I had to return to), and really unable to focus on much of anything. I had so much trouble focusing I actually drove off from the gas station with the gas pump still attached to my car, resulting in ripping the line off when my car was not full. I went inside and apologized, offered to pay for the damage to the pump and left. I had to return to another gas station to get gas later that day and DID THE SAME THING AGAIN. In other words, I was so unfocused I forgot I was putting gas in my car twice in the same day, driving away from the pump both times. I often sobbed on the floor of my house uncontrollably - and if not for my dogs (which required walks as my rental did not have a fenced yard) I think I would have remained glued to the carpet with stands of carpet fibers stuck to my face by tears most times. WH begged and pleaded for my return, as I indicated maybe I should just find a new job elsewhere and not return.

The A ended at d-day, but he went back to it several days later and kept it a secret for the next year. Often telling me he was "not sure" he wanted to remain together. Some days he was irritable and nothing I did was right. Other days he seemed elated to be with me. He would get annoyed and give me the silent treatment when I would try to discuss the A, or get mad that I "could never be over it." Our sex life remained robust - just as it was before. I felt CRAZY most days, going back and forth between not trusting him and all, searching for clues of what he was up to, and berating myself for not trusting him. I joined this site that July as I was usually convinced the A had not stopped or at least that WH did not have any interest in me. It was all a lie. One year to the day after d-day 2 I recorded his call with her - replete with I love yous and all kinds of lies about how we no longer had sex, that I was planing to move away (in reality he had just convinced me to take a local job with a 2 year contract, which I had stupidly done). They had taken the A underground, decided not to have physical intercourse anymore but did all kinds of other gross disgusting things instead. This time I told OBS immediately. Again, luckily, when caught he admitted it - that it had never stopped except for brief times when he ended it, only to go back. He refused to admit that he thought he was in love with her, and again he begged me not to leave him, which I did not because in part, I had not made any financial plans to leave, so leaving my job would have been a bad career move. He ended the A in earnest for 3 months, during which time she would call and send me horrible messages about how I had ruined her life.

Again I was unable to function, but this time it impacted my work. I had to tell my boss what had happened and why my work was so bad. I also confided in a friend, when before I had kept it all to myself. I was embarrassed, humiliated - the same as the first time but worse as now I knew WH could look me in the eye and lie, even with all my pain, even knowing how much he had hurt me. I cried daily in my car at lunch. I lost an insane amount of weight.

A resumed in 1/2019 - and I caught him in March or April of 2019. WH told me he wanted me to leave because I "could never be happy" which was in turn ruining his happiness. That was the moment for me (as stupid as it sounds - there were so many moments that should have been "the moment" before. This time things were different for me. I no longer cared about losing him and I had begun to put plans in place to leave him. And, I STARTED TO FEEL BETTER. While that ended up being the end of the A, I did not know that would happen nor did I have any reason to believe that it would at the time. It's not that I did not cry. It's not that I did not hurt. It is because I was taking some control over my life and giving up the crazy idea that I could somehow control him. I let go of controlling the outcome for "us" and decided to control the outcome for ME. We divorced later that year, and I had planned to move out and buy a place when my job ended - but COVID lockdown pushed those plans out by a bit and I ended up moving out at the beginning of 2021. By the time I left WH in 2021 I was happy to go - weirdly he was also in the process of working on himself - which he still does today.

My life is far from perfect, and finances were a stuggle BUT I would NEVER go back to the police state that was my marriage post-A again. Ever. The worst of times for me now are better than the best days I had of false R. My self esteem has returned and I've learned some valuable but necessary lessons about people, and about myself in the process.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 5:11 PM, Sunday, May 26th]

TISL - can I ask some questions?

You’ve been divorced since 2021. Do you live far apart from EXWH? How far apart?

You still date EXWH. Why exactly? Do you date other people? Does he?

W had been very effed up for months showing many symptoms of an A. I had asked, but she denied. On 12/22/10, we were fooling around in bed, and she freaked out. IIRC, I asked, 'Is there something I need to know?' She answered, 'I don't know.' I asked, 'What does that mean for us?' She revealed her A. (Her ap had threatened me, our son, XDIL2b, and our GS, so W was reluctant to confess. The threats were unbelievable, and I don't understand why my W believed them....)

For me, months 0-3: roller coaster always going down into more pain; committed to R 90 days out., after my W consistently, without a break, showed honesty and a desire to R.

Months 3-6: roller coaster slowed some

Months 6-14: plateaued in pain

Months 14-24: slow climb back to my pre-A self

Months 24-48: accelerating climb back to joy, feeling healed, and feeling confident that R would work.

Month 48: still triggered rarely, still had memories of A and early days, but they were annoyances. It was almost always easy for me to take the trigger into account, soothe myself, and move on.

Month 84: declared victory - 7 years, SI rule of thumb is 2-5 years for recovery. Very few triggers, easy to handle. I'm on SI almost every day. I believe I have some understanding of some people's pain, but it very rarely triggers my own.

Absolution -

To answer your questions: yes I moved far away from WH (think 2 LONG days drive by car) - no I don't date anyone else (but I can - that is our agreement - he can too - we just have to tell each other - but neither of us has to this point). I am fortunate in that I work 100% remotely so I am able to travel when and where I like. So I do spend a decent amount of time back at our old house but I don't live there. Some of our things are still there - we didn't divide up furniture etc. The reason we still date isn't really a simple answer, but here is my best effort:

When I decided to leave my WH it was 2019 and leaving my job before my contract ended (was set to end spring of 2020) would have been a bit of a career suicide (I have a very weird job - if I were to apply for another similar job (even on the other side of the country) my potential future boss not only would always contact my my former boss, but they might already know each other. Also there is no one else that I work for who could provide a reference and it would be seen as odd if I did not list a former boss as the contact person to check references. The job I had in 2019 is the same job I have now, just in a different location and for a different boss. I had spent years working to obtain the position and I did not want to ruin my chances of being able to move on. So, despite my FREQUENT desire to just drive off into the night and never look back, I stayed, and planned my departure which mostly involved saving money. At the end of that year our divorce was final but we were still living in the same house - he knew I was planning to leave and the splitting of the finances was easy ("our" house was his pre-marital asset so there was no doubt when we split that I would be the one moving). And during that time WH started going to IC - the A had ended, everyone at his work found out (and he was once a very well liked person who was now shunned and talked about). He hated going to work, etc - it all blew up and he finally figured out that for his own mental well being he needed to figure out why. At that point I did not care about his why's anymore - I just wanted out. It's not to say I wasn't still hurt and upset - I totally was. I just was 10000% over being kicked around emotionally and I had just grown tired of being the relationship police. My energy was just gone.

Then, along came COVID lockdown. So right as I was preparing to leave the world put down the pause button. My work was super slow and went 100% remote where it had been hybrid before. WH's work also slowed and they introduced strict scheduling measures to have as few people working together as possible. So, we were both home, a lot, with nothing to do. WH continued IC online and we talked about what happened, about him, about me - in ways that we never had before, some of it fueled by the freedom of it being "over" - both our marriage and the A. He had a lot of comments that clearly came from his IC and a lot of introspective moments. It was nice. I was lucky in that when caught WH usually spilled the beans about all the details - he wasn't one for tricks truth so he would usually answer everything pretty much as it happened as it related to the past so there wasn't a lot of rehashing past details - but we talked a lot about why and how. How he could continue lying to me after d-day 1 - why not let me go. All those questions - some of them he had crap answers for which meant he really didn't know why - just that he wanted to in the moment - to keep both of us going. Blah blah blah. Lockdown for us lasted a year. We had a LOT of time, and I could tell he was becoming that person I wished he had been when everything blew up - the defensiveness was definitely down. The anger was gone. His willingness to talk as opposed to looking like he hated every minute of it - totally different.

So when that year was over and I went to buy a house there was a part of me that was really sad about leaving. And we have shared dogs - so I knew I would be coming back to take them. That was our deal. Due to our financials he had to sign off on some things concurrently with my buying my place, so he was there at the closing with me. And all that was okay - not sad for me. It just didn't feel "over" in the way I had imagined, largely because of the changes he had made but also because I felt profoundly free of "needing" him to my own detriment. Those days were over and done with, and it all felt good. Basically I do still love him in the "care about you" kind of way, and I do wish the man he is now is the man I met - I think it would have been absolutely wonderful. And we have a good time together - he is still in IC (less now - only 1 time per month as opposed to the 1 time per week he did for several years) and honestly, there is a part of me that hopes I can somehow get that "spark" back for him that I used to have. So we keep trying - but it's casual. I will come up for a few weeks and then leave to go do other things. My job is awesome and so freeing I find it hard to imagine going back to day to day life with him, or with anyone. I guess we date, as opposed to trying to make a real go of it because of me. and he is aware of my reasons and knows what I'm thinking. There are no secrets anymore.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 2:58 PM, Monday, May 27th]