SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hey guys. I’m new to these forums although I’ve been lurking here a few months. It’s finally come to a head. That moment where I try to figure out what I mentally can put up with. I hate that this happened. This first post may not be the whole story. I’ll try to post one on my Bio later. Or maybe here? Idk.

My WW betrayed me and became well…a WW. I was deployed and my wife had a weight loss surgery before I did. I was stationed in Germany with her. Well my time in Germany was almost up and we have a beautiful little 3 year old girl. She is so gorgeous. My wife was going through a rather crazy transformational period and also got sent back stateside since I didn’t have a lot of time left after my deployment. She ended up getting a job at a bar. Once this happened I did voice it made me feel uncomfortable but I trusted her. I told her what to look out for. I did everything I could to make sure I was mentally strong and of course told her what to watch out for. She always played like it wasn’t a big deal. That she was just working. She would go to work and got into playing poker, stay at the bar till 2 am and told me when she was going home. We FaceTimed everyday. And then the day came where she called me crying, saying she had an affair with another man. 7 encounters, 4 times they had sex. I was a broken numb mess. I was a numb mess. I told her that she either come back to Germany to finish my tour with me or it was over. She paid for a plane ticket immediately and we left our daughter with my parents to work over the next 4 months with counseling and therapy. I’ll add after the 1st month I told her I wanted to see my daughter, so she flew back, was only able to get a flight so close so she got a rental, drove 12 hours to get my daughter from my parents and then flew back to me. We have struggled, it got dark. We have cried. Now here I am stationed back in the states 7-8 months later. I’m still struggling.

What am I struggling with? The sexual acts. No I’m not one of those guys who "my wife did things she never would do with me" no. I guess in that department, I’m lucky. I got every terrible thing she did out of her in her short affair. 2.5 months long by the way.

After the hysterical bonding though, I’m still finding out I love my wife and I am so attracted to her, but not what she did..not who she was during that time. She is not that person. Not normally. She’s in therapy and I’m in coaching with a marine who he and his wife been through this and we talk everyday. This week we have a couples meeting with him and his wife who also cheated on him. He’s 4 years out. Some days I feel okay, sometimes I’m like "I cannot believe she did this." I’m disgusted I’m angry, yet in love with her and my family. My little girl deserves to together happy parents and I deserve to have happiness, but there is injustice here. We go to church now. My wife has told all her friends and even told my parents the day she confessed to me, without me even bringing it up. Then she told hers, she told a lot of our closest family friends and has been so remorseful.

I commend her for her bravery for coming out and telling me unprompted and dealing with my onslaught of insults. Me flipping tables. All of that. She doesn’t want to lose me, and I honestly don’t want to lose her. We have only been married 5 years, but I’ve known her since I was 15. Her mom died when she was 11. Her dad was physically abusive, a drunk, and cheated on her mom multiple times. She was married before me prematurely for a short time where she got married and had stillborn twins, they died and her previous husband didn’t care. I’ve known this girl for so long and when we finally got together we were the power couple. Somewhere along the line that got lost and all her insecurities and her never feeling good enough for me (which she had always said) caught up to her. Her trauma has now given me trauma. I can’t excuse what my wife did, I won’t. I have more self respect than that. We still have sex and we still cuddle and love once I was able to. It took me 4 months to get to that point.

I’ll be able to post everything in detail at some point, but is there in Betrayed husbands (BH) or Wayward wives (WW) here that can give me any hope that I can weather this storm? That we can make this work which is both our hope? Or will the thoughts about what she did physically consume me and I’ll never be able to crawl out of this? I’m a pretty mentally tough guy, but I do not know how to deal with the images and the thought that she even dared to go that way with another person. She always hated her father for cheating on her mom. But now I’m a victim of her cheating. 8 months in, I’m not even close to being healed. I’m more mentally stable but dammit I just want her. Im not afraid of being alone. I’m afraid to not have her be my forever because we have spent half our lives knowing each other and bringing victories. Always loving one another. Is it hopeless for us men to overcome to emasculation? The pain? The ability to get past it but not forget it? I do not think this will happen again, especially since she confessed, something I wouldn’t have ever known. Or am I just being dumb and hopeful?

Adre,

Welcome to SI. It’s horrible to need it, but for those who do it’s an incredible community.

I’m a BH myself. Full disclosure, I’m in the middle of a divorce after a couple hellish years of trying to R. There are certainly stories of very successful restored marriages. This website was founded by a couple (BH, WW) who happily reconciled. It certainly can happen.

That said, anyone who would dare to tell you that it’s guaranteed would be a snake oil salesman. You are in the deep pain of the early days, there are many possibilities that could manifest and you don’t have full control of that future.

What you do have most control over is pursuing healing from the trauma. Personal healing. Not the marriage. Yes, that is broken, but it has to wait. You, friend, need to heal from betrayal trauma, one of life’s worst wounds. And from your descriptions you are still in the throes of it.

This community can help point you in a good direction. A good Individual Counselor (IC) can be a great service. You are badly wounded. That needs to be your first priority. Heal, for your own sake, for your kids sake, and then maybe for your marriages sake.

Best wishes.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 4:48 PM, Tuesday, February 11th]

I’m sorry you have joined this site but you will get great support and advice.

Look in the "I Can Relate" section for posts by betrayed husbands.

I agree with InkHulk there are no guarantees. You could happily reconcile now but years later decide the marriage no longer works and you need to move on.

That being said, your wife appears to be doing everything possible to make amends. Some betrayed spouses don’t get any remorse or effort to make amends from their cheater. You have gotten more than most, so that is a good sign for now.

There is a healing process - anger, sadness, grief etc. that takes time to process and cycle through. Be aware of your own feelings and please don’t rush into marriage counseling too soon. That often ends up being a mistake.

A good book for your wife is "How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair" by Linda MacDonald.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 7:57 AM, Wednesday, February 12th]

BW here. Everything you've written about the devastation and pain sounds so very normal to me. 8 months in I was still struggling. Honestly, it was a few years before I thought....ok....we MIGHT be ok. If both of you are willing to do the work for yourselves, not just your daughter, you have a solid chance of becoming a better version of that power couple.

I read once somewhere that sometimes people cheat because of a change in identity. Losing a lot of weight, becoming a mother, midlife crisis, etc. all seem to contribute to a change in who you think you are. Doesn't make it right.

We're coming up on the anniversary of our DDay. Almost 6 years now. In so many ways our relationship is light years better than it was. I hate that it took an A for us to get here, but I have to acknowledge that I love the couple we've become because we've both been willing to do the very hard work. Honestly, we literally had a "fight" last night over something stupid and I had to marvel at how far we've come and how we both came together to resolve it.

Cut yourself some slack. Treat yourself with an overabundance of kindness. You have been through hell. I didn't decide to stay, I only decided to work on our relationship and work on healing myself and only if I saw him putting in the same effort.

Hang in there. And, thank you for your service.

BH here.

Can you weather the storm?

Right now, you’re in a tornado.

The tornado will pass, leaving a lot of destruction in its wake. Cleanup will be hard; seeing what has been damaged and destroyed, and can never be replaced.

The tornado will pass. But expect a lot of bad weather to come. Some days cloudy, some rainy. Thunderstorms.

But some sunny days, too.

There are a lot of resources on this site; books for you and your wife to read.

Don’t make any quick decisions.

Best wishes.

Adre1992

I'm sorry you are going through this. We are on parallel journeys, and so far it's been the worst thing I've ever gone through. Just know you are not alone. This site is full of people who have been there and give really good advice from all different angles.

There has been several people who have commented on my posts something to the effect that it's not a sprint it's a marathon. I don't have to resolve everything now or make decisions before I'm ready. It takes time to get through this, and time to really know what you want. Not making a decision now, doesn't prevent me from making it in the future. So I'm taking my time and trying to be more deliberate with what I bring up and when. I believe slowing down a bit has allowed mine and my wife's nervous systems to calm down. Maybe this will help you as well.

Welcome to SI and I'm sorry you're here. If you've been reading, I hope you've checked out some of the posts pinned to the top of the JFO (Just Found Out) forum. Also, the Healing Library at the top of the page has a lot of great information.

How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair by Linda MacDonald is a nice blueprint for your WW. Another good resource is Not Just Friends by Dr. Shirley Glass.

It may be beneficial to you to see a betrayal trauma specialist. My second therapist was a betrayal trauma specialist and helped me work through the process. It is very painful and this is trauma. There is a resource in the Healing Library that talks about how to get rid of mind movies. You may find it helpful, too.

Thank you for your service.

A couple of points I want to make:
I’m former Law Enforcement. It was only about 7-9 years before I changed careers, but those were very formative years. I experienced stuff no person in their early twenties should experience. Stuff like seeing bodies after serious accidents, suicides, gunshot wounds, and things like being stabbed, confrontations where your life is on the line. I also experienced walking in on my fiancé having sex with another man.
Years later – like a decade after leaving that career and 15-17 years after my d-day – I seek professional help for PTSD. I had issues with several things. Like I couldn’t eat or see cauliflower without going back to seeing brain-matter spread over the highway... The IC took about 2 sessions before confirming that yes – I had PTSD. What was surprising though was that the experience of D-day scored higher than all the other causes combined.
Let’s put it this way: Within one or two more sessions teaching me how to deal with my issues I was eating cauliflower soup with no qualms at all. The infidelity-impact... I still sometimes have to think back to what the IC taught me.

What I’m getting at in a long-winded way is that you should seek professional help with what you are dealing with.

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Weight loss surgery... I think all infidelity (more or less) is about validation. It’s definitely very shallow validation but still validation. We all need and work towards getting validation, but we tend to do it in healthy ways. Like you might get a good performance report after your deployment – validating your ability to preform well. You might get validation from friends that want your company. Validation isn’t a negative thing per se, but when people are so desperate for validation that they seek desperate ways.
I would suggest she seeks IC to discover ways of feeling valued that are normal and healthy. Like... she should have felt value in your trust in her leaving early for the States – but she possibly didn’t see it that way.

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You have options...
Remember that. You always have options. The ONLY think keeping you in this marriage is YOU.
I think this is so much a key to a good marriage, as well as the key to avoid a bad marriage.
If you always treat your spouse with the thought that if you are too firm, too demanding, too taking-her/him-for granted, too abusive, too distant.... whatever... then THEY can decide they don’t want this marriage. If both treat each other with this in mind you are more likely to have a good marriage. It leads to consideration and the ability to make acceptable compromises.

Like... you might want to spend all Saturday playing golf. If we use this example: You go play golf all Saturdays leaving her with the kids and all the chores at home. She can accept that or demand change. You can change, or she can use the next Saturday changing the locks... Instead, you reach a sensible compromise that you are both happy with because it gives you both what you want. Like maybe she too takes up golfing and you two go every third Saturday as a couple, or you cut down with your friends to once a month.

Like... you can tell your wife that she CAN go and be with that man if that’s what she wants. Frankly there isn’t anything you could do to prevent it, other than refuse to be married to her.

You can also tell yourself when full of doubt: I can decide out. I have that power, and I also have the power to decide to remain and work on things.

Thank you guys. I’ve calmed since this post. I actually have stretches of being okay. I get incredibly hurt at times and sometimes can’t control the thoughts. I apologize to how all over the place this post looks.

I’m a SSgt in the Air Force. I see myself as a confident and happy person. Always have. I can sometimes be a stone wall. Has nothing to do with her affair but I did do this for years, my life has had its own share of trauma that closed me off to people over the years. One of them being my wife.

Reasons I want us to get past this.

1. She confessed. With all the details and things I’ve discovered since, I would have never known. This wasn’t just a secret from me, it was a secret from friends, family and strangers. This shows a realization of integrity. I could have lived my life and never known.

2. Her remorse. I still will and continue to give her shit. But she has not deflected, blame shifted, and fought with me while healing herself every step of the way. I commend that.

3. She really has always been a good wife and mother. It’s obvious she has unresolved trauma, things she let affect her and our relationship and me. Things that didn’t come out until I was deployed. I believe it to be the perfect storm type of situation. Once again, not excusing the behavior of my wife. I spit venom when I have to let it out.

I am in both therapy and I have a men’s coach who is also a marriage coach. But he’s a men’s coach first for healing of infedelity, he’s a marriage coach second.
Reasons that make it hard to stay?

1. Lies and deceit: you have to be almost sociopathic or going through a mental crisis to compartmentalize and treat someone this way. At the end of the day what my wife did to me was abuse and that hurts. Forgiving that, is almost a Herculean task.

2. The sexual acts. I asked for details, and boy I got em. I can’t say they were as bad of some other here. I can say im still grossed out. Intercourse still happened. Oral still happened.
Im having to get over those images too. Some days are harder than others.

3. Unsurety and emasculation. Being a confident person, this has put a damper on this confidence. I understand I have the choice to leave.

I’m giving my marriage a chance. Am I crazy? Maybe. I’m hoping I can heal through the trauma though.

Glad you came back, and that you are in a moment of peace. You are on the rollercoaster of emotions, you should anticipate that things will be unstable for a while. It does get better.

The reasons you list are indeed worth considering. They were all present in my situation too, and I ended up putting too much stock in them and it prolonged my agony. My wife confessed, but confessed a lie. I got the dreaded trickle truth for over a year, still probably never got the full story.

You are right, it’s abusive and sociopathic to do this to someone, much less someone you are supposed to love and cherish. It’s really hard to recover from. You’ve got to build you own internal reality back up, that is priority number one. After that is in solid shape, and IF she has done the excruciating work in front of her, then you can consider whether you want to do the hard work of rebuilding a marriage with her. It’s a long long road. We will walk it with you if you like.

You are not crazy for trying to reconcile.

It takes bravery to D AND/OR Reconcile.

Neither is easy. But you have to be committed to reconciliation to make the marriage work. You need to be "all in".

I struggled the first year of Reconciliation even though I was all in. But it did get better over time - and I can say I am one of the lucky ones who have happily reconciled.

Ink Hulk.

I’m sorry for your situation. My wife wasn’t free from the trickle truth. However it only lasted a month. I know that sounds like I could be lying to myself, right? No. When she first confessed she just wanted to tell me it was a one night stand. I knew when she started acting aloof while I was deployed, and I know my wife’s face front to back. Every single time I asked her in that month, she knew she had to tell me more. I trust I got everything. Trust me. To me at the time, it couldn’t get any worse once I knew it all. I made her tell me how and when. Even though it hurt and I still feel like she doesn’t deserve me after that. It takes some balls to come out with the things my wife told me. She knew exactly what she’d be losing and was 100% sure I was done.

I’m not gonna worry about more trickle because I definitely got the extent of it. I’m more focused on me and eventually seeing if our marriage will work.

Point to make though. I have got to consider if my family should stay together or I take a chance on someone new. And I think about how risky marriage and relationships are in General, particularly in this generation. You may see them on here but how many people actually happily remarry? Very few, my mother cheated on my father too and he managed to stay through it. Does that mean I have to? No but my dad is literally the strongest man I knew growing up and even at his old age. I mean, when I used to have an unhealthy mindset he was what I would call full Alpha. So color me surprised when I found out my mom cheated. It goes to show you, it really isn’t about you. Women can just do this stuff and not just because they think you’re weak. They lose respect for themselves and whatever screwed up values their life has shown them end up making the good men bad. I’m sure this works vice versa as well. My view of women are so skewed now and I’m not like that so i apologize up front.

The fact your WW is very remorseful is a very good sign and something you can rebuild your marriage on. Thanks for your service; sorry you are walking through this Valley of the Shadow of Death. It’s a hard path, but your family - your daughter in particular - is worth it. It sounds like you’re going to make it through. Keep walking, listen to the advice. The feeling of emasculation is tough to get through, but eventually you realize it had nothing to do with your manhood, but rather her screwed up sense of self, worth and identity. To embrace this pain to save your family - and particularly your daughter - is the essence of being a man IMHO. Hang in there.

IMO, it's best to separate healing from the M's outcome.

You can heal from this trauma with the right help, but sometimes it requires ending the M.

R takes 2. One partner can't rebuild an M alone. R takes 2.

You heal you.

Your WS heals themself.

Together you (re)build your M.

R also takes time. You are not at all crazy to want R. Time will tell you what will happen to your M. I was encouraged by a number that Shirley Glass wrote in NOT "Just Friends": Among the couples she treated, 20% of those who started with the goal of R actually split. That means, I think, 80% of the couples she treated who said they wanted R stayed together.

R takes work, but if you both work on yourselves and the M, you've got a good shot at an M that serves you both, IMO.

1. Lies and deceit: you have to be almost sociopathic or going through a mental crisis to compartmentalize and treat someone this way. At the end of the day what my wife did to me was abuse and that hurts. Forgiving that, is almost a Herculean task.

The lying was the worst part of my W's A. But who says you have to forgive? You can R without forgiving. I say that because R is about the future, the M that you (re)build. It has to be built on honesty, IMO. If you're confident she's stopped lying and won't start again, that part of the puzzle is in place. Honesty is not enough for R, but it's a prereq.

2. The sexual acts. I asked for details, and boy I got em. I can’t say they were as bad of some other here. I can say im still grossed out. Intercourse still happened. Oral still happened.
Im having to get over those images too. Some days are harder than others.

You bet. Time will tell you what you want to do about it.

This may help: https://survivinginfidelity.com/forums/?tid=574286&AP=LastPage#mid8764302

3. Unsurety and emasculation. Being a confident person, this has put a damper on this confidence. I understand I have the choice to leave.

Sure. That's common. But ... do you still have all your parts? do they work? My guess is you answer those questions with 2 'yeses', which means you're not emasculated, even though you feel like it's happened.

BSes often feel humiliated and emasculated/defeminized, but the WS humiliated themself, and sexual abilities remain, although perhaps not with one's WS.

I’m giving my marriage a chance. Am I crazy? Maybe. I’m hoping I can heal through the trauma though.

Have faith in yourself. You can heal, survive, and thrive.

Thanks for the sympathy. I’m doing quite well these days, but it was certainly a dark dark time of my life.

I know that sounds like I could be lying to myself, right?

Well……

I would reframe it from "lying to yourself" to something softer of a combination of "you have no way to be sure" and "your mind naturally protects you by enacting denial". I would have written something very similar to you. And then a year into an R attempt I caught her in tremendous lies. Liars lie. It becomes a habit, as easy as breathing for some, and they can be very convincing.

I’m not trying to provoke you with these comments. Quite the opposite, actually. I want your good, you are a brother in this suffering. I encourage you to keep a very open mind about the possibilities of what may be happening around you. You shouldn’t trust her yet, not for any reason.