SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I'm 4 days in from finding out that what I thought was an emotional affair/kissing was a full blown relationship with lots of sex behind my back. I just honestly don't know how to deal with this I feel like I'm dying on the inside it's the worst pain I've ever felt. How do people get through this? I'm sat at home waiting for the kids to come back home as they are with him and I'm just going out of my mind 😔 i can't eat or sleep or function no matter what I do. Will this get any better or is this just it now?

Selenite, what you are experiencing is normal. This is TRAUMA in a big way. We are not exaggerating or using hyperbole. This is a big deal to your system. So you are in shock. And it takes more time than you want to get through this stage.

I’m sorry the TT was the worst kind - and what we always suspect. Cheaters are so original with their minimizing.

Go back to basics.

Get exercise daily, even if just walking around the block 10 times. It helps get some of that nervous energy out and helps you sleep.
If you can do more, do more.

Eat healthy food and drink lots of water. Avoid alcohol and drugs. Again, protect your sleep and your body. This kind of stress is damaging to our bodies, so do what you can to keep it nourished. And alcohol / drugs may offer temporary relief but ultimately make things worse. Ask me how I know.

Get your feelings out. Journal. talk -IC can really help. Pound on pillows, take up kickboxing. You have to be normal-ish when the kids are around, but let it out when you can. Who can you talk to IRL?

Sleep. you are probably getting crappy sleep. Practice sleep hygiene and see your doctor if you really aren’t getting enough.

Explore apps like Calm or other meditation ones. They can be really helpful when you start spiraling. I remember doing 10 minute meditations in my car in the Target parking lot when I was a mess driving. I would go to a conference room and do them there at work, too. Your mind is on high alert- what it thought was safe (your WS) is not safe, so now it is looking all around full time for more danger. You need to give it a break.

I found it hard to concentrate too. So watching light movies (Pixar, comedies, etc) worked better for me than complex shows or movies that required concentration. Find what helps you. You need to take these little brain breaks where your brain can focus on something other than the A for a little while. Some find cleaning cathartic when that energy is there and you need to redirect yourself. Again, try things to see what works.

But even with all this, the dreaded four-letter word is TIME. Be kind and gentle to yourself. You ARE STRONG and your WILL GET THROUGH THIS. Hang in there. Keep posting. Reread those bulls-eyed posts and the healing library. And believe in yourself, You can do this.

@ selenite I am so sorry that you are here and that this happened to you. I agree with all of the advice above . I promise you that you will feel better and get stronger with time. If all you can do is survive right now, that’s ok. You are in shock. Don’t worry about making any big decisions yet. Just focus on taking care of yourself. It will take a few weeks or more just to be able to feel like you can get out of bed. I am 2 months in and still confused all the time. Unfortunately it takes a lot of time to work through this as it is something that upends your life completely and puts into question everything you thought you knew about your peace , your home, and your person. But you are not alone. You are going to get through this.

I know your pain. I really do. I'm so sorry.

I am sorry you have had to continue to deal with this disrespect all this time from your husband being a liar and constantly cheating on you. Most of us if not all of us on here know how that feels. It is emotional and mental torture and pain.

When it happened to me I could not believe it. I made excuses and tried to explain it away. I blamed everything and everyone else including myself. I did everything I could to try to fix it and reconcile. To be honest I did too much too soon.

It is not your job to take the blame or do any of the work on trying to figure out why your husband could disrespect you and spit in your face as a liar and a cheater. He has to do that work. If he even genuinely wants to. How do you know? It takes a long time and a lot of hard work on his part and change on his part.

IN the meantime now you know who your husband is capable of being and what he is capable of doing to you. He has been a liar and a cheater with no regard for your thoughts and feelings and health or your vows of commitment to each other. That is who he is. Do not make excuses for it or try to explain it away. It is abuse and a traumatizing wound that he has inflicted upon you. He did that to you. That is the fact of the matter. It is not your fault that he would betray you in this heartbreaking and earth shattering way. It takes years to recover from. Some of us never do.

With that in mind my advice would be to leave him and file for divorce.

I made the mistake in my situation of trying to accept what had happened and hysterical bond and think things were getting better without really getting better because the work was not being done by my wife to change. I didn't want to give up. I was just hoping that she was changing. Hoping she understood the pain she caused. Hoping it wouldn't happen again. It was no way to live.

I had to have some respect for myself. He didn't have any for you when he was off getting naked and having sex behind your back with another woman and then coming home to you like nothing happened. You have to have respect for yourself because he doesn't have any for you.

The best thing I could have done was to leave. There has to be direct and significant consequences to someone assaulting you and inflicting wounds on you and hurting you like this.

If someone assaulted you on the street and caused you immense pain and suffering like you have never experienced before, would you hang out with them and try to figure out why they did it and see if you could be friends? Or would you file charges and get a restraining order and hope they go to jail?

Sometimes because we love someone so much our heart does not catch up with our brain. We hope for the best and give them the benefit of the doubt and explain things away and have faith and believe in a person who has just demonstrated to you that they are capable of constantly lying to you and cheating on you and disrespecting you and assaulting you and inflicting deep wounds of pain and suffering on you. And then they want us to forgive them and believe them and have sex with them because they say they are sorry?

The truth is it takes years to recover and heal from this kind of trauma that they have inflicted upon us. And it takes years to even know for sure or be able to tell if they are even really sorry or not, as evidenced by years of extremely remorseful continued changed behavior over time. And it is a gift that you would even consider granting them the privilege of sticking around for the opportunity that there might be a chance of reconciliation even happening at all in the first place after what they have done. You just have to have the self respect to stand up for yourself and not tolerate it.

If I had it to do all over again I personally would not stay. I would leave and file for divorce. Maybe they eventually realize the gravity of their assaults on us and do the work on themselves and fundamentally change who they are and reform whatever it is that allowed them to be so devious and treacherous to us. Maybe they don't. It is a long shot.

But you deserve someone who would never do this kind of thing to you in a million years. Especially when he swore to you in vows that he wouldn't. You deserve someone better.

I would work on myself and heal and move on. And then maybe eventually someone else will demonstrate loyalty and honesty to you and show you how much they respect you and how precious you are to them and how much value you have. Because your husband most certainly didn't show you that. And neither did my wife. They showed us the opposite. They were willing to butcher us and gut us for their own selfish pleasure.

In my case, I have moved on. Hang in there. Life does get better. Even without them.

Selenite sister,

Had the same stuff.

It feels like shit because when they come back to you you expect remorse and "realization " of the terrible things they have done, and how idiotic they feel for having chosen someone else above you with not only your heartbreak but with the malice of sexual and emotional trauma on your part.

They convince you that they are remorseful and empathetic and devastated for the evil they have committed to you. Tha they beg for a kind of forgiveness that nobody deserves.

And your love and attachment wants to believe them that even though the immense pain, there must be light, something good in the person you loved and that the existential horror you suffered as a cosmic mistake because something terrible was going on messing their heads, otherwise they would never ever have hurt you in that disgusting merciless way….

And they turn your love and pain and attachment against you once again. They feed you bullshit and manipulate you with lies to manage you into being functional to their own benefit and comfort.

That is what trickle truth is like.

You feel betrayed even more because you’re forced to realize that it wasn’t a cosmic horror that made the unthinkable happen.

This is exactly who they are. There is no remorse or regret or empathy or even love there for you, beside further abuse for you at emotional and sexual level.

You have to accept that no matter your love, this is who they are. This is what they chose to become.
And this way of being matters more tot them that the murder of your soul, emotions, attachment, the destruction of your love and inner world.

You don’t matter in the least. You are a resource to manage, not a partner to be loved.

This is what breaks you even deeper than the initial betrayal already did.

Will it pass?
Yes. If you can surrender and accept this is what it is.
If you reclaim back selenite as the lovable girl in her whole natural inner self.

If you embrace you as a woman of value intrinsic in your existence and valor, would, body, mind and morals.

Then it gets better, because you stop giving a fuck about people who are unworthy of being by your side while you move through your path, your peace on the path of your life.

You will not be barred to the world because of the hurt, you will be open to your worth and who is worth to walk along your side.

It is a boundary, but is a different plane of existence from those who chose infidelity.
They can’t overstep because they can’t reach you, unless they become worthy.

Who chooses worthlessness becomes too pathetic to ever bother you, because they are lower than bugs from where you stand.

Your husband too, since he still chooses to remain in the mud.

And that gives you peace.
Unbreakable at it, only you can slip from there.

Nobody else can drag you down anymore

What you are experiencing is normal and I am so sorry you are going through this. You have gotten lots of great advice so far

My advice is for you to do everything and anything that makes you feel better, regardless of how it makes your husband feel. Do not let yourself be concerned at all about him, focus strictly on yourself

If you need to do something, do it. If you need to talk to family or friends, do it. My Saving Grace was my oldest brother. I called him minutes after discovery and we talked several times a day for long stretches which is very unusual. I was pretty much repeating the same things over and over and he just listened and offered advice

The next afternoon when my wife came home from work I told her I needed time to think and I couldn't do that if she was in the house. I said there is a suitcase upstairs, I cannot make you leave, but I need you to leave, so please leave. She stared at me for a few seconds, walked upstairs, packed the bag, walked downstairs and said something to our two oldest boys, walked into the kitchen and said I'm leaving, and I said okay, and she walked out. For all I knew she would go to a hotel, call her AP to tell him where he could find her. She ended up going to her sister who lives a few minutes away

If him not being around would make things easier for you than tell him to pack a bag and leave. If he refuses then tell him you're going to start talking to friends family neighbors about what he has done. Or you can tell him that if he refuses to leave then your next phone call will be to an attorney

He created the situation, now he gets to deal with the consequences regardless of how it makes him feel

I needed time to think and I told my wife there is no way I'm going to spend the weekend staring at the ground. In that moment she realized that this wasn't something that was going to blow over in a couple of days

You have found a great forum for support and advice

Thank you everyone for taking the time to reply I really do appreciate it as I haven't really got anyone to speak to about this. He is staying at his parents house as I didn't want him here and he has been to take the kids out today so I could have space which was good but I just didn't know what to do with myself I'm trying to get through the days but it's just so hard. I feel like I'm bipolar I'm ok one minute then crying the next and it's exhausting. We've had multiple talks about it and this time he has answered all my questions and when he is here for a moment it feels like we are still together and then I realise all over again what has happened and that everything is a mess. I don't speak to my family and I've got a few friends who knew some of what has gone on but because I was reconciling with him I kind of regretted telling them and so now I know more has happened I don't want to tell them it's embarrassing so I'm stuck on my own with 2 kids and nobody to speak too about it. Luckily I have a great relationship with his mum and dad and they are here for me and disgusted with his behaviour but it just feels wrong to be going to them slagging their son off so it's awkward. Anyway thank you everyone that has taken time to respond to me I am grateful.