SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

On DDay and the weeks and months after, I found that, outside of my personal therapy sessions, I had no one in my life to talk with, to vent or cry with, to struggle with putting the pieces back together. I'd review my circle of guy friends and find reasons why none of them were likely candidates. In many cases, it was because my WS and I are part of the same social circle, so, I felt that fronting her A to any of these guys would quickly spread throughout our circle and it would be like outing her and potentially subjecting her to all manner of grief. Ditto for family. Yes, I get that protecting her was a questionable choice, but, I also know that I was protecting me. And, even though we are in a very good couples therapy where we can work stuff out in our sessions, I am still aware that my lack of guys to talk honestly with is still a big issue...and, I am so happy to have found this group!

Next is the role of each member of the couple in healing....the most common idea is that only you can heal you - goes for both the BS and the WS. This is certainly true when it comes to rebuilding my sense of worth, my value, and, most important, my power to shape my life going forward in ways that serve me, my needs, my desires...and that, should I find that my WS is not able to R and I choose to leave the marriage, I can and will find happiness.

But, there's another way to slice this cake. My therapist put it this way - your wife threw a grenade into your marriage and blew it to pieces. And, she lied about the depth of intimacy in the A, so, when I discovered the evidence (secrets always come out!) and confronted her and she admitted that she slept with the OP, she blew the pieces into smaller pieces. The question is: having blown your relationship to pieces, will she help to put them back together...and, in a way that you both can trust and accept and feel great about? It seems reasonable to me that this is work for both of us - one person can heal themselves, but, one person can't heal a relationship.

The general rule where rebuilding is possible is:

- The BS heals the BS
- The WS heals the WS

You can't heal the M or heal your partner.
The old M is dead. The Partner must heal themselves.

Only then, if there is the will, it might become commitment to rebuild a new M.
Is not a guarantee.
But the healing is the foundation of everything

You're right. It takes 2 to rebuild the relationship. Hopefully from a position of the 2 of you having healed or are healing yourselves. It takes 2 to rebuild, but it only takes 1 to end it.

Betrayal trauma is real trauma. PTSD symptoms are common. I've seen it called PISD by some therapists. Post Infidelity Stress Disorder. It's real, and it's not something someone just walks off in a few weeks, or even a few months. 2 to 5 years is the general timeline for most people to recover. Note that I said "recover," because reconciliation can be a lifetime work in progress. That doesn't mean it will always be a painful process, but it's something I think most couples will always be working on, even if in the background.

I don't know if anyone has recommended any reading for you and your WW. You do seem to have done some reading here on your own so you may have already seen these, but just in case I'll suggest "How To Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair" by Linda MacDonald an "Not 'Just Friends'" by Shirley Glass.

The former is a pretty short read. My wife and I listened to the audio version together and it wasn't much longer than 2 hours. It's short, but packed with info and really opened her eyes. The latter is a longer read, but also very good. If your wife is on board with repairing your relationship then she should be willing to read them both, tho I'd recommend the audio version of at least MacDonald's book and listen together. She does a really good job of explaining what you're going through and how long it can take to recover from infidelity.

I was just like you in that I didn't have anyone to talk to about this. Well, no one I wanted to talk to about it. The mix of shame and guilt I was feeling combined with the pressure I'd likely get from my side were 2 of the reasons I didn't. I have 1 good friend I confided in and he's been great, but these forums were a godsend. I'm really happy you found us. It helped me a lot just to type it all out and get feedback from others who really get it.

I think my wife was also hoping this would blow over in a few months or so, but between that book and her doing her own research she now realizes it's going to take more time than anyone wants it to. It's been almost a year since my d day, and it still hurts like hell. It took almost all this time just for the initial shock to wear off, and I still find myself thinking "I still can't believe this even happened." Since listening to those books (very early on) she's never hinted or suggested I should be getting over it.

[This message edited by Pogre at 12:28 AM, Monday, March 16th]

Thank you for the tip - we have both read and reread the Glass book but it sounds like the audio book may be helpful. Appreciate your care and concern for me!

My therapist put it this way - your wife threw a grenade into your marriage and blew it to pieces. And, she lied about the depth of intimacy in the A, so, when I discovered the evidence (secrets always come out!) and confronted her and she admitted that she slept with the OP, she blew the pieces into smaller pieces. The question is: having blown your relationship to pieces, will she help to put them back together...and, in a way that you both can trust and accept and feel great about?"

The only problem is that no matter how hard you try, there will always be a piece missing.

It is possible to repair the marriage and get to a good place.

I’m Not sure how long ago your Dday (discovery day(s)) were but it is a slow healing process. It took me 1 year to stop waking up every day and feeling like I needed to D my H.

It took me 3 years to start actively healing myself (I didn’t know about this site until 4 years after the affair ended).

However we survived his mid life crisis affair AND we are happy. He changed. I changed and stopped being a doormat.

Therapy definitely helped me and saved my sanity during his affair. I also had a good support group of friends AND I didn’t care if there was fall out if people knew. I wasn’t protecting him any longer and I had planned to D him anyway.

It’s time to put everything on the table. Address it. Work through it. Hopefully you will be glad you did.

And please find a friend in real life you can talk to. Stop protecting the cheater.

Thank you...I'm struck by your honesty and clarity.
I discovered a text chain full of loving endearments to the AP on 11/24/2024...i confronted my W, she admitted having an A, but not its depth and I was too naive to understand the reality - he was her first lover when she was a teen...he reached out to her 40 years later after his wife died and she responded...I warned her that no one reaches out to an old lover to find a friend but she swore that all she wanted was a platonic relationship...anyway, like I said, I believed her and was naive.
We entered into couples therapy a month later, BUT,..she was still in love so all the work we did was BS. i discovered another text chain in July of '25 and finally put the pieces together - it was a full blown sexual A. I confronted her and, at firsst, she tried to weasel out but I knew I was right and forced her to tell the truth...the ensuing days were a fog as I processed the where and when, put together the lies and deception...it was a second Dday and far, far worse than the first.
My question for you - I've kept her secret from our social circle, protecting her but also protected me...I feel that our progress in R is real, our trust is re-building, I feel that we've gone through lots of tough stuff enough to where I am starting to feel like we will make it - but, there is part of me that wishes I had blown the whistle and made her A public - ?I worry that, if I blow the whistle now, it may feel good on the level of getting revenge, but, not serve me to blow up the real progress we've made. What do you think?

Think really carefully about disclosing the Affair outside.

Often it can backfire, people really do not, or do not want to, enter this topic more than in a superficial way. Do not expect understanding outright.

You can talk with someone if you need to, but must be selected carefully.

Social media = stay away from those.

** Member to Member **

After d-day but before I found SI, W & I talked (separately) with a former IC of ours, and the former IC quoted someone as:

To R, you'll need to go through 3 healings. You heal you. (W's name) heals (W's name). Together you heal your M, if you want to.

When I joined SI I read a number of posts from BSes that expected their WSes to heal them, so I started posting something like, 'BS heals BS. WS heals WS. Together they heal the M, if they choose to.' Eventually it caught on, then got shortened, leaving the last healing unstated, but not necessary forgotten.

The 3rd healing is the one that requires both partners to work together.

*****

In my opinion, my W broke our M into pieces, and I had to respond. My response was to focus on what I wanted - namely a good M with my W, if it was possible. That led me to figure out what I meant by 'good M'. It led me to observe my W to find out if she looked like a good candidate for R, and so on.

I rejected the idea of rebuilding the M we had. I mean, that would just put as back at a point where my W was vulnerable to cheating again. I had no desire to put put the pieces back together; I didn't want to rebuild something that ended in infidelity and pain.

As for the pieces of our M,, either I 'saw' it and included it in the new M or I didn't notice it - which meant I didn't think I wanted it, although I reserved the right to change what I wanted as time went on.

It was funny - the dissatisfactions we had with our old M mostly disappeared as we healed. Some of the old issues came back in the new M, and they had to be resolved, because they were issues in the here and now.

All that was work I had to do for and on myself. My W could and did provide emotional support, but I had to do the work. I could and did support my W in her work, but only she could do the work.

I healed me. She healed herself.

*****

The Third Healing:

We had to work together to build the new M that was going to serve us both. Figuring out what we wanted was our individual work, but figuring out how to fit our disparate wants together into a life together is work we had to do together.

Sometimes BS and WS heal themselves and find they don't fit together well. Sometimes only one partner works for R, and R takes work from both partners. Sometimes the wound from the A is deep enough that the BS chooses D. Sometimes R works.

One thing I learned from SI, among the many, is we are well-advised to 'give up trying to control the outcome.' If you heal, you'll do well whether you D or R.

*****

I never took 'BS heals BS, etc.' as blaming the victim. I saw it as immensely empowering. We all cal heal, whether our partner heals or not. It's easier if both partners heal, but it's not necessary.

I would say that always remember that YOU ARE THE VICTIM HERE. What should guide you is what YOU want. Now you may have children who are incident by-standers who got caught up in the carnage of the grenade throwing....but the grenade was thrown at YOU. So you have to do what is best for yourself and what you really want, what you really want out of any relationship - a relationship - not just this one specifically and whether you think that is even possible here, and what you want out of life in general. How you feel about yourself and your relationships and your boundaries and what you can or will forgive. There's no real template here because I think it should come down to what you want and where you feel empowered and secure and hopeful in the future. One exercise might be to sit in a quiet room away from your spouse and others - you might even pick a spot like in nature or the local library - and just ask yourself basic questions - how do I feel in this relationship? what kind of relationship do I want? And see what kind of purely emotional responses you get. From your heart. I don't think people can think their way through this, not if there was any depth of love or sense of betrayal....you have to feel your way through it. If your responses about your current relationship continue to feel negative...you might be dragging a dead horse to water and there's no way he can drink. There was another poster just struggling with a new issue and it came up that perhaps a separation might help to clarify things. So i'll put that out there. You can't force healing, and you can't heal something when you keep poking it with a stick.