SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Been a minute at since I posted, but things are going generally okay. We are doing some couple sessions focused on how to communicate. Seems odd for a couple in their early 50s who have been married for 32 years, but this is a muscle we have never used in our marriage.

Wondering if other waywards have battled insomnia and/or nightmares (specifically about the infidelity). I do not think they are necessarily related other than when I wake from a nightmare and my cortisol is spiked making falling back asleep difficult. I am very reluctant to try any sleep aids other than magnesium and melatonin.

I find that I often think about the infidelity when I cannot sleep and this creates a vicious cycle and also probably triggers some nightmares when I finally get brief periods of sleep.

Looking for any suggestions as this is starting to take it's toll on both my physical and mental health.

[This message edited by feelingverylow at 1:33 PM, Sunday, April 12th]

Hi FVL,

I am incredibly saddened to hear about your nightmares and insomnia.

This is something I struggled with for over 10 years before I confessed my A. Every night I was plagued with severely anxious thoughts about my A, and at times I had full blown panic attacks.

A few tips that helped me:
- create a bedtime routine that tells your body "I am safe, I am going to sleep peacefully". Maybe drink some tea, journal, meditate, avoid noisy or negative distractions like TV/phones
- it helped me to have a positive distraction as I fell asleep. This could be white noise, or sometimes I would listen to The Sleepy Bookshelf podcast (a woman reading classic novels as bedtime stories to help you drift off to sleep).
- thought challenges: as you’re laying in bed trying to sleep, focus on certain thought challenges. An example is: name 5 things you’re grateful for or 5 good things that happened that day. Or think back to a location of a happy childhood memory and walk through that location in detail. Visit each room, try to remember everything you can down to the furniture, sounds, textures, etc.

However, for longer term, I think you should work with an IC on possibly reprocessing your memories and traumas. Maybe EMDR or brain spotting. This helped me quite a bit with flashbacks.

Also, utilize mantras. Intentionally write down some mantras to repeat when you have flashbacks. Things like "I am safe. I have come clean and I am living in integrity. I am doing everything I can to heal. I am committed to being a good husband and supporting my wife through R."

Good luck, I wish you both the best

Hi there feelingverylow,

This sounds weird but it has helped me fall back asleep on those wake-up-in-the-night-can't-go-back-to-sleep events. It's an eye movement thing.

With your eyes closed, look to the left, and then slowly track your eyes to the right as smoothly as you can, then go back to the left. I do two of those, then look down, and track them up and down twice, then move them in circles like an eye roll in the clockwise direction twice, then counter clockwise twice. Go back to the left right thing and repeat that whole sequence. It does something to engage the rest-and-digest part of your nervous system I think, or maybe since we move our eyes usually without thinking about it, focusing on the eye movements without any visual input might keep us from letting our thoughts sweep us off into rumination land. Whatever it is, it seems to help. If you google "go back to sleep eye movement trick" you'll find some stuff on it.

Hang in there. It takes a long time to heal from this shit. Just keep chugging along. You can do this.

Best to you from a fellow EvolvingSoul.

Thanks heart broken. I have been trying to stick to a routine that eliminates any blue light (research is mixed on how much this impacts sleep, but no downside and hopefully settles my mind a bit) and is consistent every night. I have always been a reader, but the last several years I use ebooks so am transitioning back to paper.

I can fall asleep okay, but usually get only 2-3 hours of sleep before I wake and feel wired. The sleepy time history on YouTube helps sometimes gets me back to sleep, but it is usually not very restful.

The thought challenges are a great idea. My biggest issue is my thoughts go almost immediately to the crisis in our marriage due to my infidelity. Very easy for me to get very anxious and wired making sleep difficult. I need to retrain my thoughts and your suggestion is one I will try.

I am going to explore emdr in the next 1-2 months. Hopefully it will help with thoughts all the time, but especially at night.

Thanks for your suggestions.