SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

After D-day I felt, for many years, like I was a displaced refugee in my own home, a denuded stranger in a barren, strange land. Nothing was familiar, nothing was what I had thought it was. Everything was wilting. The soil I’d tended for 20 years was secretly salted, made sterile by a trusted hand.

The pain was so intense, so incredibly lonely, I was unable to see a path forward. My soul, my heart, my mind, and my faith was shriveling.

I don’t live in this state of disorientation anymore for my wife and I did find our footing and have something far superior to what existed pre D-day. However, I would be dishonest if I were to not admit, sometimes reminders take me back to old emotions I had when I realized that I’d been unceremoniously kicked out of the promise land for a sin I did not commit.

Never in my 52 years did I ever experience anxiety or depression. I remember shortly after Dday this overwhelming feeling of being trapped in my body. I couldn’t escape, I remember wanting to run, but wanted to stay still, wanting sit down but also stand up. I had never felt anything like it. I just wanted run through woods in circles screaming. It is the worst thing that ever happened to me. Thankfully that feeling stopped very soon after and I haven’t experienced it since. Infidelity is abuse.

Never in my 52 years did I ever experience anxiety or depression. I remember shortly after Dday this overwhelming feeling of being trapped in my body. I couldn’t escape, I remember wanting to run, but wanted to stay still, wanting sit down but also stand up. I had never felt anything like it. I just wanted run through woods in circles screaming. It is the worst thing that ever happened to me. Thankfully that feeling stopped very soon after and I haven’t experienced it since.

My goodness Tanner,

I totally felt the same way. At the moment of disclosure, everything was shrouded in the fog of pain. I, like yourself, also have never struggled with depression but I was clearly disoriented and lost in an emotion I did not understand nor knew how to deal with it. Unlike you, I cannot say I "I stopped very soon after and I haven’t experienced it since." But what I do experience now is nothing like that period of my life.

Cheaters have NO IDEA of the devastation they cause.

I physically shook for 90 days. I couldn’t eat or sleep.

Any my H turned a blind eye to it and was annoyed if I showed any emotion. He once had the nerve to say "don’t start crying about it" as though my broken heart was an inconvenience.

Infidelity is a lifelong struggle— it doesn’t go away for the betrayed.

"Infidelity is a lifelong struggle— it doesn’t go away for the betrayed."

Amen.

The1stWife, I don't think that's necessarily true. I don't struggle with it anymore. Yes, it's a big part of my story, my history, and affected me in ways it took years to understand. On the whole, however, I've healed and moved on. My ex and I are not besties, we don't chat often, but we're friends.

[This message edited by Unhinged at 5:55 PM, Sunday, July 20th]

"Infidelity is a lifelong struggle— it doesn’t go away for the betrayed."

So why do even "guides" of this site state how the betrayed can be healed in R in as little as 1 year?

Infidelity is a lifelong struggle— it doesn’t go away for the betrayed.

Sorry to hear — and I always hope people find a way through.

No struggle for me.

I got some ugly emotional scars out of it for sure.

However, I am fully at peace.

I don’t let the best moments of my life define me, or the worst — sort of a sum of all the experiences is my day-to-day.

Infidelity was definitely a trauma I wasn’t prepared for, and it hit harder than I thought possible. It also took that dreaded 3-5 years for me to recover.

In my big picture, losing my grandfather was still a tougher loss for me than dealing with any of my wife’s shitty choices.

Like everyone on the planet, I have good and bad days, but again, I don’t struggle with what happened to me — or around me.

I can control how I respond to adversity.

I understand now, any flashbacks or triggers is my brain (fight or flight mode) checking in on me and then I move on.

I guess, while I hate the A, I appreciate finding out how much strength I really had — because that strength has been a part of making my life far better than before, in every area. I used to consider everyone else in the world before me, now I am the priority at all times. It sounded counterintuitive before, putting me first, but after dday, it is the only thing that worked for my healing.

A happy me, as it turns out, is better for my family, my M and my friends.

We have to remember that every single BS that comes here has a history.. There are genetics, families of origin, life‘s slings and arrows, and just general mayhem. So when the unthinkable happens, some of us are able to weather the storm better than others. In my case, I, as a very young wife and mother was facing illness in my parents, siblings with their own things, and little education. I had married and left college. I was told, swept it under the rug, and only asked years later. He admitted but it was in the past, we had both grown up and I had no left over pain from it.
Yes, you can recover but the circumstances might be too egregious to get over. Mine was out of town cheating. He never changed his behavior at home. I do not have the slightest interest in the details. I read other bs stories on here and I get outraged at the utter selfishness of some of the ws. On the other hand there are ws who have strived to be the best spouses in the world and their reconciliations should be celebrated.

"Infidelity is a lifelong struggle— it doesn’t go away for the betrayed."

I think the crux is what the author means by 'struggle'.

Like Unhinged and Oldwounds, I would not say that I struggle with that part of my history, though I certainly wish infidelity was not something I experienced.

I suspect that struggling comes from 1) not yet resolving the paradox of forgiving a person for an unacceptable act, or 2) not yeat accepting that the past can't be changed, but one can change one's response to the past, or 3) not yet resolving the feelings that came with being betrayed, or 4) not yet resolving internal conflicts over being betrayed.

IDK ... I understand and agree that a chronic, uncurable disease (mental or physical) is a lifelong struggle. I also agree that some traumas require a lifelong struggle. But where thoughts and feelings about oneself are the source of a problem - and thoughts and feelings are the source of the problem in many (if not most) cases - a person can usually heal. There likely will be scars and triggers, but human beings usually heal.

*****

So why do even "guides" of this site state how the betrayed can be healed in R in as little as 1 year?

Some SIers write that '1 year' is enough to heal. Shirley Glass wrote that one year is enough for some people to heal. But SI's rule of thumb for healing is 2-5 years, and most of us who have R'ed add that R may take longer.

I'm not aware of any guide who has asserted that R can be completed in one year, and I've read most posts by all of SI's guides, having joined before the 1st guide was appointed.

I don't struggle with it anymore.

I also wonder if this has to do with D. Before the D It was always with me. Now that I am D it is gone completely. I think it's being around the person who betrayed you that keeps the memory alive. Not saying this is for everyone who decided to stay or is in R. Maybe it does go away. I just know there was a distinct difference for me when I was still in my M and now no longer in it.

I spend a lot of time gardening, and the salted soil analogy is such a good one.

First wife, like you, I constantly shook for several months after DDay. I still don’t fully understand—it was uncontrollable. The only other time I ever had that happen was after I gave birth to my oldest daughter prematurely and precipitously in dangerous, traumatic circumstances. But it only went on for a couple of hours that time. After DDay it happened frequently for months.

Like Sisoon, I suspect the different takes on struggle depend on how you define that word. Whether or not you call it struggle, I do think the impact of infidelity often lasts a lifetime.