SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Today was my 30 year antiversary. I let that fact wash over me before I got out of bed and it just had no effect. Then I started the Spelling Bee game in the NY Times and the word HONEYBUN leaped off the page. It was the pangram, the solution that used all 7 letters. It is also the pet name I have used for my wife for more than 50 years. I still get triggered by certain words that she used in her correspondence with AP. But today, HONEYBUN showing up like this only made me marvel at the coincidence.

I love that you found that an interesting coincidence as opposed to getting triggered by that. Cheers to healed wounds!

Late to this thread. Seeing that your D-Day was so many years ago, do you believe your FWW ever got to a point of true remorse?

I think she is remorseful but she will never express contrition. She edges up to it but then devolves back to minimizing and DARVO’ing (on what planet is talking to other wedding guests equivalent to secretly having a 14 year relationship with your old boyfriend?). The last time I tried to talk to her about her affair, asking what she had told herself to make what she did OK, was last May. She said that she had made a mistake but "you need to look forward, not backwards." Before anyone jumps to the "buying skim milk instead of 2% is a mistake" argument, I don’t think she was trying to dismiss her conduct as an oopsie kind of mistake. I gave it a lot of thought and knowing her as I do, I think to her this was an admission of wrongdoing. To explain, for a few years I was a criminal defense lawyer. Many of my clients were frequent fliers in the criminal justice system. They had no trouble owning up to what they had done. The most difficult clients were the ones who did something they were deeply ashamed of. Reality did not match their self-images. The conflict was so great that they would hurt their own cases by not accepting responsibility and thus justifying the hammering they got by appearing unrepentant. I think my wife is in this camp. She appalled herself. Her remedy is to wrap this up tight, stick it in a dark secure place, and leave it in the past. I think it would take a lot of IC for her to work this out and that is not likely to happen. She was in IC for anxiety/panic attacks and depression during her EA and ten years after. I asked what her therapist had said about the EA, thinking that it was likely one of the causes of her anxiety/panic attacks. She never disclosed the EA to the IC! So starting IC now for that purpose is unrealistic. Back in May she asked me what she can do to help me and I said that she could begin by saying she was sorry. She claimed that she had said she was sorry many times. She meant it. But it is not true. I know because for 20+ years every night before I fell asleep I would ask God to please intervene and get her to initiate an apology. I knew if I asked that she’d agree that she was sorry, so I needed her to initiate in order to give it more credibility as a sincere showing of remorse. It never happened. Eventually I gave up. Believe me, I would have noticed and remembered that apology. I have concluded that there is something in her upbringing that makes contrition too scary, like she’s afraid that she’ll be like Humpty Dumpty and will never be put together again if she tears down the old self. She’s like those clients I used to have who could not admit wrong-doing even when they were on videotape doing the crime. So I have decided to accept that deep down she knows what she did was wrong and would take it all back if she could. That is as close to remorseful as she is going to get and if we ever discuss it again it will be at her instigation.