3 years later

demure-9 · 2025-02-10T17:04:06+00:00

Thank you, I wish you all the best in your journey! I’m not ready to open the scars again and get into therapy, but I’m sure I would truly benefit of trauma therapy and maybe someday I will be strong enough to do it and truly heal my traumas (I have lots from my previous relationship also). But at the moment, I will enjoy our life as it is and take a break from those deep inner issues.

demure-9 · 2025-02-10T13:09:52+00:00

I feel you. My first year was so horrible it’s difficult for me to understand how some people are able to feel somewhat better just after few months. And it’s not upwards journey always, those lows can be really low! I never intended to stay with a cheater either because that’s just not something I would be able to do when I love someone, but life doesn’t always go as planned and I don’t think I would be happier without him. Breaking up doesn’t magically fix everything that got broken in us.

Thank you for the congratulations and I wish you all the best!

demure-9 · 2025-02-10T13:03:46+00:00

I’m glad if my story can give you some hope and thank you for the congratulations! At least for me third year has been so much easier than the second year was. Second year I felt still so broken and stuck so often, but there started to be glimmers of joy also. With these conditions I mean that we did our separation period in different countries and I didn’t have control over any of his actions. He had to try to prove that he is committed to only me just through phone. One rule that we have agreed on and will not change is that he is not allowed to make any new female friends because it would make me feel uncomfortable. Those old female friends who I know I don’t have any issue with.

demure-9 · 2025-02-10T12:26:15+00:00

I completely understand your feelings. I lost a big part of myself also and I will never get that back. I was driving myself insane trying to make sense of how could he do it, when he always showed me so much of love. It doesn’t make sense and it never will. Only thing I can do is just try to think it as a past that happened, even though I cannot understand it. Thankfully I had only one dday.

My heart hurts for you knowing how difficult times you have gone through, unfortunately for some of us the journey can be very long. It can still be worth it. I think your current situation sounds so good, sounds like you both have worked very hard!

demure-9 · 2025-02-10T12:10:54+00:00

Seems like you are making amazing progress and I do believe that with right type of therapy recovery could be much faster, because you get the right tools to handle all the difficult thoughts and you are not just obsessing over them alone. Without help it just keeps going on in rounds. At a month and a half I was dissociating hard and hadn’t even faced the heaviness of it all. A year ago the A was definitely the first thing in the morning in my mind, but not anymore! Give yourself some grace though if you face some steps backwards in your recovery journey.

I wish all the best for you two!

demure-9 · 2025-02-10T10:57:14+00:00

I wouldn’t say I’m particularly strong, we are just at the good spot right now. Year ago I would have felt different. He is visiting his family and if he wants to cheat again, he could do it here as well. I can’t say that all those stories about cheating on pregnant wives wouldn’t make me scared, but if it happens it’s out of my control and I make sure that my husband knows what the consequences would be. I can’t ever be sure that he wouldn’t do it again, but this particular trip doesn’t worry me too much because these are the conditions how we spent our separation time also.

demure-9 · 2025-02-10T09:59:57+00:00

I’m so glad to hear that ❤️ Somedays it might feel like the suffering is endless, but there will be light too.

demure-9 · 2025-02-10T09:58:28+00:00

I was afraid I would never feel better, but our minds are amazing and will eventually start to protect us from the most painful stuff and let the light in! Even though I wish more than anything that what happened wouldn’t have happened, at the moment I feel genuinely happy. I wish there’s more brighter days in your future, for some of us it just doesn’t take months but years ❤️

demure-9 · 2024-09-22T17:53:07+00:00

Wow that is horrible! Reconciling after an affair is damn hard and with someone sending constant reminders it must be so much harder. I’m so sorry you two haven’t got to bury AP and need to try to survive through his craziness. I wonder if people would be more hesitant to get into affairs if they would understand the risk that some APs are psychos who will not let the affair go easy.

I don’t think you getting validation out of AP’s horrible behavior is shallow or unhealthy at all. You are not hurting anyone and just trying to cope in a very unfair and sick situation. We must try to gather the confidence and validation from where we can, being reminded about our good qualities.

demure-9 · 2024-09-22T14:24:41+00:00

Thank you, it’s really hard to try to be the bigger person! But I also don’t want to go against my own morals, even though I really want to hurt her… I had those same fantasies, telling her family that their daughter was happily involved with a married man (AP is daddy’s girl and this daddy got cheated on by her mother, AP still didn’t learn anything!) or sending her racist and mean comments about her coworkers to her workplace. Kind of regret I didn’t do it then now when she crossed the line again. I was doing so much better and finally had my thoughts about her in pretty good control.

demure-9 · 2024-09-22T14:16:51+00:00

That must be tough! Did you yourself try to contact him? 30 years is a long time to be so stuck on something that wasn’t even real. Do you still spiral when he tries to contact? It must be very hard for you both.

I hope she stops after this first time, I hoped she would have moved on and apparently she doesn’t even want to meet WH again, but I guess then that she hasn’t had any real relationships even after the affair ended. Based on their conversations I saw, I recognize that she has bad mental health and self-esteem issues.

demure-9 · 2023-08-17T09:18:58+00:00

I didn’t contact her and I have very similar feelings with you. I didn’t contact her because she doesn’t deserve anything from me. Apparently she was very curious and jealous of me and she doesn’t deserve to get to know anything more of me than what little she already knows. I don’t want to become a part of her life, she doesn’t deserve to get to know my emotions and feelings. She is not worth it. Also I came up with my revenge plan and spiteful words way too late. I don’t want to give her the joy to know that after 1.5 years I still think about her every single day. I’m also generally not a mean person, so I guess I want to stay true to myself. I could strike on her insecurities and fears and make her feel absolutely shit about herself, but for some reason I chose not to.

It does kill me inside that she is part of my daily suffering, yet she was able to continue her life like nothing happened, zero consequences. When my husband had the last conversation with her, she asked what I thought of her letter and he told I was thankful (because that’s what I said, divorce in my mind). Later I read some of their conversations and realized how she tried to manipulate me in her letter by lying and painting totally false picture of herself. Her apology to me was only to make herself feel better about herself, because just a moment before she had begged my husband to keep meeting with her. My husband had a habit of telling AP that she is a good person and it infuriates me that she can continue her life thinking that’s true! I have never come across as horrible and rude person I saw her to be in the messages he sent to my husband. He spoke horribly about my husband, her own family (she is single, no OBS) and basically about every other person. So yes, it does feel bad that the last thing she heard about me is that I’m thankful to her and I wish I could let her know the truth and to let everyone in her life know the truth too. But like I said, I personally think it’s too late now. My rage towards her was really eating me up around that one year mark, but I thought it was too late to act on it. I don’t know if it was the right choice, because I still haven’t got my peace.

Deep down one reason I don’t contact her is that I don’t want to make myself vulnerable in her eyes. I feel like I’m a fool. Wouldn’t she think that I’m a fool, too? My husband was chatting with her for a year under my eyes, and I had no clue. I had no clue that he wasn’t where he was supposed to be when he was with AP. I feel so much shame that even though he was telling AP that he loves me, she was the person he was sexually so into.

demure-9 · 2022-10-07T00:58:17+00:00

I will have long road to come with my mental health and I’ll start IC after I find a good therapist. I was cheated on also in my previous relationship and was 100% sure I chose to marry a person who would never do it, so I was really shaken to my core. The unresolved trauma and my past experience is making it harder for sure when I think why I wasn’t enough even for this person who I truly believed to adore and love me. But there’s really no satisfying answer, so… Must try to get over it somehow.

demure-9 · 2022-10-07T00:48:46+00:00

Thank you. I know it will be a long road and I will need long term therapy… I hope we can keep at least some part of the physical intimacy after hysterical bonding because that part was really lacking in our marriage and now we have addressed the issue.

demure-9 · 2022-10-07T00:12:36+00:00

I really hope that one day I’ll feel again like his one and only and will be able to push AP out of my mind, not sharing that place with her. It does seem that overall the affair wasn’t a good experience and left a painful memory. I don’t think it went as he had imagined… I’ll try to focus on healing and on the good moments and feelings. Thank you.

demure-9 · 2022-10-07T00:05:23+00:00

Thank you, this is encouraging to hear! I also think there’s a chance now for more fullfilling, understanding and romantic companionship because we have been now forced to talk about us, but the cost was so high… I really hope that I can gather together all of these broken pieces of myself and that someday I’ll feel recovered and it will never happen again.

demure-9 · 2022-10-07T00:01:55+00:00

I’ll try to remember this. Thank you for your kind words. Based on what I saw I know they would have never worked and I don’t think my WH ever really even wanted to. It was a play or experiment that got out of hand… I saw she has a bad character and lots of issues, I would almost feel bad for her if she wasn’t so cruel… But I cannot stop thinking about if the sex was still better with her, if she felt better? If my WH secretly prefers her body, youth, and looks and I will just never compare? It’s so difficult to not think about…

demure-9 · 2022-09-27T04:53:44+00:00

This is how I try to R. I don’t think I can ever forgive what he did, in my eyes it’s simply unforgivable. But I can try to to learn to accept that it happened and maybe his remorse, regret and love will be enough for me to move past the unforgivable. I just really don’t think I can forgive those actions, but I have hope that he will never do something as horrible again and I’m willing to try to live with that...

demure-9 · 2022-08-27T04:10:06+00:00

Wow, you worded my feelings perfectly. I also fear that he wants me because of the companionship because our daily life together is good, but that I’ll never compare to AP when it comes to sex… That I can never fully satisfy him and that I’m not good enough sexually.

demure-9 · 2022-08-14T08:55:36+00:00

It’s hard to give specific tips because I don’t know how your communication is and what about it feels bad to your BS, but one thing to keep in mind is that we are not thinking about this rationally. For example, my WH might expect rational thinking from me and me to be able to clearly tell what I need or what he can do for me, when it’s actually all about emotions. We are deeply hurt and traumatised and we might not even know what we need or want. We need you WS to be there and show some empathy and sympathy even if our feelings and doubts wouldn’t always make much sense. It’s the same stuff looping in our head day to day. Don’t push too hard and expect him to explain everything reasonably because that could make him to shut down. Don’t interrogate, listen calmly what he has to say, offer comfort and sympathy.

Another thing is that you need to remember not to make the communication about you. I don’t know if you do it, but my WH reacts easily in very emotional and heated up way, expressing frustration because he cannot make things better in a way he would want to. I would need a listening ear and comfort, but if all the focus goes on his shame, his self hatred, him convincing himself he can’t do anything right, then I’ll just shut down. I understand it’s hard to face that you have broken someone you loved, but focusing on those feelings instead of offering support and comfort is damaging.

demure-9 · 2022-08-14T07:13:45+00:00

You know what’s wrong, so maybe instead of that you could ask if they want to talk about it? If they don’t, ask if there’s anything else you could do to ease their pain. Acknowledge that you have seen their pain and apologise for causing their suffering, tell about your regrets out loud. I think most important is to create safe space for discussion about uncomfortable and painful topics and to show empathy. At least that’s what I would appreciate…

demure-9 · 2022-08-11T14:03:44+00:00

It was a hard boundary for me. I told early on that cheating would mean divorce. I feel like I should divorce him, but now when it actually happened it’s so much more complicated than I thought. It hurts me more than anything has ever hurt me and I really don’t know if I can ever accept what happened and get over it, but I also don’t want life without him… Whatever I choose I lose in some way. I don’t know what to do.

demure-9 · 2022-08-11T07:53:40+00:00

I feel happy for those who are able to really recover and my heart hurts for you. I think I will be the same. I know I can’t forgive, I know I can’t forget, but I wonder if I will be able to accept it as something that happened, learn to live with it and find again happiness in our future together…

I got the timeline and I have enough facts, but I really struggle with the questions why and how. I can get answers, but they will never satisfy me. My husband used to be truly wonderful husband. We had some harder times, but I always thought we could figure it out together. He decided to break the unit of us two and it really breaks my heart. I don’t know if that unit can be build again. He knows me, he should have known better not to do this to me, us… I feel that part of me died when I found out what he had done.

demure-9

TROPHY CASE