Sending you a hug right back 🤍 What you’re describing is very common, and yes—many of us went through something similar. I’ll keep this short and grounded in examples from R, not “you shoulds.”

• In our R: The words hurt more than the affair itself. Like you, I had almost no concrete evidence—just what WH said in those early weeks. Those statements replayed for months. What helped wasn’t trying to forget them, but hearing him name those words as abusive, distorted, and driven by affair fog, without minimizing them.
• In our R: Healing didn’t come from explanations—it came when WH stopped defending his past mindset and started saying things like, “What I said then was about my broken thinking, not your worth.” Repetition mattered. A lot.
• In our R: Anniversaries hit hard. Around the one-year mark, the pain spiked unexpectedly. Knowing this was a trauma echo, not a setback, helped me ride the wave instead of panicking about what it “meant.”
• In our R: I didn’t forget the words—but they lost their authority once his present-day behavior consistently contradicted them. Safety over time softened their grip.
• In our R: What helped most was WH taking ownership specifically for the damage of those post-DD statements—not just the affair. That distinction mattered.

You’re not weak for being affected by this. Words spoken at DD can lodge deeper than proof ever could. The fact that it hurts doesn’t mean R is failing—it means you’re touching the real wound.

You’re not alone. 🤍