Cheaters Anonymous Community Group
This is a support group for cheating spouses looking for understanding and strength. Betrayed spouses are welcome to post ONLY if they can do so in a supportive manner (no bashing...these posts will be deleted), and please do not comment on 'Cheaters Only' posts.
I don't necessarily know how to begin with this post, as the content of it is a bit hard to formulate into a cohesive thought. So I suppose I'll just rant on it and hopefully it ends up going well.
People tend to talk about the normal problems revolving around infidelity. the pain and heartbreak. the guilt. The divorces, breakups, financial damage. The third party emotional damage (children and mutual friends/family). very rarely however do I hear, on or off these forums, anyone speak of the existential ramifications.
By existential ramifications, I mean the psychological toll of betraying ones own moral or ethical foundation, which usually results in a philosophical crisis. I DO hear about it here, but it's rare and is rarely the main topic of conversation.
Of course this doesn't happen to all people (The existential crisis). Some people (usually people not on these forums) are betraying nothing of value to themselves (regarding themselves). They get caught, and they deal with the inevitable consequences but as far as the betrayal of ones self, they haven't betrayed their morals or ethics because to them, cheating was in line with their morals and/or ethics.
I am addressing however, the second camp of people, of which I am a part of. The people whom on top of everything else have betrayed themselves.
Speaking personally, I can say this is one of the worst parts of having cheated. Not only did I betray the person I love, I also betrayed my perceived self in the process which calls into question my entire idea of who I actually am as a person. To be frank, it's horrifying.
It's a self imposed slap in the face.
You start to second guess everything about yourself. You ask questions like
1. Am I a good person? If not was I a good person at one point?
2. What do i believe qualifies someone as a good person?
3. What else am i capable of?
4. Am I a truly selfish human being or did I act out of character?
If you have ever asked yourself one or more of these questions, you may have very well been in (or are in) a crisis as I have described. It can be a breeding ground for loads of other psychological problems to germinate into larger more terrifying issues, such as severe anxiety, panic disorders, and heavy depression.
I've found that one who has betrayed themselves so deeply often needs to rebuild themselves from the foundation upwards into an entirely new person. I know I have to.
Recently I have been running in the morning, thinking about this over the 45 minutes it takes me to circle the woods back to my door. What kind of person am I going to be? Who do I want to be? More importantly, Who do I need to be for myself, and who do i need to be for the love of my life.
In any event, I would like to hear from anyone who has suffered this 'crisis of self' and begin some kind of dialogue on how each person has dealt with it it. Often in cases as such personal experience and shared wisdom are really the only path to understanding how to deal with something like this.
So whether you have told or haven't told your partners, This is a subject I believe everyone here can identify with on at least some level.
People tend to talk about the normal problems revolving around infidelity. the pain and heartbreak. the guilt. The divorces, breakups, financial damage. The third party emotional damage (children and mutual friends/family). very rarely however do I hear, on or off these forums, anyone speak of the existential ramifications.
By existential ramifications, I mean the psychological toll of betraying ones own moral or ethical foundation, which usually results in a philosophical crisis. I DO hear about it here, but it's rare and is rarely the main topic of conversation.
Of course this doesn't happen to all people (The existential crisis). Some people (usually people not on these forums) are betraying nothing of value to themselves (regarding themselves). They get caught, and they deal with the inevitable consequences but as far as the betrayal of ones self, they haven't betrayed their morals or ethics because to them, cheating was in line with their morals and/or ethics.
I am addressing however, the second camp of people, of which I am a part of. The people whom on top of everything else have betrayed themselves.
Speaking personally, I can say this is one of the worst parts of having cheated. Not only did I betray the person I love, I also betrayed my perceived self in the process which calls into question my entire idea of who I actually am as a person. To be frank, it's horrifying.
It's a self imposed slap in the face.
You start to second guess everything about yourself. You ask questions like
1. Am I a good person? If not was I a good person at one point?
2. What do i believe qualifies someone as a good person?
3. What else am i capable of?
4. Am I a truly selfish human being or did I act out of character?
If you have ever asked yourself one or more of these questions, you may have very well been in (or are in) a crisis as I have described. It can be a breeding ground for loads of other psychological problems to germinate into larger more terrifying issues, such as severe anxiety, panic disorders, and heavy depression.
I've found that one who has betrayed themselves so deeply often needs to rebuild themselves from the foundation upwards into an entirely new person. I know I have to.
Recently I have been running in the morning, thinking about this over the 45 minutes it takes me to circle the woods back to my door. What kind of person am I going to be? Who do I want to be? More importantly, Who do I need to be for myself, and who do i need to be for the love of my life.
In any event, I would like to hear from anyone who has suffered this 'crisis of self' and begin some kind of dialogue on how each person has dealt with it it. Often in cases as such personal experience and shared wisdom are really the only path to understanding how to deal with something like this.
So whether you have told or haven't told your partners, This is a subject I believe everyone here can identify with on at least some level.
Wow....love that word existential.
I know what you mean.....
I have been in therapy and have spent many a sessions crying on the loss of my formal self as I call it.
I have damaged my vows. I believe that my husband has stayed faithful in our marriage. I feel tainted.
I spent a lot of time feeling phony. I would look around the room and think all of these people trust me, no one would ever guess this is who I really am....
But, that is not who I am. It does not define me. I do selfless, loving, caring, intense things every single day of my life. I care. I care in not only my life's work, but in my family.
I am what I have accomplished fairly and honestly in the 40+ years of my life, not the 18 months of a few hours weekly in a hotel room. It was totally out of character for me. Totally.
For me to forgive myself, I have to believe that life is a series of lessons for self actualization. We err, we learn from it, we move on. Please know I am not downplaying the enormity of this at all....but for anyone of us to move forward we need to learn from it and let it go...no forget, not keep healing, but keep moving in the direction that is right for everyone involved.
Sending you strength....
It is hard for me to identify with who I was during the affair, but that person came back to me a few weeks ago when my ex-AP contacted me and we started flirting with each other again. But that time, I identified my inner tramp and stopped myself from engaging further with him before things escalated again. So from that, I am thankful to still have this existential crisis aka conscience because it now prevents me from making more decisions I will regret later.
To sum, I deal with it by proactively making decisions that do not conflict with my morals and values. Put yourself in vulnerable situations that tempt you to go against your morals. If you do not succumb to the temptation, then you have won the battle of your inner crisis and proven to yourself that you are indeed a good person.
After Dday, I felt incredibly lost and broken and afraid. particularly after I got past the numb, stoic, feeling like a victim stage. I felt like only half of me was left and I would have to rebuild myself from the ground up, like you said.
I felt like all the issues that my H would have to deal with concerning me were the same issues that I would have to deal with concerning me. Issues like not knowing who i am anymore, how could i have let this happen? How can I ever trust myself again? That's why my H said that his healing was in direct proportion to mine.
You talked about other psychological issues. For me, I became super insecure. Everyday became torture to me because I hated to be alone and I had to work alone most of the time. Being alone and working was so painful to me. I cried every day for over a year. I never knew someone could hurt so bad and continue to function. I was completely surprised by the enormity of my brokenness and the damage I felt within. I became almost agoraphobic (literal translation is fear of the marketplace) I could hardly bear to be alone in a public place such as a store or a gas station. I would have near panic attacks. I feared being around men and I feared greatly my OM suddenly appearing. My answer to that was to always get someone on bluetooth with me when I had to go to a public place alone. My answer to working alone was to pray and listen to good music.
The answer overall was just to endure it as best I could with prayer, staying close to my H and making frequent contact with him during the day, counseling, spiritual work, reading books, focusing on what truly matters in my life and the passage of time. It was always good to look back and see that things were getting better ever so slowly.
I am happy to say that after 3.5 years, although I am still a little nervous at the thought of running into OM in a public place, I am quite at peace going to public places alone and working alone. I still do the work on myself though. I still practice my spiritual disciplines, H and I still read books together (slowly) although a lot of them now are general marriage enrichment type books and we focus on staying close and connected, I'm still here (and so is he), I vigorously keep my focus on the things that truly matter in my life. I'm not in counseling anymore although I still talk to her from time to time and i will go back if I need to.
It's good to look back and see how far I have come. I'm not even the same person I was before all this happened. A lot about me has changed and, save for the scars from the A, it is mostly all positive and things I had been needing to change and work on (both within myself and my marriage) but had not had the motivation or catalyst to do so. Proactively working on rebuilding ones self is possible and rewarding.
Very insightful post. Anytime we go through massive changes to our perceived self-identity/self-narrative, it creates an identity crisis. That happens to parties on both sides of this event. It even happens in less right/wrong situations like when I switched religions back in 1996. For a full two-years I felt sort of lost. Some values changed, and me caused me to wonder how much I would change, and whether I'd recognize me.
But many CSs deal with what you described: violation of one's own moral code. While it does play into the guilt aspect, I think you are correct that this goes deeper than that. It goes into whether you can trust yourself again, and the ensuing identity crisis it launches.
It will take a rebuilt identity narrative to work though it, as my W just talked about, and it will take a while. Keep in mind,though, that none of us are completely good or bad. But we are all redeemable.
I disappointed myself in a huge way..
I am trying to rebuild myself and learn from my downfalls and mistakes.