Rebuilding Marriage After Infidelity Community Group
A community for those who have been through the heartbreak of infidelity and decided to stay with their partner and try to re-build the relationship.
I just found this site today. DDay for me was 09/28/2016. I was in shock for most of these months but now I'm just angry. I'm not sure of all of the abbreviations but my H was having an affair with someone who I thought was a friend. I learned that the affair started before I ever met her. She was his coworker/best friend's wife. They are not in agreement as to when it actually started. First was texting in 2011 and meeting privately in 2012 from what I gather. Back in September I was reviewing our cellphone bill trying to see if we could save money somewhere and noticed for the past 90 days that he had an awful lot of texts so I downloaded the numbers to a spreadsheet. Once I filtered the numbers and noticed that my number was not the most used, I found out who he had been texting. I confronted him and he denied it was nothing more than casual. The next day I used integrated messaging to my iPad for his number and the last 90 days' worth of texts came through along with all of the dirty details. I also found another woman that he had worked with. It wasn't as hot and heavy as this other one. He never treated me any different during his affairs. I was being told basically I hung the moon then he was texting her, meeting her when I wasn't around. He probably even brought her to our house. I found out that he even had made plans to meet her on my birthday which was just the prior week to DDay. Today, I am angry. Angrier than I have been this whole time. I have read some of the posts and hope that somewhere in these words, I can find something that helps.
Your husband made his own choices. The hardest lesson I ever had while recovering from my husband's affair was that it was NEVER about ME. Ever. This is pretty crushing because... well... shouldn't he have loved me enough that SOME of it was about me? But no - it wasn't about whether or not he loved me, it was about him wanting/needing/seeking/finding/stumbling upon something that met a need for him, and him selfishly chasing after it.
I think when people are deep in an affair, they compartmentalize very readily. Sometimes it's "well, it's not cheating if I don't ___" Sometimes it's "well, I'm good to my partner so it's OK if I also spread the love elsewhere" Sometimes it's more insidious where the unfaithful partner will start picking apart every tiny wrong thing the faithful partner has ever done in the hopes of justifying their behavior. Sounds like some part of your husband's thinking has separated each of his relationships and made it so that he doesn't think about one while he's engaged in the other. As gravinggirl said, that's on him - NOT you.
Right now? Anger is your friend, as long as you direct it towards productivity and not destruction. Use your anger to fuel yourself towards bettering your situation and making sure you are taken care of. Anger is a secondary emotion that's generally fuel to help motivate us through situations that otherwise might cause us to shut down, so don't discount it as "bad" or "negative" - just don't steer it toward negativity. (You know... revenge is always fun to think about, for example, but just don't act on it. ;))
My main advice to you is to form a support network as broad and wide as you can. Friends, family, co-workers, acquaintances... coming here... whatever. Not everyone needs to know what's going on, but it's OK to let them know you're struggling and need some extra love and support for awhile. Knowing you have people who have your back can really assuage some of the feelings of abandonment and rejection you may experience due to your husband's choices.
Secondly: be gentle with yourself. Healing is hard. Regardless of whether or not you and your husband stay together, you're going to have to put a lot of time and energy into healing and it's exhausting. AND ... you deserve it. You deserve love and respect and peace and joy - just like everyone else.
We're here for you - and even though I only poke my nose in every blue moon, I'm always available privately if you need somewhere to emotionally puke. :)
Every story of healing is also unique, so keep that in mind as you read stuff.
There are couples here who a year after DDAY were going strong and healthy, and others who thought they were good, but the unfaithful spouse ended up back at it again down the road. YOUR story will be unique to you - but you're not alone.