SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Lately, I keep watching her try so hard to change. On some level, I know I'm supposed to feel grateful for it. I know I'm supposed to look at the effort, the therapy, the apologies, the crying, and the realizations, and feel some kind of hope.

But I don't. Sometimes it just makes me feel sick.

Because what is she actually trying so hard to become? Honest? Loyal? Safe? Someone who can tell the truth without being forced into a corner? Someone who thinks about her husband and children before destroying them? Someone who doesn't lie for years, or bring another man into the sacred parts of our life? That’s not some heroic transformation. That’s the bare minimum. That’s the floor. That’s the person I thought I married fifteen years ago, started dating nineteen years ago.

And that is what unnerves me.

Her "best self" right now isn't some extraordinary, elevated version of her. It’s not perfection or sainthood. She isn't being asked to do the impossible. Her best self is just the woman I deserved from the very beginning.

That thought absolutely guts me. I didn't need to be taught not to cheat. I didn't need therapy to understand that loyalty mattered. I didn't need catastrophic consequences to realize that lying to someone for years is cruel. I didn't need to lose everything before I protected my family, and I didn't need to watch her collapse in order to be decent to her.

So why did I have to be completely destroyed just for her to start becoming decent to me?

That’s the part I can’t escape.

I see the effort. I see that she’s trying, and I know she isn't the same person she was six months ago. I’m not blind, and I’m not trying to be unfair. But there is a deep, quiet rage in watching someone work this hard to become what they should have been when they took your hand, made vows, built a home, had children, and let you believe you were safe.

It feels like standing in the ruins of your life while someone proudly shows you the first brick of the house they never should have burned down in the first place.

And I’m supposed to clap for the brick.

Does she expect a atta girl for trying to be decent?

I’m supposed to be moved by the fact that honesty is finally being installed. That empathy is finally showing up. But where was all of this when it could have spared me? Where was this woman when I was giving her my life in good faith? Where was this effort when I still had a chance to choose my own reality?

That is what makes it so impossible to trust. It’s not just what she did, it’s how much agonizing work it takes for her to be safe now. If being honest and faithful requires this much effort, how am I ever supposed to rest inside that? How do I find peace? How do I not constantly wonder what happens when she gets tired of trying? Or comfortable again in the new house made of brick?

I don't want to punish change. I know it matters. But I cannot pretend it doesn't hurt like hell to realize that the version of her I am being asked to believe in now, is just the version I thought I already had. The version any adult relationship requires.

[This message edited by Gemmy at 7:12 PM, Monday, July 6th]

I feel every single word of this post. I wish I had answers (I don't), but wanted you to know that you're not alone.

Good morning, Gemmy.

Who says you're "supposed" to do anything? I don't think there's any reason you "should" feel grateful or appreciative of her efforts to own and fix her shit. You're under no obligation here. This is why we tend to say around here that R is a gift we freely offer for... well, pick your own reasons. Or not.

Why are you putting so much pressure upon yourself?

Because what is she actually trying so hard to become?

I think this is a great question to ask her. She might not have a great answer right now. I wouldn't expect an epiphany. However, I think the discussion might help.

That’s not some heroic transformation.

Heroic? Maybe not. Personally, I think the work I watched my ex do was impressive. I think the work I've seen a few WS do here on SI was impressive.

Similarly, I've been impressed by BSs who have done the work to heal themselves and address their own personal issues.

Change occurs when the pain of same exceeds the pain of Change. And it's very hard to do. And it takes time. Lot's of time. Lots of hard, consistent work. And it's always a work-in-progress, a constant, determined effort to be the best version of ourselves.

If you're up for it, read Marcus Aurelius' "Meditations." The Emperor of Rome spent many of his nights reflecting the day's events, his decisions, lessons learned, and how he might improve himself tomorrow.

Her best self is just the woman I deserved from the very beginning.

There's a line at the end of Clint Eastwood's movie "Unforgiven" (written by David Webb Peoples) that I've never forgetton. William Muny is standing over Little Bill, Henry rifle in hand. Little Bill says: "I don't deserve this, to die like this. I was building a house." Muny glares at him and says: "Deserves got nothing to do with it."

I find that tidbit of "wisdom" to be applicable in a great many situations in life. Deserves got nothing to do with it.

Do you think your wife deserves the GIFT of reconciliation?

So why did I have to be completely destroyed just for her to start becoming decent to me?

I know you're feeling destroyed, dear sir. I know. BTDT. I also know that one day you'll realize that you have not been destroyed, that you will heal, that you'll put yourself back together and come out the other side stronger and wiser. It just takes time and you're still in the early stages.

Be gentle with yourself.

How do I find peace?

You step back and detach from your WW, watch and observe what she does with the opportunity you've given to her. You focus on you, your recovery and healing. You lead your best life, on your terms.

I cannot pretend it doesn't hurt like hell to realize that the version of her I am being asked to believe in now, is just the version I thought I already had.

Yep! It's a mind-fuck of epic proportions. You don't have to believe it, Gemmy. Not yet, anyway. One day, years from now, you might feel comfortable with her and know that she's become an authentic human being. Or not.

How long you're willing to give R a chance is completely up to you. It's not a vow. It's not an iron clad contract or divine commandment. Maybe you'll wake up tomorrow and decide "fuck this shit, I'm done!"

The uncertainty sucks, doesn't it?

I see the effort. I see that she’s trying, and I know she isn't the same person she was six months ago. I’m not blind, and I’m not trying to be unfair. But there is a deep, quiet rage in watching someone work this hard to become what they should have been when they took your hand, made vows, built a home, had children, and let you believe you were safe.

She is trying to be the person you deserve now. The one she hasn't been even though you believed she was until she proved she wasn't. She is putting in the effort to get there. It's your choice whether or not to give her that chance. It's totally unfair, but to make this work you'll need to accept that things will never be balanced. At this stage, I would expect you to feel the way you do. She hasn't had the time to prove she has figured it out. She probably still working on that figuring it out thing.

The easier path would have been to move on to find someone who hasn't betrayed you. But that's not an automatic solution. You still have to do your own work. You'll need to work on not transferring the resentment and mistrust to someone new. There is also always the risk of someone new having the same underdevelopment as your wife.

This is a very normal reaction.

No you do not need to clap or congratulate. As I told you it’s not your job to empathize. These are early days for you, and you are doing what you should be doing—feeling your feelings, recognizing the injustice, being in your own side, protecting yourself.

Eventually, should you decide to reconcile I think you will see the integration of the changes she has made and the night and day it can make for your marriage.

After all, what you have described is deep loneliness and unhappiness, a lot of that is humans are very much in the way of connection. After some healing has occurred and some consistency is made eventually you begin to reap new benefits from all that has been learned on both sides. It’s a long journey for that. Don’t force yourself to eat the shit sandwich as quickly as possible. Let her keep going and you focus on you and what you need.

Normal feelings all of them, you should not coax yourself away from how you feel. Instead look beneath it. Ask yourself why are you pressuring yourself to be something you are not in the situation. Where does that programming come from? You have a lot of trauma in your past there are layers of that still effecting you here. Don’t need to people please to ease your fear of a andonmnet for example? I am not saying that’s at all the case but there is a dig that you do on yourself too—the things that trigger you most have the layers you will eventually need to unwind.

Anger at this stage is normal, ask yourself why you think you can’t react normally to it?

Again, not looking for you to answer me—just trying to guide you to look at why you feel that pressure.

Wow, I don't think I have ever read such a powerful post in my short time on this forum. Every single word resonates for me.

I too wonder if one day when she feels comfortable enough in the relationship she will revert back to the person she was. The person who saw sexting with a married coworker as harmless fun. The woman who about a year earlier was outraged at her sister's fiance because it was discovered that he was sexting with a woman he met on Tinder

Will she once again become the woman who is capable of putting her arms around me and saying I love you and talking about our dream to build a retirement home in Tennessee and at the same time carrying on with another man or men?

Friday afternoon while having lunch she said something very callous and when I got upset she reverted right back to her typical SOP. She became upset that I was upset. Her apology lacked any sincerity. In the past I would have just let it go because I was terrified she would leave me but I don't have that fear anymore so the argument escalated. We spent about a year in MC and she spent about 2 years in IC and I thought we had learned how to Simply communicate about a problem, but I was wrong. She became more and more upset and then the tears started and then she started spiraling so I stopped the conversation and took her in my arms to calm her down which in hindsight was a mistake. I should have simply walked away but this internal duty to protect is strong Within Me

We let it go for the rest of the day because we were at a firework show with the RV and we had the kids and my sister-in-law joining us so rather than ruined the entire day I put on a happy face

The conversation picked up at 8:00 a.m. Saturday morning and I told her your tears are manipulative. I said your apology lacked any sincerity. She said well you got angry at the restaurant while we were talking and I said no I didn't, I was upset because of what you said, because it was hurtful. I didn't yell,I didn't give you mean looks, I just stared at my food until I was ready to talk and then I said now I know what you think of me

She said I didn't mean it the way I said it, what I meant was blah blah blah to which I replied so which do I believe? What you said when you said it or your explanation now?

So like Gemmy said, how can I believe that she has truly changed after what just happened? How can I believe that the next time some man starts dropping compliments she won't smile and think game on! One of her pathetic excuses as to why she started up with her AP was that she was not feeling good about herself because she was closing in on 50 and the kids were independent and her hair was thinning out and she was putting on weight and her skin was getting loose and so on.

When you are unhappy about something, committed couples should turn to each other for support, yet my wife chose to start sexting with a 10 years younger married coworker. What happens when she turns 55? Or she puts on a few more pounds? How can I believe that if something is bothering her greatly she will come to me to talk about it instead of seeking external validation yet again?

You married the mask.

She was never able to be her naked self with you or anyone because she was too weak and fearful of being hurt, destroyed.

So she harmed and destroyed first and allowed kindred "spirits " (hollow men really, deepening her void) to join her devastation.

You fell in love with the glimpses of her you saw through the mask.

Those were real as they are real now that they are cultivated.

But the mask chocked those to "protect" them under a cloak of darkness.

Is the love for those that blinded you and the realization of the darkness that disgusts you now.

You couldn’t know because you didn’t know that kind of emptiness, what you feel now is in part damning yourself for being blind.

Is normal, but you weren’t blind, you saw deeper.

And now you see the shadows and can’t help to feel this because they taint the light you spotted.

Believe me when I say, it will pass. There’s more challenges ahead but you will fill the blanks.

The mother of my children is a stranger to me.

The affair obliterated the understanding I had of her, proved I was wrong about her in terrifying ways. Her abysmal behavior post d-day eventually proved to me that I was dealing with a person that I could not predict or understand at all.

I had put her on a pedestal, and she was happy to let me. But she was like the moon, only reflecting, never creating light of her own. For my own sanity, I had to accept that she was hiding herself from the world and that there wasn’t anything I could do about that.

From my reading here, this doesn’t seem to match up well to most people’s experience. With time, many betrayers can begin to show up. But it is apparently possible to be married to someone for most of your adult life and all you see is a charade. I hope that isn’t you.

This realization was closely connected to my decision to divorce. Why try to reconcile from betrayal by a person you don’t even know?

But it is apparently possible to be married to someone for most of your adult life and all you see is a charade. I hope that isn’t you.

I want to balance this thought. Not because I think Ink isn’t seeing his own experience, he absolutely is—his wife wasn’t willing to get beneath anything and still thought everything was up to ink. So it can absolutely be that way, that someone never manufactures their own validation. So I am not contradicting his thought, more I want to put some other insights on it?

But I want to speak to what this "mask" or "charade" means to me.

I believe the real work a ws does is go from a lot of unconscious/thoughts behaviors to conscious/intentional thoughts and behaviors. I wasn’t consciously pretending anything, I was mostly reacting to life using my SOP. I had never evaluated what my SOP was built in and how it was no longer serving me.

I think if I named the one thing I changed was to be more aware of my motivations, intentions, and needs and to make adjustments as I go. Rather than putting forth a lot of things out of routine perceived obligation.

Some people are calling it a mask, and I get that in some ways it is. But outside of the cheating it’s not a mask to trick someone in a diabolical way—-it’s hiding shame and feelings of ineptness with things like avoidance, people pleasing, perfectionism, deflecting, defensiveness. All these behaviors are driven by fear and create lack of vulnerability that block connection in relationships. And from there we starve ourselves and our partners of deeper connection. And from there that can create reactions in someone who doesn’t have a good relationship with their own values.

Anyway, I do not want to divert Gemmy, I think he needs to be more concerned with why he puts this pressure on himself to be supportive as his wife moves through this process rather than trying to understand her process or applaud it. The other option he could exercise that seems to make a difference in most bs is to detach from the outcome and simply observe it.

It’s a good thing that his wife is putting in the work so far. It will be sometime before it’s complete or that it has any meaning to him, if it ever does.

People are complex, it takes a lifetime to know yourself. I do not think it’s realistic that we ever fully know anyone else. And it even further unrealistic if they operate a lot on subconscious behaviors and are unwilling to evaluate that.

Thank you everyone. I am trying to sit with all of this, because I do think there is truth in what several of you are saying.

Unhinged and hikingout, I think you are both right that I am putting pressure on myself. Nobody is actually standing over me demanding that I clap for her efforts, but I feel that pressure anyway. Some of that is probably old programming, some left over pride in the wife I thought I had. Some of it is probably the husband/father/protector part of me that still wants to be fair, even when the situation itself has been profoundly unfair to me. I can see her trying. I can see the therapy, the tears, the realizations, the remorse, the attempts to dig deeper. I am not blind to it. But I think the reason it is not landing as safety is because the change keeps being interrupted by more lies.

That is the part I maybe did not explain clearly.

If this was just about me struggling to accept that she is changing, maybe time and consistency would help. But it is not just that. I keep catching her still lying. As recently as last week, I found out that her and AP1 used my house, on my couch, after she had previously and adamantly denied that. That was not some ancient detail gently volunteered in the name of healing. That was another piece of reality I had to discover after already being told something else, dragged out by my memories looking back. I have to corner her for truth and I was not there so how do I corner what I do no know?

I have now received three "disclosures," and all three were littered with verifiable lies. Not gaps. Not fog. Not imperfect memory around tiny details. Lies I could prove. Lies that only changed when the evidence or pressure forced them to change. So when people ask why I cannot just observe the effort and let time show me who she is becoming, that is part of why. Because I am not only observing effort. I am still observing deception, I just found out at the beginning of April the first affair was two full years not six months.

That makes the whole "best self" thing feel impossible to trust. If she is trying this hard and still lying, what am I supposed to believe? That the lies are just leftovers from the old her? That they are shame responses? That they are fear? Maybe. But from my side of the table, it still feels like the same rot wearing cleaner clothes.

That is why the bare minimum arriving now does not feel comforting. Honesty is not theoretical for me anymore. It is not a nice trait I hope she develops over time. It is the foundation of whether I can even live in the same reality with her. And when I keep finding out that the reality I am standing in is still being edited, softened, protected, or managed, then her effort starts to feel unstable. It makes me feel like I am being asked to trust a process that is still contaminated by the very thing that destroyed me.

And the mask/charade discussion hits hard too. I do not know what word fits. Mask, avoidance, shame, fear, broken coping, unconscious behavior, compartmentalization, whatever. I can understand the softer explanations intellectually, it is the ease in which they still arrive that scares me. I can even believe some of them. But emotionally I keep coming back to the same place - I married what I believed was a safe person. Whether she was consciously pretending or unconsciously hiding, the result for me was the same. I did not know who I was married to in the ways that mattered most.

I know people are complex. I know change is hard. I know some WS genuinely do the work and become safer, more honest, more integrated people. I am not denying that. But in my situation, every new lie drags me right back to the beginning. Every corrected disclosure tells my body, "See, you still do not know the full truth." Every hidden detail makes the current version of her feel less like transformation and more like another version I am supposed to believe before the next correction comes.

That is probably where I am stuck.

I can see effort. I can see remorse. I can see work being done. But I cannot translate that into safety while truth is still being dragged out of her. Maybe detaching and observing is the only sane thing I can do right now. Not because I do not care, but because caring has had me carrying too much of this. Her work has to be hers. My healing has to be mine. And reconciliation, if it ever becomes real, cannot be built on me forcing myself to be grateful for the bare minimum arriving fifteen years late while I am still catching lies in real time.

I know, I know, I can be so contradictory from moment to moment. She told me she is not comfortable on here with me posting so much, and part of me gets it, it would be hard thinking people are seeing my side and judging. But I was hoping she would see people helping her mixed in, I could only hope she gets to a place that a lot of the WS are at here. I urged her to join another support group of some kind but we will see, I think the mirror was just too clear for her liking.

You can’t clap for progress if she is still lying.

Not a good sign. And maybe you omitted it because admitting it would require confrontation?

You can look like you are doing the work and remorseful but someone who is lying is not yet remorseful. They may have regrets feel guilt or shame, but a remorseful person recognizes damage and prevents it from further happenings they choose to protect you as much as they would themselves.

Remorse does typically take some time to land on. For a while a ws’s feelings about what they have done outweighs everything. It takes time to balance that, I think we were ten months out before I really got it. I am not excusing her, just saying I am not condemning her either.

It’s much too early to feel safe and if she is trickle truthing you may need to 180. And definitely—-definitely—-no applauding.

No wonder dude. No wonder.but even if she were perfectly doing everything, it still does not require a celebration of any kind. Keep your focus on you as much as you can, waiting in ws work is a bumpy ride.

[This message edited by hikingout at 8:40 PM, Monday, July 6th]

Trickle truth is abuse in and of itself. It may be common, but it is atrocious. No amount of apparent work means a damn thing while that is happening, IMO.

It is a great irony to me that my story is such a wet blanket to reconciliation. Fuck man, I really wanted to R. Hikingout has more than earned the right to soften my words (maybe an imperfect way to say that, I mean this kindly), and I don’t disagree with her. And I also lived what I lived, and it really fucking sucked. And I was shocked to learn that a person could be as hollow and shapeless as my ex was, and able to disguise it so well.

To me, it goes to how I understand your topic thru the lens of my experience. I hoped for a long time, better part of 2 years, that her better angels would show up and the woman that I thought I knew and loved would emerge and "come back to me". But waiting that long while getting lied to, and openly disrespected, and then further betrayed, the perspective changed. I knew she was a chameleon with different personas with different people. I just never realized the one I knew was just another one of those. Again, not saying that is you. But it’s possible, and I hadn’t known that was possible before infidelity exposed it.

Last thought: I know we can’t perfectly know another person. But there is a place on the knowing spectrum we want to be with our spouse. If they are constantly randomly and unpredictably harming us, clearly that is a problem. There should be enough knowing to feel like home, and enough surprise to not take them for granted.

Fuck man, I really wanted to R.

Yes, you did. And you did all the things you could from your side of the equation.

It’s always on the ws to make a better path for themselves, otherwise you can’t walk together.

Last thought: I know we can’t perfectly know another person. But there is a place on the knowing spectrum we want to be with our spouse. If they are constantly randomly and unpredictably harming us, clearly that is a problem. There should be enough knowing to feel like home, and enough surprise to not take them for granted.

Very well said. You are exactly right on this.

I simply meant- there is no way to predict infidelity, how a spouse will always function. Both of us had been married for decades when the cheating went down. I think the person I was before the affair was a good person and well intentioned. Misguided for sure but in ways that seemed simple or benign.

And I do think my husband knew me as well as anyone, including myself. Because people who are hiding don’t have a big self awareness. There wasn’t a lot of self analyzing going on, so he knew what I could show or tell.

I am sure there are deceptive people who only know how to purposefully be this way in a relationship. They would purposefully be there to use you. Money is the big one.

But to reconcile, you must be married to the one who is willing to see their own blame and truly show they are there trying because they recognize you are the prize to win. The continuing to lie part after denying your reality for so long, is not a good start in showing that. Proceed with caution.

But in my situation, every new lie drags me right back to the beginning. Every corrected disclosure tells my body, "See, you still do not know the full truth." Every hidden detail makes the current version of her feel less like transformation and more like another version I am supposed to believe before the next correction comes.

Not just your situation, Gemmy. I had what I call 4 "ddays" over the span of 10 months, but not all 4 were him actively cheating. Twice he was cheating, once I caught him in a major lie. The 4th was a series of voluntary disclosures over the span of a week, including an EA with a different AP from 10 years earlier. That week was something. After each major disclosure, he would swear that he'd told me everything. One time he said that and I just started laughing.

Remember the story of the boy who cried wolf? People who lie repeatedly need to internalize the moral of that story. Somewhere around the 1 year mark after dday1, I realized that I would never fully believe anything my WS said.

Another thing that happened along the way was his reasons for why he did what he did. The narrative kept changing, partly due to him finally doing IC and reading, but partly because he kept looking for ways to excuse the behavior. Regardless, that further eroded my trust in him. If he couldn't know himself, how was I supposed to?

Gemmy, I see you walking a path similar to others here, and it's not one with a happy R ending. Obviously none of us has a crystal ball, and maybe you'll be the 1 in a million to beat the odds, but I feel bad for the pain you're in, and I know there is a guaranteed way to lessen it (while remaining alive). Probably you'll have to suffer for the next 2+ years like me or InkHulk to see that for yourself. I wish I could spare you the journey.

Every lie, every trickle of truth, resets the clock. You're not six or seven months past d-day; you're only as far out as the last revelation or captured lie. I know you (probably) already understand this. The only reason I want to point this out is to help you to understand you're not the only one to experience this kind of nightmare. For most BSs, this behavior is continued trauma. There's a very real possibility you are going to experience severe PTSD, if you're not already there. It is very common.

It's time to seek out therapy, brother. You might have to try out a few different ICs before you find someone with whom you click. I've BTDT, too.

...I feel that pressure anyway.

It could be old programming or left over pride. I felt it, too, and some "old vets" helped me to ease back, chill, be kind to and gentle with myself.

I think most of us put that pressure upon ourselves because we want to get through this shit as quickly as possible. You know, having to survive infidelity, recover from the shock, heal from the trauma, put ourselves back together, learn new coping skills... all of it... sucks! We didn't ask for it, we didn't deserve it, and we wish we could simply move on and get back to our "regularly scheduled programming."

Even if you throw her ass out tomorrow, healing is still going to take years.

So hold on to your hat, my friend. And breathe...

***

She told me she is not comfortable on here with me posting so much, and part of me gets it, it would be hard thinking people are seeing my side and judging. But I was hoping she would see people helping her mixed in, I could only hope she gets to a place that a lot of the WS are at here.

My ex was very much the same, in some respects. Mostly, she hated this site for a long time. She was terrified, I think, of the influence it was having on me and how it diminished her ability to control the narrative... and me.

And honestly, I think she was intimidated by some of the Rockstar WS who were still active at the time.

I think the mirror was just too clear for her liking.

You're probably right.