SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Background: Trying to reconcile with WH. ~6 weeks post-D-Day #2, and 4 months post-D-day #1. WH had physical and emotional affairs with a woman he met in an online forum for finding extramarital partners. Married 12 years, together 19. No kids, but years of dealing with infertility.

As we all know, surviving this is a lot of ups and downs. Currently in a down. I started on antidepressants about a month ago, which has been tremendously helpful in keeping me functional enough to work, see family, etc. But it is still hard to get through the days.

Sometimes I worry I am ruminating— am I fixated on this? Am I just picking at it? And then other times I worry I am in denial and not upset enough. It’s exhausting to not trust my own emotions.

The thing I’m currently "ruminating" on is feeling devalued. How could I not? I have mentioned this multiple times to WH, and said I need to feel like he actually loves me. He is trying, so I will give him credit for that, but it just doesn’t feel like it’s moving the needle for me at all. If anything, overtime I feel worse. I wonder if this is in part because he does not really seem remorseful. He flat out said he wasn’t sorry for the initial affair, but he was sorry for starting it up again. He has said he is sorry for hurting me, but obviously it wasn’t enough to prevent him from continuing to hurt me.

I know that it can take a while for the wandering spouse to break out of the affair and come to terms with the reality of what they did. But as I sit here waiting for him to feel sorry for shattering me and our life, I have to wonder how long is it supposed to take? And what if he never feels sorry? Am I okay with that? How can I heal and try to rebuild a life with someone who isn’t sorry for doing something so cruel? Sometimes I wonder if that was the point, or at least part of it. That he wanted to hurt me. That would partially explain why he’s not sorry— he wanted to hurt me, and he achieved that goal.

Anyone else feel like it took a long time for true remorse to kick in?

For me personally, I had disassociated so much before and during the affair a lot of my emotions were numb. The numbness itself was painful and frustrating l, and I felt guilt,but beyond those emotions I didn’t feel anything. I really didn’t care what happened to me. This was only compounded by the narratives I told myself justifying the affair.

I was in therapy for two months prior to confessing and if memory serves, remorse started to surface around 6 months into the process, but it took about four months to be able to name all the things I felt remorse about.

It took a while to take in what he was saying without being stuck in my own emotions/thought loop.

I am not claiming this is normal but I don’t think it’s abnormal either. And there was no relapse for me.

That being said, it doesn’t mean you are obligated to wait for him, or that you owe him time or anything like that, ai am just sharing my experience as one point of reference but it’s not indicative of what your can fully expect or anything like that.

I will say that I did grow a lot after that and really have engaged growth ever since, but not every we does so really the best thing you can do is focus on you, what you need, and protect yourself.

Hikingout- thank you so much for your response, especially from the wayward side. It is actually tremendously helpful to hear it took you months. I’ve read a dozen or so books about infidelity, and so many of them make it sounds like the WP needs to be remorseful for reconciliation to even be possible, so I’ve really been worrying about this. It helps to know it might just take more time.

Prior to infidelity I had no idea how painful and damaging it was. I saw infidelity in my workplace and shamefully made jokes about it. I thought a BS just would be mad but got over it in a week or so.

Anyone that hasn't experienced it doesn't get it and that includes our WS. My W couldn't understand why I was still upset months later. When we both committed to R, I told her "buckle up, you're taking this ride with me". I put every bit of my roller coaster of emotions on her too.

I was told to watch her actions, not her words. I saw the change in her attitude towards infidelity, she has now been through it, not as a BS, but a WS. One night she was visiting with good friend of hers that was on the slippery slope towards infidelity. She was at our house talking about it. My W passionately told her "I won't support what you're doing, you are about to go down a road that will destroy you, destroy your H, your family, you will never forgive yourself". She was standing and pointing at her crying, it was the point I knew she was remorseful, I knew she understood.

True remorse comes from within. And it needs to break through the shame which is a different form of self pity, not change but a preservation of the ego who the person built up until now and that allowed them to go down the road of infidelity, betrayal, cheating.

You have no influence at all for your husband to reach remorse.

You have no influence to help him out of the shame vicious circle.

He is the only one who can heal his brokenness.

Unfortunately he broke you so you are likely lingering on the trauma and that’s consuming a big part of your energy and focus, you are stuck in the rollercoaster from hell and you can’t find yourself until you finally can step down from that ride nobody wants ever to get a ticket for.

Your brokenness keeps you stuck I. The pain. Pain doesn’t make you strong, what makes you strong is to reclaim you peace, your center, your agency.

He is the weakest no doubt, traitors do betray themselves first before they betray you, they throw everything good about their selves they have built in their life, for a junkie hit of dopamine validation, unable to fix a void of low self worth and absence of self love, because is temporary and derives from soothing the ego rather than healing the self (by killing the current ego).

Weak people don’t step up to take responsibility for what they broke and who they hurt, not likely, is very unusual they find that inner strength until they are forced to find it within themselves.

And that usually occurs when they have to face consequences for what they did. A cheater fears consequences more than anything, that’s why the shame is so overwhelming when they are found out and their mess in right in the spotlight.

Like a child doing mischief, they know is bad, but they don’t feel guilty about doing it, they feel shame and fear of being caught.

The remorse and guilt substituting the shame is a sign of growth for a child, understanding the accountability of mischief, the same is for the cheater, just they didn’t only stole a cookie, they murdered the attachment and the inner world of another person inflicting a horrible sexual and emotional abuse that leaves scars for life in the victim, cutting short your lifespan and your emotional attachment if you can’t heal from it.

Consequences is what often moves a cheater to repudiate their cheating self (the ego) face their ghosts and take accountability. Then and only then is when they can grow, become a different person who is disgusted by the very idea of infidelity and capable of love, because they finally learn self love.

Others run and spiral in a degenerative vicious circle of more betrayals, more lies, more abuse and self destruction. Make no mistake, it’s hell and will get them utterly miserable in the end, but who cares, as long as they suffered the consequence they are out of your life and free to keep burning their own to ashes until they breathe.

Let them die in irrelevance. Not your problem anymore.

What I am saying to you here, is that you cannot love a cheater out of infidelity.
You cannot even reconcile with a cheater, nobody can, they need to reconcile with themselves first, and they won’t do it until they find the need within to want to change. Truly change.

You can reconcile with a safe partner eventually, but only after you healed your own wounds.

That should be your only goal right now.

Put yourself first.
Reclaim your agency.
Set iron boundaries.

Live now, for you, not for the past, not for tomorrow, for the person you see in the mirror today.

Because is lovable. Because is worthy. Because it deserves peace.

Don’t let those emotion drown you in the storm while trying to keep them compressed inside.
Your pain and chaos needs to be heard, to be let go.

You have been heard.

Why are you waiting? You don't have to wait for anything or feel that you have to. Your WH already left your marriage with no prior notice for you even though he was actively pursuing someone else.
My XWH never got there - no remorse or accountability after decades. Don't assume that yours will get there either. Some don't have it in them to have remorse or empathy.
So awful that you have this situation going on. It's scary and traumatic. Figure out a plan that is best for you.

You are welcome. I would say that it comes in as a flicker at first, and then more and more until it shows entirely.

As back to the storm mentioned, there are things that create obstacles in the beginning- here is what I think the arc commonly looks like:

-starting to understand the hows and whys of the affair
-then seeing the affair for what it is
-naval gazing (overwhelming guilt/shame)
-gaining a bit of self compassion through deeper understanding on how one could do it, what they were seeking, integration of understanding they had the power to heal the hows, see the unhealthiness in what they were seeking, while also discovering that they have the power to give themselves the things that they were seeking that would be healthy.

The reason this is a churn is because as long as the feelings are oversized, or the numbness is in control, there just isn’t the space to hold for the bs they way that they should. I think some we can get there faster, while others are good at faking it. I was in the camp your husband is in where it’s not something I could hide really. That’s at least honesty, but I am not selling you on the idea that he will or is capable of going through the processing of all of it.

I think of the first year as nothing but recovery. You may think you lean towards reconciliation but no one reconciles with the person who just cheated on them. They reconcile with the person who has worked on themselves and have Coke to enough realizations they are strong enough to lead the reconciliation efforts—because I truly believe it’s not only their duty to do that, but needed for the bs to begin to trust, see consistency and eventually feel like the ws is worth the effort.

Until then, I would focus more on yourself, what you need to heal, and don’t invest too much of yourself back into the relationship for now. Let it tread water, so long as he is committed to doing the work. Is he in therapy? Reading? Is he doing anything? I would maybe think about what you want to require in terms of boundaries to continue. "I will consider reconciliation in the future if you…" and then state your expectations or you can say "what is your plan to figure out how and why this happened and fix those things so I might have some assurance moving forward you are a safe and reliable partner for me?" Maybe that has been done but if not it needs to be.

Your husband probably did not miss his AP, what he missed was the excitement. Think about what riding on a roller coaster feels like. It’s scary but exhilarating. That’s what cheating is. His brain was firing on all cylinders all the time. The planning, the texts, the phone calls, the act itself. It is addictive to some people. He admits not feeling too bad about it. He has no remorse. His brain is still wired for cheating.
He can sit in the room with a crying spouse, be so absorbed in the wildness of it, and so completely ignore your pain. Unless he can get out of that mindset you are spinning your wheels.
This sounds like where he is.
The title of this site is surviving infidelity. Those two words were decided on by the couple that started it. They wanted a safe landing for folks dealing with the pain. Infidelity can be emotional. It can be one time, or many. You need to decide what you can tolerate. We can offer suggestions but you have to live with YOUR decision.
My suggestions deal with your health. Cumulative stress breaks down the body. It might not show up right away but every organ in your body feels the weight of it and pour out of them whatever is necessary to get you out of danger. A part of your brain is design for one thing…perceiving and eliminating danger. It does not know the difference between a lion and your husband cheating. The freeze, flight or fight responses you’ve heard about are coming from that part. The problem is your fears keep your body flooded with cortisol and adrenaline. Those are the hormones designed to get your body revved up and ready to run. They are quick to work but hours to leave the body. If you are living with ramped up stress then your body is constantly flooded. Then those hormones become toxic. I suggest you see a dr for temp meds to get a handle on that anxiety asap. You will sleep better. Also if you are having trouble eating choose a protein liquid drink. You need sustenance to keep going.
Take care of yourself.

Personally, I don't see how you should expect remorse or any manner of self-reflection from someone who actively sought an affair with someone on an extramarital affairs forum. His actions weren't an impulsive one-night stand or the result of allowing himself to get too close with a friend or co-worker... he made a cold and calculated decision to step out on you, weighed the pros and cons in his head, and decided that the risk of breaking your heart and shattering your life together was worth the pleasure.

I think the most that you're going to get is maybe a show of being contrite, some sweet and soothing words, maybe a bit of love-bombing for a short period of time, and then he's going to expect you to get over it. Worse still, he's going to learn some lessons about how he got caught cheating the first time and get better at covering his tracks the next time that he cheats.

I know this isn't the flicker of hope that you were seeking, but I think you need clarity on your situation and you need to be realistic about who it is you're dealing with. I made the mistake of thinking that I just needed to give my ex time "break out of his affair" and "come to terms with the reality of what he did."

My reward for 4 years of patience after Dday 1 was Dday 2.