SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi, I am here because I desperately need to connect with people who understand the unfaithful perspective without judgment.

It has been almost 2 years since discovery. My marriage is currently ending in a highly contentious divorce. On the other side, my former AP is also married but it looks like his marriage will survive (idk!)

We haven’t had physical contact in almost two years, but we are completely stuck in an intermittent phone loop. Every time we speak, it feels like it resets my grief and withdrawal clock back to Day One.

I am mourning the loss of my marriage and simultaneously experiencing deep, disenfranchised grief for the AP.

I know the intermittent contact is keeping me trapped but the emotional pull feels impossible to break right now, especially with the stress of the divorce.

How did those of you who were deeply attached to your AP finally break the cycle for good? How did you navigate the grief of losing them while your life at home was unraveling?

Thank you for reading all of this and I am open to any and all advice. Please be kind; I am fragile. Thank you!

I'm probably not the best person to be advising you, Lost, so: I'm sorry in advance--but I didn't want you to have to go any further with no reply at all.

For my part, I haven't been able to break my bond with my OW. It has survived countless efforts to terminate the relationship--most recently (as of about 5 months ago), my OW declared our relationship "over"--nominally because she felt she couldn't trust me any longer and trust was the foundation of our friendship. We've actually adhered to a policy of NC ever since then because she took the decision largely out of my hands. However, I still ache for a day when my M has R'ed and my W (hopefully) will let me reconnect with my OW in safeguarded, bounded, and transparent friendship--salubriously ordered as inferior to my spousal relationship. That longing is one thing that arguably makes me a terrible role model at the moment.

What seems to have worked for many of the folks here is deciding that their AP didn't matter or merely afforded them a distraction or other fungible services or goods and/or that their AP was in some way manipulative or transactional or unpleasant or evil.

I don't have those "luxuries"; my OW mattered to me and still does. She changed my view of myself for the healthier. She wrote her name indelibly on my heart. My OW was sweet and compassionate. The wholeness of her person brought me joy. I've understood from her that she at least once felt likewise of me. However, if you truly want to empty your AP from your heart and move on, and you can follow the precedent set by others, I encourage you to do what works. AI LLMs have made all kinds of recommendations to me for strategies to help me "grieve" the loss of my OW so that the pain of her absence isn't so crushingly terrible. I have rejected those techniques. I prefer to soak in the sadness of the loss of my OW because it is my only connection back to her. Without my cultivating that pain, the intensity and frequency of my recollection of my OW would gradually diminish with increasing time. One day, I would think of my OW and realize I hadn't thought of her in a week... then in 2 weeks... then a month... then a year. Eventually, I would blithely accept the loss of her. I won't let that happen. Unless, that is, I return to her once more, solicit her friendship again, and she refuses me. Then, I will need every tool MS Copilot and ChatGPT and Claude etc. can throw at me to numb the pain and make myself forget how blessed were the days I shared with my OW.

I'm also a poor role model because I married the 2nd woman I dated as an adult. However, nothing helped me get over the pain of having been dumped by my first adult girlfriend like Bible reading and then meeting my 2nd girlfriend--the one who became my W.

I'm sorry you're hurting! I'm sorry for what your mistake has cost you. I wish you well!

I am a number of years away from my affair (recently disclosed), but have spent the last 18 months doing a lot of IC to help me understand what helped drive my choices back then and one thing I have realized (with lots of help from my therapist) is that the AP was really interchangeable with just about anyone who would have been available.

I would not have said that during the affair because I was confusing the dopamine rush that served as the painkiller to the emotional pain I was in with the feels. I have had to unpack some painful childhood/FOO trauma that helped me identify the root cause of the emotional pain I have felt and why I was so poor at being able to talk about and process it at the point in my life when I had the affair. That has really helped me to step back and see that the main attribute the AP had was she was available and willing.

Other more experienced posters will likely write about limerence. One might think two years after the affair ended to still have some limerence, but the continued contact really impacts the ability to get out of the fog. If your AP is committed to reconciling he really should be in NC, but regardless you deserve much better than someone who is in a committed relationship with someone else. I highly recommend IC to get to root cause of why you had the affair and I think with some work you will have a very different view of the AP.

I am sorry for how difficult this is for you. I know the focus is usually on the trauma infidelity inflicts on the BS (rightfully so), but I am a believer (with lived experience) that the WS has a different kind, but very significant trauma due to the infidelity. I often think I could find peace if I was the BS way easier as I continue to struggle to make peace with myself as the WS. Adding a layer of difficulty getting over the AP would seem to be excruciating so very much hoping you can find a way to see the situation with a clearer lens.

Thank you Unconventional and feelingverylow....I am brand new to this site and have no idea how to respond to you individually. And also I am struggling with a number of the acronyms. I think I understand them, but do you know if there is a list I can reference? Thank you both so much for responding and also for sharing a part of your stories with me. And also thank you for your encouraging words. This is a very difficult situation to navigate - particularly when the feelings are so strong still for the AP :-( I'll respond more to you both individually once I can figure out how to do it! Thank you again for taking time to write me :-)

Look under "the healing library" for a searchable abbreviations list. You can't send private messages until you have posted at least 51 times.

I remember crying so hard at first that I was shaking all over (I'm 49 years old and I don't think I have ever cried that hard) and alternating between hyperventilating and wanting not to take another breath in.

Now, I have mostly rumination, although I try to think of my OW ("other woman") fondly as often as I can. But I am hoping to return my OW to my life--as merely a friend.

Oh! I should've suggested moving, changing jobs, and blocking your AP ("affair partner") from calling you, and parting from friends and places who/that would remind you of your AP. If vehicles were used for A ("affair") related meetups, consider replacing the vehicle.

And I guess I didn't actually complete the thought I had meant to complete about my very short dating history. I was trying to say: it might help you to recover from your A ("affair") to "get back out there" into the dating world--with singles--if you are heading for a divorce anyhow. The connection back to my dating history was that I have little experience with breakups, so... take anything I tell you as advice with a hefty helping of salt, as they say.

[This message edited by Unconventional at 12:39 AM, Monday, October 19th]

: it might help you to recover from your A ("affair") to "get back out there" into the dating world--with singles--if you are heading for a divorce anyhow.

I think it's generally better to work on oneself first before jumping back into relationships, so that you resolve what caused you to commit infidelity in the previous one.

Lost, you just need to break off all contact with this person, and wait. The grief will come and go and you will be fine, even if it hurts a lot for a while. It's temporary.

I would write him a short note to end all contact. But if it were that easy you would have done that.

There are some things that opened my eyes to what was actually happening. Dr. Frank Pittman wrote some great articles about the typical psychological reactions to having an affair. It helped disprove to me that what was happening was because it was special. When in reality, it was a predictable response to the affair itself. The other is the Wikipedia explanation of limerance which helped me understand the OCD tendencies involved as well as the issues surrounding abandonment.

It’s very hard when you are down to find your way up. But the way is not through your ap or other relationships, it’s through the rebuilding of yourself.

Identifying all my hopes and whys of the affair, I could start finding some things to work on. It all came down to the relationship I have with myself.

NC=No new hurts. It’s paramount that you go NC so that you can go through the withdrawal of this poop and find your anchoring to not go back. If you let this man keep contacting you, you are doing yourself a huge disservice in finding true and lasting happiness.

Take that step and if you can try and get in therapy. It helped me to talk out loud and see how my thinking and narratives in my head were really just stories. It also helped me figure out where the wounds started and start to heal them.

first. I am sorry Lost-
What you are going through is so freaking hard. But welcome here. you will find many many insightful people that can help. i would recommend just forcing yourself to go no contact. Send them a message letting them know that this is your final message and to not try and reach out. and then i would recommend actually removing their number from your phone and then changing your phone number. and then removing everything about them from your phone. Phone numbers- messages- emails- call logs- all of it. if there is no trace of them in your phone and you have a new number- its a lot easier IMO to go NC because you dont have an easy way with out a lot of work to have contact with them.
and then treat your desires and flashes of thinking of them almost like a trigger for someone that was betrayed. acknowledge what you are feeling. IE " i am really missing AP... i wonder what they are doing...do they miss me..." ect - its a trigger to an addiction- you're craving that dopamine hit, that feeling of desire, excitement, value. Tell yourself (out loud even if you have to and are alone) the truth about what that connection cost you. and that what you are feeling is temporary. especially if your affair partner is reconciling it helps to remind yourself what they are doing- they aren't choosing you now. and while they were fully committed they were also ok with massively betraying their partner. even with your betrayal you also deserve someone who is choosing you OUT IN THE OPEN.
and then get busy!
having things to do, hobbies, work, exercise- all of these things will help.
and as others have said- really do some hard digging on yourself.
what were you feeling in your life before the affair? what did you think that the affair would give you? what feelings were you seeking out in the affair that you were hoping to get from the AP? what lies or justification did you tell yourself to allow your betrayal to take place to begin with?
for me- i used chatgpt a lot- and i still do. i gave it the rundown of my affair and asked it "why the hell did i do this?" this helped in the early days to be able to really get into my why and how - which i was then able to take to therapy and dig deeper. using chat helped me to because its not going to judge you but it is going to ask some pointed question that all of us betrayers definitely need to look at. it also gave me a lot of good prompts for myself for journaling- which has been really really helpful for doing the work and helping with intrusive thoughts.
also- keep writing here- it helps

Hi there Lost2026,
Welcome to SI. The statement No Contact = No New Hurts really applies here. And I know it's not easy. One of the reasons affairs are so addictive is that they are a cheap and easy way paper over crummy feelings.

Humans are wired to experience a giant range of emotions, some feel wonderful, some are kinda neutral, and some really suck to feel. When we are lonely, sad, hurt, bored, frustrated, disappointed, scared, mad, resentful, (insert any other crummy feeling here) we tend to do whatever we can to escape those feelings. Not all coping mechanisms are the same. There certainly are ways to learn to sit with difficult feelings in a way that's wholesome and not destructive, but those are skills we have to develop. It's much easier to reach for something that numbs or distracts from the crummy feelings. Affairs are just one of the many behaviors people use for that purpose. Sex, booze, gambling, drugs, food, shopping, cosmetic surgery, exercise, work, any of these can become an unwholesome coping mechanism. They can make us feel great in the moment but the price is the hurt and harm we cause ourselves and the people around us. You're going through it first hand.

Additionally when we abruptly set aside our coping mechanisms, those crummy feelings we were papering over don't just disappear; they are right there waiting for us. Add on the additional feelings that rain down when the betrayed partner discovers the truth of their situation and it can all just feel so unbearable. You want to reach for the thing that gave you respite from crummy feelings in the past, the AP.

When my D-day came I had been in an affair for 7 years. The first 4 were online, and I messaged back and forth with AP every day for that entire time. The last 3 years it turned physical after AP moved to my area, even though we swore to each other that we would be "just friends". He was the first person I wanted to talk to in the morning and the last person I thought about before I went to sleep. I was in so very deep.

On discovery of the true nature of my relationship with AP, my BS said "choose" and I really did not want to. I wanted to keep both of them in my life and thought if I could arrange a "sharing" setup that I could keep everything I wanted. Barring that, I hoped that somehow AP and I could remain friends, that I wouldn't lose the entire relationship, just the sex part. That was delusional thinking although I couldn't see it at the time. It was completely unacceptable to my BS. I actually considered leaving BS and trying to make a go of it with AP. (He was single.) I spent a week at my parents' house in another state trying to sort through my feelings, made a pro/con list, blah blah. I credit my sister with convincing me that I at least needed to give my marriage a chance for salvation. So, when I came back, I had one last meeting with AP and told him that I was going to try to salvage the marriage. I said I was going NC for 6 months and asked him if he could wait. "Obviously" he said.

I confessed everything to BS. Everything, not just the relationship with AP but other cyber encounters I had been having through an online roleplaying game that I had been spending an insane amount of time playing. I quit the game permanently. I discovered SI a few days later, read "Not Just Friends" and "How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair". I started to be able to put the affair in context, and to have a language to describe what I was feeling: ambivalent. To BS I could only commit to NC with AP for 6 months at which time I would either leave BS or send an NC letter to AP. And, I said that while I was sorry for hurting BS, I did not see my feeling for AP ever changing. Not in a million years. (They did.)

That was in June. I pined. I journaled. I took up container gardening. BS and I tried couples counseling and the counselor let me know after two sessions that I wasn't ready, that I was still aligned with AP. I started individual counseling. I read and read here on SI. In October I joined the site so I could see peoples' profile. In November I had finally progressed to the point that I could see that, regardless of the outcome of the marriage, AP was never going to be a healthy option for me. I realized that my happiness (and honestly at that point I was still worried mostly about my own future happiness) was either going to be with BS or on my own. And, while I hadn't contacted him, nor he me, all that time I had continued to focus on the relationship, keeping the memories alive. hoarding my momentos, writing to him in my journal, and scheming somehow or some way we might still be able to be together or at least friends. Prior to that day in November, I hadn't wanted to be NC with him. That day, I began to at least want to want to. It was a significant step on the path to recovery.

I learned about mental NC. I deleted his contact info. I deleted (with BS permission) the emails, the photos, the message logs. I burned the drawings and the momentos in one session while sitting in front of the wood stove with a bottle of booze, drinking and burning. I gave away a recliner that he always sat in when he came to our house. I donated the metal from a big wind chime he gave me to the art department a local college (not before BS ran over them several times with our car). I eventually was able to write an NC letter that was acceptable to BS and me both, and we sent it together. Finally, I boxed up anything that was APs personally and sent it back to him. I started actively stopping thoughts of him when they would come unbidden to my mind. Instead of dwelling on the memories I envisioned a large red STOP sign and forced my attention elsewhere. Sometimes I would envision slamming the door in AP's face or even pushing him out of an airplane door and watching as he got smaller and smaller as he fell out of sight. Then redirect my attention. Over and over.

Funny thing about brains, they aren't fixed in their wiring. We have these neural pathways that get used again and again as we repeat the habitual thinking of our every day. They're like greased rails and our first impulse is to just go right along them, especially when we're feeling overwhelmed with crummy feelings. To change them, you have to make a different choice in the moment. Again and again and again. One neuron at a time.

So I think that's where you are. You may not want to go completely NC, but you at least have gotten to the point that you want to want to. So now take the steps to support yourself in that endeavor. Delete his contact info and block his number. Change yours if you have to. Delete everything. Ditch all the momentos. Hell, make it a ritual if you have to. At my BS's request I did a cleansing ritual and I destroyed the last thing I had of his, which I had left at my parents' house on that trip right after D-day.

It's almost 16 years since for me. BS and I are reconciled. I do not feel fond memories for AP, and in fact I feel the cringe when I really think of how I behaved back then and how I threw my integrity in the toilet so that I could have the feelings I wanted in the moment. I have developed some tools for sitting with and dealing with difficult feelings in ways that are wholesome instead of destructive to me and the people around me. It took a long time. I'll say 6-8 years for reconciliation. 10 for the personal work of finding out how and why I was able to betray my BS and get my perceived needs met at his very great expense. Not sure the personal work every completely ends. And I know that seems like a long time, and it is, but you know what? That time's going to go by no matter what. The steps you take now determine what your life looks like after that time has passed.

The work is 1000% worth it. You can do it.

Proceed with conviction and valor. Best to you from a fellow EvolvingSoul.

Hopefully this is not considered a thread jack, but just want to say thank you to evolvingsoul for that response. Really helped remind me of so many things.

I know I mentioned this previously, but just to emphasize a common point several posters have made - many of us (usually via IC / lots of work) can see how the combination of emotional pain / unpleasant feelings and a lack of healthy coping mechanisms (in my case the inability to talk with my wife stretches back to lots of childhood trauma plus the lingering impact as an adult) creates the ingredients for the infidelity. Once I realized that I was chasing a was to kill the pain (along side using copious amounts of drugs and alcohol) I realized how interchangeable the AP was. I have often told my wife that I think I would have had an affair at some point even if I never crossed paths with the AP. The affair caused enough trauma that I did not have any other instances of infidelity, but I am 100% sure I would have had an affair at some point because I did not deal with the root causes.

Eventually I could not live with the guilt / shame and started IC with a betrayal trauma specialist. She (along with several great people on SI) helped me realize my wife deserved the truth even this many years later. I put it at 50/50 my marriage was over and was willing to deal with the consequences (beyond grateful my wife is working with me to reconcile), but I also knew I needed to do work on myself regardless.

For many years I could have passed a polygraph saying I had no residual issues from my childhood as I truly believed that. The thought that I needed therapy to unpack all of my dysfunctionality at my age seemed absurd. The reality is my brain got wired in some very unhealthy ways growing up and it caused so many unhealthy behaviors that are taking a lot of work to overcome. Doing the work will benefit my marriage and chance to reconcile, but the work will also make me a better father, grandfather, brother, son, person, etc.

Long way of saying that I think you will reach a point where you see the AP for the emotional painkiller most APs are. Most relationships that start via an affair do not last because the dopamine hits just are not the same when you lose the illicit aspects of the affair. Some describe it like a fog lifting.

Easy to say in retrospect and I know going NC seems like an impossibly hard task. One thing I have learned as a recovering addict is that trying to envision how I will stop doing something for the rest of my life can seem overwhelmingly daunting, but if I can focus on just today the task seems doable. I really think if you do the work (starting with chatgpt is a great suggestion and one I have used often, but eventually finding a therapist that understands betrayal trauma) you will find a love for yourself that makes you realize that you deserve to be with someone who can commit to you fully.