I'm in crisis: he had an affair

[blueweeknd]

I feel quite in crisis. It happenned a couple of years ago but I only just left him. I am not sure why but this feels like the worst I've felt.

I think leaving him made the real pain and weight of it crush down on me all of a sudden in the realisation of it all.

How was he capable of the things he did?

Why wasn't I valuable enough not to do this?

What is real or not real?

Who am I? Who I thought I was, was his precious girl. His best thing. If I'm not that, who am I?

Do all my memories mean nothing now if I wasn't enough?

Why did the affair partner get the best of him? When I got this traumatised, self loathing wreck?

Did I matter?

I feel also this crushing sense of the loss of everything that felt most important to me. Him. Us. The days. All the smiles.

Chinese takeaways
Christmas movies
Lucozade being brought to you when you've got flu
The beach
Wednesday night date nights
How his face lit up every time he saw me
The house we were going to buy and never did
Kids playing board games
Sunday morning breakfast

If it all felt so absolutely incredibly wonderful and valuable to me, but clearly not to him, then are my happiest times just mirages?

It's like a 50 tonne truck is sitting on top of me and the things which are most precious to me are gone and there's absolutely nobody there to watch it go.

I don't want to hear that he was a bad person, because he wasn't. I'll never understand why he did all he's done but I suppose I will need to accept that the same things weren't precious to him. He says they were, but how can that be true.

He intensely dislikes the person he had an affair with now. So why was it so easy to do, for something so seemingly transient?

He seems worn down by my anger and pain and everything that was once great is now misery. I kept because I dont want him to remember me like that.

What if he remembers his affair as joyful and fun and passionate and he remembers us as hard and sad and unhappy? That feels unfair. We loved each other. We wiped away tears and made jokes and he thought I was funny.

I feel cheated out of that. I want him to remember me like I was. Us like we were. I want to at least have that.

I don’t want to hear that I need to look after myself or do nice things for me or see friends or as if anything can ever be all right again because it won't.

This will always have happened and nothing is ever going to make it all right. I might eventually stop hurting and go on and have some kind of life with someone new or with a rescue dog or hiking some mountain in Peru.

But life will always be worse. This'll be something I carry around inside of me forever. There will be dreams that never happened and grief that hits me like a mack truck when I'm I'm Tesco and some brand of fish fingers reminds me of his face.

What I want to know is what thoughts I can use to comfort myself when it feels unbearable. When it feels like there's no possible way that I can endure another second of how much it hurts.

I can't go to my happy place anymore because my happy place was always him. Holidays to Greece, the little boat we were going to sail around the world, how he used to look at me.

Now my mind is just full of pain and poison and confusion and grief that feels so big that I almost can't breathe.

Tell me what to tell myself so I can keep going.

Left, not kept.

Typing through tears

I'm so sorry for your pain op x 💐

I’m so sorry.

You are mourning and your brain is desperately trying to make sense of it all. It will hurt terribly but as you process it, it will get better. The only way out is through. At least know that this is a process and you will get through it. Sleep is the only way I got a break from the heartbreak. It’s very painful.

Everything you have written resonates with me (currently reconciling after husband's affair last year). I absolutely see you and hear you.

I can offer no advice apart from find a therapist specialising in trauma if you can afford it. EMDR really helped me. And if you aren't already, get yourself on the Surviving Infidelity forum. The people on there are incredibly wise and compassionate, and you'll get great support.

He's taken so much already through his actions. Don't let what he did take your future as well.

Sending strength

So so sorry lass and I feel that and I'm there too. Three years on for me and honestly, the pain
lessens a bit in intensity but I still think of him every day, am unable to hate him, so many happy memorial tied up with him etc. I have found though one thing that does bring me some peace and relief from the pain and that's been studying. It absorbs me completely and at the same time I feel like I'm achieving something, some kind of small step towards making a new future. I'm sorry I don't have better advice, I honestly wish I knew how to cope too. Wishing you all the best, it really is real that pain, I do totally know xxx

I'm sure you were enough, but he wanted MORE.
So many men who are only one man themself obvious just feel entitled to two women. You were enough.

When my self-esteem was destroyed by a man I relied on crime novels. They saved me from my thoughts.

It sounds really hard OP.

You will always think of him and what could have been but the pain will ease. I socialised heavily. It was the LAST thing I felt like doing but even if I was just sitting in a corner having been dragged out by friends, I was that bit more tired when I went to bed that night. I said yes to every invite. You will get through this but it feels unbearable. Sending lots of strength.

I can relate to your post.
That sense of having only tarnished memories of good times.

Several years on, I can hardly remember what he was like other than I had been happy and contented. Then I felt like I'd been punched very hard in the stomach when I I found out, came to terms that it was over, then feeling the things you describe.

Get through each day 5 minutes at a time. Try to keep busy. Make time to grieve, but remember to look after yourself.

You don't really get closure. It wasn't you, it was him.
Sometimes men think with their dicks.

Thank you. I'm reading and it's helping. Kindness of strangers.

This is me, you wrote how I am feeling, it’s only months, not years. I am grieving, I am devastated. He is a good man, we had a good life, he betrayed me, it was over in a few weeks, we are both broken, I cry every day, I can’t forgive him and I can’t reconcile. I can’t offer you help other than to know that I understand your pain 😭
💐

Another one who can fully relate to everything you're saying. the pain is unbearable, I remember so vividly. You think you will never be ok again.

But, the power of time is incredible. I am 6 years on and only now can I say I am healed, but the scars remain. I used the pain to really work on myself. The first year or so will be unbearable, and you just need to try and get through by distracting yourself.
But the storm does pass, I absolutely promise you. There is a saying I heard recently: the universe only ever says 'Yes', 'Not Yet' or 'I have something better for you'. 6 years on from my heartbreak I can fully relate to that.

Also, whilst what your partner did (cheating) was awful, it is absolutely no slight on you. Sometimes people want something else and there's nothing you can do about it. It doesn't take away everything you had - all of that was real at the time. But I understand why you think it was a lie right now. People change over time, change what they want and their feelings. But it doesn't mean they didn't love you, I promise.

There was a thread for the broken hearted on here and it helped me enormously. It was just posters pouring out their feelings with no judgement. People in far worse situations, some less so.

It does get better, but it's slow and it might feel like some days it's worse, but one day, you'll find you won't have thought about him much if at all.

Unless you need to make arrangements about your children, block him. Don't look him up on SM. If you have mutual friends with no filter, keep away from them.

Make an effort to do things like socialising, exercise etc. It will help.

This is grief and it's brutal. Your post made me cry. I know it's a cliche, but really it's just time and lots of it that will make it more bearable. How long it takes is different for everyone. I don't believe it ever goes away, but I think you can eventually start to put it away in a box and look at it less and less. I hope you're ok xx

@blueweeknd
im not sure how accurate this is but ill try, sometimes we can build a relationship / marriage together and have many moments and memories, then after a while the relationship / marriage progresses with day to day life and duties etc
then people meet someone and rather than focusing on the day to day duties of life etc, its charm, the passions, the factor of a new relationship etc.

There's an old saying "The best way to get over a man, is to get under another one". I do believe this to be true.

I was 20 years with ExH, and I also left him due to cheating (with multiple women). I don't think that any of our happy memories were lies, it really was just a simple case of him not being able (in the moment) to resist temptation. Men are quite simple. It doesn't mean any more than that.

There's a very good talk by Jordan Peterson on this, and how it makes you question yourself, because you've been duped and you didn't see it coming. I'm sure you'll find it on You Tube. I'll see if I can find it and link it here.

I am now 15 years on from when this happened to me, and I am completely healed. I have a different husband - a better one! I am actually grateful that ExH betrayed me, because I wouldn't have met DH otherwise. I never think about ExH and the thought of actually being with him now, makes my skin crawl. I will have to see him soon at our DD wedding, and I will feel absolutely nothing. He was a fool for behaving so carelessly that he lost the best woman he ever had. I know it, and I think he knows it.

You have done nothing wrong. Your Ex knows this and he will probably be regretting everything. Of course, if you really want him back and he wants that too, there's no shame in that. A very good friend of mine forgave her DH, and they are together some 22 years on from the affair - very happy and very solid.

What do you want? I'd commit to something. Either reconcile or start dating. How old are you?

I always thought it would be easier if he'd left me for her. Pain. But understandable.

Instead, he begged and cried and acted almost like he couldn't believe he'd done it. Seeing me hurt so much broke him down. Feeling so small in my eyes. Knowing he was responsible and not knowing what to do.

He was always so desperate to do what he needed to do but somehow he missed the mark. I'd always loved how hapless he was before at "emotional stuff" but when I needed him mostbI don’t think he really knew what to do.

Just sadness, fear, shame and self loathing, and I made him feel all the opposite things so ending up there felt like living a Story I didn't belong in.

He's lost 3 stone. He stopped his hobbies. He's depressed and lost and it was months on end of him flailing helplessly.

He wasn't a bad person.

But he did really terrible things.

Things that changed our lives forever.

We don't get to undo things, do we? And suddenly the best years of our lives became the worst.

There is cognitive dissonance for me. I know this man loves me. I also know he did these things to me. Living with both makes life so confusing.

I didn't love him less.

I loved myself less. I couldn't look in the mirror anymore.

I know there will be a day it doesn't hurt as much, but it'll never be right. It'll never be the life we were meant to have.

I know myself.

I know him.

It'll never be okay. Not really. I am just a person who has this life now.

This: “I'm sure you were enough, but he wanted MORE.
So many men who are only one man themself obvious just feel entitled to two women. You were enough.”

Also - some people can compartmentalise.

I actually don’t think his affair meant that what you had wasn’t what you thought it was. What I think it does mean is that - for a window of time - he just wanted different or more. It was really stupid of him. He broke the contract between you. It sounds like you’ve given him a chance to put it right but he’s shattered you and your relationship beyond repair.

Sorry you’re in this situation, OP.

Are you not angry with him? I would be angry in your position. Not sad.

My marriage has recently ended. I've just posted today about the fact that I am doubting myself because I'm not actually upset that he has gone. Even if I thought he had cheated on me, I don't actually think I would be arsed if he did. Our relationship wasn't very good in the end though. There wasn't a lot of happy memories in the end. Most of my happy memories are from the kids. Not him.

I read the book Women who love too much about two weeks after he left. Perhaps read that and see if any of it resonates with you. I'm only saying that because you described that you liked how hapless he was. The book has helped me a lot.

@Notsadaboutit , but that's you. OP isn't you.
When I was in that position, I wasn't angry. I was confused, floored, broken ... but I wasn't angry. I'm still not angry. He's not worthy of anger.

Over this process I felt anger of a kind I didn't know was possible.

It's a temporary emotion though. And anger is livable.

The pain and the grief are much harder.

How old are you?

Are there any kids?

This is me now. My husband of 18 years has had an affair and gone off with her. I am devastated. Not only have I lost my husband but also my best friend. He was the person I told everything too and he has thrown it all away. I honestly don't know how to keep getting every day but somehow I am.

You are not the only one sadly. X