5 years on from the affair and not recovered

[Puzzlez]

Hi. I was hoping for some feedback from people on my situation.

My long term partner had an affair 5 years ago. It was all horribly messy. The circumstances were particularly difficult at a time where things in my life were already overwhelming and I sustained considerable trauma.

We weren't married, and we both had grown up children but I think it hit me particularly hard because it was so shocking. So unlike him. And sadly after the discovery he did the worst possible thing which was to persuade me to reconcile only to betray me several times again. Realistically it was probably 18 months of on and off torture from the first day I discovered the affair.

I've survived, but certainly part of me died in a way and I've felt like the essence of me hasn't returned and never will return.

After a full blown breakdown, I got back up. I got back to work. I regained my ability to get on with daily life, but I'm fundamentally changed.

I don't really feel joy, hope, excitement or even peace. Just sort of either mild anxiety or a kind of contentment. I feel very disconnected from myself and quite lost.

I stopped being social, cut off all my friends and more or less just see immediate family. My coping mechanism is work. I work all the time and if I keep my brain busy then I can't think about it or remember it.

I stayed with my partner. Although we split for a while. He did everything he could. He's exceptionally devoted and loving and is completely mortified about the past. He wants to know what he can do to help but I don't know the answer.

I have grown children and I'm 49 and part of me longs to just pack a bag and walk out and spend the rest of my life just wandering. Because I don't feel like the same person anymore and I feel like I don't belong in my life.

I've tried a few times to discuss this with my partner but he becomes really panicked and says I'm everything really so he doesn't know how to think of life without me. He just keeps trying to fix it. Most of the time I just work so I can pretend.

That's not to say I'm crying all day. We just get on with things and most days laugh and cuddle and cook dinner and go on holidays and he's always trying to make me happy for which I feel touched but also sad.

This is rambling.

Can anyone identify at all with this?

You lived through it once, so biting the bullet and getting help, will be painful @Puzzlez but not as painful as the original pain. You’ve tried so hard to numb yourself and it’s not working and I can tell by your posts, you’re one strong woman.
Your partner has avoidant attachment, he finds it hard to form and maintaining deep connections. He found it impossible to be with you as you wanted emotional intimacy, he fears dependence and withdraws from relationships that feel too close. So he cheated on you, hurt you to the core, but as soon as you withdrew, walked away, he runs after you. He felt emotional intimacy with the OW because she wasn’t a reality, she was only a possibility, he can’t be emotionally intimate with anyone unless they are either, long distance, someone he first meets or someone who is unable to give emotional intimacy.
So as you flipped to being the avoidant attachment of the coin, he is safe to pursue you, to declare his love and devotion as you are unable to return them feelings as you are closed off.
This is slowly choking the life from you, you would be far better to go for help, once you start healing, you will see this is not a relationship and become happy on your own.

@SpryCat I think that assessment was probably completely right. Although he has changed now, he is completely different. But as I said, sadly too late.

He is completely different because you are closed off, you are no threat to his attachment style. If you flipped to being as you once were, trusting, open to emotional intimacy and love, he too would flip back to being avoidance attachment.
You two will never meet in the middle and be happy together, one has to be closed off like a clam, so the other can get closer without fear of being snared. You are both commitment phobes. You both recognised in each other subconsciously, when you first met, that you could never be in a committed relationship with each other, you were safe from deep connections. Except his betrayal cut you so deep, it traumatised you and together you’re toxic to one another. You need help to heal and hopefully to step away.
Even when you run, the fear of abandonment, breaks you, even though you were the one that ran away. He in turn fears being abandoned and run towards you but you need help to overcome it and be able to walk away. Being alone is far healthier than fearing it and continuing being in a toxic relationship. If you could wave a magic wand, be as you were, he would run into someone else’s arms, deep down you know this, so to keep him in your life, you’ve closed yourself off, gasping to breathe and feel half dead. That must be hell for you x

The essence of you will return op as soon as you leave him. I stayed for too long and thought I was dead inside. It took a couple of years to leave but I have left and now I'm whole, happy and free. A whole new life for someone who had no self esteem and felt like I'd never survive a divorce

I don't understand why you aren't just ragingly angry at this man OP.

I don't understand why you are allowing the dreadful way he behaved make you feel less about yourself.

He behaved appallingly towards you. And towards this other woman actually.

He eventually cut ties with her- reluctantly - so now of course it's in his interests to play your loving partner otherwise he loses not only her but you.

Of course he wants you to be the same woman you were before his betrayal: it would make his life easier to be with an undamaged woman and would absolve him of any guilt for the damage his selfish behaviour has cause

Please step back and see this cheating self centered man for what he is.

Please do not let your self worth be determined by this man. Or any man actually.

I may be able to offer a perspective not mentioned so far.
I used to be polyamorous. Well, I probably still am but have chosen a monogamous life with a wonderful man.
Poly I define as being in romantic relationships with different people at the same time. Note that I was seeing each person separately, not as a polycule.

There was a time when I was with three men. You might not believe me, but each one I loved with all my heart. With each - we laughed, horsed around, cuddled, had sex, had inside jokes, silly nicknames, fun stories, shared interests and beliefs, favorite activities and so on. We said I love you’s and helped each other a ton. Each of them benefited from this arrangement and we were happy.

You can probably guess what happened next, right? The deeper we feel in love, the more jealousy, envy and insecurities started to arise. They began to get upset with me seeing the others, each laid a claim to me and wanted me to end it with the rest. What started as consensual non-monogamy, turned into them feeling that I betrayed them. Didn’t I love them enough to do this to them? Some ugly breakups later and my heart was smashed with each one.

What I’m trying to say here is that I don’t believe your DP had no feelings for that woman. He definitely did. By the time she started to put pressure on him - he was in love with both of you.
That made breaking up with her painful (though he deserved the pain). Add onto that she was emotionally manipulative by threatening to end her life, God knows what else she might’ve pulled, he might’ve felt guilty / responsible for her and betrayed your trust to go see her. But at the same time he knew that he didn’t want a future with a psycho and you were the much better choice.

I agree with the rest of the posters that you have PTSD.
However I do understand you when you say you can’t stand the place anymore, the same walls and streets that fill you with so much pain. That you want to leave it all and run away - I’ve felt the same way about my past trauma (not just the relationships). And I did end up moving away. I escaped. I did also go through years of therapy. I’m in a much better place now.

This is such a sad situation. Whilst previous posters can give you insight into his potential mentality no one knows for sure. But one thing seems clear — you are depressed. It may be that cheating on you was the catalyst but nothing he does or says can snap you out of this depression. The feeling of wanting to hide under the covers and step away from society isn’t just a reaction to the cheating. It’s now become more. You need to work on yourself and seek therapy and speak to a doctor. He is not the solution. You are. Once you are in a better place mentally you can make a decision about your relationship.

Very rarely can cheating make a relationship better. But your story seems to imply that cheating was the catalyst for real change and commitment. When he cheated he hadn’t told you he loved you. That’s huge. It shows it’s not something he throws around lightly. He got scared of commitment and let himself be caught up with someone else to avoid facing it. But losing you made him see what he wanted. It could be a happy ending. The problem is somewhere along the line the trauma associated with it paralysed you. You need to address this so you can move forward, with or without him.

I cried when I looked back at a photo from my time. The pain in my eyes. The effort of keeping up a pretence. I wasn't the person I was. I split up with my ex H and now after about 12 years am remarried to a wonderful man . I'm back. I'm not in pain. You deserve better than this for the rest of your life.

You know it's on you to grow up a bit ??

No no! I would say though if you are not on some kind of anti anxiety meds I would give it a try. You are having a very natural reaction to a situation he put you in .

Time to book yourself into therapy to understand why you think you deserve to be treated like this and why you are CHOOSING to live this way?

Suppressing difficult feelings never keeps them down. Until you work through them they’ll affect you in many negative ways. Like the inability to be angry and instead experiencing depression as a more socially acceptable feeling of numbness and disassociation. You can get through this and get better but I think professional support is key.

Theres a really good podcast series by a woman called Annalisa Barbieri who often talks to psychotherapists about difficult situations. There’s a good one about moving house and a comment that stuck was “whenever you go, they’re you’ll be” insinuating that you can’t outrun pain or trauma just by changing your geographical location.

Good luck to you OP. As is often the way the first post nails it I think,

" I was just wondering if maybe I was alone somewhere else that maybe those thoughts would stop and go away and I could just focus on other things because the previous life could just be vanished or something. A bit like erasing everything and starting again. "

So op this actually makes a huge amount of sense. One of the things I found hardest in my own journey and about becoming a lone parent when I left the relationship I was in, was that I felt lonelier being around people than when it was actually just me and ds, especially if I felt people weren't supporting me the way I'd have wanted them to. Its a trauma response- you want the world around you to match the feelings you're having inside your body. You want to be alone for a bit because then it makes sense that you'd feel lonely and for a while there's an actual sense of relief to that. But as with anything, you then slide into a darker mindset because that space is also allowing you the mental room to process the things you're continuously pushing to the back of your mind. So it becomes almost a vicious cycle unless you break it by doing the work to heal that nervous system.

I also think I found it harder in many ways to stay than if I'd left. Not everyone understood. You're obviously still trying to work on the relationship which means you end up holding a lot because you know what people will say if you complain about your partner to them. I definitely worried about what people thought of me and that they'd see me as weak for staying. And ultimately, people look at it like - you're working through it together so you don't need us. Whereas when you leave after something like this, people recognise you're alone and circle the wagons properly. It's a very lonely place being in a relationship after an affair because your support network is still the person who hurt you, and others don't quite know their role or assume you're dealing with it. It's really tough. And I agree there are friendships I no longer invest in as a result of what I went through because I feel like those people did not show up for me the way I think I would have for them. Nothing like a trauma to generate a friendship cull unfortunately.

For a long time I also didn't want to invest in new friendships either because I didn't trust people after that. But I had to push myself and I know I keep saying it, but my counsellor really encouraged me as well and I'm glad she did because life has a bit more colour and I've more people than I did at the beginning. It definitely changes you as a person though.

The other thing is you can start to feel almost safe in your pain because that's what you get used to and the idea of healing is scary because that means kind of letting your guard down again and what if you're betrayed again- what would that mean? But that is ptsd talking and that needs proper intervention because its distorted thinking and isn't actually your reality. So even though there's probably a self preservation instinct that's pushing you into work and away from therapy because that's what you feel in control of, it's actually a form of self sabotage almost? If that makes sense?

"Part of me just longs to pack a bag and wander" you try to discuss it but HE gets panicked?

Are you in a position to take an extended break and travel. Let him feel panicked. You only have one life.

Cheating is abuse, extreme emotional abuse. Society has done a number on women encouraging forgiveness. It sounds like he wasn’t even very significant to you before he cheated. The pain made him significant, and gave him power. I think some of them enjoy sticking around afterwards to watch the betrayed suffer.
Staying with a cheater/ abuser requires self abandonment and self betrayal. You’ll never recover while you’re with him. He’s destroyed you.

I love how you've phrased this. I saw that definitely with my narcissistic ex and his relationship with his now wife. She probably wouldn't have cared so much about him and fought for him if I hadn't been in the picture. She is trauma bonded to him. I found myself thinking about him too and wanting him to want me again, but the irony was, when he did try I realised that I didn't want someone who treated me like that back because I've moved on emotionally and also know what a loving relationship is. Whereas she has taken him back multiple times and I think it's because her self esteem has always been so low and he's incinerated the little left and then the threat of me and other women (which he creates) keeps her diminished and also like she owes him something for "choosing" her.

You're right that cheating is a form of abuse and some abusers even use it as a form of control.

Bit late to the thread BUT
Re: the friends / family - I found / and many will tell you - when the shit hits the fan - it’s not the ones who you exspect to be there ( who aren’t ) it the ones you never expected to be there ( who are) and it’s a kindness and strength and quietness you come to admire.
my situation was different to yours, but your anger towards them is completely understandable

That’s brilliant and so eloquently put (I’d be testing this by being totally loving , saying I was not bothered about A and totally love bombing him)
if he does leave problem solved. And I say this as someone who was a bit of a commitment phobic- all be it a long time ago.

It’s easy to be all in with someone who asks very little of you, who’s depressed and guarded. There’s no real intimacy, he’s made sure of that. What’s he getting out of this situation now because it doesn’t sound appealing.

When he said he loved you, while cheating and traumatising you, he was lying.

I know it's easy to want to apply theories to things but this one doesn't fit at all with us.

I had, for most of my life, secure attachment and relationships with others who also had secure attachment. When I met DP his avoidant attachment was very, very obvious.

Because I was so secure I didn't really feel very bothered by it though. Actually (and anyone who's been alone for years will understand) it was actually less suffocating to be with someone who let me have time alone with kids, or just having a box set marathon.

AP btw was about as anxiously attached as you can get so maybe that was part of the pull. While she begged and chased, I just got on with my own life if he pulled away.

It only became an issue for me when his attachment caused my needs not be met. He wasn't keen to meet family and friends, he wanted a lot of privacy over his personal space, he made decisions (even big ones) as a single person would, there was always a wall up and after a time I felt troubled by it.

That said, he always called, always nessaged, always showed up, always wanted time with me and never made me feel dicked around. But the wall eventually got tiresome.

I think I'm now avoidantly attached to friends and family. With him I'm very intimate and connected. Probably because he just worked very hard at that. We're extremely loving, emotionally close and very intimate and committed.

I just feel joyless, lack excitement and calm. I really don't think he and I are in an avoidant loop - believe me I've seen it and studied it and that isn't what happened.

I think his attachment to me changed for various reasons. The first was the shock of losing me, which he did for a time, along with the understanding of how his attachment issues played into what happened with OW.

Actually one of the first things he did after discovery was read two books on attachment and he really, really took it on board because he'd say "I want to shut down right now because I feel anxiety but in going to push through it and stay", so I watched him learn how to lean into the anxiety.

The second was therapy. He had a lot of therapy and explored his attachment issues, practiced CBT style exercises and learned about how and why he'd become avoidant in the first place and healed a lot of that. This involved repairing relationships with parents and stuff.

The third thing is that I think he saw I stayed with him and kept loving him even when I saw the very worst, even when he was sick or horrible or completely a bastard to be fair and it was almost as if going through that with me and realising I wasn't going to harm him or leave him was in itself a learning experience.

So he's grown and changed a lot.

There are times I am very defensive. Times I find it really hard to share what I'm thinking and feeling (I have to write him letters sometimes), and times that I actively push him away. I promise, that doesn't turn him on or excited him. It makes him sad and scared.

When our relationship was dysfunctional, when he was dysfunctional, I was very acutely aware of it. That's not the case now. I'm very badly damaged, I think I have PTSD, I certainly struggle to trust most people or be seen and I am likely very depressed as people have mentioned.

Although I realised today it switches on and off. I close my box with it all inside (often when he's around) and I feel sort of happy. Today we woke up and had brekkie in the sun, weeded the drive, laughed a lot, went to Sainsbury's and were snogging like teenagers in the milk aisle. I found myself doing the dishwasher and dancing to the radio. During those times I am here in the present and I know I'm loved and safe and I just don't think about 5 years ago.

But as I said, when I'm alone I furiously work or clean or do something like I can't stop. Like a kind of anxiety. Reflecting, I used to daydream A LOT about nice things from the past or hopes for the future. I had a really vivid interior world.

Now, I struggle to see any future at all. I can't connect with past memories as it feels like someone else. I think this disassociation is a trauma thing.

When I'm away from him for more than a week, I find the box opens and then all my sadness snd bad memories flood back and if he's not there to ground me back to "now" I feel like I am in it amd I end up crying, sometimes for days, pushing him away, getting angry, sad, feeling grief, fear, just lost.

When I'm like that I feel like there's no happy days. I'm not sure if this fits depression, these highs and lows? I'm.not sure if the days of crying and wailing are just healing? It doesn't feel like it hurts less. It just feels like reliving it.

Something inside my brain is just looking for some kind of closure or a way to get out of the loop. I'm rambling again. This thread has been so cathartic, thank you.

@Puzzlez
are you menopausal
i was 48 when I started and a lot of your symptoms fit ( without the A)
You maybe using the A to justify the deluge of bizarre emotions that menopause brings.

Not that I know of but I'm almost 50 and do have some symptoms such as getting very hot, headaches and thinning hair.

Yes, it’s not fun…. You may find some of your emotions are menopausal related.

That's such a good point that I had never considered. Thank you

I'm really sorry to hear this OP. What this poster said about losing the sense of the world being safe/ good etc might apply. Perhaps solo therapy might help you unpick it.

I've not been affected by an affair but have been terribly hurt by a family betrayal and subsequent estrangement. A lot of what you say resonates with me. I'm nine years on but it still hurts.

Wishing you all the best for healing and happiness 💐

Also menopausal here - doesn't help!