What It Takes To Survive an Affair: 3 Must Have Components

We are 1 1/2 years in and doing not too badly. I’d also like to go but not even in the USA! I don’t know or how to fully enjoy my marriage now although I’m trying. My husband still works with ap in a large company. They only communicate when necessary.

Amy W~~

My situation is very similar. Images and scenes looping. Angry at the ap for targeting my wife, who he knew had 3 young kids at the time. He was a divorced alcoholic cop who had played that game before and actually broke up a marriage of another woman he worked with.

My wife happened to be the new hire at the PD and fell for his line. It took him 8 months to get her to succumb sexually but the emotional affair started pretty soon after she was hired.

Angry at my wife for having a 2nd affair 35 years later, which brought me here.

I will say the first time I ever experienced any empathy and not feeling I was to blame for the first affair was when I got here and we both did HH and H4H.

I, like you am recently retired and feel like a time that should be wonderful is being compromised by intrusive thoughts and images from the past and struggling with intimacy and desire.

To healing. ❤️‍?

Amy, I'm so sorry for the pain you're experiencing. I can relate to that level of intrusive thoughts. They kept me awake at night. Sometimes all night. I found classical or worship music to be helpful in keeping my mind focused on something else - it wasn't a magic fix, but it did offer me a reprieve. I also understand your surprise over the 18-24 month healing timeline. I wouldn't get caught up on the timeline - it's a generalization based on the information we have. I recongnize there is a lot of nuance in there. The timeline is based upon each person doing the necessary individual work to heal. It doesn't take into account things like addiction or past abuse. For instance, after my husband's last affair, I got into therapy within a couple of months, signed up for Harboring Hope and really pursued healing. My husband did not. It took him around nine months to begin doing any work. That right there added an additional nine months to our healing timeline. Coupled with that, he is an addict, which required specialized therapy. That added an additional three years to our timeline. So, you can see that our story was more like a 4-year timeline to healing. Give yourself grace. If you are being proactive with your time and pursing healing for yourself, that is good enough. It might take you longer to get there than an idealized version of recovery, but you will get there.

Proditium2022~~

That's interesting. I've had that VERY thought about the unfaithful's memory of the affair.

I'm not sure I would be qualified to say what my unfaithful spouse did or did not feel during his affairs. It was very easy for me to assume, based on my own understanding, what his thoughts and motivations were. I came to recognize that he's a complex human, just like me, and things simply weren't as cut and dry and I'd imagined. Did he get what he wanted at that moment in time? Maybe. Or at least what he thought he wanted. But getting what we want is just as often a curse as it is a blessing.

I often want things that would not be healthy or good for me. In fact, I am insulin resistent, which means (among other things) that I am supposed to avoid sugar. Last night however, I wanted chocolate cake, and I gave in to that desire. I wanted it so much in that moment that I ate three pieces (and five cookies to boot). When I woke up this morning feeling like I'd been hit by a truck, I felt like an idiot. I knew it wasn't good for me, but I wanted it at the time and I enjoyed it. That doesn't mean I don't realize how destructive it is to my health. I also want to be healthy and feel well - that's actually what I want most. Which is why I'm glad that most of the time, I don't get what I want in the moment, because it conflicts with what I want for my life as a whole.

I know that's a very simplified example, but it still paints the same picture. My unfaithful husband may have gotten what he wanted in the moment, but it wasn't what he wanted for his life. That's a choice he has to live with forever. A deep regret he can't escape. The road he walked, the road of restoration, was not an easy one. Sometimes when he looks at me, I can see the sorrow in his eyes as he's reminded of the hurt he caused that he can never take back. But he would, if he could.

My perspective has shifted quite a bit as I've pursued recovery. Early on, my pain clouded my vision. It was only through showing up and doing the work that I began to see things clearly. In hindsight, I can see how unfair it was for me to assign thoughts, feelings, and motives to my spouse. Just as it would be for him to assign them to me.