Serious mental health problems starting...years later?!

Hiya people,

I wondered if anyone else here might have some insight, or a similar experience, to something I've experienced recently, quite some years after being betrayed. I'm a BH, M41 and ten years back my W was unfaithful to me. It was an unusual act of unfaithfulness, kind of a 'one night EA'. I'm not going to go into the full details right now (I may some other time), but a 'TLDR':

An out of town relative of mine (same age) who I was very close to was staying on our couch. Everyone always got on well with him, he was the life and soul of the party kinda guy.

One evening him, me and my W were having some drinks. I had work the following day so headed up to bed around 11pm, W decided to stay downstairs drinking with relative. They got on well too, nothing at all untoward prior to this particular occasion. Anyway, thankfully, I couldn't sleep. From the room above I heard everything. Over the next few hours, the situation downstairs went from completely innocent chit chat to undeniable emotional infidelity. Secret swapping, "don't tell X (me)", suggestive physical compliment exchanges etc. Some very low grade physical cheating occurred, hair stroking of all things. Ick. Anyway, I put an end to it once I had had enough - honestly up to that point I was so dumbfounded and this was so out the blue, I kinda sat there upstairs in denial and also needing to know to what extent these two most trusted individuals would actually betray me (it was of course a double betrayal, not just my W or my relative but both, in cahoots).

Needless to say this emotional-one-night stand was extremely traumatic. The next few weeks were chaos, all the patterns and routines I've read so many of you folks describe on here. But W did get it and make the right moves after a short period, NC was fully established and although she attempted TT initially, gave it up pretty quickly. That was the only solitary incident, that I know for a fact.

Anyway over the the next few months a lot of things were worked out, worked on and a very genuine reconciliation was achieved and we were/are very happy.

It isn't really so much the act of infidelity itself I was hoping to seek some input on, but what happened 9 years later (last year).

There was a trigger and for me suddenly for me it was as though the whole thing had just happened, like happened that very day. The trigger cause everything to come rushing back, the emotions, the roller coasting, the doubts, the questions (oh the questions), the mental insanity - all of it. Raw as the very night it happened. There had of course been many triggers over the years since the act itself, but none had had a major effect on me until this one.

Question 1, is this normal!?

But, what came next was worse. Whilst this revisited trauma was still in full swing, I developed (completely out the blue) absolutely 100% debilitating health anxiety. Like, I knew, I KNEW I was dying and had XYZ terminal illness. It was horrendous and totally new - I'd never ever had this problem before. This lasted several weeks, I lost many kg in weight and had to be signed off work for several weeks. Eventually it passed with some hospital intervention and the health anxiety and the infidelity trauma passed and I foolishly thought it was an isolated incident.

It wasn't. Around a year or so later, the health anxiety struck back, in exactly the same way. Different 'symptoms' but same problem and absolutely crippling. Weight plummeted, time off work, bed bound, absolutely horrendous. And then again, it passed. This time there had been no prior flashback to the infidelity.

Like I said, I had never had this occur before, until I had the re-triggering of the infidelity and trauma of nine years prior in 2024. Then the health anxiety and panic attacks returned a year later for a second time.

Question 2, can this happen? Is the onset of health anxiety potentially linked to the trauma of betrayal? Can being a victim of infidelity and the emotional damage of that prompt seemingly unrelated mental health problems? Or is it just an awful coincidence?

Any thoughts or insights would be much appreciated, thank you people. I'll do what I can to answer any questions but as I mentioned, the infidelity itself isn't so much what I was hoping to discuss for the time being. Thank you all.

2 comments posted: Sunday, September 28th, 2025