SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

First one since finding out. Any tips to get through it?

The thought of her shopping for him, receiving gifts from him, a romantic meal between them.

Meanwhile I'll probably be at home with our son playing video games! 😁

I remember turning it non-romantic. IE I concentrated on celebrating others (gifts for my children & made them heart shaped pizzas, Chocolate covered strawberries for my mom AND FOR ME, etc).

[This message edited by EvenKeel at 1:49 PM, Tuesday, February 11th]

I hate these made up holidays! People will make tons of money on flowers and candy. If the weather is ok take your kid to a park. Go do something physical like bowling. Enjoy each other.

XWH's birthday is the 12th, and is when AP flew here to visit and it's part of the A season. The first couple of years, I took some time off work. Couldn't concentrate anyway, so it was probably for the better.

I didn't put any pressure on myself to do anything. (I also didn't have small children.) Did I want to go out to breakfast, lunch, dinner or stay in bed or on the couch? Did I want to cry, scream beat the living tar out of something? Did I want to watch a movie or Guy's Grocery Games? I let myself pick what I needed for me at that time.

It does take time & healing. I'm several years out (and divorced), so not having those same items to face. I'm planning to head about 30 miles away to enjoy a Red Wine & Chocolate weekend.

So, I guess the TL;DR version is do what you need to do to get through this for the next year or so. It gets better and you can plan on doing fun things. Maybe in a few years you'll be planning a Mario cart weekend with your son and several of his friends.

Well, the prospect of the 1st post-d-day v-day got me serious about finding support via the web.

I found the days leading up to certain events like dday1, dday2, etc. we’re worse for me than the actual day.

Hopefully it will be for you too.

[This message edited by The1stWife at 11:04 AM, Saturday, February 15th]

I have some trepidation about valentines day this year. It has always felt like a day where I owe my wife an exposition of my love. I always felt uneasy about manufactured urgency. Performative obligations.

With the knowledge of her old cheating juxtaposed, those feelings are intensified and confused.

I still feel some pressure to do something special. Perhaps more special, perhaps less special than ordinary. I dont want to do any "pick me" shit. But the love seems even more important to hold on to this year. Yet the inspiration isnt there. Ugh.

It doesnt help that its on friday and Im fighting some social anxiety. Crowded restaurants and cozy, happy couples kill me now.

So Im going to push for at home togetherness this year. Could be great if I dont barf my ache all over it. But thats not honest, and if theres anything Ive learned from all this; the importance of honesty in love is supreme.

Celebrating that day died on DDay. It died Dead when I found out that Feb 14 is LTAP birthday.

So in the Land of Chaos, Friday will be just another day. We will keep our usual Friday night routine. Either going out with friends, or getting carryout and watching a movie by the fire.

VDay is 1 of 3 major trigger days for me. The others are Mother's Day [I learned during the LTAP he spent an entire Mother's Day weekend holed up w/LTAP in a hotel on a mini-vacation instead of helping his relative out of town with a construction issue like I was told] and my Birthday [after DDay1 but before DDay2 I let him throw me a huge milestone celebration and had an amazing time. The next morning I told him how special he'd managed to make me feel - then he went to watch the game with friends and I packed up all my party leftovers for him to take. Turns out I packed a picnic for WH & LTAP as she was in town and he spent the day holed up in a hotel bed with her. And all those calls for directions during the party - those were LTAP just inserting herself because she could]

All this [and a slight T/J] to say I have 3 Trigger Days that are just ordinary days in the Land of Chaos. VDay is one of them. While WH doesn't like this and it pains him, he does respect this.

You do what YOU have to do to protect YOU.

Ugh I'm feeling this. I teach and we have 3 young kids. All the kids are exchanging things and writing out to their friends. I honestly never really cared about the holiday itself but considering I found out right before Thanksgiving my husband was having an EA with a 29 year old bar fly, I had a miserable holiday season. We said we weren't doing presents for Christmas- literally decided the night before I found out about the affair. I still got him something from the kids for Christmas, I got nothing. I know he's been making an effort, apologizing, going to IC and couples, reading the books etc. but I am struggling. I'm hopeful he'll do something but also preparing that I'll again be overlooked and get nothing. I'm not even materialistic. I'd be happy with a heartfelt note or cute project from the kids but I have zero expectations. This is definitely a tough time and really triggering me this week. I have decided I'm concentrating on myself. I'm going to get a workout in, I made cute Valentine's for our kids and if he makes an effort, it will be surprising. I was so hurt at Christmas that I doubt anything will happen Friday. I don't know if that means I'm giving up or if we should just push through and focus on the healing and attempting to improve our marriage. Idk if I should bring it up to him or just see what happens.

I think it's really important for BSes to celebrate the way they want to celebrate instead of the way some fucked up voice in their head tells them to celebrate.

In general, the more mindfully one behaves after being betrayed, the better for the BS's healing. I wouldn't make long term decisions based on whims, but v-day/b-day/anniversaries? It's best for one's expression of love to match the feeling of love.

I’ve never been a big Valentine’s Day person, but it’s still a little weird for me because my husband and his affair partner kicked off their affair right around then. To add salt to the wound, he and I didn’t celebrate Valentine’s Day that year—we were very busy caring for a family member in stage four cancer, and I didn’t want my husband to feel stressed about having to do something for me on top of everything else he was doing. I just didn’t know that one of the things he was was doing was his coworker.

A year later, 7 months after DDay I was pick-me dancing big time and tried to make it a special sexy occasion and majorly traumatized myself. BIG learning moment for me.

Since then we’ve kind of backed off the day, back to the low key type of thing it was prior to his affair. It still feels a little awkward and sad to me, but it isn’t traumatizing.

That said, I have managed to lean into VD in a productive way that I’m kind of proud of. Basically, I use it as an excuse to show love to the people around me. I sent a package to my daughter at college of things I know she’d love. I’ll be doing something else special for my daughter still at home. I make cookies for my students and try to facilitate discussions and interactions that go deeper and broader than the cheesy hallmark aspects of the holiday. They’re surprisingly super receptive to that (I teach high school).

Anyway, give yourself plenty of leeway to just feel sorry for yourself on Valentine’s Day. It effing sucks to be in your shoes, and we all understand and can offer true empathy. But it might make you feel a little better to lean into that time with your son. You love him and you’re there for him. You’re spending time with him and can make that as casual special or as over the top special as you want. Lean into your love for him and his for you. That pays big dividends over time.

Leaning into my love for my kids was a big source of healing for me, and it helped to connect Valentine’s Day to that.

[This message edited by Grieving at 10:09 PM, Wednesday, February 12th]

Fiance and I sent a bunch of cards and some small presents to different people in our lives.

We will plan something nice but not on this exact day due to weather events and responsibilities we have.

I designated myself as my own valentine. I did get F a small present related to a hobby of his.

But I am learning to take exquisite care of myself. This holiday was part of affair season for me. I noticed I still feel it in my body and heart. So as a start, I signed up for some more EMDR therapy that advertised as being covered by my insurance, and am hoping to hear back soon. Not glamorous, but very needed. I shifted from taking care of just everyone else to taking care of me as well.

I put my thrifty-girl skills to use on pampering myself. I bought myself some makeup from one of the makeup "box" services where you can order just individual items…a small fancy perfume, a small luxury face cream. (Was not sure if I could mention the name of the service so I didn’t, but I have found their items to be nice quality pick-me-ups at very reasonable $3 and up prices with very reasonable $2 shipping.)

I bought myself a new pair of undies in a pretty color with some reward $ I had and "free" shipping.

I messaged a content creator about signing up for her body-positive belly dancing classes.

I will open a new bag of coffee beans (this time Haitian Blue) and "smell the coffee". I ordered myself some awesome pre-prepared ethnic food from an online company that specializes in "rescued" healthy foods..like overstocks, upcycles, and "ugly" (not uniform size etc) fruits and veggies. With any luck that box should make it here today for my one-gal galentines feast.

I no longer think of what ex wh did or is doing this holiday with anyone. I think it would have been that way if he decided to do the hard work and become a safe partner or not a part of my life as he chose to be. I hope this gives some betrayed spouses hope that there can be healing no matter what the WS chooses.

I will take some time to reflect on my wants for this coming year as the snow deepens.

Wishing all a happy valentines however you celebrate.

It doesn’t mean the same for me anymore. I did get her some flowers that I dropped at her workplace, but as I was going to write something nice on the card, I had to do a lot of soul searching. "Nope, not gonna write that, Nope, this wouldn’t be an accurate accounting of what I feel, Nope, this might make her think things are better than they are". I almost write on the card "You mean more to me than you'll ever know", but as I thought about it, I just didn’t "feel" it. Instead I ended up just writing "Happy Valentine’s Day, I appreciate everything you do for me". Which is accurate and true. I do appreciate the things she does for me. But I don’t appreciate her avoidance of self work. That’s as good as I had here. I’m still working on me and building strength to get out of ambivalence.

My second child was due on Valentine’s Day. I miscarried at 15 weeks. Some time later I found out I had Chlamydia and Trichomoniasis. This was in the 1980’s. My f’wit doctor (who I later found out was a serial cheater) told me I had contracted these from toilet seats. I f’ing hate Valentine’s Day 😢😢😢😢. . Love to all suffering today ❤️

Laura, such miserable disrepect to women as you got from that doctor, UGH!! I think that may have been pretty standard, as doctors (perhaps for legal and personal safety reasons) did not want to be the ones to "break it" to victims of STDs that should never have acquired them, like faithful married women - like my late mother and late sister, both of whom died of cancerous complications from some kind of STD viral cancers! I've always wondered what my mother was told before she got diagnosed, as she found out at some point she got a "bad pap." (My aunt later told me she'd confessed to her, but not to us grown children). I feel like her 2nd husband must have done something that would have caused that, and he was an international traveling salesman. I would hope you have better medical care today!

And Copingmybest, my late sister said exactly the same thing to me about trying to buy cards or write notes to her cheater whom she ultimately left after D-Day XYZ. Then, when H's infidelity was discovered in my marriage, I had the same problem as you describe: most cards were just not honest reflections of how I felt and we don't want to feed a cheater a false message, because in my experience, they tend to hang their hat on whatever we may communicate, to convince themselves "things are all better." So, good on you for the hard work of sorting it out and still trying. Going forward, just a comment: in my case, it has never stopped being a difficult task and I quit even trying to do a Valentine card for a guy with a stone cold heart.

[This message edited by Superesse at 4:31 PM, Saturday, February 15th]

The AP ‘s last name was…well the same as this holiday. 🙄🤮 and since she used her last name as part of her charm campaign with all her APs (she had had many), it is no longer a day I acknowledge at all. But I will go get myself some roses today on discount because, as Miley says, I can buy myself flowers :-)

Don’t let an artificial holiday get to you. Claim it as your own and celebrate however fits your needs. And that goes for anniversaries, anti-versaries, and any other day.

Hope you survived your first Valentine's Day without too much grief.

Hope you are enjoying your beautiful flowers bearly!

"most cards were just not honest reflections of how I felt"

Superesse wonder if there is a business idea here somewhere "cards that say what we actually think" eh maybe not…

Laura
So sorry you experienced that. I can’t even imagine. Hope it’s ok to say I am sending you positive thoughts during this time