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One of the things I’m struggling with today is how unreal this all feels. I recently found out my husband started having an affair in January (although I originally found out about the affair in May, but he lied about when it started). In February we had this weird fight seemingly out of nowhere, where he said he was so unhappy and felt like we were living our lives in parallel. I was blindsided, because that was not my experience at all. Of course, this all makes more sense now knowing that he was already falling in love with someone else.

But it’s that blindsided feeling that is really needling me today. That feeling where your perception of reality is upturned, and now you can’t even trust your own memories. So many moments I look back on where I thought we were happy, but meanwhile he says the past 10 (!!) years have been rough for him. What?!?? Sure, we had our tough patches, and yes, life has thrown us some really shitty challenges in the past few years (cancer, death, grief, infertility…). But to look back at the past decade and sum all of our experiences together as a net negative? That hurts so, so deeply.

A year ago, I would have said he was the only person who fully knows me. The only person who I share my truest self with. That we had a love that was rare, and that other people coveted. That we loved each other and liked spending time together. That we made each other happy. That even when life was painful and hard, I felt comforted knowing we were in it together.

How could I have been so wrong?

Hello-

I am so sorry you are hurting, betrayal is such a mindjob.

For what it’s worth, I do not think you were wrong in what you were experiencing.

Wayward spouses tend to create narratives to help them cope with the cognitive dissonance of having an affair. We reshape history so we can feel better about doing what we wanted to do.

And I do not think he was actually falling I love with someone else. But, I believe rarely do affairs create love. They create a paradigm where there is a push/pull dynamic due to the instability of it. And those highs and lows push crazy endorphins/adrenaline through the system as each thing happens.

Even worse, a lot of time what they are escaping through the affair are often feelings of depression, making those highs seem even more life affirming and it creates bond with a person they haven’t experienced one lick of life with who they can project things into that makes the escapism more powerful.

I am not minimizing what he has done or what the fallout should be—I am just telling you that affairs are not what they seem, and the rewriting of marital history is a typical tactic.

Likely you had a shared experience with someone more complicated than you, who has a lot of work to do on the relationship he has with his values.

There are some great articles out there by dr. Frank Pittman on romantic infidelity. There is a predictable psychological reaction humans have when they choose to have the affair. It leads a person to now have to address not only how and why they could commit such a disastrous betrayal—but they also now have a whole physical layer to deal with in producing and living with a healthy amount of happy chemicals in the brain.

This intellectualization doesn’t take from the fact your husband chose to have an affair, conducted it in secret, and has major work to do on himself, simply it’s I don’t believe affairs are what they seem to be.

The morning of my D-Day was your typical normal day. I came downstairs, made us coffee, I was eating breakfast, my wife came downstairs ready to leave for work, grabbed her coffee, gave me a kiss, and she was off to work

While eating breakfast I found a property listing for some land in tennessee, we had been working on this dream of buying some land, building a retirement home, and growing old there together

I sent it to her, she replied with I LOVE IT!

Later on my phone beeped reminding me to check to see if my wife had sent a picture via text to someone a couple of weeks back. While she was flipping through her phone one day I saw a picture of her in a green dress that I had not seen and when I questioned her on it her body language changed and I could instantly tell she was uncomfortable. She came up with a lame excuse which told me something was wrong so I set a reminder in my phone to see if she had texted anybody. I had forgotten about it but thankfully I had set a reminder

I checked verizon, nothing unusual, and I almost wrote it off to paranoia but I decided to check her tablet and that's when I discovered she was sexting with a coworker, the police officer that works at the school. Luckily her tablet and phone were synced and that's why I was able to see the messages

27 years of trust evaporated. The best way I can describe it is that what I felt was complete emptiness. I didn't have a clue before now that anything was wrong.

What made it even worse is when I confronted her, there was Zero remorse. There were no tears, no apologies, no begging for forgiveness, just anger and dismissal. She said it's just harmless flirting, nothing more, I have not crossed any lines, you are giving this way too much weight. After an hour conversation all I got was I'm sorry this upsets you, and it was devoid of any sympathy. The next morning she was still angry and I was crushed

So like you said, being blindsided when you believe everything is perfect? How do you ever again believe that the hugs, the kisses, the I love you's, the I can't wait for us to spend the rest of our lives together, how do you ever again have any confidence that what you think is genuine is genuine?

Is this another Act? Is my spouse just leading me along until it's convenient for him/her to execute their exit plan? When can I stop being suspicious? When can I start trusting their words again? When was the last time he / she said I love you and it was sincere?

I am at 29 months and honestly I feel pretty flat about the relationship. I'm hoping my feelings for the relationship grow stronger but I'm in no hurry. Is this as good as it will ever be? Right now I do not see myself ever allowing myself to be so deep into someone that I would be crushed if they cheated or left.

The WS's, they never give any thought to the consequences. They never think if / when this is discovered my partner is going to be destroyed. Or maybe they do but the dopamine overrules the thinking. I asked my wife multiple times what did you think would happen if I found out and for months her response was I never thought about it. Finally she admitted, or fabricated, that she thought I would just get upset for a little while and eventually I would get over it and eventually things would just go back to normal. Once again taken for granted and kicked to second place.

On D-Day while talking to my wife she spat out you are always unhappy and you are always angry. I guess this was her way of trying to convince me that it was my fault. There seems to be a pattern with WS's, they tried to convince the BS that the WS did what they did because of the BS. It's your fault that I cheated.

I too believed that I could trust my wife with anything. I told her things about me that could be used to damage my standing in the community and my family, nothing illegal, just personal stuff. In hindsight I regret this. Now I feel like a fool at times for trusting to this degree but that's what we are supposed to be able to do. And once they destroy this trust, is it possible to ever get back to that level?

At the end of September 2023 I came home to find this huge happy 20th anniversary I love you sign in the front yard. It was our 20th wedding anniversary. It's out of the ordinary for my wife to do something like this, something creative, and I was touched. April 4th 2024 I discovered what she was doing, so that's what, 6 months later? When I asked when she started talking to him her response was I don't know :/ When I asked if she was already talking to him on our anniversary her answer was I don't know. That destroyed anniversaries for me. She later changed her answer to I don't think so, but it was too late, the damage was done.

And as usual I have rattled on way too long. I wish I had words of wisdom that could help you. I wish there was a way for us to know that one day we would feel 100% comfortable trusting the one person who we thought would always be by our side, would always have our back, would never do anything to hurt us. If they turn out to be the one person who hurt us in a way that no one else could.