SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello,

New to the forums and curious about where I go from here.

I am WW. My dday was about 8 months ago. I chose to end my affair and self-disclose. Prior to doing so I had researched extensively what the fall out would be and though I’d say I was prepared, I was not prepared.

Since then we’ve actively decided to reconcile and have been making decent progress. My husband has been very gracious, he chose to forgive me fairly early on and is committed to continuing forward. TBH, I don’t really have any concerns about us reconciling right now.

But I’m not sure where to go from here in my own individual journey - I’ve been seeing a therapist almost weekly since a few weeks prior to my disclosure. Read a lot of books on affairs, marriage, family origins, attachment, fawning, etc. I’ve learned a lot about myself and the mechanisms or influences behind some of the decisions I’ve made.

I’m also slowly learning to recognize when it manifests as a behavior and how to choose a healthy alternative. I did get told by my therapist that it’s not really something I can rush, that it takes time.

Weirdly, both my husband and I have recognized this process of transformation will probably be longer than his process of healing. I don’t mean that lightly. We’ve both just learned a lot about things I chose to forget or ignore and it’s going to take time to unpack the history of what came before the marriage and how it intersected with our marriage.

I guess I’m just curious what came next for everyone else. Was it mostly just continuing therapy, practicing what you were learning, and giving it time? Or was there something else that really helped during this stage?

Neither my W nor I had any idea of the impact of her A would be. I did suspect from the start that healing is more difficult for a WS than a BS.

As a BS, all I had to do was process the pain of being betrayed out of my body. That means I had to figure out how to get through barriers to processing pain, too.

My W had to 1) process the pain of betraying, 2) process the pain that her A allowed her to put off for a while, and 3) change from betrayer to good partner.

And we both had to decide to stay or go.

The answer to 'what next?' is in you. I'd agree that part of it is to make a good choice every time you have to choose. Alas, not every choice is easy.Also, I suspect a good general rule is to approach your BS when you have to choose between approaching and letting him be ... except that I often want to be by myself, so I want my W to give me space. She does not have an easy choice in that area. (We're retired and spend a lot of time together.)

The key is that both of you need to ask for what you want. Not intuitive, but it really helps connect.

This may be off the intent of this thread but I have to ask: Did you write your BH a full WRITTEN timeline of your affair? EVERYTHING related to the affair needs to be in it, including the buildup of it--especially the buildup of it I'd say, and also including conversations about it with friends. At each step, you need to put in what you were thinking and feeling and WHY YOU GAVE YOURSELF PERMISSION to move forward i.e., to betray your husband and family.

Write it out, in a document that you can revise and add to, and give to your BH. Give him a draft and then revise per his questions and discussion. Right now he has so many mental processes running through his head trying to keep everything straight, and it would make things much easier for him if it were written down in an orderly fashion in a document he can access when he needs to. He doesn't have to remember if it is written down and he can read it when he needs to.

It always really concerns me when a BH says that he "forgives" the affair early on, usually that is a strong symptom of *Rugsweeping*. Very very bad to do you know.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 4:00 AM, Sunday, July 12th]

Hello, NotMyIdentity

TBH, I don’t really have any concerns about us reconciling right now.

That's a very bold statement to make. Reconciliation is never a forgone conclusion. At 8 months out from d-day, I don't think many betrayed spouses have such confidence. And to hear this from a WS, for me, is particularly disconcerting. I would highly encourage you to rethink your disposition.

In The Healing Library (accessible from the pull-down menu at the top of the page) you'll find a link to the "Articles" tab, which contains a wealth of excellent essays written by veteran SI members. Under "recovery / reconciliation" is an article entitled: "Wayward: The Work," by foreverlabeled.

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/documents/library/articles/recovery/wayward-the-work/

Reconciliation is not a linear process. There's no check list. There are no precise stages.

Is there something specific you're trying to understand?

[This message edited by Unhinged at 7:22 PM, Saturday, July 11th]

"It always really concerns me when a BH says that he "forgives" the affair early on, usually that is a strong symptom of *Rugsweeping*. Very very bad to do you know."

Yes this was SOOO true in my case. Especially because a detail she thought was no big deal to disclose was a HUGE deal for me.

The levee broke the flood came, ten years later, and I as the BS had the ADDED trauma of knowing I rugswept in a cowardly way instead of confronting our issues head on. And I have no one to blame but myself for that.

So watch out for that. You want to process everything ASAP.

Next, I was originally very opposed to therapy. I didn't have a lot of money, was starting a new professional job, I felt like it was unfair of my newlywed wife to suggest I pay in time and money for something that I didn't even do.

Now, I can see that therapy would have been very good for me, and if she had organized it and paid for it and approached me just right maybe I would have gone and benefited.

Since then we’ve actively decided to reconcile and have been making decent progress. My husband has been very gracious, he chose to forgive me fairly early on and is committed to continuing forward.

Forgave and moving forward early on or just kinda sweeping it under the rug and didn't really address or talk much about it?

If you've been doing a lot of reading and research then you probably saw that the average time it takes a BS to recover from betrayal trauma is 2 to 5 years. Some will say 18 months to 2 years but that's a little too optimistic, imo. Betrayal trauma is real trauma. PTSD symptoms are common. 8 months is a significant length of time but still fairly early in the game when it comes to recovering from infidelity. I wouldn't assume that reconciliation is a forgone conclusion this early on. If there's any rug sweeping happening it can really come back to bite you, even years from now.

Have you made a full confession including how it started, how far it went, how many times, etc? Like a full timeline of events and actions? Is there anything you've held back or didn't tell him? Whatever you do, don't trickle truth him. That's a relationship killer. If there is anything else, it would be far better for him to hear it from you than to stumble across or find out from someone else later.

Hey, welcome NotMyIdentity

I’m really glad you’re here and asking these questions, because the stage you’re in is one of the most confusing parts of the wayward journey. The crisis has calmed, your marriage is stabilizing from the bomb that went off, and now you’re staring at the long road of reconstructing yourself, not just the marriage.

And because you confessed, did the research, and probably caused less chaos than most WS who are caught off guard and start fighting for their life, you may have experienced something a little less like a nuclear blast and more like a MOAB. That could be part of what you’re seeing in his early "forgiveness." But I don’t think it’s true forgiveness yet. At 8 months it’s almost always shock, denial, and a little hope mixed in.

It’s wonderful that he’s committed to reconciliation, but forgiveness is usually a long, multi year process. And year two is often the hardest for both partners. That’s when the numbness wears off, the reality settles, and the full weight of the betrayal lands.

The betrayed spouse’s healing is intense and nonlinear, but the wayward spouse’s transformation is deep, identity‑level work. It’s not about fixing the affair; it’s about rebuilding the parts of yourself that made the affair possible.

I did get told by my therapist that it’s not really something I can rush, that it takes time.

This is true. My experience with this part was that I was so ready to get my shit together I thought that my determination and willingness would see me through a swift transformation. I actually laugh at that version of myself now. I had no idea what "the work" really meant. The real transformation comes from doing the deeper internal work that changes who you are, not just how you behave. There were days I felt like I was gutting myself like a pumpkin to make room for something new. Hollow in between, unsure of who I was becoming.

This may seem like a no brainer .. One of the biggest turning points for me was practicing radical honesty. I had spent so many years avoiding, minimizing, or softening the truth that honesty felt foreign.

So I made it something I practiced every single day, in every part of my life. No white lies, no half truths, no strategic omissions, no deception at all. I needed honesty to become my knee-jerk reaction instead of something I had to consciously force. And once it started feeling natural, I could finally turn that same honesty inward.

That’s when the real introspection began, looking at myself through a clear, unfiltered lens, naming the patterns I used to hide from, and slowly dismantling the parts of me that made dishonesty feel easier than truth.

My biggest piece of advice is that you don’t have to take all of yourself on at once. This takes time. Start with what’s most obvious. Practice, consistency, and patience are the core ingredients. The deeper identity work is not an overnight transformation.

I’d also suggest reading around the other forums. You can’t post in Just Found Out, but you can learn a lot there. It can be tough to read, but it was instrumental for me.

I learned quickly that I was on the front line of two very different battlefields, my healing and my BH’s. It’s just as important to stay attuned to his emotional landscape, understand betrayal trauma, learn the grief process, and recognize what cheating strips from a BS. This will seep into your everyday life, and learning to hold some of that weight with strength and steadiness matters.

You don’t have to have it all figured out right now. But starting with safety and honesty is a must. That’s the baseline everything else is built on. Continue there.

My BH and I are just shy of a year out from DDay. I often thought that he was doing "a lot better" with the betrayal and healing more swiftly than other BS on here seemed to be doing... Turns out, he's just processing it more quietly... Always remain curious about your BS's internal experience, and maybe check in with him once in a while if he doesn't bring it up himself. It's a possibility that he's struggling more than he lets on and he's just trying to protect you, rather than all is forgiven and well now.

It’s extremely unlikely that a betrayed partner is ready to forgive so easily.

The only two options I can think of for that to be vaguely possible (still not plausible) are:

1 - he is a serial cheater and he is messing around betraying you left and right and keeps your betrayal as a uno reverse card in case you find out (but this works only if he is also a sociopath, even a serial cheater suffers from the trauma of being betrayed)

2- he is complete denial and dissociation. What you call rugsweeping, he is trying to force into reality that it didn’t happen and he wasn’t betrayed by you. But he was. It will fester for a while, even years, eating at him, until some day he either collapses or blows up. And you will blow up too.

Instead of a stream of pain it will be a tsunami of hurt, disgust and anger, and you will drown, your relationship will most likely not survive it.

Don’t underestimate the entity of infidelity, you might be rugsweeping the guilt and shame too (I didn’t feel any guilt in your post, at least for now).

Morbs, earlier on you had said that you had not asked forgiveness from your husband, and I presume it is because you felt it was his to give and not yours to ask for, and now I am curious whether that might actually help to AVOID premature surface-level forgiveness.

Morbs, earlier on you had said that you had not asked forgiveness from your husband, and I presume it is because you felt it was his to give and not yours to ask for

Right. That and this site shaped how I view forgiveness-- that sometimes it takes a long, long while to happen, and sometimes never comes [fully] at all, but rather the anger/pain/grief just lessens or subsides with processing of the betrayal. I'll take what I can get.

now I am curious whether that might actually help to AVOID premature surface-level forgiveness.

Probably helps. Can't hurt.

Sisoon,

Thank you for the recommendation. I'd say we're both pretty good about checking in with each other and having conversations about wants, hurts, and needs.

I think I'm getting the picture. It sounds like there isn't really some big revelation or "third step" in this journey. It's more about taking what you've learned and continuing to practice it over time.

WontBeFooledAgain,

Full disclosure has happened. I wrote a timeline within the first ten days after D-Day. Looking back, I probably should've written it beforehand, but at the time I was honestly more focused on the initial conversation.

I was able to tell him everything that happened pretty early on. Understanding what I was thinking and feeling at every step has taken longer. A lot of that understanding has come through therapy and just having enough distance to look back honestly. I don't think I had that level of insight in those first days, even though I could tell him what happened.

My husband and I have also talked quite a bit about whether either of us thinks we're rugsweeping. Neither of us believes we are. We had a lot of hard conversations early on about what happened, and we still have them when they're needed. They just look different now. It's less about managing the immediate crisis and more about talking through whatever comes up.

Unhinged,

I agree it would be a bold statement to say I have no concerns at all or that we're somehow finished reconciling. That's not what I meant.

I know reconciliation is a gift that can be taken back at any point, and I know we're still early in the process. When I said I don't have concerns right now, I just meant that today we both feel like reconciliation is moving in a healthy direction. I'm not assuming there won't be difficult periods ahead.

Thank you for the article. My situation is a little different, but I still found parts of it helpful.

I think I'm starting to understand there maybe just isn't a "next step." In the beginning it felt like surviving each day. Now I notice progress every week or two instead. Maybe that's what my therapist meant when she said it can't be rushed. I think I'm just impatient to consistently live what I'm learning instead of only understanding it.

CantBeMeEither ,

My husband has been in therapy since the first few weeks after D-Day. It's been really good for him, and with his therapist's blessing he's reached a point where he doesn't need regular sessions anymore.

Pogre,

Yes, I know the timeline is years, not months, and I'm not trying to rush his healing or our reconciliation. I expected this to be a long process.

Full disclosure happened. I read a lot about the damage trickle truth causes before confessing and was determined not to put him through that.

foreverlabeled,

Thank you for taking the time to respond. I really appreciated hearing from someone who's further out.

We both believe he's forgiven me, while also recognizing that healing isn't finished and his feelings may continue to change over time.

Your reply got me thinking about the identity piece. I think I see it a little differently.

I absolutely believe there are parts of myself that need to change. The affair was my choice, and I take full responsibility for the hurt it caused and for the fact that I made choices that went against my values.

Where I see it a little differently is that I don't think the affair means I'm fundamentally an unfaithful or dishonest person. I think it means I became someone who was capable of making those choices, and that's what I'm trying to understand and change.

A big part of my work has been understanding how I got to that place and why I was able to make choices that were so out of alignment with the person I want to be. That work has included looking at my coping mechanisms, my relationship with conflict, how I handle my own needs, and the ways I learned to disconnect instead of addressing things directly.

I don't mean that the affair wasn't part of me or that it doesn't say anything about me. It was something I did, and I own that. I just don't believe the answer is only to see myself as a fundamentally bad or dishonest person that needs a complete identity overhaul. The work for me is understanding the parts of myself that allowed this to happen and changing those parts so I don't become that person again.

GotTheMorbs,

I usually check in with him every day to see how he's doing, and we tend to have a deeper conversation a couple of times a week. We both feel pretty comfortable that we're not avoiding the hard conversations or rugsweeping at this point.

BackfromtheStorm,

I mean this respectfully, but I think that's a couple of really big assumptions to make based on such a small snapshot of our lives.

I'm also not sure what gave you the impression that I don't understand the seriousness of what I did. I have a lot of remorse and regret, and I have a decent understanding of the impact infidelity and betrayal trauma have had on my husband. I just didn't write about those feelings explicitly because that is not the point of the post.

Well, best of luck. I hope reconciliation continues to go well for you two.