This is my mom. She is 85 beautiful years old, and she enjoys a good pomegranate martini from time to time. I loved this picture of her from July of 2015. We had a fantastic day together that included lunch at the restaurant where Handsome and I had our wedding reception. The sky was clear and blue, and the martinis were delicious. We shared our memories of my wedding day and we both had fun.
Unbeknownst to me, several hundred miles away, also on that day at the exact time this photograph was taken, Handsome was screwing the Whore in a no-tell motel.
To say the least, it is now difficult to view the picture quite the same way. The experience, the memory itself, feels tainted.
Just a few short days later, Handsome joined the rest of us for our family vacation with nary a word about his indiscretions and misdeeds.
Here we are on a kid-friendly fishing trip. We look happy, don’t we? (Handsome is, I assure you, smiling under that heart.) The kids are happy for sure, but what about Handsome? What about me? Was it “real” if only one person in the picture had the whole story?
Was Handsome actually enjoying himself with his family? He says he was, but can that really be true? His betrayals continued for two and a half more years. They continued through children’s birthdays, wedding anniversaries, trips to Europe, vacations in New England and Florida, attending the Kentucky Derby each year, school plays and concerts, and during child-free couple’s weekends away. In short, he acted out through everything in our lives during those years, both the important and the mundane. Was he ever actually happy with me? With us?
I was happy on that day – really happy in fact – based on the information I had at hand. I thought I had the greatest family in the world. If I had known what Handsome was doing with some other woman’s skanky vajeen a week earlier I wouldn’t have been happy or smiling. If I had known that he was lusting for the Whore and the Flame, I would have been in tears, my heart broken to pieces. So was my experience that day authentic or not?
At the moment, this debate is my biggest hurdle to overcome on my path to healing. I am stuck on the issue. It is incredibly difficult for me to stop feeling like the last several years of my life have all been a lie. I feel like each incredible memory is false – because they were created under false pretenses – and thus inauthentic or a sham. Everything seems damaged by the stain of Handsome’s infidelity. I feel the loss of that time, those experiences, that happiness “in the moment,” and those memories very profoundly. I am a deeply sentimental person by nature and those losses are gutting me.
A well-intentioned gentleman told me that I just have to change my mindset and “get over” this struggle and accept that my experiences were indeed wonderful and authentic in each moment and that they are thus untainted now. I want nothing, nothing in this world, more than for this awfulness to be erased from my mind. If I could make believe that what Handsome did never occurred, I would, in a heartbeat. But it did happen and I know about it and here we are.
If anyone out there has some words of wisdom on this point, I welcome your thoughts. I think it’s going to take a village to get me unstuck on this. I’m sure that I do indeed need to change my outlook or viewpoint, but I’m not sure how to do that in a way that doesn’t scream “denial.” I’m doing really well in a lot of areas of my recovery, but this is a killer for me. I liked my life pre DDay. Writing off years of that time seems like a fatal blow.
A shout out for raising the authenticity issue few weeks ago, and finally compelling me to write this down (it’s been lingering in my mind for months), to both Cad Confessional and The Queen Is In
I agree with the well-intentioned gentleman that YOUR experiences were indeed wonderful and authentic in each moment. They were special moments and memories to you. But I disagree with him that that makes them untainted now. Of course they are tainted. But the lies weren’t yours, and you did nothing wrong. Others just don’t understand the depth of pain that infidelity and addictions cause, and that it affects all areas of our lives, even memories. It steals and robs everything and is one more loss that we need to grieve – the life that we thought we had. But that doesn’t mean you have to write it off. With continued healing those memories will become bittersweet for what they were/are. Good mixed with a touch of sadness.
Your words are very wise, as always, Cynthia. I think perhaps I am so stuck because I haven’t really processed the loss of … everything. I can articulate that loss and the weight of all that is gone or tainted is crushing, but I haven’t fully worked through what that means and where it leads.
Although it feels as though I’ve been caught in this nightmare forever, in reality it has been a wee bit under 5 months since DDay #1. I’m still at the beginning.
❤️
My darling BW, both you and your mom are so beautiful, and you have such a lovely family ❤️
What you are feeling is horrible (and also normal), I went through this as well.
Those moments were real because they really happened. The happiness, laughter, tickling the kids, and connection with you were all real. He was really with you in those loving and wonderful times. He really loved those moments and they were real for him too. He loves you and only you. The picture of the 4 of you is proof.
His brain split off when he acted out and that is when life wasn’t real. He never thought of you and the kids then, only himself (not even the whores). He had a family man brain, and he had the addict brain. The 2 lives didn’t intertwine for him (they actually did in reality because of his displays of anger, ED etc., but to him he didn’t even think his other life was the cause of these issues).
I assure you when he thinks about that vacation, his memories are of you and the kids, not what he did 3 days before. In fact, he doesn’t want to remember that at all. Ever.
He was fucked up long before he met you, but he still fell in love with you and made those beautiful babies with you. He is fighting for you and if none of it was real he wouldn’t be. He Is fighting for you because of how he has always felt with you. That is what is real.
This is a marathon but I promise you that one day you will again feel it was real xo
Betrayed Wife, I can tell you that I felt exactly the same way in the beginning. Change a few facts, and your words could have been my words. My feelings were the same. I am two years and 3 months into this, but at some point, I don’t remember exactly when, maybe a few months ago, I took my memories back. As I came to understand SA more, and as the anger phase of the grief cycle began to lessen, I came to believe that the memories were mine. I was there, I was real, I was authentic, I brought my A-game, and everything I had. No one can take those memories, my life experiences, from me- not my H and certainly not some whore. They don’t get to do that. My H truly was living a double life. I’m not sure that a normal person can even understand that, much less relate to it. I think in the SA literature they call it “compartmentalizing?” Whatever. I’m not a CSAT, so I’ll let those with the expertise and training deal with that.
What I have learned is that this is about so much more than sex. The level of deception that it takes to pull this crap off for years, is emotionally abusive within a family system. When it all came out, and I started connecting the dots, and realizing that H had been acting out on certain days that dovetailed with special occasions like New Year’s Eve, vacations, birthdays, it was overwhelming. It completely messed with my sense of reality. I also can tell you that I think it’s very normal to feel what you are feeling because I hear others who are just starting on this path say similar things. I can also tell you that if work on yourself, practice self-care, share with those whom it’s safe to share, it’s very likely your feelings will change over time. People use to tell me to focus on myself and practice self-care which irritated me at times, but it really is the answer.
Dr. Minwalla has an article that helped me understand why this was so devastating to me. Here is a link: http://theinstituteforsexualhealth.com/sex-addiction-induced-perpetration-saip-goes-undiagnosed-and-untreated/
Hi Maggie. Thank you for the assurance that I’m not alone in my struggle with my memories. Knowing that you and others have managed to take back your memories or at least find peace with them gives me hope.
The best thing, from my perspective, that Handsome got from his intensive with Dr. M is a deep understanding that his acting out was abusive to me/ our family, and not just something shameful that he did that hurt my feelings a bit and made my cry. For each of the 13 dimensions of trauma he had to articulate specifically how he harmed me/ us. It was a brutal exercise, but necessary to help him understand the depths of the damage he caused. Like your H, Handsome’s acting out was often related to special events and dates. I don’t want to lose those memories to his acting out, or to the whores, but it is challenging to hang on.
I appreciate the link to Dr. M’s article too. I’m a fangirl of his for sure, and that article is right on point.
❤️
your memories and beauty from those times, they are real.
Dont let the assholes betrayal, his falseness and awfulness take away from your genuine pleasure in a whole life. You can only live what you have. those kids, those happy smiles. they are real. HE is false. which is why he should be removed from the picture. Hes false and he is what makes the lie. I dont really know how to reconcile it, because i am in the same boat. My whole life as an adult has basically been lived with the man who I am married to as the man i am married to. he is a part of my whole life basically. Thats a mind fuck when i now know he is just… false. He has never thought i was enough. all of the things i know and remember and love… they are marred by the idea that all of it meant nothing to him. But you know what? THEY MATTER TO ME. and FUCK HIM AND HIS ASSHOLE SELF FOR MAKING ME DOUBT THAT MY FUN, MY SMILES, MY JOY was NOT ENOUGH. FUCK THAT. FUCK THAT. I AM AMAZING. YOU ARE AMAZING. the asshole can go shit a brick of bliss with anyone else. he is absolutely capable of running off and finding the bliss he so desires because even with a shithead in the works, i was capable of joy. SO JUST IMAGINE how amazing things can be without a shithead. JUST THINK. if asshole + Fun still equaled awesome, +Fun without asshole is guaranteed to be even more amazing.
I’m glad you share your experience. Vulnerability is the only path to healing a broken heart.
Like you, I’m five months almost to the day since my betrayal, secret-keeping and escalating series of lies were revealed to my Partner of seven years.
I don’t know your H, you, or the circumstances of his deceptions. What I do know is each story is uniquely personal and even as mine unfolds I learn something new everyday about my failure.
What I can tell you, in my situation, every single moment I was with C, and away from here, I knew where I belonged and with who. In my situation nearly every single act after the first betrayal was about trying to figure out how to muffle the sound of the bell I rang. Unfortunately, the bell cannot be unrung no matter how many secrets I keep or lies I tell.
Discovery is inevitable.
You ask if H was every happy with his life or with you. You then go on to ask was your experience with H authentic or not?
Here are my questions to you because I am struggling with my own versions: are you asking if your experience is real or if the experience was real for him? If you were happy does it matter if he was happy? Is his happiness your responsibility? Do you think his decisions were somehow about you?
It is not denial to look at the time you spent together and say, I was happy in this moment or I was not happy in this moment. That is what is authentic. To deny your feelings in those moments is denial.
Every moment I spent with C I was happy and didn’t want to be anywhere else. I treated her the way I treated her out of enthusiasm, joy, passions, excitement and love for her. I didn’t want to be anywhere else…even when I was. All to often, for me, the inertia of my choices, and fear of consequences, created a emotional and mental bind, where resulting in me digging a deeper hole.
The bottom line is if it feels real it is real. It is my rhibkink, not feelings, that cause me to doubt my reality. Do not doubt what has been real for you. Deal with the reality of the moment and that is how you avoid denial.
I tried to post something earlier so if this is redundant, just ignore it.
Hi there and welcome. All good questions, so let me try to unpack them…
• Are you asking if your experience is real or if the experience was real for him?
Well, yes. To both. As to Handsome, it’s challenging but not impossible for me to accept that he enjoyed each moment/ memory. As a sex addict, he can compartmentalize and shut the door on his nasty deeds and guilt and shame and have a great day.
Analyzing whether that experience was real for me is more complicated. Take the fishing trip – a banner day for our family. Yes, I had happiness (joy, even) in that moment, but that happiness was completely based on false pretenses – a reality that wasn’t true. I was happy to have had the experience of that day with my terrific family, which I thought included a dedicated and faithful spouse. Handsome was anything but dedicated and faithful on that day, and many others. He was juggling multiple emotional affairs and a vile physical affair that was silently and secretly a threat to my health. In short, I was happy because I only had half the story.
• If you were happy does it matter if he was happy? Is his happiness your responsibility?
Knowing what I now know about sex addiction I imagine that Handsome might have been tormented that day by guilt and shame. Or he might have stuffed it in a box and ignored it. It likely doesn’t matter either way.
But as to whether his happiness is my responsibility… well, sort of. I am well aware that I cannot take sole responsibility for his happiness as he works through recovery. That is mostly on him. And it was impossible for me to make him happy ( to “be enough”) in the midst of his acting out. I get that.
I do believe, however, that in a marriage spouses should want to see their partner happy and I think it’s normal – within reason – to take steps to bring some happiness to your partner. It’s kind of what sets spouses apart from room mates, right? It’s true that as adults we cannot pass off all responsibility for our own happiness to another person, but if a marriage is truly a partnership then each partner has a vested interest in the happiness of the other person and should facilitate that happiness when it is both reasonable and possible to do so.
If Handsome was experiencing torment when that picture was taken, part of me is sad to know that he could have had those feelings while I thought everything was great. And yet I am also distraught that his secret life was fully in bloom, in utter disregard of me and my feelings/health/safety.
• Do you think his decisions were somehow about you?
No. To the contrary, I don’t think that he thought much of me at all.
“If it feels real it was real.” I wish it was that simple. It sounds so easy, but it is much tougher when you’ve been lied to and/or misled for a long time and because of that you question everything about your own reality.
Maybe this makes a little bit of sense, even if you disagree? (For what it’s worth I know that Handsome is much more closely aligned with your perspective. )
I don’t disagree. There is no disagreeing with feelings. It is how you feel and it is neither right or wrong.
The problem is what I think about my feelings. My thinking wants me to do something with those feelings instead of just acknowledging my feelings and accepting them in the moment. I told a friend recently that I cannot do anything to change how C feels.
If I try to convincing her how she feels isn’t reality that is gaslighting. If I argue with her thinking I’m being manipulative…even if my thinking is different.
Sometimes the best option is to sit quietly and listen.
I don’t *think* compartmentalizing is unique to sex addicts. Depending on life experiences, compartmentalizing is a family origin survival tool, a work skill, or even a necessity for successful task management. I could be wrong, but everyone has an internal and external life and depending on personality traits – and a host of other complex dynamics – compartmentalizing evolves for different reasons.
I know I compartmentalized my shame, guilt, humiliation because secrets isolated me from other people. I *felt* alone to carry the secrets. Just as you mention the roles in a partnership to support and believe, I felt responsible for not burdening others. It is why cancer patients don’t always tell loved ones they have cancer. It was my burden to carry…that of course is a unhealthy blend of shame, pride, masculinity, fear, and arrogance.
Why would I inflict my humiliation on someone I love. Again each situation is different. My sexual relationship with K was over for 13 months when she called C.
Every lie I told was a manipulative and controlling attempt to keep C out if drama, minimize loss and damage, and muffle the bell I rang when I first beteated C.
Discovery was inevitable.
I should never have Betrayed C…but I *think* the real damage was the secret-keeping and escalating series of lies.
Thank you fir your honesty.
I can relate. I can articulate how I feel and why I feel that way, but what to do next? The processing of those feelings – the getting down and dirty with them and figuring out what’s next – that’s the tough part (and the part that assures therapists a steady income stream for years to come).
And yes, for me the secrets and lies have caused much more damage than any physical betrayals. Those aren’t a picnic either, but I find them comparatively manageable.
My situation is different than a SA situation. We were in the throes of a very bad spell in our marriage. My anxiety was off the charts and neither I or my husband recognized this. Everything was escalated x100 – but one of the things that bothered me the most was when we went on our family vacation and had a really good time in the midst of the 4 month physical affair he was having. He told me he enjoyed the vacation and I couldn’t process that for a while. To this day I don’t enjoy seeing pictures of us from that vacation. I believe he really did enjoy our trip together, as did I. He was just able to compartmentalize.
Hi Dolly. Yes, I think the ability to compartmentalize is a feature of all those who cheat (sex addicts don’t have an “exclusive” on that). I completely understand your feeling about the pictures. Sadly for me, I’d have to stop looking at pictures that include my son from age 6-8.5, and my daughter from 8.5-11. That’s a lot of ground and memories. It truly stinks.
What makes you *think* you should do anything with your feelings? This is the second arrow I think: we feel our feelings and then we think about our feelings refeeling the feelings. Forward is the only direction.
If my responsibility as the Betrayer is to sit and listen is it my responsibility to fix the feelings too?
Can I even do that? Would that even be healthy for the relationship?
All I can do is live my amends forward.
Well, I’m not a therapist, but I think the processing of the feelings arising from the betrayal is necessary to having a healthy future. To give just one example, there is grief involved. I grieve the loss of the husband I thought I had. I grieve the loss of innocence and trust in my marriage too. (Mind you, what is to come may eventually be better and more awesome, but what I had is clearly gone for good.) Failing to process that grief, stuffing it down as they say, would be no different than failing to process the death of a parent or other loved one. Sure, a lot of folks skip grief counseling after the death of a loved one. But a lot of those same people are walking around with unresolved grief/ resentment/feelings of abandonment years later. Why not just work through it? And that doesn’t have to be through professional help necessarily. Self-help books and online forums can be every bit as helpful.
I do think that as the Betrayer it is your duty to listen if called upon to do so. But it is not your duty to “fix” C’s feelings. You could -if asked- support her getting whatever help she needs to fix her feelings, but it has to be up to her.
It’s just another of the cruelties of infidelity that betrayers inflict devastating harm that they cannot later fix or solve on their own. When the betrayed spouse is least able to function and practice self-care, there is actually very little that a Betrayer can do other than demonstrate (not just say) how sorry they are by ending the behavior and being honest and transparent and supportive. I think that’s where the thing about living your amends forward comes into play.
What makes you *think* you should *do* anything with the feelings? Why is it not enough to express the vulnerability of our fears, shames, anguish, and angers. I don’t ever say, “I feel loved today! I *think* I should do something to fix that.” However, I seem to always do that with the hurtful feelings. I want it to stop and I want to fix it.
We tell children all the time it’s okay to hurt. We encourage kids to face their feelings, acknowledge them and move forward. We discourage lashing out and revenge with children.
But when it is my pain I want a solution and all too often I lash out, send the email, or fuck my ex-wife. I think I should do something with my pain. Why does emotional pain feel like physical pain?
This is my dilemma of course.
I’m eternally grateful for these conversations. I need to process this. I’ll be back in a bit…
It was real. All of it! The betrayal aspects of sex addiction are bitter pills to swallow and you won’t just get over it. It will take time and healing for both of you, but it.was.real! ❤️
It is such a bitter pill Kat. I think maybe I need to accept that my experience was real, and also accept that his was too. In other words, yes, I had happiness and joy in a moment as I knew it and I can hang on to that even though he was doing whatever terribly cruddy acting out he was doing at that time. I need to learn that I can have and hold onto joy in spite of whatever he has going on. Maybe that’s the take-away here.
Still pondering it. 🙂
xo
I believe that’s it… the part of healing where we realize who we are and what we did was genuine and authentic. Our experiences were real and we don’t need the validation of someone else to believe this in our hearts. ❤️