My story - 10 months after DDay

Hello,

I'm a BS that has been in a relationship with my wife for 17 years. I'm not 100% sure what my goal is with posting this. I have been reading the forums for the past few days contemplating on whether or not I should post here. I guess I have decided.
I will try to keep it relatively short. I was unsure wether to post this in "just found out", but DDay in my case was early november of last year so it didn't feel fitting to post there.

English is not my native language so I apologize if the text doesn't read fluently or has mistakes.

I still remember DDay as if it were yesterday. It was sunday evening when I had put my eldest son (5 years) in bed and came back down only to have my wife tell me we needed to talk. Somehow those words immediately made my heart sink.
We had just gone on a week long trip with the couple (and their three children) we were best friends with. I noticed how at the end of the trip and during the weekend when we were back home they had gone silent. I had wondered why this was and had asked my wife, but she said she didn't know. I immediately realised her wanting to talk would be about this.
She had been having an affair with my best friend for three years (emotional for 6 months, physical for the rest). We had been close friends as a couple for a longer time and met atleast once a month for boardgames etc. He was the godfather of my youngest son. I have known him for 20 years. He was part of my group of best friends that I met with atleast once a week, we would go on weekends together, friend trips,...
Needless to say, my world was shattered. Not only betrayed by my wife, but one of my closest friends aswell. I later found out this is labelled as a "Double Betrayal".

The first week after DDay was me taking care of my sons alone while my wife was staying with her father. I still don't fully understand how I managed to get through that week, let alone the first month. I did realise I was 100% comitted to taking care of my sons and focused on that. When they were at school I had room to feel the utter despair of my life falling to pieces.
In that week me and my wife talked every day for about an hour. Where I could ask questions, vent tons of frustration,...
Two days after DDay she broke contact with AP. The first few weeks were so weird, it felt like I was talking to another person. After 8 days she moved back into the house as we tried figuring everything out.

I could go on about how much I felt I had lost at that moment, but I don't think I need to explain that on this forum.
The affair/talks started about 2-3 months after the birth of our second son. I struggle so hard with this timeframe since starting our family was not easy. The birth of our sons took us about 5 years of dissapointment, sadness and fertility treatments. This was a period where we endured so much and supported eachother so heavily trough the process. We felt like the best team ever and I felt like if we could survive/endure this as a couple we were unbreakable... Three months after achieving our dream would show we weren't.
I could go on and tell of the story of what turned into what and go into details, but I'm not sure if it is needed here.
Let's just say that the contempt and disrespect shown to me and OP (I assume this means the partner of AP?) was mind blowing. They usually met in his car during her lunch break, but also went to day hotels, in their home, in our home, in other places during trips when we were also there,...

Somehow during those first weeks and month my rational took over. I was so invested in trying to understand why this happened. Trying to find information from the perspective of a male BS was rather challenging, but I did read/look up about everything possible. I read books (like Esther Perel's "The State of Affairs) to try to understand how they work. I wouldn't advise this to everyone as she almost glorifies affairs, but it did give me insights/angles.
It took my wife a few weeks to be certain of what path to take (in what I later discovered was something they sometimes call Affair fog). For some reason, mainly my love for her I'd imagine, I felt I didn't want our story to end this way.

I grilled her for months telling her how much she had destroyed, how unfair and ugly the A was, asking her for details, asking her why, ... I'm sure any BS can relate to this.
The internet mainly told me to just give up and kick her out because a long time affair, and a double betrayal, means she's a monster. But I don't believe she is. I think she was extremely selfish, showed utter contempt and disrespect and got completely lost in the A that she had by choice, but I don't think it should define her as a person for the rest of her life. Am I stupid to feel this way?

We are 10 months into R now. The A is still heavily defining our life, but I feel it is getting better. I feel I am getting better. Having that full realisation of what has happened and what the person I trusted the most (and the AP who I trusted as a friend also) have done to me can still rattle me to the core. But those moments are getting a bit rarer.

I've spent days looking up how a WS is supposed to behave, feel, act, etc.
I'm always surprised to read mainly things that she is doing, even though it often still doesn't feel like enough.

- She has cut contact with AP completely, blocking him on all platforms and lets me look through her phone/laptop when I feel the need to.
- She takes full responsibility for what she has done
- She is fully committed to R, has read a lot of books, articles, etc to either help her understand my side or help with R. She's constantly looking for ways to make me feel better, to show she still realises what I feel, to show she hasn't forgotten the A.
- She feels a lot of remorse, guilt, shame and regret for everything she has destroyed and the pain she has inflicted on me and our family. I struggle with this sometimes as it's hard to fully trust if it is all real, but it doesn't feel faked and the pain is genuine.

I have been feeling better, but still have major setbacks weekly. I still often am just angry at her. I still struggle to cope with the heavy elements of it all. I think about it every day. I still hate the AP for betraying me and a friend and for being half the reason my life got ruined. I hate him even more for never saying sorry or showing any remorse or responsibility. I still have moments where I doubt wether it is all worth it.

But overall I feel a bit more at peace. I believe we can make a sort of 2.0 version or our marriage. One with brutal scars that heal but will always be there. Our hours and hours of talking has made us understand eachother even better. She has been in therapy ever since (and had actually gone into therapy during the A stating a different reason to try to stop the A, but she failed). I went into therapy but just ended it as I didn't feel like my therapist was making a big difference/helping me with the things I needed most. We have been in couples therapy since we decided to commit to R and found enough reasons.

I've just written the above and again I'm wondering why I'm actually posting this or if it will make any sense. It's hard to somehow describe the hardest 10 months of my life in a few pages.
I guess a part of me just wanted to post this for the sake of it. Maybe to find someone who has gone through a similar brutal process and managed to find R.

A few months into R I always had this idea of three possibilities:
- My WS is a monster and she is fully manipulating me again // I find this option unlikely
- My WS does feel remorse, regret, ... but will ultimately give in to temptation again, basically the "once a cheater, always a cheater" // I guess this could be possible, but it doesn't feel like it is the case
- My WS has fully seen the damage she has caused to me, our family and herself and will never want to risk doing this again. // I guess I hope this to be the reality.

It's hard to find stories that I can fully relate to. The double betrayal aspect, the fact it was three years, ...

Am I wrong to believe that R can work? To believe she made a horrible and selfish choice she will now regret for the rest of her life? Am I wrong to believe her remorse? Am I wrong to believe I could be happy again in our marriage?

Thanks for reading.

10 comments posted: Tuesday, September 24th, 2024