why did it hurt so much?

[frozensprouts]

There's been some threads on here lately about how much it hurts to be a betrayed spouse...I can attest to that....but why does it hurt so much? Why o betrayed spouses often describe the pain as the worst pain they have ever felt?

( please note...this is not a thread to debate whether or not a betrayed spouses feelings are valid...they feel what they feel...but rather, it's a thread to talk about why they feel the way they do. So please, if you respond, don't debate the validity of someone else's feelings, if you want to discuss a post, that's one thing, but to tell someone they shouldn't feel the way they do or that their feelings are wrong is quite another...thanks )

 

in my own situation, it was one of the worst hurts I have ever had in my life. i think it's because I tend to be pretty guarded with people. I'm not an "open" person, and it takes a lot for me to trust someone...but I trusted him. I loved him, and I honestly didn't know there was a problem between us, as he never told me, and if I asked him if something was wrong, he'd say there was nothing wrong, or it was 'work' or I must have a problem instead...so it really was sudden and out of the blue. It's weird to think about it, but the whole "affair" from the first email she sent him until he stopped seeing her was less than four months.

 

I'm also the kind of person who's really "fussy" over who I allow myself to develop feelings for. When I was younger, I wasn't like that so much, but I learned, after a really horrible relationship, that you have to be careful lest you put yourself in a position where you can be hurt...so I wouldn't do so. With my husband, I finally trusted someone enough to put myself in a position where I could be hurt, and I was. I think that if I hadn't allowed myself to develop deep feelings for him, that wouldn't have happened, but it did.

 

I think it also hurt so much because it was a conscious choice by someone I loved to do something that would hurt me. With most other things in my life that have been bad experiences, they were either things that happened because of choices I'd made, or they were totally beyond my control and , in effect "random"...this seemed different

 

As for why i would allow myself to still be married to him after that...I wouldn't be if it wasn't for the amount of time and effort he put in to doing his best to make sure he won't make the same choices again. He had a lot of counseling and psychological help, we also had counseling together and have learned better ways to communicate and that it's okay for him to tell me when something's wrong...even if it has nothing to do with me, or if it's not something i can do anything about or help him with, I can at least listen and be there for him. He's learned that I'm also a lot "tougher" than he gave me credit for...

 

really, the amount of hurt someone feels from a particular experience is a very subjective thing...they feel how they feel, and there's no right or wrong way to feel if you are a betrayed spouse...it can either feel like the worst experience you've ever been through, it can be hurtful but not so bad, or anywhere in between...all are valid ways to feel

[BetrayedH]

I would, without question, say that discovering my wife's affair was the most hurtful thing I've ever endured (and my life was not an easy one prior to my relationship with my wife - I moved out of my childhood home while still in HS because of an abusive father).

 

Why so painful? My first instinct is to say that I watched a 20 year investment go down the tubes. But really, it was because it was a lifetime commitment. It hurt so much because I loved my wife so much. I think the pain a BS suffers is many times a reflection of how much we loved our spouse. And I think many waywards decide to reconcile when they see that reality.

[freestyle]

When my SO had his EA, it was devastating--because..

 

He KNEW that I'd been through hell with infidelity in previous relationships.

When I met him, I had officially 'given up" on romance. I'd been lied to by the two previous men before him (one cheated, the other was a compulsive liar) I'd been single for two full years, without even dating. I decided I was DONE---and I'd finally come to a place of peace, and acceptance with being on my own. Despite feeling lonely--I had a career, and a full social circle. So, I was very cautious, when we met, and took my time letting him in.

 

In fact, in one of our earlier serious relationship discussions, I told him point blank--

 

That if he ever felt the need to look at other options, or met someone he was deeply attracted to, to simply tell me, and set me free. There would be NO misbehavior on my part, I would step aside graciously, and let him go.

I understood full well that not every relationship works out, and sometimes you meet someone who seems like a better fit.

 

But---in NO uncertain terms---would I be able to handle any overlapping, or guessing games from him--it was a non-negotiable boundary for me. I let him know how badly I'd been hurt by cheating before, and that my capacity for trust couldn't take it.

 

He assured me that if his feelings towards me ever changed, that I would be the first to know---and I chose to believe him, and put my trust in him.

 

And I had NO reason not to trust him, he treated like me like royalty for the first year we were together. I thought that maybe, finally--I met the person I could grow old with. He wined me, dined me, took me on trips---called me just to hear my voice....etc...

 

So, I had no worries when a female friend from his past started contacting him---until I met her, and she was hostile towards me from the get-go. :confused:Turns out he'd been discussing our relationship with her--which she was all too happy to smugly point out. She even went so far as to cast aspersions on his character (all this behind his back, or course) in an attempt to poison the well for me. It was quite the mind f*ck. (and very junior high, for that matter..)

 

I watched the personality change happen with him, the more he was in contact with her--so I finally confronted him, and asked if I needed to be worried. I told him about how she'd treated me, behind his back---and he gaslighted me, and basically told me that I was just being paranoid, and making a mountain out of a molehill. (and assured me that I had nothing to worry about...)

 

Because of my previous history---the gaslighting worked.

 

I was all too willing to believe that maybe I was seeing things that weren't really there, that I was overreacting. Maybe I really was just *too* damaged by my previous experiences.

 

And slowly, and insidiously--the self-doubt, and second-guessing my own perceptions and judgments took hold.

 

When a red flag would pop up--like him being distant & distracted---or being less attentive--I excused it, or explained it away. All the while still having that niggling doubt that something wasn't quite right, but I wasn't trusting my own judgment anymore.

 

Essentially my own baggage got used against me.

 

When I finally found evidence that there was an EA happening--my first reaction was relief. (of all things)

 

It meant I WASN'T losing my mind, after all---that my instincts WERE on target.

 

THEN the anger, hurt, & pain & despair set in---as the realization that I'd been duped set in. I was incredulous, that he would put me through that---and watch me floundering about, beating mySELF up---confused by his actions...

 

while all the while HE was the one withholding the truth from me. Even though I treated him like a king.

 

"Ay, there's the rub....."

[Snowflower]

freestyle, I hope you dumped him after all that. What he did, after all you had told him about your past and he still played that mind-f***ery on you? I'm so sorry!

[frozensprouts]

I sometimes think that if my husband had cheated in the first year or two that we had been married, it might not ave been so bad as, on some level, maybe I would have almost "expected' it..but maybe it would have been just as bad, i don't know.

 

Part of what made it so bad too was that it really didn't have anything to do with me, so there was nothing I could have done/not done to prevent it...

[BetrayedH]

I sometimes think that if my husband had cheated in the first year or two that we had been married, it might not ave been so bad as, on some level, maybe I would have almost "expected' it..but maybe it would have been just as bad, i don't know.

 

Part of what made it so bad too was that it really didn't have anything to do with me, so there was nothing I could have done/not done to prevent it...

 

Hmmm. Interesting that it happening earlier in the M might have been less of an impact for you. For me, I wished it had been a drunken ONS. I have a feeling that we each have our own, "it wouldn't be so bad if only it were..." But then we see one of those situations on LS and those folks are hurting just as bad.

 

I remember one day on LS a long time ago where there were two threads going on about wedding rings during an affair. One BS was plagued by the fact that his WW kept her wedding ring on during her encounters with the OM and the other BS was upset by the fact that her WH had taken his off. Apparently being cheated on sucks no matter what.

[96nole]

It hurts because it's the one person you thought you could trust. The whole time you think they have your back, they are stabbing you in the back.

 

In this crazy thing called life, I thought that as long as I had her, all would be fine. I thought she was honest. I thought she was dependable. I thought she would have my back the way I had hers through all of her health issues. I could not have been more wrong.

 

I remember during one of her stays at the hospital, she asked me to not leave her. She wasn't referring to me leaving for the night. She was asking me not to leave her forever. I simply looked at her, almost quizzically, and said that I wasn't going anywhere. And I meant it.

 

It hurt because of how wrong about her I was. It hurts because I unwavered from my vows but she didn't. It hurts because she had so little care or respect for me that she would lie for years. It hurts because of the pain it also caused my friends and family. They also deserved better. It hurt because she then tried to blame me for it all. It was all my fault. It was even my fault that I couldn't read her mind. That if we had a connection, I would have just known something was wrong. No matter what was said after D-day 2, she turned it around to blame me.

 

I was led to believe that she met the dirtbag in January of 2011. During our attempted reconciliation, she claimed they met in Jan of 2011. She told the MC that was when they met. I recently found pictures on my computer that were from her phone that make me now believe otherwise. The pictures are dated October of 2010. Just more lies.

 

Because of that I now question everything. I thought I had some sort of timeline. But it's wrong. I don't know how long it was really going on behind my back. How many years? How many different guys? How long was she playing me for a fool? Did I mean anything to her other than a paycheck?

 

I now believe she told me the truth only twice in the 15 years we were together.

1. After the first D-Day, we were in the pool and she was upset and said "I'm a bad person and I don't deserve you". I consoled her and told her she made a mistake and that we will be fine. I now realize she said it because she continued to lie to me. I wasn't getting anywhere near the truth.

 

2. After D-day #2, and I had thrown her out, we were on the phone and she said " I'm sorry I wasted your time." I said she didn't because we did have good times. But now, I believe it was a waste of time. There is nothing special about her. Anything we did together, I could have done with someone else. And possibly, someone who is honest.

 

I recently had a conversation with a friend. They asked the age old hypothetical question if I would do it all over again with her, knowing what I know now. The only thing that kept stopping me from saying "no" was because I wouldn't have my cat. The ex found the cat in a shelter as a kitten many years ago. Hmmm, I value a cat more than I value an entire marriage. Well, that's more than the ex valued it.

Edited December 10, 2012 by 96nole

[freestyle]

freestyle, I hope you dumped him after all that. What he did, after all you had told him about your past and he still played that mind-f***ery on you? I'm so sorry!

 

Thank you Snowflower---I appreciate your empathy.

 

Actually--I didn't . Believe it , or not. I was shocked, at myself ,because I'd always been an incredibly strong, take-no-crap kind of woman. In the past, I had no trouble dumping someone, the minute I got a whiff of anything hinky. I was soo deeply in love with him--I'd never met anyone more compatible with me, an intellectual equal (without being snobby)--a sci-fi nerd & hippie like me, as well as working in the same field. So, for the first time in my life, I thought I would try reconciliation......

 

I gave him an ultimatum.

I very slowly opened the door again.

My mother passed away, a month after I found out about everything, and I was emotional sushi. She lived over 1,000 miles away---and he did step up to the plate to be there for me--including taking a full week off from work ( twice) to go there with me. Having to deal with an estate & a house long-distance was a huge undertaking, but he stood by me---I couldn't have done it alone.

 

So his support of me through that ordeal played a big part in rebuilding my trust.

Also--I think it finally dawned on him that his female friend was incredibly manipulative, and two-faced, too---she showed her true colors by approaching me, behind his back. I think he didn't want to face the truth that a friend of over a decade would be so duplicitous.

Or mean-spirited--she also started smearing me behind my back, even though she hardly knew me. A little further digging into his romantic history showed that she'd pulled that puppet-master crap before, with trying to undermine his love-life.

 

Had the affair gone physical, I would've dumped him in a heartbeat, but it never went past the EA stage, so salvage was possible. It's been a looong road, though---finding out my deepest vulnerabilities were discussed with her, was very hard to get past.

 

But we did, and five years later, we're still together.

 

Ironically--I never even heard of the term, "emotional affair" before any of that happened. I was talking with a girlfriend one night about what was happening with my partner, and she said, "Oh---he's having an emotional affair with his friend...."

 

"What??? What's that??....So, I looked it up online, and started reading everything I could come across, trying to understand what was happening, & why I was so upset over something that wasn't physical....and my google search brought me here, to LS. And I'm so grateful for finding LS, it's been the most amazing growing & learning experience for me.

[eleanorrigby]

I still don't know why I reacted so severely. When I started to have suspicions I imagined myself like Beyonce singing "To The Left" to my husband.

 

But I just lost it. Completely. I was so confused and scared and angry and heartbroken. It was just too many different emotions, thoughts, and ideas at one time for my mind to deal with.

[Betrayed&Stayed]

For me it hurt so much for several interrelated reasons:

 

1 - Betrayal: I trusted my wife 100%. I truly believed that no matter what we encountered in life, we would face it as one. I was deeply betrayed by the one person that vowed to be my #1 supporter.

 

2 - Self-Identity: I placed a large amount of worth on our marriage. To me, it was my top priority and my self-worth and self-identity was directly connected to being a good husband. Having a wife that trashed something that I valued so much was crushing. What I held sacred, others held in contempt. At that time my wife made our marriage expendable. I went from being a soul-mate into being the enemy. A marriage does not exist on its own. It is integrated into everything that we do. It is the lens through which we view life.

 

3 - Worldview: It hurt because once I found out it meant that my world didn't make sense anymore. My worldview was shattered. How I viewed our marriage, my wife, marriage in general, people in general, and relationships had to evolve into a new perspective. That was a painful process.

[buckeyeblue]

Discovering my WS's affair has completely guttedd me. It has been the most painful experience, not just for me but for our four children as well. Prior to d-day, I would have bet my life that he could never have cheated. It is especially painful to know that he destroyed our family for a nobody - a trashy, nasty, callous person that he threw under the bus. I will never, ever see him the same and neither will his children.

[Snowflower]

freestyle, thank you for responding. I'm glad things worked out for you and your guy.

 

I hope he learned what it was inside of him that made him vulnerable to her attempts to woo him away. Your situation is a little bit unusual in that he had been friends with this woman previously. Perhaps that made him trust her or blinded him to her real character, I don't know. Not that it excuses him but she sounds especially manipulative.

 

If she was that interested in him, why didn't she pursue him before he met you and/or was single?

 

I think cheating partners can make up partially for what they did by atoning in different ways. In your case, he tried to do this by helping you with your mother's death, which is never easy in any circumstance. It was good that he was able to be there for you.

[BetrayedH]

I loved him and I trusted him. In fact, other than my psychologist, my husband was the only person in the world that I trusted because of past hurts.

 

He knew this and it just made the betrayal even more devastating to me; he finally broke me. I have managed to deal with a lifetime of traumas, but THIS was the straw that broke the camel's back.

 

He and I are doing well as far as US, but *I* am still broken and am working so hard to fight my way out of the devastation.

 

I know that some don't get it, but it's just so hard. I'm not in a good place emotionally speaking and am attending extra therapy appointments just to keep myself from needing to be admitted to an inpatient treatment facility.

 

I'm an intelligent woman and am incredibly strong and have been able to heal from all the horrible things in my life; but THIS? THIS broke me.

 

Boy can I relate to this. I used the same term, broken. At one point, I could list six different times that I broke. My mind just snapped. I did my damnest to grt over it and it just dominated me for months. Glad I can't remember that list in its entirety anymore. Well, I could but I don't wanna. Try not to pressure yourself too much. I don't think there's much you can do but to let his consistent actions over time heal the hurt. In the meantime, I suggest you lean on him.

[BetrayedH]

Bringontherain,

 

Another thing that resonates with me is the idea that as much as we want and need for the WS to support us, we ultimately have to own our own happiness. I started to accept that (in order to reconcile), I did need to "get over it" even if my wife was never allowed to tell me so. It's one of those last insulting sh|t sandwiches I talk about from time to time. Hard thing to choke down. I ended up studying a lot about forgiveness.

 

This website might be worth a lookover...

 

Beyondaffairs.net

[seren]

I will use an analogy to try to explain how I felt.

 

Because of past experiences I put my vulnerable self in a box marked closed, not to be opened by anyone else. The box lived in a strongbox, inside a safe, inside a room with padlocks, inside a pretty house with a picket fence, surrounded by thorns, surrounded by yet more fences and finally a huge wall. During my life I let some people past the huge wall, a few maybe as far as the thorns, but hardly any inside the door to the house and none to the room where my self lived. Then I meet H, over time and getting to now him and he me I tell about the room, then I learn to trust him more and I begin to show him the strongbox. Finally I give him the key, he has open access and is the only person who knows why it is so important that the contents of the box are so precious. I think he understands the gift of complete and utter trust.

 

Even over a long time, he shows he understand, he and I are happy, truly, wonderfully happy and then it changes and then I ask and ask and cannot get to the root of the why and I wait for him to say what it is that has changed him so much. I want to hide, but there is no place I have left to hide, he has all access to my safe places because of trust.

 

It hurt so much because it broke my trust and my complete and utter faith in the person I love. it made me question my sanity, it made me question my safety and my view of what love is. Had it happened under different circumstances I would not be here, I would certainly never give anyone free access to all of me again. Because of H's hard work and mine I have returned the key to the strongbox, it has extra locks and there is a tiny corner of that box with a secret compartment that he might never have access to, I am keeping a part in reserve, just for me, just in case.

No one ever thinks they will react as they do to infidelity and many WS are surprised at how much they are loved and how much they have hurt the BS, until they do.

[Snowflower]

 

I do lean on my husband when things get to be too much but I really try to handle things on my own as much as possible. Four years later and I still struggle with the aftermath but what adds to it is the serious health issues that I'm dealing with that (partially) can be directly linked to the extreme stress and trauma of the affair.

 

I am honestly fighting to keep myself out of in treatment facility.

 

Rain, I didn't realize you were as far out (4 years) from d-day as I am. I just crossed the 4 year mark too.

 

I don't know much of your back story but I am sorry to hear of your health issues, as well.

 

BH brings up a good point about learning to lean on yourself and I think it is awesome that he is realizing this so early in his recovery.

 

It sounds almost counter-intuitive because if you're like me, I resisted this idea for whatever reason for a long time. However, I think the more you learn to lean on your own emotional reserves, the better you will feel, both emotionally and physically.

 

 

I leaned on my H for support probably too much. He was really great, especially for the first 18 months or so but looking back at it now I think he got really tired from shouldering everything. In retrospect, while using his support, I should have been looking for ways to become stronger on my own instead of depending on him so much. He really tried but it began to become all too much.

 

This past year, several events occurred in our (my?) life that made it necessary and even desirable for me to really step away from his support and strike out on my own, at least emotionally. Not sure if that makes sense but honestly, I have felt so much better as a result.

 

It is still a work in progress for me, like anything else. But it has had a huge impact (mostly positive) on my marriage. I feel a lot better about my marriage these days and right now, I'm irritated with myself for taking so long to realize that I needed to lean on myself to really move forward.

Edited December 11, 2012 by Snowflower

[beenburned]

I had a very loving childhood, surrounded by a large extended Christian family.

I had no knowledge about cheating/affairs in real life because I lived such a sheltered life.

 

I dated many different people in HS and none of them ever cheated on me.

 

My H was my only long distance dating partner. I admit this creates an environment in which you might miss a lot of things about a person, vs living close and seeing each other daily.

 

Even though I love him and have been married a very long time, if I had it to do all over again, I would marry someone from my own hometown who I knew better.

 

In his town, his reputation was of a good looking bad boy who dated many girls but never took them seriously. I wasn't aware of this at all since he was on his best behavior when dating me in my hometown. After d-day I talked to some of his cousins and they told me!

 

Why did infidelity hurt me so bad?

I was naive about cheating and no one had ever cheated on me.

I was raised to believe the person you marry should have your best interests at heart.

I had no idea that his morals/values were so different than mine until d-day.

I was financially dependent on him as a SAHM with 2 young children.(which limited my immediate choices)

My perception of my marriage and him had been all wrong due to him projecting a false image he had wanted me to believe in.

[beenburned]

BH,

 

Good post!