SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I like the bridge metaphor. It can be said the entire bridge isn't bad, but it also fundamentally isn't safe to cross, and needs adjustments.

To everyone who took the time to read and respond,

Sorry for the small novel I figured it was easier to respond to everyone in one post rather than a bunch of separate replies.

Thank you all. I know people are responding from their own experiences, and I appreciate people taking the time to share what they’ve learned.

I think I came here wondering if there was some big next step that I was missing, and I’m realizing that maybe there just isn’t. Maybe this stage is less about finding some major milestone and more about continuing to practice what I’ve learned, letting those changes become consistent over time, and staying open to what comes up.

I do want to clarify a few things because I think my original post left room for some assumptions.

My post wasn’t really about whether my husband’s forgiveness is genuine, whether there is rugsweeping, or whether our marriage is truly moving toward reconciliation. It was about what the next stage of individual healing looks like after the initial crisis settles.

I understand why those topics came up. I know there are people here who understand betrayal trauma and the betrayed spouse experience in a way I never fully will, and I do value that perspective.

The funny thing is, I’ve actually had quite a few conversations with my husband about rugsweeping because of things I’ve read on this forum. It’s something we’ve intentionally talked about because I don’t want either of us to avoid difficult conversations or assume that because things feel better right now, everything is resolved.

I think there’s a difference between being aware of a possible pitfall and assuming that is what’s happening.

GotTheMorbs,

Thank you for clarifying. I think I understand that better now.

I came in with the impression that the guideline about not taking a thread in a different direction was generally followed, so I expected the conversation to stay focused on my original question. If I had realized more background about my situation would likely be needed, I probably would have included more from the beginning.

Backfromthestorm,

No pushback intended, but my impression from your posts is that you’re a very direct person (obviously hard to know from only a few posts), so I responded in kind.

I’m okay being challenged and hearing perspectives that may not be what I expected. I think that’s part of why people come here. At the same time, I’m also comfortable disagreeing when I’ve considered a perspective and don’t agree with the conclusion.

Disagreeing with a challenge doesn’t automatically mean I’m in denial, minimizing, or avoiding accountability. Sometimes it simply means I see the situation differently.

Maybe my husband is experiencing things I don’t see or understand. That is possible. My concern is when possibilities become conclusions without enough information to know.

I think that’s especially true because my husband isn’t here to speak for himself, and I didn’t share much about him because his healing and our marriage weren’t really the focus of my post.

I know my husband well enough to know that he would find it surprising that someone could make such a definitive assessment about him based on a few paragraphs, especially when he isn’t here to share his own experience.

I do understand the caution being offered. I just think there’s a difference between saying "this is something to be aware of" and saying "this is what is happening."

BraveSirRobin,

Thank you for your insight as well. I probably could have included more details, but they didn’t seem necessary at the time because my post wasn’t really about whether my husband had forgiven me, whether there was rugsweeping, or whether reconciliation was working.

I understand there are people here who share an experience with my husband that I will never have. I do value that perspective.

At the same time, I don’t think it’s dismissive to listen to what is being said, compare it to what we are actually experiencing, and clarify where there is a disconnect. My husband is the person living his experience, and I think his own understanding of it matters too.

I’m not saying there is nothing we could be missing. I’m saying there’s a difference between being open to a possibility and assuming that possibility is the reality.

foreverlabeled and DRSOOLERS,

I’ve thought about both of your replies, and I think where we see things differently is really around identity.

I don’t disagree that the affair revealed difficult things about me. I was capable of deception, compartmentalizing, and making choices that deeply hurt my husband. I take full responsibility for that.

Where I disagree is that I don’t believe those choices were my identity. I believe they were choices I made when I overrode my own values in order to avoid pain and discomfort. That does not make the choices less harmful, and it does not lessen my accountability.

The work for me has been understanding how I got to a place where I could do that, and looking honestly at the patterns and internal workings that allowed me to get there.

My husband and I have talked about this a lot, and we actually see it similarly. We don’t see the affair as the entirety of my character or as proof that my values were never real. We see it as choices I made that were deeply out of alignment with the person I was and am.

I think this may just be a difference in framework. I don’t think one perspective has to be right and the other has to mean someone is minimizing or avoiding accountability. People can look at the same experience through different lenses and still be doing difficult, honest work.

Maybe the work ends up looking very similar regardless of the language used to describe it. I just don’t think accountability requires me to view myself through the exact same framework someone else does.

Thank you again to everyone who responded. Even where I disagreed with parts of the feedback, I have still taken things away from the discussion.

I think what I’m realizing is that there probably isn’t some hidden next stage I’m missing. It’s continuing the work, continuing to learn, and continuing to practice what I’m learning. Maybe the biggest part of this stage is just giving it time and letting those changes become consistent.

We don’t see the affair as the entirety of my character or as proof that my values were never real.

Your BH has not stated his position here, so I will accept the "we" with an appropriate level of skepticism warranted by my own personal experiences and the insight into human nature I've gained from spending a decade reading many thousands of posts from other BS.

I agree that whatever issues you have that lead you down Infidelity Lane are not a reflection of your entire character. And yet those issues are a part of your character. That may be something you do not want to accept about yourself. I can certainly understand that. People rarely want to face down their own character flaws. When we blow-up our lives because of them, we are left with two choices: we can live in the devastation and resign ourselves to being less than, or we can choose to face them head on and rebuild ourselves from the ground up.

If your values were real, as you state, then wouldn't those values have precluded infidelity? If they were real, how could they be so easily overridden, even temporarily?

I see some contradictions here that are difficult to dismiss.

The work for me has been understanding how I got to a place where I could do that, and looking honestly at the patterns and internal workings that allowed me to get there.

What has that understanding revealed? What have you learned?

I think Unhinged has echoed a lot of what I would have followed up with.

To begin, there is no right or wrong here. We have far too little data to make a definitive assessment, but to me, this is the core of the work you need to do.

All I would like to add is:

Where I disagree is that I don’t believe those choices were my identity. I believe they were choices I made when I overrode my own values in order to avoid pain and discomfort.

It is true that no single action represents the entirety of a person's character. However, it is an unfortunate reality that the world often measures the barometer of our character by the very worst thing we have done. To take a terribly extreme but relevant example here in the UK, think of Jimmy Savile. He spent the vast majority of his life raising millions of pounds for charity and arguably saving countless lives, yet he was a serial child abuser. Nobody talks about the charity work now. The gravity of the betrayal completely eclipsed the good, because the worst action redefined the public's understanding of his true character.

Outside of making it easier to live with yourself, what are your reasons for framing it this way? Do you have a logical argument supporting this distinction, or does it simply make you feel better to view it through this lens?

If it is the latter, aren't you still actively employing a coping mechanism to avoid pain and discomfort? If you are still restructuring reality to shield yourself from the discomfort of what you did, does that truly sound like healing, or is it just a continuation of the exact same patterns that brought you here?

[This message edited by DRSOOLERS at 9:16 AM, Tuesday, July 14th]

Backfromthestorm,

No pushback intended, but my impression from your posts is that you’re a very direct person (obviously hard to know from only a few posts), so I responded in kind.

You got that right, I have always been rather direct, until betrayal trauma hit me 20 years ago, then I dissociated and were far less direct in everything .
After snapping out of that, I am even more direct than I ever was. This can be uncomfortable at times, but is rarely unappreciated by people I deal with. You won’t find many who aren’t afraid of speaking up their mind to your face without white lies or sugar coating, passive aggressiveness etc.

Being blunt might be harsh to hear, but also hits you emotionally because it’s sincere, when something hits you that way you think. And whenever you think, you have a chance to grow.

I am confident that you thought about it deeper as you felt confronted (even though I had no confrontational intentions, but through the limited medium the reader receives something with only their emotional perception). That is not bad, you have a perspective that otherwise you might have overlooked. The goal of pointing pitfalls is achieved.

Reacting to direct people is also relatively common when someone feels triggered or even challenged in rooted beliefs. It’s defensive, natural (medium distorts the message as you don’t have in presence communication the "ego" feels challenged and reacts).

Being unapologetic I don’t care much to fix wounded egos, I know how I intended to communicate, I might explain if it is asked, but I care nothing about external validation. Value my time a lot, the time I spend here with hurting people is because I have been through and I feel empathy for both BS and WS.

If someone values the time respectfully and finds something useful to help them, then is well spent. But I care about nothing if it’s soothing egos reacting to unpleasant perceptions that aren’t in the message.

I felt you had consideration and respect, so I explained.
I get often resentment for being uncomfortably assertive, so I heard it all from "you hate BS" to "you hate WS" (or the opposite, too much empathy), or ad hominem passive aggressive accusations being called a cheater, there’s a due to be some reaction when you are direct.

I don’t care for childish accusations, but couple of times this helped some people out. That’s what I care for.
If you found it somewhat helpful even though uncomfortable then I am glad.

In a face to face you don’t need so many words, you "get it" and fill out the blanks. It’s a dialogue, here is a turn based monologue.

I’m okay being challenged and hearing perspectives that may not be what I expected. I think that’s part of why people come here. At the same time, I’m also comfortable disagreeing when I’ve considered a perspective and don’t agree with the conclusion.

I offered you an angle not an opinion nor a perspective. I don’t know you guys, only if I did I could give you a judgement (and it might be different or harsher, remember, direct).

I had very few info, and a confidence in ownership of the reconciliation, after few months from betrayal.

I could see that as unique, enough that it might be self delusional (read around and you find tons of similar stories, early ‘forgiveness’ then divorce/relapse/loss of feelings/ triggers etc. they all were sure they were good). So I pointed you it seems unlikely and what behaviors are most commonly associated to early‘ forgiveness’. (Sociopath/ rugsweeping).

Pitfalls =/= your case. But something worthy to check not to be blindsided.

You looking into it, keeps you both safer, even if it is not the case, even if it is uncomfortable.

Disagreeing with a challenge doesn’t automatically mean I’m in denial, minimizing, or avoiding accountability. Sometimes it simply means I see the situation differently.

Maybe my husband is experiencing things I don’t see or understand. That is possible. My concern is when possibilities become conclusions without enough information to know.

I think that’s especially true because my husband isn’t here to speak for himself, and I didn’t share much about him because his healing and our marriage weren’t really the focus of my post.

Absolutely you are correct.
With so little information isn’t bad advice to say "girl, that’s sound unusual, unlikely, have you considered if this/that is going on?".

Disagreeing with it gives a chance that you had now looked at that and considered it. So it’s fine.
If you went over it and you didn’t purely react out of defensiveness, you now have surely looked into a potential pitfall even if you did it already prior to this discussion.

I know my husband well enough to know that he would find it surprising that someone could make such a definitive assessment about him based on a few paragraphs, especially when he isn’t here to share his own experience.

And I don’t know him at all. If he was here sharing his side of the pain, I would then be able to make a more confident judgment about what I think it’s going on between you two.

Having only your side and the impression of overconfidence, you can only fill the blanks with plausible speculation about what could be happening to have such unusual early results.

I do understand the caution being offered. I just think there’s a difference between saying "this is something to be aware of" and saying "this is what is happening."

It’s exactly what you received, I understand that blunt and direct feels outside the chorus and can be felt confrontational and an attack because you are feeling vulnerable as being the cheater who has done wrong and the feedback is coming from "the other side", so it feels like shameful. (You see? aware or not, you are also filling the blanks. It’s normal)

You can’t know me or understand what kind of attitude I do have with waywards. I have no problem with cheaters, I have a problem with MY wayward only.

I can loathe the act and behavior, but that’s not necessarily translating to the person who made those choices.
I only openly express my disgust if the person in question is "embracing " the behavior and allowing it to define them.

That’s not what your case looks like, I felt pretty clearly you dislike betrayal, you aren’t embracing or indulging in it anymore.

Infidelity and reconciliation are a very risky business. I offer you a risk assessment. Is to take out what you think is useful and discard the rest.

That makes it easy to understand where I come from now that you too have more information.

I think what I’m realizing is that there probably isn’t some hidden next stage I’m missing. It’s continuing the work, continuing to learn, and continuing to practice what I’m learning. Maybe the biggest part of this stage is just giving it time and letting those changes become consistent.

Actually there is , but is not much a stage as it’s rather a parallel process that will help you navigate through infidelity and healing.

Use whatever tools you have as a mirror to help you see your self through the ego and the issues that mask bred and kept hidden until they resulted in infidelity.

This place is one, therapy is another one. It will be the hardest challenge of your life, because if your husband is the one who suffers the most, you will have to heal the most to truly change.

And you have your share of pain too. It’s likely you betrayed a part of yourself when you betrayed your relationship.

Those voices need to be heard, not be kept inside.

Believe it or not, you have been heard.

I think what unsettles me (and possibly others here) is the strong sense of confidence that comes across in your posts, along with the defensiveness you seem to show when people offer perspectives you didn't ask for.

Have you read onlytime's pinned post, *Beyond Regret and Remorse* in the Reconciliation forum? It gave my WH a completely new perspective.

Thank you again to everyone who took the time to respond. Even where I saw things differently, I do appreciate people sharing their experiences and taking the time to engage with me.

There are just a couple of things I wanted to say before I step away from the thread.

A few people have described my responses as reactive, defensive, or overly confident. I don't really experience them that way.

To me, there's a difference between defending myself from accountability and disagreeing with a conclusion. Those aren't the same thing. Throughout this discussion I've agreed that healing takes years, that reconciliation is never guaranteed, and that there are pitfalls worth paying attention to. Where I've pushed back has generally been when conclusions about my husband or my motivations seemed to be drawn from very little information.

I don't see disagreement as disrespect. I don't think saying, "I see this differently," means the other person is wrong, or that I haven't considered what they've said. Sometimes it just means I've thought about it and landed somewhere different. I think it's possible for two people to disagree in good faith without either one being dismissive or avoiding difficult truths.

One thing I found myself thinking as this discussion went on is that every community probably develops both strengths and blind spots.

One of the strengths here is that many of you have seen the same unhealthy patterns so many times that you're able to recognize them quickly. I can absolutely see how valuable that is, especially for people who are still in the immediate aftermath and struggling with minimization, rationalization, rugsweeping, or avoiding accountability.

At the same time, I wonder if sometimes pattern recognition can turn into pattern expectation. I came here eight months after disclosure, after months of therapy, reading, reflection, and a lot of difficult conversations with both my therapist and my husband. I wasn't posting from the place of someone who had just confessed or was still trying to make sense of the immediate fallout. I think that may have contributed to my confidence being interpreted as overconfidence, or my willingness to respectfully disagree being interpreted as defensiveness.

To me, those aren't the same thing. Feeling more grounded than I did eight months ago doesn't mean I think we're finished, that reconciliation is guaranteed, or that there isn't still plenty of work ahead. It just reflects where I am in the process today.

The other place where I think we've simply reached an impasse is around my framework for understanding identity.

I understand that some of you believe the way I describe it must be a way of protecting myself or making what I did easier to live with. I genuinely understand why that question gets asked.

At the same time, I don't think continuing to explain my framework is likely to be productive. It feels like we've reached a point where my explanations are being interpreted as evidence that the framework itself is defensive. If that's the lens through which my explanations are being viewed, I'm not sure more explanation is going to create more understanding.

And that's okay. We don't all have to conceptualize change in exactly the same way to be doing honest work.

I really do appreciate everyone who took the time to respond. I wish all of you continued healing, wherever you are in your own journeys.

At the same time, I don't think continuing to explain my framework is likely to be productive. It feels like we've reached a point where my explanations are being interpreted as evidence that the framework itself is defensive. If that's the lens through which my explanations are being viewed, I'm not sure more explanation is going to create more understanding.

It depends, what you say it is possible. It is also possible that what's being offered you is simply a mirror to reflect deeper about things you discovered but maybe not fully integrated yet.

You see there is a thing reformed WS and healed BSes understood: outside validation is irrelevant, is the thing that brings you to self sabotage.

When they express something here, is not important if they feel validated or confronted (though validation for doing the work feels pleasant, it is not the part that matters). It's important learning, growing, understanding. Some have been at it for decades and still learn. Or share what they learned.

The reception of the individual is also setting the tone on how you understand something. Community has little to no weight here. Each one it's an individual with very different takes on things.

The kind of "community" framing generally understood is exactly the opposite: consensus/external validation.

If there is something that I see often opposed here is exactly that (external validation)

They can't coexist.

What you would see is the acknowledging patterns because they have been almost universally observed by people who caused/suffered infidelity (lies/trickle truths/ shame vs guilt/ rugsweeping vs forgiveness/ avoidance v healing).

When something is observable across the board is not a consensus/belief being validated by peers, it's a reality that happens and tends to manifest in part or fully in infidelity matters.
It's especially uncomfortable because what you seen and felt confrontational was often performed or suffered by the very people who posed those questions.
Many were there doing the work, convinced they were good, just to find out later that what they thought or felt didn't quite match the reality. They were confidently wrong, in good faith, but still wrong.

It's way harder pill to swallow to acknowledge your own flaws and inform others who followed later in your footsteps that there is a risk they are doing the same (they are just unaware).
The framework you built (yourself of in therapy) ain't in question here, it's a tool, if it is helping you it is a functional one.

The mirror is another tool. Different, but It can be useful. Or it can be avoided.

Like all the rest, it's a choice.

Good luck with your journey whether you choose to stay or not.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 12:26 PM, Tuesday, July 14th]

NMI,

I see you've come to realize what I was trying to warn you of. This is not to say "don't bother evaluating the truthfulness of what others are saying," but rather that, you know what's true for you, and what's not, and functionally that's all that matters. A rule I've had to set for myself is that I can clarify my situation or position once, maybe even twice, and then if the clarification doesn't change the other person's understanding of what it is I'm trying to communicate, I just disengage. (And I was very pleased to discover that nothing happens and I am okay afterwards! It's great! ) Continuing to try often leads to faulty recursive reasoning for the other party, and that is not necessarily a result of flaws in my communication skills. As you put it, in such cases it only strengthens the lens through which they are already viewing you, rather than changing out the lens itself. Even if you try to explain what you see happening.

However, there is still a ton of value to being part of this community, and I would encourage you to post again should you have any other questions, concerns, big feelings, or a desire to dig deeply into a topic. Sometimes others will dig into subjects outside of the scope of your original post, and sometimes that can be helpful too. Just keep an open mind, take what's useful to you, and leave the rest.

To me, it sounds like you were fortunate enough to come across the right advice early on, such that you have been doing the things a WS is supposed to do to ensure the greatest likelihood of a successful reconciliation. That's pretty rare, but it does happen. And it's quite possible that your behavior in that very crucial period after DDay has helped to optimize your BH's recovery process too. Keep it up. I trust that you understand it's not a linear journey, and that there may be rougher periods (that may even seem like "regression") further out, and that you're preparing yourself.

Around the same time in my recovery and reconciliation journey, I found that I was going down the proverbial checklist-- "Okay, I've taken complete accountability for my actions, embraced radical honesty and transparency, I'm digging deep into my whys, I can sit with my BH's feelings, offer the best comfort I can, I'm in therapy, and I'm actively working on fixing myself..."-- and then I got to the end and thought, "What else? Surely there's more I can do..?" And it was oddly dissatisfying to not be able to find much else.

Another WW recently posted (I think it was BoiledEgg) and someone told her that she was approaching reconciliation like a project that she wants to get an A on. That hit home for me too. One immature part of me wanted to rush the process (or at least, absolutely minimize the time it took) and wanted to feel proud for doing it "more better," as we say in my line of work, than others. Another part just wanted reassurance that my marriage was going to make it, and I wouldn't have to survive the crushing grief of losing my husband or navigating raising a child in a split home. It was worth acknowledging these parts and engaging in the additional work of humbling/soothing them. It will take time, it's not a competition which I can pat myself on the back for "winning," and there are absolutely no guarantees, so I better not get complacent...

I am finding that even at the "end of the checklist," there is always more and deeper work I can do on myself. And every once in a while, here, I come across something I hadn't considered before. A tiny gold nugget that is no less valuable than the huge chunks of benefit I got with learning the basics.

I see you've come to realize what I was trying to warn you of. This is not to say "don't bother evaluating the truthfulness of what others are saying," but rather that, you know what's true for you, and what's not, and functionally that's all that matters. A rule I've had to set for myself is that I can clarify my situation or position once, maybe even twice, and then if the clarification doesn't change the other person's understanding of what it is I'm trying to communicate, I just disengage. (And I was very pleased to discover that nothing happens and I am okay afterwards! It's great! grin ) Continuing to try often leads to faulty recursive reasoning for the other party, and that is not necessarily a result of flaws in my communication skills. As you put it, in such cases it only strengthens the lens through which they are already viewing you, rather than changing out the lens itself. Even if you try to explain what you see happening.

That is a valid advice because it can happen. It can also go two ways, if you misrepresent (or refuse to not misunderstand) the feedback you receive, once it was explained to you how you read is not the correct read, there is a different angle.

One could be ignoring your meaning and your knowledge of what you want to communicate. For whatever reason. You could be doing the same. For whatever reason.

Keeping an open mind over the reasons of both in the exchange, is usually helpful in the long term, especially after clarification.
Holding positions tends to be avoidance.

Is no longer in the territory of constructive discussion, is the territory of the Ego.
And the Ego avoids.

You can get a lot from discomfort, or nothing at all. It all depends on if and how you want to open to introspection.

GotTheMorbs

someone told her that she was approaching reconciliation like a project that she wants to get an A on. That hit home for me too. One immature part of me wanted to rush the process (or at least, absolutely minimize the time it took) and wanted to feel proud for doing it "more better," as we say in my line of work, than others. Another part just wanted reassurance that my marriage was going to make it, and I wouldn't have to survive the crushing grief of losing my husband or navigating raising a child in a split home. It was worth acknowledging these parts and engaging in the additional work of humbling/soothing them. It will take time, it's not a competition which I can pat myself on the back for "winning," and there are absolutely no guarantees, so I better not get complacent...

Amen to that!

I don’t agree with everything that is shared on here (nobody does! And it’s normal) but there is a lot of wisdom and I find this forum being a good "compass" when it comes to navigate infidelity.

NotMyIdentity: I understand it can feel frustrating when other posters make assumptions, but overall the strength of this place is receiving many different perspectives. Maybe in this instance nothing resonated with you, but there can be occasions where an angle you never considered is brought to light.

I am glad you and your BS are navigating this and I wish you a smooth sailing.

I am about 8 months out, so I don’t have much to share.

I will just add: It’s ok considering yourself a good person that overrode her values. But I would keep digging from there. E.g. why a good person didn’t stick to their values? What is the difference between a good person that sticks to their values and one that doesn’t? What’s underneath the stressors / storm that made the A happen?

Not in a self-flagellatory way, but to enable your growth / becoming a safe partner and your best version.

This is what I am trying to do (although, in my case I struggle with the self-flagellation)

Take care

[This message edited by LonelyGuilty at 4:46 PM, Tuesday, July 14th]

NMI,

A lot of what you say seems premature. You seem to be skipping some stages that WSes who R go through. The SI rule of thumb is 2-5 years to recover (NOT reconcile, which is an additional step beyond recover), and for WSes the end of healing is forgiving themself and choosing a next right thing at each decision point. You seem to be at that point unusually quickly.

Also, you frame your experience betraying your WS in ways that are unusual on SI. Maybe your framing has the same relation to changing from cheater to good partner as the more usual framing. If so, great, if not, you may be misleading yourself.

*****

Also, one big red flag for me is your statement

Maybe my husband is experiencing things I don’t see or understand.

Why did you write 'maybe'? You speak for your WS. IMO, you'll be better off if you stick to what you know ... that is, for yourself.

Is your WS in IC? (I apologize if I missed it.) What are his goals?

*****

IMO, an R that succeeds morphs into M. That is, in R you resolve issues related to the A in order to (re)build bonds. As a couple resolve those issues, the day-to-day issues of life replace A issues. But no matter what, M is all about resolving issues that arise so one can maintain healthy bonds enjoy the M.

I believe they were choices I made when I overrode my own values in order to avoid pain and discomfort.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homunculus_argument