Can't say I read that book but I am friends with someone online who went through a particularly painful cheating experience and he always recommends it. I trust his wisdom.
> Alas, I opted to stay for a while to ensure it was really over. The spare bedroom sucks; I'm looking forward to getting a decent bed again.
All the extra room isn't bad either.
Another book I'd recommend is "Cheating in a Nutshell" it's a good follow-up book to LACGAL. It takes a more scientific approach to explain cheating with lots of examples. Sadly there is no audiobook though.
https://www.amazon.com/Cheating-Nutshell-What-Infidelity-Victim-ebook/dp/B07XJRCM6D
Hi
>https://www.amazon.com/Cheating-Nutshell-What-Infidelity-Victim-ebook/dp/B07XJRCM6D
This might help you.
To think they write songs, movies and books celebrating this crap.
https://www.amazon.com/Cheating-Nutshell-What-Infidelity-Victim-ebook/dp/B07XJRCM6D
This book may help you understand why you feel the way you do, and that may help you overcome it.
Been there OP, here are some books I recommend you read, some of which will help with your next relationship, rather than coping with the loss of, or fixing the last one:
Cheating in a nutshell
Coming Apart: Why relationships end and how to live through the ending of yours
Attached: The New Science of Adult Attachment and How It Can Help You Find—and Keep—Love
Hold Me Tight: Your Guide to the Most Successful Approach to Building Loving Relationships (I wanted my ex and I to read this one together, she refused, go figure).
tbb I’ve been reading your journey but never commented before. I admire the actions you took upon discovering the affair. I could tell from your posts that you wanted this outcome so I am happy for you in that respect. I am not pro reconciliation for a myriad of reasons, however this is your life. So I’d like to assist in your endeavor if possible.
The positives: 1. He admitted, 2. he’s gone No contact, 3. he confessed to his family, 4. he turned on location sharing.
The negatives: 1. He admitted but he was also dead to nights he’s doing exactly what the other sub of cheaters advise each other to do when busted in this way. There’s also a thread, in the sub for women who sleep w/other women’s husbands, where they discuss whether their MM stopped talking to them after getting busted and in 95% of the cases they resumed contact once they felt the dust had settled, 2. The location sharing - there’s many ways around that, 3. There’s a little bit of blame shifting, 4. He said he wants to stay w/you after seeing an attorney.
You need to be cautious. Your husband is a cake eater who essentially had an entire other wife for 2/3 (?) of your marriage. The same way it’s difficult for you to leave your husband despite the magnitude of his betrayal, he may also have that same difficulty giving up his other spouse, and she didn’t do anything bad. As others pointed out, he could leave his phone in the car and go meet quickly, she can come to his job, she can go w/him on legitimate work trips, they can communicate via game apps, hidden apps, I read a story where WW communicated w/her AP via an encrypted Word document. There’s ways around no contact. You say you have ways to monitor that, do you want to be a marriage warden?
I’d be concerned whether his motivation to stay is b/c he loves you (hard for him to say after being engaged in an affair the majority of your marriage), or if it’s predominantly b/c of financial reasons. If he claims it’s b/c of love, that didn’t prevent him for the majority of your marriage. And if it’s financial, likely he may cheat again w/her or a new AP. I would insist on a postnuptial if I were you.
Blame shifting is saying you were having a rough time in your marriage so he turned to her, that intimates it was partly your fault. That IS NOT why he engaged in an affair. He could’ve turned to a friend, a family member, a religious leaders, or a therapist etc. How is bringing a 3rd party in your marriage helping it? And why continue it after things got better? He also had the option to leave. You didn’t contribute to his cheating, he cheated for the majority of your marriage b/c he’s weak and selfish has a compromised moral system, b/c he wanted to, and it was fun. Do not accept any responsibility for the affair, for marriage problems, yes, but not for the affair. If you visit a MC be careful, some advocate rugsweeping and that’s not mentally healthy for you and leads to greater likely hood he’ll keep cheating. Try to find a Gottman Method trained MC. There are people in the sub for cheaters that admit they are MCs. Imagine getting MC counseling from someone who advocates for affairs. If you meet a MC who tries to make you even the slightest responsible for his affair, immediately sever ties.
You both should read How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair. You can get at bookstore or use this free pdf link.
If you haven’t already visit Survivinginfidelity.com, many ppl who have or currently going through what you are and many more resources.
I’d also let your husband lead this reconciliation effort. He can reallocate & devote all the time, attention & energy he did to wifee #2, to your marriage. The grass is greener where it’s watered. And you’ll get to see if what he’s experiencing is real remorse or just regret. Cheating in a Nutshell & NOT ‘Just’ Friends are two other excellent books.
Wish you well.
I read your posts and I am so sorry. I highly recommend you read the book Cheating in a Nutshell, it discusses how you are experiencing trauma. I’ve also seen The Body Keeps the Score recommended highly.
If you haven’t told your friends and family yet, it’s time. You need a support system, and while this online community is great, having IRL support helps your recovery even better. Plus, you control the narrative, there’s nothing worse than being cheated on, and then the cheater, who can’t be the victim in their own story, tells everyone the marriage failed b/c of you. If you’re feeling embarrassed, I want you to Read This. You may think your husband wouldn’t, but he’s proven himself not to be trustworthy, and you may be shocked at how nasty a cheater can turn when they realize the victim they’ve been abusing has finally had enough, and he starts feeling powerless.
If you haven’t already, consider posting your story at survivinginfidelity.com, the posters there are really have really seen it all. And if you read the stories there you’ll realize cheaters aren’t at all that creative, they share a script, i.e. if he threatens suicide, just call 911, don’t try to “convince him” not to, threatening suicide is a common manipulative tactic, but they stop one police and ambulances show up and at the threat of being involuntarily hospitalized.
I’m a go scorched earth type of person, so while you can’t legally make him leave, I’d probably pack all his crap and drop it off at the AP’s home or his parents home. Definitely no cooking for him, no laundry, no cleaning after, no buying his favorite foods, all that stops. And if you haven’t already, check your credit report and freeze your credit.
Most important, don’t neglect yourself! Drink A LOT of water, shock dehydrates you which interferes w/brain functioning. Drink nutritional shakes if you have a loss of appetite. Exercise, at minimum take walks, in the sun preferably for Vit D, and sleep is essential for everyone! See a dr for sleep aids if you’re having trouble. I wish you the very best.
I’m really sorry that you and you’re mom are going through this. Please try your best to take care of yourself. You are in shock, which dehydrates you, so drink a lot of water and encourage your mom as well. Both of you try to eat, drink nutritional shakes until your appetite comes back. And see a doctor for sleep aids. Recommend both you and your mother immediately enroll in therapy, specifically for betrayal trauma. People minimize how traumatizing infidelity is for children, but you have been betrayed as well. Cheating in a Nutshell is a highly recommended book. As well as the Chump Lady Website. Keep in mind you can’t control the outcome or force either of your parents to do anything. Focus on your physical and mental health. You have your own healing. Be a support for your mother, encouraging her to eat, drink, exercise, consider going on walks with her to release both your endorphins, but do NOT become a substitute therapist. Refer your mom to survivinginfidelity.com. Wishing you all the best.
First off you are suffering from trauma or PTSD. You should get some professional help for that. They can help you talk through your feelings and see which ones are reasonable and which are a produce of being abused for a long time. This is no fault of your own this happens when you are in a severely emotional abusive situation the way it sounds like you are saying you were in.
Two good books to read might be
https://www.amazon.com/Cheating-Nutshell-What-Infidelity-Victim-ebook/dp/B07XJRCM6D
This will explain why you feel the way you do (hint some of it is chemical)
This one will explain what was happening in your relationship and why YOU couldn't love any better of be a better person to make her be faithful and decent. You met her very young and that is just unfortunate. Almost all of us on here, if not almost everyone in general have dealt with cheaters and until you go through it you just don't get it. You have no context to understand. And if you are young and it's your first relationship you probably don't know any better.
(Point is it has nothing to do with you, it would have been anyone.)
I think some of this comes down to you looking for your romantic relationships to provide you will confidence and self esteem. Probably with that is at the end of the day we have no control over that. We can do some things to give us a better chance but at the end of the day it's not like we can guarantee it will work.
Health is like that right? You can do a lot of stuff to prevent from getting ill, eating well, exercise, and you should. At the end of the day however you may still get sick one day.
Now imagine you were saying i got really sick and afterwords you said "I don’t know what’s wrong with me". If by getting sick you started to think you were not a worthy person. That would NOT be a fair thing to make an assessment of yourself right? This is the same thing.
I promise you nothing is wrong with you, you didn't do something wrong particularly given your age at the time. You just ended up with a bad person. It happens, to almost everyone. Dude, listen, I am probably twice your age, had all the same feelings at first. You are OK. TRUST ME.
Finally besides all that there are some things I think lot of people can do to help there self esteem. First off, exercise, exercise releases endorphins which are the bodies natural anti-depressants. It also gives you tangible daily results that you can get some confidence about. Finally it has the added bonus of making you look good.
As I guy I would recommend lift weights, I would have never believed it at your age but man does it make you feel good. I have grown to think it's almost primal.
Finally get some stuff that you can be passionate about that have nothing to do with romance. To have a good life you need to be a well rounded person, you need things in your life that bring you joy. This makes you less dependent on one person or one relationship to do that. I would also say make some of those things social things. Having some really close friends also helps you not be dependent on just your romantic relationships. Besides who know maybe you will meet someone who is a lot like you because you share common interest.
Dude it's NOT you I promise.
I am probably lost for writing a whole other long post again to try to help you, but I feel for you SO so I hope you read this one this time.
I know you have read books but this book may help you understand what your husband is going through and why he asks the questions over and over.
Those other two books in my last post too.
First of all he doesn't trust you, an he is wise not to. You have just demonstrated that you can spend 2 months living a completely different life then he was aware and in the process invalidate the promise that had invested his whole future on. I got to ask why don't understand this? I mean this should be obvious?
He would be a fool just to assume that you are going suddenly be honest about everything you say after what you did. It's going to take a lot of transparency and consistency from you to even get some of that back (like years). And if this is the first time he was cheated on he will never trust anyone implicitly again. That is not a bad thing as implicit trust is unwise, unfortunately. It is a very hard lesson to learn, but a pretty common one. The lucky people have this happen early on in a relationship that doesn't have such impact on their life or their future. The unlucky ones are the people who have it happen in marriage.
Also it's about getting his head to believe what his heard doesn't want to because he loves you. It's about feeling in control and him coming to grips with the fact that he really has none in this situation at least right now. If it's true that you picked this other guy because you are more attracted to him then at least he can understand why and decide how to move forward. If you just picked this guy because you are broken well that means you are a huge risk to his safety (which is actually true and why you must fix yourself). Eventually if he has the right people helping him and as he starts to heal he will realize this and you are going to have to demonstrate that you have put the work in to be much safer. If not he will move on.
By the way this is going to be true to anyone who has some wisdom about this subject. Which is where you hear the term "once a cheater always a cheater" Wise people believe without the work this is generally true. Because like I said on the other post we believe that cheating is a character issue and a very poor coping mechanism to unhappiness, or temptation. This makes you unsafe. Which is what I am trying to get to with you, unless you fix this you will have limited choices going forward. You will have a much better chance at a good long term relationship if you marry someone who is this thoughtful in who he chooses, and if you are just as thoughtful about yourself.
Unfortunately I also believe it's a part of the grieving process and is also a response to that love dying. He is desperately trying to hold onto that bond or specialness that he had with you, which was built into your monogamy. I grown to suspect is not really something WS understand, and why empathy in these situations seem so difficult for them. If you understood the specialness that most BS hold monogamy part of the relationship with, you wouldn't be able to cheat in the first place. He keeps asking because he desperately looking for a way to keep the specialness and probably his love for you. He is hoping for an answer that gives him a way to save it. He is not going to find it, and eventually he will figure this out.
People assume monogamous people don't face the same kind of temptation, or understand the appeal of adultery. This is far from the truth, most people do, they just choose to priorities monogamy over it, and that isn't always because of love. Often it's because they don't want to do the kind of damage that adultery does to someone else. Often it's because they don't want to have to see themselves in the light that those actions would cast them. This explains why some people could be in the worst relationships and will still never cheat or act out.
If you would start to accept some of this stuff about yourself and what you did, instead of being so defensive you could use this to set yourself up to have a better life and a better relationship in the future, but it's going to take you changing your attitude.
I have a good book for you to read
https://www.amazon.com/Cheating-Nutshell-What-Infidelity-Victim-ebook/dp/B07XJRCM6D
Enjoy✌