Following is a story from one of our visitors who survived infidelity. After receiving the news of the affair, and feeling as though she couldn’t function, she took time off work to get back on track. Returning to her job proved to be a very welcoming distraction, as she didn’t have as much time to focus on the affair. With a positive daily routine and a good support system in place, she overcame infidelity, moved on with her life and is thriving once again. Check out her story:
“I received an anonymous phone call one day informing me that my husband was having an affair with someone that I knew. At that same time, he was away on vacation, after he refused to take me along and I lost it. I felt that my whole world fell on top of my head and my heart stopped beating. I started crying and screaming at the same time and I called him on the phone to confront him. He denied the affair but I later confirmed that he was indeed having the affair and that at the moment that I called him, he was with her!! I felt so sick with my heartache that I took off a couple of days from work because I simply could not function. As the days went on and the weeks that followed, I found that talking to friends, especially my mother and sisters helped tremendously and that I didn’t have to carry that burden by myself. I went back to work because it kept me busy so I didn’t have time to think about him and the affair. I lost weight because I was so depressed that I was not eating or taking care of myself. I found out that the best thing for me was to keep to my daily routine as best as I could. I took care of my kids, dressed up and went to work, wore makeup and got a haircut. This boosted my ego tremendously. I kept as busy as possible, even visiting friends and relatives that I have not seen in a long time. It’s been many months since I found out about the affair and I have recently filed for divorce since he refused to acknowledge or accept that he had the affair. It took a long time to get over my anger, hurt, resentment, grief but I found that I can laugh and enjoy myself again.”
Perhaps it is tempting to crawl into bed for weeks after discovering the affair, but some actually find comfort in sticking to their normal routine (or even adding to their calendar) in the midst of their infidelity crisis.
Related posts:
- Surviving Infidelity Series: Infidelity and The Importance of Routine and Self Care
- Surviving Infidelity Series: Infidelity and The Importance of Routine and Self Care
- Infidelity Fears Exist Under Your Pain and Agony Once You Bump Into D-Day (day of discovery?)
- Survive Infidelity: Accept the Pain and No Self-Blame
- Survive Infidelity: Accept the Pain and No Self-Blame
- Knowing his/her “Hole” Helps with Your Infidelity Pain
- Infidelity and Pain: How Sue Worked through her Meltdown
- Infidelity and Pain: How Sue Worked through her Meltdown
- The Pain of Infidelity Shall Pass
- The Pain of Infidelity Shall Pass
Sad Story – I’m glad you found some normalcy in your life again.
I have a question. You mentioned that an “anonymous” person called you to tell you about the affair.
Have you ever entertained the thought that the person who called you could have been the other woman herself or one of her friends?
The reason I ask this is because a few years back my husband had an emotional affair with a woman and she HERSELF called to tell me about it. Because I didn’t know her, I wouldn’t recognize her voice. She lied however and said it was a friend of hers. She gave a fake name. Through my own investigating I found out who she was.
We ended up even having to get a restraining order against her because of things she did because my husband did not leave me.
I believe this woman absolutely wanted me to know. She wanted me to get mad and leave him so that she could have him for herself.
It didn’t work that way so she got crazy on us. Enough so to warrant a restraining order.
So I’m wondering in your case if the other woman was the one who called you (or had a friend do it) so that she could have your husband for herself. I wonder if she got EXACTLY what she wanted.
Just a thought and each case of an affair is different. I just was curious about the anonymous caller.
I wish you the very best in your life. No one deserves this. Stay strong!
my husband is having a affair and when he wouldn’t stop seeing the other women I kicked him out. Now they are both staying at a friends house together but he keeps coming back to me and our kids. He spends most of his time with us, still does work around the house,we run a business out of our home. He is with her at night or in a bar mainly from what I know of. He still hits on me and comes on to me. We have been married for 19 years. I go out,look the best I can, hold my chin up, take care of our kids, the business and try to keep busy as much as possible.People we know say how well I look and seem to be doing great. I think people expect me to be crying and look terrible but I will be damed if I will let them think that or take my pride away.I will survive and will be the happy one in the end. In the mean time does anyone else have this kind of wishy-washy man in thier lives?
I completely agree that sticking to one’s normal routine after learning of an affair is vital to maintaining sanity. I also received an anonymous call and my husband denied the affair for about a month, until he was so heartsick that he basically admitted to being in love with her. He ended the affair and I am trying to keep our family together (notice I say “I” and not “we”), but things are often quite strained and sometimes downright hostile. I have found that going to work, looking my best at all times, and taking care of my children is the key to not sinking into the nervous breakdown that I clearly deserve. Some days its difficult to get out of bed (most days, actually), but I feel that if I don’t keep living, the other woman has beaten me. That may not be the healthiest motivation, but for now it works. It is what it is. As for my husband, he’s under the impression that the only work he has to do in the marriage is to not see or speak with the other woman anymore. For now, I’m willing to let him stay, but tomorrow, who knows?
Brooke, you raise an interesting point. Why is it that after an affair the man thinks the only thing he has to do is stop communicating with the other woman? Why don’t they think they need to talk about it, behave differently in any way, etc.? And when you tell them how you expect them to act differently, to read books on infidelity, see a counselor, they just do the minimum and then forget about it, until you remind them again? This has been extremely frustrating to me.
My case occurred in the first few months of our relationship. My boyfriend, lonely and depressed, gave in to the overwhelming advances of a woman who had been working on him for months. She was a former college friend who reconnected at a reunion 6 months before he met me. She was extremely aggressive, borderline, OCD, befriending him and then calling him, texting, e-mailing and also crying on his shoulder, and then switching to kissing him between sobs, telling him how she needed him to have sex with her because she was so depressed, her marriage was on the rocks, blah, blah, blah, getting his sympathy. He had two full weekends with her during our first two months of weekly dating, and was afraid she’d commit suicide if he cut off the emotional ties. He hoped she’d fade away after he told her he was then seriously committed to me, but she didn’t stop. I knew something was up, confronted him, he lied and denied it, so I told him to open his e-mails and let me read or I was leaving him. He did and I read some of the most explicit sexual stories this woman wrote, fantasy and retelling every act they shared. Total wacko – doing everything she could to keep him sexually charged, while enjoying the companionship of her husband as well. Anyway, once it was in the open, he called her immediately and ended all contact. He thought for sure I’d leave him and was grateful I didn’t, and we have the most amazing relationship this past year since it happened. I just would’ve thought that he’d have done something really special at that time, realizing how fortunate he was that I forgave him and didn’t leave him. But he didn’t! Men just don’t think the way we women do. If I’d have asked him to do something specific, he’d do it, but he never did think of doing something on his own.
My husband abandoned me to take up a job in Libya almost 8 years ago. He rotated 6 weeks out there and then 2 weeks at home. He made it very clear from the outset that I could not join him out there and enjoy the ex-Pat life. After the first year, he wasn’t that happy with the work or the pay but after two years I knew that he was behaving differently towards me and I made a trip out to Tripoli which he didn’t want me to make. He kept saying that I was going out there to sniff around and to ruin his life. Well, of course, I met the woman he was having an affair with and I confronted him about it. He denied everything and said that it was just a bit of fun. I could not leave the country without an exit visa and it was a couple of weeks until he secured that for me. We returned home on the same flight and then went to Lisbon in Portugal for a weekend away. He still denied everything. Shortly after that, his mother died, then 6 weeks later his father. Then a few months later, my mother died. In between all these family tragedies, I kept myself busy. I gave up my home business and took a permanent job. I got immersed with two local drama groups, joined dance classes, went to the gym and to yoga classes. Over the next four years I tried to get my husband to talk about things. He still denied the affair, even though I confronted him with proof of airline tickets, present purchases and photos I had intercepted by spying on his e-mail account. To cut a long saga short, the agony of the affair has continued. I have called her and remained very calm and charged neutral. It only seemed to fuel the affair more. Last February my husband returned home with no contract. He has now been at home for 8 months. He has still not found a job. He still talks to her on the ‘phone and he still e-mails her. For the past two years he has shown no interest in me whatsoever. He still gets into the same bed, but has no feelings or desire for me. I have tried to talk to him and to forgive. I have tried to get him to open up and to warm to me. All the time I have continued to go to work in a very busy job. I continue to go out with my friends and my sisters. My father has recently had a very serious accident and has been in intensive care for weeks and is now making a very slow recovery and is on a high dependency ward, but still critical. I have not received a cuddle or a hug whilst I have been facing this tragedy. I remain strong and I have a network of friends and family for support. I have taken a lodger on a Monday to Friday business let arrangement. I am surviving. If it wasn’t for the fact that we have loads of debts and we are in a financial mess, I would move on and file for divorce. However, I can’t do that, since selling the house would leave me with next to nothing and not enough to purchase a property of my own. Until he closes the chapter with the other woman I cannot see us ever connecting. He is the type ‘I want to be close to someone but I can’t stand intimacy.’ She has now left Libya for good and retired to a house she has purchased in Malta. Now that I have had time to think about our 30 years of marriage and the future, she is welcome to him. We went away for our 30th (paid for by our kids) and it was awful. We hardly spoke to each other and he just pushed me off when I tried to hold his hand or get close to him in bed. He won’t have any counselling and I am sure he is very depressed. BUT, I have to think of me and my future and I keep myself trim and looking good. He doesn’t seem to notice and I am totally invisible to him. Keeping busy has saved my sanity and I live life to the full and I have kept my lively and energetic personality intact. I will survive and I will be happy. He will not change and I deserve better.
I do… Wishy washy is a kind term. My husband readily admits he is with the other woman and he too spends most of his time with us. Unfortunately, he works with her, so he sees her every day. I have this image that I get him on the weekends and she gets him during the work week- my counselor jokes that we should leave notes for each other- like at daycare- John had a good bm today- may be a little cranky- he had a busy weekend :) We are not intimate- they are- so it makes it very difficult. I too find it helpful to look my best- I got my nails done, and I always try to dress nicely when I know I will see him. I don’t want him to think he has gotten the best of me- and I want him to see what he is missing. I will be ok- he appears to be the one that is miserable now- indecision is a terrible thing for anyone- so why do they choose to stay in that place?
That is an interesting point raised, my husband had an affair with my older sister and i confronted them both.I almost lost my mind for sure,but i felt i had to keep a mask on for my children and because of this i survived.My husband thinks the same way after five years, don’t bring anything up and life will go on.He cut all contact and stopped the affair so he feels he’s done all he can, reading, counseling and talking to me about the affair didn’t help me in his opinion. I wanted to crawl into bed and never get up, but I love my children and they needed me as much as i needed them, they helped me survive. Keeping busy and focusing on helping others has helped this horror fade , I’m not sure how it will all play out in the end I just take things one day at a time.