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I am not sure why I am struggling so much lately. I thought i was doing better. We are entering 2nd year of R. WH is doing many right things BUT I struggle. Every. Single. Day. There are days when I don’t know if I can continue. I don’t know it this is worth it. I want to quit and walk away but I am not sure if the alternative is much better. I feel stuck. I feel like I am in a lose-lose situation.

I am tormented by What if?

What if WH is obsessing, reminiscing, wanting the sex with the AP? Their PA was highly sexually charged. I think it filled some of WH’s sexual fantasies.
What if WH cheats again? I covered this in another post. Replies were very helpful. Thank you all
What if WH ends up with escorts/prostitutes because maybe he secretly has a sex addiction or fetish? I have no evidence to think this but my mind is going here after having read other SI’s posts
What if WH never gets over the AP and keeps her in his heart forever?
What if?
What if?
I am truly driving myself nuts.
What has happened to me?

I’m so sorry you’re struggling. I can’t speak from experience but I’ve seen it mentioned (likely here) that year 2 of R can be rough. Hoping someone further along can help with that. Are you in IC?

You know in life there are always the "what ifs!"

As you restore your self esteem and gain more confidence in yourself — you will stop obsessing about the marriage and the cheater and start focusing on yourself.

You can start by maybe consider counseling. It will help you decide what you want in life and how to achieve it. Now is the time to look at things and decide how you see your future.

I know ss I got stronger and healed, I decided I needed my H less than I thought. I realized I could survive on my own if I had to.

I don’t need him now as much as I want to be with him. That shift has allowed me to feel stronger in my decision to R.

I hope this helps you.

Thank you ADS and 1st wife.
I was in IC with a marriage specialist (not trauma or infidelity specialist.. i didn’t know what to look for) shortly after Dday. He helped me to process my early emotions. He was kind and empathetic. He was just what I needed to get through the initial crisis.
I think I need to switch gears and find a more appropriate IC?
1st wife: i would love to get to where you are. I want to be empowered so that I don’t need my WH to survive and thrive.

I’m sorry you’re in this headspace, cedar. For what it’s worth, I had similar low points at the first and second year marks after Dday. Two and a half years was a turning point for me with healing, but everyone’s mileage varies, and I still have rough points sometimes.

The only thing that helped me in the what if times was to acknowledge the what if, and then change my focus (or at least try to). What if my husband was still lying to me? What if had cheated more than I knew; what if he cheated again? What if he still was in secret contact with his AP?

Any of those what ifs—or worse—could conceivably be true. When I got mired in them I acknowledge that, and then turn the focus in what I know about myself. First, I’m more aware/savvy than I used to be, and I think it’s likely I would notice something off. Second, I’m not in control of him, but I’m in control of me. I trust myself to handle anything that might come up; I’m much better prepared and equipped in that regard than I was before. And at the end of the day, I’m comfortable with myself and my values and choices. I’m operating in good faith and in keeping with my values. I’m living my life intentionally and pursuing what I feel is worthwhile and what makes me happy. I can rest in that, even when there’s a lot of scary what ifs out there.

Hugs. I think it’s mostly about passage of time.

My first IC was empathetic and helped me to process through the pain of the early stages. My second IC was a betrayal trauma specialist and was so much more helpful. She helped me find tools that I can use to help me through so many things.

My XWH didn't do the work, and I moved out about 2 years after dday 1. It took a year before I realized I was going to be ok.

My second IC said that our work in IC would give me the strength to know that I'd be ok regardless of what my partner did.

You work on you so that the What Ifs don't matter and you'll be ok either way.

"What if's" certainly can be scary.

When our whole world has blown up in front of our face, we find ourselves looking out over the open horizon, with no point of reference.
As we look at the broken pieces of ourselves, and our lives, and everything we thought we knew.
There's nothing we could have done...
All we can do now is to decide what to do with the time that is left.

Life can tear everything away from us, except for the one thing that truly matters.
When everything has been taken away from you, you gotta dig deep...
Take a good look at your heart...
There's always something forgotten there...
Dormant perhaps... but an ember to be stoked nonetheless,
At the core of who you are.

Remember it!
Embrace it!
Let your newly exposed power be your guiding light...
To where you need to be.

All those questions and challenges ahead have forgotten and discounted the most important factor in the equation...

You, dammit!

You are strong!
You are smart!
You are resilient!
You will heal!
You will respect your needs!
You will focus on your wellbeing!
You will always have a choice!
And you will find the peace and serenity that you seek, no matter what life throws in your way!

Life may get tough, but there is liberation is knowing that you are an empowered individual, fully capable of navigating through grief and loss to rise above, to build back better, and to let your true inner self shine.

So yeah... "what the fuck if"

Cedarwoods

The short version is I put my H first (before myself). I didn’t mind it b/c I saw he worked hard and traveled all over the world for his job and I felt he deserved to be pampered.

There were a few things I did not like in our marriage and I addressed it, but nothing changed. Finally I stopped asking for him to be more considerate if he knew he was going to be late, to please call. He refused!

Then it’s the midlife crisis affair and he decides to D me. Of course I’m the last to know lol 😂 😡😡.

Then it’s dday2 and I finally had enough. During the 6 months of his affair and false R (of which I was unaware) I was also putting my plan b together. Just in case.

I had my finances ready to go. Separate bank account, copies of every financial document etc.

Great therapist.

Mediator lined up.

Co-parenting plan drafted.

When I told him I had no choice but to D him - it was a 30 second conversation and I left the room. Then it was the hard 180. And then he had an exit date to leave the home.

I told him during the 30 second conversation he was free to be with the OW and I no longer cared. When I turned and walked out of the room he was completely blindsided.

He saw a side of me he never expected.

It’s been 10 years and he’s no longer my top priority. And he knows it. Somehow he was able to convince me to give R a chance (again). But this time it was different. He made tremendous changes (w/out my help) and turned the corner so to speak.

We are lucky. We are both happy. But my attitude is I am good with him or without him. He’s not my priority anymore. I am.

The "What ifs" never stopped for me. My xWS also wasn't remorseful or doing the work, but I felt like I was in hell with the same ruminating thoughts over and over again. I believe for myself infidelity is a dealbreaker. It's just how I am built and I know this now about myself.

If you would like to know if life is great on the other side of this,. For me yes it absolutely is. Leaving stopped all thoughts about what he did to me and the M. I got myself back again, am thriving and in a new relationship which is a breath of fresh air compared to my M to xWS.

1) Are you beating yourself up because you're not 'over it' yet? If so, STOP. Figure at least 2 years to recover/heal at a minimum. Personally, I think 2 years is a ridiculously short time for recovering while one is in R. After all, if you D, you end your emotional & romantic relationship with your WS, so you're at least on the way to detaching from the person who hurt you. In R you're in the min-dblowing sitch of healing with the person who hurt you.

2) My reco is to reframe your questions. Your problem isn't 'what if?'. Rather, it's:

'What will I think/feel/do if WS does _____?'

3) Focus on your healing. Feel the feelings - the grief, anger, fear, and shame. Process them out of your body. If your WS keeps adding to your pain after d-day, notice that, too. But focus on yourself and on how you're responding to your WS. If R doesn't feel good at some basic level, maybe R is the wrong choice.

Sisoon
Answer to your question #1. I wish I were stronger and more healed by now. These intrusive thoughts, fears, and doubts are debilitating at times but "embracing" them seems to be a solution while I am healing. I need to accept that these thoughts and feelings are all normal.
#2. What will I think/feel/do if WS does ____. I would be devastated, feel absolutely foolish for having tried R, feel ashamed and humiliated in front of friends and family who don’t think I should R in the first place. I had no idea A was happening right under my nose so i do not trust myself to pick up any signs.
#3. Focus on your healing: yes, i am working on this. Reading stories of other BS who have "healed’ and had successful R gives me much hope. R feels right but there are many moments when I just panic and go to the place of many unknowns with a prior negative and damaged past record.

I can relate to so much of what you are saying. I go through periods where I am OK, for weeks at a time. And then I just go down the rabbit hole of terrible images and horrible self talk. I am in therapy and it really has helped (I resisted it for a long time.)

I have a home, food, and shelter. I am older now and having these needs met feels so much more important than it ever has before. But I am sharing my life with another human that has hurt me in unimaginable ways. If a team of engineers, psychologists, architects, empaths, and historians were tasked with pushing every emotional button to trigger me into feeling alone, abandoned, ignorant, unloved, unwelcome, and irrelevant, they would have only done half of the job my wife has done (but the fact is I am doing it to myself.)

So many of you all must surely relate to this feeling. How many more times will I take all of these feelings out of a box that I tucked away in a corner of the attic? How often? And when I get these random thoughts I can't hide it very well; she will know exactly what I am thinking and how I am feeling. That will trigger a shame spiral in her and then we just get stuck. So I find a way to go off on my own and feel what I am feeling. I do not allow myself to get stuck on these feelings too long (sometimes very difficult.)

I started recovering more quickly and successfully, partly when I think long and hard about the alternative, but mostly when I think about love, believe it or not. I am choosing to try to move past this because we have an otherwise functional marriage. I discarded many emotionally charged emblems (photos, letters, cards, emails, clothing, etc.) because I otherwise could get easily triggered every time I encountered them. It will never ever be the same. I will continue to get those feelings we all get, they come out of nowhere and are impossible to ignore.

Grieving, thank you for this.

"Any of those what ifs—or worse—could conceivably be true. When I got mired in them I acknowledge that, and then turn the focus in what I know about myself. First, I’m more aware/savvy than I used to be, and I think it’s likely I would notice something off. Second, I’m not in control of him, but I’m in control of me. I trust myself to handle anything that might come up; I’m much better prepared and equipped in that regard than I was before. And at the end of the day, I’m comfortable with myself and my values and choices. I’m operating in good faith and in keeping with my values. I’m living my life intentionally and pursuing what I feel is worthwhile and what makes me happy. I can rest in that, even when there’s a lot of scary what ifs out there."

This is a wonderful summary of where we all should aspire to be emotionally.