SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi, I am here because I desperately need to connect with people who understand the unfaithful perspective without judgment.

It has been almost 2 years since discovery. My marriage is currently ending in a highly contentious divorce. On the other side, my former AP is also married but it looks like his marriage will survive (idk!)

We haven’t had physical contact in almost two years, but we are completely stuck in an intermittent phone loop. Every time we speak, it feels like it resets my grief and withdrawal clock back to Day One.

I am mourning the loss of my marriage and simultaneously experiencing deep, disenfranchised grief for the AP.

I know the intermittent contact is keeping me trapped but the emotional pull feels impossible to break right now, especially with the stress of the divorce.

How did those of you who were deeply attached to your AP finally break the cycle for good? How did you navigate the grief of losing them while your life at home was unraveling?

Thank you for reading all of this and I am open to any and all advice. Please be kind; I am fragile. Thank you!

I'm probably not the best person to be advising you, Lost, so: I'm sorry in advance--but I didn't want you to have to go any further with no reply at all.

For my part, I haven't been able to break my bond with my OW. It has survived countless efforts to terminate the relationship--most recently (as of about 5 months ago), my OW declared our relationship "over"--nominally because she felt she couldn't trust me any longer and trust was the foundation of our friendship. We've actually adhered to a policy of NC ever since then because she took the decision largely out of my hands. However, I still ache for a day when my M has R'ed and my W (hopefully) will let me reconnect with my OW in safeguarded, bounded, and transparent friendship--salubriously ordered as inferior to my spousal relationship. That longing is one thing that arguably makes me a terrible role model at the moment.

What seems to have worked for many of the folks here is deciding that their AP didn't matter or merely afforded them a distraction or other fungible services or goods and/or that their AP was in some way manipulative or transactional or unpleasant or evil.

I don't have those "luxuries"; my OW mattered to me and still does. She changed my view of myself for the healthier. She wrote her name indelibly on my heart. My OW was sweet and compassionate. The wholeness of her person brought me joy. I've understood from her that she at least once felt likewise of me. However, if you truly want to empty your AP from your heart and move on, and you can follow the precedent set by others, I encourage you to do what works. AI LLMs have made all kinds of recommendations to me for strategies to help me "grieve" the loss of my OW so that the pain of her absence isn't so crushingly terrible. I have rejected those techniques. I prefer to soak in the sadness of the loss of my OW because it is my only connection back to her. Without my cultivating that pain, the intensity and frequency of my recollection of my OW would gradually diminish with increasing time. One day, I would think of my OW and realize I hadn't thought of her in a week... then in 2 weeks... then a month... then a year. Eventually, I would blithely accept the loss of her. I won't let that happen. Unless, that is, I return to her once more, solicit her friendship again, and she refuses me. Then, I will need every tool MS Copilot and ChatGPT and Claude etc. can throw at me to numb the pain and make myself forget how blessed were the days I shared with my OW.

I'm also a poor role model because I married the 2nd woman I dated as an adult. However, nothing helped me get over the pain of having been dumped by my first adult girlfriend like Bible reading and then meeting my 2nd girlfriend--the one who became my W.

I'm sorry you're hurting! I'm sorry for what your mistake has cost you. I wish you well!