Mind Movies and Rumination After Infidelity
Part of the trauma after infidelity is rumination. The endless mind movies reliving what you know and, worse, imagining what you don’t.
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I recently got a message on the Tell Me How You’re Mighty (Chump Lady podcast) site from “Luli” asking about mind movies after D-Day.
I was hoping you could do an episode on rumination. Why after a split due to infidelity when the wife knows there is no going back because she could never be with the cheater (and also the cheater doesn’t want them because they’re so in love with his affair partner) do we continue to ruminate?
Because it sucks, Luli.
infidelity is traumatic and rumination — or untangling the skein, as I call it — is a coping mechanism. You go over it again and again to process it. Not because you love misery, but because this shit was inflicted on you. You’re just trying to make sense of it.
Think of betrayal as a wall of pain.
Choose your metaphor — a tsunami of hurt, a giant elephant you can only eat a bite at a time – infidelity engulfs your whole nervous system. It swamps your boat. So naturally, it takes a long time to right the ship, scale the wall, eat the entire elephant…
Just because you get this person out of your life doesn’t mean you’re healed. Your once safe world feels suddenly unsafe. Who knew? Why didn’t they tell me? How long was I living a lie?
Rumination from infidelity should be expected because cheaters hide the truth from us.
Not only is being chumped traumatic, it’s an incredibly addictive brain puzzle. WHAT DON’T I KNOW? Oh, I’ll stay up until 3 a.m. and cross-reference the cell phone bills! I’ll stalk Schmoopie’s social media! Perhaps I should rewind the security camera footage?
No. This is why no contact — drop kicking that skein — is the fastest way to heal. Hey cheater, I don’t care who you were with, or what you’re doing now. I trust that you suck. No further analysis required.
But it’s agony at the beginning. So, subject of an upcoming podcast AND your Friday Challenge is:
How did you stop the ruminating and mind movies after infidelity?
Drugs? Snapping a rubber band? Exercise? Puppies and better boyfriends? What healed you?
You can leave me a voice message here. Sarah and I LOVE YOUR VOICE MESSAGES.
TGIF!
It took a while for me to remember what I did in 2015 and 2016 to stop ruminating. It was so traumatic and then the financial despair and court fight… I was so full of anxiety and couldn’t sleep for nearly a year. I was having anxiety attacks day and night. I lost over 25 pounds in a month. But… here’s what really helped:
* Friends stepped forward and took me on long walks
* I reconnected with a male friend in Australia and because of the time change, he’d chat with me by text or face time when I was wide awake at 2am. We didn’t do anything other than chat and he made me feel better. He was a chump too with his ex wife. But it also made me feel better to talk to a man and not feel so ugly
* I focused on my 9 year old son. The shittier FW was to our son, the less I ruminated because FW’s behavior made me see how evil he’d become (or always was?) and I wanted nothing to do with him anymore
* Therapy! I saw a therapist every week to work it out and that’s when I learned what a narcissist was
* I started drawing again
* I would visit my mom during the stages of grief. When I would be back at the bargaining stage and feel like I should beg FW back, I would go to mom’s condo and she’d let me sleep in the chair next to her. It helped a lot. She also helped me reframe it. She kept repeating “I hope FW and AP get married. AP will be so screwed. They deserve each other.” Eventually it sunk in and I saw it that way too.
* My hardest days were weekends when my son was with his dad. My son would call crying. FW started feeding him fast food all day to make him sick and he’d come back miserable and dysregulated. I started to just make those free weekend days better for me… sometimes meeting with friends. I also bought a DVD of the first Dead Pool movie and had “naked Dead Pool night” — I literally planned a night to watch the movie alone — naked under a blanket and curled up in a chair. Just a bizarre way to make myself laugh. Naked Dead Pool night still makes me laugh thinking about it.
* I worked hard on my court crap. So much discovery and financials to fill out. It left little time for much else.
* I started a part time job. I needed the money but it also helped keep me busy and interact with people
It all takes time. I think the just year was by far the hardest. After my divorce was final I started dating. All The ruminating finally ended probably in about 3 years. It took being fully divorced and financially more stable to get there.
““naked Dead Pool night” — I literally planned a night to watch the movie alone — naked under a blanket and curled up in a chair.”
The sheer genius of this! I’ll be stealing this idea for the rest of my life! It just so happens tonight will be Naked Movie Night
You reminded me, I did walk, a lot. I mean long walks right after I got home from work. I am betting those walks helped a lot. I was always a walker, even as a teen, but I was walking even more going through that.
I’m a walker too, on any excuse. Clears my head, serves as therapy for old knee injuries and I usually run into people in our neighborhood who distract and cheer me up. But for awhile I think I wasn’t very unapproachable because, as a friend chided, I looked like one of the “White Walkers” from GOT lol. Tall, pallid, very underweight and leaving a trail of ice in my wake. The pale eyes probably didn’t help, especially when bloodshot and with raccoon circles from chronic insomnia.
Oh well, so I scared small dogs but kept at it until I started feeling incrementally healthier and stronger. People where we live most of the year are so friendly and humorous they generally poke and prod you out of doldrums.
I think I managed to get out of the “rumination cycle” by:
LFTT
Should have added that I worked this out with the help of a very good therapist.
LFTT
Not yet.2.5 years since D day..2x chumped since #1 and #2 cheaters. BUT it helps to have humility and gratitude for now..knowing I was fooled, tricked, used, hurt and damaged by who I thought loved me. I cannot keep blaming myself for what I could not see with my forgive all glasses. My gift to myself is BOUNDARIES that still love but say STOP AND NO MORE. Letting go of Switzerland people and other creepy people that my gut says No to. Listrnjng to my gut and mind NOW. Re renewing my original love for this beautiful person, me. So forgiveness of myself for my injury and moving on with HOPE and mighty for my future.. to be a light for others who are walking the road I got off of.
Your advice has been invaluable for me and I suspect more than a few others.
Thank you x
Oh Bluewren, that was kind and very appreciated. We are all in this together.
One act of defiance to halt my brain was, as soon as my divorce was over last years,I bought my tomb stone and picked my ground spot- I am 72 soo…. ( the X and I had disagreed on everything at the end)
I then had the stone Mason chisel on the front…..AND SHE LIVED HAPPILY EVER AFTER…
I’d show you a photo but it has my full name and verses of peace on it, plus my love for family inscribed on the other side of the stone.
I think of that as my final good- bye to my X as..I WILL ABSOLUTELY live happily from now on,no matter what happens …, especially being sooo grateful to be free of living with his abuse. No one can take that peace from me.
I started doing the things I had wanted to do and couldn’t do when I was with him. Three months in I moved to a city I had lived in before and wanted to live in again. I have a virtual job and can live anywhere, and he couldn’t. Planning the logistics of that and then finding myself in just a totally different environment helped stop the mind movies.
While not everyone can move, of course, just getting new experiences and new visuals into your head help stop the repetition of the old ones. Go to different grocery stores, find a different park to walk the dog in, see a movie, visit a family member or a friend for a weekend and tell them ahead of time you’re just not going to talk about it. Create new visuals and new movies to replace the old ones. XOXO.
“I started doing the things I had wanted to do and couldn’t do when I was with him.”
Yes, in my experience this helps. Upon leaving FW I was able to live in an area FW had refused to live in, which is my dream neighborhood. I do think new experiences are helpful to jolt you out of ruminating.
One thing that helped me a lot was seeing just who these people were….they were horrid. Alcoholics, criminals, worn out, used up losers who couldn’t have healthy relationships. Some were married, some were single, oddly-they were all bigger gals (he always thought I was too slim and fit–wanted more “meat”)-and then I looked at some of the countless places he took these awful people. If it was a place I was interested in going, I went, recaptured it,owned it, and enjoyed it. Like George’s in La Jolla, Bistro Cacao in DC, Cheers in Boston, etc. (Many were scuzzy dive bars; I recall walking into a dark, little beer-drinking place called Granville Moore, I think–some drunk at the bar immediately hit on me and I walked out)-and I also recall going into the bathroom at a gay bar he went to a few times w/a bisexual prostitute in Northern VA and being propositioned—these places were not for me and I didn’t linger. But I had a great road trip in Northern CA, beaches, Monterey, Sausalito. And a wonderful trip through Boston,New Hampshire, beaches, dining, Maine seacoat. Went with the kids to a fun night at the Arlington Cinema and Drafthouse, the National Zoo,Mt Vernon, lots of parks, and on and on. Nothing remained special to him and any of his many betrayal objects. I (with friends and family) enjoyed,laughed, and owned as we wanted. It was fun, funny and healing. And now, he and what he did and all the crude people he did those things with, well..they are in the rear view mirror. They are both laughable and pathetic. I took back my life and don’t have to be connected with that low, sick part of society any longer. It is quite freeing. Has been a few years and I am in my 70s, so for younger gals with kids at hme, it can be different. But whatever you can do to make your life better, do it! The FW and the garbage they cheated with are not worthy of your time and efforts. Learn and live that, and all will follow. Happy to support and encourage you!!
It was after D-Day2 that I started realizing that he truly sucked. FW wanted the divorce so bad by then and yet fought everything. Why? Because he did not want consequences or to split assets. He thought he was entitled to everything and I deserved nothing. It did not work!! What helped me:
When I think about it now, I am amazed that I made it through all of it! I think Chumps are definitely resilient and we come out of this with greater strength and wisdom. Do I still think about it? Yes. When I do , I think about how well life is going now and how grateful I am for the peace that followed all that stress and trauma.
For all new chumps, you can do this. You will survive and thrive. It won’t happen in an instant but you will get through and the pain does not last forever. Chumps are mighty, strong and resilient!!!!
Honestly I was too exhausted surviving, I had to work my job did save me I think. Had I been unemployed and had to go to work at two or three part time jobs it would have been unimaginable. Yes I worked part time, but I also had my full time job. It was basically minimum wage, but when you added in security of a job and health insurance it was a blessing.
I didn’t really think a lot about it until years later when he and wife/whore started making my sons life miserable. I did some ruminating then, but I had also found CL and was able to put some comedy and reality into it.
It also helped me early on, that when I started dating, (a year after he left) fw stalked my guy, by driving by his apartment a few times. And he came by and tried to question me about it, like it was any of his dammed business. He asked me to come see his apartment, that was a big “I have no interest in that” response from me. In real time I thought it was funny, I guess I still think of it as funny. Funny funny, and funny odd.
My ex started reaping the consequences of his actions on the job fairly quickly, and it was public knowledge that he was whoring around with his direct report, so I do honestly think that helped me see that he wasn’t going to skate away in bliss. But if he had just taken his medicine and straightened himself up, he still would have been ok, but he spiraled into a life of bad decisions.
Maybe he was happy with that chaos though, who knows. I know it would have been horrible for me to live in it.
After my ex left, I did both therapy and spiritual coaching. Different people with different purposes, and BOTH called out my rumination.
The therapist taught me a variety of mindfulness exercises.
She also suggested yoga nidra. I found a recording on YouTube that met my preferences and ran through the sequence every night before going to bed to calm my thoughts. When we were still in the family house before it sold, that helped me disassociate from the memories there.
Then, the spiritual coach had me set a timer and write down all of my thoughts and frustrations about my ex for a time. When the timer went off, I gave it to God and walked away.
I ended up staying in the same town but found that replacing memories associated with certain locations did the trick. So, I took friends out to certain restaurants and did things alone with my kids. It’s been long enough now that some of the roads have changed, and certain places have been remodeled, so that helps, too. My ex lives in another state, so no worries about running into him.
I still deal with this at times. It’s much better than it used to be though and it’s usually not about my ex at all. It’s about the other people, the ones I thought were friends or family. That’s why I had to cut everybody out. I kept getting smacked with new info about what was happening and I could not heal. Even now, I cut out everyone and blocked everyone and I still occasionally get hit in the face with something. I’m almost five years out and it still just happened last month because there was so much betrayal for so long. It’s exhausting.
But it’s so much better than it would have been if I had tried to keep those people. Going out to lunch and hearing “well, he and his girlfriend look happy” or “you can’t just never talk to him again.” was not helping me. I had to get away from that.
After telling 2 girlfriends all the details and crying my eyes out…both their husband’s kept contact with X and mentioned how happy he looked..so much better now. I had to cut thrm out after 30 years as friends??!!!. If their husband’s were gushing, the wives could not be close to me anymore. That is so sad to find out the truth of shallow friends after so long.
It’s been a while, but the things that helped me the most were:
Therapy (it took me four tries to find the right person, but she helped me so much)
Watching hundreds of YouTube videos on narcissitic abuse (which helped me realized it wasn’t me)
Screaming along to angry music in the car
Antidepressants (I was severely underweight because I couldn’t eat, and suffered from insomnia and panic attacks. It’s impossible to think and plan when you have brain fog)
Taking action to improve my life (I made a plan to pay off my debts, I worked with my attorney on the divorce, I applied for a promotion at work [and got it]).
Time.
But mostly it was filling my life up with good things. The good things that I wanted that FW tried to take from me. Hobbies I’d given up. Friends I’d lost contact with. Being there for my son. Eventually the good things crowded out the bad. I’d get to the end of the day and realize I hadn’t thought about FW and OW all day. I hadn’t cried. Slowly my music playlist changed from songs of anger and loss to songs of power and hope. I didn’t feel the need to watch those YouTube videos any longer. Slowly I found who I was again, and I realized I liked the new me a lot better than the person I had been before.
Yes, yelling and playing loud music got me through several rough periods when I had a lot of routine separation/divorce tasks.
And I agree that as you fill your life with good things, that centers you. Most of my good friends are new friends, and they are amazing. My kids are grown now, and they both actually like me because I transitioned well into a parent of adult kids who have their own lives. I never did get in the way of them having a relationship with their father. They chose on their own not to.
5.5 years out, and in spite of weekly therapy, I still ruminate when triggered. I haven’t seen the ex in person since March 2020, and last saw his face online in mediation in July 2020. It was not a pretty note on which to end, but hey ho. I am strictly no contact. The one or two mutual friends I still see love me and know never to mention him. Sometimes they want to do so (because they have karma stories) but I always shut the conversation down immediately. However, I was sent down a rabbit hole only yesterday when his name came up on my Linked In home page in relation to a work anniversary in a job that I encouraged him to take and supported him in whilst he was struggling to adapt. Before I could click to another page, I saw lots of likes, and celebrate, and love icons. The ex’s image management was always impressive and most people think that we ‘drifted apart’ and not that he ran off with his exgf from school. I had 10 minutes or so of sorrowful overthinking. And then I said ‘STOP’ to myself and gave myself some compassion. My life is much better and I am so happy in my single life at age 65. But, there is a part of me that still wants to rub the idiot’s nose in my survival and thriving. That’s what my rumination is about; never getting that satisfaction. I have no doubt that he knows how I’m doing as we operate in the same professional sphere. There’s no need for me to tell him! I really believe that the only way to stay on level ground is to be no contact or grey rock and to keep curiosity in check.
Yeah, I’m with you. Still triggered after all these years (hat tip to Paul Simon).
It’s a trauma response. These cheaters don’t realize the damage they cause. My ex insisted he made only “one mistake” and lied (repeatedly for 3 years) about “only one thing” for “only one reason.” That’s like telling the judge in your arson trial that you only lit one match on that one gas tank.
This minimizing makes me crazy.
Intellectually, I know that dwelling on any of the upsetting past events obviously doesn’t help. It’s a fruitless attempt to adjust the lens on the way-back video camera, trying desperately to put it in focus so I can see what was really happening when I thought something else was going on. A fool’s errand, I know.
And I try to stop myself.
I’ve “gained a life” (yay!) and am generally happy, but damned if that cheating ex doesn’t pop up ever so often.
To my fellow chumps who still experience triggers and rumination, I think what’s needed a little self-compassion ((hugs)).
I think it’s okay to be curious as long as you aren’t invested anymore. There has to be distance. I like occasionally hearing stories about FW’s life now because they are amusing. However, if I gave the slightest bit of a damn about him or about whether or not he knows anything about my life or cares about it, I would ask people to stop telling me these stories.
Same. A few years out, completely no contact, now I’m 70. I still get triggered every so often but he’ll never know. Like you said, he’ll never have the satisfaction of knowing how much he damaged me. Karma will come for him one day, I’m sure of it but I stay in my lane.
Yes 72 here…so much heart ache, but with no connection to my former couple friends I hope to forget more as the years go by.
We really had no couple friends, as a true narcissist, not only did he not have friends, I stopped having any of mine, too. He tried hard to put a wedge between me and my son and ALMOST succeeded but thank goodness he lost that one.
Oh not your son!! I hope you are good now!
Yeah, that’s the one thing he couldn’t harm. He was so jealous of our relationship, always was. But when he tried to get me to not go to my son’s wedding by creating drama, that wasn’t going to happen. He ruined the day for me, though, that’s for sure, just like a true narcissist. Now he’s a ghost, no one will see him or talk to him or let him near the grandkids-he’s toxic. I hope blowing up his family was worth it to him, but maybe we were all just so easily replaced that he doesn’t care. I have no idea.
It’s sad to even think that but I don’t believe my X can miss me or anything about our 32 years together. I don’t believe he has the ability to love so he would only miss what I DID for him, not my love or our emotional lives together ..he could not bond and that got more obvious as his basement expanded. He was also jealous of my hamster 🐹!!! So he was jealous of my time with anything..with anything I did with my children, with grandchildren. He wanted me available to him at anytime but he had no desire to meet my needs at all. I was easily replaced by an online woman who moved right in from California to mid America ..so no, he does not miss me. Old is out, new anything is in. Horrible day or not, you got to the wedding and made memories and pictures..you did so well. It takes so much effort to keep going when you live with this. So I raise my glass to all of is who push through the crazy and still live powerful lives
Having clarity now, no longer in the fog, really helps to make sense of the mental abuse. Mine had one move from Florida to CA, the soulmate who loved to prey on married men. Good luck to them all with their toxic inability to truly bond. Yes, I went to the wedding and I also see the grandkids regularly so I’m the winner. I have a soul, I’m not a sociopath dark triad.
We can feel and love and bond. This, the abuser can never know. Tenderness, respect for others, never know. So much staring into the emptiness of their souls. They can never be free as I am
Wise words. However, every once in a while it upsets me that THEY won’t ever feel any pain for the pain they caused. It’s like he just got to destroy me and walk away like it was nothing, to move to another city and more holes to penetrate who don’t know what he did.
My friend, I know there is a God of justice because I have a soul that craves justice and is angered without it. This is not religion, this is my comfort…to know both my Xs who tried to destroy me, will get what they truly deserve for their horrific actions. Not my justice
but a bigger wider justice. Others believe in Karma, which is actually not enough for me. I believe my Xs will feel at that time and understand what they did to me without feeling. In this I find peace and I can let go. I know this space is not for the discussion of God punishment or judgment..but it is a spot for what helps us move on after such evil actions to do harm and hurt innocent young children in the process forever and destroy my family lineage. Thank you for hearing me on this one point that imports steel into my spine, keeps me mighty and allows God to take it from here.
What I feel is that, regardless of religion or not, what they did to innocents like us MUST be judged from a higher power. It was so life altering, such a shock, that it almost killed me. As I fell on the floor in literal medical shock, throwing up from the horribly mean things he said to me, showing how long he must have hidden the intense hatred he had for me that he never showed until that day, his blue eyes turned black and hard and cold and that was proof for me that he wasn’t even human at those times. He left me sobbing on the floor to call his new soulmate.
Becoming Shakti…those solid black staring eyes I know. It is frightening beyond words. Like looking at a dark entity that is NOT human. Whatever that is, it is far away now and I am safe. My whole heart goes out to you in such suffering. Intense and so terrible. I hope you are truly safe and growing in peace. Let the freeze another heart because they cannot love. Hold on to the light. Don’t let that evil persons actions live in you disturbing your beautiful heart. We need pure love to win in the end
Thank you for your beautiful words. I’m making progress, I hope we all are. #love
My ex was a part-time preacher. Every time I hear someone read from the King James Version, I go there. Sigh.
For this I am sorry! Wow!!
I asked a therapist friend if the triggers will ever stop and she said that the reality is that after 30 years of marriage that ended in the most horrific way, the trauma and damage will diminish but there will probably always be triggers and the goal is to learn how to manage them and not to let them overcome my life and paralyze me. SIGH.
20 years of marriage, 30 of a relationship. One of mien said the same- I had a few!! And I did other modalities, anything ,I tried anything, Reiki, etc,,–and it’s true. I am 10 years out from him, but I reaubsued with other men until 3 and 1/2 years ago. I think I truly thought I was garbage and had no sense of self, until recently. It is good to be free, mostly free! Scarred, but free.
I went out with a couple men, not looking to be a nurse or a purse for ANYONE. It IS good to be free with strong boundaries. Stay strong!
35 years for me. This makes sense.
Like half my life was wasted. So sad.
32 years and she has to be right. That long sinks into the DNA..Triggers are always there for me. I think to shorten them is the key
My trauma therapist said the same. It’s rare now, but still there.
“I can’t stop thinking about him!”
Here’s the mental exercise my therapist gave me: Imagine your stop sign.
You start with a traffic stop sign. You place it–a real one? or an imaginary corner? Mine was the bottom of his street, where I would turn to join the main road.
You fill in detail. Are there flowers? Is there grass? What does the sign look like? (By the time I was done, mine was spangled, tie-dyed, and lit up like a circus).
When the unbidden thoughts came, I would think of my stop sign. Picture it. Add more detail. And…after a moment or two my thoughts were able to drift on to something new.
I suppose it creates a kind of mental discipline that enables you to turn your mind to another direction. Happy to pass it on.
Neuroplasticity. It really works.
I did mini EMDR (eye movement desensitizing reprogramming). Yes you can see a therapist for that but I did it on myself (see YouTube or books). Whenever I started ruminating, I would move my eyes rapidly side to side. It helps dial it down, allowing for other thoughts to pop in my head & then I could go on with my day. I don’t need to use it as much anymore. But it definitely works!
I just tried that- brilliant!
Thank you ☺️
❤️
4 main things helped me.
1) Medications, especially a prescription sleeping pill that helped me stay asleep all night. Nighttime was when the unbidden rumination was the worst, and I was unable to sleep well those first few months until I got an as-needed sleeping aid.
2) Listening to lots and lots of music.
3) Seeing a trauma informed therapist and doing EMDR.
4) Lots of learning from podcasts and YouTube channels. The more I understood from the experts about these personality and character disordered types like my ex, the less I ruminated to try to make sense of it all.
Im an interesting specimen on this topic because I did it really BADLY…made nearly every mistake.
I ruminated to a pathological degree – which is one reason I have been on the slow curve of healing for 20 years (this mid April).
He was a really mean person with bizarre waves if increased meanness that came to our marriage when there weren’t issues in our marriage causing discord. (I now see the hard marriage times as when he likely had active adultery partners).
So being married to a baseline mean person, I was always healing from something, but in April of 2005, he sat me down and told me he was divorcing me because I was a “bad wife” and have me a 2 hour lecture on all my faults. He told me it was for sure and there was no one else then ask if he could stay a few weeks to get logistics straight.
Oh the mistakes I made were legion …I let him stay, I pick-me-danced, I kept his secrets, I blamed myself… I stuck my toe into therapy but they wanted me to see all of my reality that very second when I was not even a little ready so I ran like a timid forest creature.
For the better part of a year, I thought of nothing else…my mind was 95% ruminating and 5% trying to handle all of life’s details.
My mind knew (yet rejected) the idea of actual sex with him and Susan of Seattle, by biggest issue was: was he kind to her? Did he walk next to her or bolt ahead? Did he share bathroom mirrors like to lovesick puppies or did he act like he resented her taking space (like he did me).
Very strangely, the PIV sex (with Susan or the myriad of women before her that he likely cheated with) isnt something I dwell on as much as one might think…perhaps because by the time I knew there were others and I was no longer in denial about sex with Susan, he was dead and any memory of juicy orgasms he might have had were buried with him.
My rumination of choice was generally “How could the have been so mean?” and it took me finding CL to admit that “He simply WAS THAT mean”. I kept thinking of him as a misguided nice guy who lost his shit every now and again. I now see him as a serial abuser who had an occasional moment of decency which didnt last long. He acted mean and selfish because he was mean and selfish.
The tragic part is that I learned of his serial cheating just a few weeks before my wedding to a great guy and my newfound knowledge took up more brain space than it should have based on the fact I finally had the love I had wanted for decades.
So yea, I did take walks and was kind to myself but I ended my ruminating the worst way…by simple attrition of time. I wish better for you.
This is me. Thank you for sharing.
I got the “what a rotten wife” lectures too. I’d just shut down emotionally (hello, trauma response) and couldn’t reply. He even diagnosed me with all kinds of mental disorders and claimed he “had” to flee the marriage. Then also, how could he be so mean?
I didn’t find CL until I was post-divorce, but I was very much at meh when I found out that the judge had signed off. Therapy and a twelve-step group put me back together. I also had such a solid attorney who gave me so much more than the law. He often threw in things like, “From my chair, you are a pleasant, reasonable person who doesn’t deserve this.” At the signing, he told me that at some point, down the roadk I should consider dating because I had a lot to offer. That meant a lot.
I am so glad I put it all together again.
there are a number of things that helped me over the past 4 years:
i think it’s good to find outlets for the mind movies, and i’m a writer. a couple of years ago during nano-wrimo i wrote out 1/3 of a murder mystery, not my typical genre. i write literary fiction, you know, slow-moving stories with character development, the ones that no one reads anymore? but i started a murder mystery then i signed up for screenwriting classes at UCLA, and wrote that partial murder mystery into a complete screenplay with a fucking 3-ACT structure.
readers, i killed a bad man in my screenplay, and it was gory as fuck, and also deeply satisfying. also i learned a new form of story. it was a lotta work!
i doubt i’ll write about love again.
i will say that when my head is full of fiberglass memories of the X i usually try to burn something. i find is EXTREMELY HELPFUL. i think it’s because i’m concrete when i’m stuck in mind movies/games/fucks, and burning something symbolic works–it’s like it snaps me out of it.
Love this. I am a writer and just sold something where I brutally kill off a man and during the editing process, I talked about a violent dream/night terror (I had many for a long long time) where I actually murdered him and I told it with shame and fear, and my. therapist’s eyes became wide and said, you’ve changed. It was one of the best moments. And since then… things are better. Ever totally free of the pain? No. But there is progress. and it gets better. Time. and the work, and forgiving myself. It’s ongoing. I love it here. Wish I had found it sooner.
I’m another die hard Adrienne fan- I love her yoga sessions.
She’s done me so much good, bless her.
– I gave myself time limits to have Ex-free thoughts in my head and built that up over time. 10 min today I’m not going to think about him / divorce. 20 min. 45 min. An hour. Finally I got to the point where a half day would go by and I hadn’t thought about him. Then full days. It took practice.
– showing up and being present for my kids, they never stop needing a sane parent
– running – I used to hate running, but after D-day I started really running (often crying and running at the same time). I still run.
– talking to my parents and my brother and friends. I am so grateful for their patience as I processed it all.
I wish I could say I’m sleeping well and no longer up at 3 am, but honestly I am all the time, it’s just not thinking about the affair anymore – I KNOW he sucks. I’ve been divorced 8 years now (after 15 years of marriage), I’m remarried and have a wonderfully chaotic blended family, and my ex is still who he is – which means I’m in court every 3-6 months (we’ve basically never stopped being in court) – he wants to fight and to win and I am enemy #1. It is exhausting. Can we just blast them all to planet FW somewhere? 🤪
Surely we can hire people to round them all up as a job lot , throw them into some ramshackle rocket and bin them off to be space junk.
If we all split the cost it should be doable 😆
Space junk can return to earth 🌎..we don’t want that!!!
Some months in, my wonderful attorney asked if I had ever considered murder. I knew by then that he was 100% engaged and trustworthy. He also had a wicked sense of humor, so I laughed and said YES!
He said, “Good, you’re normal. But speaking as your attorney, don’t do it. Stop those thoughts! Believe me, the stories I could tell…”
We both cracked up.
Haha! Love it! I did not have the best lawyers, even if one of them tried hard…I’ve been representing myself for the past 5 years.
I used to wish my ex got an amazing job in Abu Dhabi that he just couldn’t turn down and would have to move far far away. Ya know, maybe if I was wishing something “good” instead of the burning in hell that he deserves, karma would deliver?? LOL.
My attorney was just such an incredible human being along with being one of the top attorneys in my metropolitan area. He actually charged less than some of the powerhouses, and then he’d sometimes say, “I don’t feel like charging you today. Don’t argue with me.” Then he’d bust up laughing. His retirement date (set months before) actually fell on the day after the judge signed off. How appropriate!
Yes, I’m very fortunate that my ex lives many states away. The kids (now adults) haven’t seen him since he packed up and left, and the last I ever saw him was just over six months after that, when he came to get the last of his stuff. He kicked off the divorce a little less than a year later, all long distance.
Therapy helped as well as an excellent attorney who wouldn’t let me give in to any of the mind games. Also listening to binaural beats on my headphones when I couldn’t sleep, I went to a Reiki and a shamanic healer, I practiced neuroplasticity to rewrite the stories in my head, meditating, hiking. working out, hours upon hours of videos about narcissists and cheating spouses, CL. I tried everything.
During an interview Johnny Carson did with Roy Rogers, Carson asked him how he handled so much misery: The death of his first wife at 26, his daughter getting killed in a church bus wreck, and the two Marines arriving to inform him of the death of his military son overseas.
Roy Rogers stated that he realized everyone he meets daily is dealing with “something” and the greatest gift he can give everyone is a smile and kind word.
That’s basically how I handled everything when I was at my lowest. I still give those gifts to everyone 10 years later.
This! I still and always try to find a moment in a day to be kind to someone, to make them have a good moment in the day- the check out person at a deli, a friend, etc…- and that is what gives meaning to dopamine hit. giving kindness. I recently got a thank you from a woman going through divorcing her awful husband and directed her here. And it made me happy.
I try to remember this, too.
The ruminating was worst for me while driving. I drive quite a bit, between commuting to work and seeing clients. So much of the music I loved was too triggering. That’s when I got into audiobooks! Forcing my brain to absorb something new helped the old, repeating stuff from replaying on a loop. It was also a comfortable way for me to dive into some self-help topics while I had moved back home for a few months. For the days when I didn’t have the mental energy to pay attention to a book while driving, but still needed to turn the thoughts off? I used a rubber band to snap on my wrist, then I’d force myself to think of something else. I’d usually start trying to recall the weather forecast, then move on to other news stories I’d read. It feels awkward at first, fighting against the old neural pathways, but it worked for me. Exercise and going out to new places, trying new things helped with novelty to distract me and make new connections in the brain. Journaling before bed was where I’d pour out the thoughts I was ruminating on. It takes time, but with some effort, new stuff can lessen the power of the old stuff.
I just remember how cold and unaffected he was. The veil had fallen and I realized I had been conned. It was that simple. It’s not that I don’t dwell on other things — a life alone raising my kid, the loss of my reality…but I knew what he was (a shitty human being), so to let go of that whole thing ever being viable was not the hard part.
Gallows humor sometimes saves the day.
I don’t have full blown eidetic memory like my mother and daughter but it’s still like I have an entire film studio in my head which, in the wake of traumatic experiences, produces graphic technicolor acid flashbacks or horrible imagined scenarios. But what I found was that, even if I couldn’t always stop the intrusive thoughts, at least I could alter them for my own amusement.
For instance, when suffering through disgusting head films based on things FW admitted to in the “full disclosure” part of the RIC fiasco– like how the AP liked to sit her massive arse on his stupid face– I suddenly remembered a comic actor I knew who had a kind of sporting gross-out competition going with members of his posh family. The winning story was the time his brother and SIL both developed an intestinal bug while traveling and tried to have sex. BIL and SIL apparently loved to recount the gory details of how that worked out at formal family dinners. So, from then on, the two vignettes automatically melded and I couldn’t think of the sitting-on-face scenario without imagining the AP explosively shitting the cheesy hotel bed and in FW’s mouth. And voila, an intrusive horror head film turned into a gross-out gag reel.
Better yet, I once blurted out the reedited intrusive image to FW and then he couldn’t get it out of his head. Nyah nyah, return to sender.
That’s another of my head-film/memory editing tactics: lacing traumatic victimization experiences with minor non-criminal pranks that, instead of causing lifespan-shortening panic attacks, make me laugh every time I recall them. Like FW will never know that, right after D-day and at the height of his intense secret porn “addiction,” I replaced all his Viagra (which he’d painstakingly transferred into unmarked capsules so the AP would never know he had alcoholic, porn-induced ED) with magnesium citrate which clearly threw him into a tailspin. I still crack up when I remember the look on his face as he emerged from the bathroom, phone in hand, looking all pale, confused and haunted with existential “mannliche angst.” Then when he assumed he had a dud batch and tried to renew the script through our family physician, our doctor– who had just arranged a battery of STD screenings for me when she learned about the cheating– planted another prank in the middle of this horror show by refusing to renew the prescription. She wouldn’t explain why but flashed a demure little smile when asked.
I think the best prank was not correcting FW’s paranoid fear that “everyone at work” and the whole local industry knew about and were snickering over the affair because it had been one of his and the AP’s former colleagues who blew the whistle anonymously. But, though I knew the the guy’s former job title and a few other bits that might have identified him, I kept my promise to never divulge and only referred to the dime-dropper as a mysterious “they.” Not technically a lie because, as far as I understood, it was a small handful of people who caught wind but they were very uncomfortable with the knowledge. They were also being cautious about gossiping to avoid being called to testify in any ensuing lawsuits whether divorce proceedings or hostile workplace/favoritism suits which had been the buzz before the AP moved to another firm. But, oops, I kept all that to myself.
I also never mentioned that I’d hired a PI to gather more hard facts after getting the initial report. The lack of specifics about the source coupled with the sheer amount of detail I knew made FW and the AP assume the worst– that they were laughing stocks. Both reportedly became grim and isolated at their respective jobs, angrily blamed each other and everyone else for the breach and the AP apparently accused all her fellow barfly friends which is actually what blew the lid off the gossip. While I ate popcorn.
Anyway, I’m not sure whether or not the comic “reengineering” of events and memories really shortened the duration of trauma flashbacks but it did change the way intrusive thoughts affected me. I totally agree with Mr. CL’s “if it feels good, don’t do it”… except when it’s minor, provides some yuks and there’s little chance of getting found out. 😉
“So, from then on, the two vignettes automatically melded and I couldn’t think of the sitting-on-face scenario without imagining the AP explosively shitting the cheesy hotel bed and in FW’s mouth. And voila, an intrusive horror head film turned into a gross-out gag reel.
Better yet, I once blurted out the reedited intrusive image to FW and then he couldn’t get it out of his head. Nyah nyah, return to sender.”
😆☠️
I should have put a content warning on that one lol.
I am getting better with it 18 months out now. It still happens in moments of weakness (just passed what would have been our anniversary…was not a Mighty day for me.)
It gets easier but never quite easy.
If I had to break down into components:
-Accepting the Ultimate Truths from the ruminations-you come to the point in your healing journey where regardless of what revelations you have come to in your “head movies” that you accept that what happened a) is not your fault, b) not something you deserved, c) that the person you loved willingly hurt you worse than you have ever been hurt and would do it again, and most importantly d) you, your happiness, and your soul MATTER or else you wouldn’t hurt so much. That was what the meta-analysis of all of my “well, but what if’s…” brought me to after some intense soul searching.
–Radical Acceptance/”You are Here”-No matter what we think about what happened, no matter how often we found that were right and they were wrong (or all of the ways that we “deserved” it), or rage at the injustice of it all (what we are owed, the inequality of it all, that we got used/played), nothing is going to make us feel safe with or trust that person the way that we want ever again.
–Give Yourself Permission to Feel-One of things that has held me back greatly is that for a long time I was still in the abuse mindset where I was so used to being wrong, so used to being invalidated and gaslit and made to feel that my emotions were wrong and invalidated that I would often stop myself short of really…experiencing my emotions and letting it “play out” to the conclusion. I felt very…dirty for being angry because my fuckwit would come down hard on that(because in truth: she knew I had every right to be and it was easier to abuse me than to face down her own inadequacies.) Dreams and intrusive thoughts are often enough what we keep choked down. I got a lot better about my ruminations and “what-ifs”
–Grab your self-hate by the throat-I mean it. Get aggressive with your negative self-talk. In the business, we call it “thought stopping.” The tool I used to give kids and teens works just as well for us Chumps: if you feel yourself going down the rabbit hole, visualize a stop sign (the red octagon in these parts.) This introduces what I like to call a cognitive interupt to cyclical thinking. When I practice this (have done it twice today about other things, ahem), I will even verbally say “I am not thinking about that idiot today. I am not letting her hurt me anymore.” Assert control over the darkness. You will be surprised how it answers.
–Get it out of you and into the world-At least for me, the source of my rumination came from keeping everything repressed out of my own feelings of shame, self-doubt, and low self-esteem as well as the belief that I would be pretty automatically insulted, judged, and invalidated(and no, that wasn’t all put there by her-she sure as hell didn’t do those things any favors-yet another reason I remain No Contact). I talk about it in therapy. I talk about it here. Hell, I’m 140 journal pages and two completed novels in about it.
And one last one I’ve had a lot of success with lately and probably not for everybody…but suppose for a second that once you’ve been single for a while and are unsure of yourself and full of anxiety about what to do next and your impulses get the better of you and you happen to ask somebody completely out of your league out for coffee. And to your bewilderment, for everything about you that was supposed to be so easy to betray and so easy to hurt and so unlovable about you and how impossible that YOU are to be around that…say…you get a very enthusiastic “yes!”
Have a Fuckwit Free Friday!
I am here for reading things like this. Thank you!
This is excellent advice. So how did the coffee date go?
I hope it went well.
I’m big on coffee dates. Not much at stake, and at the very least, you get a cup of coffee. I haven’t gone beyond that yet, but who knows.
Thank you both for the words of encouragement. Figured I owed you both an update-It hasn’t happened yet. It turns out she works about as much as I do. But we’re talking and it’s turned me into a stuttering kid again. Haven’t felt this way in a long time.
Enjoy! At the very least, you’re taking a step that will challenge you in good ways.
“How did you stop the ruminating and mind movies after infidelity?”
Oh! Was I supposed to try to stop them? Almost 5 years post D-Day and I am not done. Not entirely anyway. I’m sure some of that is my divorce isn’t final yet..but it is ALMOST final. I am only “low” vs no contact, as we have kids.
His AP has an online business, I occasionally look at her site. I am not sure why, obviously I know why I looked the FIRST time, curiousity is a beast. But I check it out every once in awhile to see if there is anything new, but it hasn’t changed since I first saw it, and it’s not juicy at all. There is a head shot, and some bad and fruit loopy writing. I already knew she was an average looking fruit loop. I suspect with a little more time, probably fairly quickly, I will stop even checking.
I think maybe I am lucky in that she was long distance. So in the years he was cheating, it was very limited how often he could even have seen her in person. And she isn’t someone I knew, or someone nearby. So there isn’t much for me to torment myself with.
The “funny” part is that they didn’t work out, and once we separated he eventually found a new gf that he has beIen with since. Not an AP, so no reason for me to have any bad feelings towards her. I mostly don’t. But I am very curious about her and as embarrassed as I am to admit it, I think I ruminate more re: her than I ever did about the AP!
I’ve tried to figure out why that is.
For one, she is local. She is real. He is dating her in his real life vs the affair that was a secret and lived across the country. He MAY have told his sibling about the affair, or may not have even told that one person. But the new gf has met his family. It’s just a very different thing.
I think maybe since she is who he actually moved on with THAT is what fuels my curiousity.
Strangely, I think I more or less have mastered “trust they suck”. I do not want him back. He wasn’t just a cheater, he was also abusive in other ways, getting out of this marriage because of his affair was like a “get out of jail free” card. I may never have left otherwise.
I don’t think he is going to be magically better for her. He’ll wear his mask util he doesn’t, but that same FW will be under there.
So I am not sure why I am so curious. Things pop into my brain and I dismiss them. And it’s not all the time, but i’dlike it to be never. Maybe I am just waiting for Tuesday. “Meh-Adjacent”.
For me, I don’t think the rumination will completely go away, even if I eventually find someone new, or maybe not 100% (I’ll settle for 99%) because it is such an egregious, planned assault that attacks you from every angle, which is why it is so repugnant to have that done to you by someone you love and trust deeply.
Having said that, I finally realized one day (and this took 2 years to get to this point and only when I stopped the RIC bullshit and found Tracy’s book and this community) that I did nothing wrong and that he sucks, not me, and that I did nothing wrong to deserve what I got. Nothing I could say or do would deserve such abhorrent treatment. I did nothing but love and support this person, through 30 years of him losing jobs, homes, cars, disappearing acts, and finally, cheating on me, and I still stood by him, only to be betrayed. I did right, HE did WRONG.
So when I would have these bad feelings and thoughts that would creep in, and they still do in much less degree of severity, I always remind myself that I didn’t do anything wrong and didn’t deserver that, and then I do something nice for myself, like color in my adult coloring books, do some embroidery work, play my piano, go sit outside in the sun (or next to a sunny window) with a cup of tea, a snack and a good book…just anything that is only for me and my happiness, to remind me that I do in fact, deserve to be treated kindly, even by myself.
Well, I’m afraid my answer to this week’s question by CL is…by ruminating.
To be clear, I heard the call to stop untangling the skein from CL and CN. But I couldn’t seem to do that. Like my dad and nicotine, it was too hard to stay away from.
Eventually, I think like the supercomputer in the 80’s movie Wargames (Whopper/Joshua?), that by going over and over it in my head, I think I taught myself something akin to the supercomputer’s statement:
“It seems the only way to win is not to play.” (Or something close to that!😂)
Eventually, it sunk in to me to trust that she/they suck, and it wasn’t worth my mind space. But I had to do all that untangling/ruminating to prove it to myself.
Sorry I don’t have a cleaner answer. But it’s my truth.🫤🤷♂️
I’ve told you all this before, but RuPaul’s Drag Race was the ONLY thing I could watch, enjoy, cry, laugh, and celebrate when I couldn’t think of anything but the dickturd and the hurt. Therapy helped me in the moments where I needed to stop ruminating to function, by teaching my how to use techniques to stop the spiraling of thoughts from PTSD. Counting red things on the train, listening to and observing sounds, smells, or sights, to bring me back into the moment, touching a cold object and using the mantra “I am Safe.” But mostly, having that show to turn on and tune into when I felt alone and joyless. That show is still my best friend. Find a show or podcast or something to escape with that has NOTHING to do with relationships or cheaters. It is OK to escape when you need to. Eventually, the triggers will not be so triggering. Eventually, the hurt will heal. Eventually. Be kind to yourself and know that as long as you are not with him (or her) you are safe from them hurting you again. You will never know everything. And, thank God for that <3
What healed me, first and foremost, was leaving the cheater. There was no possibility of that happening otherwise. I do not believe anyone who claims to have stayed with a cheater and managed to heal. That’s like saying you became close friends with your rapist and recovered from rape trauma. It’s not humanly possible. I think those who stayed with cheaters tell themselves this lie in order to find a way to live in a constant state of cognitive dissonance.
Beyond that, I did the things which I find soothing and restorative; exercise, time spent in nature, pursuing hobbies that are relaxing. I used an EMDR app and listened to binaural beats, but only needed them occasionally. The greater part of therapeutic self care was really nature and physical activity. I would run on down to the beach (which is near my house) have a swim, then do yoga on the beach. Or I would go to the public playground (which is right next to the wooded trails I use) and do workouts such as pull-ups on the monkey bars, pushups, walking lunges, planks, etcetera, then run to the beach. In winter I would go snowshoeing. I also did gardening, songwriting and started doing art. I didn’t go to therapy because I already knew what I needed in order to feel better. It took time and patience to stop ruminating, but I had no doubt it would work.
You need to find what it is that works for you, which may involve trial and error. The point is to do something. Don’t sit around and think about the FW. Make your healing a priority and bust a move, then another, and keep on going.
Yes, I was devastated when my ex left, but it was totally a game-changer. I was too weak to leave, and it gave me the space I needed to get my head together because he didn’t kick off the divorce process until a year had passed plus some months. So, I was mostly on board and clear when I finally sat in front of my attorney to do the divorce intake.
Yeah, the FWs have no idea that by leaving they are empowering the chump. They probably think we’ll just crawl into a hole of misery for the rest of our lives.
I know for sure he thought that. He told me multiple times that I would never, ever make it on my own. I was incapable, he said.
Ah, nope. The truth was just the opposite. I was just fine without him.
Here’s a practical tip: delete that photo memories feature on your phone. I have an iPhone but assume other phones have it as well.
Nothing messed with me more than seeing his cheating mug pop up as a “happy memory” from one year ago! Nope.
My therapist gave me a super helpful tool for the hamster-wheel thought-cycles that were literally taking over my life in the early days.
I was to schedule one hour to dedicate to it, and set a timer. I could do whatever I wanted during that time (I’m not talking mature, responsible self-care like taking a bath or working out. This was secret, ugly Grief Time.). Then, when the timer went off, I was to get up and continue on about my day.
Now, this did not apply to certain days, like any court days etc. But 99% of my days were structured like this.
What I found SO helpful about this was that during the day, when I was at work or otherwise doing life, and the painful, confusing thoughts cropped up (as they often did), I had permission to tell myself “I have time set aside for this later, I can address it then.” And I could go about my day, knowing that I had a whole hour later to take those thoughts out of their box and look at them. It truly gave me back my life.
I personally found rage-journaling to be the best way to spend that time; putting the thoughts on paper where I knew I could always revisit them later if I needed to. But the compartmentalization was really the most helpful.
(A note that I think this is most useful as a triage tool. Compartmentalizing isn’t always healthy, and as I healed and learned to integrate my grief into my life in more manageable ways, I no longer needed to regiment my emotional responses.)
It’s heartening to read other people have some success at stopping it. I’m a little over a year from Dday and my divorce was just finalized this week(!!!!!!!!). Rumination fills every moment of my day that I’m not actively distracting myself with something. I’m working with a wonderful therapist who specializes in betrayal trauma and a personal coach, and they’re both giving me things to try to reduce it. We’ve just started EMDR, so I really really hope that helps. At this point it’s gone on so long it’s almost comforting in some bizarre twisted way because it’s just part of the routine now. (I have ASD and one of my big symptoms is extreme discomfort whenever routines are disrupted.)
The weird thing is its not the affair itself replaying anymore. Those “movies” caused immediate visceral reactions . Rats learn quickly to avoid electric shocks. What I can never stop thinking about is the time after. When she said she was sorry, said she wanted to help me recover. She said that I had always been her best friend and she would fight to keep that in her life. And it wasn’t pure desire to not get kicked out and keep a cake supply, because she’s the one that insisted on divorce. I go back, over and over, seeing in my head, reading old communications, stuck on trying to figure out if any of it was real. If any of our entire marriage was real.
So after sticking the knife in and turning it, she wanted to help clean and stitch up the wound and throw in a tetanus shot?
Off topic, but I noticed that you described many mindfucks from the FW’s playbook in your second paragraph. Idk how long ago you discovered this website, but if you are new here it is definitely worth the time to read the archives. Not every chump story is identical, but your entire second paragraph is my FW to a T, as well as many, many chumps here who have the same story. D-Day was almost 4 and half years ago for me, and I was at that time where you are now, confused af, wondering not only if my marriage was real, but who was my husband in real life – because I didn’t know anymore, if I ever did know. (We were together 37, married 35 yrs) It was surreal. My suggestion for you is to write things down as the months go by because in another year or two you may forget details that could help you as your recovery continues. I always thought “Hell, no, I am not going to struggle with this for another day, never mind a month or a year”, but it turns out that’s not how it works. It is going to take as long as it takes and since you are puzzling it out now, you may still be working on it in a year or two.
Six years out and feel pride and relief to have survived all the pain associated with infidelity. It’s amazing that I kept functioning while I implemented all the remedies to stop thinking about him 95% of the time.
Sometimes I imagine the mountain of tissues or sea of tears on my part compared to him. Thousands to one. I am now certain I was “good wife” because I actually grieved.
Yes, it’s telling that they really don’t grieve us human beings, or they wouldn’t have done what they did. My therapist was worried about me not sleeping, and we did eventually get that figured out.
But him? He was probably sleeping just fine with little remorse and guilt.
Above all, do not lose your desire to walk. Everyday, I walk myself into a state of well-being & walk away from every illness. I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it. But by sitting still, & the more one sits still, the closer one comes to feeling ill. Thus if one just keeps on walking, everything will be all right.
Søren Kierkegaard
So much wisdom and compassion here. Blown away. I did a lot of most of these things, in one way or another. Dancing in the kitchen was a biggie for me. I forced myself to abandon myself to the music, alone in my kitchen in the first few months. It really hit the spot. Most recently, and because I am a long way down the road, when I find myself dwelling (interesting word in itself) on what was, I just tell myself “I am mighty” and immediately start smiling. Love to you all.
Time stops rumination. It allows you to process what happened, gain insights. For me gaining insight helped me heal. My rumination was about putting all the pieces together. It helped for me to understand he is a FW. I was conned and he is mentally ill with a personality disorder. He was the problem, not me I am a loving, supportive wife. He is chaos. I picked him due to my FOO issues and niavete. About 2 years to get over it.
The mind movies and rumination are a normal grief/trauma symptom.
Overwhelmingly, people do not understand and respect infidelity as the cause of severe, profound grief and trauma that it is. I ran smack into my own ignorance on the subject, and unfortunately the ignorance of others, post DDay when people said and did things that were ignorant, dismissive, invalidating, harmful and damaging on top of what had happened to me.
I am a little over seven years out from DDay. The mind movies have pretty much subsided, but my experience is that infidelity is a life altering mind bending wound that needs ongoing periodic tending, and recovery is on its own timetable. It’s not possible to erase it as if it never happened and it’s a permanent part of my life experience. It’s too big an injury, too big a loss to be otherwise.
I was constantly on the lookout for anything so could do to change the channel in my mind. What was going on inside my head was torturous. I have a very good therapist. Thought-stopping. Videos. YouTube. Podcasts. I went to to movies a LOT. I could not read….but pictures in books and magazines helped. Getting out of the house and going to new places. Field trips and outings whenever I could. Changing it up wherever I could. Cute animal videos. Being as busy as I could…having a plan, routines, structure. But the ghosts were everywhere and the whole world felt like a trigger.
To be honest, I found things that helped temporarily, but it was actually like a coal mine fire that just had to burn itself out. It’s better to think of having my first aid kit ready and handy instead of searching in vain for an OFF switch.
I’m listening to It’s OK That You’re Not OK by Megan Devine right now. I find it immensely comforting and healing.
❤️🩹
One thing that helped me was to consider thinking about him as a bad habit and missing him as an addiction caused by trauma bonding. I wanted to keep front and center that the person I thought I was missing or wanted to analyze was NOT REAL–that no amount of thinking about “him” would solve the puzzle because I never knew the real “him”, and to remind myself that fortunately he was no longer my problem to solve. So when I would miss the good times, or start ruminating about why he did what he did and what I could have done differently, I used anti-addiction techniques. For example, I wrote the good things about him in a list, and then opposite each, all the bad things that I knew about that he did or was or caused, things that made those good things meaningless. Third column, what I wanted in my life in each area to replace all that bad stuff. Eg. Column 1. He made me feel beautiful and loved when he was home. Column 2. He didn’t call me at all when on trips because he was secretly seeing another woman, his love was false. Column 3. I deserve honest, consistent loving people in my life.
That man was so charming and talented but so sleazy, the table had a long list of good and terrible stuff juxtaposed. But when I did find myself ruminating, which was way too often, I’d pull it out and look at it, maybe add to it, and put it away. It helped reduce the longing and the need to “solve” anything cognitively, made it clear to me each time, that the only solution to loving a deceiver is to walk away and not look back. Sorry I know this won’t get rid of the PTSD part, for that I really had to talk with a therapist too. We are not designed to be in close contact with evil, it takes time to heal our bodies and emotions from unloving contact.