Do triggers ever end after #infidelity?

 “When will this end?”, “Does this ever go away?”.

These are two of the questions betrayed spouses keep asking themselves even three, four years past discovery. 

Once you pass the two year mark, provided you have done recovery work, you go on for longer periods without being triggered by your day to day life. And yet, out of the blue, in the most unexpected way, you will feel anxiety or have a panic attack.  Infidelity taught your brain it cannot trust what you once where so certain about.

My latest trigger went off only a few days ago, when my husband shared that there was a work event to highlight the project his ex-AP (affair partner) is leading. I wasn’t happy at all with the idea of him being there and all the chances for reconnection. 

One great buffer for triggers is knowing that there is absolutely no contact between the ex-lovers, but working at the same institution does not allow for that. I have defined my level of tolerance for them to be together as zoom meetings with lots of other people participating.

What did I do about the way this trigger made me feel? 

I write the experience in hope that it will make you feel you are not alone and will give you some ideas as to how to cope with the pain.

I didn’t let the frustration sit with me for long. Only a few minutes had passed since he told me about the event, when I articulated very clearly that I wasn’t happy about it. He immediately said he knew it would upset me. Yet he told me. This was a step in the right direction for him because, up to recently, he would have hidden it from me so I “wouldn’t be upset”.

Given that secrets carry their weight, I would have probably felt something was off and perhaps checked his calendar, as this has been the cycle every time there is a similar kind of event and he would decide not to let me know. 

APs live amongst us

All betrayed spouses have their own cycle. Affair partners live among us. Some are neighbours, members of the extended family, friends of friends or else. So there will always be an unexpected encounter, close or not so much, that will trigger us.

It’s annoying, very annoying, to go back to a state of panic and helplessness, after having gone through so much. We collect the pieces of the disaster caused by a long-term life partner and, when we are feeling that we can maybe be happy, the ghost of the betrayal says hello. 

When it will end? 

I think, never. We just learn to live with the fact that we were betrayed. 

What can we do?

This whole blog is about what to do to to feel better after infidelity crushes our hearts. There are small things we can do and today, I want to focus on the big changes, the ones we have to focus on over a long period of time to make them happen.

I have been working on organizing a life without my husband the way I want it to be. In case he goes first, infidelity gave me the chance to look inwards and find my true needs, so I have been laying my plan B for my golden years. It has taken almost two years, the time I haven’t been writing weekly here.

It has been so exciting to see the result of my work in my new home away from home, that the joy I feel and the feedback I get from those who love me well, make the betrayal look like a bad dream of many nights away. 

Big changes are huge shock absorbers of the pain of being lied to by a beloved spouse. They also help us focus on the reality of today and to leave the past where it belongs. 

I hope you can visualize a big changed that will give you a fresh perspective even after so many years of staying in a particular state of mind. Sometimes all we need is to look at possibilities within our reality or to change the way we perceive our circumstances. 

Are you enjoying the progress in your life today or are you letting the sad past control you most of your time? It’s ok to sit with the sadness, the anger, the frustration, but it is also important to appreciate what’s worth appreciating in our reality today.

Love and hugs,

Helen