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D day was about 6 weeks ago, going on 7 now. I was talking to my WW about some of the details of the affair, and was asking questions. Questions that would have answers that fall inside my limits of what I'd want to know, and she blurted out a detail that I did not ask about or want to hear, and now it's all I can think about. I have this mental image/movie in my head and it won't go away. It's affecting my sleep and my mood.

I'm trying not to dwell on it or bring it up, but I can't help it. It's like pure torture. I feel like d day just happened all over again. I keep wanting to shove it in my wife's face and really drive home the pain this is causing me, but I don't want to keep beating the same horse over and over. I've made it abundantly clear that I didn't want to hear that, but if I keep harping on it, it's just going to be counter productive.

Her take is "you wanted honesty, and I'm being honest with you." Yeah, sure, but there's a difference between being honest and bludgeoning someone with the truth, ffs. If you've seen my other threads you know my wife has epilepsy and a mild learning disability caused by head trauma, has some trouble with empathy, and sometimes lacks a filter. I know she didn't do it to be cruel, but goddamnit man. If I keep it up it she might just withdraw, not feel safe telling me things and set back the progress she's made.

I just want these images and thoughts to go away. I've tried different grounding techniques and nothing works. I just wish this nightmare would end. I really do want to work this out, and she does as well. She's putting in the work and really doing a lot of the right things, which is an accomplishment for her. She's been very conscientious and considerate in ways she never has before. Her goal is to be a better wife in every way she can, and she's made that very clear to me. She really is trying hard, but she really did a number on me. On us. I feel like I'm losing my freaking mind over here.

All that said, we did have a long, deep talk about actual d day yesterday, and she said a lot of the right things to help me work through a lot of it. Expressed sincere remorse and apologized profusely for how that particular day went down. She's constantly telling me that she loves me, I'm her whole world, and offering what comfort and reassurance she can. I'm a little more at peace with it now, but this new detail has replaced the anxiety I was having over d day. We're having a lot of good days, and really taking advantage of the hysterical bonding, but when I get down or start dwelling, which is fairly often, it feels like I'm never going to get out of this pit.

*Edit: You know, posting about it here is somewhat cathartic. Thank you SI team for making this site. It's a treasure trove of information and support. I don't feel alone, and I don't feel like I'm literally going crazy. This is the hardest thing I've ever been through. When I'd heard about affairs before, I always knew they were a bad thing, but until you go through it, you can never know just how much damage it does, or the depth of the pain it causes. It really is awful, but knowing that one way or another things do get better is so helpful.

[This message edited by Pogre at 4:35 PM, Friday, May 30th]

I am truly sorry for what happened that brought you here.

I am sure others will be along to weigh in on your post soon.

This stuff is just so hard.

I don’t know that there is a magic remedy to mind movies, and they are tortuous. I’m so sorry you are experiencing this horror. One thing that I found that seemed to help me acutely with mind movies was when a mental image of my wife having sex with her AP popped up, I would substitute him for someone absurd. I thought of a non-threatening person in that scene with my wife and it seemed to have the effect of my mind seeing the absurdity and losing interest. Like it was no longer closely analysing a threat but just glancing at a silly day dream.
I don’t know if that will work for you, but it’s free to try. Best wishes.

There's a post in The Healing Library Mind Movies and How to Stop Them that covers some techinques others have used:

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/documents/library/articles/discovery/how-to-stop-mind-movies/

It can also take time and healing. Infidelity is trauma.

I don’t know that there is a magic remedy to mind movies, and they are tortuous. I’m so sorry you are experiencing this horror. One thing that I found that seemed to help me acutely with mind movies was when a mental image of my wife having sex with her AP popped up, I would substitute him for someone absurd. I thought of a non-threatening person in that scene with my wife and it seemed to have the effect of my mind seeing the absurdity and losing interest. Like it was no longer closely analysing a threat but just glancing at a silly day dream.
I don’t know if that will work for you, but it’s free to try. Best wishes.

Daffy Duck? Goofy..?

Okay, that is an absurd idea, but you did at least get me to crack a smile. Maybe it's not so absurd after all. I have nothing to lose by trying. Thanks. I do appreciate the outside the box thinking.

There's a post in The Healing Library Mind Movies and How to Stop Them that covers some techinques others have used:

https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/documents/library/articles/discovery/how-to-stop-mind-movies/

It can also take time and healing. Infidelity is trauma.

I've read that one. I've tried those grounding techniques and they're really not working. I've spent a lot of time reading through a lot those articles and several different threads throughout this site. There are some real horror stories out there. At least my WW came out of the fog relatively quickly and is trying hard to help heal our relationship. It sucks that it needs to be a thing, but I am really thankful you guys are here for folks like me who've been completely blindsided by this and have nowhere else to really turn to.

You're so right. It really is traumatic. Obviously I've always been aware that affairs happen, but always just thought of it along the lines of "well, that sucks," and just assumed people moved on fairly quickly. Unfortunately I'm learning that's most certainly not the case at all. It's so much more traumatizing and damaging than I'd imagined.

Our 27th anniversary is this coming Friday. We casually made plans a couple of weeks weeks ago to go out and celebrate as normal, but as we get closer to it, it's hitting me like a ton of bricks. What exactly are we celebrating this time..?

There is another grounding technique I read elsewhere called the 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 method. You identify 5 things you can see, 4 things you can feel, 3 things you can hear, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste to bring your attention back to the present moment. It didn't work for me, but maybe someone else can get something out of it.

Yes, I tried them, too. It didn't really work for me, either. Something that did help with mind movies and concentration was learning meditation. I didn't start it until after moving out on my own, so I'm not sure how it would have worked in the early stages.

Sorry, this first part really, really sucks.

One thing that has been found to help is certain type of games, such as the match 3 kind. Along the lines of Candy Crush or the search for hidden objects type. It works on your neuro system to help the brain get back on track and not be all scrambled.

Our 27th anniversary is this coming Friday. We casually made plans a couple of weeks weeks ago to go out and celebrate as normal, but as we get closer to it, it's hitting me like a ton of bricks.

I recommend that you don't push it. We were about ten weeks out from D-Day when I thought it would be a good idea to go out for New Year's Eve. My BH could barely hold it together. You could almost see him vibrating with anxiety. We agreed not to go on another date until he was ready, which took more than 18 months.

I hope it's ok to tell you that, because I realize it's an intimidating timeline. We've had some really lovely times since then, but it took a lot of patience to get there and could not have been rushed.

*Edit: You know, posting about it here is somewhat cathartic. Thank you SI team for making this site. It's a treasure trove of information and support. I don't feel alone, and I don't feel like I'm literally going crazy.

I second that thankfulness. It's so difficult feeling alone. We have tried to not tell very many people, so I often feel isolated. Being able to interact with a group of people who really understand what you are going through is invaluable.

This is the hardest thing I've ever been through. When I'd heard about affairs before, I always knew they were a bad thing, but until you go through it, you can never know just how much damage it does, or the depth of the pain it causes. It really is awful, but knowing that one way or another things do get better is so helpful.

Same here. I couldn't have understood how painful it was until going through it myself. It was world destroying for me.

I've lost all my grandparents, all her grandparents (who I was close with), and my mother. All of them combined were not close to being as painful as D-day, and the following stuff, was for me. It was really really horrible.

But I have been getting better slowly. Each month seems better than the previous. Part of that is I do feel that my wife is committed to repairing our relationship. So I've been able to come away from the edge of divorce and relax some. Don't know where it will go from here but at least I have some hope.

I want to share that while this is all raw and new, some things will fade over time.

Triggers that occurred in the first year May no longer be a trigger in the third year after Dday.

I am 12 years out from the wurst year of my life. Things I had to get over were the OW’s name is the same name as many of my cousins, I am no longer bothered by tattoos (she was covered in them which my H claims to hate but yet ) etc.

The one that I still struggle with is jazz music. I was not a big fan of it but would listen. After dday2 it is banned from my house. That was "their thing". They both loved jazz music. If I am out in public and it’s played I’m ok with it. But my H cannot play it around me. Period.

It will get better. The mind movies will lessen. The triggers will become less powerful and intense. It just takes time.

Pogre,

I’ll tell you what I did, although it doesn’t seem to be a popular remedy.

I imagined them together, from start to finish. In great detail. From the clothes coming off to cuddling afterwards.

And I imagined it as bad as it could be. He was bigger, better. She was enthusiastic, multi-orgasmic, insatiable. No protection; his seed in her.

Made me nauseous at the time.

But I don’t think about it anymore.

I think, for me at least, the mind movies came from wondering what they did. I don’t wonder anymore. I know what they did; every bit of it. I watched them.

Sigh.

I imagined them together, from start to finish. In great detail. From the clothes coming off to cuddling afterwards.

And I imagined it as bad as it could be. He was bigger, better. She was enthusiastic, multi-orgasmic, insatiable. No protection; his seed in her.

This can be an excellent method of eliminating mind movies. The next thing to do is to start the mind movie over, but imagine now the mind movie in a comedic or ridiculous manner... something like the AP weighing 800 lbs and squashing flat your WW. Or, his penis exploding as she tries to put it in her mouth. I could go on all day, but you get the idea.

Do it several times and each time try to make the memory as ridiculous as possible.

Never tried it myself for the particular reason of infidelity, but I have used in the past it for other unpleasant memories that reoccur. The purpose is to Reframe or Rewire and change the wiring in the brain associated with this particular memory. I am not a psychiatrist and I don't understand how it works... only that it works for me and it might work for you.

Good luck.

Some are surprised when I insist I was lucky in catching her and OM having sex, and that I got probably a good 10-20 second front-row view of their activities.
I entered our apartment carefully to not wake her up. As I carefully closed the door, I heard the noise coming from our bedroom. I walked carefully not really grasping what was going on to the half-closed bedroom door and opened it. Stood there for an eternity – was probably not more than 3 seconds – before flipping the switch.

What this experience gave me is the freedom of not having to imagine what took place. I can imagine things a gazillion times worse than I saw. Instead I simply saw two people having sex. Just some grunting and moaning and people looking awkward. Not at all like the staged, pharmaceutically enhanced, lens-, light-, angle, positioning you might find in porn. Just two people.

OM bigger? (OK – let’s omit the pun I could use here on my name...). By the law of averages and stats then there is something like an 85% chance that OM was comparable to you. Equally likely that you were bigger/smaller, more girth/less girth than him. All within the same half inch. The rest – the missing 15% - are equally distributed between those with smaller and those with bigger appendages.

Maybe a tool to deal with the mind-images is to realize that what you envision isn’t reality.

OM bigger? (OK – let’s omit the pun I could use here on my name...). By the law of averages and stats then there is something like an 85% chance that OM was comparable to you. Equally likely that you were bigger/smaller, more girth/less girth than him. All within the same half inch. The rest – the missing 15% - are equally distributed between those with smaller and those with bigger appendages.

Well, as far as that goes, it's pretty doubtful. I've never been insecure in that area. Especially when you read the next part I'm about to type up... if it's believable. Still doesn't do much for the mind movies tho...

There's a little more to this story. Her AP... He had and beaten cancer. Went through chemo. One of the side effects of chemo is ED, and she swears that's the case with him. In other words, his equipment doesn't function so he supposedly wasn't able to... you know. I of course am pretty dubious of that, but I did look into it and apparently it is a fairly common side effect of chemo, and the way she brought it up wasn't really in a defensive way at all. At that point all I knew was she "slept with him," so I assumed that involved full on intercourse. She mentioned that part later as if it wasn't even an important detail. Like it was an inconsequential afterthought. So I started pressing her about that part of the story. Like, "c'mon. I already know. Don't insult me with some BS like that," and that's when she blurted out the detail I didn't want to hear, which was that he did oral because his equipment wasn't working.

In a way tho, that's almost worse. To me that's more personal, more intimate. I dunno. I might be weird, but it's stuck in my head now. She's being pretty open and frank about everything else. She's not evading or dodging questions (anymore), so I lean toward believing her, but there were so many lies and secrets in the beginning I don't know wtf to believe. When I first confronted her, I drove to his complex and she came out to meet me in the parking lot since I didn't know his unit number and she didn't want me to make a scene or possibly get violent. The first thing I asked was "did you sleep with him?" She answered with "yes." At least she didn't try to lie about it. That was enough, tho. It crushed me. It wasn't until later she mentioned the ED, and like I said, she didn't do it defensively. Barely even mentioned it as if it wasn't an important detail. Like an afterthought. When she was still in the fog and I said something derogatory about it she said "it's not his fault, he can't help it." Her inability to successfully pull off deception makes me want to believe it's true, but on the other hand what she did say happened is just as bad anyway, if not worse.

I’ll tell you what I did, although it doesn’t seem to be a popular remedy.

I imagined them together, from start to finish. In great detail. From the clothes coming off to cuddling afterwards.

And I imagined it as bad as it could be. He was bigger, better. She was enthusiastic, multi-orgasmic, insatiable. No protection; his seed in her.

My god, man. No. Just, no. Well, that's already kind of what I've been doing, just without a few of the extra added details, one of which supposedly didn't actually happen. What's in my head is already bad enough. I just can't. Holy crap.

Some are surprised when I insist I was lucky in catching her and OM having sex, and that I got probably a good 10-20 second front-row view of their activities.
I entered our apartment carefully to not wake her up. As I carefully closed the door, I heard the noise coming from our bedroom. I walked carefully not really grasping what was going on to the half-closed bedroom door and opened it. Stood there for an eternity – was probably not more than 3 seconds – before flipping the switch.

Dude, I'm so sorry you had to walk into that. That would have killed me. Absolutely killed me. I think I prefer the way I found out over something like that. It would be too vivid a mind movie for me. I do get what you're saying tho. It doesn't leave anything to the imagination, and sometimes the imagination can be far worse than the reality.

This can be an excellent method of eliminating mind movies. The next thing to do is to start the mind movie over, but imagine now the mind movie in a comedic or ridiculous manner... something like the AP weighing 800 lbs and squashing flat your WW. Or, his penis exploding as she tries to put it in her mouth. I could go on all day, but you get the idea.

Do it several times and each time try to make the memory as ridiculous as possible.

Again, this. This might be helpful. It's so absurd, but the fact that you got me to crack a smile about it... I can have a pretty juvenile sense of humor, so this might be something for me to try out.

I have the benefit of having a magic memory. I can remember being potty trained, for example. So the mind movies are with me forever.

But this wasn't anything I didn't already kind of know how to deal with. I grew up in a fantastically racist place where I was constantly mocked, and sometimes beaten for being Asian (I'm half Filipino.) Dealing with the memories of this was a survival reaction, initially, and then a process I deliberately walked through after my fWW's adultery.

The visceral reaction you get is because your brain is trying to defend itself against harm that's coming in. It thinks the harm is happening NOW. So it tries to reject it. The reason it plays so much is because your brain is also trying to integrate it into your internal narrative so it can continue building a story of world you understand and know how to navigate within. And then it tries to reject it because the pain is too intense and it's disgusted/averse by the encounter. Rinse and repeat ad nauseum.

The solution? I had to accept that these things happened. Not approve, never approve, but accept. The movie came up and I let it play. Feel the pain. Give it is time on the stage. See how it moves, feel where it hits. When I got the panic, I'd tell my brain "Is not happening right now. This is a memory." Seriously, I would project those words into my skull, as if my brain needed prodding in the right direction. Sometimes I would say it out loud.

And slowly, ever so slowly, the pain dulls. The memory and movie loses is sharp impact, as the brain manages to integrate it into life's now needlessly tragic story.

Since I was long used to dealing with violence and trauma, it was a fairly straightforward process for me. I lost 40 pounds in 31 days due to not being able to eat around the knot of pain in my stomach. I have some wooden practice swords I used to smash a pile of branches in the burn pile as a physical outlet for the rage, which is also an important component. Jogging while feeling this helped, as if the physical activity was dealing with the instinctive need to respond to the threat. So while straightforward for me, it wasn't at all any kind of easy.

But it was that straightforward.

As weird as it sounds, I don't recommend just trying to be rid of the movies, but to come to terms with them. This is a part of your story, now, and yes, it is awful and should never have happened. This is something you carry with you now, but by no means does it define you. But it is something you have to come to some kind of terms with, whether or not you stay with your WW.

My fWW was wrecked seeing me go through this process. She tried all sorts of things to "help." This is something only you can directly deal with. I told her, "I'm paying the interest on the loan you took out."

This is a path that nothing in life ever prepared you to travel. Be fair to yourself. You have permission to be as slow and bumbling as you handle it as you need to be. But you will have to handle it, or it will eat you alive.

Now, our internal landscape is different, so I don't know if my particular process will help you in the same way. As with everything on SI, take what you can use and leave the rest. We might be climbing the same mountain, but you alone have to find your path, and you'll stub your toes on different rocks than I did.

God bless,

-Mindjob

We have tried to not tell very many people, so I often feel isolated. Being able to interact with a group of people who really understand what you are going through is invaluable.

Same here. I haven't told anyone. With 1 exception, I haven't told any of my friends or family about it. I have one online friend I "met" over 20 years ago, and for never having met in person were actually pretty tight. For me he's safe to talk to because he doesn't know any of my rl friends or family so I can dump on him and not worry about it. That combined with the fact that I had a breakdown a while back and withdrew from everyone, it left me without anyone to really talk to anyway.

My wife, on the other hand... her lack of a filter... she blabbed about it to freaking EVERYONE. Something I think she's now realizing was a big mistake. Again, her head injury and lack of sometimes thinking things through kind of bit her in the ass with this one. Some of her friends didn't take very positively to what she did. Her mother tried to talk her out of it from the start. Didn't come to me about it, but she did at least try to tell her daughter to end it and make things right with me. As far as I'm concerned, she didn't need to know anything about it to begin with. No one did.

That's another piece of the puzzle that's really bothering me. She was so wrapped up in the fog and so swept away with the excitement of what she ws doing she freaking blabbed about it to all of her friends. None of which really know any of my former close friends, but still. I was villainized and her AP was the white knight. Some things were said that weren't even true, and she would go on and on about him to her friends. I've since read up on the fog and how profound an effect it can have on a person. I know that doesn't justify any of it, but Jesus christ.

I saw some of the conversations she's had with her friends over text and messenger and it was almost worse than finding out about the actual affair, and the fact that she told everyone about it... was real kick in the nuts. It took a couple of weeks, which I'm finding out is actually pretty fast, but she did come out of the fog. She now views him as a piece of shit, doesn't even want to look at him anymore, and to her credit, messaged or called her friends and mother over a period of a few days to straighten out some of the falsehoods and express remorse for her actions. She showed me the messages and conversations and I was present for the couple of phone calls.

But goddamn. She was like a wrecking ball while it was happening, and for those first couple of weeks. I did the wrong thing at first and played the pick me game, but when she wasn't responding in a way that satisfied me I knew it wasn't going anywhere, so I instinctually pulled a 180 (before I read about and knew what it was) and started divorce proceedings. That's when it really hit her and she knew she really fucked up with me. She turned the corner and came out of the fog almost overnight. She broke down and really lost it in a way I'd never seen before. Begged me to not go through with it. Thats when she sent a NC message and blocked him on everything. There was still a bit of residual struggle and resistance that went on for about another week, but it all appears to be behind her now, and she's 100% focused on me. On us.

I've made some pretty drastic changes too. I'm more than 50% responsible for the problems we were having in our marriage. I own that, and I'm truly sorry for my part. She was neglected. We were living like roommates. There was no intimacy, and she was starved for affection and attention. I feel awful about it now. I do. But I'm not letting her use that as an excuse. There were 100 different things she could have done before having an affair, and she acknowledges that.

It's only been about 7 weeks since d day, but we've made so much progress. She's come completely out of the fog, did it rather fast compared to a lot of stories I've been reading, has become a transparent, open book, and is committed to us. So am I. In many ways we're closer now than we were before. We spend a lot of time together now, just sitting on the couch holding hands or each other while talking or watching TV, something we never used to do. We're both still very much in love with each other. Neither of us are lacking for attention or affection now, but the aftermath of this affair has done irreparable damage and has really messed me up. It's messed her up, too. I know she feels bad... horrible for what she did. She expresses it every day to me.

We're having a lot of good days now, but man. When it hits me it hits me hard and I'm almost inconsolable. Despite that, I've made myself available and very safe for her to come to about anything, and she hasn't been holding back. She calls me from work every morning now, and sometimes we're on the phone for up to 2 hours. She doesn't have a lot of supervision and can go hands free with her ear buds so it's not affecting her work. Lots of little "missing you" text messages throughout the day. We're acting like a couple of lovesick teenagers after 28 years together. It's been really nice. I know it could just be hysterical bonding, but at this point I don't care. It's been happening for several weeks now without any signs of slowing down, and we're taking full advantage of it.

I just wish I could erase all the negative crap going on in my head. I still feel (very rightly so) very betrayed and hurt. She's doing her best to make up for it tho. She's trying. So am I.

You've got to understand that 7 weeks is not enough to do much healing at all, if any. You're still in shock. You've got to ride the wave until you get used to it. Then you can start to heal.

But think 2-5 years to heal, not a few weeks. R is more complex than recovering from being betrayed, so R is likely to take longer.

Life slowly starts to get better as you heal. You won't feel as bad as you do now forever - but healing takes longer than anybody thinks it should.

Also, healing seems to progress better when the partners prevent time pressure from impacting them and when they go for healing, not for R or D. Give up trying to control the outcome - it's beyond your control. Healing, OTOH, is within your control.

*****

I'm a bit concerned that you may be giving too much power to your fears.

IMO, it's better that you learned about the oral sex now instead of 6 months from now. It's part of your reality, even if you didn't know it. Bringing it into your awareness allows you to decide if it's a deal killer. If it is, you can save yourself a lot of heartache.

That's not the only approach. You could proceed with R in the hope that success early will change your deal killers into non-deal killers, just as healthy pre-A bonds can make R look better than if such bonds did not exist.

You get to and have to choose. I really recommend choosing to push through your fears, though. I urge you not to let fear stop you from acting in your best interest.