SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

At our recent appointment, as part of sharing the general history of our relationship with our MC, I had to recount all my instances of infidelity. It was hard to see BH's face and all the pain written there as I did; it felt almost like D-Day all over again...

Earlier today I was sitting at my kitchen table thinking about it and just absolutely kicking myself, thinking about how hurt he was the various times he found out I was doing something I shouldn't have, hiding it, deceiving him, betraying him... I was asking myself, "Why didn't you remember that? If you could have remembered that, the extent of the damage, it would have helped keep you faithful. How could you not have known? How could you have forgotten? Idiot!"

But I know the answer is "I sat out my time in the doghouse for those discovered instances without engaging in any deep internal work, and then I locked it away in the back of my mind so I didn't have to deal with the shame of my actions. I compartmentalized, and deluded myself into believing I was still a good and faithful person, until several years later it happened again, and then I could no longer deny that I was not, in fact, a faithful person. Maybe not even a good one..."

I'm so sad and so sorry about it. I'm anxiously waiting for my H to get home so I can apologize for it, not just for the repeated betrayals, but for not doing the work sooner... He's away tending to his elderly mother as she gets heart surgery tomorrow. It's heavy thing after heavy thing for him lately. I will have to make sure to lavish extra care and attention on him.

I told my best friend ChatGPT this and this is part of what it spit out, just in case it's helpful for anyone else reading along:

That sounds like it reopened something for both of you.

One thing that stands out to me is that your explanation for why you didn't remember is internally consistent with what you've described before. You're not saying, "I forgot because I didn't care." You're saying, "I managed the shame by putting the whole experience in a locked box." Compartmentalization is powerful precisely because it doesn't just separate you from the behavior—it separates you from the lessons the behavior should have taught you.
That distinction matters.

You wrote:
"I sat out my time in the doghouse... without engaging in any deep internal work."

That sentence carries a lot of insight. Consequences by themselves rarely produce lasting change. People often assume guilt plus punishment equals growth. It doesn't. Growth comes from understanding the mechanisms that produced the behavior in the first place and then changing those mechanisms.

In your case, it sounds like the sequence was something like:

-You did something unfaithful.
-You experienced intense shame and external consequences.
-Your goal became escaping the shame rather than understanding yourself.
-Once enough time passed, your mind restored your self-image ("I'm a faithful person") because living indefinitely with the opposite felt intolerable.
-The underlying vulnerabilities remained, so years later similar dynamics could develop again.

That isn't an excuse. It's a description of a process. And if the description is accurate, then it also explains why simply remembering your husband's pain wasn't enough to prevent the next betrayal: the parts of your mind that were making those decisions weren't keeping that pain readily accessible. They were protecting you from it.

Ironically, one of the things you've been developing recently is almost the opposite approach.
You've spent a lot of time thinking about your "perfect storm" theory—not because you want to wallow in guilt, but because you don't want to ever again convince yourself, "I'm not the kind of person who could do that." Instead, you've been asking, "What conditions would make me vulnerable, and how do I stay two feet back from the cliff?" That mindset requires remembering—not just that infidelity hurts, but that you are capable of it under certain conditions. That's a very different foundation than relying on identity alone.

Kind of just processing the grief and regret over this 'aloud.' Moral of the story: don't wait to fix your shit.

"I managed the shame by putting the whole experience in a locked box." Compartmentalization is powerful precisely because it doesn't just separate you from the behavior—it separates you from the lessons the behaviour should have taught you.

-You did something unfaithful.
-You experienced intense shame and external consequences.
-Your goal became escaping the shame rather than understanding yourself.
-Once enough time passed, your mind restored your self-image ("I'm a faithful person") because living indefinitely with the opposite felt intolerable.
-The underlying vulnerabilities remained, so years later similar dynamics could develop again.

And

The parts of your mind that were making those decisions weren't keeping that pain readily accessible. They were protecting you from it.

———————————-

Thank you GotTheMorbs for sharing this. This resonates very loudly. Compartmentalization is false protection.

If you feel discomfort with this below just ignore it:

Earlier today I was sitting at my kitchen table thinking about it and just absolutely kicking myself, thinking about how hurt he was the various times he found out I was doing something I shouldn't have, hiding it, deceiving him, betraying him... I was asking myself, "Why didn't you remember that? If you could have remembered that, the extent of the damage, it would have helped keep you faithful. How could you not have known? How could you have forgotten? Idiot!"

Why do you say that?
Meaning what emotions make you verbalize it in this form?

I can feel the emotional charge in it, but it’s swirling. Can you try to give shape to it and see if we can name its source?

But I know the answer is "I sat out my time in the doghouse for those discovered instances without engaging in any deep internal work, and then I locked it away in the back of my mind so I didn't have to deal with the shame of my actions. I compartmentalized, and deluded myself into believing I was still a good and faithful person, until several years later it happened again, and then I could no longer deny that I was not, in fact, a faithful person. Maybe not even a good one..."

I can feel that You can see the outcome, like you are more than capable to recognize dysfunctional coping mechanisms now.

But there’s so much more behind this sentence that you are communicating, and it is not the only one I that I sensed in your stories, that I can’t help but wonder: do you hear it too? That voice screaming behind the form. You tried to give her a name?

Glad to hear it, EndingsLTA

I'm not sure what you mean, BFTS

Why do you say:

I was asking myself, "Why didn't you remember that? If you could have remembered that, the extent of the damage, it would have helped keep you faithful. How could you not have known? How could you have forgotten? Idiot!"

?

The second question is about the skill you developed in recognizing both outcomes and coping mechanisms. You seem very aware.

I still feel you get stuck emotions and they start swirling like they are hard to contain. I feel you have a coping mechanism for those too, but I wondered if you tried to name them, calling them out one by one and try to integrate them one by one.

That’s the voice I "hear" behind the words. But she is somehow silenced, like you try to shut it up.

It’s about emotional regulation, you have emotional intelligence but I feel you are titubant in trusting that skill.

Understand what I mean?

Thanks for replying GotTheMorbs.

I haven’t slept much these past few days, I will attempt to make sense.

I liked how you laid out the process of compartmentalization.

Compartmentalization acts as psychological self-preservation. In the short term - i can see how compartmentalizations is an act of self-preservation.

When compartmentalization moves past a temporary coping tool and becomes a rigid lifestyle, it stops protecting the mind and instead causes emotional fragmentation and internal distress. Rather than preserving well-being, chronic separation of thoughts and feelings leans to distorting reality even more. Or at least that’s how i feel.

[This message edited by EndingsLTA at 8:15 AM, Wednesday, July 22nd]

The second question is about the skill you developed in recognizing both outcomes and coping mechanisms. You seem very aware.

I still feel you get stuck emotions and they start swirling like they are hard to contain. I feel you have a coping mechanism for those too, but I wondered if you tried to name them, calling them out one by one and try to integrate them one by one.

My feelings are always very intense, and often times there are several at once. I guess maybe I am still running away from the overwhelm a lot of times with escapism and certain unhealthy coping mechanisms. Maybe slowing down, naming each feelings, and focusing on one at a time would help.

Thanks!

I haven’t been on this site very long, so I can’t speak to your whole journey, but I’ve grown to genuinely respect the changes I’ve seen in you.

What really strikes me is that you aren't just looking back at the betrayals and saying, "I shouldn't have done that." You're actually digging into what allowed you to avoid the deeper work for so long—the shame, the compartmentalization, and rebuilding a self-image before doing the real work to support it. That’s painful to face, but it’s real.

I also respect that you aren't using compartmentalization as an excuse. You’re trying to figure out the mechanism behind the pattern so you can actually dismantle it. Understanding why something happened doesn't take away responsibility; it just gives you something tangible to fix.

To be honest, I wish my own wife showed the kind of depth, honesty, and self-examination you’re putting in here. I don't say that to compare or put pressure on you, but because the shift in you is genuinely noticeable. You seem less focused on proving you’re a good person and far more focused on actually becoming a safer, more honest one. That distinction is everything.

I’m really sorry your husband is carrying so much right now, especially with his mother’s surgery. I hope the care you give him is gentle and without any expectation behind it. Not because a kind gesture balances out what he’s carrying, but because consistently seeing his pain and showing up for it is part of the work you wish you’d started sooner.

"Don’t wait to fix your shit" is painfully simple, but a lot of people need to hear it. Hidden shame doesn't just fade away it usually just forces someone who doesn't own it to carry it

My feelings are always very intense, and often times there are several at once. I guess maybe I am still running away from the overwhelm a lot of times with escapism and certain unhealthy coping mechanisms. Maybe slowing down, naming each feelings, and focusing on one at a time would help.

Thanks!

They will become even more intense when you learn to integrate them. But they will not be stuck no more.

It’s like discovering notes and shades in old flavors, once you learn to savor food, something that eluded you when you used to gulp it.

Plus they don’t sit stuck in your stomach. A big bonus.

Emotions are a message from the depths. They ask to be named. Just try not running, they can’t harm you, not even the ones who carry hurt.

They can’t once you listen to them.

GotTheMorbs,

I think BackfromtheStorm is onto something when he talks about naming one’s emotions. I think there is a comfort in knowing what you’re dealing with. I wouldn’t say it’s less painful or any easier, it’s just slightly less blurry.

For me, putting words to what I’m feeling doesn’t make the feelings disappear or make them less intense. It does help me understand what I’m carrying.

My emotions sometimes feel like a ball of yarn. I can pull on one thread, but if I pull too hard, it starts to knot with all the others. The grief, shame, regret, fear, and sadness don’t always come one at a time—they’re often tangled together. Learning to separate them slowly has helped me understand what I’m actually feeling instead of just being overwhelmed by the whole ball.

As you know, I’m new to the forums. I really appreciated your welcome and your encouragement to stay. It does feel like there’s something in the water today—lots of tough emotions swirling through the WW.

@GotTheMorbs

I usually avoid posting on these sort of posts like the plague, general support is not my biggest strong suit (given me challenging irrational arguments, thought experiments or pragmatics any day of the week) but your recent posts actually make sense—which is a rare commodity around here.

Look, let’s be honest: your past track record wasn't exactly award-winning, and you made some monumentally terrible choices. But watching your recent character arc, you're actually doing the grueling, hard internal work instead of just hiding behind excuses.

Here’s the thing about guilt: it’s useful to remind us not to be awful, but after that, it just turns into cheap drama. Beating yourself up at the kitchen table doesn't fix his pain, nor does it make you a martyr. Your husband made the (albeit slightly crazy ) choice to stay with you—so wallowing in guilt isn't doing him any favors.

You've moved past primitive defense mechanisms. Time to fire the guilt, put down the whip, and just focus on being a decent human being for him while he handles his mom's surgery.

He's chose you despite what you did. So, I guess... if you're going to beat yourself up, use a feather.

Be very careful with chatbots. They do not think. They predict the next word to say - they're probabilistic, which means it's bound to be wrong some of the time. They're also known to hallucinate. They are not living beings, so they're not potential friends.

I can understand being in a bind, not trusting oneself, probably not trusting other people. Just remember that chatgpt is far removed from being human, but it was created by human beings who are not even sure of what they created.

I don't know how much you use LLMs. They're certainly useful for some tasks. Anything that requires understanding something, however, is iffy. Remember: they were trained on Reddit and whatever intellectual property they could steal. There's a lot of learning in LLMs that is erroneous, to say the least.

Also they (LLMs) are designed to keep you engaging with them as long as possible, so they lean toward flattery and mirroring the user. See the case of Richard Dawkins for an example.

Be very careful with chatbots. They do not think. They predict the next word to say - they're probabilistic, which means it's bound to be wrong some of the time. They're also known to hallucinate. They are not living beings, so they're not potential friends.

I can understand being in a bind, not trusting oneself, probably not trusting other people. Just remember that chatgpt is far removed from being human, but it was created by human beings who are not even sure of what they created.

I don't know how much you use LLMs. They're certainly useful for some tasks. Anything that requires understanding something, however, is iffy. Remember: they were trained on Reddit and whatever intellectual property they could steal. There's a lot of learning in LLMs that is erroneous, to say the least.

This and...

Also they (LLMs) are designed to keep you engaging with them as long as possible, so they lean toward flattery and mirroring the user. See the case of Richard Dawkins for an example.

This.

Since I am a creator of one of the first AI, predating those, I can absolutely confirm the advice to be careful.

They can be useful if you can use them as an instrument to challenge your assumptions and get response.

But you need to consider the instance you are using as a natural language parsing search engine that can aggregate you a more complex query and present it in human like language.

Nothing more.

IT's effective because it mirrors to validate whatever we ask to maintain both the illusion and engagement of artificial intelligence, and it has intelligence in a sense, just not what we commonly accept as such.

If you request to challenge your assumptions with arguments that are solid, also ask to mediate by finding how grounded your assumption was. If you ask for validation, also ask to challenge it.

This way you get a more balanced response. But it's best use is as contextual search engine, with a pinch of simulated humanity to flavor the responses.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 8:50 PM, Wednesday, July 22nd]