Help me find my people - online or group support for infidelity

July 21, 2015 7:52 PM

So this is me. My husband cheated on me (twice), and at this point, I really need a safe place to share my experience and the experiences of others. There seem to be an endless number of online forums for this, but the ones I have explored have all been really religious (not my thing), really hostile (understandable but not my style), or all about reconciliation at all costs. Please help me find the support I need.

On Saturday night, I found out that my husband cheated on me for the second time in a year. The first was a one night stand last fall with a woman who was kind of a friend. There was very little contact after I found out, none after I demanded no-contact, and he seemed committed to making things work. I read a lot, and found some great online resources and we worked together on some of our issues. I read some of the online forums but didn't really connect to any of them enough to become an active participant.

So just as I was beginning to think we were going to get through this, I find out that he did it again (with a different woman). This time it was a bit more prolonged (8 weeks or so), although they only had sex twice. He also tried to set up a third sexual encounter last week but she wasn't available. I found out when I noticed he had set up a second Facebook account and hacked into it and found their messages (I know snooping is bad, but he had committed to giving me full access to his social media after the first time, so it was a huge flag to find a second, secret, account).

Anyway, I'm not looking for advice here on what to do with my relationship. I know that the consensus would be DTMFA, and that is definitely not off the table (he wants to work things out). What I'm looking for are suggestions of online forums, groups or even in-person support groups (location: Toronto) to help me process what's happened and to figure out what I want to do and what is best for me. I know I can google them (and have) but I can't seem to figure out which ones are non-religious, not pushing specifically towards reconciliation (or divorce) and which aren't overly hostile. For example I spent time on Survivinginfidelity.com, and while a bit of it was fine, I found a lot of those responding to posts were coming out with guns ablazin' and I'm looking for something more along the lines of compassionate, sympathetic support. (I did try to keep going with it but a particularly disturbing thread yesterday in which the community rallied around someone who had assaulted the woman who cheated on him has pushed me away for good.)

So please, help me find my people - to help me get through this in a way that is generally kind and compassionate, and where anger (and every other emotion) is okay but not so overwhelming. In a sense, a place where conversations like the one in the Emotional Labour thread can happen, but on the topics of infidelity, lying and betrayal).

I do have a therapist, and she and I agreed even before this latest mess that I needed to find more outside supports that aren't my family and friends (who I'm really not comfortable telling at this point).

Any suggestions on resources/supports are welcome.

posted by Lamb_Chop to Human Relations (12 answers total)

Best answer: My wife had an extended affair and I hid it from my family and friends for more than a year, hoping to reconcile without blowing up anyone's idea of our marriage. I really regret doing that; I could have used their support and they would have been so happy to support me sooner than they did. So I recommend telling them, even if it's uncomfortable. I totally get that it's uncomfortable. It sucks. But you need them now and they love you.

Individual therapy was the best thing for me and I'm glad you're in it, but I also recommend going to couples counselling, whether or not you plan to stay in the marriage. There's nothing quite like watching a third party hold your husband's feet to the fire about all this shit, the therapist will ask the questions you might be too hurt or afraid to ask and be the bad guy for you and get answers. You can watch it happen and spend all your energy thinking about what he's saying and how it makes you feel instead of carrying an end of the conversation. For some reason experiencing my wife lie to a therapist got me some resolve and perspective, in a way that her lies to me directly didn't quite hit home.

I don't have any recommendations for online communities, unfortunately, though I think I did read every single AskMe that touched on infidelity and divorce and pondered people's situations and the response of the community.

I'm so sorry you're going through this. It'll get better, I promise.
posted by Kwine at 8:34 PM on July 21, 2015 [12 favorites]

I'm so sorry to hear you're experiencing this right now and feeling so lonely. I wish I knew of an online support group for you to join, and hope others can give you some suggestions! I'd like to share a few thoughts. They're not really answers to your question so please disregard them if you're not interested. I don't want you to be waiting in vain for answers: I assure you that many want to help but just aren't sure what to say or maybe aren't ready or brave enough to share their personal experiences yet.

Whether you decide to get divorced or recommit to your marriage, I think you're going to need the support of at least some of your friends and family. If you decide to stay, they can help you be strong and help your stay husband accountable. If you decide to separate, they can help keep you "safe and sane." Some will be enraged and have their minds made up but, then again, you may be surprised by the compassion and shared experiences people tell you.

What is your husband doing right now? I hear he wants to make it work so what is he doing? (I see he's open to cutting off contact but is he willing to look inside himself and at his own weaknesses? Are you open to doing this about yourself, too?) Is he trying to support you in person? Is he willing to reach out to friends to find support (for both of you!) What do you want from him? Whatever you're feeling -- likely mixed emotions -- is OK but I'd hope you can honor that.

I read your post on the emotional labor thread; it made me sad to think about but also glad that you are recognizing it. I'd like to see you start relieving yourself of that burden right now -- not just holding it in and reading up online but also reaching out more in person! It'll be important if you end your marriage but, arguably, even more important if you are going to continue it. Best of luck to you!
posted by smorgasbord at 8:44 PM on July 21, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: I bet that altdotlife would be good for this -- I'm not a member, and I don't know if there is a specific place in the forums for this type of support, but I think it would be a great place to try. Here's a couple lines from the site: "We’re a 21st-century coffee klatsch, stitch-and-bitch, moms’ group, book club, and lean-in circle. (And plenty of us don’t like coffee, knitting, kids, fiction, or Sheryl Sandberg. Some of us prefer kombucha, photography, dogs, cooking shows, and Ina May Gaskin. That’s what’s great about ADL—we make the communities we seek.)" So sorry you're dealing with this.
posted by trillian at 11:02 PM on July 21, 2015 [3 favorites]

I'm so sorry that you are going through this. I'm just going to relate my experience as a reference point. I caught my husband of twenty plus years cheating by seeing texts on his phone. I immediately burned the place down, kicked him out, filed the next day. My choice. But in the divorce process, I learned that he had lied about so many other things....that was even more devastating. Not that this will happen to you, just keep your guard up. And DOCUMENT EVERYTHING!! My best to you...
posted by pearlybob at 4:38 AM on July 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

Best answer: I went through something similar and spent some time on survivinginfidelity.com, too. I don't know of other forums but like Kwine I also read through many, many AskMe Q&As here. And like Kwine I really, really recommend finding a trusted friend or family member to confide in and lean on. Someone you see occasionally, who has your back, and who has a decent snapshot of who you really are aside from these circumstances. This person can be a lighthouse when you're unsure of everything else. I also was so humiliated at my husband's ongoing treatment of me, and what I thought it meant about me, that I hid out for a few years. Finally, a good friend took to dropping by unexpectedly because she felt like I had gone missing. After a number of visits she took me aside and told me what she saw. It really helped me recalibrate my understanding and self-worth.

>help me figure out what I want to do and what is best for me
After that friend's help, I joined Meetup.com and ramped up my participation in Metafilter IRL, and spent a whole lot of time figuring out what I liked and who I was. That foundation helped me 1) make good decisions whatever was going to happen in my marriage, 2) have other activities to focus on than obsessing about my relationship, 3) do less care-taking of my husband and 4) build a habit of participating in communities that would be there as a bridge after my marriage ended.

Good luck, and wow, yes, it gets tons better.
posted by cocoagirl at 5:07 AM on July 22, 2015

my ex-girlfriend of four years kept awful cheating secrets from me for years... my greatest regret is that i didn't reach out to my friends and family. i felt too ashamed, too scared and weary to deal with the fallout of their pain at realizing how horribly i'd been treated, too scared that once i told people that only then we would Finally Work It All Out For Good, Really This Time, but people would forever look at us differently.

who i told about the pain was the one thing i could control about it all, so i did. i wish i'd done it differently, but c'est la vie. i had fully isolated myself from sharing the most vital happenings of my life from the people i loved, and who loved me. undoing that habit was so hard.

while this is not quite the community you are looking for, i found this post & all of the comments of survivors of "sick systems" so helpful and validating during that time.

you will be ok. always remember that your family and friends love you, and will validate the shit out of everything you are dealing with. they want you to be happy, which can feel scary, obnoxious and oppressive at a time when it seems impossible, but it can also restore your knowledge that intimacy, trust, care, and affection are abundant -- just not with your current partner.
posted by crawfo at 5:55 AM on July 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

I came here just to recommend not hiding this from friends and family. As other have said, it's something they regret.

The impulse to keep this secret? That's unfair emotional labor. You are sparing his reputation at the cost of your own well being and sanity. You are taking all the emotional and social responsibility for his actions and trying to go it alone.

If you keep this between you two than he becomes your only resource. An untrustworthy, lying, cheating, selfish resource.
posted by French Fry at 6:04 AM on July 22, 2015 [14 favorites]

Another person with infidelity experience chiming in here. I'm so sorry you're going through this. My ex and I shared (and still share) an extensive and overlapping friend network based around our shared profession. So like you, I did a lot of emotional and social work in the aftermath to keep the reasons our marriage was in crisis a secret. On the one hand, I was embarrassed and ashamed. On the other hand, however, I was undoubtedly doing what was by then far more than my fair share work of the relationship by cushioning ex from the consequences of ex's choices. When reconciliation was on the table, keeping our secret seemed like the logical course of action, but by the time it was off the table, I could see in hindsight how trying to protect ex from any professional or friendly blowback was part of a larger pattern of me trying desperately to make ex love me and stay with me and not cheat on me -- to get ex to say, "gosh, pinkacademic really is an amazing spouse, and I've made such an unfathomably huge mistake here, and I'm so so so sorry, and now that I see how wonderful and accommodating and reasonable pinkacademic has been in all this mess, I realize that I will never ever do something like this again."

Parts of that happened, I guess. Parts of it didn't. We're divorced now. And I guess that in the end I'm happy that I behaved with some restraint when it came to disclosing details to our shared social and professional networks. And we have a kiddo, so I've had to continue to be vague about the reasons our marriage ended, and while that's sometimes hard and frustrating, I definitely feel like it's the appropriate thing to do. I've recognized some of the unhealthy impulses behind those decisions with the help of a therapist, but I've also recognized that some of those impulses reflect my values as an autonomous person outside of the marriage. When a spouse cheats, there's a lot of moral high ground up for grabs, and I have been happy for opportunities to stake out my territory on that hill because those opportunities remind me about what I value and believe.

All that being said, I did confide in some of our close friends when my marriage was tailspinning, even in the face of what might have been some professional discomfort and risk for me and my ex spouse. And I'm glad I did. Their support was absolutely crucial when everything hit the fan. Two of those friends with important professional ties have never forgiven my ex, and ex lost their friendship and support. Most sympathized with and supported me but maintained an admirably civil and professional relationship with ex. And in the end, even those I didn't tell soon enough figured out what was going on - and in my experience, when people know your marriage is in crisis or that you're going through a divorce (whether or not they know that infidelity is the cause, and for what it's worth, that's pretty much everyone's default assumption anyway), the absolute best parts of humanity rise to the surface. Everyone was so kind and helpful and caring. Even the anonymous woman at the post office, when she realized I was mailing my divorce paperwork after notarizing a form for me, processed my order and on my way out the door leaned over and whispered, "I don't know what your plans are for the rest of the day, but I hope there's a party at the end of it."

In the throes of that crisis, I also confided in two acquaintances - people I knew from my office/neighborhood/hobbies who were on my side of the periphery of our shared social and professional circle. As a result, what began as friendly acquaintances deepened into real and meaningful and now longstanding friendships. In this way, talking about what was happening to me, sharing that vulnerability, not only gave me an outlet I needed to process everything that was going on but also helped develop new relationships that might not have had the space to grow in the context of the social circle defined by my marriage - and those relationships also had the benefit of becoming the basis for a richer, post-divorce social life and support network.

Finally, I've also found survivinginfidelity to sometimes grate against my experience and values, so I have read but never actively participated on their forums. I found the sensibilities on the New Divorce Thread at the Chronicle of Higher Education's jived better with my own, but it's not an overly active thread at the moment. Even if you're not in the higher ed business, the community there is a lot like the one here -- smart, thoughtful, reasonable, insightful, and supportive.

Again, I am so, so sorry you're going through this. It was the hardest thing I've ever done, but I'm so much better and happier now on the other side of all of it.
posted by pinkacademic at 8:21 AM on July 22, 2015 [3 favorites]

Best answer: The internet is toxic for questions like this. People self-select when volunteering to respond, and middling voices tend to be underrepresented.

My partner and I went through a pretty rough patch in the not-too-distant patch. I was cheated on a number of times, the last of them in a fairly spectacular fashion that left me with a surprise STD. Much in the way you describe in your linked post, this last infidelity was so hard to wrap my head around (multiple dudes, he knew he had something, and so on) that I put the burden at his feet: you start seeing a therapist tomorrow, or I will be out of here tonight.

I sought any kind of mental release I could. I drank a lot, tried to read online forum-type stuff, checked out some books, but really all I wanted to do was commiserate with some folks in a way that wasn't just friends saying either DTMFA or it'll work out or whatever. After the fact, I realize I wasn't looking for constructive advice; I was looking for dark humor and knowing glances and little insights shared by people who'd been through it, too, and didn't come out the end with a magical, crystal clear awareness that they should do X next. I was so spun out by the experience that I doubted my decision-making abilities altogether, and more than anything wanted to make it through a few weeks so I could get to a point where time had dulled the freshness of the wound enough that I could make clear judgments.

The best release I found was with strangers in a bar not far from my apartment. Not friends, not a therapist, not the internet... just conversations at 11 p.m. with a nice fellow / a group of 40something women / a college girl / an older gay guy / an off-duty bartender / etc. They really, honestly helped me find my balance in those first few weeks.

For what it's worth, my partner and I are still together. This was back in 2011/2012, and it still pops up in my head probably once or twice a week. But the sting of it's mostly gone, sort of like how after you stop smoking cigarettes you still always kinda remember them wistfully even though you know you've kicked the habit. We worked our shit out and, dare I say it, came out of the experience with a better (and very formalized) understanding of our boundaries, the process for dealing with slip-ups if and when they happen, and how to better talk about these things. My partner got some serious counseling for the first time in his life, which was good.

We're human, and that means weird things happen all the time that are easier to understand in hindsight. I wish you the best comfort and hope you find some. Feel free to send me a message if you need a strangers' ear, some dark humor, some random thoughts, and so on.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 10:01 AM on July 22, 2015 [2 favorites]

Strongly seconding strangers in a bar as a sounding board and source of a myriad of outlooks. I think online forums built around infidelity will be echo chambers as you have mostly found. I think what you really need is a good mix of supportive friend / family member, some food for thought from books or podcasts or songs about infidelity, some time with yourself to parse through your head, and some time chatting with strangers in a bar (or on a park bench, or whatever other stranger chatting settings you are around).

If you need some reading material, I've been liking the self care series from the Hairpin lately. It's not about infidelity, but it is about looking out for yourself, which you will need to do as you heal from the hurt.
posted by WeekendJen at 12:27 PM on July 22, 2015

Response by poster: Thank you everyone for your comments - maybe those that suggested just combing through old thread are on to something. AskMefi are my people.

You're right, of course, what I really am looking for and need is people to talk to. I did tell one friend last fall and while I thought she would be the most understanding, she was really judgemental and unsupportive about my choice to stay and I've ended up pretty much dropping the friendship. Now I'm hesitant to try again.

I love the idea of strangers in a bar though, and agree that I'm looking for those who really 'get it.' I'm a bit of an introvert though so I'm not sure how to strike up those conversations especially when my emotions are all over the board.
posted by Lamb_Chop at 6:43 PM on July 22, 2015

Look around your neighborhood for bars owned by women. This probably isn't true everywhere, but in SF, the crowd in those bars are great to talk to.
posted by janey47 at 10:25 AM on July 24, 2015 [2 favorites]