Background: a bit over 2years I discovered that the person I had been together with for more than 20yrs and the mother of my kids had been cheating / betraying me for a long long time, and I only found about one case, who knows how many there were throughout our LTR. This traumatic event was the fourth event in a span of 10 years.

I have made some peace with what I have endured through these years, how it contributed to my mental health, my marriage demise, and how I have not been the best husband maybe at times (never betrayed her tho or abused or anything of that sort, I was just not aware of many of my own problems/personality traits).

The separation and the discovery of my ex- extended affair were a wake up call – I discovered all my issues that many of us are completely unaware: codependency, neediness, not taking care of myself for her, making your wife your mom, essentially committing mistakes after mistakes becoming less and less of a man and eventually she quits. I recognize all of this but don’t excuse her actions. That being said:

i) Immediately after discovering what had been happening my world fell apart. Fell into the typical depression and desperation state many of us go through. The anger and hatred though helped me make take some action though.

ii) started going to the gym, play group sports, reconnected with old friends & family.

iii) lost about 8% of my weight.

iv) started attending events where I could potentially meet new people.

v) adhered aggressively to online dating as it’s just another channel to meet single women. Lol made all the mistakes too, but also have read and learned a bunch about how to really date someone and the work and investment it takes indeed. All good stuff.

vi) dated a few women, and eventually find myself in a sort of a new relationship. It’s really the second after where things are not just sexual… we’ll see where it goes.. gotta take it slow.

vii) travelled solo a bunch: overseas, locally, long drives and getaway’s, did it all …

viii) got a regular therapist that I see every week, that I talk with and meditate with.

Well a little but after two years:

  1. I still haven’t lost the weight that I needed to lose. In fact I am getting back to old eating habits… gained weight again - almost all that I had lost … this impacting my life on every level.

  2. Time management has always been challenging for me. I have a rather demanding & stressful job where I work rather long hours. Fitting many of the new habits hasn’t been a walk in the park.

  3. As soon as I found myself in a new sort of new relationship I stopped exercising that often, and I relapsed also into old bad eating habits …

  4. Despite implementing for a while and assertively all the divorce & infidelity recovery recipe I find myself today without having found what my identity is, completely lost and in deep depression again…

I am decided to re implement all the points that helped me through these years, but how can I sustain this if I easily give up and fall into old habits? Have you guys relapsed?

Damm the problem is also that after divorce I feel like a complete failure, could not keep a woman, and fell the train of the happy life, that I won’t ever find something better or equivalent. Divorce was never an option. I don’t have a fucking road map of what Divorce is and fear for myself and mostly for my kids how will they turn out. I am consistently stuck, unable to make any decisions … have a goal for what my life and my kids life should be after divorce where I feel content. I need to be well/somewhat happy for my kids … i cannot show up depressed and lost. They deserve their father well despite all the pain I have endured and that their mother inflicted. God damm

Sorry I am angry… with myself too.