It is natural for most to feel as an abused victim once they discover the infidelity of their cheating spouse. Self esteem takes a tumble.

Read how this person moved through this pain and attempted to reclaim her spirit.

1. What in the way of disrespect, blame, criticism and/or abuse are you facing?

Even though it has been a couple of years since the aftermath of learning about an affair that happened 20 years earlier, this situation knocked me off my feet and took the air right out of me. Why he told me now is strange, but I wanted to believe in us back then. Anyway he showed many of these responses, and I should have left him for a while to give him space to assess his behavior. I was like the battered wife…coming back for more believing it would get better. I let the situation take my spirit away and needed to practice your principles of self-preservation and personal growth. The struggle I had was falling into the pattern of an abused victim rather than to focus on me for growth. It is so hard to let go of abuse pattern.

2. What has worked best for you in stopping or tolerating less and less of these destructive behaviors?

Walking away and showing signs of withdrawing from our relationship when this behavior is displayed. I need to grow my spirit and person…I have to strengthen me again. I get hurt even easier than before from him or others.

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This entry was posted by Dr. Bob Huizenga on Sunday, March 15th, 2009 at 10:26 am and is filed under Infidelity Help. You may follow any responses to this entry through the RSS/XML feed. You may leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

This entry has been tagged with the following keywords: self esteem and infidelity, pain of infidelity, infidelity abuse, coping with infidelity, marital infidelity, effects of infidelity, marriage infidelity, extramarital affairs, surviving infidelity, emotional infidelity, emotional affair.