u/lsftbst

Has anyone who left, but currently still lives in the home where it happened, found redecorating the space helpful in healing and reclaiming yourself?

I find the shared things and things we bought together to be emotionally triggering, but I can’t afford to start completely over, especially with furniture. I started taking wall art of his down (this is very recent and he is still in the process of packing and collecting his items) and things we had to compromise on. I started putting up more “girly” things I owned in my previous apartment.

What about things like rearranging furniture? Does that seem like a ridiculous coping mechanism? Is this all just an attempt to heal faster but in an unhealthy way?

I have half a year left on the lease, so there is time to make some changes.

Thoughts? Advice? Budget is limited but I could afford a new comforter, and other small things like that.

D-day was last month, a couple months before our wedding. Fiancé immediately got into “recovery” work, found a trauma informed therapist (content usage likely a maladaptive coping mechanism for his first sexual experience being rape), followed our couples therapist advice in giving me all passwords, letting me see phone whenever.

There were two issues, though related. 1=content usage, affected bedroom performance, etc. Details for another time (and some below). I was willing to stand beside him on this especially given his background. 2=lying, being secretive, gaslighting me. I genuinely thought I was going crazy and making things up in my head.

I made a list of boundaries. I was willing to work through things with him on issue #1. But if issue #2 happened again (relapse, not just a one off, but regular usage and hiding and lying, I’d be out). I felt quite comfortable with this decision / boundary (despite it being a hard choice) since we were not married yet, trust was already so compromised, and I am 30 (anxiety about “time running out” for kids still there, but feel relatively young, I also was in school for a while [am a lawyer], so my life is pretty much just starting and am just a few years into my professional career).

The logistics will be tough, but doable. He’s out physically staying with a family member. I cannot afford this place on my own but thankfully I will be able to afford to live on my own somewhere else. The honeymoon was also refundable though we will lose some money on vendor deposits. I will recover financially in probably 6-8 months. We have no children. I can advance the two weeks of PTO I was going to use for the honeymoon to prioritize my wellbeing (work is flexible on that).

What seems more overwhelming now is the betrayal trauma. I have been in therapy and will continue to go. I’m going to try to make a list (a self love and plan list if you will?) of what to focus on. Eating, prioritizing sleep, hygiene, movement. Then, once Ive got that under, leaning into hobbies (reading drawing etc). Then, once I’ve got that down, starting to plan things for me: I love travel, and was already going to go on a solo trip in 2027, so starting to plan that. But the actual trauma processing and grief? It feels soul crushing, daunting, there’s social embarrassment about calling it off. I’m proud, for sure, and am grateful for the self love and self respect that drove the decision to leave. But grieving the life I thought I was going to have seems impossible right now, even though I know that’s me catastrophizing.

My question is - what would everyone recommend besides therapy, self love, reconnecting with myself? Making that list? I’ve read that the Betrayal Bind is a good read.

Just for an aside/rant: I’m super grateful for my nervous system. By body was telling me he relapsed and was lying to me before I even believed it. Mornings before I was awake was a trigger for him to do it - he wakes up at 6, well over an hour before me. My body was waking me up at 5:45-5:50 each morning. I checked in with him periodically and couples therapy was also an outlet and opportunity for accountability. Denied usage and emphatically said he was doing the work. That he would do anything for us. That he learned his lesson. That this was a wake up call. My nervous system was telling me in a million different ways. I was reading up online how you can find Facebook search history that’s been deleted (he deleted instagram since that’s where he used content). I asked to see his phone and I found things on fb. I asked him if there was anything he wanted to share (me being gracious). He kept denying. I said I could see x, y, z. He finally fessed up to viewing but that he didn’t seek it out. Kept lying. Went right back into his old ways of being defensive and demanding I tell him what I was looking at on his phone (now I know this was because he needed to know how much I found out). Then it hit me - I’m social media savvy, but there are things I’m not knowledgeable about, and he is capable of lying like this about any matter, and convincing me there are no issues. The gaslighting in all of this is unreal. It has done something to me.

The person I was supposed to feel emotionally safe with ended up hurting me the most.

First d-day I had all the feels, especially after seeing the type of content he was looking at. Lots of insecurities, etc (which I struggled with a bit in the past, but has never been a big issue)- I struggled with the fact that this man made me doubt how beautiful I am, that is something I’ve worked on for decades, that type of love. Compromised in seconds. But now? This second d-day? I realized this is about him, not me.

It was a HARD decision to stay after d-day 1. There were things that seriously scarred me - when I learned about how his usage was connected to his sexual past (I knew what happened for a couple years but not the usage) and the extent I was sick to my stomach. His brain has been wired to only be attracted to certain body types, and he admitted he thought of those things during sex, he would try to be in the moment but in order to finish he had to think of those things. I felt used, sickened, etc. I actually thought with real recovery we could get through all that (and I felt generous in giving him that chance). He wasn’t good in bed which I thought was weird for our age but chalked it up to the sexual trauma. My gut knew what was wrong though and I approached him many a times to check in that he wasn’t watching content because that could have explained a lot about his performance and low sex drive. Said things like, I have you, why would I do that, that’s disrespectful (ha!).

I feel shattered. Like all the pieces of me are on the ground. I am confident I can start to pick up the pieces, but if anyone has any supportive words or tips that have helped them through this process of separating, I’d be super grateful.