u/shtrumph

Hi all. Just wanted to share that this new medication has been approved by the FDA and worth keeping an eye on for when it's approved in Europe.

In a nutshell: "Simtriyo (centanafadine) stands out from existing ADHD treatments because it is a first-in-class triple reuptake inhibitor that simultaneously boosts three key brain chemicals—norepinephrine, dopamine, and serotonin—whereas traditional medications only target one or two. This unique mechanism allows it to offer the clinical benefits of a non-stimulant, such as a lower risk of abuse and fewer sleep disruptions, while working much faster than older non-stimulants that typically take weeks to become effective. By balancing all three neurotransmitters at once, it aims to provide rapid symptom relief with a lower risk of the cardiovascular or emotional side effects frequently caused by standard stimulants."

I had a bit of an epiphany yesterday about shame and accountability, and I thought I'd share it here, especially for the PA's/SA's/WP who feel stuck in shame.

Accountability kills shame.

I realised this because of something completely unrelated to infidelity. I gave a friend bad advice. Afterwards I realised I'd fucked up and I felt awful about it. Normally I could have sat there feeling stupid, ashamed and questioning myself.

Instead, I acknowledged it and actually did something to make it up to them. And strangely enough, I felt better almost immediately.

Not because what I did suddenly disappeared. I felt better because I took responsibility and did something that aligned with the person I actually want to be. And it made me think about betrayal and recovery.

Imagine you accidentally smash a plate. You can stand there staring at the broken plate thinking:

"Crap. I'm such an idiot. I can't believe I did this. I'm horrible. What are they going to think of me?" Meanwhile, the person you hurt is standing barefoot surrounded by shards.

Or you can say:

"I broke the plate. I'm sorry." Then get the broom. Pick up the pieces. Ask if anyone got hurt. Replace what you broke if you can. Figure out why you dropped it so you don't keep smashing plates. That's accountability.

That's where it hit me. I understood why shame can become so destructive in recovery. Shame keeps the focus on you. How horrible you feel. What your actions say about you. Whether you're still a good person. Whether your partner hates you. Whether you'll be forgiven. How unbearable it is to look at what you've done.

Accountability moves the focus onto what you can actually do about it. What did I break? What part belongs to me? What can I repair? What does the person I hurt need from me? What do I need to change so I don't do this again?

You don't have to convince yourself that you didn't mess up in order to stop feeling ashamed.

You can say, "I messed up. And now I'm going to behave like the person I want to become."

Maybe the way out of shame isn't avoiding it, explaining it away, drowning in it or waiting until you finally forgive yourself. Maybe you pick up that broom. You take responsibility. You repair what you can. You change your behaviour. You keep doing the next right thing. Eventually you have evidence that you're no longer just the person who broke the plate. You're also the person who stayed, faced the damage, cleaned up the shards and learned how to stop breaking it.

Accountability kills shame because accountability gives shame somewhere productive to go.

I really hope this post can help someone here. We all experience shame. It’s what you do with it that matters. You can let it consume you, hide from it and keep yourself stuck, or you can turn it into accountability and action.

For anyone who's where I was almost two years ago...

My husband left today for a work trip. He's with colleagues, some of whom are objectively beautiful women. A year ago, I would've been spiralling. Checking everything. Waiting for the next betrayal. Trying to control an outcome I never actually had control over.

Instead, I surprised myself.

I told him, "Whatever you choose to do is what you're going to do. I can't control that. The only thing I can trust is myself. If you betray me again, I trust that I'll find out eventually, and I trust myself to leave."

It hit me afterwards how sad that realization actually is.

I never wanted to get here. I wanted to rebuild trust. I wanted to believe that love and recovery would be enough to make me feel safe again. But after years of lies, omissions, and repeatedly having my needs come second, something changed in me.

I'm no longer trying to stop him from making bad choices. I'm no longer trying to manage his recovery or protect the relationship on my own. I'm just... accepting.

If he chooses us, then he chooses us.

If he doesn't, I know I'll survive.

It's heartbreaking because this is what betrayal does. It doesn't just damage trust in your partner. It changes the way you love. A part of me has gone quiet. I don't say "I love you" as easily anymore. I'm emotionally withdrawn. I'm preparing for both outcomes because that's the only place my nervous system has found any peace.

I don't know what the future holds for us. Maybe this is the beginning of letting go. Maybe it's the beginning of finally trusting myself more than I fear losing him.

To anyone reading this who's still checking, controlling, obsessing, or carrying the entire weight of the relationship, I genuinely hope you get here one day. Not to the pain, but to the realization that your safety was never going to come from controlling someone else's choices. It comes from knowing that no matter what they choose, you won't abandon yourself.

A few weeks ago I posted about my husband almost hitting a year of sobriety. I'm back. (1.5y post DDAY 4y of acting out)

He went to visit his family for his 40th birthday and I had to stay home. Recovery plan in place. I made a conscious decision not to check his accountability app while he was gone. I was done monitoring. Done managing. I wanted to give him the space to either show up or not.

He came back.

Less than 48 hours later I picked up his phone to add a song to our friends playlist. I don't have Spotify. I accidentally hit the wrong thing and reggaeton started playing. He never listens to reggaeton. I checked his search history. Papi Chulo and a reggaeton playlist popped up. My stomach dropped. I opened the accountability app. Two explicit videos were played on Spotify.

I confronted him. He lied. We fought for over an hour before he finally admitted it. He was horny. He gave in to his urges and watched those videos for the girls.

The same way I've had to fight for every single truth in this relationship. I fkn discovered 95% of his affairs, online and in real life, myself. He never came to me with the full truth. I always had to dig, push, fight and be met with lies and gaslighting. And tonight was no different.

This isn't just about the videos. A slip in recovery is one thing. What broke something in me is that he came home, looked me in the eyes, and lied again. His first instinct after everything is still to protect himself over protecting me. He's a compulsive liar and tonight just reminded me of that. He doesn't see my pain, my sacrifice, he just takes and takes and take. He's doesn't have it in him to do the right thing and do the sacrifice to save this relationship.

I didn't cry. I didn't fall apart. I was cold. I told him he had the perfect opportunity to show me his new person and chose instead to show me his old one. I think I got to a point where I accepted that I can only trust myself and I gave up on holding on things I cannot control.

Exit plan is loading. I just need a few more months to deploy it.

For anyone who felt hope reading my last post, I'm sorry. This is also part of the road.

I wanted to share something because this community has held me through some of my darkest moments and I think positive updates matter as much as the hard ones.

1.5 years into reconciliation with my PA/SA husband. The first 7 months of his recovery were largely performative. Going through the motions, saying the right things, but not doing the deep work. I could feel the difference even when I couldn't always name it.

Then he changed therapist to a CSAT who genuinely saw through his patterns and called him out. That made him uncomfortable in a way that turned out to be exactly what he needed. He's been consistent with weekly support groups led by a therapist and has been doing IFS work which he says has genuinely helped him understand himself in ways nothing else has. He seems happier, upbeat, loving, caring, motivated in his new role, vulnerable and communicative. No more PIED! I also let go of managing his recovery, but I still monitor consistency. (If there's slack or deception, I have an exit plan in place)

Last night I mentioned almost offhand that it's been almost a year since his last relapse. He wasn't tracking it. He looked genuinely surprised and happy in a way that felt real, not performed. He said he's never gone this long without porn in his life and that he's proud of himself. That it feels like the hold of this addiction is fading away.

He checks IMDB before we watch movies now. He's more present. More caring. Communication between us is better.

There is still real repair work to do on the relationship. My own fears and doubts are still very much alive and I don't want to minimise that. But something has shifted in him and I can feel the difference between someone performing recovery and someone actually living it.

I don't know where we'll end up. But today this feels like a win and I wanted to share it. I hope someone considering or in recovery can see this. It's possible to live a full and happy life without porn.

Disclaimer: I know relapses are part of the equation and I'm not saying that we've won the war. Only a battle.

Looking for honest answers from people who've been through this. What did your PA actually do during recovery that genuinely rebuilt trust? And what were your non negotiables?

​

Some context. My husband is a PA/SA. Out of 7 years together he was acting out online for over 4 of them. Chatrooms, online affairs, emotional entanglements, crossing physical boundaries with women in real life. I discovered everything myself. He trickled truth for the first 6 months post discovery, which meant repeated mini D-days every time a new detail surfaced.

​

He's now 1.5 years into recovery. He does IFS support groups consistently and recently returned to therapy with a CSAT. There has been real progress in some areas. But the everyday behaviours, proactive disclosure, not minimising, not getting defensive when I raise concerns, are still inconsistent.

​

I'm trying to understand what genuine recovery actually looked like for other people in practice. Not the letters and the promises. The daily stuff. The unguarded moments. The things that actually moved the needle for you.

​

What did your partner do that made you think this is real? And what would have been an immediate dealbreaker if it kept happening?

1.5 years into reconciling with my PA/SA husband. Real progress has been made but the wounds are still very much open.

He has a business trip coming up and I'm struggling. Not with the online stuff, we have accountability tools in place for that. What I can't stop thinking about is the in person risk. He no longer has PIED which means the physical opportunity is real in a way it wasn't before. (He did cross physical boundaries in the past by kissing a random woman at a bar)

He's putting an action plan together and has reassured me he doesn't want to hurt me anymore. I believe he means it in this moment. But I've heard versions of that before.

For those who have been through a partner's first business trip post discovery, how did you handle the anxiety? Did you put specific agreements in place? And did it actually help?

I've been trying to find the right words for what betrayal trauma actually feels like from the inside. Not the clinical definition. The lived one.

Then it hit me. The Upside Down.

If you've watched Stranger Things, you know it. Same world. Same streets. Same house. Same person sitting across from you at dinner. But underneath, a parallel reality running in the dark. Hidden. Breathing. Operating on its own rules while the surface looked completely normal.

The person who betrayed you was living there. In that basement world. Chatrooms. Online affairs. Secrets maintained for years. Coming back up to the surface to be your partner, your person, the one you trusted with the softest parts of yourself. Telling you they loved you. And meaning it. While the basement kept running.

You had no idea. You loved them in full. They lived in two worlds at once.

And then discovery happened.

The door between their world and yours blew open. And what came through didn't just break your trust. It created your own Upside Down.

A place you fall into without warning. A trigger, a look, a scene in a movie, a woman who glances a second too long. And suddenly you're there. In the dark. Where nothing feels solid. Where every memory becomes a question. Where the person you loved most becomes the source of the deepest fear you've ever felt.

Here's what took me a long time to understand.

Their recovery is about closing their basement. Sealing it. Doing the work to make sure that world never runs again underneath the one you share.

But your recovery is something completely different. You're navigating an Upside Down that has its own momentum now. Its own monsters. Built from every lie, every trickled truth, every discovery you made yourself because the full story never came voluntarily. Every moment you trusted your instincts and were told you were imagining things. Those don't disappear because their basement closed. They live in your nervous system. In your body. In the part of you that learned, at the deepest level, that love and danger can come from the same person.

Two recoveries. Two completely different journeys. Running on completely different timelines.

The most painful misunderstanding in reconciliation is when one person thinks healing should be synchronised. When closing the basement feels like it should automatically lock the Upside Down. That's not how it works.

Anyone else relate? I honestly need a sanity check on this. 😅

Hi all,

Looking for anyone who's been in this exact spot, because I can't find a post that matches.

Quick context:

• Non-EU, married to an EU citizen

• Stamp 4 EUFAM IRP card expires next week

• Citizenship application currently at "Referred for Decision" stage

I followed the standard online IRP renewal process about 12 weeks before my card's expiry. They just requested a new letter from EU Treaty Rights. EU Treaty Rights then wrote back telling me the only way forward was to submit Form EUTR3 (permanent residence).

I replied saying I don't want to apply for permanent residence because I'm waiting on my citizenship decision and I just need to maintain my legal residence until then. I asked if I could either get my current permission extended, or get a temporary permission letter to bridge to my ceremony.

Their response: the only way they can issue a temporary permission letter is if I submit an EUTR3 application first. Without EUTR3, no temporary letter. They did say I'd be able to attend my ceremony on the temporary permission.

So I'm staring at EUTR3 with its 5 years of documentation requirements, knowing my citizenship will probably land before EUTR3 is even processed. Feels like a huge amount of work for something I don't actually want.

Is there anyway around this hellish process? 😢

I turned 40 today and I'm lying in bed numb and crying. I need a sanity check.

I'm 1.5 years into reconciling with my PA/SA husband. Real progress has been made but the wounds are still open. But the extent of the betrayal is immense. (Chatrooms, sexting with various women over 2/3 of our relationship, emotional online relationship for 4y with a woman, kissed a random at a bar, and who knows what I'm missing) He's currently doing the recovery work csat, support groups and all.

Before discovery, he used to openly lust over women in public. I would catch other women giving me pitying or challenging looks while he wasn't choosing to keep his eyes on me. That specific humiliation, standing next to your partner while other women clock his attention before you do, became one of my deepest wounds. Mostly because he gaslight me over these instances.

2 nights ago, we went out to celebrate my birthday. A woman nearby had a very revealing cleavage. My spidey senses went off immediately. (I rarely get triggered with other women now but something was different this time) Our agreement has always been proactive disclosure before I have to ask. Like "heads up, I saw xyz and it's under control". He said nothing.

He knew something was bothering me and he asked me if I was ok. Then I just asked directly if he had any triggers. His response was casual. Yeah I saw a cleavage or two, nothing major. That tone alone destroyed me.

He says he just glanced and didn't linger or give her any other looks. But that woman spent the entire night turning around to stare at him and then at me with a challenging look. Multiple times. Why would she keep looking at us that way if nothing passed between them?

When I confronted him the night of, drunk, he initially called me paranoid. Apologised after I stood my ground.

I spent my 40th birthday weekend in spiral mode. Passing out from exhaustion. Waking up numb. Questioning my sanity. I told him tearfully that I wonder if I'll ever feel chosen and safe with him. Why can't he just not care of chasing other women's validation. He reassured, apologized and all, but it just doesn't clock.

He did plan thoughtful stuff and gifts, but I've been too depressed to enjoy them.

Sanity check. Am I crazy for feeling this devastated? Any insight to help me lift my mood is welcome.