SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

This book goes through the stages of trauma and grief after the unexpected death of Sheryl Sandberg's husband.

As a BS 2.5 years out, I found it very helpful. I am still grieving and struggling with the trauma of the A. What a slow process this seems, at least in our (now I know) conflict-avoidant, dysfunctional relationship.

I think this book might have been premature if I had read it close to dday - but not sure about that.

I have this book on order from my local library. Hope to get around to reading it soon. I'm coming up on the year 3 mark and I think I'm ready for this book, too, bw900! I'd be interested in hearing what you think of it.

I too found the book very helpful for Affair recovery. I have 2 pages of notes that I've written from that book that really were very inspiring and insightful.

Thanks bw! I just read a review of this book and was about to ask the board if it was helpful.

The rest of the title is: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience and Finding Joy.

I don't have a copy of it (returned to library), so I'm going by memory. (I hope this helps, psychmom!)

I found a lot of understanding in this book about how it feels to face a sudden trauma. It was death in Sandberg's case, but discovering infidelity was definitely a trauma for me (and was a death of who I thought my husband was).

There is a progression in the book from the discovery, the tendency to self-blame and how to handle that, understanding why other people have a hard time knowing what to say or do in response to your trauma, ways to keep living your life, a section about the kids and how to help them with their grief (as far as I know our kids don't know about the A, but not sure), giving yourself permission to be happy.

I especially learned from the 3 P's (personalization, pervasiveness, permanance) and how managing those are key to healthy recovery, and the section about post-traumatic growth.

Sandberg's experience is there throughout, but there are also stories about people who have survived different traumas. I think there is at least one that involves infidelity, but I think the whole trauma aspect very much applies to infidelity.

Books and podcasts have been so helpful to me in this journey, since I have not found safe people to talk to besides IC,SI and somewhat MC. Recently I even managed to finish a couple of novels! That is an accomplishment after 2.5 years of post A despair (we're getting better at R lately - I think - don't want to jinx it by saying so! ).

I especially liked the insights into what to say to others going through adversity and loss. That was so helpful to me.

Thanks, bw! Now I'm even more looking forward to reading it!

Was looking to see if anyone picked this book up because I just started reading it and though she’s talking about grieving her husband’s death, there still a lot that is helpful. Intellectually I know other people go through painful events, but my pain seemed to overshadow everything and everyone else. Her tips on how to help others grieve seem to be helping me work through my own lack of empathy.

And yes I agree if I would have started reading it too early on after DDay I probably wouldn’t have liked it.