I realised I can’t be truly happy anymore

Right off the bat, let me convey why I’m on this sub-reddit: The first D-Day happened over three years ago. I forgave them and we’re still together.

Now for my rant:

I always think of myself as someone who doesn’t get as excited about things as other people do, like festivals, holidays, or outings. Whenever I come across a question like, “When was the last time you felt genuinely happy?”, I don’t have a answer for it because I don’t think I’ve ever felt that happy. I’ve been this way since long before I met my unfaithful partner.

Anyway, I recently went away for the weekend with my parents and my sister. The weather wasn’t so good so we decided to not go sight-seeing and just chill at the resort where we were staying. My sister and I went to the swimming pool and I really enjoyed it, so much so that I swam for four hours that day. (Two hours in the morning and two hours in the evening) My sister and I invented games of our own to play in the pool, we challenged each other to race across the length of the swimming pool multiple times, using different strokes each time. And whenever we grew tired, we’d just float on our backs in the water, our limbs outstretched. And floating like that, that was the most calm I felt in years.

After we were done swimming, we were rushing back to our suite because we couldn’t wait to take a shower and rush to the dinner buffet, we were famished. That walk back to our suite, I remember thinking to myself that this is the happiest I’ve been in years and that I would cherish this day forever. I felt genuinely happy.

When I was standing in the shower, that’s when it hit me like a train. I couldn’t stop thinking about one of the D-Days when I found those photos on my partner’s phone: them with another person in a resort, a picture of them hugging each other, a picture of them in a museum, a picture of them on their dinner date at that resort.

In the past, I’ve found nude pictures and videos of my partner with multiple people. Call me crazy, but these normal museum date pictures hurt me more than having to watch videos of my partner sleep with someone else, because these pictures of them hugging and going on museum dates felt so much more than a fling, it seemed like a happy relationship, it seemed like they were in love and it broke my heart.

Anyway, in the shower, I cried until I couldn’t breathe. I realised that I could no longer be genuinely happy: all my good moments would be tainted by the infidelity.

Ever since the first D-Day, I feel utterly worthless and the ugliest person alive. But this realisation broke me in ways I didn’t know was possible.