SurvivingInfidelityReviews 57

In response to "Real I": So you think these negative reviews were written by the same person? That means one person had to create 31 different accounts using 31 different email addresses, and that didn't happen. The reality is that yes- there are 31 people that think Surviving Infidelity is a bad, bad site. Now that number is up to 32.

This site is overrun by a gang of bullies that should have outgrown that behavior in middle school. Don't expect any support if the bullies target you. And if your life experience doesn't align with theirs, then they'll definitely target you.

Find a good therapist instead.

I was on this site for several months to try and learn how to help my ex after I had cheated. I was in weekly therapy, and the stronger I got, the more I spoke up against the HORRIFIC advice that was being given (encouraging betrayed spouses to take on a victim role, encouraging "wayward spouses" to take on whatever guilt their spouses and other members threw at them.) No one has ever healed by being made to feel worse than they already do, and that is exactly what this site tries to do. When I spoke up for someone who was really being punched against the ropes, the mods turned on me, banned me, and exchanged several unbelievably unprofessional emails with me when I dared to challenge them on why I was banned. My advice would be to seek professional help and stay far away from this horror of a site.

I used the SI site for several years, and found it extremely helpful. If you had the misfortune of infidelity impacting your life, then I strongly suggest that you check it out. There is even a section for those who cheated to get help.

I am posting this review because I was surprised to see all the one star reviews, until I noticed a pattern. I'm a teacher and I ran the various reviews through some textual analysis and plagiarism software. This analysis strongly suggests that most of these reviews were written by the same person. If so, then its a real shame that they are so bitter that they've posted negative reviews for a couple years. Maybe you should get some help in moving on with your life.

Deeply Scared is dead, but her flying monkeys are still alive and well and dishing out the best of the bestest advice (note the sarcasm.)

Her dying caused an influx of money to the site though, so that's great I suppose. That way the site can keep telling cheaters that they're always scum, and the cheated on are precious snowflakes who deserve anything they want at any time. Physical abuse is cool, verbal abuse is lauded. Even better if it's directed at a cumdumpster!

Seriously though, find professional help after infidelity and don't rely on a site full of sanctimonious know-it-alls. Everyone will fare better.

SI is a lifesaver. It's the best club you never wanted to join because if you're there it's most likely because your life has exploded due to infidelity - which I have personally experienced - one of the most horrible experiences of my life. There are lots of raw emotions on this site and the mod's are empathetic to that, however, they also know from their own experience, that new members need to hear the honest truth which is hard at first.

You don't want to believe that your spouse is really "that bad", you don't want to hear that they are probably still lying to you, but unfortunately, that is usually the case at first. And your fellow posters will not sugar coat the truth - it doesn't help anyone - but they are there for you through thick and thin. That site has saved so many lives - from the betrayed spouses who thought they couldn't survive without their cheating spouse, to the reconciled couples who do the hard work on themselves to find their way back together.

I have been reading this site since discovering my husbands affair three weeks ago applying for membership in the hope of finding support and advice. This website is definitely not the place for sound, empathetic advice and I will not be activating my membership request.

There seems to be a bunch of incredibly bitter, nasty people who wear their 'victimhood' like a cloak to enable them to be cruel and offer unqualified and dangerous advice to strangers who overrun the board. They enforce their mentality on others encouraging them to be just as broken and unhealthy in their thought patterns insisting it's the norm - it's not! But if anyone disagrees, whether on the site or in one of the members real lives they are belittled and cut off.

The board is apparently moderated but only by those who align with this twisted way of thinking. As an example the forum rules include no personal attacks and that posts can't be dragged around from other parts of the site to be discussed in protected areas. Yet a betrayed wife was allowed to bring a post from a wayward spouse part of the board to attack an 'other woman' this was all perfectly acceptable to the moderators and included nasty personal attacks referring to other members as sluts, when the person being attacked tried to defend themselves they were adminished yet the behaviour of the bitter betrayed was completely ignored.

Probably the most horrific thing I've read though was a post in which a woman discussed how selfish her husbands other woman was try to commit suicide and "how dare she". This was followed by a number of similar posts by other betrayed wives until one member brought up her suicidal ideation due to mental illness and tried to educate these idiots on the realities of being mentally ill. Her personal life was then attacked and she was told how selfish she was in relation to a very delicate, private situation she was going through. She was the lone voice of reason in a very disturbed group who seem to believe that just because they've been cheated on the have a right to attack the vulnerable. No moderation there either!

Stay away, if you've been cheated on there is help available to you. Please don't get caught up in this dangerous place.

I was a member of this site some years ago. I attended a get-together with a number of other members and, during my flight home (I live on the other side of nowhere) something changed on the site. When I questioned the change, I was summarily banned. What followed was a really long discussion replete with comments by MH, DS and their minions that I had been warned by private messages about my posts -- which of course was a blatant lie. None of the admins/mods had ever contacted me privately at all, about anything. Following this episode, many people whom I had met at the GTG, and some whom I had not met but had protested, were also banned.

My takeaway is that you have to be prepared to kiss the asses of the owners/admins/mods of the site. If you do, you are golden. If you don't, you are out.

More objectively -- I still occasionally look at the site (I'm a writer, gathering material for a novel, lol). It is skewed toward those in "Reconciliation" i. E. willing to put up with all kinds of $#*!e... over and over again. Read the tag lines and listing of "D-days". It' a celebration when a "wayward" supposedly "gets it," whatever that means. On the other hand, there are so many bitter people there who delve into armchair psychology that it is literally sickening.

If you come across this site and are seriously looking for support, run and don't look back. Unless of course, you need fodder for your novel.

I had been a "member" of SI.com for about 2 years, when I responded to a post from a wayward who was still in her affair & basically whining about it & looking for support to keep the affair alive! They advertise that Waywards are welcome to post IF they are remourseful or have left the affair... this person had not! Deeply Scared did not like what I had to say & called me out on it "publicly". I wrote her a private message asking why several "long timers" could write semilar, but not be called out. Such as SisterMilkshake & some others. She told me they had been warned via private message... Hmm... so some get " reprimanded" privately & some publicly! Wow! That seems fair!? (BTW... A " long timer" took up for me, but she still didn't ban him!?) Long story short... Deeply Scared & MH evidently don't like being challenged, will read your private messages to others & if they decide you are a threat to THEIR site, they will just totally block you! That's ok tho... it's a horrible site for recovery anyway! Just stay away! Signed... Trying2loveagain... ;)

Are you a betrayed spouse who's healed and your marriage is better than ever now? Want to help someone else? Don't bother creating a profile here. The miserable harpies who haven't moved forward after years and years will pick you apart. You can't possibly have a great marriage now because they don't. Wah wah wah! They like to hang out in the Reconciliation Stories section sniffing the air for any shred of happiness so they can stomp that OUT. Then when you don't run away crying and don't worship them and retract your statements about how your marriage really is better now, for real, their heads will spin out of control and they'll call YOU hostile. It's too funny. They'll write horrible things, deny they wrote it (even though it's right there in black and white) and enlist a couple more of their flying monkey friends to jump in and tear you down too. Actually, maybe it IS worth it to join just for the comedy.

One of the particularly viscious ones was just staying with her husband because she needed him to buy her a new car. Yeah, that's a great reason to stay married, honey. We should all listen to your advice. If he's not meeting your arbitrary and meaningless terms of reconciliation and you're pissed off about it, maybe he was never that into you in the first place. I mean, you're such a PRIZE and all.

A much better site for betrayed spouses in Bloom for Women through an organization called Addo Recovery.

Every post save one represents what's wrong with that horrible place. I just read my final post there. Someone posted that they were happy that the other woman's child was born with a deformity and asked if that made her a horrible person. Yes, that is actually the definition of a horrible person. The regulars like that confused6 whatever (completely off the rails bitter) came on and chastised someone that pointed that out saying the betrayed wife is innocent too. No. No she's not. She's an adult that hopefully is a much better mother than to wish that on any baby. The fact that kind of trash it tolerated did it for me. I'm out. So sad there are only 25 posts on this site and some "helpfuls". There have been so many damaged by that site at the worst point in their life and the one's they keep around there just promote and supply more. Don't go there. There are other sites, like other posters here have mentioned. I love baggage reclaim. More female based but still a great site. This site is malpractice.

Wow. Reading here makes me feel so much better. Just logged off, deleted my browser history and I'm done. I have found everything that everyone has posted here word for word to be true. Bitter betrayed spouses, check. Dangerous and sometimes illegal advice, check check. Condescension, check check check. I used to read everything I could from that site because it really did have great advice, at one time. This would be over 3 years ago at least. Now, it's a very small group of "veterans" that are stuck in the land of anger and rage and vomit that all over the site. Like others have posted, SisterMilkshake is a HUGE issue. She's all over every thread. Like another reviewer just posted, there was a new member whose husband had cheated on her but she had a different outlook than many. She was rational for one. She posted some really great posts. Intelligent, extremely well worded, very good advice calling out the attention w&*%$s there. She wasn't even on there a month. Got sick of the wayward bad betrayed good mentality. She even called out the "gently". That's epic. Members that use that don't mean it and it sounds so snotty. Solus Sto, again, like other posters stated, is awful. She used to be a really great resource at one time. She had posted some great stuff to me when I joined and was really hurting. I have no idea what has happened to her but she's bitter and posts just ridiculous stuff to waywards laying the blame for everything at their feet about anything the betrayed spouse is doing that is harmful and even dangerous. Cutting? Suicidal? Out of control? All the wayward fault. That's absurd. I was betrayed and I would be offended if someone treated me like I had no control. Over a man/woman? Seriously?

How does that logic even work? So nothing a betrayed spouse does is at all related to the wayward cheating no matter what it is but after the wayward cheats everything is now related to the wayward. All their fault. Forever. Ludicrous. Talk about blameshifting.

Stay far away from this site. Used to be great. Now really no more than a social network, just like other posters have said. Ben hit it. Deeply Scared is petty and not very bright. I know she's going through a health crises and hope the best for her but she and MH need to turn that site over to someone that can run it after getting rid of all mods and admins.

Just terrible. How sad.

I never thought I would ever post reviewing anything but stay away from this site. I've been a member for years. Don't post much anymore but read from time to time. Just a poor excuse for a social club now. I don't remember it being like this when I joined. The group think and the little cadre of bitter betrayeds that run anyone that has any moderate, rational view points off. A post today was a betrayed that had cheated on every relationship. A newer member called her out on it and the regular tribe swoops in and basically coddles her. How sad that a newbie has it far more together than the messes that continue to run every forum on that site. I was betrayed and have since remarried. I get the pain. I have recommended the site but every one I recommended it to never lasted. Left because of the cult mentality. I thought they were maybe being too sensitive. No. It's basically, "We know it all and are the experts. No other way works and how dare you not be hateful and bitter." The condescension and patronizing tone of their posts are offensive. They gang up on everyone that disagrees. Sister Milkshake that still googles and stalks her husbands ow years after, solus sto making nothing but excuses for any one betrayed regardless of how appalling they act. Even the few that post in wayward have become insufferable. How sad. Truly this was once a great site. The owner has always been petty but there were other members that made it worthwhile. It's nothing anymore other than a club, as another reviewer stated. A really pathetic one no one should want to join. Run. Reddit and other sites are far better than this mess. Baggage reclaim is a great resource too.

Survivinginfidelity.com is a great idea gone bad, unfortunately, over the years. It was once great. Its still a good place to answer a lot of the what do I do now? Questions, but in the past several years it has suffered from becoming a cult of personality around the owner, Deeply Scared, and a few moderators who carefully toe the Deeply Scared line. Most of them probably dont realize what they are doing, enforcing the will of a petty, petulant autocrat who lashes out at people whenever she feels like it, while pretending to be someone quite different in her public persona. If you piss her off, theres no going back. Years ago, when a fellow moderator, one of her best friends, thought she was being a little too harsh with someone, she simply banished her own friend, writing her off forever.
Follow the rules to the letter and you should be OK. They keep a careful record of transgressions and just boot you, usually without much explanation, for doing anything against the guidelines. Doesnt matter if youve been there ten minutes or ten years, the treatment is the same. Youre not a person youre a profile. Dont question anything. Rules are more important than people.
The site is generally biased toward women, with many fewer male posters. Males with strong character do not do well there, probably because they pose a threat to Deeply Scareds authority in some bizarre way. Dont try to figure it out. Still, there are some wonderful people who post there, no question about it. Annabel below says The members that are pets are ruining the site and being allowed to run rampant while the truly healthy ones leave or get removed. Yes, thats very true.
I wouldnt expect Jill to respond to any of these comments, because she would have to reconcile the fact that they are quite consistent one to the next, and she might actually have to go take a hard look in the mirror. Thats not going to happen. The best thing that could happen would be to turn the site in its present format over to someone who could run it less autocratically, with more tolerance and empathy, and less like a personal queendom.

Oh my goodness I could not agree with the other posts on here more. I joined SI about five years ago when my husband left me for another woman, I did receive a couple of beautifully supportive posts for which I am still grateful, I sought counselling and got on with building my life I was not going toilet my experience control me as devastating as it was.

Every now and then I would go back to see how others were doing and to see if there was anyone I could help and quickly became horrified to see the same old members wallowing and refusing to move on, it became evident that their partners infidelity became what defined them. Betrayed spouses talked about how they lost friends and were encouraged to get rid of them, they weren't real friends in the first place because YEARS later these real life friends and family believed it was time for the betrayed to move on and start building their lives. People are told that it's to be broken and low functioning five years after their partners infidelity, they are told it's ok to keep bringing the old issues up years later and if the wayward spouse gets upset they're not being supportive, it's ok to hate, stalk and try to destroy the affair partners life as they are broken, slutty, "cumdumpters" I believe is the favourite word.

The vitriol is disturbing, I don't remember it being like this in the past but it's a site of hatred now. Deeply Scared (DS) runs the site and is one of the most pathetic little characters I have ever had the misfortune to "meet" clearly exercising the one power she holds in her life. As one commentator said, she has replaced another man with this site as a away to bask in attention, interestingly she is ALL OVER the male posters on the site in the most sleazy manner, if a woman stands up to her she'll just ban them I really don't believe she's a "recovered" wayward at all.

There are members on there such as Sister Milkshake who YEARS later still spread hate and bitterness, sadly the influence of she and DS make the vulnerable think thats how they should feel, the collective damage is horrendous.

One of the most horrific things I read was a betrayed spouse who had "reconciled" with their spouse (in SI terms that just means you don't leave, not that you actually wok on building a better relationship and rebuilding your life) and years later carried such hatred for the woman her partner had an affair with that she set up an elaborate plan to destroy her.

She secretly set the woman up with a colleague and encouraged him to pretend to be in a loving relationship to the point that she is now selling her things and giving up her house in order to move in with this man who in actuality is about to move overseas leaving her homeless and possession less- this woman has a history if self harm and has children. The BW gleefully reports on the fact that he is getting free sex off this woman.

In addition to this she called child services in an attempt to have the woman lose her children, has tried to have the woman fired and has put naked photos of the woman in letter boxes on her street, sent them to the woman's family and other mothers at her children's sports teams.

This was all encouraged by members of the site, for me I was done.

Deeply Scared, if you read this it's time to stop. You are a bitter, broken person who is causing a great deal of damage, move on with your life.

To any other betrayed spouses, stay away from this site and don't let infidelity define you. Your life is worth so much more and there is real happiness waiting for you if you let it into your life - wallowing in bitterness, hatred and pain will not help.

I thought I was using a site that would help me survive the infidelity of my wife. Big mistake. There was a post about whether a male STD hurt. Plenty of really nasty posts about how they hope it hurt like heck. I posted that I'm a BH and I had to get the test done. Explained how much it hurt and that I didn't deserve it.

Was basically told "tough". When I defended myself, I was banned.

But you know what? If for some reason you ever want back in to post, just create a new email address, like Hotmail. Then download a secure browser like Tor which masks your IP address. Access the site and you will not be blocked. First have to clear your cookies first though

I'm so glad to find this review site. I have talked to other members and we all agree that this site has gone horribly wrong. It once was a really decent site. Had members that were suffering, sure, but had some very strong voices that were far enough along in their healing to provide balance and healthy support. It has completely gone off the rails. I blame the staff and the site owners. DS is petty and petulant. She is no more healed than when she had her affair. She just has substituted SI for another man.

The collective pathology of the current members is ensuring new members don't stay long and keeps the dysfunctional around for years. There is a member that actually posts how she married her husband so she could have a baby daddy for her child and then added 3 more with him. She actually stated that she loved him because of how good he was to her and how well he took care of her so she can stay home and home school. I'm a betrayed spouse and find this absolutely appalling. I have never believed there was any excuse for cheating but seriously? Treating this guy like a walking wallet and now she has him on a very short leash and wonders if she still loves him? She never loved him. Damn, woman. Take care of yourself and your kids! Have some bloody independence and pride.

Sadly none of the good people that would call that stuff out before are around anymore so just the enablers that bitterly wallow to "oh you poor poor thing".

They need to shut the site down and start fresh or at least sell/resign for a group that will be in a far better place to offer some genuine support and also call out wayward thought processes on BOTH sides. I'm leaving and I know of several members that barely even go on anymore. You can really tell by how slow the forums are and how few people respond that aren't the "in" crowd.

DS, do the right thing, for once. Step aside.

I have to agree with the other posters here.

It really boils down to DS still functioning with wayward thoughts and actions. She gaslights, blame shifts and absolutely refuses to admit she may have been wrong or mistaken about anything, at any time. Instead she just bans you. She certainly never apologizes to anyone, probably because she just bans them instead.

Truly, her behavior is WS behavior being directed at people who are trying to heal from that same kind of behavior. This is not a safe place.