first of all, let me congratulate you on where you are. i have read back through your original thread and now this one. i think our wives may be long lost sisters. as i said before, your sitch sounds hauntingly similar to mine. i pray that one day i will be posting in this forum - but only time will tell.
feeling that our wives are similar - let me also congratulate you on how you handled the arguement the other night. my wife is so stubborn she will make her mind up on little things and just force herself to stick to it. if we had been in the same situation you were in the other night, i guarantee that my wife would have had her feelings hurt, would have just shut me out, turned away from me in bed, and decided that no matter how much she wanted to snuggle that i would have to give in and make the first move. i don't know if it is a petty test, anger, punishment, or what - but this kind of thing happens often. what you did was to take the high road. you wanted to sleep with her in your arms - even though your feelings were hurt and you were justifiably angry - and you did not play mental games - you just rolled over and snuggled. that is comendable. (sorry i can't spell) those kind of actions speak of your ability to be angry at someone and yet still recognize your love for them and that your present anger does not change how you truly feel about them. no everyone can do that. some people just shut themselves down and dwell on the anger and resentment. that kind of person is hard to live with and even harder to convince that you love them unconditionally. wonder if that has been an issue for your W. does she truly feel deep within without any doubt that you love her. problem is, that is something that words can't convince her of. she needs time and actions if that is one of the issues. this has been a problem for me in my M. sound familiar?
as for the being sorry thing. if your W is as much like mine (and i think she is) she will hold on to that resentment of your part in this for a long time because in some odd way she uses it to keep herself from being overcome with the guilt of what she has done (the A - that is). i don't think my wife will ever truly realize the impact of her A on me and this M until she lets go of her anger at me. then she will no longer be able to tell herself that she was "driven" to this point by my actions, and therefore duck the full responsibility for what she did. sounds as if things are all in all moving along nicely for you guys. you are doing great. i bet the W will one day, out of the blue, get really upset and apologize in a deeply heart-felt way when all of this crapp really comes down on her in a moment when she is without the tonic of anger to ease its reality.
i greatly appreciate your posts to my thread. i will keep up with yours and try to offer you the vantage point of where you have been (because all things tend to dull in time and you may become less aware of how much progress you really have made).
Quoting eskb: This stuff will continue to come up. Her being truly sorry for the betrayal is important to me. It eventually needs to be her attitude, or it will be an ongoing sore spot and source of problems.
Brian
Brian -- I can relate to your feelings -- your desire for her remorse, particularly as a strong indicator that she won't let this happen again. I AM going to suggest, though, that you convince yourself NOT to bring up the affair, your hurt about it, etc. in the midst of a conversation/argument about something else -- in this case, her hurt/anger over what she thought was an insensitivity on your part.
I know how difficult it is to NOT do this -- I've posted before about how sometimes when my h. gets angry with me about something or other I feel internally outraged "how dare you get mad at me at this trivial incident...." but I think it's really, really important -- not just for you but for your wife, too.
Fact is, it's "good argument practice" NOT to "kitchen sink" anyway (kitchen sinking is when you start arguing about one thing and then everyone just throws their issues into the heap). Seems like it would be even more critical with this weighty of a topic.
Anyway, just my 2 cents.
Sage
Relax. Appreciate. Be calm. Laugh. Enjoy. Be secure. Be loving. Be loved. Don't personalize. Don't ASSume. Accept. Be grateful.
Bad reaction, but excellent recovery. It is very hard to not want the remorse but it will get easier. Women, in general just seem to have a very, very hard time with "I'm sorry". I have seen it time and time again. In reality though, no one wants to keep being forced to say it over and over again. Keep that one on mind too. You deserve to hear it often but she did it already, right? When I get in a "mood" about something I still want to bring it up. Not a good idea!
Don't try to prove anything, judge her actions, or teach her a lesson. Just work to help your M "evolve" into it's new and better form. Notice that I didn't say to make it anything, let it evolve. In a short time she will learn to appreciate your caring, understanding and patience. Give her the time and opportunity to step back and see it. Remember that everything is a choice. What are you going to choose to do?
I really like what "Awake" had to say about "the tonic of anger to ease reality". I think that that might be part of the problem with you W's inability to give you what you so deeply desire.
So your W had abdominal pain too. Hmmm... Glad to hear that the hospital found nothing to be concerned over.
Thanks for stopping by, especially with all the stuff you are facing now in your own situation. I do think our W's are similar, my situation is just chronologically farther along than yours.
Quote: wonder if that has been an issue for your W. does she truly feel deep within without any doubt that you love her. problem is, that is something that words can't convince her of. she needs time and actions if that is one of the issues. this has been a problem for me in my M. sound familiar?
I don't think my W questions my love for her anymore (she used to). She still questions whether some of my changes will be long lasting ones, but she doesn't question that I love her.
Quote: i will keep up with yours and try to offer you the vantage point of where you have been (because all things tend to dull in time and you may become less aware of how much progress you really have made).
Thanks. I know that to you, being in all-out crisis mode, the less-critical problems that many people on the Piecing board face might be problems you'd be all too happy to have to face. I remember reading certain posts of Sage (Sage, OK if I use you here as an example?), and reading about so many good things happening in her situation and thinking that despite her perception that things weren't going that well, that in fact they weren't just going well, they were going GREAT! It all depends on your perspective, I guess. Once you get to a certain level of stability, you want more. Sort of a case of the more you have, the more you want. No longer will I be satisfied with a so-so marriage - I want a great marriage. So even though we're past the most critical stage (the "is my W leaving me forever" stage), the ongoing issues still seem pretty damn important. It'll be the same for you, no doubt. But thanks for the reminder, yes, the progress we have made is truly wonderful.
Quoting sage:I AM going to suggest, though, that you convince yourself NOT to bring up the affair, your hurt about it, etc. in the midst of a conversation/argument about something else -- in this case, her hurt/anger over what she thought was an insensitivity on your part.
I know how difficult it is to NOT do this -- I've posted before about how sometimes when my h. gets angry with me about something or other I feel internally outraged "how dare you get mad at me at this trivial incident...." but I think it's really, really important -- not just for you but for your wife, too.
You're right, of course. I'm committed to never using the A to bludgeon my W in an argument, but what I did came pretty close to just that. That's not really what I meant to do. I guess in my mind I wasn't trying to make her feel guilty, but rather to make her see that her old pain over her father's death is not comparable to what I've recently gone through. But I should separate the 2 things - what I went through does not justify being dumb/insensitive to her.
I too get outraged when my W gets angry over some trivial thing. Part of that, no doubt, stems from how much we have suppressed during our DBing. There have been many times over the last few months when I would refuse to argue with her or get angry with her over something relatively small (in comparison to getting your M back, every issue is relatively small, eh?) So it makes me all the more enraged when she doesn't return the favor, and let something trivial pass. I wonder how long it will be before we stop feeling this sense that our S's have lost their right to ever be angry with us.
Quoting tbone: Women, in general just seem to have a very, very hard time with "I'm sorry". I have seen it time and time again.
Yeah, what's up with that? I always thought that it was men that were supposed to be the stubborn ones and that me and my W had the whole thing backwards.
Quoting tbone: In reality though, no one wants to keep being forced to say it over and over again. Keep that one on mind too. You deserve to hear it often but she did it already, right?
Yeah, kinda sorta. On D-day, and maybe in the days following, she was sorry that I had gotten hurt. But that was more like "I'm sorry you found out" than "I wish I'd never done this". She was also sorry that I found out because (if she is to be believed) she was probably going to end the A and my finding out made coming back to me harder. And she has said, in other words, that she's sorry in the sense that nobody (including me, maybe, but especially her and the OG) would have gotten hurt if she hadn't had an A. But what I want is a deeper sense of sorrow.
Here would be a suitable little monolog (she'd be bawling as she delivered it, naturally):
"I'm so sorry for all the pain I've caused you. I realize now that my betrayal was so wrong. I realize that what I did will take years to repair. I'll never do anything like that ever again. I can't believe that I almost destroyed our M. I was a completely out-of-control self-righteous selfish bitch. I wish from the very depths of my soul that I had not done this. I would give my right arm if I could take it all back. I can't believe that you were so patient and understanding, that you put up with so much. You are so wonderful. You are so much better than the OG. You are smarter, funnier, more fun to be with, better looking, and way way better in bed. Will you ever forgive me?"
Yeah, that'd do it.
OK, enough fantasy. In the real world, I'd settle for the 1st 5 lines of that if she'd follow it up with great sex!
So you have actually scripted the "apology", me too . It is good that we can laugh about it because it won't ever happen the way we wrote it. Somehow they seem to justify their actons internally and don't see the need to beg for forgiveness. I don't understand it but I don't worry about it anymore either. Write it off to just being the way it is. She was and is dealing with the "loss" of the OM. Let that clear and she can then focus more on your feelings. We are all selfish by nature, especially with feelings. It is very hard to deal with others feelings when you can barely deal with your own. My W now makes comments almost weekly now regarding my superior attributes as a husband. That took time though. This last weekend we were at a pool party with some of her "pageant" friends which are either divorced, remarried or ready to become a WAW. I was the only H there, lucky me, not! It was like the Oprah show with all of the man and fellow contestant bashing going on. I just played "cabana boy", swam with the boys, and watched as these ladies proved to my W exactly why I am not very impressed with the pageant scene. I kept my mouth shut all afternoon as they ragged about their H until I told the "husband shopping" joke just before we left. See my thread for the joke, it is a good one. When we left my W told me what a "perfect" H her friends thought I was. She said "she couldn't agree more". As veterans here know, it wasn't that long ago that I would have thought hell would freeze solid before I would hear something like that.
From what I have heard and seen the vast majority of W go through some "state of confusion" in their 30's. How the H and W handle it dictates whether the M survives or not. Don't dwell or expect your scripted remorse and you two will be survivors as well. Your doing fine so far.
Haven't all of us betrayed husbands and wives scripted THE APOLOGY? I know I have, many times over. Tbone is right, however, that unfortunately most of us will never hear it even remotely as good as the one in our head. I think you just have to learn to hear it the way it comes out in bits and pieces over the months and years following the A.
BTW, tbone, I've heard that shopping joke and I love it. I think most husbands, OTOH, would never get to the shopping mall in the first place. You'd have to substitute Home Depot for the mall, and the H would be going doing the aisles instead of taking the elevator.
. It is good that we can laugh about it because it won't ever happen the way we wrote it. Somehow they seem to justify their actons internally and don't see the need to beg for forgiveness. I don't understand it but I don't worry about it anymore either. Write it off to just being the way it is. She was and is dealing with the "loss" of the OM. Let that clear and she can then focus more on your feelings. We are all selfish by nature, especially with feelings. It is very hard to deal with others feelings when you can barely deal with your own. My W now makes comments almost weekly now regarding my superior attributes as a husband. That took time though. This last weekend we were at a pool party with some of her "pageant" friends which are either divorced, remarried or ready to become a WAW. I was the only H there, lucky me, not! It was like the Oprah show with all of the man and fellow contestant bashing going on. I just played "cabana boy", swam with the boys, and watched as these ladies proved to my W exactly why I am not very impressed with the pageant scene. I kept my mouth shut all afternoon as they ragged about their H until I told the "husband shopping" joke just before we left. See my thread for the joke, it is a good one. When we left my W told me what a "perfect" H her friends thought I was. She said "she couldn't agree more". As veterans here know, it wasn't that long ago that I would have thought hell would freeze solid before I would hear something like that.