Trouble DB'ng Again..How Do I Forget?

[saffie]

W2M,

You need to decide if you want this M.

Your H is going to be hurting too inside, even though he is the one that had the A. You are both hurting and taking it out on one another - natural but not very productive.

Like Sara, I came to these boards after my M seemingly had been saved, but I couldn't stop my very destructive thought processes. I still struggle with it at times now. Look at my signature to get the timelines and you will see it is NOT a quick process.

It took me a year to get what I felt was a worthy apology from my H - to me that was one where I did not ask for it and he truly appeared to see OW for what she was; one day he just started talking about it all out of the blue. I still take pot shots and make cheap jibes about the OW And all that was with an H who gave up OW when he said, (legal action taken in our sitch too), and he never appeared to look back.

For my H, forgetting about the A would be the best scenario - why would he want to remember a time where he acted with no morals, caused harm to several people, and generally brought shame and destruction into our lives. Luckily for me my H WAS repentant and WOULD read things. He wore his hair shirt and read the articles about what I would be going through and how important it was to share things about the A even if he could see it brought me pain. Even after all that, I still kept at things like a dog with a bone - until I realised that the person I was destroying was me. OW had gone IRL but the b!itch resided in my head and was still damaging my M. My H seemed so willing to repent that I didn't trust him!!! _ I guess sometimes, WHATEVER they do we just aren't going to trust them. My feelings of trust about many things in life have altered for good now; I am no longer as trusting about anything- and I mourn that so much.

You dealt with the intital crisis, ( which in hindsight I personally feel is perhaps the easiest part), and now you are dealing with the aftermath. When in the middle of the 'bomb' it doesn't feel like the easy part, but for a lot of people you are dealing with things at such a basic, instinctive level that you really don't process a lot of what's happening. Then you get to breathe a very quick temporary breath of relief that your S is still with you, and then you dive head first into the aftermath.

To be honest with you, I think you are looking at years of getting over this....not weeks or months. For me a year was a totally unrealistic time frame to be looking at recovery. I only found these boards about a year after the A was over.

And when it comes to forgetting - don't. Don't forget the A otherwise you will forget the lessons you have learned from it also. Your mindset will change over time. The cycles of behaviour will get smaller in loop time, the depth of hurt will lessen - but it will take time and it will hurt.

Firstly you have got to decide if you are willing to give it that time. Just the other day I wrote on another thread that I had had to remind myself that I wanted my M and to snap out of the 'misery' part of my cycle. I think to expect healing so soon is niaeve - and frankly I would question the genuineness of it if it happened so soon. You are grieving for goodness sakes for the promise of all you lost in your M when you found out your H had had an A. That takes time. Would you get over your parents or your child dying that qickly? I look at my old M as something that died. It needed to die as it was unhealthy - if it was healthy my H would not have felt the need to have an A - but even so there were bits of that M I loved - our exclusitvity to one another, our innocence and trust..........all shattered.

Give this much more time. Your H may need some 'settled' time to process all this before you can talk to each other in some meaningful way about it.


Some people find going to web sites where the people having A's post about their feelings; reading about things from the other S's perspective can be helpfull. Personally I found things like that too raw and just made me mad, but it might help.

Your H feels guilty and every time you remind him about the A he remembers what a scumbag he was....and also that he is hurting. Have you addressed those reasons yet? The reasons why he felt the need to have an A? Doing that was the biggest thing in making my H feel comfortable in the M again. In fact that was what I was already doing which is why my H came clean and told me he was having an A - because I knew things were not right and was already in C working on them.

I hope this makes sense. I hear you loud and clear and I understand your pain - you need to change the way you are dealing with this or there will be no point in continuing to put yourself through this. If it isn't working then change it - isn't that what DB is all about? You need to give this more time; at the moment your H cannot give you what you need but perhaps in a few months he will be able to open up.

Finally, when I first came to this board I remember someone posting to me early on to basically stop whining as i had won - my H had stayed with me and not gone off with OW. I told them I didn't think of it as a game with winners and losers - I still don't. But I do thing I have gained certain thinks from this process in my personal growth etc. He is still with you;you have the opportunity to work on things if you want to. Many on here would be so glad of that opportunity.

Try and calm things down and back off a bit. You WILL be fine....it may just take longer than you are hoping.

(((((((HUGS))))))))))))

I know it hurts but if it's worth ahving it's worth working for it.