I am the cause

[P17]

I get the impression you are feeling sorry for yourself. You feel disgusted with yourself. You feel you are a bad person. You feel you have caused so much hurt and you deserve to be hated and punished.

THAT is feeling sorry for yourself.

I don't know you sitch other than what you posted here but I'll tell you what I am basing what I say on.

You had multiple affairs on your W? Okay.

You lied, cheated and played the victim in here? You did that unknowingly? You did that honestly not knowing your addiction?

You have since discovered you are a sex addict?

If that is all correct then I applaud you. I don't hate you.

Yeah, you cheated on your wife. You lied, cheated and did everythign each and every one of our WAS's have done to us. You were a scumbag. You hurt the person you loved.

But what you have done is something incredibly difficult. You have come on here and apologised. Okay, it sounds like a 'woe is me' tale from my POV, but you could just have disappeared never to return. You could have created a new account under a different name and we wouldn't have known the difference.

You didn't. You came back. You stood up and said you had a problem, apologised for what you have done.

Commendable.

I bet each and every single one of us in here wish our WAS had the balls you have for doing that.

What I said earlier still stands. You need to grow a pair and get some help. BUT it sounds like you are trying that already. Once again I applaud this. You know you have a problem and you're working on it. The rest of us in here are doing the same thing - we all have out own problems, addictions or whatever else and we are tackling them.

I still maintain that step 1 is to stop feeling sorry for yourself. If you truly feel you don't then skip step 1. I would say step 2 is to forgive yourself but that is what you're counselling will help you with. You will never be able to move on until you forgive yourself.

Feeling sorry for myself isn't really what i feel.
I feel disgusted with myself. I feel unable to control myself.
Can you be more specific as to how not to feel sorry for yourself?

Accept that you have a problem and deal with it in an adult way. You can't keep beating yourself over and over and over. What does it achieve? It makes you feel like a terrible person. It makes you feel sorry for yourself.

Are you saying i feel sorry for myself because i am posting what i did?
If so how else can i convey my problem?
Does the fact that i do not know how to proceed convey pity towards myself?

Convey your problem using facts, feelings AND SOLUTIONS.

'I feel disgusted with myself today again for what I did to W but I read my book / ran a few miles / said a prayer / wrote my journal and I feel better now. I know I hurt her badly but I hope to one day be able to forgive myself'.

How about that. Facts, feelings and what you are doing about it.

Am I looking for approval? I do not think so. What is the point? You approve, I still feel like dirt. You don't approve, i still feel like dirt.
Why do I feel like dirt? Because what i have/did is something shameful and shame is the greatest fear i have.

This is what I am talking about. You feel bad. You are bad. You are a bad person.

STOP IT.

None of our spouses are BAD PEOPLE. You're not a BAD PERSON. You're a person, just like the rest of us, who made a few bad decisions and you've landed yourself here. If you're an addict then you have that extra burden to carry. But you're NOT a bad person.

Should i be positive now? should i go and be gung ho about getting help? I wish that i could. Believe me. I do not want or need your pity.

Slow the horse down there. You do NOT have my pity. I feel for you, but I don't feel sorry for you. You made the decision you made. They were not forced upon you.

However, you should be trying to see the positive in things rather than the negative. Negativity is a dark road with no lights - the longer you walk that path the harder it is to come off of it.

Positives? You are getting help. You grabbed your b*lls and stood up, said you had a problem, admitted misleading people, apologised, and are trying to see help. That's a huge positive - as I said, you didn't need to do that.

What i want is unattainable.
What i want is a time machine
what i want is a normal life.
what i want is a second chance.

This is all negative nonsense.

What do you want and why is unattainable? If it IS a time machine, then yeah, it is unattainable. As for wanting a normal life and a second chance (with W?) those are both attainable. You get both of these by working on yourself. You won't have a normal life if you convince yourself you're worthless.

Will get get any of that? No. That is how I feel.

That maybe how you FEEL. But you sound like your feelings are a little irrational so maybe you should try and be realistic.

So step one....feeling sorry for myself? I think not.
I feel sorry for the pain i caused. I loathe the other side of me.

Loathing the other side of you is good. But note what you said - THE OTHER SIDE OF YOU. You sound like you have a good side and a bad side - yeah? Then there is another positive - you are a good guy, you just have a bad side - like the rest of us. Yours may be more extreme, I don't know. But if you loathe if then maybe this will motivate you to seek help and change it.