I guess I can be here now 2

[25yearsmlc]

May,

I'll be calling you. Meanwhile, a bit of insight about suicide and it's wreckage, which gabbysmom has touched on quite deeply.

A bf of mine lost his dad to suicide after his wife left him.

BFs 13 y/o brother found their dad, so that was a nice touch. And it was on Thanksgiving.

But here's what really struck me most of all...my friend's children, are the grandchildren of the suicide victim.

They know their grandfather chose suicide over having time with their father (his son), AND over time with them...

and that hurts THEM!...and it goes on and on. I know of a great uncle I never met, who killed himself. That's all I know of him.


What do you want to be remembered for? what do you want your daughter to learn about life's setbacks? What about betrayal? What about being deceived?

YOu want her to feel eternally fatally wounded when someone lies to her or betrays her?

Do not model that for her. And May, I think something else is going on with you too and you can't dismiss that.

ANYHOW

So DB gave you an option you would NOT have had if you had not reconciled with your h. That's an OPTION not a punishment.

Your real complaint seems to be the discovery AFTER the fact-

and the apparent "waste of time" working on the m (and probably learning something)

but even if you now divorce him,

the reality is your h and d bonded for that much longer. How is that a bad thing?

What have you LOST by staying m and now having the option of leaving, AN option which you always retain?

I say, It beats having him weird out & leave during a pregnancy for OW... Well, hey, At least it's all up to YOU now.

And yes, he lied....that sukks. However,

from what you've shared w/me, his family holds grudges forever.


HE has never seen forgiveness. He has heard of your absolutes so if he were to break one, why on earth would HE confess it to you?

I mean I get the sense of betrayal. I GET IT....I swear!


But do you see why he'd lie about it? B/C I get that too. It's not admirable -

but it is understandable, based on what you are saying here and what he knows of you

AND based on his family background - which taught him to "Deny Deny Deny, b/c you'll never be released from your mistake", I think I get it.

YOU have some forgiveness work to do, no matter what else happens. No, forgiveness does not mean you condone or necessarily take him back.

I'm simply saying that you are harming yourself by holding onto the anger.

"When you hold onto anger to hurt someone else, it's like lighting yourself on fire, to get smoke in their eyes."

I hope you can see this^^^^....

the whole reason I ever chose to forgive, originally, was b/c my pain and anger consumed ME. Not b/c I thought h "Deserved" it.

My pain and anger were stopping me from being the mother I wanted to be. Too pre-occupied to be fully present. Also was a lousy friend and sister at that time too.

Remember Retrovaille if you want to work on the marriage

and remember the individual workshop FOR YOU, which I mention often ("Essential Experience"--in Philly)--check their webiste out b/c you'll love the help you get there. It's intense and life changing and profound.

Truly you'll get some peace and clarity. And you deserve it.

[ESN]

May,

What's the thought that's causing you the most pain? What are you going around thinking about this? List some if you can.

What are you making it mean that your h probably slept with an OW? What does it mean?

You are being triggered here. This is YOUR STUFF and it's yet another opportunity to do profoundly life-changing work.

But there is pain and there is pain - pain that something like this happened brings you to a grieving place, where you go through the stages of grief, feel your emotions, and come out the other end - better for it, accepting. Even if the "better" isn't something that manifests outwardly, it's inward.

And there's pain that you can continue to foster and cultivate by telling yourself stories and lies - "I am not enough" "He broke my trust, and that means that (whatever it means)."

Be careful to not keep that "dirty pain" - the pain we continue to foster when we're afraid - alive cause like everyone is saying, it can eat you alive.

Before you do ANYTHING I would encourage you to work with a coach (not a therapist who can keep that story going and going and going) who is trained in helping you work through the pain and MOVE ON.

When you are in a calm and "Clean" place, you can decide what is best for yourself, your marriage, and your family -

Much peace, May-

[AnotherStander]

H still swears they never slept together, and while there's no photographic evidence showing a penis in a vagina, you can make inferences.

So you're not even sure if there was a PA, yet you're willing to end your M and even your life over an inference?

Even if there was a PA, marriages survive PA's all the time. There are many, many people here right now trying to bring their spouses out of PAs and back into the M. They would pay dearly to be in your sitch.

Try not to let this cloud your judgment. Look at the big picture- H is done with the A, you've reconciled, you're under one roof and up until you found those photos you sounded pretty happy. What did those photos change? Only your perception. Whether the PA happened or not, the fact is that you were happy with your sitch before you found those old photos. They didn't actually change anything.

[25yearsmlc]

folks, I did get a text from her and she's alright. Not great, but still with us! Trying to heal. Just fyi...I hate it when folks drop out of here on a scary note so, that's what I wanted to pass on.
Have a good Veteran's Day.

(((( ))))

[keep_going]

That is good to hear. Thanks, 25.

May, you are in my prayers.

[KenF]

thanks for the update.

[Eryam]

I'm sorry guys, I didn't mean to scare you.

I didn't realize how long it's been until today.

Things on the whole are better, but it should be taken with a grain of salt. The bad season is coming and I'm trying to get off my antidepressants. It was my idea, not my counselors, but they don't think it's a bad idea per se. In my mind, the spring is a trigger. A huge trigger. And I would rather go through this spring and deal with the bullsh!t without drugs, than go through this spring with drugs and think "oh everything is fine!" and then next spring (without drugs) be hit with a ton of bricks. I'd rather have one more potentially painful spring than think I'm better and not be... if that makes sense.

It's almost been 2 years. Actually it was this Monday 2 years ago that I got the bomb. It was the 28th then.

The day after the Oscars.

I'm struggling.

I expected to be struggling so at least it's not caught me off guard. I don't know who to tell that I'm struggling. I probably should include some people in my circle to be there for me through this. The next few months will most likely be awful.

I really don't want to get on this ride.

[AnotherStander]

The bad season is coming and I'm trying to get off my antidepressants. It was my idea, not my counselors, but they don't think it's a bad idea per se.

I too am tapering off A/D's. How are you going about this? Please DO NOT go cold turkey. That is extremely dangerous. You should be tapering by reducing by about 10% a month. A friend decided to quit cold turkey and spiraled into a depression much worse then he had ever experienced before. He tried getting back on the A/D's but they had become ineffective!! He ended up suidical and in a mental hospital for 2 months. Now he's on multiple medications and dealing with nasty side effects. So please be careful and consult the doctor that put you on them.

[Eryam]

Oh no, I would never go cold turkey.

I'm a trained counselor, and while it's not legal in my state to prescribe psychopharmaceuticals unless you're an MD, I know some basic stuff about them.

I was on 50 mg of Zoloft. A few days before the new year I cut it in half (25 mg). I chose not to tell my H that I was doing this so it would not affect his behavior. I wanted to know that any changes I saw were not from him acting differently; just changes solely from the medication. After a successful month (except for the first few days where I felt a little dizzy and got some minor headaches), I dropped to 25 mg every other day (so half of the half). I had no ill effects from the decrease from the additional decrease in dosage (although my TMJ got worse at night... but that's a neurological thing and not so much stress related, according to my jaw doc), so after 2 weeks, I cut them completely.

I still have a ton left over. If I really, truly needed them, I've got them. And I've also got some Trazadone and Xanax if I start totally wigging out (which I don't foresee).

But yes, for anyone reading this and thinking about coming off of ADs, I did this under the supervision of 2 counselors, lots of research through medical journals (via my work's EBSCO database), and due to my personal knowledge of psychopharmaceuticals. Do not EVER try to do this alone, and do not EVER go cold turkey. It is incredibly dangerous.

Side note: I had a really hard time coming home from work yesterday. I told H I was having a hard time. I knew yesterday was a heavy work day for him and it would be very unlikely I would see him before I was to put D to bed. He came home by 6 and pushed off his work. For me.

I think that's the first time he's ever done that.

[Eryam]

Journaling:

Today has been very hard. I'm physically exhausted at work. Spring Break cannot come soon enough. It's been a week without meds. I cried a lot today, mainly while talking to my best friend on the phone and at my IC. My T gave me a chapter from some book on depression and acceptance. I couldn't get all the way through it without feeling overwhelmed. It talked about accepting your feelings and what you cannot control and accepting the past.

I don't want to accept the anger and the depression and the crying. That's the only thing I've seen this week. I cry. At happy, at sad. I just cry.

But, it should be noted that since dropping down the medication, I feel everything more. Happiness, excitement, joy, sadness. Everything. It's like all emotions had been put on mute for the past 20 months.

I'm so glad I was on AD when I found those pictures or you would have seen me on the evening news. Guarantee it.

I told my best friend today that I had found pictures. Up until now, only my therapist, one of my paraprofessionals and you guys knew about the pictures. Now at least I have a friend that knows.

I really don't know if I can ever forgive him. I can tolerate him, but I really don't know if I can forgive him. For me, it is such a violation of who I am as a person. It's like... and I don't know how to word this without offending someone I'm sure, which is not my intent, but there's my forewarning.... a Jewish person marrying a Nazi, or an African-American marrying a KKK member. It goes against my moral code so strongly that I think I'm more angry with myself for being with him that I even am with him for having the affair.

If D was not in the picture, I guarantee I wouldn't be either.

And now that we've put so much work, literal blood, sweat and tears, into this, what fools would we be to trash it all? And what's the likelihood that a) I find a future mate who will be a wonderful father-figure to D and NOT cheat on me (statistically not in my favor), b) will work as f-ing hard as he is to make things better (which I'm not discounting by any means) and c) will put up with the f-ed up damaged PTSD-looking person I've become?? Oh, and what's the likelihood I even want to put myself out there like that again? I'll tell you now, slim to none.

Reading that acceptance thing was brutal. I've tried reading various books on recovering after affairs and they are still too painful to read. My whole job in life is to literally control behaviors, and I'm just supposed to let myself "go with the flow" of anger, and depression and invading thoughts??

I just need to go to sleep.