WW, A ended, but struggling to reconnect (My 11th)

[hoosjim]

Your W may have already told the IC about the beach trip, and that could be why she is asking you these questions. For example, if your W and OM had sex......do you want to know the worst, or could you live happier without knowing? How would it affect your interactions with your W? How would it affect your attitude and feelings toward her? I doubt you would really know, until it happens.

IDK. I mean, I think I could deal with the physical infidelity more than I could deal with losing her heart. I know, I know, they go hand in hand, but... I remember from last Spring, fairly early after my discovery of the A, when I was still spinning, trying to find my footing, fairly unsure of what W was doing and where, and at one point I had a dream about her and OM-- They were somewhere on a boat, and I was there, though in that way that you are sometimes in a dream where you are a "third person", like, watching a movie and not actually there, and I witnessed them in a very tender moment, not sex, but where it was clear they were "in love" or something like it-- and that messed me up for days. Definitely moreso than the thought of them just sleeping together. Which gave rise to the question I asked my wife on 3 or 4 occasions not long after in the same timeframe: "I'm not worried so much about where you are physical, but where is your heart", which she always answered the same: "Locked up in a little box..." At any rate, I think I had imagined/assumed sex between them at some point, and certainly the things I did hear them saying to each other were descriptive of that and bad enough... I just think the idea of her falling for him as her "soulmate" and running off with him would have been even worse. Then again, I was certain at the time of BD that they had not slept together, and I have no hard evidence that they ever did after that, though there certainly was opportunity. IDK... Trying to be as objective as possible, it probably would affect me and make it harder... I still hang on to certain things as bad memories that make if difficult to enjoy certain things or to be certain places because of associations with OM. Knowing they "did the deed" might very well make it hard for me to, um... do the same. But, like I said, if she asks to go to the beach with bff... Im not sure I will be able to say, "sure, go ahead" and not freak out a little.

Anyway... Some other tidbits from Friday's intensive sessions:

-- First two hours were joint, and we spent a lot of time looking into our respective pasts for trigger points and pre-dispositions that might affect how we interact with each other. Point was to get us more intimate with each others' pasts/memories/families/deep-dark-experiences/etc, to try to understand what made the other person tick, how best to relate/communicate with them and how best not to. Also to look for things (I think, and this is just me based on readings MC has had us do) that might have predisposed us and our marriage to an affair. MC used an exercise for this, like a bubble or egg chart that involved us picturing traumatic or impressionable moments from our early lives up until and including approximately college, dealing primarily with our families and how we were raised. Major conclusions were that trust and breaking of trust played a big role in my formative years, that trust and friendship and fellowship and family are extremely important to me... but at the same time that the flip-side of that, the "yang" if you will, is that I do not tend to trust easily and that I am prone to suspicion and cynicism. (I identify so closely with wolves for a reason-- that is the same yin/yang of that creature.) For W, it was that, due much to her upbringing, she puts almost incredible pressure on herself to "do the right thing" and to be "the good girl" even though she has some "bad girl" gravitations/urges. MC was quick to point out that the label she puts on "good girl"/"bad girl" are not necessarily apt, but are colored by the fairly strict, puritanical upbringing she received, and that W was very quick/prone to label herself "bad" or a "failure" or the like-- which was very helpful and insightful and explained a lot of the marital friction my W had previously experienced where any time I questioned or second guessed her she would get very angry/defensive and consider it an attack. She doesn't like to be "wrong" about anything because the consequences of being "wrong" even in discreet instances are that she is a "bad person". Or something like that.

--MC wants us to keep doing weekly "check ins" with each other, at a set time/place (NOT the bedroom) and not to exceed 30 minutes, to discuss how we think the MR is doing over the previous week, address any concerns, and try to cooperate and goal-set on any problems. She also wants us to do a couple of touching exercises she gave us (which I discussed above) and also to read through a workbook on affair recovery she had previously given us and pick out the exercises we thought might still be helpful (though many of them, she thought, we will already have addressed.) Other than that, she was happy with how we were engaging each other at the moment (also to keep making social/fun time for each other a regular and frequent event), and wanted to focus on IC for each of us for a couple of weeks.

--My IC consisted of me talking to MC about things I was still struggling with, mostly trust-related and some described above. Big points were to be thoughtful and deliberate when broaching sensitive/painful subjects, to be true to who i am and open to discussing things as a general rule, especially if it is something very important or hard for me (though she is always there as an IC for me to call and bounce things off of first) and to always gauge my W's responses and make note of them for future reference in best way to engage with her.

--Also in IC, MC agreed with the strong/dominant male model being a good one, that that is probably what W had herself been hinting at as being attractive, but that she did not particularly like the "Shades of Grey" movies as a model for that as they were damaging to women. (The MC is a Christian marriage/Sex therapist, for color). She was encouraged, though, that W did not seem to think too much of the movies as a whole, other than her interest and insight into why so many women were drawn to them.

--As mentioned, focusing on the future, what a "good marriage" for us would look like and shooting for that.

--Also IC, re: my wifes body image: Do not contradict or argue with her, but you can let her know it "bothers you" when she talks that way... that I can say things like "it bothers me because I can see that you believe that and that it makes you upset, but I wish that you could see what I see when I look at you."... Avoid discussing particular "trouble spots" that she is particularly sensitive about (with W it is her "belly")... try to recognize and find ways to compliment her "whole" beauty, and make her feel beautiful by the way you treat her and approach her as well. Also that women need to be told/reminded often (though not sure this necessarily applies to my W, though it sure as heck worked for OM.)

--IC , also... Said I should be taking lead and "pursuing"... finding fun things to do, even taking lead on getting her/us to counseling. Another area was in getting a new mattress (which we need but which W has balked about going shopping for).. Said I should just find a moment when we are out, things are going good, and take the lead on it: "Look, a mattress store, come on let's go look" and take her hand and drag her along...

Those were the high points. The four hours really went by fast. W still did some crying, particularly when talking about being "bad" and a "failure" and "letting people (particularly her parents) down" and, even moreso, that she knew her parents would be hurt that she never talked to them about these things... that she felt she couldn't trust her parent's response to them... and that she wasn't sure she could ever bring up any of that to them now for that reason, even as she knew they would still love her. (Example she gave was when she brought home her African-American BF in college--she, we, are both caucasion-- and her Dad just turning his back and giving both the silent treatment and how devastating that was for her-- but the hurt of disappointing them or letting them down was intense.) This is something MC said we both have in common, and that has been a problem in our MR, that we both worry excessively about other people's (particularly each others') reactions to things we might say to each other and, as a result, end up NOT saying them and NOT confiding in and NOT leaning on each other.