I don't know how to approach her about this without destroying all the work we've put into this so far. I mean, really? How do you tell the woman you love that... You LOVE her but don't trust her NOT to become a promiscuous piece of garbage again?
Well maybe not in those exact terms, but really what do you have to lose by telling her. You don't trust her, and that is a huge issue. She needs to know that she has a huge roadblock ahead of her in regaining your trust.
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Still we wait, and we DB, and we recreate ourselves into amazing people. Seriously, this site is FULL of the most amazing people that I have ever never met. We recreate ourselves, we stand up a lighthouse. We pray. We evolve and grow. We continue. We detach. We do fantastic things and overcome insurmountable obstacles.
Yes. All while our spouses do.... well pretty much nothing except have their fun and then hit rock bottom at some point. Then when recon is back on the table you've got a seriously changed LBS who has experienced tremendous growth, and the same old WAS.
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She's done so much work already to try to regain my trust... seriously, she has done almost all of the things Sandi writes of when she describes how the LBS should approach a wayward who is returning. But I am so far from trusting my XW that I feel distant. And the more I become attached, the harder I want to push her away. What is wrong with me? Probably nothing but I don't feel like this is nothing.
There's nothing wrong with you, it's just your base instincts kicking in. The reason for it is you've been through hell, and your body, brain and intuition look at her and see red flags and alarms because you identify her with that hell you've been through. It's no different than if you eat mushrooms and the flu kicks in, the mushrooms had nothing to do with it but now you can't eat them because your instincts identify mushrooms with danger. Right? Everything in you is screaming "Joe we don't want to go through that ever again!" You're not going to get over that feeling overnight. Hell, you may never get over it. You need more time. It's like I said before, there's no hurry. Take things slowly.
Originally Posted by joejoe1
Joe,
I have been blown up in Iraq. Was Medavac off the battlefield. Watch people and vehicles shot up in Iraq. Shot at with PKMs and rockets in Afghanistan. Watch my friends vehicle get blown up in Afghanistan, I watch as they all stumbled out the MATV. Fall to the grown and we pulled security until the Medavac arrived. I watch how the little girls and women are treated by the men and the smelled the horrible smells coming from little girls that made heat paddies (which was made out of doo doo and dry grass). Which, the smells is really the only thing that haunts me today. I live normal life, considering. I have a Purple Heart and a Combat Action Badge.
My mother drown in Hurricane Katrina. And right after the Hurricane I didn't hear from anybody in my family for almost a week. And I didn't find out my mother had drawn until November 10th or so. I had to go to Baton to give a DNA sample, I did that in October of 2005. My mother's body rotted in our house for over 2 months in the New Orleans Humidity. We had to have a closed casket funeral. I cried for 3 months straight after her funeral and wouldn't believe she was dead because I never got to see her body, we were advised not to view it.
None of that has been as hard as piecing and learning to trust again. This Sh!t is harder than DBing. While DBing we are freeing ourselves, moving on, dumping the craziness, once we are on that path we start to gain clarity amd freedom. In piecing we are opening up our old wounds becoming vurnable again. It's not fun, and we see all the risk with opening ourselves up again to the person that wounded us, we see all that pain we just shook off us coming back and it scares the living hell out of us. It's not easy brother and it takes time, you have to be patient. Also, it took me a while to realize but your wife is not your healer, you are. Her job is to heal herself and work on the M. Your happiness and healing is not your W responsibility, ITS YOURS!!!!
Wow Joe (other Joe) that was intense! Thank you for sharing, I'm sure those are very difficult subjects for you to talk about, even on a forum.
And Joe and Joe (Joe squared) thank you both from the bottom of my heart for your service and for the many difficulties and challenges you've both suffered for us and our country!
Originally Posted by Joe2017
But it makes me feel like -- at least physically -- she gave her best to everyone else instead of me. And now I get leftovers?
Yeah, that's super shallow. Trust me I know. I am not actually that superficial, but I can't help this feeling that I'm settling for my XW. This is NOT about her appearance as much as it is the idea that she worked her ass off to give her ass to other dudes. And now she's probably never going to get to that level physically again.
That's not shallow, because it's not her appearance you have issues with. It's her attitude- you feel like she gives full effort to OM/ OM's while you get dregs. Reminds me of my ex, I would complain to her sometimes about the baggy, beige, years-old "granny panties" she wore and ask her to be more sexy, and then when she finally did but a bunch of sexy underwear I find out it's because she was two feet out the door (lucky OM!) At least in your ex's case she really is putting forth effort in other areas if not on the physical side, so you can take some solace in that.
