Divorce because I betrayed her trust - PART 6

[DaB35]

Yes good advice, thanks!

OK. I will try that when I go tonight. I'm up to 60kg on the leg press, 35kg on the lat machine and 'low row'. Shoulder Press is still a challenge; I'm on 15kg @ 12 reps and that's tough! I'll keep that as it is, but I'll try upping everything else by 2.5 to 5kg more.

Yes the compliments, mainly from friends and colleagues, are a massive boost. It says to me that I'm dealing with all of this in a right way. Old me would have been very depressed and unwilling to do anything, just pining for W, begging even now etc. So me getting out and GALing is a huge 180 in the first place.

I don't identify strongly with my Indian roots. Discussing this in IC brought up the topic of it contributing to my NGS. Indian parents like to 'boast' about their children and tell the world how perfect and wonderful they are, and it's a BIG deal if they make even a little mistake (as in a tiny mistake that most people would think, "Ah well, that has happened, but it's ok now, no problem.").

My mum hates it when she plans something - e.g. I pick someone up at this time, drop them off here at x time, we do [y] activity, then do [z] and go home - and then something throws that, e.g. Person B forgot to bring something for Person A which means [y] cannot happen, or is delayed. She gets very frustrated by that.

This rubbed off on me because I felt duty bound to be perfect all the time. I would always be anxious if I did something wrong and of my mum finding out - even something tiny like getting a speeding ticket from a camera or breaking something, I'd never tell her as I know she'd be upset and berate rather strongly me for it.

W was very similar in parading me about and bigging me up to everyone she knew, saying "My H is perfect and amazing and he does this and this and this round the house and he helps clean and buys me nice things and blah blah blah." So if I did something wrong (but not major), like put the wrong colour clothes in the wash so it discoloured one of her nice tops, or our newest set of bedding, she'd go crazy at me. That made me feel like I'd REALLY let her down and was not worthy of being with her and made such a mess of things.

Yet I never called W out on things that upset me - for example she never wore her wedding rings (she genuinely got ezcema from the metal and her fingers swelled up), but would constantly say she wanted to get a necklace made so she could wear them round her neck - she never did that. I always wore mine and felt upset she wasn't trying to move that forward. As the NGS book says, I was losing my 'personal power' in the R and M.

I think this is why W is so distraught about discovering my addiction. She never thought I'd be capable of doing it. So I do understand her feeling of betrayal of my lying and concealing it from her for years (all due to shame but she doesn't care about that if I ever brought that up as a reason). However, I will not dwell on that too much as I'm over it and IC has helped me get it out of my life.

Feels great - it's like a snowball effect. I used distraction tactics whilst going 'cold turkey', then I got used to the distractions and started enjoying those more, then they became "stuff I do when not at work". Then reading the advice here and in various books on Audible etc helped me further. I feel more confident, so I walk more confidently, so more people notice, I get complimented, I feel better, I continue to do it, I still feel better about myself, etc. And on it goes.