Does little help probably to ease your frustration - but all I can say is exactly. This is exactly what is going on in my stich. Almost to the letter.
Thanks for posting about your counseling sessions. Very helpful. WAW and I are going on Wednesday and your post gave me all kinds of stuff to work with. Thanks.
I too give you words of support - hang in there. Your W coming to the place of "shame" of the affair is a big step - one I hope to someday see my WAW get to....would help me immensely.
Thanks and hang in there....
Erik
Last edited by SvenTheRed; 05/23/0601:13 AM.
Never sacrifice the great for the good. Sometimes the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.
I had a counseling session yesterday. The basic overview is this:
I am having a hard time 'being myself'. Partly because I'm so used to being very careful what I say or do and partly because I am having a real hard time 'trusting' that this piecing is for real - or is W just doing it so she can say she did, and 'earn her way out' of the marriage.
I also have a hard time not thinking of the affair, OM and related crap. I'm ambivalent as to whether or not I can be in a relationship with her after all the hurt I've been through.
Counselor has said that W didn't want to leave the marriage before the affair if she could have found a way to make it work. She just gave up believing it ever would work, which I can see as true because of things she said to me 6-9 months ago, before the affair. It was only the timing, and the fact that OM took advantage of her emotional vulnerability that caused it to happen. Even W sees that is true.
She believes W really does want the marriage to work, but she's buried or lost the feelings that we all associate with being 'in love' with someone. Not the 'intense' feelings but stuff as simple as missing me when I'm not around. She loves me, and says so sometimes, but I think she's also somewhat 'guarded' in her feelings.
And of course, the 'passionate' feelings she needs aren't there yet.
Counselor said that she's gotten W to understand that she shouldn't be expecting great changes quickly, that I have not really had a chance to heal and I am emotionally spent right now. That's helpful but not for long. C said to me "You've had 4 weeks to start this, you both have what you say you really want so celebrate your life, start living. If you don't you'll lose your marriage again.
She said that it's a matter of being afraid. Afraid to put myself out there to possibly get hurt again. But, she said, you can keep your guard up and help this all fail, and you'll only get hurt 'a little'. Or you can live life, be fun to be around so that someone would be crazy to leave you and risk being hurt a lot if it fails.
That's what is hard. Trusting and not 'trying to fix things' any more, but just being. I know that's what W is most annoyed by - me not being totally present all the time.
So, how do we get past those fears after they've hurt us so much. I can keep using 'my depression' as an excuse - up until W walks out the door for good. Or I can put it all behind me and start anew. But that is so hard. I still think about the bad things and I still cringe when I see her reading her e-mail.
Frank, You answered the question yourself. You need to forget the past and live for now and the future. There are no garauntees in life or in anything. Just let go of the past. You will feel better and it will show. Then your W will let go of the past as well, but someone has to take the first step. Your W most likely fears you will revert back to drinking. Show her otherwise with your actions. You are doing a great job here, keep it up.
I think we all develop certain triggers that stay with us after the A is over. For me, it's when my W goes to the gym, for you it's her email.
It's natural to react to those things but you've become VERY practiced in doing the UNNATURAL in the past few months. I think part of you feels like "being you" would mean openly sharing your feelings about these things but another part of you feels like you can't do that because it's not "DB" or in accordance with how you've learned to relate with your W over the past several months.
I think we all have to learn where that line is between detached, non-reaction to negative stimuli and denial of our feelings. To that end, I think you need to accept that for the foreseeable future, you WILL have negative feelings for certain things your W does, like check her email or act "aloof" because it immediately transports you back to a past that you are doing your best to move on from. Accept that, return to the past, acknowledge it and then return to the moment, satisfied that you were true to your feelings AND true to DB. You accept the past so you can allow yourself to live in the present.
As for the passion thing, I am struggling with that too these days. I see it as possibly returning but I guess we just need to give it time.
I believe you are at that point where us LBS's start to get resentful of all the hard work, and in your case, FAST work you did to mend not only yourself, but the marriage too. You are looking at the big picture and seeing a 95-5 split of the workload and that weighs on you. You also aren't sure you even want what you worked so hard for. Well, I suppose that's because the payoff is just not what you expected. The rosy, fun-filled nivirna of marital bliss is absent from your life, as is the trauma filled pending divorce. There is an emptiness now that I don't think you expected.
Frank, you have come VERY far in a VERY short time. Please continue to give this time. You are SO close, I really believe that. Keep being Frank, whatever that means to you today, and I think you'll be fine.
GH, what you wrote Frank is what I needed to hear today. Frank, I'm in the same stage you are in. I feel each day I wake up and want to just be me--it's a beautiful day and life is too short. Then H comes in the house and I feel like a huge weight is on my neck and I can't breathe and the pain of the past floods in. For so long I was good at detaching and working on me, and now it's time to face the music of the past, but H is afraid to talk, and I am sick and tired of being the one to do all the work of pushing through the crap, now that is not even mine.
GH, thank you for the words. Today is a beautiful day here, a Friday, I had a great workout and feel great. Moments of sadness, but all in all, I am through wasting time on the pain of a past that I did not create....I cannot. I am going to spend today being ME.
I trust there will come a time when H and I are BOTH ready to face the past, the pain and work through it to a better M. Until then, we will carefully enjoy the present.
Thank you so much for your wise words. I've been feeling so weak and lost lately. Sorry for posting this on your thread Frank.
Thank you. Actually, I feel kind of foolish most of the time when I post to Franks thread and often only do so to give him the old "Ra-ra" speeches because I don't think I have much to offer him.
Frank, you so rarely show real weakness and I think that's why it's hard for me to step in much on your threads. Even when you do express something that to you is weakness, you are strong in your identification of it and your understanding of it's place in your life. Lately, I see you struggling with some of the essence of what has made you SO good, for SO long and I thought I may give it a good, ole, college try in terms of posting something more than a generic "way to go Franky-boy." I don't even know if what I wrote applies but it's what I felt.
Anyway, Frank, I know the days grind on sometimes and it's hard to keep doing this. I just deal with it by understanding that my life is now constantly made up of a series of choices instead of a series of things happening to me. It makes all the difference in the world to me to think that way because it means I can change my situation any time I want to, or I can choose not to, it's ALL up to me.
I still think about the bad things and I still cringe when I see her reading her e-mail.
I know this feeling only too well. Two years after NG 'ended' the a by copying me on an email to ow, I still felt apprehensive when he was on his computer, and especially if he flipped screens when I walked by. It is a few months from then, and all I can say is that it was a phase I had to go through. The piecing thing is as much a process as getting to reconciliation was.
For me, letting go of what NG did on his computer came about only when I could accept that he has a right to his privacy, and that I needed to manage my emotional need for reassurance some other way than by making him feel uncomfortable for wanting some privacy. It was not easy, but after a few months of stability, it is becoming manageable.
Maybe we say, she is human and she made a mistake. After all she maybe has the same feelings everytime your mood swings.
Just a thought.
I have always said to myself:
When I die the person holding my hand is the one who loved me the most and the one true partner. At that point I dont think I will be thinking of all the human errors they made in their/our life.
Just a thought.
Shark
P.S. It does seem the longer you go the more piecing you are doing.
Sorry to hijack your thread, I did that to Sven's too. But I could really need some advice about my sitch. I'm in Newcomers, W told me she wants to work it out, but I'm not so convinced anymore. Is her behaviour 'normal'? (as far as it gets anyway). You wrote you have to do 95% of the work. Is your W doing anything to help you to heal? In Michele's book she writes what the unfaithful person has to do to help the LBS to heal, but if nothing of this is happening. Do I just have to be more patient and trustful? And what if I can't trust her yet and she is not helping about it?
I posted this to Sven's thread but I also thought I'd put it in mine too.
As a catch up, things slowly progress forward. W is getting 'warmer' and I'm still in a sort of 'prove it to me state'. Saw counselor today about that and she said to 'stop it!'.
Anyway, the question came up in Sven's thread about 'standing up for yourself' when WAS is being crappy towards you. So I thought I'd share this interaction. It was good for us and I think moved us forward. So here:
About 5 days ago I got a prescription for Ambien because I havene't been able to sleep through the nite for months. I took it that nite and some time during the nite I got up and went to the kitchen to get a snack. I took a small container of Sorbet out of the freezer and I apparently forgot to put it back in.
In the morning W found it sitting on the counter, of course it was melted. She asked me about it and I could not recall if I had taken it out of the fridge, or even if I had gone to the kitchen the nite before.
Eventually, she asks me if I had been drinking that nite. Had I sneaked downstairs to get a drink? Leaving 'food all over the place' was something I would do when I was drinking at nite.
I'm shocked of course because I know that I haven't drank anything in 7 months, and thet SHE has a bottle of wine in the fridge.
I told her that and she said 'ok'. Then I said "You don't believe me do you?"
She said 'no'.
So I paused for a moment, and was going to start 'trying to convince her' that she was wrong.
For the past several months I have done NOTHING but be very careful what I say so that I don't piss her off. I have taken responsibility for everything. I have been carrying all the 'burden' of the relationship. And I'm not being true to myself - being the man I really am.
And I know who I am. And I know she isn't perfect or the center of my universe. And I have earned the right to be treated with respect.
So I said to her:
"I think the Ambien had something to do with whatever happend last nite. Maybe it made me sleepwalk (it can). And I know you've had a lot of past history with me drinking, but I know I haven't been. You claim that there was a bottle of wine in the fridge and I pointed out to you that it is STILL there unopended.
So let me explain something to you.
Last October you told me it was over between us. that you had found your 'soulmate'. And I stopped drinking.
I spent the whole month of November knowing that in December you were flying to see him, and that you intended on having sex with him. And there was nothing I could do about it - I had to let you do it. And I didn't drink.
I went through all of December while you were in your 'in love' state, all the while fully expecting you to find a way so you and he could 'be together', maybe have a business together like you've 'dreamed of', and that I would be alone. And I didn't drink.
I overheard you on the phone telling friends how he was 'the one' and how you were 'so glad to be rid of me' and I didn't drink.
When we took the girls on a camping weekend and I was feeling down you told me how glad you were that you didn't have to concern yourself with where I was at emotionally - that you weren't married to 'it' any more. And I didn't drink.
So, why do you think I would throw away everything I have worked for right now? I didn't change my life for you. I did it for myself, and for my daughters, so they wouldn't have to have a parent who wasn't strong and capable of being there for them when they needed me."
And, I said, how could I ever date or find someone new if, when asked about my first marriage, I had to tell them I lost it because I was drinking? Would that get me dates?
--
She was quiet and went on to talk about her fears of things 'going back' to the 'old life'. How she didn't know 'what she would do if I started drinking again'. I told that was simple. Leave. I said 'we have a pretty simple agreement in our marriage. If you ever have another sexual or emotional affair it's over. If I ever become a self medicating drunk it's over'.
I told her that it is impossible for that to happen to me. I have too many things in life I want to accomplish and nothing, nothing will interefere with that.
--
I brought this conversation up with Counseor today. Mostly because at the time I did have some fear that by being as 'direct' as I was, that I would somehow alienate W from me. Counselor made a simple point when she said "Why don't you tell her that the next time she brings up the crap she blames on you that she needs to give it a rest, because YOU don't bring up her affair or any of the things she did to HER". The past needs to be put away.
By standing up for my 'self' with W she gained respect for me. She's been more relaxed and I think she realizes I'm not going to pussy out when difficult subjects are brought up. Sometimes standing up for yourself makes WAS feel safer with you because they see your real strength.
I wasn't angry when I spoke about all this, I wasn't judgemental. I just told it like it was.
And you know what? She HEARD me.
So there is nothing wrong with 'standing up' to W, because 'standing up' for yourself is not 'attacking' her. Big difference. And it is one of the 'attraction triggers' - confidence.
In the case of Sven (and probably others) I think she 'attacks' to see what you'll do. Are you doing what you've always done?
