I have a whole page of quotes from this thread. So many helpful things, and articulations of how I feel. Like this:
I still sometimes feel very split in who I am...the strong independent one who has the world by the horns...and the other one who still bears the wounds inflicted by the betrayal.
And this:
I can also say I don't give W ready access to the me inside. I also have found she does not want ready access, just limited access.
Now Kent, I know this will probably sound kinda heavy but... Lots of folks think that affairs come along when the relationship is too fused, too intense, instead of it being the product of distance. (What me? Too intense???) I think that was true for us. Part of it was that I was used to having lots of very close friendships and my H wasn’t. He was used to working his butt off and not taking time for relationships. We have a wonderful arrangement for complementing each other OR completely burning each other out.
Here is what has helped me:
I have learned that the hurt one is the part of me that is completely alone with my own conscience, the HP, whatever you want to call it. The only real comfort I can find is inside me. (This way of looking at things gives my H the "space" he needs and gives me the realization that I am responsible for my own happiness.) It doesn’t help to try to get my H to comfort me. At the level I feel hurt, he can’t do it--nobody can. My H can only handle extremely limited access to me. I have now come to believe that’s just how humans are, and I do better to remember that and act accordingly.
Long ago I had a dear friend who was in an emotional state that I just couldn't handle. I distanced her during that period because it was simple more than I could handle. My H tells me that when he sees my hurt it is more than he can handle because he knows that he was the cause of that pain--I can sympathize, had I been a contributor to my friends pain it would have been unbearable to me. The good news is that my friend is still one of my best friends (since I was 4 years old!).
In this way the big lesson out of all this has been realizing that all I really have is me and that HP. And every moment I’m living in that awareness the wounded part is connected to the strong part. It still hurts but I don't try to put the hurt back on my H, like I read on the Forgiveness site (and have seen to be true) passing hurt back and forth just intensifies it. I let it stop with me.
At least I know the goal. Hopefully those moments of awareness will be closer together and longer: I'll live what I know!
[ October 22, 2001: Message edited by: alottolearn ]
