Quote: His lies and secrets is what is making me outraged!
This was awhile back but I am just checking in after the weekend and wanted to respond to this because it's at the heart of your issues.
HIS lies and secrets are not MAKING you outraged, angry, sad or any other emotion. YOUR reaction to them is. You CAN learn to control your reactions to other people's actions, especially when they "make" you angry. It's a basic concept in anger management that "what I do doesn't MAKE you angry, how you feel about what I do does." If you can learn to control your feelings or somehow "detach" from certain emotional triggers, you can learn to not LET other people MAKE you angry.
The real world example I remember illustrating this point was about a traffic jam. If things MADE people angry in the abstract, then why doesn't everyone stuck in a traffic jam, late for a meeting, get upset, pound the steering wheel, cuss at the top of their lungs or go into a fit of road-rage? It's because everyone reacts differently to the same set of stimuli, and thus there HAS to be a way to BE different than how you are currently, even if nothing changes in your sitch.
You have asked some of the posters here (or maybe just one) how they can be forgiving with all that's gone on in their life. It's because they decided to be. They figured out that they had a choice about how to react, how to live, and they chose the path that enabled them to be the one who calls the office to tell them they'll be late, turns up the music a little louder and looks over the sea of cars to notice how beautiful the sky is... they CHOOSE calm. They CHOOSE peace. They CHOOSE not to let the fact that things have not gone their way RIGHT NOW affect their overall outlook on life.
I know I am making it sound simple, and I assure you it's not. I struggle with it all the time. I am angry, sad, and hey, even once or twice entertain the thought of "what would it be like to be with another woman" over all this, but you know what, I understand that I am involved in a process that is all about making decisions, something that I have done precious too little of in my life and the time is NOW to start. I want to TRY to make the best ones I can and most of all, I want to CHOOSE to be happy. I want you to choose that too no matter what your H does and I also would love for you to see that a revenge affair would not MAKE you happy.
