Wow Piper, I wish I had read your post earlier. I am VERY interested in what you are saying because what you report, not really the details, but the feelings/actions sound VERY much like how I think my W sees things. I would like to respond to a lot of what you said. I hope I can help you, but much of what I may say is just an attempt to relate your sitch to my W's and maybe help us all.
Quote: One of my fears is that he wants to hold onto my affair, and never let himself forget it, those arent' the right words, he'll never forget it. I mean let go of it. Has anyone else experienced this? Is it the anger that makes him want to do this? What do I say and do when he is feeling this way? I am really struggling as anything I say is wrong.
For me, I am "holding onto my W's affair", as I'm SURE she still thinks I am, because while I think SHE thinks she made it clear it's over, to me, she has not. The last time we spoke about it she said MANY things about being confused, still loving him, etc. A few days later, in a VERY brief convo she did manage to say that she was just expressing feelings but that the affair was over and she was committed to "us". To me, her longer form talk about all the confusion (mind you, after a couple months of supposed reconciliation and the affair being "over") rang more true to me that "it's over now and I am back working on us."
For me, it's not so much anger as it is that she hasn't yet found the voice to express how she feels about ME, and why things are over because she wants to be with me. I know you said you and your H both feel this way, and I would think my W would say the same thing, but in the face of our daily life, where she still has plenty of opportunity, etc, to carry on the affair, I think I am still untrusting of her.
One of the HUGE things I told her I want from her, and she has really yet to demonstrate to me, is that she WANTS me to trust her, i.e. do things that are clearly designed to win back my trust. For example, if she is "unavailable" for a long time and she sees I have called her cell phone, just acknowledge that I may have been worried and then reassure me that I need not be. She seems VERY put off by any need I have for reassurance and frankly, I am put off by it too because it seems needy... yet, I can't deny that it's what I want from her. I basically want her to understand my feelings and validate them with her words/actions ESPECIALLY when it concerns things in her life that she KNOWS could look like the affair all over again.
I think what you are REALLY asking him to do is trust you again, and I don't think either you or my W (or me/your h for that matter) get how hard that is, how important it is, or how to do it.
As far as anything you say being "wrong" I think my W feels this way too and this may be 100% my sitch alone, not yours, but my W tends to be VERY defensive or even offensive when it comes to the subject of her actions, as if I have no right to question her... at least that's how I see it. She may just be feeling guilty or whatever, but I suppose I may make her feel wrong for a lot of what she says too, and that no matter what she says, I'll take it the wrong way. I can't help you there other than to suggest that you really take a hard look at what you are really communicating to him, and HOW you're doing it. Remember, no matter how much we don't want to, we feel like we've been wronged here, we feel like victims, ESPECIALLY someone who's not read these books, or participates on this board.
Quote: Another fear I have is that any issue we have, regular things in a marriage like communication for example, get completely overshadowed by the topic of my affair. Is this the normal healing process?
My W says the same thing. She gets pissed at me all the time because I seem to relate everything back to the affair, even mundane things in our life, hell, even things on TV. I think this is all part of the underlying fact that for me, and your H, this affair is still VERY fresh and while you may have undergone a massive shift in focus/emotions/actions to end the affair, i.e. you're in a new place right now, for me and your H, we are still in that place where our wives cheated on us. We have not been forced to put that out of our minds, nor do we feel particularly willing to do so. It's not that I want to be angry, it's more that I need to see more from her before I trust her to put myself out there.
The sad part is that I say that as a man committed to compassion/empathy towards my W no matter what she's done. Your H may not have that same commitment and all I can say is that he is probably just still seeing things through affair colored glasses.
I can tel you that on a daily basis, I still see "affair" all around me and it's REALLY hard to purge that feeling from my mind. I know it's wrong to rely on W to do that for me, but I guess I want help from her in the form of WANTING me to believe it's over. So far, I don't get that she wants that. She only seems to resent me for just not trusting her.
Quote: H will bring up my affair, sometimes on a daily basis, and relate it to many things in our lives. I don't feel like he wants to be happy. Has anybody else in his situation felt like they wanted to hang onto the affair and relate it to nearly every thing in their current lives at the expense of their own happiness? Is this to be expected?
My W says I do this all the time. She said that recently in a R talk, that I take "jabs" at her all the time. I didn't really know what that meant, but I guess I see it.
You somehow assert that this means he/I don't want to be happy. I don't really understand that. I want to be happy but that doesn't change the fact that I don't trust a lot in my world right now, especially when it comes to my W. I WANT to trust her, and WANT to be happy, in fact, I AM happy much of the time, but then there are times when that song comes on, or there is a sitch on a TV show, or a conversation goes to a certain place and the WHAM! I am right back in affair-land again. It's MY problem for sure, but one I really think my W could help me diffuse if she wanted to. Maybe I am DEAD wrong about that. I can say that even though she doesn't do AS MUCH as I'd like in this respect, she is trying and between what she's doing, and what I am doing here and elsewhere to help myself, we ARE making progress. I just wonder how much progress SHE thinks we are making if she sees things the same way you do.
Quote: Another strange question, which makes me uncomfortable. H will talk and talk about my affair, and I feel sick to my stomach for hurting him so badly. This makes me either feel, or want to feel very alone. If, after his angry and hurt feelings have passed, he tries to hug or kiss me or be close in any way, I find myself unable to reciprocate. I think there are two reasons, one, I am unable to go from feeling like the scum of the earth to feeling intimate in any way, rather I feel very much alone and like I should be alone. Two, I feel he is using being intimate (including wanting sex immediately after a discussion about the affair) as a form of control and punishment.
This is the thing that interested me the most. First of all, many times, when I talk about the affair, or even make a joke about it (sadly, I do this from time to time in an ill-conceived attempt to diffuse the sitch), I don't really even realize I am doing it. I don't consciously do it to hurt her. Hell, until you posted this, I never really thought about it like that. I never realized, even though she's told me that she feels TERRIBLE about hurting me, that when I brought it up, it would make her feel bad. I guess the most honest thing I can say is that I figured that since she seemed to want to "forget" it and move on, that it wouldn't bother her those few times it came up.
That said, I totally get what you are saying but I never saw it until now. My W acts the SAME way after a R talk about the affair, or even the mention of it. I just thought it was because she was angry at me, but the last thing I would have thought was that she was hurting because of MY pain.
In light of that realization, I suggest you just tell him the next time you feel this way.
And, the sex as a punishment, that comes WAY out of left field but I can see, now, how you/she may feel that way however, I can second what H is saying to you. I too feel that one of the ultimate ways my W can reassure me things are "ok" between us and the affair is truly over is by being intimate with me. In a way, I guess you could say that it may go like this for us; we talk about the affair, which to us, may stir up feelings in you. We initiate intimacy to prove to ourselves that DON'T still have feelings for OM, even after talking about him.
That may happen 100% in the subconscious but I have no doubt that in my case, there is some truth to it. I can't really tell you what to do but I do wish my W would find some way to be intimate with me. I really believe that in my case, and maybe your H's case, I need that connection to be established so I can feel more secure that there is NOT a connection of that sort with OM. That may be needy and wrong, but it's honestly how I feel.
Quote: I tell him I can't just switch that on after being beaten down (not physically) repeatedly. I feel he is punishing me and fine if that's what he needs to do, but it's a little unrealistic to think that I will suddenly be in the mood following a reminder of how awful a person I am. So my question is is this normal?
Yes, if I am normal, and I do this, then it's normal...sorta. I say sorta because while I think it's normal for him to want intimacy, I don't think it's normal for him/me to punish, then want sex. I know, speaking for me personally, that I never really though of it as punishment until you posted. I know my W has said much the same as you about all the "beat downs" administered by me over this, but I honestly didn't realize that's how she may have felt about it. That may explain why she's been able to be closer to me over the past couple days since I've made a 100% conscious effort not to "jab" her in any way or bring up the affair. I don't think I have been too successful at this in the past but I have done really well lately.
If you think of it as punishment of some sort, as does my W, I can see how you may feel "un-intimate" but for us, our jabs, etc, are probably, in some f--ked up way, designed to provoke exactly the opposite response.
That was a LOT to digest. I tend to run on a bit (lol) but I am really trying to apply your experience to mine and vice versa. I may post more but you should have something to go on. Please, ask more questions, or ask me about what I posted. I think we can help each other.
