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So, in my latest IC session yesterday, my therapist had me dig into the most traumatic event I could remember since DDay. I told her no problem, I could easily pick that out with no effort. Upon describing some of that night, she instantly went to the realization that I may still be in shock. We dug deeper and she feels I’m still holding onto anger (I don’t feel like I’m always angry). It roots back to what she believes is one of my highest core values, integrity. I was raised to believe that if I do something wrong, or if I wrong someone, I must go above and beyond the level of damage or pain caused to "make things right". It’s this belief that seems to be driving the anger (resentment?). My WW hasn’t in my eyes put in the effort to even get close to the break even point. That’s where we seem to be. If that is indeed the case, my question to those BS’s on here, how did you learn to let go of the anger. My therapist actually suggested me asking this on here. Any and all responses greatly appreciated in advance.

Edit: I know I’ll get questions as to why my WW isn’t putting in more work, but that’s an issue she needs to work on and she’s not yet there where she thinks IC will help her. My therapist thinks there’s a chance that my projected anger (again, I don’t feel like I’m projecting anger, but may be so in subliminal ways) may be blocking her from stepping up and sharing with me or doing the work.

Well, in my case my WW had gone above and beyond, but near the two year mark from DDay I was still angry. After thought, I realized that if I wanted to move ahead with her in a fulfilling way, I would need to dispose of the anger. I put the anger down and it was a good decision for me. I accepted what happened. I did not forgive or sanction her infidelity. But getting rid of my righteous anger did allow us eventually to grow much closer moving forward.

My FWH did go above and beyond, but it did take me awhile to be able to let good of my anger and sadness enough to see it. In many ways, year 2 I was angrier than the first year out from DDay. By then my shock was diminishing and the anger really set in. My advice, the anger will dissipate when it does. Feeling it and expressing it in a healthy way DID bring us a bit closer, but it wasn’t something I could force. The best I could do was find a way of experiencing it in a way that didn’t harm myself, him, or our marriage in a lasting way. (Easier said than done)

I’ve heard anger described as a response to a loss of control. If you contemplate on that, does it align? If so, a big part of dealing with the anger is regaining control. It’s something in your power to do, as opposed to attempts to self manipulate your feelings.

I’ve learned to ask myself when the anger is bubbling up, what have I lost control of? How can I take it back?

[This message edited by HouseOfPlane at 7:10 PM, Monday, February 12th]

I was taught that anger is a sign that the angry person wants to change about their life. Some things can be changed, and the angry person can decide what they want to do to make the changes they want.

Other things can't be changed. The best approach is to give that anger up. It'll eat you alive if you hold onto it.

The best exercise to give up anger that I've ever come across is to sit in a quiet area with paper and pen or pencil and write, by hand, a sentence like 'I'm angry about _____' or 'I'm angry that _____' - you fill in the blank.

Limit yourself to 3-5 minutes. I've never made it to 2 minutes without cracking up in laughter.

*****

I don't think it's possible for a WS to go 'above and beyond', or vice versa. After d-day, my W immediately became honest. She didn't always say 'yes', but the 'noes' were few and far between. But I don't think she oweed (or gave) me less before her A. She devoted her energy to herself and to me before her A and after d-day.

During her A, her energy went to ow, not to me, not to her own well-being. But that energy was gone. There was no way to retrieve and redirect it.

Note that I think people need to give and get emotionally. I don't give a lot when I'm exhausted or in physical or emotional pain. I don't expect others to give to me when they're similarly stressed. Also, I don't like giving that comes largely from co-dependence - that's given with strings attached, and that's not true giving.

I didn't want my W to walk on eggshells. I needed to see who she really was. I didn't want to commit the rest of my life to someone I didn't know.

I asked for what I wanted. I knew my W could reject any request I made. I also knew R would not work if my W said 'no' too often.

IMO, a good M needs both partners to want what the other gives and to give what the other wants. I don't see a moral aspect of that - it's just a matter of the quality of the fit between the partners.

I wanted to identify if we still had a good fit. That meant I needed to know what she wanted and what she wanted to give. I needed to know she wanted what I give. The less we stifled ourselves, the better.

*****

That's a lot different from winning me back. I definitely wanted that. It was a requirement for R. But the things she did had to come naturally. I guess she had to push her limits, but only as far as she could sustain.

I also thought about how I'd know if she was meeting the requirement or not. I realized she always had done a lot to win my heart, mind, and body. I didn't add much - arranging recreational activities/dates (which she does better than I do) and getting over her fear of sex (CAS survivor).

The big thing, though, was recognizing what she had always done to win me.

*****

I'm in my 14th year after d-day and 60th year together, so it makes sense for almost everyone here not to think the way I do.

I can't predict my future, much less yours. But I can almost guarantee that your future will surprise you.

IOW, you're where you are now, but you'll move. Don't expect to think or feel the same way 6 months from now.

Coping

This is the WW that refuses IC and thinks she can heal herself?
The WW that wants you to appreciate the "benefits" the affair made to your marriage?

I think part of your anger can relate to that… A sense that you are doing a lot of work and maybe even making advances, yet she is at best moving at a snails pace with her self-help.
I have this theory and I actually think it’s right: The main cause for infidelity tends to be insecurities in the WS. They use affairs as a form of validation. Even the most powerful man might stray to validate his "power", the most beautiful woman stray to prove she still "has it"… They might hide behind imagination like "soul-mates" or "chemistry" or "stale marriage" or "no attention from husband" or whatever, but I think the reason infidelity-based relationships seldom last is due to the cause for them being internal rather than some factor (other than availability) in the OP.

So…
In the blue corner we have Mr. Coping who has IC’s, therapy and resources in his corner helping him prepare for the struggle, evaluate what’s happening and advising how to deal with it and progress.
In the red corner we have Mrs. Coping, and her track record of insecurities and wrong decisions/responses as shown by her decision to have an affair and her comment about it being beneficial for the marriage…

Of course you are angry. There is no progress. There is no healing. There is no treatment to the cause of the BIG ISSUE in the marriage.

To use a comparison:
Its like all your fingers on your left hand are broken. You have learnt to eat one-handed with your right, drive your car one-handed, type your keyboard… Some actions you even do using toes and fingers… But no matter how you try you can’t tie your shoe-laces one-handed… Yet your left hand insists that with time and no treatment the bones will settle and things will be OK…
And there you are looking at the crooked fingers, slowly healing, but knowing they will never acquire the dexterity required to function whole. All the time knowing that with the correct treatment that could happen.

I know the above might not address the letting go of anger, but I think it’s the CAUSE of the ongoing and lingering anger. I think the "letting go" can take place when your wife realizes that she is the cause, and takes and shows action to change that.

Thanks for the replies all. It’s strange that I don’t "feel" angry, but I’m learning that anger has many forms. I just know that I don’t want to be the way that I currently am. My therapist told me she can see that I have the drive and desire to change, and I am working hard to do that. She challenges me to think outside the box. I don’t want to live in fear of the tremendous hurt again, I need/want control of my own feelings and emotions again and that’s what we are working towards. When she discovered my state of shock she assured me that she would continue to work with me towards making this time in my life just a chapter in a book that we could close and move on from.

What Bigger said.

Maybe you can tell your therapist that.

My therapist thinks there’s a chance that my projected anger (again, I don’t feel like I’m projecting anger, but may be so in subliminal ways) may be blocking her from stepping up and sharing with me or doing the work.

I’m just going to say that, to my ear, this sounds like you trying to control her. Like if you can restrain your anger from 98% to 99.5% then and only then will you have made enough room for her to step in. I’m not criticizing, I’ve just played that stupid game and won the prize. It was stupid.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 11:57 PM, Tuesday, February 13th]

My understanding of anger is that it's a "secondary" emotion that often has a "primary" emotion like fear or frustration behind it.

I think it's normal to have a large dose of fear and resentment as a BS, especially early on or even later on when a WS is not doing much work. We fear being vulnerable and hurt again. We resent that the WS was directing so much time and energy to effectively ensure they could get their own needs met during the affair in a way that was destructive to our relationship and to us specifically (not the intent of the WS, but the result anyway), yet the WS often struggles to direct time, energy, and focus to effective healing or personal growth.

I may be an outlier, but I think that resentment and fear is a necessary part of our own healing. We have to feel these very normal and necessary emotions.

If channeled well, our fear can help us create necessary emotional distance to avoid the "pick me" dance and to avoid rushing into false R. It can help us break away emotionally and gain a bit of space to get to "watch and see the WS's actions" mode.

Our resentment can do much the same...and is sometimes not poorly placed. If the WS is not doing the work, shouldn't we resent that?

You say:

My therapist thinks there’s a chance that my projected anger (again, I don’t feel like I’m projecting anger, but may be so in subliminal ways) may be blocking her from stepping up and sharing with me or doing the work.

I'd like to know more about what this "projected anger" looks like. Are there specific examples?

Also, I would tread carefully with an IC who is saying that your actions are the reason that your WS is being "blocked" and "not doing the work." We all know that our partners have agency in their own lives.

Are you being verbally abusive? Are you shutting down her efforts to be vulnerable?

The situation post-affair is difficult, fraught.

While I do think that fear and resentment are normal and even healthy, it isn't helpful to emotionally bludgeon the WS.

And it is helpful to explore with an IC the line between healthy truth telling and even venting your pain (which can/does demonstrate your willingness to be vulnerable with your WS) and unhealthy emotional targeting of the WS.

I also believe that a necessary part of emotional healing for the BS is letting go of fear and resentment. And that might not look like forgiveness and R. It might look like reaching a point of true indifference and S or D--especially if your spouse can't or won't do the work to become safe.

An important point in my own journey was realizing that it didn't matter if I could decide if the problem was that my spouse wouldn't do the work or couldn't do the work. I couldn't control them doing the work either way. What mattered was that, if they didn't do the work (regardless of why), they weren't going to be safe for me, and I wouldn't be able to stay married to an unsafe partner.

[This message edited by BreakingBad at 12:26 PM, Wednesday, February 14th]

Copingmybest said:

It roots back to what she believes is one of my highest core values, integrity. I was raised to believe that if I do something wrong, or if I wrong someone, I must go above and beyond the level of damage or pain caused to "make things right". It’s this belief that seems to be driving the anger (resentment?). My WW hasn’t in my eyes put in the effort to even get close to the break even point. That’s where we seem to be. If that is indeed the case, my question to those BS’s on here, how did you learn to let go of the anger. My therapist actually suggested me asking this on here. Any and all responses greatly appreciated in advance.

I’m right there with you on this. I look at the situation and think "if the roles were reversed, I would make it my life’s mission to make this right/make amends. This would be my life’s work, I would not rest until I hade made my wife whole". Her, "not so much". And that has always been the difference in us.

I also realized "the roles could have NEVER been reversed to begin with". I don’t share her "morals and values". And that was my epiphany. I couldn’t understand her "why", I couldn’t understand her "how could you" and I couldn’t understand her "not so much" approach to recovery/reconciliation. I was trying to look at her actions through my moral compass and that was never going to work.

I had to shift my focus from what she wasn’t or isn’t doing into what she is doing. She is still very self-centered. She is focused on how traumatic being discovered for a serial cheater is for her. She is in IC, she did EMDR, she is reading books and watching videos. I am looking for self-awareness and modified behaviors from her. I have to help draw her out with that. Asking her what she is learning about herself and how she is applying that to life. It’s slow and laborious but it is "forward movement". Is it "enough" for me? TBD…..

As far as the anger, the scales will NEVER be balanced. No matter what she does. Is that fair? No, but nothing I can do will change that. The past is done and the "toothpaste can’t go back in the tube". Do I still get angry? Yes. I use visual aids (I imagine a big lever with "anger" printed on it that I pull down) and breathing exercises. I make conscious efforts to release anger when it seeps in and to focus my energy on the things I can control now.

It took a long time for me to let go of mine - or mine to leave me - however you want to put it. Years.

There was no magic formula, or activity, or mindset - just one day I realized it took more of my time/effort/energy to keep it than it did to release it.

That's when I knew I had crossed a major milestone in my healing journey.

I've read something by a PHD that having anger is ok - it is the ONLY emotion we can control.

So, you can work on figuring out the trigger(s) for your anger and put them somewhere so that they no longer affect you.

Also have read that anger is a SECONDARY emotion - trigger by some event in your experience.

So- cheater - this cheater person angers you - naw - the ACTION the cheater performed angered you.

Chew on that - the action occurred due to their disregard for your "together" agreement (marriage or ??) and the lack of respect shown to you by them not confronting you with whatever it was/is that they used to justify, in their mind, why is is/was OK to commit the dirty deed(s)

Unless YOU resort to unwholesome or even worse activities - there is nothing you can to to "even the score" - any act of revenge will just be you descending to the lower levels of actions or behavior. no win situation

Life isn't fair - Anger is our reaction (emotionally) to that situation. Once the "unfairness" has occurred - there is NOT A THING you can do to "undo" the action triggering anger.

Sort of like you lost a poker hand - just learn what you can from it and continue to live life.

Hanging on to anger (not sure of this quote) is like "Taking poison and hoping the other person dies."

[This message edited by Hippo16 at 1:12 AM, Thursday, February 15th]

Anger as a secondary emotion is a great frame for managing anger disorders.

Your anger is of the righteous indignation sort. It is not secondary. It is not a defect from lack of emotional control. It is valid, as almost every emotion is if you aren't disordered.

You aren't walking around angry at normal circumstances. You have been cheated on. Your closest person that was supposed to be safe has betrayed you in a way that is second only to murder history of ethics.

This isn't road rage at someone forgetting to signal.

I say be angry. Feel it. Let you wife know you are still angry. I concealed mine which just makes it build up until you can't again. Then, when you have felt and communicated your anger enough, eventually you won't be.

Edit to add: Your WW has proven she is capable of wildly selfish acts with complete disregard for your feelings. Her empathy doesn't work properly. If you do not communicate that you are sad, angry, frustrated, and disappointed with her efforts, she will not just figure it out. She lacks that capability. I'm not saying communicating these feelings will motivate her to act. Not communicating them will certainly fail.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 2:06 AM, Thursday, February 15th]

Thank you all. There was some very helpful answers provided. Plenty to think about and utilize. I have to say again that I appreciate each and every one of you for being there for me. As mentioned so often in JFO, a great group of people that nobody wants to be a member of.

There is a line in a movie that goes "the pain inside you is devouring you, robbing you of joy, and crippling your capacity for love." That described the post d-day me. Exchange pain with anger, hurt, trauma, whatever but it came out as anger. The whole exchange is extraordinary and spoke to me at a time I needed it. I had to let go of the anger; and it would not happen all at once. It has taken time, and it still rears its ugly head when I feel the trauma. But I am working on it. And I have not had to do it alone. I have my faith, and that makes me feel less alone. I did not let go of the anger for my fWW. I did it for me. And our relationship and all my relationships around me were better because I did. Most of all, I am better. Anger uses a lot of energy, and the toll it takes on you is huge. How do you let go of the anger? Make a decision to let it go, then do it every day until it gets easier. Do it for you.

Like if you can restrain your anger from 98% to 99.5% then and only then will you have made enough room for her to step in. I’m not criticizing, I’ve just played that stupid game and won the prize. It was stupid.

InkHulk nailed it.

I would echo that it takes years.

At first, I really rigidly controlled my anger, then found out my wife had been lying to me and about me in IC and MC!!!

That was to fucking much! I lost my shit when the totality of this came to light.

I found it cycled, frustration, anger, sadness, happiness, loneliness, connectedness. I had younger children, private business, and a FWS who was having major mental health issues and had to be hospitalized, etc, and I had to be super controlled just to get through each day. The fatigue was so bad at times that I couldn't even get angry.

Now, years later, I would describe what I experience today as frustration that the earlier improvements in our marriage were not to continue that trajectory of improving. For instance, my FWS ignored our anniversary of our first date just two days ago, it also happens to be the antiversary of D-Day. Not a word, even though she know it bothers me that she doesn't say anything.

She isn't able to handle it, so she withdraws. I have told her what I find helpful, and that me dealing with this alone is not wanted, but she cannot deliver.

So, my main message is that it is OK to get angry. Whatever you do though, don't let it eat you up.