SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Thank you so much for your posts DD. They are all so insightful and especially meaningful to me. I am crying like a big baby right now, reading your posts. It's Week 4, and it still feels like I have a knife in my belly. My goal this week was to force myself to go out of the house, if just for a minute. Not sure if I can even do that this week.

i dont think I'm even admitting it yet but im trying to.. i dug myself so deep in lies I dont know how to become transparent any more.

Bump.

I'm a BS as well, and I really liked your post. I truly believe that there can be a path towards healing and forgiveness. And I hope that my WH and I can reach it together.

Thank you for this post.

Bumped for Lucille123

Thanks Daddy Dom. Really good post. I know that I also wished someone had laid something like this out for me to understand what was meant by me needing to fix my shit or telling me that I need to get it.

I still also struggle with conflict avoidance. Although much less than I used to. I am much more comfortable respectfully standing up for myself now without being over the top like I used to. Without interpreting conflict as a reflection on my my worth as a person. This feels so much more healthy and I carry so much less weight on my shoulders.

This sounds to me like I am making progress in my journey, but I still really struggle with conflict avoidance. I have to continually ask if I am avoiding it? Why am I avoiding it? Do I care about the issue or am I avoiding? This part of myself is still a work in progress.

Just wanted to share my feeling about avoiding conflict in my own life as I was thinking about this very subject recently. Thanks again.

Bump.

Bump.

"I did this, on purpose, to you, and it hurt you". At the "owning it" stage, they are also now able to say, "I had no right to do those terrible things, so I now need to put others needs before my own needs, accept the consequences of my actions, stop trying to control the outcomes, and do what I can to repair the damage I've caused".

Still one of my favorite lines.

"I did this, on purpose, to you, and it hurt you".

On purpose. Owning it means being vulnerable and allowing your BS and yourself to see the real truths of just how cruel and ugly you were willing to become. A hard thing to do and not many seem to get past that part. Admitting the deep down ruthlessness of their character. I can always see where a WS is still trying to save face. I would add to that line. "and I didn't care."

Bump.

Bump.

Yet another bump! A lot of wisdom here.

Bump.

Thank you for this post. I really see how I made my way through the stages.

Thank you Change4thebetter. It is good to know you got some value from this. Keep heading for "Living it" :)

Great read.

They usually start to realize that, not only are they broken, but how and why they likely came to be that way and begin to take corrective steps to fix themselves and be more accountable for their actions. They can be less defensive and more proactive about helping their spouse and family heal.

First post/reply...

Almost 5 months in and I’m going through a lot in those early stages as a WS.

We are both in IC, and doing imago CC. I wonder how long it will take me to realize my true why of why I allowed myself to have an A. Any advice?

Carryingthefire,

That's hard to answer. The thing about coming to understand how and why you allowed yourself to have an affair is that it is a realization that comes in stages, and is built of "Russian dolls", each one, in itself, containing deeper reasons and contributing factors.

For me, the initial piece of the puzzle was my wife telling me that the real problem I had/have, is that I don't love myself. A very simple concept, yet a very difficult thing to really understand, and even harder to overcome.

That initial thought led to a great deal of hard work and digging, going back to my childhood, learning to accept the truth about myself and things I believed in my life. I had always considered myself a good person, loyal, smart, creative, loving... and I am those things, however over time I began to realize that I didn't really believe all those things about myself. It was more of an act, a mask I put on. The real issue was that I had never learned to beleive in myself, and was incapable of doing so on my own accord, so I gained my own self-worth through others. As long as other people kept feeding my ego (my self-worth) through compliments and telling me how wonderful I was, then all was good. But when people stopped feeding me my daily dose of attention... well, it was like having a gas tank with a giant hole in it. I was incapable of telling myself that I was someone worthy of love and respect. I was also incapable of living without it. Lacking outside approval sent me into immediate panic and depression and thoughts of failure and long term grief.

You can imagine how much there is to learn and understand just on this basis alone, but then I started to dig and figure out why I did not love myself, and so that went back to things such as my FOO, neglect, abuse, bullying, loss and so on in my life, and with the feelings of being less than, unprotected, unworthy, feeling unsafe... and then understanding that if I made my abusers happy then I felt safer and suffered less abuse, so I learned to value myself through others... yada yada yada.

Anyway, that is just a smattering of my journey, but perhaps it will help you to start down yours?

Just know this. Nothing about infidelity is the "fault" of your spouse or the marriage. Now, I'm not saying that there may not be issues with your spouse/relationship that need to be addressed, however when it comes to the affair itself, that event is always on us, and because of who we are (or are not). An honest, self-loving person with values and boundaries and self-respect would NEVER have an affair. So, it is our job to first indentify who it is we want to be in life (e.g. honest, loving, empathetic) and then to understand how and why we aren't that person today, and what steps must we take to get there?

I wish you luck. Welcome to SI.

DaddyDom,

It's like divine intervention occurred tonight. I have not been on SI in a very, very long time and tonight, decided to check in. Scrolling through, I found your post. Thank you so much for it. As I read through it, a deeper understanding came, as well as more peace for my mind and heart.

I have struggled to understand what has been going on with my WS; understand where he's at or coming from. What it means for us. Now I get it. We never got through or even really started the Getting It phase.

I think you better stated the things that I have been trying to say to my WS. He'd listen, but not hear me. No matter how understanding or compassionate I was. No matter how confrontational or angry. No matter how sad and broken. But now I understand why counseling didn't work, silence didn't work, time didn't work.

Coping mechanisms. Reading it just now...boy, it sure feels like a hard place to exist in and get out of. And it just smacked me in the face with why R was so hard and failed.

It's been 3 years since DDay, or thereabouts, and we never made it to Getting It. Now I know for sure that things are over with us. I've been working on me for a long time, to be a better person that could maybe forgive and move on, embrace "who he truly is" or something. But it's all been grasping at straws. I'm so damn heartbroken and watching him barely get through Admitting It and then just defiantly stopping there has been beyond painful. Each day we didn't start into Getting It was another stab at my worth to him. My value.

As hard as it has been on me, it has to have been equally hard on him, maybe worse...or it will be one day, should he ever Get It. Existing inside all the denial, compartmentalization, emotional walls, and lies is a hell all its own.

Thank you for helping me let go and move on. I think I can finally hear what he's been showing me. I'm taking with me the value of understanding my own compartmentalizations, denials, lies, etc. and having a healthy respect for the limitation it creates in us.

Wishing you and all others on SI, healing, love and peace.

PS. DaddyDom was one of the names my WS used to meet women online. Kinda why it felt like divine intervention at having found your post. I'd LOL if I weren't so sad. But I am grateful. So, thank you again.

GaynorGal,

I'm glad you found something you needed in that post. It is sad that your WH wasn't able to get out of his head. I thought it was beautiful that you acknowledged how hard it must be on him, and the hell of being who he is... the ironic thing being that you can, even now, show him the very grace and empathy that he cannot show you back. If only he had been able to look at your life and think, "It must be so very hard on her, she must feel so abandoned and alone." Sometimes however, that leap of thought might as well be a leap to the moon. It sounds like you gave it every chance. And I am glad you have done all you can to allow yourself to begin healing, even if he can't. It is one thing to climb a mountain and slip back down in the effort. It is another to never even get to the mountain.