"Staying with you makes me a loser"
"Staying with you makes me a loser". One of the statements my husband said to me the other night. I haven't posted in a long time, but read a lot. As a reminder, I am a WS post LTA for 5 years with one AP and husband had an affair with 2 AP's for 2 years. He started his when I was 4 years in. He says he knew I had an affair, but didn't say anything. D day was 1 year after I broke it off with my AP. D -Day was 2+ years ago.
Since that day I have hit the ground running and have done so much healing and discovery. I feel healthy mentally and continue to grow and learn about myself, how to improve myself and true feel like my true self. Calm, peaceful, caring, empathetic, assertive, create boundaries, reflective, and the list goes on, but I now truly love myself. The road has been rocky to say the least and reconciliation is not for the faint of heart. I am still in individual counseling and continue to read and explore and grow. As I have done this, I have been able to listen more and not be defensive and own all my wrong doing. I'm at the point that I understand that shame is not helpful, I can own what i'v done, continue the work and do whatever I need to to help support my husband as he heals. His healing is non linear of course and sometimes he talks to me about it and sometimes he doesn't. The times that he talks to me about his feelings are when he is angry. "you were so stupid", " I wish I didn't marry you", "I lose in this situation no matter what I do" and the most recent " I am a loser for staying with you". I know it's his ego that is so hurt. I betrayed him and emasculated him and fed into all his insecurities that he's never dealt with. I feel so sad and horrible that I did this to him, I wish every day that I could take it back, but the person I am now is completely different and healing. I am thankful for that, but I continue to wonder if he will ever heal or have the desire to heal. I know 2 years is not a long time and I should give him all the time that he needs. He doesn't do individual counseling, that's his choice of course, I can't force him into that. I just wonder at what point he will seek help. I also noticed that the issues we had before the affair, still continue and a lot is one sided. He is not in a place where I can bring up anything related to his affairs, I have no right as he says. I can't really bring up things that he's said that hurt me as he tells me "they are your feelings and not my problem". I have asked him about certain things he's said or how he's said them, and it ends up being a 2 day fight where divorce is brought up because I have betrayed him and don't respect him and I have issues with not believing he is a good person and giving him the benefit of the doubt when he says something hurtful. I didn't respect him during the affair, but I didn't respect or love myself either, so it's really hard to think of how it effects others when I was grasping for love and affection from someone other than myself. Anyway, this is where we are. I don't know that I have a question, more than just observations.
Observations:
1. I have tried to help heal him, but ultimately I am the one that hurt him and I can't heal him. Only he can work to heal himself. I can just support him.
2. I will live with this for the rest of my life and I accept that and will continue to work to be a safe partner, friend, mom, everything.
3. We all heal at different rates and have different levels of willingness or desire to heal.
4. Shame is not helpful, it just makes me the victim and takes away from supporting my BS. I have these feelings and have learned to work through them, feel them and work through them and not bother him with them.
5. Our relationship may not be rebuilt as it takes two to tango, pre affair issues need to be dealt with and new growth needs to occur. He is not there yet.
6. This marriage may not survive, this may be something he cannot heal from. My job is to continue to grow and support him through this and let him decide when he's done trying.
7. I don't know how much I should tolerate as far as insults, hurtful comments, criticism, unwillingness to work on pre affair relationship/communication problems. I don't know the boundaries there and how long that lasts. Do I deal with it forever since I have done such a devastating thing that is unforgivable? I don't know the answer to this one.
Let me know of things you have realized through this process. Thank you all for reading and listening. Love to all.
18 comments posted: Monday, November 20th, 2023
Individual counseling for BS/WS
I am a WS that strayed and broke our marriage. 5 year EA/PA with 1 man and my husband had a PA with two women over a two year period on the tail end and after the end of my A. I am in IC and learning so much. We are in MC, not really sure that it’s doing much. My husband refuses to do IC. He doesn’t even talk to other friends or people about my affair, just me. He says he is responsible for his healing and that I need to let him be. I know that’s a true statement. He is still in contact with his AP’s, one he works with and travels with to work out of town. Am I being unreasonable to think that IC would be helpful for him, or am I totally crossing the line since I am the one that broke our vows to start? Something I just struggle with. Please let me know if I am totally unreasonable.
1 comment posted: Tuesday, April 19th, 2022
Failing at humaning
I sometimes wonder how I ever made it this far in life. How does someone that has no boundaries, lack of self love, non existent communication skills (with the relationships that matter most like my marriage), always has to be a martyr, expects perfectionism, is unable to determine what reasonable thoughts are and what unreasonable thought are, etc etc, manages to make it this far in life. I obviously failed miserably as I had an affair, but I often wonder if it’s better for everyone if I am never in a relationship again. I have no "humaning" skills. I screw everything up. I don’t even know how to tell if when I fight with my husband whether I have valid feelings, thoughts, or emotions cause I assume he’s always right and I’m the crazy person who doesn’t know anything about anything. My poor communication skills are the cause of every issue. I can’t tell if he’s being unreasonable in fights, I just assume it’s all me. What is wrong with me? Has anyone ever felt this way and where I do I even start to learn how to be a human? Since I ended my affair almost 2 years ago, I’ve been trying to figure things out. And get these days where I feel hopeless. Like I’m a lost cause and I just need to be dumped on the side of the road and left for dead cause I’m not helping anyone. I guess I am helping my kids cause I love them so much and am doing my best to give them the loving, caring, open, emotion feeling, communicating relationship with me that I never had from my mom and dad. And I am in healthcare and I know I take care of my patients so well. But for the life of me, cannot figure out how to prioritize myself, set boundaries, not over analyze. Am I just better off alone so I don’t bring anyone into my mess of complete lack of humaning skills. I get so upset when someone gets upset with me, particularly my husband. Like I’m a failure. I’m constantly reading and trying to make sense of who I am. Any recommendations on books for creating boundaries, highly empathetic people, learning proper communication in conflict. Anything will help. I need to keep learning otherwise I feel like I will implode.
6 comments posted: Wednesday, March 2nd, 2022
Can’t believe I’m here
Hi everyone, I am new to the site and have been reading a lot of the posts. I am thankful there is something like this for the wayward spouse. I have been searching for support and this site has been so helpful.
Here’s my story. I feel so ashamed but need to continue to talk about it and learn learn learn.
My husband and I have been married for 17 years. We have 2 beautiful children. I met my AF at work in 2015 and started an affair. The sad part is I knew I had issues with self esteem and seeking approval from men and did not get help because I never thought I would do anything like this. I never felt like our marriage was terrible. We had tough times financially, emotionally etc as we got married young, but nothing that couldn’t be improved by adequate communication and vulnerability.
Unfortunately, I had no clue how to do any of that.
My AF and I worked together in 2015, I have never been with anyone besides my husband so it went slow and i was a mess. I felt so out of control. He then decided to move jobs early 2016. I was relieved and so sad at the same time. We had slept together twice before he left. I for sure thought it would end but we had such a hard time not communicating. We lived only 20 minutes away from eachother but continued to text during the week and would see eachother every few months. I rationalized it by thinking we were friends that just chatted over text and occasionally saw eachother so did my best to compartmentalize. I was looking for approval and love and needing to feel attractive but also felt worse while I was in this situation. Such a weird phenomenon. Seeking this to feel better and then it made me feel good temporarily and then made me feel so shitty at the same time, but I couldn’t stop. This lasted 5 and a half years in the same fashion, texting, sexting, and in person meetings every few months. In October 2019, my husband got deployed. I was so upset he was leaving. It seemed like it would be the perfect time to see my AP more, but I did not want to. At the same time I needed my AP’s support emotionally as my husband was so disconnected and unsupportive. So messed up. Fast forward to March 2020. Covid, 2 kids, healthcare worker and husband still deployed. I was a mess. This is the point that I hit rock bottom. But such a blessing as I started to let myself feel. The affair continued intermittently but I kept wanting to break free and didn’t know how. I had that feeling the whole affair and broke it off many times but kept going back like an idiot. It all came to head when my AP was getting divorced and i had to choose. My husband came back a year after being deployed and it was a no brainer. I loved my husband. For so many reasons. I didn’t truly know my AP in his normal state of being, but I knew he was not a great person and not a person I would choose to be with long term. But the rose colored glasses… ugh. Anyway, my husband returned from deployment and there was no question that I wanted my husband. I broke it off. My AP was already dating other people. I continued to intermittent chat with the AP but there were weeks and months in between conversations and nothing romantic. Fast forward a year later to august 2021. The AP called me to get advice about the woman he was currently dating. At this point I had stopped deleting things and my husband had seen the call and asked me about it and I told him about the conversation. The very next day was D-day. He had suspected there was something that happened with me and this man. He asked once before we had started the physical portion back in 2015 and I denied it. It was not brought up again the whole 5.5 years. On d day my husband asked "what ever happened with you and $&@" and I told him. He was obviously devastated. All the anger all the feelings. A few days later he told me about the two woman he had been sleeping with since he was deployed and had continued to sleep with them once he got home for a total of 2 years. So yes, we are a mess. I’m in IC, we are both in MC. Some good days, some terrible days. I’ve been looking at the whys and taking full ownership of the devastation I have caused. I’m reading and learning and immersing myself in improving constantly. The part that hurts is all the hurt i have caused. I am also made to feel responsible for his affairs because I broke our vows and caused the disconnect between us allowing him to be in a frame of mind to cheat himself. We are working hard we love each other fiercely. I don’t know how it’s going to turn out. I can’t believe i am here.
11 comments posted: Tuesday, February 15th, 2022
