Hardest things to let go of.
I have been thinking a lot about what I have been able to let go of, and what still haunts me, even after overcoming so much.
For me, It is specific things said and specific places that are still my ghosts.
So here is my question… what things were the hardest to let go of in your own path to recovery?
Did you overcome them, or are you still battling those demons?
Why were these the last things you let go of?
20 comments posted: Monday, March 25th, 2024
One year out: some reflections4
Yesterday was the first anniversary of DDay. I spent today in reflection about the past year, and I wanted some space outside of my marriage to share my thoughts. Reconciliation is going well, which is not to say it is always easy. My WS is transformed, one year later, and still committed to doing the work ahead. Our relationship, and even our sex life, is better than it has been in years.
Here are the things that helped:
1) Recovery before reconciliation. I am so grateful to the people on this forum and the resources here. In the days after DDay, I laid out that line. No talk of reconciliation until we BOTH recovered. Thank you, thank you, thank you.
2) The concept of limerance. My spouse, after 20 years of marriage, used his affair to numb the pain of depression. Learning about limerance, its stages, gave us a vocabulary to talk about how the woman he felt was his soul-mate was really a wound-mate. It has helped me differentiate between the mature love of a long term relationship and the addictive state of his affair. It has helped him come to terms with what he was seeking and why his feelings were a fantasy.
3)writing, not speaking. Starting with the day after the affair, I turned to letters, not conversations. I would take the time to compose what I needed to say. I would leave the letters for him in his home office (where he slept before we chose reconciliation). I would text him to schedule a time to walk and talk. We still had one child living at home, so we had a strict rule for the safe spaces for talking about the affair. Letters gave me time to work through and revise the raw pain into something he was more able to hear, and it gave him time to process and prepare for discussion.
4) radical acceptance. Once we chose reconciliation—about 5 months in—we agreed to accept each other as we are, broken and damaged, and support each other’s healing.
5) patience. It’s such a long road. For both of us, but in different ways. He lost himself and has to incorporate his actions into his self-concept. We both now realize we had deep wounds we brought with us into the marriage that have to be healed. He wants to forget, but I can’t forget. It’s a journey, but one year out, we are (mostly) walking it together.
We both work every day to show each other we chose our marriage.
Are we done? No.
Am I healed? Nope.
Am I glad I stayed? Yes. Amazingly, I don’t really doubt that choice any more.
11 comments posted: Monday, February 5th, 2024
For those that reconciled: strategies for rebuilding sexual intimacy
For those on this forum that did reconcile, I am curious if there were approaches or strategies that worked for you in order to restore trust and intimacy in the bedroom.
At this point, I have not yet decided on reconciliation. We've been together for 30 years and married for 27. MY WH and I are committed to a stage of recovery where we are unpacking what happened, why, and what it means so we can decide whether to reconcile or divorce. During that stage, however long it lasts, we have agreed that we will not be sexually intimate.
Of all the things I see that reconciliation would require, this is the one thing required of me that I am most worried about. His affair was intensely sexual, and for better or worse, I found out a lot of intimate details (more than he knows I know). It is hard for me to imagine how I could get that movie in my brain to turn off, and right now I cannot even stand the thought of him seeing my body unclothed. I can hug and hold hands in the context of painful discussions as we work through things. Anything more makes me physically ill because I feel so vulnerable and exposed.
I realize that this is normal; Dday was 1 month ago. Obviously, I have to work through some of this in IC.
However, for me to make the choice to try reconciliation, I would have to believe it IS AT LEAST POSSIBLE for this to get better. If you have any strategies or advice that could help me even imagine how this could heal, I would appreciate hearing what you have to say.
9 comments posted: Sunday, March 5th, 2023
Navigating too much empathy
First post. So grateful to have found this site. So many posts have already helped me more than I can say.
First, I am a BW, married to my WH for 27 years and together for 30.
As a couple we have faced a lot of things together, including a devastating genetic disease neither knew we carried that has meant a life-shortening condition for our oldest child. Like a lot of couples with medicalized lives, we gave up a lot of things to ensure our children became healthy adults. Like a lot of mothers in this situation, I freely accept that I did not prioritize his needs—and he did not prioritize mine. But it is also true that there is a powerful trauma in our lives that no one else will ever truly understand.
About 6 years ago, when I hit menopause early, I also lost my sex drive. It came back, but not before my WH decided he was being rejected and I was just not attracted to him. Although I tried to explain what was happening to me, he did not believe me. He withdrew from me, started sleeping in his home office and became depressed. Starting 3 years ago, he became angry. Since I also have had experience with depression, I tried so hard to reach him. I felt like I was watching him drown and he would not take my hand.
He was so unhappy. So angry, and usually it was aimed at me. I asked him repeatedly if there was someone else. I told him I would give him a divorce if he truly believed it would make him happy—but that he should be sure he wanted to end things. I tried to share with him my experiences with how depression distorted thoughts and why therapy, specifically cognitive behavioral therapy, gave me the power to be happy (even as my marriage was falling apart. Every time I raised the idea of another woman, every time I created a space for him to come clean, he would stare me in the eye and tell me there was no one else. My heart believed he was a man of integrity who could never lie to me; my brain was less convinced.
Then, this December, his self destructive behavior manifested in a serious issue. I was there for him. I supported him because I realized this was a ‘hitting bottom’ moment—a chance to see past the fog and find his way back. That started to happen—emotionally and sexually. It was like I was seeing the man I fell in love with again.
Then I got an email at work email. It only said ‘your husband is a cheater’ the subject. the message was ‘you deserve happiness.’ Honestly, I convinced myself it was a phishing scam. The next week, there was another email, this one with a picture.
Turns out he was having an affair for 3 years—all those years he was so angry at me. He broke it off after he hit bottom, and she retailed by emailing me. He says. Though, he still loves her and is ‘uncertain.’
Now here is the heartbreaking part. I know this man better than anyone else knows him. As hurt as I am about the affair, and I am pretty devastated, I realize it was a result of 1) his poorly developed ability to process his own emotions, and 2) his emphasis on sex as the measure of love. However, for 2 years, I have been asking if there was someone else, telling him I cared more about truth and his happiness than the pain it would cause, and telling him I would listen if he wanted to talk about divorce of separation. Twice I confronted him saying I wasn’t stupid and new there was something going on, but that I wanted him to be honest. Always he denied.
That said, I do see a tremendous change in him since hitting bottom. It’s real, and it gives me hope we can reconcile with work and care.
Yet he is still in contact with her, although not sexually. He feels ‘romantic’ at times and he wants to be there to support her because ‘she’s having a tough time.’ At the same time, he is beginning to recognize that he has not only hurt me but violated his own values and integrity (something that has always been core to who he is). It’s like he is in limbo, and I just don’t know how to respond. If he can let her go, I believe we can not only reconcile, but work through things that will make us even stronger. He can do the work only he can do to let go of the thoughts in his own head that make him so unhappy. We can work on rebuilding the loving and supportive relationship we once had,
But we can do this only if he can let go of the fantasy of her and the ‘happiness’ he felt in escaping his own baggage for a while (and he does admit that it is partially that).
I also feel betrayed in ways that go beyond the sexual aspect. He exploited the best parts of me—that I see the best in people, that I believe people can get better and grow from their pain, and that I start always from radical empathy. He exploited my trust and my faith in his integrity. He violated something so much deeper than sex, and all because he can’t get over the sense that I rejected him. Three times he has agreed to counseling, only to backpedal. I have to know he is serious about rebuilding the trust he shattered.
I am not stupid. I see the red flags here. But after three weeks of a ‘brutal honesty’ policy I insisted on, I also see some reason to hope. My head screams caution and my heart is a reckless forgiver. I am trying to use the excellent advice on this site to find a balance—a way to built toward the best and prepare for the worst. Just hope I don’t lose my mind trying to walk that tightrope.
19 comments posted: Saturday, February 18th, 2023
