Struggling With Positive Change

Hey all,

Just curious if anyone in the recovery journey struggled with positive change when it began to happen? Right now I am in the best shape Ive been in a long time, going out more with friends, and through therapy I am dealing with my emotions/anxiety better. So that in turn has helped me feel a lot better mentally. However, it feels off to me that I am no longer having mind movies/obsessing about our current relationship so much.

Also I am noticing that my wife seems to be a lot happier lately too (which is really nothing to be concerned with because she has been focusing on her self-confidence, staying off of social media, and we are a lot better as a couple now vs before D-Day).

That being said I still can't help but feel like I should be in the same state I was a month ago, where I was constantly sad, angry and parinoid. Also that my marriage should still be in that early stage sadness/fear (it still is a little, but much less than a month ago).

Anyone else go through this?

9 comments posted: Tuesday, August 15th, 2023

A Question For BS Who Have A Year/Few Years Of R

Hoping that someone here with more experience in the R process can help me out. I'm still very early in R, a few months, and for the last 3 weeks the parinoia that my wife was still in contact with the AP was my primary thought/feeling, along with dealing with the hurt/sadness of the betrayal as a secondary emotion.

Over the last 5 days, my WW and I had many good conversation about the A, and that, along with my random phone checks, have helped convince me that the online affair/EA with her EX is pretty much done. I also believe her when she said she wants nothing to do with him anymore, and the thought of talking to him again terrifies her (she had a panic attack when thinking about the A the other day, so I know she looks back at it with a lot of anxiety).

So now that the parinoia is greatly subsided, all I feel is the hurt and sadness. I know a lot of people recommend doing a 180 and building yourself up. Which I have done by going to the gym, picking up old/new hobbies, but its not really helping these last few days.

All I think about is how for the last 6 years I've felt deprioritized by my wife compared to how we were the first few years, and how since we got a dog almost 4 years ago I've felt unsupported as she put all of her effort towards him, and how for the last 2 years she didn't like me or our marriage. And most of all I think about for 11 months straight she cheated on me 100s of times with inappropriate flirting, sext messages, and videos/pictures of herself nude for an ex-BF who, from what I hear of his behavior, has a sex/porn addiction and was clearly just pretending to give a shit about my WW so he could masterbate to her at the end of the day (which she recently told me he sent videos of a lot).

And yes I neglected my wife, drank too much and played video games a lot for the last 3 years. But at no time before the affair started did she vocalize how much it negatively affected her. She also offered no support to help straighten me out.

A little torn on how to deal with this. My wife has really helped me believe she is remorseful and has done a lot to improve her efforts in our marriage, both with her development and paying for MC. I don't want to derail any progress.

I guess I'm looking for advice as to how you all were able to deal with this part of the R phase and not let it hurt your recovery?

6 comments posted: Saturday, July 8th, 2023

For Those Who Has WS In IC

How long did it take your WS to get a breakthrough with IC during the R process?

Mine has been with her IC for about 3 weeks now (4 if you count the counseltation session), and they are still on the background work. I am starting to feel uneasy because her therapist has given her 0 exercises to do on self-soothing her past sexual trauma (which my therapist said any therapist who specializes in trauma should focus on). Also not sure how helpful she is being on the family trauma or helping to work on the issues that caused the A in the first place.

I am a little worried that she has the wrong type of therapist, but its still early in the process. How long did it take your WS to start showing signs of progress from their IC?

10 comments posted: Wednesday, June 28th, 2023

She Cheated, But I contributed to a bad marriage

Hey All,

Just wanted to post my story to see if I have the right mentality on this, or if there are any red flags with the situation/how I am handling it.

As a background my wife and I have never had great communication. I had to rely a lot on internalizing my emotions growing up and she was suppressed on speaking her thoughts by family/past boyfriends. And things got really bad right before the pandemic when I was going through bad work stress, we got a new dog that was a handful and then the pandemic hit.

Because of our poor communication, I didn't feel like I had the support I needed to make it past these life obstacles in a healthy way. So I turned to video games and heavy drinking (blacking out/browning out) 4-5 times a week, and eventually narrowing it down to 3 times a week over the last year and a half.

The drinking, and lack of support, also made me more angry and I was yelling at her a couple times a month along with checking out on household chores/spending time with her.

Over the last 11 months Ive realzied the rift we have had and tried to express I want to be more intimiate with her. We had a blow up about it in September. We talked about what I could do to help her feel more connected to me through a MC session and several one-on-one talks between September-December. Since then I've tried helping out more around the house, took her on dates once a week, and dedicated the majority of my weekly evenings (4ish nights) to hanging out with her. However I was still getting drunk and playing video games multiple nights a week, and we weren't getting any closer together.

A little over 2 weeks ago, I discovered sexts/a nude on instagram that my wife had been recieving from an ex. Could see any more than a few posts because she had vanish mode on with him. After taking a day away from her and staying with my friend (she tried to go over to his place to talk to me, but I was too emotional to talk) I went back to confront her the next morning.

After calling her out on some things I knew weren't true about her story of the situation, she revealed she began talking to him around the same time we had the blowup in September. It progressed to heavy flirting in December. And she began sexting him about 4.5 weeks prior to me discovering the sexts. At first she denied sending him nudes as well, but I eventually got her to admit that she did a few days later.

That same day I also dumped all the alcohol out of the house that day and haven't drank or played video games since.

I was strongly considering a permanent separation, but 5 minutes after she did the initial confession about the online affair, she told me she was pregnant with my child. Which makes me mad in 2 ways. The first being she took away what should have been a top happy moment in my life. The second way is she wasn't able to stop the affair for the sake of our future child's family dynamic (which she didn't deny when I brought it up to her).

Definitely haven't been the husband I always told myself I would be, and I've been trying to live that out every day since. In fact recently she told me she feels like she has the husband she's always wanted. But it's definitely not easy being this way. I want to believe this is over and she is really over cheating on me. And there is good evidence she is like;

1) Actively working on communicating me and showing me affection the way I've expressed I need
2) I don't see any weird names popping up when she gets alerts on her phone. Ive also looked at her texts and social messaging (facebook/instagram) and I am not seeing anything weird like I did before
3) She showed me she blocked her ex on instagram, facebook and his phone number
4) She is paying for our new MC (which is hundreds of dollars per session, not cheap)
5) She is seeing an individual therapist (so am I) to resolve her issues on loving herself and why she cheating on me (still don't have a great why explaination)
6) She has said sorry several times (while breaking down crying) and said she is glad she got caught
7) She's opening up to me a lot more about her past struggles with me and her childhood, which helps for our rebuilding
8) She is checking in on me a lot more when we aren't in the house together

However, its still very fresh. And I still get hurt and parinoid a lot. So anyone who has tips or advice on how to navigate please let me know. I do truely love her still and want a good family dynamic, but I also won't raise a child in a toxic parent situation.

138 comments posted: Monday, June 19th, 2023

Advice When WW Is Traveling

Hey all,

So my newly pregnant WW (who was in a cyber/emotional A) and I are in the early phases of R, my story is in the Just Found Out section.

We are approaching week 4, and on my end I'm just moving from the rollercoaster/discovery phase to just beginning to build our relationship again (my WW is still very much rollercoastering on her end)

A week from tomorrow she's going to take a trip to see her family and go on a mother daughter trip for 4 days followed by 3 days visiting with her family. We are doing things like daily zoom check-ins and she said she would text me often

However I have disorganized attachment issues (newly discovered) and my fear is really high. Even though I've looked through her phone several times and haven't discovered anything suspicious since D-Day, my natural paranoia is still anxious thinking about her away.

Any tips from the community on what else we can do to help us not get set back during this impactful time in R?

17 comments posted: Monday, June 12th, 2023