SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

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This post has been one of the best ones I have read. I plan to share this with my WH. Hoping he can get to this point of wanting to find out his "why". Right now he is in the stage of not wanting to face his pain. It's been almost two weeks since final D-Day so I may have to wait awhile.

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DaddyDom, thank you so much for writing this. It’s the best post I’ve read. I’m 3 ½ years from D-day and mine was incredibly painful as it took a whole year of going to therapy DAILY to get my SAWH to admit all that he did (if that even IS all of it). I went into complete shock for about a year and still suffer from PTSD today. We are what we call "reconciled" and he has worked hard and finished the 12-steps of SAA, but I still don’t feel like he’s gotten to the "real whys". All I’ve gotten is that he slept with hundreds of prostitutes because he had to "relieve an urge" and now he says it was because of his abusive and neglectful childhood. Well, for some reason, I don’t understand how you get from being neglected/abused as a child to sleeping with hundreds of prostitutes. Do the WS’s share the progression of all the "whys" with their spouses? Because I still don’t understand the whys for my SAWH. He treats me like a queen, and really has our whole marriage, so why do I FEEL LIKE I HAVE SOMETHING MISSING now?

I really liked rose2206's comment about confronting issues and how it becomes fuel for doing better instead of burning things to the ground. I vacillate between looking at what I was unhappy about and why I didn't confront it head on. Why didn't I self-love, or perhaps I only self-loved, enough to say X or Y bothers me? Why wasn't I responsive or why did I look for BW to tell me what was wrong with me - did I place her as a parent stand-in, seems too cerebral like I'm trying but failing.

I don't think I have deep seated issues from childhood, but there are definitely things that weren't ideal but most of us have something. I wasn't abused, but I was very independent - mom worked nights, no dad, and it was me. I had to take care of homework and the usual stuff, most I remember getting yelled about was my room and not moving the clothes our of the washer into dryer.

I'm looking for my Whys, I don't know if I'll get to some deep meaning. I recognize my responsibility - using the comments from earlier, I recognize I broke the vase and want to pay for it. I am responsible, I had no mental illness and kept a secret for 18months and who knows how long I would have continued. It felt like it was already unravelling but I could probably keep it limping on life support as I had no plan to stop - who knows. When confronted with it, I flailed against acceptance for a week. Lots of missteps were taken to further shatter the trust, to the point where BS feels like I am dangerous - because I would protect myself before thinking of others and didn't look at her side. Shame spiraled in me after admitting I had an A, I stayed in a hotel for a few days while my kids made it hard for my BS. Mistakenly, they were more involved than they should have been. I moved back into the guest room and am happy to be able to be there for homework or other activities, but she is suffering - cant bear to see me and says I haven't done the emotional work and am not being honest. IC says her reactions are normal and is trying to focus on me, but like Dom I used my intellect or humor to build this external image of myself and so far we're discussing things about my childhood, upbringing, what I thought I got from the A and what I thought I was missing from the M. He is blunt, what you did is wrong and I accept that whole heartedly - I'm hoping to fall off a cliff into understanding, feel like I've accepted but don't understand.

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This post is fantastic. Thank you for your insight and the extent to which you broke it down with examples of writing down the why. Thank you!

DaddyDom,
Have you considered being a mentor or something similar? If so please reach out to me. I’m desperate and hurting, along with my BS. I need help. Thank you

Thanks Pleaseforgiveme1,

While I'm always willing to help out on an individual basis if needed, your best bet is to post on the forums. I'm just one person, just one point of view. The power and beauty of SI is that there are MANY awesome people here and the ability to hear advice from dozens of people who are in the same boat as you is nothing short of amazing. We are ALL your mentors. Post in Wayward, and you'll reach the people that have some advice for you.

Good on you for finding this site and for having the courage to reach out, and it is also good that you asked this question, as it shows you are making an effort. Keep it up! That's what will help more than anything.

Pleaseforgiveme1, you have a pm.

Great response Daddydom.

DaddyDom,
Thanks to you and your BS for the advice and being truly frank.
I read yours and your wife’s stories.
I will try to show your post to my WS. He is getting better in acknowledging the why’s but he is still a work in progress ..
Your wife found your email which was a start to healing while I only found out one text from the AP. He deleted all the messages routinely during his A and right after I found out. I am totally dependent on his confession and it is very difficult for my WS to put it all on the table; he always say that he is afraid to hurt me more . I give him credit for still being on NC with the AP.
Here we are , 7 months after dday#2 and he is still keeping the deepest secrets .. his feelings towards her and me before, during and after the Affair.

I am still hoping that through all this devastating bad days and good days just like your wife before me, I can eventually heal and start the reconciliation .

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Thank you so much DaddyDom. This may be the post that gets through to my WH.

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Thank you for bumping this!

Did you ever write the "How to fix it" sequel? I would very much like to read it.

Did you ever write the "How to fix it" sequel? I would very much like to read it.

So would I :)

No, I did not write a sequel, at least, not in such concrete terms. To be honest, there is no "magic fix" or formula to follow. It's like recovering from surgery... it doesn't matter how much money you throw at it or how many doctors attend to you, it takes as long as it takes to heal and recover, and that process can't be sped up. Things can be made worse however, so that's something to avoid. Infidelity is the same. We each have to recover in our own time, in our own way, using whatever tools work best for us. SI is a great tool in that regard simply because there is such a vast wealth of experience and knowledge here. If you can learn to take what you need and just skip over what does not work for you, then you'll get a lot out of the support offered here.

At the end of the day, each WS has to go on a personal journey of self discovery. If I had asked you when you were ten years old what you wanted to be when you grew up, I'll bet a million dollars you would not have said, "A liar" or "A cheater" or "A person with no self-respect". Yet, here each of us is. We never wanted or intended to be this kind of person, right? So the first and most crucial step is to stop and figure out what went wrong and how/why we allowed it to happen.

Then we have to face the painful fact that we did, in fact, allow it to happen. Not just the affair, but we allowed ourselves to sink low enough that an affair became acceptable to some degree, enough that it occurred.

The final step is to make changes in our lives so that we are better people. So that we love ourselves, respect ourselves, and others, and become the kind of people that would never cheat again because we'd never allow ourselves to debase ourselves in such a way. Think of someone you really admire and trust beyond measure. Then, figure out what about them makes you feel that way about them. Finally, emulate those good qualities. When you love yourself and spend each day being the best person you can be, then it gets much easier to get out of the shame spiral and take accountability for your actions. Better yet, by being a better person moving forward, you can open the door to re-establising trust again (to some degree).

I might suggest this article I wrote later, it may hold some insight for you.
https://www.survivinginfidelity.com/topics/642916/the-things-i-had-to-accept/

Thank you for that link to your other post. You are helping me, as a BS trying to understand the whys and hows, more than you will ever know. I’m not great with maneuvering through forums (in fact, SI is my first experience with them…let me put it this way, I still use a flip phone) and I tried to find more of your posts, but from what I can tell, in my limited experience so far, they only show someone’s most recent posts in an easy-to-find way, so please, if there are any others of yours that you would recommend, I will keep checking back. Thank you again so much and know that you are really helping me, and my WS, as we try to figure things out.

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