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Pity people are not able to speak for themselves.

Can mods bump for Sakura that amazing thread by a Christian Wayward. I think she recently passed. It is one of the standard threads which is bumped up here. Sorry to be vague, I only read it once. It’s focus is basically on doing the work.

Edit: it’s Maia’s survival guide and it has been bumped recently. Try reading that OP, and I would suggest some of Daddy Dom’s posts.

[This message edited by straightup at 6:25 AM, Sunday, May 15th]

Hey Sakura,

I hope you are able to make it work with the last chance he is granting you.

My own perceptions on the chance being a genuine one or not may be skewed by all the reading I have done here and what I have seen from friends and aquaintances. I perceive that there is a man who is deeply hurt and has tremendous baggage around your A that superceeded it from his childhood. I see a man who suffered through a chaotic and abusive upbringing, looking long and hard for certainty, a shelter and safe haven from the chaos he was raised in.

This is where you come in, a completely (to him) known quantity, no ugly history to fear, no skeletons in your closet. You and he share a faith, another source of constancy he was craving as a child. You seem to grow together as husband and wife and as Christians.

Until you dont.

Your A tore the heart out of him. His dreams of constancy, assurance and straight paths through the wilderness got burned down. He cant trust you, one of the 2 large pillars he built his life upon. What is he left to console himself with? His faith.

Only now he is hurt, angry, bitter and raging! "God, I loved you and followed all your rules! Where is my "goat" to share with my friends? (Shelter from pain not of his own causing.) Why havent you abandoned her when she squandered the gifts I and You gave her?" Hes mad at God, elder son with the clean track record watching as God decides to meet his Jezebel wife with mercy and a chance at redemption.

Meanwhile, his life is up in flames. And youre the one holding the smoking match. All the while, God is offering you mercy.

So, yeah, mad at God for not protecting him from the pain you caused him (the elder, self righteous brother). Except, if he allows himself to be mad at God, wont God judge him? I mean, if parents can abandon their kids, its not too far a stretch to fear God will abandon us too. Also, isnt it a sin to be angry at the great perfection which is the holy trinity? Who are we mere creatures to question His perfect plans? Doesnt that show a lack of faith amd trust in Him??

So... if you are afraid of the last Person you trust with your life leaving you because youre mad at them, do you rage at them?

No, he cant rage at God for the pain His gift of free choice allows into our lives. If hes mad at God, it is a sin and he might be abandoned by Him.

Who can he put his anger onto instead? Who can he use his faith as a whip to scourge instead? Who can he reject in such a "righteous anger" so as to prove hes the dutiful elder son? The son who always does right and knows just what God wants from him? The one who God will choose over his cheap Jezebel cheating wife? The one who will NEVER be abandoned by God?

Anger for you has its place. Wrapping it up in religiousity scapegoats his anger at God onto you. THIS is the aspect of his language and his attitude that I am calling bullshit on.

Until he can look you in the eye, sinner to fellow sinner, both in need of mercy from God and forgiveness from each other, its all a game he is playing with you. It will never be the equal partnership of a woman drawn from his side (not foot, nor head), with a man, in quiet relationship to the God that made them.

Do you both want a relationship where you walk side by side in the cool breeze of the evening, sharing all and hiding nothing from each other and your God? Can you both get there while he plays "favorite child" to God?

You abandoned him in your A. He has only God left to lean on. Only, its so confusing, how can a good and loving Father allow his beloved children to suffer so much? How can a good God permit one who has WAY less sin to suffer at the hands of a blood red sinner? How can your BH reconcile that in his head? Will God abandon him for even questioning it? Where will that leave him? Then BH will truly be alone! And thats not good...

Maybe its just easier if he puts that doubt, fear hurt and rage at God completely on you instead.

Bigger you missed where he mentioned to me someone that did change and how he was speaking out in pain. It was in my comment

[This message edited by Sakura2 at 8:31 AM, Sunday, May 15th]

Migander

He's definitely not mad at God either. First you say my husband is manipulative and then accuse him of that. I don't understand.

[This message edited by Sakura2 at 8:31 AM, Sunday, May 15th]

Straight up. That's who my husband told me about that I mentioned. If you find it can you let me know

[This message edited by Sakura2 at 8:31 AM, Sunday, May 15th]

Oh nevermind I see it

Consider doing a reflective report after reading it.

OP, you'll probably do better to post in a forum where more betrayed people will answer. Getting the opinions and biases of mostly fellow waywards (such as the comments above) probably isn't going to help you get closer to your BH, which is your stated goal. BS's will be able to tell you what they needed to feel they could reconcile, to be able to trust and try again with the WS, etc. A lot of BS's avoid reading or posting on the Wayward forum.

This is poor advice as your posts will only be moved to the wayward forum where you are offered protection.

It is known that the WS community will hold your feet to the fire. They have been through it, understand the process and the lies that you can tell yourself. They understand the rewriting of history and the tricks that the mind can play. It is common for new waywards to disagree as you haven’t been through the process of digging deep yet.

Whether you or morningglory agree, they are members that deserve respect.

Pity people are not able to speak for themselves.

It’s also a pity when people can not follow simple guidelines.

Wrapping it up in religiousity scapegoats his anger at God onto you.

God didn't cheat on him. His wife did. His anger is correctly directed towards his wife, not God.

Morningglory

I think migander is speaking from a Catholic perspective, not a Christian one as she said in her original comment.

But I would still like to focus on my question please

[This message edited by Sakura2 at 6:46 PM, Sunday, May 15th]

Trying to change yourself into someone with whom your H wants to R is a sign you think you need external validation from your H just as you probably did from your ap. External validation never works for long.

The best way to stop selling yourself out for external validation is to learn to validate yourself. You probably need to find a good IC to help you do that.

I don't think your H is a good candidate for R unless he deals with his childhood trauma - cheating mom, excessively passive father, hateful step-mother. He probably had to stuff his feelings as a kid. He's an adult now, though, and he has to heal from those traumas in order to heal from the trauma you added to his life. But you can't do that work for him. He has to do his work himself.

IMO, his posts said to me that he wants to feel loved by you and his mom and his dad. You say part of that explicitly, I think. IMO, he won't really experience love from you unless he separates you from his mom, his dad, himself, and whatever other filters get between himself and reality.

But you can heal without him, and he can heal without you, and since you're writing, my reco to you is to heal yourself no matter what he does.

I really hope he chooses a healing path for himself, and I hope you R happily. But you can control only yourself. Take control. Get help. Figure out how to live a good life without betraying yourself or anyone else in the future.

IMO, you're asking the wrong questions. I think you should be asking yourself questions like, 'What do I have to change about myself to become a good partner? What do I have to change to stop seeking external validation? How do I learn to validate myself? How do I know when I'm on track?'

*****

I think the advice to post where BSes can post is ill-advised. You're too likely to get responses from triggered BSes than from healed ones, and you get enough of that at home. Besides, you path to healing lies within yourself, not in trying to move your BS one way or another.

The WSes who post here, especially in responses to new WSes, are generally on the way to healing, and they're sources of healing help.

If you want a stop sign put on this thread, my reco is to start a 'mod, please' thread, and make the request there.

My reco is to post in the WS forum with the STOP sign.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 9:01 PM, Sunday, May 15th]

I agree with Bigger—he’s giving you false hope. By all means, try to win him back if you like, but please don’t be surprised when he says in a few weeks or months that there’s no chance.

I think migander is speaking from a Catholic perspective, not a Christian one

As a fellow Catholic—we are Christians, I assure you.

Sisoon I see. So far my counselor says I did this as a poor coping mechanism because of my kids leaving for school. I also might have self destructive tendencies. I firstly want to help him but I've read I need to help myself first. You said to ask these questions is that the same thing? I'm just trying to understand what you mean. I don't yet have a grasp on what doing the work is, or if that's what the questions you said to ask myself are.

Darkness migander was talking about my husband hating God even though that's not a Christian belief and he would never do that. I know Catholics have unorthodox beliefs in areas so I apologize if I offended you it wasn't my intention

My husband was also doing counseling but he was effectively blamed for lacking something that I sought elsewhere so it turned him off from the whole thing again like when he was younger. He was really "enjoying" it too but that happened

[This message edited by Sakura2 at 12:18 AM, Monday, May 16th]

Sakura, to clarify, at no point in any of my posts did I say or imply your BH hates God. Interesting that the anger I talked about is equated to hate.

I love God very dearly for all the bullshit I have said amd the nasty things I have done. When I was at my lowest, I would go to the chapel, yell and cry out to Him in my pain, anger and frustration at what my life had become. Both before and after my A.

I was VERY angry at Him.

HOWEVER, at no point did I ever HATE Him.

The two are very distinct things. If one grows up in am abusive home (like I did), you learn to dissociate from your emotions and lack the practice in identifying them for what they are that most people in healthier situations have.

Your husbamd grew up abused. His mom, dad and stepmom were highly unrelaible, unstable people. A child in that environment essentially raises themselves. I wonder if he was allowed to ever be genuinely upset for how he was treated as a child. Genuinely open about how raw, cheated, betrayed and degraded he was by the stunted people who raised him.

Parents are children's first model for what they understand of God. We call Him Father for that reason. His parents obviously were poor models of that. Healthy parents create a safe environment where a child can learn to express their anger appropriately without fear of rejection or abandonment. If you lack that, guess what? Youre going to have a hard time learning how to express and identify anger seperately from hatred.

As a Christian who happens to ve Catholic and VERY well read in the Bible, I can tell you in no uncertain terms that you can rage and cry and scream at God. He can take it. If we arent allowed to be angry with Him, then why are half the Psalms written from someone whining about being a friend to God, loving and obedient, yet they are starving and their enemies are sleek and fat?

Please do me the favor of not belittling my faith, nor misconstruing my remarks.

If you would like to get into the theological details of why a half trained Episcopal raised by a fallen away agnostic divorced Catholic father and a religiously feminist proabortion mother CHOSE to join the one holy catholic and apostolic church, I invite you to start a thread in off topic until you can PM me

I just took offense to what you said about my husband is all. He has never been angry with God because as a reformed person he knows God is in control. You also called him manipulative and things. If he didn't have God he would've given up on everything a long long time ago and he does reach out in pain but it's never at Him. Again I'm sorry I just didn't like what you said about him. I also don't think a thread like that would be allowed and we are already pushing the no religious debate rule I'm sorry again

[This message edited by Sakura2 at 1:17 AM, Monday, May 16th]

Hi Sakura

Despite being one myself, I don’t usually root for the WS. In your case, I really hope your husband is genuine in his offer of a chance.

That being said, I do tend to agree with what Bigger wrote. I’m not saying you should give up all hope but your husband certainly seemed to be locked into his convictions about WS. As with everyone, change is possible. Both for you and your husband.

In any case, I really do hope that things someone work out between you two.

All the best.

I'm surprised that we got this far along in the thread without someone mentioning one of what I would call all a tenet of SI, that is in order to have any chance of saving the marriage, you have to give up on the outcome. A somewhat counterintuitive mantra that if you dig deeper makes way too much sense.

From How to Help Your Spouse Heal, it talks about how the WS was the rock, the support for the BS, and suddenly, the person they most relied upon hurt them deeper than anyone else could, and that was supposed to be one person in the world who didn't do those things, so it is really a traumatic experience. Where it gets difficult is that the person who was the destroyer was a WS, now has to become a safe partner, a builder and most importantly a healer. You cannot heal your BS on your own, but you can be the support that he needs to recover and heal on his own. As others have said, you cannot help him heal completely, and the trauma from his childhood isn't your doing. However, your superpower at this time will be empathy. Try to dig up as much of that as you can muster.

You should also focus on yourself and healing yourself. You have plenty of work to do on your end, and in fact, if there is to be a reconciliation, you as the WS will have to do a lot of heavy lifting to get there. But for now, you need to worry less about the divorce or reconciliation and work on healing yourself and being there in whatever capacity you can be to support your husband. You mentioned that you are going all in on his love languages, such as acts of service, but I would caution you to be careful with things like that. It almost seems to me like a "pick me" dance, something we usually advise BS to avoid doing, but in your case, smothering your BH with acts of love could be seen as inauthentic change and backfire. Let's be honest with ourselves, if you suddenly turn into super wife where the house is spotless, his favorite meals are cooked all the time, etc. and you weren't like that before, you are eventually going to wear down and revert back to the old you.

Before I knew that my wife was cheating on me and I had just assumed that I was the one with an EA, I sort of did what you mentioned. I turned into super husband/dad. Took care of all the stuff around the house while working a full time job. I vacuumed, mopped, cleaned up the countertops, did every piece of laundry in the house, all to prove to my wife that I can be the husband she needed. She actually became very resentful and saw it as totally inauthentic (probably her cheating played a part there) but she was actually mad that I suddenly could do the things she had apparently wanted me to do for going on a decade. Now, going on year three, I still help out a lot more around the house than I did in the past. Heck, as I sit here today typing this, I am fortunate to be working from home as my job has shifted to mostly remote following the pandemic, but here I am today washing the bedsheets in all the rooms in between my meetings today. My wife will come home to the beds all clean and made in the afternoon. I do it because I know it needs to be done, I enjoy a clean bed and also she will feel relieved that it is done.

Your husband was quite hurt and his posts in the JFO forum reflected that. It is common for a new BS to go through a whole range of thoughts, feelings and swings. Recovery isn't some linear thing and nothing in our lives happens in a vacuum. Deep down, he loves you but you hurt him in ways he could never have imagined. He swings from needing you to be there and be the safe healing partner to wanting nothing to do with you. Perhaps, and we say this around here a lot, cheating was a deal breaker for him. That is completely fine if that is the case, as it seemed to be with your BH. However, if he has opened the door to R, it is incumbent on both of you to establish what are the ground rules for said R and what will it look like. It is not fair to you or really him to just have this nebulous idea of "progress". He may not have a firm grasp of what he means by it, and that is for him to work on with his IC, but before you guys spend months and maybe years in a limbo situation, you should define what the requirements for R actually are and whether you as the WS will be willing to meet him there. So I guess what I am saying is that your husband is in the drivers seat at the moment but you are well within your rights to push him for clarification and tangible things that he needs for R to be a possibility. Otherwise, it would be as others have said, false hope and giving you false hope is another form of cruelty, in and of itself.