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I’m so tired. I get to a place I feel ok then something triggers me and sets me off for days. I am angry at myself for it being almost 6 years from DDay 2 and I’m not healed. H has done everything as far as I can figure out to make me feel safe and he has remorse and we have totally different marriage now but I’m still stuck. I have been diagnosed with CPTSD and nothing I’m doing is working.

It’s Affair Season and every year I think I’ll be better and I’ll be fine but the trauma comes no matter how hard I try to keep it away.

I just feel defeated and low right now.

I felt your pain while reading your post. 🥺

Just dropping by really to give you a virtual hug.

I'm sorry you are going through this pain even after 6 yrs.

My thoughts this morning is your title, "I don't think I'll ever heal".

I hope one day we can really move past this nightmare.

I'm so sorry. I had C-PTSD before my FWH and OW/Friend made their horrible choices. It.is.brutal. I still get triggered, but it has diminished over the last 4 or so years. FWH has also done the work to make me feel safe. I much prefer this marriage than the one I was in.

EMDR worked for me. It was difficult, but that plus a metric f-ton of counseling has gotten me through. Like I said, I still trigger, but it is much less. I was thrilled that I had several days where I actually didn't think about the A. And, then it came back yesterday. It's also A season for me. Hang in there.

BDP sorry you are struggling.
Any thoughts on upping/starting meds during this time of year and increasing or going for a few check in visits with an IC to help you navigate the waters.

Can you identify the triggers and start working to approach them differently?

I wish I had a silver bullet for you brokendollparts - I was there. Clinical depression and CPTSD.

I can only offer what helped me along the way and hope you get the help you need to not feel defeated.

I thought I was a fortress of faith and mindfulness until discovery day. Nothing made a dent until about three years in.

I was very mad at myself for not being able to get out from underneath my own feelings, so I get that too.

Ultimately, I was able (very slowly) to change my focus.

The trauma and recycled thoughts can stay in that pattern because your brain is certain it can fix the outcome, that it can calculate a path out of the trauma if it re-lives the trauma just ONE more time — but it doesn’t. Your brain is trying to protect you by overthinking. At least that was the answer in my case.

So, I had to change the endless thought patterns. Those changes were measured in minutes. As in when I started, the negative thoughts took up 55 minutes of an hour. Then after a few weeks, only 50 minutes of the hour. Now, negative trauma thoughts can still trigger, but I tackle them within in a minute.

I picked distractions to ‘buy’ time.

Comedy on TV, or music (music previously was all I needed, but the A changed that, it took years for it to be helpful again), a movie, a walk, a work-out, drive, lunch with a good friend.

Those distractions led to more activities to get more positive moments out of each hour.

All of that helped the daytime, but the nighttime then became the nightmare.

Like a little kid, I kept the TV on, or music on, some white noise, anything I could focus on instead of the repetitive thoughts. My pre-A sleep pattern has NOT returned 7.5 years later. I have some decent nights, five hours of sleep is the post A record, but it is still the frontline battle with negative thoughts to THIS day.

Somewhere along the line, I understood that I have a vote, I have control over where my brain goes. Even if it brings up the trauma every minute, there is a half a second where I get to decide to change the channel - to distract the pattern myself.

The flip side of it is, if it is a very specific flashback or memory, I will allow it in to understand what it is my brain is telling me. Usually, it is a part of the trauma I hadn’t processed. And that process is, yes, it happened, it’s over, and now I need to mow the lawn and get on with today, in the now. Bad stuff isn’t happening in the now.

I finally am able to help my brain understand past and present. It sounds silly to some, but our brains are not linear storage. It’s all one big jumble of thoughts of all of experiences all at once.

We can carve out some new neural pathways, it takes a lot of distractions to rebuild a new focus.

Your post sounds frighteningly normal to me, there is no deadline for recovery, you will recover at your own pace.

These days, I appreciate my progress, focus on what I can control, which is that half second to decide how I respond to adverse thoughts.

I’m sorry you’re still hurting, I can hear the pain in your words.

I’ve also been diagnosed with ptsd and my counsellor considered sectioning me (calling an ambulance when I turned up extremely distressed at an appointment which would have landed me in a mental health hospital).

I’m with Oldwounds on this, I had to take an active part in my healing, make conscious decisions on what that meant and stick to them.

For example I used to obsess about ow which would then make me ruminate on affair details which would then lead to me exploding at WH even years after everything has been discussed and analysed in detail. I couldn’t live like that anymore. For me!

In my case I’ve picked up exhausting exercise: running. Trust me when I say that by the time I’d finish a 5k run, I was so exhausted and any amount of anger/pain/obsessive thought was gone. Initially I used all these to motivate me: the more pain, the more I ran, the more anger, the faster I did it.

I then got into other things to distract me: I always wanted to learn to paint. Each time I felt my thoughts wondering, I would watch tutorials on painting techniques.

Before that I got into baking.

Now I’ve kept all these hobbies and I’m into getting back to cooking from scratch, the benefits of old methods of cooking/backing (think sourdough and other fermentation methods). I’m avidly reading and making bread, yogurts, kefir.

All this on top of having a full time job/career.

I’m not telling you all this to make you feel bad. I’m telling you that this was the only thing that worked for me. Nothing would have healed me, nothing would have made me feel safe again without making the conscious decision to shift my focus and live the life I wanted to live.

Do it because you need to be a bit selfish, think of it this way: will wasting your precious years harm anyone else beyond you?

I'm going to say something you don't want to hear.

You won't heal. Not as long as you continue these every day,all day,calls with your wh.

You think it's helping you to feel more secure. And, in the moment, maybe it is. But, in the long run, what it's really doing is keeping you mired in infidelity. It's keeping you stuck. Your entire day revolves around listening to the background noise at your husband's office. Add in, how is he supposed to prove to you that he's done the work,and can be trusted to conduct himself like a faithfulhusband , when you aren't giving him that chance?

At first, I can see the possible benefit. But,it's been years of this. It's turned into a destructive habit. Maybe an addiction.

You have to take the first step. Stop the calls. When you start to feel anxious, post here. Go for a walk. Call a friend. Maybe get a job that requires you to be off the phone all day. Direct your attention elsewhere.

Otherwise, you are keeping both of you in infidelity.

None of the good advice you are getting on this thread will help..until you stop those calls.

[This message edited by HellFire at 6:04 PM, Friday, December 1st]

I'm sorry you are hurting.

That said, I agree with Hellfire's post completely.

You know the phone thing is not healthy, it's keeping you stuck and it's prevented you from healing. How can you possibly start thinking about the A less if you are intentionally doing something for HOURS A DAY that requires vigilance and is directly connected to the A. You're not giving your body or brain a chance to relax. If you are waiting for yourself to heal BEFORE you ease off the phone thing, it's not going to happen. Building trust necessarily requires a relinquishing of control. It always feels uncomfortable at first, but you can't get to comfortable without pushing through the uncomfortable. It's kind of like building muscles. When you first start lifting a weight, it might kind of suck at first and you're probably going to be sore the next day, but you have to keep at it if you want to increase your strength. If you stick with it, and push through the hard part, it gets easier and you will see results.

You say your husband is doing everything he can. There is nothing more he can do at this point that will fix this for you. He is not keeping you stuck here, you are. Addressing your CPSTD is something YOU need to do for yourself and your relationship if you want things to get better.

[This message edited by emergent8 at 6:36 PM, Friday, December 1st]

How can you possibly start thinking about the A less if you are intentionally doing something for HOURS A DAY that requires vigilance and is directly connected to the A.

And this too! So much this. I felt like nobody understood the need I had to know my WH’s every move, ow’s every move, I needed to do it to feel safe. I was so wrong. In reality I had created a trauma pattern and I was waiting for me to "heal" without actively taking action. When you create these patterns you get stuck in them and start narrowing your thinking down to them, ie. you cannot imagine life beyond it. You HAVE to do it otherwise you’d feel like the world is over.

That’s wrong. You can create new healthy patterns. You need to remind your brain what life without trauma looks like.

Well it looks like people remember the all day phone calls. My H calls me not the other way around. He works 10-12 (sometimes more) hours a day and I just can’t not speak to him for that long. We wasted 20 years on not communicating. Yes, the phone calls will taper off but can’t do it right now it’s Affair Season. We don’t talk about the A all day or anything. He is in multiple locations all day and that is something that gives me extreme anxiety. I know it’s unorthodox, it was HIS idea. We have talked about it a LOT. There is absolutely nothing I don’t tell him about how I feel.

Yes, I need to focus on me and what I want more. I feel like we are just making up for lost time and what led to the A in the first place.

Yes, I know I’m making excuses and trying to justify how I’m handling this. I have listened to everything that has been said.

I know there isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution but I’m trying, I’m doing it what feels "safe" and I have severed attachment issues and therapy isn’t free. I have to do what’s in my ability to do right now

How are you holding up brokendollparts?

I’m sorry if it felt like anyone was ganging up on you during a time you are hurting. I agree that you have to do what’s in your ability, and I know that going without the calls right now does not feel within your ability. I also know that after 6 years of this, your fear on this is not going to go away on its own. I really do encourage you to take a small step on this - you don’t have to go all the way but maybe you could go for an hour one morning without the call and see how you feel about it. Baby steps.

We understand your position and I hope you don’t feel we are judging you in any way.

But for those of us that got away from a similar situation, we are in a better place b/c we are not trying to control everyone and everything. We got away or out of similar circumstances and it made a big difference.

Maybe you can try to slowly make a change.

If you have a gps tracker on his phone, try giving up talking to him on his drive home. You can see where he stops (if he stops) and you could easily contact him if you felt something was off. You can see where he is at all times too.

Starting with one small thing could make a difference for you. But you don’t know until you try. It’s very very hard to start to trust again. We all understand that crossroads.

But taking baby steps could give you some real strength and confidence in yourself.

The one thing that came out of my H’s affair was confidence in myself. I recognized I will stand up for myself when I used to be a doormat. I often gave in. I tolerated things for years I should not have.

My H saw what a bad ass I can be even pushed too far. And he’s now afraid I will divorce him. Should have done it years ago!

I'm sorry if you feel I was judging you. I'm not. I don't find fault with any bs for doing what they feel they need to do. That said, I stand by what I said. These calls are harming you.

As suggested..baby steps. Schedule something for Monday morning, until noon. Spend time with a friend. Go Christmas shopping. Go thrifting. Find something you enjoy,and go do it. Leave the phone at home. Then, when you get home, if you're feeling ok,challenge yourself to give it one more hour,and see how you feel. If you need to call,call. But try. You have to take small steps. That's ok. You can do it. You have to stop saying you can't. Tell yourself you can. You are a smart woman. You are stronger than you think you are. It won't be easy. But,in the long run, you will feel so much better. You can do it. I have faith in you.

[This message edited by HellFire at 1:28 PM, Friday, December 8th]