Have been dealing with a really tough image/thought since last night, but has to hold it in and deal with it myself, not been able to bring it up with W yet. Is so painful to do so - anyone else have it physically hurt? I get pain in my stomach, feel like I'm going to be sick, and most nights now I wake up screaming at least once I hope things fade soon. My W is expecting me to make it past the 24th before we really "deal with this" but I could be in pieces by then! I might have to bring some up at MC tomorrow. To be fair I might be able to bring this one up over the next couple of days. Not sure why I'm posting this, just want it off my chest.
I remembered that not long after the ONS DDay (posts passim) we were "working at fixing things" and she went out with the A OM for a drink and I stayed at home and made her a really special meal - the same as I'd made her for valentines as a surprise, that she'd really loved. Not wanting to over do it, but it is a major effort for me, I'm not a natural chef and this takes easily 3 hours to prepare and make. I had made it really clear I wanted to know a specific time she'd be home (we'd been having massive problems with her coming home late - I now know why!) and she ended up coming home well over half an hour later than I'd said I was serving [i.e. she should have been home with time to spare BEFORE that time]. She had gone for a drink and then to the cinema with the OM, and she told me at the time that he had told her he loved her. Her explanation at the time was that she was late because he started crying over her (the fact that I was crying at home on my own waiting for her, while keeping the meal warm...).
In hindsight, imagine what I'm imagining REALLY happened.
{cries}
This message has been edited by AdamMJG on Jul 10, 2007 2:40 AM
My heart breaks for what you are going through. But yes I hurt so bad emotionally that I felt it physically. You were a major reason I started the need to Bleed thread. There were many times my pain was so great it swallowed me whole. I often sought out a crowded corner in which to hide. Sinking as far in as I could and covering myself with blankets and pillows, even there I could find no relief.
I also had uncountable such incidents where H was not home at the agreed upon time while I waited, only to find out that time was spent with OW. I know how incredibly much this hurts. This is part of the need to know of the affair, so we can apply it to ourselves and what we were doing at the time. As much as this is torture, it is also how we piece it all together, make ourselves part of it so it is as much our history as it is our spouses, and start to accept.
Coming here, expressing your sorrow and pain, and being validated is what you should be doing. I am so sorry, but I have been exactly were you are, you are not alone. There is comfort in knowing you are not alone.
Ami
This message has been edited by Amistandingstill on Jul 10, 2007 6:41 AM This message has been edited by Amistandingstill on Jul 10, 2007 6:41 AM
That is so awful. It is awful that it happened at all and now for you to be living it over and over again is just horrible I am so sorry for your pain.
I am not sure what the reference to the 24th is and I was wondering about the 1 month remarks you made in other posts. What was happening this month?
Now I am all about you being gentle with your wife and not freaking out on her as this would be counter productive and you don't want her to withdraw again but when you are in this much pain over a flashback it can be more damaging to you to not talk about it. I would strongly suggest that you talk about it in MC if you feel that you can't talk about it with her on your own. I have the same issue with not wanting to cause my H any pain over the huge mistake that he made but when I am in that much pain he usually wants to know what is wrong and when I tell him I don't attack him I just calmly explain what I am going through. The most painful one I had recently was after I talked to the OW and found out the first time my H slept with her was the day I went to my obgyn (I was pregnant) and had the ultrasound and was all excited about showing him the picture and instead of coming home to be with me he went out drinking and ended up in another woman's bed!: ( AHHHHHHHHH!!!
What I did was to write all my hateful feelings down and then once I got all the anger out of my system I was able to tell him how I felt with out lashing out in anger at him.
Please try to talk with your W it will help you heal. Now is not only about her and the pain that she is in. It is supposed to be about you both and the pain that you both are in and learning productive ways to help each other heal like feeling comfortable communicating with each other.
(((((HUGS)))))))
We all know your pain and we are hear for you to vent on. I hope I didn't cross the line into suggesting what you should do I just feel very strongly that you need to be able to tell her how you feel and she needs to be able to comfort you. For it is with that comfort that you will begin to heal.
I am not the only one holding it in, my W is also, and so I can't really vent too much to her right now.
She is studying for some exams on the 23rd and 24th that are critical to her career. It will not do our M any good if she loses her job and career. I know it is her fault and she should have thought of this etc etc, but I can't punish her like that. She needs to devote huge amounts of time to studying, and we found that if we start to talk about it, we will talk all night, no-one will sleep and she will lose a day of study.
Hence I have agreed to try my best to stave this off until after her exams, and she has agreed (as I understand it) to talk after that date.
Thats not to day we haven't done any talking (posts passim) but trying to keep it low key and simple (in particular facts based rather than feelings/reasons).
Ok
I think it is good that you are willing to help her get through her exams. I think that it is the fact that you can help her like that even though she has hurt you that will show her that you still care for her a lot and I think it was probably very hard for her to tell you she would try to open up after her exams. Does it help you at all that you know if you can get past the 24 th that she will open up?
After the OW called me and totally sold my H out he was crushed. He was in love with the OW and never thought that she would hurt him like she did. Even though it was very hard I sat and told him that I would listen to his pain and he did open up and tell me a lot of things and it was in the fact that even though his words caused me even more pain then he had already caused me I sat there and listened to him and tried to comfort him. A few things really hurt me and I started to cry and he held me and told me how sorry he was and that he never intended on hurting me. And that was the begining of us being open to each other. When we talked in the past any time we said anything that the other didn't like we would end up attacking each other. And that taught us to not be open and honest with each other about how we felt.
We now both feel like we have a much better chance of surviving this. We did have a talk about what would/should happen if we do divorce in reguards to the children. We both come from broken families and had both parents saying stuff about the other. Which is painful for the kids. I told him how I do not want to get divorced and he said that he didn't either. I think it is mostly because he doesn't want our boys to grow up in a broken family. But I am hopeful one day he will really love me again. I think that he is still so hurt by "the woman he loved" that he is guarding his loving feelings fearing that he will get hurt again. So I am being very loving and supportive and patient but when I have those panicky feelings I talk to him so that we can get through the pain together.
I think you sound like you are a good H and I hope your W realizes that. Keep up the good work.
Kelly
Well she hasn't explicitly told me that she wants to talk about the A with me, but when I asked about it she asked if we could wait until after the exams. Either way when the exams are over I don't think I'll be able to not talk about it!
On the love front things appear totally different with my W. She told me (during the A) that the OM had said he loved her, and that that made her feel uncomfortable, but that I didn't have anything to worry about. After the A she has always maintained she didn't love him, although she has also said she didn't really love me at the time either - she claims she wasn't feeling much of anything. She has even recently admitted that during the A she didn't even feel guilty. She has said that he made her feel desired and attractive though. That hurts a bit given the effort I was clearly going to (see above).
Since then she has said she now feels very much in love with me and also very very guilty.
Yeah my H said that the OW made him feel wanted and I am sure that she probably did. We never got over my A 7 years ago and my H didn't treat me all that well and I didn't think I deserved to be treated any different so I accepted it. We were living together because of the kids and that is why when he started having feelings for this OW he let himself get into an affair. We have talked about the substandard way that he treated me and the outcome of our feelings for each other because of that treatment. I still tell him that I love him and want this to work but that I deserve to be loved and treated with respect and so does he. We have made mistakes and we can get through them together as long as that is what we BOTH want. if both people don't want to R then it is a lot more of a struggle but not impossible.
I want to pay you a compliment that I believe you very much deserve. I was quite surprised to learn you are only 24 because your insight, compassion, and behavior are more in line with someone older. (Not to insult 24 year olds because not only was I one once [about a million years ago granted ], but I also have the pleasure of teaching at a community college and so deal with young adults constantly.) I am hoping that once your wife gets past her tests, she will turn her full attention to healing, and helping you and your marriage to heal. I'm not sure she realizes what a gem she has in you.
My daughters are 15 and almost 18, and I hope that they end up boyfriends/spouses that have the qualities you have.
OK, back to you. I understand that you are doing your absolute best to hold in your pain and questions and not permit them to spew out of you (like the babies in the Alien movies), but I'm not sure doing so will be possible. You are definitely in a conundrum.
I know you wrote that the IC you first saw expressed the opinion that you need to work on you first, but it seems to me that your more pressing need is to have someone to discuss the A with. Obviously you can come here and vent 'til the cows come home, go back out in the field, and come home again, but that isn't the same as venting one-on-one, face to face. Do you have a friend you can talk to?
I hope your wife is getting better treatment for her depression than she had been because her getting better will help BOTH of you and your marriage (obviously Duh!).
Take care of yourself. Remember that as hurtful as her A was, it was ALL about her, and had NOTHING to do with you.
Adam, I am coming into this in the middle and don't know the details of your situation but I've been there. The anxiety attacks and physical pain was a big surprise for me. I had 2 D days 367 days apart. All with the same affair but on the 2nd D-day I found out about 3 others and a pregnancy going back 28 years. Been married to the same woman 32 years now. DD day, as we refer to the second one, was 8 months ago. I must say though that the discovery was a great weight loss plan! Both times. If I ate it came back!
Adam, the most important thing I have found is you have got to know who you are and what you want. Pride and ego will often steal those things away from you. I married at 18 and never really had a life other than this married one. I had become so connected to this person, long ago, that I lived through her. I am still just starting to try and define myself at 50. Were still together. I understand what happened and am learning to deal with it. We are closer now than we ever have been. I will always have the doubt though. Get used to it. It will never leave. I thought my wife incapable of lieing. (Would take many pages to explain why but I had some very good reasons) I though the law of gravity was less certain than her fidelity.
You were concerned about not being able to talk about what happened. I had to use immersion therapy. My personality is such that I have to know all the details before I can let anything go. I caught the affair when I found an e-mail address with 2 years of explicit e-mails, although things in the marriage had reached a point that I was looking for the reason. I almost literally had a heart-attack while reading the first few e-mails. The confrontation occurred 30 seconds later with a full confession (1st occurrence of course). Over the next 4 weeks I read every e-mail (over 300)at least once. The pain was almost unbearable. Today 20 months later they have very little effect on me. The mental images were crippling. I guess my situation was possibly different. She wanted to stay. We set some immediate guidelines. If I asked, she had to answer honestly. Boy did I ask. We had numerous "talk" sessions over the next several months. Some lasting 6 hours. In my mind they had "porno sex" as I referred to it. This was a woman that I had always believed had only been with me. Reality was the "porno sex" never happened that way. I understand that now. But I also understand why she had the affairs and what part I played in it.
Part of the affair problem is that a curtain is drawn around the affair and the honest spouse is on the outside. Secrets abound. That is part of the draw of an affair; the secrecy. When the curtain of secrecy is torn down the light of reality shines in and all parties see it for what it was. Discussing the affair tears down the curtain. I guess if the marriage is damaged enough, even in the light of reality, the affair looks better. My feelings are that if you love her fight for her. That fight may be with yourself more than anyone else. You might be willing to do anything to keep her but if you do, you may find yourself in this same position again.
I love my wife more than anything else I have ever known but there came a time where I had to realize I could live without her; even though I never have. I married the 2nd girl I ever dated and the only woman I have ever been intimate with. Guess how all this leaves my ego! We set some boundaries. Contact with the OM was not an acceptable option.
All this to say you need to talk about it. If you hold it inside it does not help anyone. The tendency to "suck it up" is what caused the affair I am having to deal with now. If your wife can't or won't talk find someone else you can trust. A counselor is good; a friend is better. Right now you need someone to tell you that she did you wrong. Most counselors seem to have a problem doing this. You and your wife will have to talk at some point. There may be things she wants to protect you from. In my case, what I could imagine was always worse than the truth. I guess I have an active imagination. If you don't talk with her about it and deal with it now you will be dealing with it the rest of your lives, just not openly.
I hope things fade soon. My W is expecting me to make it past the 24th before we really "deal with this" but I could be in pieces by then! I might have to bring some up at MC tomorrow. To be fair I might be able to bring this one up over the next couple of days. Not sure why I'm posting this, just want it off my chest.
], but I also have the pleasure of teaching at a community college and so deal with young adults constantly.) I am hoping that once your wife gets past her tests, she will turn her full attention to healing, and helping you and your marriage to heal. I'm not sure she realizes what a gem she has in you.