As I sit here today in the floor in a puddle of tears again, I realize that through all the lies, betrayal and hurt, what feeds all the horrible emotions we go through is the deep intense loneliness.

We think we are going through life as one with someone through everything, the good times, the bad and all the struggles but the truth shows up like a nuclear bomb and destroys our world, and no matter how hard we try, its so shattered it can never be fixed.

We realize we were never together at all. It was all smoke and mirriors. We were always alone and just didn't know it. We let our guard down we foolishly shared ourselves and allowed ourselves to be ripped apart.

This intense pain and loneliness I will never recover from. It has truely destroyed me. The one good thing is that I realized this morning the one true emotion after all the tears and sifting through all the other pain and emotions is loneliness.

Now since the damage has been done, I realized this is the battle scar I have to live with for the rest of my life. No matter who or what comes into my life, at the core, its just me lonely me

I understand why you feel this way, osfan--I've been there myself. In my case, a man crying the tears of a pathetic child. I didn't even cry this deeply and soulfully at my own father's funeral. What shame I felt, what inner weakness... It was as though the whole world had conspired against me...how could I ever be made whole again?

The searing pain of the lies, the emotional and sexual betrayal is like none other, not even the loss of a loved one through death. It was as though I had been pushed into an abyss.

Please embrace your feelings rather than fight them, but also please know that there is healing, there is recovery, there is hope! These are not just mere empty words. Even in the darkest night of your soul please accept that at the very core of your pain there is a glimmer of these things, yet to be realized.

TIME--it may appear to be an enemy as it seems to drag on forever, but in reality, it is one of the factors in healing. As you distance yourself from the "fallout", you will feel the ripples in the pond begin to settle, especially as you take good physical and emotional care of yourself.

SUPPORT SYSTEM--is another factor in recovery. Please do not isolate yourself, but post here, among kindred spirits; surround yourself only with trusted, positive, upbuilding persons. Read books and articles on affair recovery, so as to pick up more tools that are useful to you. Seek therapy only with a professional who totally understands affair recovery, not one who just dabbles in it. Drift back to the things you loved to do before D Day. Focus your mind on things that attract serenity.

But most of all, please do not allow the betrayal to become the defining moment in your life. Rather, allow it to be a moment when you discovered strength and abilities within yourself that you never knew you had--and a time when trusted friends helped you! Please do not give away your personal power to liars and cheats.
BB

Thanks Blue

Thats part of my problem - fighting the emotions trying to be strong. I lost both of my parents about a year apart 12 years ago. They were the only family I had aside from my 1 yr old daughter and isolating controling cold husband. I was married to that man for 18 yrs.

I have no family or friends and i have 2 teenagers. I struggle week to week just to survive and my kids dont understand. i have lost the love of my life thru his repeated lies and betrayal that I kept wanting to be in the past and overwith so that we could make a fresh start over and over and over again.

I have always been strong level headed and kept moving forward. It hit me today just how alone I truely am and always have been.

I think I have really hit the bottom but this time I cant find the strength to get up.

I absolutely agree with Blue.. .powerful words and well said...

You do have to look back on who YOU were before you married...what you liked, enjoyed doing...right now seek to find a place to meet other people and do things you enjoy..the YMCA, Church, Volunteer someplace you enjoy..it can be as simple as calling Meals on Wheels and volunteering to do grocery shopping for a person who can not do it alone, or driving someone to a Dr. Apt.. makes you feel good to help someone else.

Churches have different groups.. Bible studies, my daughters church has dinner groups that meet 3 or 4 times a year. good for meeting people with similar values.

I think that all of us who have been hurt feel the loneliness, aloneness following the A... I learned to stand up for myself following my H's first revelation of an A...it took me time, but i made a separate life for me...putting my self first.. not in a selfish way but if my H wanted me to do something and I had other plans I no longer dropped my plans to do his bidding but told him I was busy and set my boundaries for me...my life revolved around my children,,,still does but I am first most times, no longer last..

Keep posting as Blue suggested...we are here.

((((hugs))))

Pat






"Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time."

I woke up this morning, in love with my H. Ready to reframe, make my next step plans for recovery, and then had a little incident which left me on the floor crying in a puddle.

My reframing might help you when you are ready again to look at possibilities and moving forward.

It is a triangle. There is me, there is him, and there is our relationship. I find that it makes me happy to be in a relationship and nourish the relationship. Maybe the triangle isn't symmetrical and I feed the relationship point more than he does. Because it makes me happy to do that. I don't think I need him to feed it as much as I do. I am in charge of my corner and I feed me first and take care of me. But he is also part of the triangle. He feeds him but he is also connected to feeding me and to feeding our relationship.

I don't know if it makes sense for you or anyone else. But, it's helping me to see that I can be me, myself, my own entity within the relationship. And, that I can also have that relationship With someone, and that I can also take care of/feed my H trough or independent of the relationship.

This approach though not well defined or practiced as of yet - because I just thought about it this morning - helps me to realize that I can be independent, dependent, and not alone in a relationship all at the same time.

That's my shot at giving you and myself hope that we are not all alone even when we are in a relationship.

I don't know if it helps at all to also realize that the same question, as you can see has occured for me, even though I am still in the relationship. Being in recovery or out of the relationship - the same questions, it seems, still exist simply because we are the betrayed.

While I am still in the relationship and I too found myself today, crying in a puddle on the floor.

Our situations are different.

But, you are not alone in your quest to understand what the heck is going on.

Hope,

Your triangle is right on...there is YOU, your H and your relationship...all individual units but bound together by the marriage...all works together...

I learned in school many yrs ago that the triangle was held together by God.

Pat

"Time is precious, but truth is more precious than time."

((((((((((((Osfan)))))))))))

I'm hearing a lot of pain and sadness in your voice, Osfan. I'm not sure what's been going on with you and your situation lately, but it certainly doesn't sound good currently. However, I wanted to offer just another perspective. Its late here, so hopefully it will come out in a cogent way.

No matter when and no matter how parents die, I think there is a feeling of abandonment...even if we are adults. Those primary caregivers that were always supposed to be there for us should just always be there, and yet death is a fact of life. It has to be one of the hardest chapters in life to go through parental loss. It is a deep reminder of how each of us as a human being is actually on a solitary journey. Yes, we have friends, family, co-workers, etc. to give us the illusion of our life being shared. But in actuality, even with our closest dearest friend or soulmate, we are still unique individuals. That can be a frightening realization. But it doesn't have to be devestating and something you can't heal from. It actually can be something to embrace and build upon.

I'm still working on this myself, so please understand I'm not coming from some lofty, preachy place. But I think the journey of life has a lot to do with coming to the place of understanding who I am, who I am in relation to others and who I am in relation to the world.

There is a lot of experience that is shared or seems common, but again, that really has more to do with an illusion of being able to lean on others or to let us be supported...or in happier times, getting validation from others during times of celebration and success.

We at Healing Hearts keep talking about the crux of a WS's recovery journey being the ability for a WS to find themselves instead of looking for something (someone) from the outside to mask their pain. An A is a means to try and fill the void one feels when one hasn't healed one's personal traumas from the past. Bottoming out and finding oneself alone can be the beginning of healing. Its something BS's also need to do, especially after the trauma of DDay.

At the point we're exhausted from life's journey, it can feel like a big bummer to understand that all responsibility for our own life falls on our own shoulders. Its ok to feel that way, give yourself time to hurt over feeling lonely, and then look at what you can be proud of yourself for. Your kids. Your professional life. Your ethics. However you define your own self-esteem and respect - own it and be proud of it.

I rested on my human laurels and gave my self away in many ways to my H. In blindly trusting and loving him, I thought I could completely depend and rely on him. Again, an illusion. Not necessarily because he was bound to have an A. Its just too much to ask of any other human to be 100% support to another. I wasn't foolish in sharing myself with H. I was foolish to give myself completely away in the process.

I know you feel crushed right now and drowning in lonliness. I'd ask that you give another look or two to try and understand you are enough. You're good enough, smart enough, good looking enough, funny enough to not only live...but to thrive. When you reach a point of being really ok with your individuality, that is when you bloom. It is when you can give the most and best of yourself to the people you choose to be with. And it is also when you give those same gifts to yourself. But your value doesn't rest in whether or not you're with someone. You are precious because you are alive.

Osfan, I see this puddly place you're in as a threshold. It doesn't feel safe right now. And you're spent. But it IS safe, and it can be the best starting place for the rest of your life...whether you are with the man of your dreams or not. (He, by the way, really needs to reach this place, too, for the two of you to have a chance. Otherwise, he'll just keeping looking outside of himself with other women. Its a long standing pattern of behavior with him, right?)

Ok, hopefully that's making some sense. I apologize for the perhaps over the top philosophical bent to this.

Please let us know how you're doing. If you're comfortable sharing where you and WS are, we're here and listening. (((((hugs))))) BlueIris

"We cannot wait for the storm to pass; we must learn to walk in the rain."

Hi Everyone,

Blue Iris- dont you dare apologize for anything you say. Your philosophy is right on as usual and I NEED to hear that. Thank you, thank you, thank you for saying it.

Here is whats happening, I am so stupidly in love with this man, he would not leave me alone after Aug when I was strong and told him to go. He was on a mission to prove himself to me and make us right.

So, I got weak and stupid and bought into it and after alot of promises of NC with OW and never lying to me again and making a new start, I married him on Oct 22. By Nov. 19, he had lied to me and talked to her on the phone, spent the night away from home, and we separated.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Its my own fault I have to be the biggest fool on earth. It was a complete blind act of faith and trust in him. What else could I have done to prove my investment in this man? How could he do that? I cant imagine slapping someone in the face like this. What about common courtesy at least?

I get what I deserve for being so stupid I guess. I have gotten out of the floor finally. I feel a little better today, just because I think Ive cried all the tears my eyes can generate at the moment.

(((((((Osfan)))))))) Its amazing what we will do out of love for someone, isn't it?

If someone had asked me about a woman who learned her H was a sex addict, and in addition to porning and having on-line relationships with whoever would "talk" with him, he also was having a full-blown EA/PA for years, what would I hypothetically do if I discovered that I was that woman? Phrases like "kick him to the curb", "run for the hills" and "divorce him immediately" all come to mind. No where would have been the notion of "I'd work long and hard in IC and MC with him to try and heal ourselves and our marriage". When phrased like that, its easy to go to a place of questioning one's judgment, intelligence and self-respect.

But you and I aren't stupid, Osfan. We've been trying to make the best out of bad situations. Our hearts have seen value in these men despite what our heads have proven to us they're capable of doing. That doesn't make us stupid. But we are people who believe very much in the power of love.

Maybe that's another illusion that needs to be shattered. Because we know that no matter how much we love someone, that love isn't going to cure an addiction. That love isn't going to change someone. Love alone can't heal the wounds someone's been carrying around since they were kids. Love alone can't make a marriage work.

You and your H have a very long, complicated history. You gave up a lot for him a long time ago. There was, I'm guessing, always a feeling that your shared love was strong enough to overcome what was wrong. That's sure how I felt - this romanticized love joined me with my H. But our personal demons, our personal traumas of youth, can't be cured or healed by someone else's love. I'm still deep in the process of discovery here, but healing has everything to do with me healing me, and H healing himself, and hopefully we find a way back to each other during or after that process.

Please don't be so hard on yourself. You aren't stupid. You tried something (with a lot of persuasion and coercion from H) and it didn't work. It doesn't mean your M can't work. It just means that his promises alone aren't going to fix his issues. Your love isn't going to cure him.

I'm glad you're doing a little better and that you're finding your way off the floor. Dear Osfan, what is your plan? What is your hope? What have you learned (because you are a smart woman!) and how can you put that to work for you in this situation? BlueIris

"We cannot wait for the storm to pass; we must learn to walk in the rain."

Hi BlueIris

Sorry I missed a few days. Ive been throwing myself into work and making this house the perfect Christmas home complete with homemade goodies etc. Maybe if it feels warm and loving it will be. Worth a try, right? Besides keeping this busy keeps my mind occupied and Im doing something positive.

As for my plan, right now my plan is to get through every day as pleasant as possible. Im not addressing any issues, not making any long term plans just trying to enjoy the moment in time and not think too much.

Im taking a break from cold hard reality and just trying to coast through the holidays. Im actually kind of numb at the moment which actually helps.

Thank you for your kind words, you really do understand. It means alot to hear from someone in a similar place. I hope sometime I can be of help to you.