I haven't posted in quite a while.  I wanted to share where I'm 'at'...and maybe get some advice from you all.

I am 20 months past d-day.  My H had an EA with a girl at his office (she no longer works at the company), for about a year.  They didn't have sex...but they kissed, groped etc.  My H was the BS in his first marriage and was devastated...so it was a shock to me that he was now a WS.  He is totally remorseful, is in IC and MC...and wants to rebuild our marriage.  So why is this not enough for me??

Well, once the dust settled (about a year after d-day), I began to realize just how MASSIVE a can of worms had been opened as a result of this affair.  All of the sudden, I found myself dealing with family issues that I kept burying...while having to deal with H's affair.  My MC put it so well, she said, "Your parents didn't know how to love you.  Love in your family was conditional upon you doing exactly as they asked of you...and even then, it wasn't guaranteed.  In addition to not feeling loved...you never felt safe (not in a physical sense - but emotionally).  They made you the scapegoat to their unhappiness.  So then you meet your H and you get married.  All of your family issues get put aside and form sediment at the bottom of your life.  You have your own family now and you feel loved and you feel safe.  Then he has an affair and throws you back into the same state of unrest that you felt with your parents.  To add insult to injury, the affair churned up all of the sediment that was sitting at the bottom.  And now you are dealing with it all."

So I have to wonder...does this mean that I am not someone who can get past his affair, given my history?  I know of many BS's who would probably give anything to be in my situation - a remorseful WS who is trying to made amends.  But I don't feel thankful.  I feel as though I am settling.  So what do I do?  I sit on the fence.  I don't have a clue what will make me 'happy' again.  If I go, then I feel as though I may regret not really giving our marriage a fair chance to work out (and I have kids - which is the main incentive for me to give it a chance).  If I stay, then will I ever be 'happy'.  If I were to leave and eventually and meet someone else...would I be capable of being happy.  You might wonder...do you love him?  I can't even answer that without digging a little deeper and asking myself if I even know what 'love' means to me.

I realize that happiness comes from within.  I am not relying on someone else to bring that to my life.  In fact...you could probably subsitute the word 'happy' with 'content' in the above paragraph.  Since my life has been so peppered by pain and sadness (by the people who are 'supposed' to provide you with love and security)...I wonder whether I am capable of accepting love into my life.  In which case...does my H stand a true chance of breaking through my shell?

I know this is a bit of a vent...I'm not even sure if any of this makes any sense.  I just had to get this off my chest...my head has been spinning these past few days.  Thanks for reading.

Kara

>>If I stay, then will I ever be 'happy'.  If I were to leave and eventually and meet someone else...would I be capable of being happy<<

Two years after d-day, I was certain, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that my life was ruined and that I would never be happy again, no matter what I did. I was wrong. These days, I have my share of struggles but they aren't about affair recovery. Recovery does happen. I couldn't see it happening most of the time, probably because it was so slow. But I'm guessing it must have happened a little bit every day.

The "stay or go" question is tougher. Two years after d-day, I couldn't figure out what I should do either.

Kara- Sometimes we don't make a conscious decision to leave. Situations and behaviors become unbearable to our psyche and we evolve right out the door.

Kinda like our bodies know where we need to go and do we must do, but our brains haven't sorted it all out.

That's kind of what happened to me.

The bottom line is; if we are behaving respectfully to others in our relationships with them, then THEY need to respect us (our thoughts, feelings and bodies) in return.

TLMM

Kara says:
"Then he has an affair and throws you back into the same state of unrest that you felt with your parents. To add insult to injury, the affair churned up all of the sediment that was sitting at the bottom. And now you are dealing with it all."

This makes sense to me and I think these wounds stay with us. My counselor told me, when I discussed similar issues with her, that if I went back to the root (my parents) and somehow healed that wound that I would not always be seeking people to reinact that loss and build on my fantasy about creating a different childhood.

It helped me when I put up a photo of myself at 8 years old and looked at that little girl and gave her the love she did not get from her dad or mom. I still struggle with issues about this though, they are tough to put to rest and we drag them into our relationships like a dog drags around an old shoe. I never made peace inside with the anger I had for my dad, he died very suddenly at 48, and I still don't feel love for him or not very much for my mom either, and now my mom is dying from cancer and it is difficult to parent her, so I know I still have issues from the past that interfere with my healing. So, this complicates things in a relationship.

I call these my abandonment issues. I suppose it is why I love my cat so much, it is truly unconditional love and she is never cruel or abusive, and, in fact, she Loves to be with me, of her own doing, and that is just heavenly for me. Perhaps I need to just be content with that. LOL>

Good wishes to you Kara, I think your questions and reflections will bring you toward the answers you seek.

Judy

Howdy Kara,

First of all I gotta say I like your C. I think she touched on alot of significant issues. I grew up like that...conditional love. In my reality that meant "no love". Is that how you feel?

I'm the type when I'm in pain I strike out in anger because I don't want anyone to see how much I am hurting. The walls go up and bascially that's all she wrote. Just bury it.

That doesn't work does it? I think the thing that helped me was to deal with one relationship at a time. I had to remember they are seperate. its hard to move on to the future when you are dealing with wounds from the past.

I'm not saying it'll work for you but it helped me putting the ghosts away from my childhood. THEN dealing with the present and future.

There's nothing wrong with putting something on the back burner for awhile and taking care of something else. One thing at a time.

Just my 2 cents...

Regards,

Tex

(Tex, I like your 2 cents )

Kara, something which has helped me lots is to do 'work' with your wounded child within - you -

look into Charles Whitfield "Healing the child within" it helped me tremendously in putting early hurts, traumas, and other painful incidents in perspective. This is just one of many books we, adult children of dysfunctional families, need to read in order to find peace within and without.

And as you walk you make your path Kat

Tex - Conditional love meant no love in my world as well.  In fact, I don't remember many 'loving moments' in my childhood...not between me and my parents...not between my parents.  That is why I wonder if I even know what love means to me.  What I believed to be love (pre d-day) has been squashed...so now what?  Do I tailor a definition of love to accomodate my H...and then find out that my need to feel loved still wasn't met?  You are so right about focusing on one relationship at a time...and I've tried to do that...but sometimes I have had to deal with both.  Any time that has happened, I have been a bit of a mess...the plate was overflowing (so to speak).

Kat - Thank you for the book recommendation.  I will make sure I get a copy as soon as possible.

I think it will be a while before I feel that I know what I need to do.  I also know that I still have alot of healing to do.  I sometimes feel as though I over-think things to the point where I forget the original question...and then I wind up with a whole new set of thoughts that drive me crazy!

Judy - Thankfully my kids are young enough that they love me unconditionally.  But they're young...and soon I won't be so 'loveable' in their eyes.  I guess that will be my cue to get myself a nice cuddly cat!

Kara 

Kara

I can relate to so much of what you say. I had much the same conversation with my counselor as you quoted above. My parents just didn't know how to show love. 

You wrote>>)...I wonder whether I am capable of accepting love into my life.  In which case...does my H stand a true chance of breaking through my shell?>>

Even though I am the WS in our situation I relate to this also. I don't think I knew how to really love someone and I sure didn't know what it felt like for someone to truly love me.

One of the most beneficial counseling sessions for me was the day I finally "cracked" as I call it. My counselor kept telling me that the biggest problem I had was not that my parents had emotionally abandoned me, but that somewhere along the way I had emotionally abandoned myself. And that I wouldn't truly start to heal until I faced the child I had abandoned. I held off doing that for quite awhile because every time I got close to letting go I'd pull myself back because I knew it was going to be painful.

One day the flood gates finally came down. And she was right, once I was able to face that child my healing started. That healing bled over into the relationship with my husband and I was able to open up to him and be vulnerable. I felt both scared and relieved.  It's like the hard shell around my heart finally melted away. For the first time in my life I felt like a grown up.

I'm still learning to accept my childhood for what it was/is. It still gets to me at times if I let it. But I'm much better than I was.

Kat

I think I've read that book. Is it an e-book that you download?

GT

 

GT - You know, in doing all of this healing...there are many characteristics that are used to define why a WS ended up having an affair.  You hear about a WS having self-esteem issues...or that they want to escape their 'reality'...or that they had unresolved relationship issues (with family members and/or with partners)...the list could go on and on.

I have honestly wondered how/why it wasn't me who strayed.  In so many ways (especially with the childhood issues)...I would have been a more likely 'candidate' for having an affair than my H was.  I was the one who had issues with 'love'...I was the one who hated facing the demons of her childhood...I was the one who needed 'validation' more than he did.  Not that my H doesn't have his fair share of 'stuff'...but his tend to be more 'surface' issues...whereas my issues run a lot deeper.

I think you and Judy are so right.  Facing my inner child is probably my next step.  But I am afraid...and I know it will be an extremely emotional process.  In so many ways...if I go back to my childhood...I feel sorry for that little girl (me).  I didn't know any better - trusting them was not an issue....they were my parents...they were supposed to love me - right?  I look at my kids and would want to die if they ever felt as though I didn't love them for who and what they are...I couldn't live with myself knowing I had hurt them.  I can't imagine how my parents live with themselves...knowing that there is a wedge between us that will never be repaired.

GT said <<That healing bled over into the relationship with my husband and I was able to open up to him and be vulnerable.>>  That totally makes sense to me.  One of the reasons that I put of MC for so long was due to the fact that I didn't want to appear vulnerable in front of my H.  He has cried his way through every MC session...and I just sit there - stoic.  It has taken 6 sessions for me to cry...and once I started - I couldn't stop.  I can see how healing from my childhood can help with my healing with my H.  I guess that's why I haven't completely thrown in the towel with my H - so many hurdles have yet to be cleared.

Thanks so much !

Kara

I love the written word on a page... No, it was not an e-book, it could be now... I don't know. The companion workbook to "Healing the child within" is named "A gift to myself" - hard work, emotional stuff, scary stuff.... but so healing !

And as you walk you make your path Kat