I am currently two months out from the end of an EA which put a serious strain on my marriage. I am the Remorseful Betrayer.
I don't offer any excuses for my actions, and I want to try and fix my marriage and make things right. My wife is also committed to fixing things. We are in counseling, we are trying to talk more to each other and really listen. I have severed all contact with the OW. The details don't matter for now; I will probably post "my story" at some later date if I decide to hang around this forum.
As I mentioned, it's been two months. Probably, the worst two months of my life. I cannot get OW out of my mind, no matter how hard I try. I've tried deliberately distracting myself in a number of ways. I've tried calling my wife instead when I think of calling OW. I've tried allowing myself to think about OW for a few minutes, then saying to myself "I'm done" and moving on. None of these things work for very long.
Furthermore, my feelings for OW won't go away. I've read enough about EAs to recognize that I have all the cliches, but that doesn't make them less real. I felt ALIVE when I talked to her; now I feel like my heart is dying. I have thought back to the best and happiest times that my wife and I shared, and they don't seem like enough, because the ORDINARY times I've spent talking to OW were so... extraordinary.
I don't want to feel this way. I want these emotions to go away; or better, I want to find them with the woman to whom I have committed myself. I hate that I can write poetry about OW and not about my wife. I hate that I could come up with a list of a hundred things I love about OW, while the one for my wife petered out at twelve. I hate myself for the hurt I have caused both of them; one through betrayal, the other through abandonment.
I've read a lot of stories about EAs and what happens in the immediate aftermath, but I can't find anything about what happens a year or two years later. If I had some hope that eventually these feelings would subside, I know I could wait it out and come to that point where I can love my wife as she deserves to be.
But I keep thinking, what if they don't subside? What if the reason why I feel this way is because I really, genuinely am in love with OW and not with my wife? Am I saving my marriage at the cost of my soul?
For those who have been through this, on either side, can you tell me anything about where I can expect to be in another year or two? I want to give 100% toward saving my marriage, but I can't do that if I don't know that there's at least a possibility of light at the end of the tunnel.
I know that this is a forum primarily for the betrayed, not the betrayer. That's why I'm here, because the ones that are for the betrayers are mostly collaborative instruction manuals on how not to get caught. I don't need or want that kind of advice.
Well I'm not either of those parties you mentioned... and you most likely aren't looking for my opinion. I hope I can still help because I really feel for your situation.
Yes I think there is a chance that you can get past this and move on with your marriage. I think you know it isn't going to be easy. Its only been a few months... you are making it through the hardest time right now. How are you making it through the hardest time? Alone? You have someone who really wants to be with you for the rest of her life standing with you.
I know I can't offer much insight... It takes a very strong person to have your feelings and have kept to NC for that long. Its not easy and it wont get easier any time soon. You have already proven you are strong enough to get back on track... the fact that there is something making you stay and giving you the power to do this shows that while those feelings may be buried now you still love your wife. I think you can make the choice to be in love with her again. Good luck.
I am sorry you and your wife are hurting. It sounds like you are trying to do the right thing.
I don't know if you are familiar with the work of Pat Love on the topic of romance and attraction, but you may want to do some reading of her work because you may be quite interested to discover what she learned about brain chemistry and attraction.
One of the reasons why you feel so strongly about OW versus your wife is because OW was NEW and EXCITING while your wife was the old and familiar. So it is not surprising that you would find making lists about your wife harder.
The best thing you can do to help yourself and your marriage is not to have any further contact with OW ever again. Think of OW as an addiction. If you were an alcoholic, you would stay away from bars and try to keep yourself busy, so that you didn't have idle time to think about alcohol.
If you haven't thought about why you were able to give yourself permission to cheat, doing so would be a good idea. I believe that the key to preventing further A is to understand the REAL reasons why you were able to cheat.
I suggest that you go to dearpeggy.com and read the information there, as it is extremely helpful.
I am a BS, but I know that the WS on the site will respond to queries you make of them.
To answer your original question, it takes quite a while for the WS to come completely out of the A fog, so I am not surprised you are still having feelings for the OW. Give yourself time. You will be surprised by how your feelings about OW, your marriage, and your W will change over time and hard work on your part.
Welcome to our forum. Even though we have more betrayed spouses posting here than those who had the affair, it is still not primarily for betrayed. In fact, this particular board, which is part of our forum is intended more for the wayward spouse than it is for the betrayed.
While I am not the one who betrayed my marriage, I still feel like I can identify with the longings that you're talking about. After all, I've had women that I've found attractive during our marriage and so I've had to deal with those feelings.
I think one reason they happen is that we tend to idealize people until we get to know them. While you know the OW fairly well, you don't know her like you know your wife. I believe the list you make about the OW is not a realistic understanding of who she is. When I've found myself attracted to a woman, I usually find that in due time I will learn enough about her that the ideal image that I have of her will be broken.
In addition, I think most people have some degree of thinking "the grass is greener". However, when we have opportunites to pursue the "greener grass" we almost always find that the grass really isn't any greener. I know people who change jobs constantly because they seem to think that another work environment will be better, or they change churches one after another thinking that they can find "the perfect church". The truth is many times our perspective on a situation comes from how we approach it.
One thing I try to do is remember that an person who looks attractive from afar is going to have hidden flaws that would never satisfy any "complaints" I have about my wife. Even when my marriage was on the brink of divorce, I was not considering divorce for the hope of a future with another woman, but only for the need to protect myself from the emotional abuse of our marriage in the aftermath of her infidelity.
It might help to make a different list for the OW, the list of things about her that you DON'T like.
A year past dday I was struggling. I was even still finding ways to "cross paths" with the OW, just to see her. Not all the time, but there were those days. I was making it much more difficult on me than I had to. I would've healed SO much faster if I would've quit entertaining those lingering thoughts, quit thinking the "what if" questions, and instead invested all of my energy into my marital relationship.
By year two, I was in fact putting all my energy toward my marriage relationship. Because we live in a fairly mid-size town, I would still cross paths with the OW, but those occasions were rare and were total coincidence. I was not harboring any positive feelings for the OW, nor were they particularly negative. She had become just another person. Meanwhile, my relationship with my wife was becoming stronger, more intimate, more real than ever.
Now, 5+ years later, I have elected the name "XWS" because I am free of the feelings, actions, thoughts associated with being a WS. I enjoy what can only be described as a redeemed relationship with my wife. It is totally possible, and totally worth it!
Thanks to everyone so far for your help, esp. the latest responder, who offered some much-needed hope.
My wife and I talked last night, and I'm feeling more optimistic than I was. I still can't let go completely of OW, and I think there are two reasons why I can't do it.
One is that she is not a new person in my life; she is someone I was in love with a long time ago, my first love really. My feelings during the EA were rekindled ones, not new ones. Because of that history, it is very hard to stop feeling that way.
Two is that I have to believe that there was something there that was real, because if there wasn't, then I did it all for nothing. I betrayed my wife, I put my marriage and my relationship with my child at risk, and I hurt the people I love most for something that was no more than a fantasy. I may have to accept the truth of that someday, but for now it's too much guilt to bear on top of everything else.
After talking with my wife last night, it has become clearer than ever how down on myself I have become. Even before the EA started, I had some pretty serious feelings of loathing and disgust toward myself. Talking to OW was a way to momentarily escape that self-imposed prison (we never actually got together; it was a long-distance EA). She NEEDED me, she WANTED me, and most of all, she said she had always been in love with me - and if any of you can imagine what it's like to hear your high-school crush say that after twenty years, you can begin to see what that will do to someone who's feeling lower than dirt about himself.
Those low feelings are what made me vulnerable to the temptation of EA. With that realization has come my first real, genuine hope that I can get past it. I woke up this morning feeling as though a turning point had been reached; I would have called in sick to work and spent the day with my wife, but she had appointments that couldn't be changed, so it'll have to wait for the weekend.
I don't think that my feelings for OW will ever subside completely, because even if I don't truly love her now, I know that I did once. For now, I am hoping that there is some way I can devote myself completely to my wife while keeping this place in my heart that has always belonged to my first love. If it can't be done, then that sacrifice will just have to be one of many that I make in order to atone.
I stopped reading as soon as I read your statement that the OW had been your first love. Therapists have written on this very situation. It is a little different from other A because of the nature of the attraction.
What you need to know is that this woman holds a special place in your heart because she was your first love. But, and this is a HUGE but, what made her so important was NOT herself, but the role she played of being your FIRST love. ANY GIRL WOULD HAVE THE SAME IMPORTANCE IF SHE HAD BEEN YOUR FIRST LOVE, EVEN YOUR WIFE. It was the ROLE she played that made her so special.
If she had not been your first love, you would not attach so much importance to her. She would have simply been another exgirlfriend, but because she was your first, you have all kinds of feelings associated with her. I believe now that you know this information, it will help you to deal better with your feelings. At least, I hope so.
M-X, I appreciate your candor and transparency. I also think you're doing very well to communicate openly and frequently with your wife. That is excellent. Keep exposing this situation to the full light of truth. You will break free.
I suggest that you do all you can to minimize the OW's memory, to objectively re-write the information that is etched in your mind. She is not, even now, the same person that she was as your "first love". She is not, by any means, perfect. She is flawed, just as we all are. I encourage you to, instead of allowing yourself those moments of fond reflection, to remind yourself of the very human-ness of this person, and then turn your attention to matters of real importance.
If you will focus your energy on your marriage relationship, that is really the best thing you can do - at this point and henceforth. Focus all the mental energy you can on making "what is" as good as it can be, rather than on "what might've been" or "what could've been" but should not be. You said yourself that you love your wife dearly, well...do the things that communicate love to your wife. Put your heart and soul into learning and speaking her love language fluently. You'll never feel one self-loathing thought about that kind of focus.
You can do this, it will take more energy than you ever imagined, and it'll be well worth it.
This message has been edited by XWS on Jul 25, 2008 2:25 PM
Yes, she was my first love. And it gets worse - I never actually got to have a real relationship with her, not even a single date. The only intimate moment we had was a single kiss goodbye (first kiss, no less!) when she and her family moved away. That was twenty years ago. We corresponded for a while after that, and I revealed my feelings for her, but I haven't seen her since.
Then, about six months ago, I found her on MySpace while looking up friends from high school, and we got back in touch. I honestly thought that all my strong feelings for her were no more than memories. I also NEVER considered that they might be returned after all this time - I didn't dare to think she returned them back then! Think of the moment after your first kiss with your first love, and imagine having that hit you again in full force at the age of 35 when you've been struggling with self-esteem issues, a passionless marriage, and the onset of mid-life crisis.
I said before that I'm not making any excuses for my behavior; whatever my situation was, I made a morally wrong decision and betrayed my loving wife. But, I defy anyone to come up with a more powerful temptation than the one I faced.
Here's the part that really tears me up: That first kiss was, until the day my child was born, my single most cherished memory. Now I've irrevocably tarnished that memory, because I can't think of it without feeling the crushing guilt over what it led me to twenty years later.
>"I said before that I'm not making any excuses for my behavior; whatever my situation was, I made a morally wrong decision and betrayed my loving wife. But, I defy anyone to come up with a more powerful temptation than the one I faced."
Everything you said before the word "But" was discounted by what you said after.
There is nothing new under the sun. I'm willing to agree that your temptation was powerful, but it was in no way unique or original. You chose the same path that only too many others have, but now you have the choice whether you'll let that end up defining your future or becoming a catalyst for much-needed restructuring.
>"Here's the part that really tears me up: That first kiss was, until the day my child was born, my single most cherished memory. Now I've irrevocably tarnished that memory, because I can't think of it without feeling the crushing guilt over what it led me to twenty years later."
That kiss didn't lead you to anything. Our lives are full of choices. What happened 20 years later is a culmination of your choice to immortalize that kiss (and to give it preference over your experiences with your wife), your choice to replay it over & over in your mind, your choice to entertain the idea of becoming emotionally involved with the OW.
Maybe it's good that this memory has become tarnished, it's probably high time you take it down off the pedestal. Too bad it had to come crashing down, but there again...that was really your choice.
It is a difficult thing to acknowledge that completely. I am trying to always keep in mind that I have been solely responsible for my actions. When the consequences are so heart-wrenching, it is not easy to accept, without reservation or condition, that if I had been stronger it all could have been avoided.
You wrote, "She NEEDED me, she WANTED me." How very intoxicating those thoughts must have been to you. You were suffering from low self-esteem and a mid-life crisis. Along came a woman from your past who had been a fantasy figure for you, telling you that she needed you. How easy it was for you to become her Knight in Shining Armor. All you had to do was listen to her, give her advice, accept her gushing compliments.
What you had with this woman was NEVER real, not even when you were young and parted with a kiss. You never had the chance to experience REALITY with her, so you built up so much fantasy around her and that magical kiss that when she came back into your life, you just continued with the fantasy. She was perfection personified in your eyes because of how YOU felt being involved with her.
What you can't see is that she was a pathetic woman, a selfish woman who KNEW you were married and still reached out to you in secret in inappropriate ways. She KNEW you were married, and she encouraged you to risk everything valuable in your life for the fantasy of being her love. That doesn't sound like love to me--it sounds like selfishness and immaturity. Real love encourages and wants the best for the loved one. Encouraging you to betray your wife hardly sounds like love.
I hope one day you will see this woman for the flawed, hurting, troubled woman she was, and not as a woman worth destroying your life and your wife for.
Your wife is the woman who truly loves you. Despite the fact that her world has been destroyed, despite that you have betrayed her, she is still by your side because she loves you enough to give you a change to prove your love for her.
ff
edited for grammar
This message has been edited by fairyfriend on Jul 25, 2008 10:08 PM
I know that she is flawed, troubled, and selfish. It takes one to know one.
I committed the same wrongs that OW did - actually, I'm even more guilty, because I lied to my wife and she didn't lie to anyone. If she is unworthy of love, then so am I. If what you say is true, then I have no business trying to fix my marriage. I should do my wife a favor and leave her so she can find someone to treat her right. Actually, I would have done exactly that if she had asked me to.
Finding fault with my OW would be so easy. But if I've learned anything from this, it's that the right path is often the harder one, not the easier one.
If I look upon her with disgust for what she's done, then I must do the same to myself. If I do that, then I can never forgive myself. And if I never forgive myself, then I will never be a good husband to my wife.
I appreciate that I need to get over my infatuation with OW, but despising her won't do any good either.
I apologize if my words confused you. I don't believe OW is unworthy of being loved. She just did not have the right to cross the boundaries of your marriage. She did not behave the way a friend would.
I am NOT suggesting that you throw the all blame for your A onto the OW. What I AM saying is that you need to acknowledge your role AND OW's role in the A. You are both guilty. Yes, of course, YOU are the one who made the committment to your wife, not OW. But it takes two to cheat. Cheating was a decision you both made.
You wrote, "If I look upon her with disgust for what she's done, then I must do the same to myself. If I do that, then I can never forgive myself. And if I never forgive myself, then I will never be a good husband to my wife."
I see a huge flaw in your words. I don't believe you can forgive yourself unless you admit to yourself the wrong you have done. If you don't permit yourself to see the huge wrong done to your wife, marriage, family and self, you won't see why you need to forgive yourself. An A isn't like upsetting your wife because you forgot to take out the trash. That is a minor irritation. An A is, for most BS, the absolutely WORST thing that ever happens to us in our lives.
I am not sure that a WS who refuses to see the huge wrong he did, the disgusting behavior he indulged in, the NEED to be forgiven by his spouse and by him/herself will ever fully acknowledge the depth of his/her betrayal.
It sounds like fallacious thinking for you to say that you can't look at at OW or yourself with disgust because if do, you won't be able to forgive yourself and if you can't, you won't be a good husband. Well, you WEREN'T a good husband to your wife, and you KNOW you weren't.
Let me share what our MC told my H (the WS). He called himself a criminal. She stopped him in his tracks by telling him NO! He was NOT to call himself names because he could then use that as justification not to work on himself and his behaviors, then he could avoid taking full responsibility for his action. She told him to call himself what he was--an adulterer.
Do you see how your refusing to take a critical look at both OW and your behaviors (ESPECIALLY yours!) is on a parallel to what my H was doing? Both are a form of avoidance.
I am 100% certain that you love your wife and that you want your marriage to survive. And I believe that WS NEED to work on forgiving themselves, but only after they completely acknowledge the wrongdoing that needs to be forgiven and when they work to change their thinking and their behavior, so they don't repeat the offense.
If you want your wife to believe you when you tell her you are sorry and that you love her and want to stay married to her, then you NEED to admit the depth of your wrongdoing, answer ALL her questions (no matter how often), accept 100% responsibility for your actions, show her that you ARE working to change to become the man both of you want you to be (and how she likely thought you were prior to Dday).
If you will not give yourself permission to see the depths of your wrongdoing (and OW's), the message you will send to your wife is that you are more concerned with protecting yourself and OW than you are in working on your marriage. Your wife will not believe that she is more important to you than OW is. She will believe that, once again, you are giving precedence to OW over her. Trust me on this, as I know.
I strongly suggest that you and your wife read Janis Abrams Spring's books "After the Affair" (an A recovery book) and "How Can I Forgive You?" (an excellent guide to forgiveness).
Your wife NEEDS you now and desperately wants you to take responsbility for your actions and prove to her that she IS worth fighting for, that she is loveable, and that you screwed up, but none of it was her fault.
Hang in there. You CAN do this if you truly want to keep your marriage.
ff
This message has been edited by fairyfriend on Jul 25, 2008 11:59 PM
1. Your not wanting to look at yourself in disgust is another way of wanting to feel good about yourself. You say if you do that, you won't be able to forgive yourself and you will never be a good husband if you can't forgive yourself. Can you see that those are excuses? Being a good husband (or wife for that matter) means taking responsibility for our own actions--100% responsibility for good or bad choices. You can't really forgive yourself (and nor can your wife), if you don't know what you are forgiving yourself for.
2. The very real danger of your not admitting the totality of your wrongdoing is that if you don't, you may minimize your actions. If you minimize them, then you will feel justified in becoming angry with your wife for not getting over your A sooner. You may tell her it was no big deal and that you have told her you won't do it again. You may lose patience with her when she is still devastated by your A. Many a marriage has ended because of the WS' refusal to admit the depth of the his/her wrongdoing and acknowlede the devastation to the BS.
3. You wrote, "it is not easy to accept, without reservation or condition, that if I had been stronger it all could have been avoided." Actually, I'm not sure that the key to avoiding A is being stronger. I believe it is being aware and setting boundaries that protect the marriage.
Our MC told my H that it wasn't enough for him to say (and believe) that he would never cheat again. She made him formulate a plan of action, which he did. His doing so made our MC, him, and me much more confident that he was serious about protecting me and our marriage and much more confident that he would know what to do if he were ever again tempted. Perhaps this is something you could do when you are ready.
I believe that your marriage can survive and can thrive. But to do so will take much work by you and your wife, and much, MUCH time. You CAN do it.
ff
edited for formatting error
This message has been edited by fairyfriend on Jul 26, 2008 12:50 AM
Thanks for your posts. I agree with XWS who said that part of the struggle you're in has to do with the importance you've put on that first experience with the OW. I think he's right when he says that the idealization that you've done to that has contributed to your decision to be involved more deeply with her at this time.
Your story about how you came back into contact with her resonated with me for a few reasons. One is that my wife recieved a phone call similar to this a few years ago, after her affair, from a old boyfriend who was going through divorce. I can't know his full intentions, but he said his purpose was to apologize for the way in which he ended their relationship, as his counselor had advised him to do this. Of course we were suspicious at that point and she was careful about any interaction with him during the time after that. Another reason it's resonated with me is that I too have looked up old friends whereabouts, sometimes girls who I was interested in before I met my wife. I haven't contacted any of them, but I see the trap that you fell into, and I'm glad to have avoided it.
I wonder if what has been suggested about how you've idealized that first kiss and that first love is something that you see in yourself. Do you think that's something you've done? It might be hard to see that, because you might be convinced that it's not something trival like that. You said something earlier in your responses about how it "needed" to be more than something superficial in order to make the pain that the EA caused worthwhile. However, when you really think about it, is there anything that could make the pain of that EA "worthwhile"?
I AM trying to fix my marriage. I am in both IC and MC, I have severed all contact with OW, I am talking honestly with my wife and I am hiding nothing. I said all these things in my first post.
I said I would have left my wife if it were what SHE wanted. It is not what I wanted to do, nor is it what I want now. Fortunately, she is of the same opinion.
I do have a child. I also said that in my first post.
I am not now, nor have I ever been, suicidal.
I point out all these things because it seems to me that what you have written is a very generalized rant, and that you haven't actually read half of what I wrote. You're advising me to do things that I've already said I'm doing, and saying things like "if you have children" when I've stated clearly that I do.
I am truly sorry that you had such an awful time with your own experience, but consider that maybe it wouldn't have been so awful if you HAD forgiven yourself earlier. Consider - do you really feel that three years of self-loathing has helped anything or anybody?
I appreciate the recent responses, but as I read them I'm thinking that I must not be clearly expressing myself.
I do take full responsibility for my own actions. I fully, 100% acknowledge that I have done wrong. "Forgiving myself" is not the same as "assuming it was no big deal." When I speak of forgiving myself, what I mean is letting go of the self-hatred and other nonproductive emotions so that I can actually move forward with my life. This is something I am doing partly at the insistence of my wife. She has stated plainly that she has no intention of living with me is I'm going to set up camp in guilty gulch and hate myself.
I also will continue to have positive and feelings for OW, I will forgive her for her part in this, and I desperately hope that she does as well. Again, this is a feeling shared by my wife - she has told me that she DOES forgive OW for what she did, and that if the two of them ever meet, she intends to greet OW without animosity.
One thing has become abundantly clear to me: my wife is pretty damn extraordinary. I think that it is largely down to her that we have been able to make more rapid progress through the healing process than most couples do.
A few direct responses...
<<It sounds like fallacious thinking for you to say that you can't look at at OW or yourself with disgust because if do, you won't be able to forgive yourself and if you can't, you won't be a good husband. Well, you WEREN'T a good husband to your wife, and you KNOW you weren't. >>
That's right, I wasn't a good husband. I happen to think that the sooner I change that, the better.
<<Your wife NEEDS you now and desperately wants you to take responsbility for your actions and prove to her that she IS worth fighting for, that she is loveable, and that you screwed up, but none of it was her fault.>>
I have never, ever tried to blame this on my wife. Not once. Not even in my own thoughts.
<<Do you see how your refusing to take a critical look at both OW and your behaviors (ESPECIALLY yours!) is on a parallel to what my H was doing? Both are a form of avoidance. >>
I submit that I can take a much clearer and more honest look at my behaviors if I am not doing it through the blinders of self-hatred. I am not refusing to acknowledge or examine what I've done.
<<If you will not give yourself permission to see the depths of your wrongdoing (and OW's), the message you will send to your wife is that you are more concerned with protecting yourself and OW than you are in working on your marriage. Your wife will not believe that she is more important to you than OW is.>>
And if all I can do is beat myself up over my past actions, my wife and I will never have a future. I HAVE acknowledged my wrongdoing.
I think that society expects certain behaviors from a remorseful WS. We are expected to admit loudly and sincerely that we are the scum of the Earth, repeating as necessary. We are supposed to state for the record that OW means nothing to us anymore. We can never truly forgive ourselves, for if we do then we obviously don't realize the true depth of our sins. We must never, ever even hint at the idea that maybe, just maybe, we aren't the only reason why the marriage went a little sour - and God forbid we suggest the possibility that our betrayed spouses might also need to make a change or two in their ways!
Well, I'm not just not going to fit into that mold.
OW means something to me, and always will. If she were a meaningless fling, I could toss her aside like an empty lunch sack, but I WAS in love with her once and that is not something I can simply ignore. I not only can but MUST forgive myself, or spend my life being miserable, dragging down those around me while I'm at it. And the fact of the matter is that my marriage was not going well to begin with, and while I am to blame for what I did about it, I am not 100% at fault for all the previous problems in my marriage. I won't pretend that I am out of guilt.
"I am currently two months out from the end of an EA which put a serious strain on my marriage. I am the Remorseful Betrayer.
I don't offer any excuses for my actions, and I want to try and fix my marriage and make things right. My wife is also committed to fixing things. We are in counseling, we are trying to talk more to each other and really listen. I have severed all contact with the OW. The details don't matter for now; I will probably post "my story" at some later date if I decide to hang around this forum.
As I mentioned, it's been two months. Probably, the worst two months of my life. I cannot get OW out of my mind, no matter how hard I try. I've tried deliberately distracting myself in a number of ways. I've tried calling my wife instead when I think of calling OW. I've tried allowing myself to think about OW for a few minutes, then saying to myself "I'm done" and moving on. None of these things work for very long.
Furthermore, my feelings for OW won't go away. I've read enough about EAs to recognize that I have all the cliches, but that doesn't make them less real. I felt ALIVE when I talked to her; now I feel like my heart is dying. I have thought back to the best and happiest times that my wife and I shared, and they don't seem like enough, because the ORDINARY times I've spent talking to OW were so... extraordinary.
I don't want to feel this way. I want these emotions to go away; or better, I want to find them with the woman to whom I have committed myself. I hate that I can write poetry about OW and not about my wife. I hate that I could come up with a list of a hundred things I love about OW, while the one for my wife petered out at twelve. I hate myself for the hurt I have caused both of them; one through betrayal, the other through abandonment.
I've read a lot of stories about EAs and what happens in the immediate aftermath, but I can't find anything about what happens a year or two years later. If I had some hope that eventually these feelings would subside, I know I could wait it out and come to that point where I can love my wife as she deserves to be.
But I keep thinking, what if they don't subside? What if the reason why I feel this way is because I really, genuinely am in love with OW and not with my wife? Am I saving my marriage at the cost of my soul?
For those who have been through this, on either side, can you tell me anything about where I can expect to be in another year or two? I want to give 100% toward saving my marriage, but I can't do that if I don't know that there's at least a possibility of light at the end of the tunnel.
I know that this is a forum primarily for the betrayed, not the betrayer. That's why I'm here, because the ones that are for the betrayers are mostly collaborative instruction manuals on how not to get caught. I don't need or want that kind of advice."
To DH -
I think I need to clarify a few things for you.
I AM trying to fix my marriage. I am in both IC and MC, I have severed all contact with OW, I am talking honestly with my wife and I am hiding nothing. I said all these things in my first post.
***In your first post, all you said was that you were in counseling---I took it to mean MC, not IC.
I said I would have left my wife if it were what SHE wanted. It is not what I wanted to do, nor is it what I want now. Fortunately, she is of the same opinion.
***Good for you. However, just realize that she may never get over your betrayal and sometime down the road, she may tell you it is over. I hope for your sake it won't be and that you will be successful, but there are BS who can't reconcile, no matter how hard they try.
I do have a child. I also said that in my first post.
***No, actually you didn't. You stated it in a response post.
I am not now, nor have I ever been, suicidal.
***Well, good for you. Most WS's tend to have thoughts of that because of the pain they inflicted on their spouse.
I point out all these things because it seems to me that what you have written is a very generalized rant, and that you haven't actually read half of what I wrote. You're advising me to do things that I've already said I'm doing, and saying things like "if you have children" when I've stated clearly that I do.
***No, it isn't a "generalized" rant. I did read your first post, I didn't look at the second where you stated that you had a child. However, you are stating that you can't get your OW out of your mind and that what if you're really in love with your OW and not your wife, is saving your marriage worth your soul? You are saying how the "ordinary" times with OW were "extraordinary" and yet the times you spend with your wife are boring and plain. You felt "alive" with your OW and now your heart is "dying". You haven't "let" her go. Sure, you're not having physical contact with her but when you can sit and think of hundreds of reasons why you love her and you can write poetry to her, you haven't let her go. It is a process, just because you don't physically talk, see or hear her, doesn't mean it is out of your thoughts. THAT is what I was referring to when I stated that you have to let her go if you want to save your marriage.
I am truly sorry that you had such an awful time with your own experience, but consider that maybe it wouldn't have been so awful if you HAD forgiven yourself earlier. Consider - do you really feel that three years of self-loathing has helped anything or anybody?
***Oh???? And have you "forgiven" yourself already???? Gosh, maybe you ought to talk to Rett or Sunflower or Helenista or, if he would post, Dubld. Gee, maybe you should ask THEM how long it took for them to "get" over their self-loathing. Or maybe you should ask some of the BS's how long it took their FWS to get over the self-loathing. So glad that you seem to have a handle on that, can't figure out why you want advice on knowing how things are going to be in a year or two when you seem to have all the answers. If you were to talk to Sunflower, she would tell you that it is only THIS year that her BS finally told her that he forgave her completely. She is seven plus years out from D-day. I am sure that the FWS I mentioned above would tell you of the years they spent in self-loathing. I don't know, maybe you can get over it quicker because you only had an EA, whereas most of us had a PA. Maybe that is the difference between you and I.
One difference between you and me, DH, is that I'm not making all kinds of unwarranted assumptions about you, your relationship, and what you're going through.
My priority is to fix my marriage, not punish myself. If my wife, as the wronged party, chooses to condemn me, I will allow her to do so; if she decides she wants a divorce, I intend to meet whatever terms she sets without argument. However, she has decided that she is committed to saving our marriage, and so I must focus my energies on that.
I have betrayed my wife. It is my opinion that the honorable thing now is to try and make things right again, not to wallow around in self-hatred while she does all the actual work of repairing our marriage. I am trying to forgive myself not because I think I deserve to be let off the hook, but because it is the best way (perhaps the only way) for me to become a good husband and father again.
I strongly suspect that the longer I spend hating myself for what I've done, the more likely it is that my marriage will fail. I read the stories of what happens to those who spend years in a state of self-loathing, and it only serves to convince me that it doesn't help.
As for whether I have all the answers, I certainly don't, but I have more of them than I did before. Sometimes the best way to find the right answer is to hear someone else shout out the wrong one.
You are correct. I didn't understand that you had been 100%
honest with your wife about your actions. It is an extremely rare WS who is immediately after DDay. Normally, it is because the WS has been compartmentalizing and lying so much that 1) s/he may have difficulty remembering all the details and 2) s/he may be terrified that if the BS knows the whole story, the BS will leave.
Certainly, it is difficult for us all to share our thoughts when we are writing, rather than speaking to each other. I apologize if my posts gave you the impression I think the WS is "scum" and the BS saintly. That is 180 degrees from my viewpoint (and the viewpoint shared by BS and WS alike here at HH). I categorically do NOT believe that WS are "scum." I believe that most of them are people who may be suffering from depression, marital dissatisfaction, a lack of understanding of appropriate boundaries, pain from childhood traumas, etc. They try to cope with their pain using bad coping skills--like drinking, using drugs, and A.
Certainly there are WS with terribly serious issues, like NPD or BPD, and those people are the ones who are so troubled that they may not be reachable. I would not call them "scum" either, lost souls perhaps, but scum--no.
Further, I would NEVER say that ALL the problems in a marriage were caused by the WS. That is a laughable thought. No marriage is perfect because no person is perfect. It is true that sometimes even people in happy marriages have A--the strongest evidence that A are the responsibility of the WS and the WS only. However, PROBLEMS in the marriage are the responsibility of BOTH spouses, and both are responsible for working on the relationship.
No matter HOW "sour" the marriage had become, and heaven knows some marriages make a bitter lemon seem sweet, that is NO excuse for cheating. WS have the choice to work on the marriage, go to IC even if the BS refuses to go to IC or MC, or divorce. I do NOT believe people should stay in a horrible marriage. I do believe that we should give it our best to fix the problems in a marriage, but if the other spouse refuses to work on self and the marriage, then it may be time for the marriage to end. I have never and will never consider cheating as a viable solution/alternative to a troubled marriage. I can name a string of adjectives describing cheating, but the most important one is that it is WRONG!
There is a HUGE difference between acknowledging all the wrong done to a BS and being filled with self-loathing, as if the WS had been condemned to wear a hair shirt forevermore. No! I completely agree with you that forgiving oneself is very important because if a WS doesn't, then s/he may tend to focus on the wrongdoing rather than on the healing. And BTW, your wife couldn't heal the marriage by herself no matter how much she might wish to. She can heal herself (with or without your help), and you can heal yourself (with or without her help), but it will take BOTH of you working to heal the marriage. If you do what it takes for you, her, and your marriage to heal, you will NOT be "let off the hook!" However, I do believe because I have seen this time and time again, that WS intentionally and unintentionally hold back from telling 100% of the truth about the A to the BS. I am not saying that is your case, just that it is the norm.
My other HUGE concern is that at only two months out, you do not have the distance from the situation to have the big picture.
At two months out, many, if not most, BS are still so shocked that their WS had an A that the full extent of the pain and damage has not yet set in. I know that was quite true for me and for most other BS here, as well. At two months out, I told my H the same kinds of things you wrote your wife has said to you.
By six months out the situation had changed. Drastically. For the worse. Be prepared because as much as I hope not for your wife's sake, she may be hit hard by PTSD, depression, suicidal thoughts, etc.--all NEGATIVE responses.
"I have never, ever tried to blame this on my wife. Not once. Not even in my own thoughts." Oh, I don't argue with you that you never blamed your wife. (Yes, sadly many WS do blame the BS.) What I am saying is that no matter what the WS say to the BS, almost universally the BS at some point begins to blame him/herself for the WS' A. Yes, that sounds preposterous, but it happens.
We blame ourselves because our self-esteem is destroyed, and we become convinced that we have failed so utterly and completely at our marriage, we have been so disgustingly loathsome, so completely worthless and unlovable, that we DROVE our WS to find someone else to replace us. We believe that the OP is so much better than we could ever possibly be (despite whatever evidence there might be to the contrary), that our WS deserved better than us and found it in the OP.
Just as you were in a bad place and used bad coping skills to get yourself through your pain, your wife will likely be in a bad place. I know you wrote that you are in IC and the two of you are in MC, but if she is not in IC, please do everything in your power to get her into IC with a therapist who specializes in dealing with A. There are a lot of therapists, but not nearly enough who truly know how to treat A victims. A bad therapist can do much more damage than good--I know about THAT, too, unfortunately. But I also know how much good a therapist who specializes in treating BS can do.
I don't doubt that RIGHT now your feelings for OW are very real to you, but feelings are fleeting and feelings come and go as we give them importance. The more you insist to yourself that you loved OW, that however wrong your A was, you loved each other, etc., the more you will believe those thoughts and the more difficult letting go will become. I am not saying that you are KNOWINGLY holding onto your positive, longing thoughts of the OW. In fact you likely aren't. Here is where you need to implement Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) to help you let go of those thoughts and see the fallaciousness of your thinking.
The fantasy you two shared was intoxicating, but you don't live in the fantasy world, and the sooner you are able to change your way of thinking about OW and the A, the faster you will be able to put 100% of yourself into healing yourself, giving your marriage 100% of your effort instead of holding onto your thoughts of OW, and helping your wife to heal. Obviously, at some level, you KNEW the A was just fantasy; otherwise, wouldn't you have been willing to leave your wife for OW? Might you have done so if you were convinced of the depth of love the two of you had? Oh, I know some WS say they couldn't leave the spouse because of the children, but that is just an excuse to keep from admitting to themselves that the A was fantasy.
Most people do not leave the marriage for the OP. And of those that do, the new relationship seldom works out. The WS and OP find that after a while, the same old problems that existed in the old relationship resurface in the new because only the players have changed; the problems haven't.
I commend you for getting into IC and MC so quickly to discover why you were able to give yourself permission to cheat. I know that your A was "only" an EA, but to the BS the devastation is the same because regardless of the physical involvement or lack thereof, the WS took what was ours and gave it to another person. For the record, given enough time, most EA eventually do become PA--no matter how far apart the WS and the OP are. It has not been unusual for a WS to travel across the state, across the continent, or across the world to have sex with OP.
"It is my opinion that the honorable thing now is to try and make things right again . . ." Don't work on yourself and your marriage because it is "the honorable thing." We BS know that our WS are completely capable of doing the DISHONORABLE thing. We don't give a hairy rat's ass after DDay about honor. We want you to work on the marriage because you will do whatever it takes to keep the BS in your life. We want to know that no matter what you may have THOUGHT the OP meant to you, that it palls in comparison to what you feel for us. We want to know that if you lost us, you would lose your world, your REAL world, not your fantasy world. We want to know no matter what we throw at you, barbs or mugs, you will not give up. We want to know you will FIGHT for us and work for us harder than you have ever fought or worked in your life. We want to believe that in your eyes, we are not worthless or unlovable, or insignificant.
ff
edited for clarity
This message has been edited by fairyfriend on Jul 27, 2008 8:17 AM
ff, I appreciate all you have said, particularly about how I might expect to see fallout months down the road. That is something I honestly hadn't considered, and now I can try to be ready for it.
Right at this very moment, someone looking at my wife and I would never see that anything had ever been wrong. We are getting along famously, a lot of the old feelings seem to be coming back, we are being more physically affectionate than we have since the first year of our marriage... I could go on and on. It does feel fragile, however. I imagine that I'll have to prepare myself for the possibility that the bubble might burst.
That is what is sometimes referred to as hysterical bonding, or reclaiming of the WS by the BS. Many/most couples go through this process shortly after DDay. Do not be surprised if it suddenly stops--which will likely coincide with the beginning of your wife's getting worse.
I'm sorry you are both going through this. Hang in there. I think you both realize how much you love each other.
I cannot add much to the words of wisdom that our dear Fairyfriend has written to you. I am only responding to reinforce the suggestion FF had regarding making sure your W has her own IC. Be very aware that many of her responses may be coming from a state of subconscience panic. You have fully disclosed the EA revealling to her how precariously close she was to losing the man she loves. Most likely she is in a mental mind frame that she needs to accomodate your needs and if she is a "fixer" type of personality she will be saying and doing everything in her power that she thinks might be needed to save your M. I say this from experience (x 2). There will come a day when the hurt and the anger will surface in her. It could be weeks, months, or years from now, but at some point it will happen. As long as she believes you have any feelings for the OW at all, regardless of the fact that you are not in contact with OW, there will be a slow erosion of her self-esteem and self-worth. That erosion of herself will slowly creep into your M and the healing of your M. What she needs to know, and believe, is that there is no one in the world, the universe for that matter, that can ever replace her in your heart, mind, and soul. And as long as you hold on to the memory of your "lost love" you will not believe it, ergo she will not beleive it.
“Anyone can give up, it's the easiest thing in the world to do. But to hold it together when everyone else would understand if you fell apart, that's true strength.”
I suggested to my wife at one point that she get some IC, and she all-but took offense to it. Of course, that probably had a lot to do with the fact that it was ME suggesting it. She does, however, talk to her friends and family about it, and has gotten a lot of support from them - most usefully, from a good long-term friend of hers who was a WS. Supportive Friend (SF) was able to answer a lot of my wife's questions along the lines of "how could he do this to me?" and "what was he thinking?". It's really thanks to SF that my wife started sleeping in our bed again so soon after D-Day (she essentially kicked herself out, and insisted I stay in our bed while she slept in the guest room. Not really sure why.)
For now, I think that she's getting more out of talking to her friends and doing her own reading than she could get from a counselor. I have learned over time that my wife has a very, very strong insight into what is best for herself, so I won't be pressing the point.
Actually, I went in for IC before D-Day, because she knew something was wrong with me and insisted on it. My IC became our MC after D-Day. That may not be the best way to go about it, but it works for me and it's good with my wife.
What FF speaks of is so true.. My BS and I went through the hysterical bonding as well shortly after DDay, but by 7 months after DDay (even though we were in MC and I was desperate to save our M) he put a mattress in a spare room and was considering a D. It takes time for the full extent of the betrayal to set in. Not saying your W will go through this, maybe she won't, but just to prepare you in case she might.
We went through Retrouvaille 8 months after DDay and my BS fully credits it to saving our M.
I don't know your wife, but I can tell you that, like her, I, too, refused to go for IC after DDay #2 (September 26, 2004). It wasn't until about six months after DDay when we rushed our younger daughter (then 12 1/2) to the ER because she took an overdose of Advil. When we took her for IC, the therapist insisted our entire family be tested. It turned out that we were ALL suffering from depression. Our older daughter (then 15) was cutting herself--she was suffering the worst depression of all of us. She knew something was wrong, but not what. We had all been depressed for a long, LONG time.
In hindsight, getting into IC immediately after DDAy would have been the best thing for me, but I was not able to think clearly (No duh! LOL) and so refused for months. In my case, my refusal was linked to my first having found out about OW around Valentine's Day, 1999. I went for a couple of visits to an IC who had NO training in dealing with A. Her solution was to tell me that since I didn't want a divorce and my H promised not to have anything more to do with OW, then everything was OK.
Because he didn't get the IC he needed, my H took the A to work (where I had no access to his phone or computer) and continued it for another 4 1/3 years. I was badly hurt by that first therapist and convinced after DDay #2 that therapy would be a waste of time.
The second therapist I saw was a fabulous. The third was an absolute godsend. My family would not be intact today if we had not gone for IC (and my H and I for MC).
So I can understand why your wife might not be ready for IC. Possibly she thinks that you had the A, so you are the one who needs IC, not her. But getting IC can help her immensely. If her friend who was a WS got IC and is able to give her sensible advice (not fog-bound WS A-justification comments), then she is very lucky because most of us don't have someone who really understands A. That is why we feel to blessed to have HH.
Just keep your eyes open to changes in her and be ready to act.
As someone who's been through an EA which was also physical, I think you're doing a lot of the "right things" so far. Most of all, just being truthful with your wife is a powerful component in recovery. It's good that she is seeking counsel. Sometimes "counseling" is needed, sometimes the wise counsel of a real friend is equally or even more effective.
How can we help you, now? Getting back to your originally posted question, have you identified some things that you need to do? Are there thought patterns that need to be changed? Are there personal boundaries that need to be put in place? Where do you see yourself in a year or two, and what plans/steps have you put in place to get there?
XWS, I want very much to respond to your kind inquiry, but for the next week we'll be very busy putting our house on the market (a change of location is one of the things which we hope will improve our marriage; we've been unhappily living in Texas for three years) But I will be back around in a week or so.
Thank you to everyone for your insightful help so far.
I am glad our responses to this thread have helped you. I imagine that it would be easy for a WS especially to read a thread and feel s/he is being attacked. Of course, that is NOT the intent here. Our mission is to help each other through sharing our own experiences. We know how much A hurt and want to spare others the pain we have had and the mistakes we have made.
Sometimes a move makes a big difference. Other members of HH have moved after DDay(s). Good luck with your move.
