SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hello people.

So almost 5 months from D Day, WW and I are 2 months into R and to get right to it...

1. Her inability to communicate was a huge factor in her 2 affairs. And she still can't. I initiate all serious conversations, (once a week, as I am doing a soft 180). MC says it's her job, and she never does it.

2. She never reflects on ANYTHING. Likely a product of her FOO, she has put her mistakes behind her and is just waiting for time to heal me.

3. When pressed she can't even come up with anything she's feeling at all. Zero. Says she loves me. That's it.

All this adds up to a very difficult R for me.

I think I have to accept a deep emotional connection is impossible with WW. And that maybe it was never there. This is such an important part of a relationship for me. It's depressing.

Your WW does not help with your healing. She isn't being transparent.

I have to ask then why do you even consider yourself in R?

Gently- R is two people willing to R. Not just one that wants to so badly.

My WH said he would do whatever it took to help me heal and win me back. And with some slight hiccups, he has done just that. I could not be where I am if he hadnt opened up and been so remorseful.

Please keep reading and reaching out. You need things from her. She will either give them willingly with no defenses, or you will never get what you need from her.

This is not on you. She needs to do the work or you will never find peace.

Focus on healing you- regardless of what she is doing.

Take care if yourself and If she wants to stay, she needs to hear your needs and meet them.

Or I guarantee that you will continue to feel this way.

I am so sorry for your pain right now.

And additionally- please try not to excuse her behavior and tell yourself "that's just who she is."

She made a committment and promised to love you- and she broke that committment. In a horrible way.

She needs to understand that she caused this torment And should either work to repair it or move on so you can heal.

I wish you only peace.

Brandon, you have asked a question I don't have an answer for. Hmmmm.

Hello fellow Canadian! Sorry you are here and not at a Tim's drive thru!

LMRI, I guess I have the same question Brandon has about the R if she is not communicating and not being introspective. How is she showing remorse? Remorse is vital for R.

It sounds like being in IC would be more helpful to her at this point. Was it always this way with her? Since you have known her? It is likely a life-long way of dealing with things.

Also, I would suggest handing her a book called, How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair. It's a small handbook and can be read in about 30 minutes.

This was not my experience and it's still very hard. So I cannot imagine how you must be feeling.

Keep posting. It does help.

She shows little remorse. She is in IC, where she talks about me the whole time, apparently.

I think this R is doomed. If it ever even started.

Being remorseful is completely different from being able to express one's feelings and being able to be reflective.

I have a remorseful spouse who has an extremely hard time communicating his feelings and being reflective about his affair. It's made the recovery more difficult. I've had to pry the why's out of him after rehashing it a gazillion times. I had to act like a crazy woman before I would get a reaction out of him. I was always the one to bring it up.

He's never been very good about expressing his feelings or even knowing what they are...something I struggled with before we married. Dumb me:( He's been trying to dig deep now (which is a big improvement) but I think it's not really in his DNA and something I have to accept about him.

Your marriage can survive like mine if she falls short in the emotional department but she needs to show REMORSE!

[This message edited by so_lost at 6:39 PM, November 21st (Thursday)]

LetMe....I am sorry that your wife shows very little remorse. THat would be very painful in addition to the pain you feel from the betrayal. You noted you are doing a soft, 180. Maybe its time to be a little tougher with that.

Emotional connections are a huge in any relationship as you noted below. This is what you need. Needs are deal breakers in relationships (this is how our MC described a need vs a want).

Have you read any of blakesteels's posts? He had a rough go of it at the start too with similar behavior from his wife. You might want to check him out.

Take care

I have not read Blakesteel's posts. How would I find them?

Edit- found them, and found them helpful

[This message edited by LetMeRollIt at 10:19 AM, November 22nd (Friday)]

I saw your post and actually avoided reading it because it hit so close to home.

We are 1 year out from dday and I still have not had the remorse, just bits, not enough to help me past the pain.

He says that he has been this way his whole life and only time will change it.

For me, I have been in pain for a year. How long can I exist like this? For me to answer.

We are in MC and IC, have been for several months.

No answer, just understanding, it hurts like hell.

I believe that if it does not change, not sure how long I can wait but we will not make it. The few times that I have gotten those heart felt words and emotion it felt as if a rock were lifted from my heart. It helps, it honestly helps, I was beginning to think I was longing for a fantasy, longing for something that really wouldn't help.

The thing of it is, it doesn't last, it seems, at least for me, I need it repeatedly. It would help so much to hear his remorse and specifically what he is remorseful for and why.

Just wanted to let you know you are not alone. I does make it harder to heal when your emotional needs are not being met. I read about those that are healing with their spouses and I see what we are missing.

We cannot force it, only decide how long we can wait to see if they come to it.

Please take care of you, try to find something, anything that makes you feel strong and helps you to remember how great you are.

Just to consider R, to consider forgiving I believe shows great capacity for love and strength.

I think this R is doomed. If it ever even started.

But you are not doomed. Focus on yourself instead. I think that is a much better investment of your time.

Yes! What brandon just said, focus on you. You cannot make your ws do anything, they have to want it.

You can only focus on you right now, what is good for you. I do understand how that is so hard to do but it does help also.

I have been very clear with my ws what I need to heal, very clear, it is up to him to follow through or not.

The only thing I can control is what I do. I have been reading, working on my issues (there were many), focusing on what I want my life to look like, what makes me feel good about me, makes me feel strong, what makes me smile.

I just found a book, waiting for it, but the website had a ??? podcast?, for focusing on healing and understanding you and why you feel how you do and steps to overcome. I really related to the podcast. These are what I am trying to do, how do I heal myself.

The name of the book is, Living and Loving after Betrayal.

I am hoping it helps me move one step further.

Also, exercise helps with the anxiety and sleep.

I feel for you, it hurts to be betrayed and then left to heal it yourself.

Are you doing IC/Mc?

Cantaccept, your first post hit home so much it made me cry. We are in very similar places.

Yes I am in IC, as well as MC

[This message edited by LetMeRollIt at 9:59 AM, November 22nd (Friday)]

so sorry my words made you cry.

I just wanted you to not feel alone.

It is so hard to know what you need, to have it so close and still it is out of reach.

I try to focus on me but to be honest it is a daily struggle. Sometimes I wonder if I should just give up now. I get glimpses and it give me hope but it is not sustained.

It would almost be easier if he gave nothing instead of the hope and despair. That is on me though, I have to stay a bit detached, not have my hopes raised so easily.

Is your IC helping you???

Yes IC is helping a lot.

And don't be sorry! It was kind of a good cry. And between being an emotional mess post dday and my SAHD estrogen levels I tend to do that.

This place helps a lot. You've helped a lot. A total stranger understands me more than my wife. Ugh.

I am glad that I could help, I wish I had answers, or better yet solutions.

I don't know what SAHD is.

It is still so recent for you. It does get better even though it is still hard. It is not so extreme. I remind myself when it gets overwhelming by looking back, to where you are now, how far I have come, how much better I am. I used to hear that all the time from others, it is hard to believe but yes, it really does get better.

Keep strong.

Just to throw you some hope. My FWW was emotionally abandoned by her parents her whole life. Never remembers as a child having Mom or Dad come out and say, I love you. We've been together 14 years almost and I can attest to never hearing it myself. It's not a deliberate thing, they just don't/can't see past themselves.(Well, TBH, Dad died a few years ago) After Dads death, FWW cried for about an hour. That was it!

Anyway, as a result, she turned for affection elsewhere. You can probably guess that it was older men and what it was that they were after. She had her first sex around 12. Believe it or not, it was POSER and his friend. They were 17. They used her as their personal sex toy for the next 5 years. Thrown in with that, she moved in with a 28ish yo man across the street when she was 15 for a while(Mom and dad didn't object). At 16 she was having sex with a 36 yo.

Long story short, it deeply affected her ability to be emotionally available. Superficially, things seemed fine, but when the deeper connections were needed(stress in the M), they weren't there. She defaulted to what had been drilled into her head as a kid.

It took 8 months to see remorse. I mean the proactive kind. She deeply regretted what she had done, but in all honesty didn't understand the level of pain. That's changing. She's reading the right books. She's a member here and reads nightly. She still has an issue identifying herself or her situation as abuse though. She still believes that she made the choices to have sex. Yea, she did, but she doesn't yet relate to the FOO issues that made her choices ok to her.

Anyway, there's hope. Stay strong but wary.

t/j SAHD= Stay at home Dad

When pressed she can't even come up with anything she's feeling at all. Zero.

Honestly I doubt most normal humans can truly understand or relate to this statement. I do. Completely. Until the aftermath of DDay and the IC and self-reflection that followed, I was your wife. Sorry if my entire response is a t/j, but I hope you don't mind. Whenever I see posts like yours about women like me, I feel obligated to respond at length :)

My IC gave me an assignment at my first session, in June I think. Here's a list of feelings, she said...look at it and write down what you're feeling once every hour. You know what I came up with the first week? Neutral. Ambivalent. Confused. Yeah "neutral" was not on the list, because it's not exactly a feeling, is it? But that is how I "felt" pretty much all the time.

I've come a long way since then, and have a long way to go. But it took me 7 months from DDay (for those of you playing along at home, that'd be like 2 days ago) to have that "OMG what have I done?" moment and break down into a convulsive crying fit. I mean, I've said "I'm sorry" a bunch of times, but true remorse? I was incapable of feeling it. Probably still am. Before DDay I don't think BH had ever seen me cry. Like, I mean, in 16 years, not a single time, ever. Frankly I've wondered my entire adult life if I might be a (mostly) law-abiding sociopath.

This...

a deep emotional connection is impossible with WW

...nope. I don't buy it. Your WW may be (as I was) profoundly disconnected from her emotions, but she's not a robot. The feelings are there, but she's (probably unconsciously) blocking them. In my case the block was caused by 35-year-old PTSD from childhood trauma. Those wires can be reconnected. With a lot of work and time. But it's scary. Honestly the inability to feel guilt kinda felt like a superpower, and exposing myself to these *emotions* with which you *humans* are afflicted has been terrifying. Many days I want to regress. Put my walls back up. Disconnect. But that's not the kind of wife or mother I want to be. Our children don't know about my As, but they knew something was up, they know I'm in therapy, and I told them why (CSA). My 9-year-old son, about a month ago, said this to me: "Mom, I lied. I used to say you were the best mom ever. But I would never want to go back to Old Mom. NOW," he said, "you REALLY are the best mom ever."

That is what I'm playing for, right there. That is what keeps me working and digging, even though some days it is really, really hard.

I hope your WW gets it soon. Wish I could take her out for coffee or cabernet and let her know, the way she is, it's not "just her personality" like I used to think. It's a condition, and it can be cured.

Thanks 20wrongs. That was helpful.