This was the first thing I wanted to know, so it bears repeating as I'm not alone with this thought:
What do you want to talk about?
When you say you have so many questions, what are they?
Are they logistical (time, place, how often, where were you when this was going on)?
Are they related to what was said/done (was there an emotional connection? did you say "I love you" to the AP? Do you want to know details about sex/intimate relations?)
Are they related to your WS's emotional state regarding you (how did you feel about me at the time? What did you think of our marriage? Did you feel guilty)?
And so on...
The reason I ask is this: I found myself going over and over and over things, asking what seemed to be the same damn questions time and time again. But, what I figured out was, they usually weren't the same questions. Or, more specifically, they were questions that related to the same topic, but were not the same.
Granted, I did not get tons of TT like other people. I got tons of gaslighting, and lies and everything during the A (and then again during false R) but when caught my WH did seem to be fairly open about the A up to D-day. He would then go right back to lying about what was happening at the time, but the past he wasn't much of a hider. BUT, I didn't know that at the time. For all I knew his 8 hour "confession" was a bunch of bullshit and lies. It wasn't..and I felt like I was going crazy, because after he information dumped me with time/place/manner questions and some of his emotional stuff about me and about him, he thought he was done. He couldn't understand why I was asking anything else.
For example, I recall asking my WH numerous times about "why" he did this.
His answers were:
1) He felt like I had lost interest in him
2) He felt lonely
3) She gave him attention and made him feel special
4) He got an ego boost out of it
5) It made going to work something to look forward to (he has been depressed and bored with his job for years - this is true - he talked about it often years before the A)
6) She was very social and made him feel a part of things
7) They had the same job and knew all the same people therefore had something to talk about/connect over
8) It was very fantasyland-exciting
So, when I would go back and say, something like:
"I heard you tell her you loved her. So you are telling me that isn't true and that in your mind you loved me and that all that stuff with her was just exciting unreality - like it was fun to tell someone you loved them as it made the whole thing more intense?"
He would be thinking, and would sometimes say: "I already answered this" but what he really would be doing is referring in his mind to the list above and thinking "I already told her this" and then felt like I was trying to punish him.
Thing is, sometimes I WAS trying to punish him - and I have to own that. I accept that there were sometimes I did just want him to repeat outloud to me what a fucking asshole he had been. But, I don't get to bitch and say "He is complaining I am asking him the same questions over and over again" if I am doing it to punish. Or at least, that is what I have to admit
.
So my suggestion would be to think about why you are asking something. Sometimes when faced with my WH saying "I feel like I already answered this" I would try to explain, yes we talked about this - but what I'm getting at is not that you told her that you love her, but that how could you think you loved me when you were doing that? Or why do you think that now?
Or whatever - sometimes explaining why you think your question isn't the same thing is helpful, instead of getting frustrated anyway.
[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 8:30 AM, July 27th (Monday)]