SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hi all

Im after some advice.

Over the past week or so I have been feeling a little low. Like my wife is getting bored of trying or doesn't seem to be doing the things she use to do in order to help me heal. When i stand back and look outside the box I can see my wife still does a hell of a lot and maybe something in my head is playing tricks on me. But its like a gut feeling that I'm not enough and she is bored.

But last night we went for a walk and ended up in some country side lanes surrounded by fields and dirt tracks. As soon as I got there I had this vision. It was a trigger. This is the exact type of place that my wife use to meet her AP. It was sunny, it was quiet and i could smell the cut Grass. In my head all I could see is a movie playing, them running through the grass hand in hand with the sun shining and the blue sky behind them with out a care in the world.

I felt a little low before this happened but now I cant get out my head what I experienced last night. When we were walking around it just felt flat and boring. I even said to her don't you think it feel a little flat and she said no.

When we got home I explained that I got triggered and she said. Don't, you shouldn't think that. It was like she was going to say don't you it wasn't like that but she knows it was and changed her wording.

All i cam think about now is that she had so much fun, she was happy and she felt good. But when we walk around its boring. I will never be able to compare to the feeling the AP give her or even the affair. But i feel like i dot have a chance because that was everything and we are nothing. Its not like she even ended the affair before she told me on DDAY.

I have had triggers before like a certain car or a song, But this is different. Is this just me having a bad day because i have had a bad trigger or is it my feelings changing because i think im not enough and our marriage can never be what it needs to be.

Or am i just blowing things out of proportion because clearly my wife is doing what she needs to do still but because im having a bad dad im letting my head take over wit the negative thoughts.

Anyone else had this at around at about12 months out

Anyone else had this at around at about12 months out

Very definitely YES. For ME...year 2 was the most difficult time. I had lived through a whole year...EVERY DAY of the year before was spent thinking about the A. But the shock of what was done had started to subside and I was left thinking that THIS was going to be my life...for the rest of my life . I kept going between R and D so many times that year.

That movie that you played in your head...it is called appropriately...a mind movie . This is in YOUR mind...it is ALL MADE UP. The REALITY could be so different. I had them too...and they drove me CRAZY. For ME...I needed to know the TRUTH...so I could have the correct movies in my head. I would ask very detailed questions...I even looked up pictures of female genitals so that my H could tell me which one looked the closest to what the adultery co-conspirator had .

Guess what I found? MY mind movies were way more FUN than the reality!! The adultery co-conspirator was not this exotic sex goddess with perfect genitals that intoxicated my H with FUN . She was a HOLE...nothing more. She wrote my H a message once describing how she felt from him going NC with her...which was what my H had actually said to me that she was...a USED...USELESS...NOBODY.

Since you are at the stage of having mind movies...just remember...YOU are the director . Direct your mind movies more to the REALITY of what an A actually IS...two SELFISH people who USE each other. The adultery co-conspirator wasn't all that and a bag of chips to your wife...and she wasn't that way to him either. Sure...they MIGHT have thought this at the time...because of their own mind movies .

Guess why your wife is working so HARD to stay with YOU? Because YOU aren't with her to USE her . YOU actually CARE about her...that is a GREAT aphrodisiac !!! Think about it...if you thought your wife really CARED about you...how would that make you feel? From what I have read from your threads...THIS is more the reality than anything else .

@Want2BHappyAgain

Thanks for taking the time to reply.

As you know from my posts, its coming upto a year and things feel different.

I suddenly thinking more what if? What if she leaves me? what if this isn't what she really wants? What if i bore here? what if she gets back with him.

Its like over the past 12 months, I have been carried through this nightmare the fear and a fight or flight mode. But now the raw emotions are starting to come through.

I feel like I'm on my own. How will I keep her happy. How will i keep her intreated and am i enough. Does she really want to be here?

She keeps telling me she isn't going anywhere and this is all she wants. But how do your force yourself to believe whats being said when your listening and relaying on a lier thats hurt you twelve months before.

Im like you. I want to know everything. But my wife thinks she has given me the truth and nothing but the truth but there are holes in whats been told and whats been said. I have also started saying to myself do i really want to know this and why do i really want to know. Will it make things any better.

Im in a really vulnerable posistion.

I haven't felt this way before.

Its different and it scares me because now its not about my feelings and what I'm thinking its more about what she is thinking.

The mind movies are horrible. I understand that what happened wouldnt be like in the soaps or the movies. Thats 100% my mind. But i can imagine what its like to be in love, to feel happy to feel good about yourself in he sunshine holding hands with someone your extremely attracted to.

That would feel great.

Then reinact the same scene, in a slightly different location with your life partner who is the person you now have to try with after 20 years and the person you found you needed to cheat on.

I can see why it would be boring and flat

She has told you it is not boring and flat to her. She has told you she is in it for the long haul. By your words, she has done everything she can (almost) to help you heal.

You think it is boring and flat, that doesn't mean she does (see above).

Couple of thoughts: comparing yourself to the AP or your marriage to the affair is normal. Totally, completely SUCKS but we all do it. But again, those are your thoughts and feelings, not necessarily hers and they are driven by your trauma and resulting nose dive of self esteem. Focus on you. How can you build up your self esteem so that YOU believe you are enough and worth it? Because trust me, once you start to rebuild your love for yourself, the power of that will make these thoughts subside. Bonus: your fear will start to subside also.

Second thought: There is no comparing an affair to a long term marriage. One is more exciting, for sure. The other, however, is deeper and more meaningful. Wouldn't you agree? What would you value more, the thrill of a first kiss or your family? We all like the thrill. It comes down to what we value more.

Serial cake eaters seem to value the thrill above all else.

Most folks, cheaters or not, value the deeper relationship more. Cheaters "forget" this, think they won't get caught, get caught up in the thrill / fantasy, or whatever but some do, when faced with consequences / reality, choose the thing they know they value more i.e. their marriage.

She seems to have made that very choice. Perhaps it was hard for her at first, detoxing off the thrill. But at this point, I'd be truly surprise if she was still pining for AP. She may be realizing just how deep this cut went, what she lost and can't regain (your old marriage, your blind trust) and that might be getting her down.

Talk about that, the two of you. What was lost, for both of you. Then talk about what you would both like the future marriage to look like. Start dreaming, planning and then doing. Neither of you want to remain in the broken marriage. Build a new one.

First, I am so sorry you are going through this. I know it's one of the hardest things to go through. You are not alone.

You said All i cam think about now is that she had so much fun, she was happy and she felt good. But when we walk around its boring. I will never be able to compare to the feeling the AP give her

I feel that comment to the depths of my soul. I live with that self-doubt all the time regarding my WH's feelings. I feel like I'm the boring wife he cheated on so how can I compare with all the happy/sexy/confident feelings he got from his APs? What if he gets bored with me again later and goes looking for those feelings again? ...even though he's told me over and over that I and this marriage is what he wants. Trickle truth killed my ability to trust.

I struggle every day and it's been 8 months. My emotional side won't listen to my logical side.

I wish you all the best and I hope that you find peace.

I suddenly thinking more what if? What if she leaves me? what if this isn't what she really wants? What if i bore here? what if she gets back with him.

Those WHAT IFS can sure drive us crazy don't they ??? The thing is...they can go BOTH ways .

WHAT IF she gets back with him? I think ALL of us Betrayeds have had that thought. What worked for ME was getting an EXIT PLAN in case my H did this again. Once I had this plan in place...then I could focus on the other side of the coin...WHAT IF my H REALLY has changed and WANTS to stay with me and work on US .

What if she leaves me? WHAT IF what your wife is saying is TRUE when...She keeps telling me she isn't going anywhere and this is all she wants.?

Get yourself to a point where...IF the bad WHAT IFS happen...you can be prepared to move on. THEN you will be able to focus on the good WHAT IFS . The thing is...WE will never know what anyone else is thinking...and we can't control what anyone else will do. We ONLY have control over OUR thoughts and actions. Turn this stuff around to thinking about YOUR thoughts and actions . I thought about what I wanted MY LIFE to be like. I came up with a plan. I wanted a healthy and happy M with a loving and faithful spouse. I told my H what I wanted MY LIFE to look like. I told him that if HE wanted this too...GREAT. If not...I was going to find someone else who WOULD!!! My H said this was what HE wanted too...so WE set out on working on OUR PLAN together . This included ME giving my H a chance to RISE to this...and he did .

my wife thinks she has given me the truth and nothing but the truth but there are holes in whats been told and whats been said.

For ME...I likened the A to a puzzle...and I was trying to make the puzzle pieces FIT. When something didn't FIT...I asked questions. If those answers didn't FIT...I'd ask more. My H would get frustrated...he often said he thought it was like I was looking for answers to give me ammunition to leave him . I told him that I had enough ammunition to leave him because he fucked another woman!!! I was looking for the TRUTH...and HE was the only person who could help me to put this puzzle together. Once he realized that the truth was helping me to HEAL...even though it was painful to hear...he was more willing to come forward. It wasn't an instant thing for him...but as long as we were moving FORWARD I was alright.

Guess what? The TRUTH was...HIS truth...HER truth...and THE truth !!! By getting these puzzle pieces to FIT...I knew more about THE truth than either of them did . The TRUTH about an A is that it is two selfish people who USE each other to get what they each think they want. NOT very romantic at all.

But i can imagine what its like to be in love, to feel happy to feel good about yourself in he sunshine holding hands with someone your extremely attracted to.

THIS is so awesome...I can imagine this is how YOU felt when you were falling in love . There is a HUGE difference though between THIS feeling...and the feeling of LURVE that a person has in an A. They KNOW it is WRONG. No matter how much LURVE they are feeling in the moment...that feeling of it being WRONG will NEVER allow them to feel like they felt when they first fell IN LOVE in the RIGHT way. NEVER. I have seen it MANY times in all these years of researching the feelings of people IN an A and OUT of it. The WS on here say the SAME thing. My H said it too. He was an ocean away from me...there was NO chance that I would catch him...he was FREE to feel whatever he wanted...do whatever he wanted. He didn't think of ME when he was with HER. But he ALWAYS thought of it as being WRONG.

My H often talks about how GOOD it feels to be in the LIGHT again. He was in a very DARK place at that time...and no amount of being happy in the moment...holding hands with the adultery co-conspirator...or being extremely attracted to her made him feel like he did when WE first fell in love with each other.

One more thing I learned...those FEEL GOOD hormones when we are in a NEW relationship...they FADE over time. The FEEL GOOD hormones when we are in a LONG TERM relationship though...they don't FADE! They actually get stronger!! They may not be as intense as the RUSH from the new relationship energy...but they LAST !!

I suddenly thinking more what if? What if she leaves me? what if this isn't what she really wants? What if i bore here? what if she gets back with him.

If she leaves, she leaves. I hope you have a good plan for that. Honestly, she should worry more about YOU deciding to leave. Is leaving an scenario you have fleshed out and made peace with? You should.

"What if this isn't what she really wants? What if I bore her?"

She should tell you. Your communication should have improved a lot by now. If you aren't doing it for her, she should tell you. My marriage wasn't good enough at almost 12 months post DDay. I told my wife, and asked for a divorce. That's when things finally started to improve significantly and rapidly aside from just communication. My wife started to take more actions and put in real effort.

It is totally normal at 12 months.....actually, I think my stuff at 12 months was nuclear comparatively. The thing is, this affair really had nothing to do with you or your perceived flaws. It had everything to do with you spouse's brokenness. If things don't work out, not saying that they won't, you'll be ok....you'll find your feet and you will feel love and safety again....though in a different sadder, but wiser, way.

Year 2 was also way worse for me.

I also have a FWS who was doing all the right things. But, we're human. And, this is really tough. It would be way easier to just walk away and start again fresh. There were times when he was overwhelmed by the scope of my pain. And, some times, he expressed that he's in such a different place and wishes I was there too. And there were times where he ROYALLY messed up how to deal with where I was. And there were times that I was so hurt that I lashed out in a way that was marginally shy of abusive. And, there were days when I was sure none of this could possibly be worth staying. We're 3+ years out now and things are so much better...not the same as before.....because I am a different person now for having gone through this. I'm glad for where we are now, just not how we got here.

I think it is highly unlikely you can thrill her the way the AP did because you are her long term partner. I don't know of any marriage that sustains the honeymoon phase indefinitely. If you were new to her and just saw her for short periods of time and there was a hint of danger, you could very well compare favourably to the AP. It is very unfair that she got to experience that fun and thrilling time and you don't. It is also very likely that the AP could not keep her happy over the long haul. She probably knows full well that she is happier with you over the long haul. Shift your focus from what makes your wife happy to what makes you happy. If you can find your happiness, you will both be better off.

Year 2 can be extremely difficult. The shock has begun to truly wear off, leaving nothing but raw emotions, and the base feelings with little to no protection. The mind begins to wander and cover the territory of "is this now my life?" A whole new set if issues and questions arise. You have survived, now what?

Now there is the PLOF - Plains of Lethal Flatness. This was something which gets discussed every now and then, though not in the recent past that I have seen (but I don't read all of the threads). It feels like everything has gone flat (sound familiar?) Nothing feels as sharp, as poignant, as pronounced as before. A world full of color feels like shades of grey. Life feels like it is tolerated. It is not depression, It does not feel the same if you examine it. It is almost as if your brain has decided to protect itself by damping its feelings on its own, like a decision to take a break from feeling, shutting down for rest and repairs.

Keep in mind, as humans we project our feelings and emotions onto those around us through our own lenses and understanding. You may feel flat, dull, bored while walking through a beautiful field at sunset, feeling only boredom. Your wife may be enjoying those colors and the time with you, the inane banter and the feel of your hand in hers. Her experience, will be vastly different then yours. She has not been fighting the same trauma as you. She has not had to deal with that titanic lurch of reality in which the safety of the world has disappeared. Come to think of it, I do not remember any of the WSs talking about the POLF.

If she has been working through her issues, and has been there for you, as it sounds, try speaking with her about it. However, keep an open mind and put those assumptions off to the side and remember, affairs are fantasy, an escape from reality.