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Newest Member: SurvivingChapter7

Wayward Side :
The process of discovering our true "Why's"

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Maia ( member #8268) posted at 12:48 PM on Monday, August 6th, 2018

The Lord is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.Psalms 34:18

posts: 6874   ·   registered: Sep. 20th, 2005   ·   location: I am a Bluegrass-American
id 8222983
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Traveller78 ( new member #65654) posted at 5:32 PM on Monday, August 6th, 2018

This a really helpful post. Maybe it should be moved to the articles or the Healing Library.

I wish I would have seen this earlier.

WW says she doesn't know "why" the LTA happened.

I think coming to grips with that is critical to not having history repeat itself.

Me: BH - 56

Wife - LTA - 47

Dday March of 17

Working on R with some good days and some bad days. Seem to be making slow progress. I found this site long after DDay so I never posted in the Just Found Out forum.

I will not be destroyed or defined by this.

posts: 10   ·   registered: Jul. 31st, 2018   ·   location: Texas
id 8223230
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Lawyerman ( member #61021) posted at 8:08 PM on Tuesday, August 7th, 2018

I'm going to send this to WW. She says she knows 'why' but all she comes back with are circumstances such as feeling lack of attention etc. Not the 'WHY'. I had all those feelings too and I had opportunity. I didn't.

I also feel like Traveller78. If you don't get why you did something, you are likely to do it again and guess what, she is short on attention and affection at the moment as she has revealed her A just a while back so I'm pretty cold.

I don't think we are in true R anyway. I think I'm done but it's an interesting concept. She has been in IC for months and as far as she says has got nothing from it. I did it for 2 months after Dday and it tore me apart and put me back together again.

I kind of feel like some people create a false persona of themselves and after a good few years it becomes so ingrained, they can't even see who they were.

posts: 919   ·   registered: Oct. 12th, 2017
id 8224110
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 DaddyDom (original poster member #56960) posted at 11:04 PM on Tuesday, August 7th, 2018

@lawyerman

She says she knows 'why' but all she comes back with are circumstances such as feeling lack of attention etc.

In my opinion, it is imperative that she keeps digging, for the exact reasons that you just stated. You have to know what's broken before you can fix it. In the same way that a surgeon needs to know what part of you needs surgery before he starts cutting into organs willy-nilly. Yes, the process can be very hard and very scary, and it is safe to say that sometimes the person doing the digging needs external help going through the process, because when part of the problem is that you lack the very same healthy coping skills that you desire, those same broken skills can continue to poison everything. In other words, a person with bad eyesight would have a very hard time making themselves a pair of glasses. Once they have the right lens to see things through however, everything becomes much clearer.

If you don't get why you did something, you are likely to do it again

Exactly. And let's face it, this is not really a "don't do this exact thing" kind of problem. It's not like quitting smoking. The affair was the symptom, not the problem. The problem is that a WS lacks the ability to deal with certain stresses in a healthy way. Whereas you said, "I had all those feelings too and I had the opportunity. I didn't.", that is because you have some things your wife lacks. You have the ability to deal with being uncomfortable, or sad, or in pain, or unhappy, and still not be taken down completely by those feelings. Instead, you can see these things as a moment in time, a challenge to be overcome, or simply something that must be endured and doesn't need to be given any more thought than necessary. In other words, when something like D-day happens, it still hurts like hell, but deep down, you know you'll survive this, and you'll be okay, and you are worth so much more. A WS on the other hand, would self-implode, see this as never-ending suffering and can't even imagine enduring this pain for 2 seconds let alone surviving and thriving despite it. The WS sinks into hopelessness and despair whereas a healthy person processes the pain and grows from it.

Anyway, yes, if the premise of her affair leads back to the fact that she can't cope with disappointment and pain, then unless she learns to do so, she'll just fall back onto the same old, broken coping skills again. Even if she doesn't cheat again, it still means she will likely just find some other unhealthy way of avoiding the pain and conflict. It's not about not cheating again, although that's certainly part of the plan. It is about removing the problem that caused the affair to happen, so that it never happens again.

She has been in IC for months and as far as she says has got nothing from it.

If it is still an option, I would suggest she keep trying new IC's. It takes a while to find an IC who you "gel" with, and many of them look for an "easy answer" or a "one solution fits all" kind of approach. Some make things worse. One of my first IC's told me, several months after D-day, that my wife should be "over it by now" and was just being a drama-queen (not her exact words). Several of our MC's seemed to just want to talk about me, and never even addressed ISSF's needs and feelings, as if she didn't exist or matter. (Not a great way to feel after your spouse treated you the same way). If her IC did nothing for her then get a new IC. Or take matters into her own hands. The "Why" article I wrote is a good example of something she can do on her own. Even if she's not an SA, she might want to try an SAA group, as a lot of them have similar backgrounds and FOO issues.

I kind of feel like some people create a false persona of themselves and after a good few years it becomes so ingrained, they can't even see who they were.

I think we all do this. My wife and I talk about what "normal" is all the time. I grew up being afraid, lonely and in emotional/physical pain all the time. To you, that probably sounds like a horror show. To me, it was childhood. It was my every day, and even though it hurts and sucks and I hate it, it is still the devil I know best, so when things are horrible, it "feels right" to me.

I believe that very few people in life would describe themselves in a negative light. I think we all see ourselves as "good people" if perhaps a little flawed in areas. The bad things about ourselves, we tend to minimize or compartmentalize or simply deny. "Sure, I might have a little temper, but if people would stop pissing me off then it wouldn't be an issue". In other words, "I'm just fine, and it is your fault that I treated you badly. I don't need to feel badly about it because it is your fault that I acted badly".

I know that for me, this is a big part of my recovery. I still believe I'm a good person at my core. I do have a hard time reconciling some things that I've done or still do however. It's not so much that I don't recognize what I've done or why, it's that my core processing gets in my own way. I grew up as a victim, a real victim. Similar to a BS, I trigger, and when I trigger, I protect myself. Since my abuser was someone who abused me verbally, physically and emotionally, I see even the smallest amount of conflict as something that should be responded to by protecting myself. Which makes perfect sense of course, in that situation. But in a marriage, especially one where I've managed to come full circle and become the abuser instead of the victim, getting defensive and attacking my (perceived) attacker (who is now actually my wife and the real victim here) is the exact opposite of what I should be doing, or how I should be feeling. It just makes things worse for everyone involved. I think most WS's fall into this same pattern. Part of getting through this, as a WS, is to see the "real you" in the mirror, and that "real self" is often so hard to accept as ourselves that we deny it to the point of our own detriment.

Me: WS
BS: ISurvivedSoFar
D-Day Nov '16
Status: Reconciling
"I am floored by the amount of grace and love she has shown me in choosing to stay and fight for our marriage. I took everything from her, and yet she chose to forgive me."

posts: 1446   ·   registered: Jan. 18th, 2017
id 8224262
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 DaddyDom (original poster member #56960) posted at 5:07 PM on Friday, August 10th, 2018

Bumped for Lucille123

Me: WS
BS: ISurvivedSoFar
D-Day Nov '16
Status: Reconciling
"I am floored by the amount of grace and love she has shown me in choosing to stay and fight for our marriage. I took everything from her, and yet she chose to forgive me."

posts: 1446   ·   registered: Jan. 18th, 2017
id 8226497
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EvolvingSoul ( member #29972) posted at 1:47 AM on Friday, September 28th, 2018

Bump.

Me: WS (63)Him: Shards (58)D-day: June 6, 2010Last voluntary AP contact: June 23, 2010NC Letter sent: 3/9/11

We’re going to make it.

posts: 2568   ·   registered: Oct. 29th, 2010   ·   location: The far shore.
id 8255707
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shesarose ( new member #66174) posted at 11:57 AM on Friday, September 28th, 2018

Thank you DaddyDom. This is exactly what I needed to read today.

posts: 17   ·   registered: Sep. 14th, 2018
id 8255908
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kairos ( member #65719) posted at 6:44 PM on Friday, September 28th, 2018

I am floored. I read your thoughts and recommendation on the 'Why?' exercise. I'm 1.5 months from Dday, and today is Day 18 of separation (the best thing my wife did for us, really).

I ran through the 'Why' exercise. It's like reverse engineering something. You start with the first question, but the thread takes you so far from this point.

In the exercise, I started with the typical 'because I wanted to, and I could', in addition to the need/desire for more passion and connection.

Two pages later I'm sitting here sobbing alone in my office thinking about my childhood, which I won't get into in this response. Can you believe that it took me 3 decades to do this? I now see that it all goes back to the beginning.

That's not to say that I didn't choose this. In a related post, I tried to reconcile the two opposing personalities of WS. On one hand, we are typically normal, outward appearing healthy people with kids and a good life. Inwardly, we live in shame, pain, self-torture, etc., and then we choose to contradict our lives with the biggest betrayal. How does this happen? This was my big 'why'? How did I get here? My little boy self NEVER would've envisioned this. Even my 10 years younger self wouldn't. As I started to ask 'why', I started to see where some of the early childhood survival mechanisms devolved from a necessary survival tool to a now obsolete negative repeat cycle that frankly I couldn't stop without fully understanding the why. There's so much more to this than "I did it because it felt good." And if I'm ever going to live a healthy life, I've gotta dig deeper than I've ever imagined, way beyond the superficial.

Anyway, thanks Daddydom and others who have posted here. I now have splattered my tear-soaked thoughts onto a fistful of pages that will become a great starting point in my next IC session. My therapist has been trying to get me to go there as well, but I have avoided it (which he has kindly reminded me) because every time I think of it I start crying (recall: 18 years since I actually cried, phew). I think I'm ready to enter that painful space.

One last thought, I have so much more empathy for my children right now. Now more than ever, I want to explore potential negative experiences with them in deeper ways. I see this now. I'm grateful that I see this now.

[This message edited by Pdxguy at 12:47 PM, September 28th (Friday)]

"All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone."

posts: 354   ·   registered: Aug. 5th, 2018   ·   location: Portland oregon
id 8256233
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EvolvingSoul ( member #29972) posted at 4:04 AM on Saturday, October 13th, 2018

Bump.

Me: WS (63)Him: Shards (58)D-day: June 6, 2010Last voluntary AP contact: June 23, 2010NC Letter sent: 3/9/11

We’re going to make it.

posts: 2568   ·   registered: Oct. 29th, 2010   ·   location: The far shore.
id 8265678
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EvolvingSoul ( member #29972) posted at 3:47 PM on Tuesday, October 30th, 2018

Bump.

Me: WS (63)Him: Shards (58)D-day: June 6, 2010Last voluntary AP contact: June 23, 2010NC Letter sent: 3/9/11

We’re going to make it.

posts: 2568   ·   registered: Oct. 29th, 2010   ·   location: The far shore.
id 8275764
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EvolvingSoul ( member #29972) posted at 10:58 PM on Monday, November 19th, 2018

Bump.

Me: WS (63)Him: Shards (58)D-day: June 6, 2010Last voluntary AP contact: June 23, 2010NC Letter sent: 3/9/11

We’re going to make it.

posts: 2568   ·   registered: Oct. 29th, 2010   ·   location: The far shore.
id 8286771
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EvolvingSoul ( member #29972) posted at 6:38 PM on Tuesday, March 26th, 2019

Bump.

Me: WS (63)Him: Shards (58)D-day: June 6, 2010Last voluntary AP contact: June 23, 2010NC Letter sent: 3/9/11

We’re going to make it.

posts: 2568   ·   registered: Oct. 29th, 2010   ·   location: The far shore.
id 8351111
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EvolvingSoul ( member #29972) posted at 7:00 PM on Saturday, June 8th, 2019

One more time :)

Me: WS (63)Him: Shards (58)D-day: June 6, 2010Last voluntary AP contact: June 23, 2010NC Letter sent: 3/9/11

We’re going to make it.

posts: 2568   ·   registered: Oct. 29th, 2010   ·   location: The far shore.
id 8389955
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Tallgirl ( member #64088) posted at 12:15 AM on Thursday, June 13th, 2019

This is excellent. Thank you.

And thank you for bumping this!

Standing tall

posts: 2229   ·   registered: Jun. 11th, 2018
id 8391928
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Wintergarden ( member #70268) posted at 6:21 PM on Friday, June 14th, 2019

Everyone is different. I so wish my WS would start this digging, maybe he will, he's recently acknowledged IC may be useful. I sometimes think he is in a worse place than me, then I want to tell myself that it's his problem. Is it a special sort of person who wants to dig deeper and understand themselves, the why's and why nots. I wonder how much time we give them to find this (I know! How long is a piece of string!) I wonder how much patience I have when it is my heart that has been broken. Does it matter why when he has betrayed me so badly, what is done is done I have to live with that whether he understands why or he doesn't understand why. I have to deal with it whether he is in my life or not.

posts: 311   ·   registered: Apr. 10th, 2019   ·   location: UK
id 8392799
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gmc94 ( member #62810) posted at 6:48 PM on Friday, August 2nd, 2019

Bumped for LifeDestroyer

M >25yrs/grown kids
DD1 1994 ONS prostitute
DD2 2018 exGF1 10+yrEA & 10yrPA... + exGF2 EA forever & "made out" 2017
9/18 WH hung himself- died but revived

It's rude to say "I love you" with a mouthful of lies

posts: 3828   ·   registered: Feb. 22nd, 2018
id 8414499
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EvolvingSoul ( member #29972) posted at 4:28 AM on Wednesday, August 21st, 2019

Bumped for Short05.

Me: WS (63)Him: Shards (58)D-day: June 6, 2010Last voluntary AP contact: June 23, 2010NC Letter sent: 3/9/11

We’re going to make it.

posts: 2568   ·   registered: Oct. 29th, 2010   ·   location: The far shore.
id 8424343
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EvolvingSoul ( member #29972) posted at 3:33 PM on Tuesday, December 10th, 2019

Bumped for GuiltandShame.

Me: WS (63)Him: Shards (58)D-day: June 6, 2010Last voluntary AP contact: June 23, 2010NC Letter sent: 3/9/11

We’re going to make it.

posts: 2568   ·   registered: Oct. 29th, 2010   ·   location: The far shore.
id 8480187
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EvolvingSoul ( member #29972) posted at 1:30 AM on Tuesday, December 24th, 2019

Bumped for MustardSeedFaith.

Me: WS (63)Him: Shards (58)D-day: June 6, 2010Last voluntary AP contact: June 23, 2010NC Letter sent: 3/9/11

We’re going to make it.

posts: 2568   ·   registered: Oct. 29th, 2010   ·   location: The far shore.
id 8486836
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EvolvingSoul ( member #29972) posted at 4:10 AM on Tuesday, February 18th, 2020

Bumped for the general good of the world.

Me: WS (63)Him: Shards (58)D-day: June 6, 2010Last voluntary AP contact: June 23, 2010NC Letter sent: 3/9/11

We’re going to make it.

posts: 2568   ·   registered: Oct. 29th, 2010   ·   location: The far shore.
id 8511472
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