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I’ve triggered hard!, really bad, sent me waaaay back. Up all night, stomach flipping, can’t eat and breathing is not the same. Now I’m feeling this way I know it’s been a while since I’ve been here, I remember this feeling. Triggered my lie detector.

I think I might have thought my H lied by omission, my brain and body have certainly reacted to it that way, but the fact he got up this morning and returned the car part he purchased without fully informing me of what it was for told me he thought it was about the car part and not the lack of information.

Last night his messages to me included
I just thought it needed one.
I didn’t think it would bother you.
I didn’t think about it.
I didn’t think it was a big deal.
I didn’t think too much into to it.

I told him that it’s time he started to think!, especially when it involves people that he is supposed to care about, maybe he should start and engage his brain and think how his actions effect others. Fucking idiot.

This morning he has had a full on thought dump from me, I was up all night so there were lots of thoughts including why I believe he has always had tendencies to lie, which is because he was always allowed to behave and act as he wanted without any consequences as long as rat 1 & rat 2 (his parents) were being pleased, lying and bad behaviour doesn’t count unless someone sees. He agreed.

I told him that the trigger might not be as bad if I had not been subjected to TT. I obviously still have anger here, I’m hurt and angry that surrounding DD I was subjected to TT, lies, story changes, date changes, from both H & AP, he took a polygraph which was that traumatic for me I can’t even drive past that building yet without my throat closing up. For what?, what exactly? Why couldn’t they both do the right thing and just hold their hands up and come clean?, be honest?. Nope!, a pair of weak basta@ds scrambling for scraps of dignity to hold on to, unable to face the truth of themselves.

I told him I’m also tired of feeling responsible for our children’s feelings. If we D then I’m terrified my boys will feel how I felt when my mother had an A, I’m terrified they’ll wonder why they weren’t enough, why dad didn’t think about them, why dad didnt love them enough, why in those moments we didn’t exist to dad, that everyone will look at them and say oh you know what their dad did?, that they’ll feel worthless and alone, if we can’t trust dad then who can we trust. My mother did that to me and my brothers, she had an A and left us for someone half her age, haven’t seen her since that was 26 years ago.
There’s not a single man on this planet that could turn my head and lead me to ever make my boys question their worth. I’ve had chances, opportunities when I could have sunk the knife so deep in my H back he’d still be trying to dislodge it but there’s nothing that repulses me more than someone who hits on a married person.

My H asked me what I wanted, what I need, I told him I want to feel normal again, he said I am normal. I’m not!, look at me! I’ve just emotionally shit myself because I got triggered, I have not slept all night, I can’t regulate myself, I can’t walk in a supermarket without feeling bad, I see a logo or a truck my stomach flips, I wonder if today is the day I’ll bump in to AP and scalp her, i have to ground myself all the time, that’s not normal. I want to feel normal but I don’t think I’ll ever feel normal again, I guess I have to get used to being ok with not being ok and that’s shit, really shit since I didn’t have a choice, I didn’t ask for this, I didn’t deserve this.

My H said that he is sorry for the pain he has caused me, he has been so foolish and he wishes he could have seen what he had before, he said that he has taken me for granted and he never thought he could lose me. He said for so many years I’ve acted like a di@k head, but I’m not that man anymore, I know what I have now, you’re everything to me. He said he can’t promise he won’t make mistakes along the way but he can promise me that he will never ever hurt me again.

I wish I believed him.

Are you in IC? Having a therapist with a trauma-informed background may be helpful for you. It takes years to heal from infidelity, and then take even longer if you're working on R. It does get better with time and healing but it's a marathon and not a sprint.

Sorry that you got triggered.

Can you elaborate a little bit more on the situation with the car part, if you feel up to it?

Sorry you’re going through it right now

ETA: oh, I just read through your last post. I don’t think I have enough knowledge of cars to say anything useful on the matter

[This message edited by DayByDay96 at 3:08 AM, Saturday, October 11th]

Ahhh Bruce, I hear you. I can only offer you a tiny shred of commiseration that I, too, have a WH who doesn't use his brain for normal human functions. (He is ALSO an ace car mechanic....this kind of brain seems to be rampant in the mechanic world....) I can SO relate to what you said he told you! What I think is: even if/when you can recover from all this infidelity garbage, you will likely always notice the same theme with him - that he "just doesn't get it." Because if he's anything like my WH, he truly, truly cannot grasp any wider connections than whatever HIS OWN MIND chooses to focus on! I am not exaggerating. So I think he isn't lying when he says this about how he "...didn't think..." Because, guess what: his brain is likely not even wired TO THINK about other people his actions might affect. This is a common trait in certain mental health diagnoses.

Looking back over your life pre-D-Day, can you see examples of this theme in him? When I go back in my history with my WH pre-infidelity, NOW I can see so many examples of that, but I always used to dismiss them as "gender differences" since many people would say that to me. It makes R very hard when the WS does not have the emotional tools to "fix" what they screwed up. But sometimes, they just don't.

[This message edited by Superesse at 4:53 AM, Saturday, October 11th]

Bruce, I just read your previous thread with several explanatory responses you got and I want to say, even with the possible necessity of what sounds to you like 'going above and beyond the scope of requested work,' I still understand why you feel the way you expressed!

I help my WH in his automotive repair business with sending out the bills, and with every detailed invoice he writes, he tries to give a detailed description of exactly what he fixed as well as what he did NOT fix (to avoid being blamed for future problems. An attorney recommended we do this with his customer's cars which are sometimes worth over a million dollars each.)

So over the years, I notice that I have to keep on "suggesting" that he offer a little explanation before he just goes ahead and bills them for x, y and z work he did to a car beyond what the owner originally asked for. Yet, this never changes. Seems like once the head of the mechanic is under the hood of the car, that bit about "remember who is paying for this" goes straight out the window!

Just a little postscript.

[This message edited by Superesse at 6:03 AM, Saturday, October 11th]

Just an out-lying thought -

Get a copy of the "Five Love Languages" and both of you read it.

worth a try in my book -

[This message edited by Hippo16 at 6:08 AM, Saturday, October 11th]

Bruce, that was one truly awesome rant!

Hypervigalence is par for the course when it comes to surviving infidelity. We are highly attuned to every single misstep, lie, obfuscation or mistake, because we are still unsure about our wayward spouse. It's a perfectly natural and "normal" reaction, including the powerful triggers that come with it.

I remember one Saturday afternoon, a few months after d-day, when my son went looking for the small bottle of Sprite I'd bought for him the day before (a rare treat). When he didn’t find it, he asked me where it was. When his mom, my exww, told him she drank it, he burst into tears and ran into his room.

Tah... riggor!!!

I ripped into her with unbridled righteous fury and tore her to shreds.

Sigh...

Infidelity and making solo decisions on car parts certainly aren't quite the same thing. Neither is infidelity and "stealing" a little soda. However, I think we have a very good reason to be assessing, judging, our wayward spouses the way we do because... well, infidelity.