SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

My son is so much happier now that i have made the decision to reconcile.

The pain of a D was making me feel like a bad mother. My shift of my mind into a positive place to see WS in a new light has been life changing for both of us.

I'm curious to know what helped people with this shift. There were two main things for me, but if there are more stories I'd love to hear them.

1) being intimate
2) saying affirmations to eachother

Looking back on your previous posts, you posted once at the beginning of the year and then has been a lot of silence, so don’t know very much from which to give any advice.
My first impressions is that using sex and affirmations to get over what you said in your first post that you flatly can’t forgive, and doing it for the sake of your son’s short term happiness, that sounds like some dangerous rugsweeping to me.

How you view another person should not be some kind of self manipulation. The tools of sex and kind words are powerful, but they don’t get to the root of it. Your husband betrayed you deeply. It is his job to rehabilitate his image with you thru long suffering honesty and integrity. Trust is shattered in an instant but takes years to rebuild. Don’t try to short cut that, or you could be suffering from this indefinitely.

I said intimacy, not sex. Just wanted to be really clear on that. Personally I found this hard to overcome. Then when I did, I just saw my husband in a different light.

I dont feel like I am rugsweeping? But maybe I am. Its only been a year. All I know is that our connection feels like the start of something again.

The context is my husband was having an A (emotional and physical). I have found so much strength from this site. I would love to know if anyone else found themselves healing by affirmations. This is really helping me. I now wonder if its self manipulation, but i feel its just helped me see things I couldn't before.

ADFH

…self manipulation, but i feel its just helped me see things I couldn't before

Well, when you get right down to it emotions are self manipulation. I go back to the precepts of constructive living…

1. We control our emotions poorly if at all

2. We control our actions 100%

3. Our actions influence our emotions

I see you taking positive actions that are influencing your emotions positively.

Just don’t rely on the "feels" too much. During the affair, your WS relied on you having a false perception of who he was in order to do when he did. Your story of him was wrong. The key now is you may feel like you’re building a new story. The old story was he was a cheater, the new story could be that he is a cheater who found his way. Pretty soon you might start seeing him through that lens, reinforced by your intimacy and affirmations.

Instead, when you drop the old story, don’t replace it with anything. Every day you’re with him try to see him like you are seeing him for the first time. Just really see him. In the moment. As he is.

If you use those intimate moments to see him as he is, that’s a powerful thing.

If you use those affirmations to speak the truth, ditto.

Sending strength!

[This message edited by HouseOfPlane at 8:11 PM, Friday, November 28th]

I go back to the precepts of constructive living…

1. We control our emotions poorly if at all

2. We control our actions 100%

3. Our actions influence our emotions

I think that is true and good, but one does want to be careful of coming around and praising Stockholm Syndrome.

I don’t know OP’s story, I don’t think she’s shared much. But OP, we typically don’t advise gritting your teeth and trying to convince yourself you really love your betrayer.

If your story is that your husband has been the absolutely model of penitence and virtue for the last year and you know deeply in your heart that you want to reconcile with him but the only thing holding you back is an irrational feeling of disgust, then this approach may be the answer.

But you are only a year in (that is sadly a short period of time in this world) and without positively knowing that your husband is a unicorn wayward, I’d guess he’s been less than ideal over this year in helping you in your pain (just playing the odds on that one). And if that is so, you probably have a tidal wave of negative emotions that you are trying to hold back with this dike of affirmations. All of that pain needs to be addressed to properly heal. Holding it back is the worst thing you can do for your own healing.

Maybe you could tell us a little more about your story so we’d be able to give more informed (and maybe even more hopeful ) advice.

Wishing you well.

[This message edited by InkHulk at 9:19 PM, Friday, November 28th]

I think that is true and good, but one does want to be careful of coming around and praising Stockholm Syndrome.

Wut?

Did you read all of my post?

I don’t know OP’s story

No, you don’t, but then you filled in with your preconceptions.

Here’s a portion of my story. My wife cheated, and then didn’t again. My pain lasted way longer than a year, but that frankly was on me, not her. She was consistent, but I dragged it out, causing unneeded pain for both us, most importantly me.

If the OP is being honest and is seeing things correctly, eyes wide open, power to her.

"restore", nope.

"a new light", sure.

I think what is helping me recover is that - FINALLY - my WH has been reading, doing work, speaking openly about his thoughts, understanding his "whys".

And he is FINALLY listening to me and hearing what I am saying, feeling, and needing.

I think it depends on the affirmations. If they are about yourself and for yourself, they can be healing. If they are about refraining how you think and feel about your partner, I don't think those are affirmations.

Maybe you're taling about changing negative thoughts to positives. For example, my initial thought when my H leaves the toilet seat up is that he's inconsiderate. If I can think of 3 things that my H does for me that are considerate, I realize his not an asshole and I might just keep him around.

I don't think that works with R after infidelity. The only thing that works is for the WP to take full responsibility for their actions and do some serious therapeutic work on themselves. The BP needs to do therapeutic work on themselves, as well, to make sure they aren't just rolling over and rug sweeping. That is, if you want true R.

I healed not because my H did everything he needed to do, but because he made permanent changes.

His actions were the most important thing in the early stages of R. I wasn’t helping him or guiding him, he had to prove to me he "got it".

Secondly I needed to be able to talk about whatever I needed to talk about, without him being angry or defensive. Or avoiding the conversation.

The first 3 years of Reconciliation were tough. But it definitely started to feel like we were making tremendous progress at about the 3 year mark.

A 14 year old son might be a great reason to try reconciliation but is a terrible reason to stay married.
IMHO the best way to see a WS in a positive light would be to experience their efforts in becoming a safe partner, and their work in understanding why they cheated.
You haven’t shared much about your story so I can’t outline specific examples, but some general examples:
If it was a workplace affair: What has he done to assure you it’s over? What boundaries is he placing between himself and the OW at work? What is he willing to do to make you feel safe?
If it was a drunken ONS: What is he doing about his drinking? Still going out with "the boys"?
If it was sex-workers: Is he being accountable with his money?

How is he at MC? Does he go to IC?

When a WS shows through actions that they understand the damage caused, that they appreciate what they risked... that is what IMHO should make them more appealing.

For me there was no point even trying to reconcile if the marriage that came out on the other side didn’t improve. BUT that isn’t what made my partner ‘safe’.

In reality we had two very seperate processes to try to make this marriage work.

1. WH had to work on his issues ie lying and communication. So he went to therapy, read books, had hard conversations with me, made changes in behaviour eg no lying, being more emotionally involved with people, improving his communication style with others

2. WE worked on our marriage - he helped more around the house, he was more involved in family events/trips, he organised or help in organising date night, little get aways, family events such as birthdays and Christmas. Being more communicative with me.
I worked on not bottling up my anger, being more physically affectionate, involve him in my plans. Etc

If step 1 didn’t happen (even though I tried step 2 first to begin with and it did not work well 😂) then I don’t think we would be where we are right now. My marriage now is definitely not perfect and I know I still hold a lot of resentment but at least it’s honest and improvements are consistently being seen.