SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

wincing_at_light,

What a fantastic post, thank you for sharing that, and for bearing the pain it takes to think and feel that through. You ask a very good question. Here are my thoughts...

Can you live with a marriage where your wife feels your love enough, but has no need to ever believe it fully?

My heart and mind are a jumble over this question. Not because I personally have any doubts about loving her or what she can give me or feel for me, but because I'm not sure it is my question to own or answer. For me, the question is, can SHE live in that kind of marriage? Should she? What can I do to help provide her with a better reality then just being adequate?

I feel as though I lost the right to expect or demand any kind of marriage from her when I had the affair. I'm lucky I have any kind of marriage at all. The day the affair started was the day our marriage ended. The fact that I let it happen speaks volumes about me and how weak I was. The fact that she is even willing to contemplate building a new marriage, let alone all the pain and hard work involved in doing so, speaks volumes about her and her strength of character and love.

Here's a strange thought... if the old marriage is over, and we are building a new one, then in the new one, has the affair even happened? Are we equal partners or is this new marriage lopsided by necessity? It's a rhetorical question of course, but I feel as though it needs to be lopsided, at least a little, not only for her safety, but because the old one didn't work and we don't want to repeat the same mistakes. I'm okay with having to put in more. She has been the primary bread-winner all of our marriage and has never once complained. It is "our" money. In the same way, I need to put in more in the marriage, but it is still our marriage. I reap the benefits from her happiness and the shared love and relationship.

I'm not sure if that answers your question. If it were mine to decide, then yes, absolutely, I would choose to accept and appreciate whatever she can give me. I cannot control her, I cannot make her feel what I want her to feel, and I cannot destroy something and then demand the full benefits of what I rendered broken. That being said however, I can do all that is within my ability to influence her, by being the best person I can, by working on the marriage and never stopping, and by proving to her daily, minute by minute if necessary, that her risk in giving us a second chance was one that was worth taking. She deserves to feel that love from me. I deserve the love that I earn.

I think that's a great answer.

Ultimately, you're correct that it's her decision to make with regards to how she negotiates accepting the love you express, and whether or not it will be enough. I suspect it will, and she'll arrive at a different ratio of given to accepted than I did...and that's okay. She's a different person from me.

My D-Day was 11 years ago. My wife and I are happily married...but when I talk in terms like this, it hurts her. (I don't talk in terms like this.) She struggles with the difference between the ideal and the real, the "what could be" with "how much I'm willing to give".

But, you know, in the day to day, it's a difference that makes no difference.

(((DevastatedDee)))

I'm sorry Dee. CSA is just as shitty a club to be in as the BS club, and here you are with memberships to both. Some days, all we have to cling to is the fact that we are still here and capable of anything but anger and "fucked-up-ness". You are capable of love, of empathy, of reaching out and of understanding the ugliest parts of yourself, despite the fact that those things were stolen from you violently. That's f'ing amazing as far as I'm concerned.

I've always told my wife that I believe that all people have a "normal", and that in times of heavy stress, we reach for that normal to make us feel better. The weird thing is, for people like you, YouMeI, me, and so on, that "normal" was full of pain and brokenness. So in a strange way, feeling shitty about ourselves makes us feel better about ourselves, because it's what we grew up and what we're most comfortable with. It defies logic, but it is what it is. We feel shitty, and in an attempt to feel better, we feed ourselves way to feel even worse about ourselves.

Your reaction, in some ways, is similar to the process that led me to an A in the first place. When I was 16 (my CSA happened when I was much younger, maybe 6 or so?) I was in a very bad place emotionally after all the abuse and neglect and never being protected. But then at 16, my father (who I felt very close to despite the fact that he was never around much) died. Around that same time, my closest uncle and my dog of 16 years also died, as well as my girlfriend of two years leaving that state, and the predictable result of me getting all F's in school. Emotionally, I had it, I was done. I became an ass and lashed out, doing anything I could to both punish myself and especially to punish my mother, who was leaning on me to support her instead of the other way around. So I snuck around a lot, lied to her about everything, had lots of sex and brought trashy girls home so she'd see it, got into trouble, etc. Which is exactly what happened during the A. As if it were a script.

I believe that this is, in part, one of the reasons my wife is doing her best to allow the marriage to rebuild. Logically, she understands that this wasn't about me "putting another notch in my belt" or even about her, it was about me reliving past trauma, and it started decades before she even met me. That being said, if I can fix or least re-route the parts of my wiring that are broken so that healthier coping strategies exist, then what's left is the same guy she fell in love with, but without the hidden brokenness. The challenge of course, as you already know, is that, whether it is logical or not, it is still unfair to her and still hurts her like hell. It is one thing to forgive me logically. That she's already done. She cries over my abuse even more than I do. But forgiving me in her heart? Well that's going to take a little longer a lot more effort. My job is to take as much of the burden off of her shoulders as I can, and to make the decision as easy as I can for her.

As much as I can understand trauma expressing itself sexually, it hasn't lessened the pain one bit on my part. It still leaves the bottom line where I know that I can become nothing to my husband. Yes, he can become nothing to me too if he hurts me badly enough, apparently.

I know this hurts to think or feel. I'm sorry you even need to consider it. But may I offer another perspective? The fact that you can both "become nothing" to one or the other simply means it's an even playing field, and effectively, one cancels the other out. Which makes it a non-issue. It's like the US and Russia going to war with nuclear bombs - we both know both countries would be wiped out in the end, and at that point, it's useless to lay any more blame or continue the fight, the only reasonable option is to stop blaming both the other guy and ourselves, and get about with the process of rebuilding what was destroyed.

Many BS's say to their WS's "I could have never done that you", and I believe that's true. (We WS's are broken in a particular way that allowed it to happen). But that doesn't mean we aren't all capable of hurting each other. Many people look back on their marriage after an A and realize that things weren't so rosy as they might remember them. We go into our "marriage coma's". We ignore each other, or disregard each other, stop talking, start complaining, withhold love and affection, take passive-aggressive jabs at each other, and so on. We may not all have affairs, but we are all capable of hurting the people we married and love(d).

We each have a choice. We can sit in the pain and let it control us, which will eventually leave us even more empty and broken. Or we choose our own fate and take control of what we want from ourselves. In my case, I was lost in a swamp of guilt and shame for months after D-Day. It was killing me, and quite frankly, it was killing my wife as well. With her help and encouragement, I got off my ass and did something about it. I decided to change whatever I could, no matter how small, just as long as it was a positive change.

(You can skip this part) The first thing I did was change my honesty. I decided to be as honest as I could, even when it means I might have to throw myself under the bus. I know that might sound dumb, but you don't realize how much we lie on a daily basis and don't even think about it. We say, "I'm fine" when someone asks how we are after a shitty day. We say, "I don't care" when asked what we want for dinner, but there's something we'd really prefer. We tell the bill company that the check is in the mail as we're looking for our checkbook. We say, "It's no big deal" when someone spills coffee on our nice clothing. Then I started to learn how to listen. How to be accountable. Basic human decency stuff. After that, I started to dig into my personal weaknesses. I stopped allowing myself to see everything in black and white terms. I took notice when I was defining my own value and happiness through others and try to maintain a sense of self. I catch myself when I'm avoiding conflict and force myself to open my mouth.

We've said many times in this thread that love is a choice. So CHOOSE IT. Choose to love yourself. Choose to love your spouse. Choose to forgive ourselves and others for their faults and sins, knowing that we all have our fair share, and that we didn't choose most of the shit that was foisted on us to begin with. Choose to understand that the cycle of abuse ends when it is replaced with love and acceptance. Choose it for YOU, not for anyone else. It takes the 1000 lb. weight off of you and replaces hopelessness with hope, sadness with the possibility of joy, hurt with the possibility of gain. In physical terms, you can't win the lottery if you don't play. So play. Choose to win by choosing to not lose. Choose to allow happiness in by not sitting in the swamp of sadness. Since we can't undo what's already past, we choose to define a better future by being better people.

The "broken me" would likely have opted to allow myself to fail completely, to end up in D, to blame the world for my pain and to keep my head buried in the sand, and believing that I was a great guy while wallowing in my self-hate. That's not the path I choose however. I choose to fight like hell for my marriage. I choose to BE a better person to the best of my ability, and I also choose to forgive myself when fail, because it allows me to try again another day and keep growing and improving.

Sorry, I guess I might sound a little preachy. I'm just passionate about this change. I'm already seeing changes in my life, not just my marriage. I feel empowered (but a little worn down, change is hard work), and feeling empowered gives me what I need to help hold my wife up as she heals and recovers from this trauma that I foisted on her. I'll do whatever I need to in order to make her whole again, on her terms. My hope is that it is enough to save our marriage.

DaddyDom, you sound so much like my husband and I can relate to you too! You so do get it, you really do. It is so very clear that you've done the work on yourself and I know how hard that work is. I'm working on me too because I don't want to ever respond to trauma that way again. I don't want to be that person. In a weird way, you're helping me understand my husband better. He went through similar stuff as a child that you did, though until now he turned to drugs and alcohol instead of trashy women. The trashy women was a new development.

THANK YOU.

Maybe not important but when you are in pain, some theorize that you are unable to feel any other emotion. (The rap theory is that you can not feel two things at once.). I am reserving judgment on this, with the exception of true pain or true love.

That unbelievable high of first love or "true" innocent love blinds us from all else. We are stupidly happy. (And it is wonderful, regardless of its chemical nature.)

Now, in pain. In indescribable pain, one can't feel love either. For the BS, dday, did anyone feel anything other than absolute anguish? In that moment my amygdala and the rest of my emotional system were at full on hysteria. Loving someone else was not within my ability (with the exception of knowing I loved my kids, but not being able to feel it.)

In that moment, had I did not love MrKate either. But the definition of "feeling" or action.

In that moment, I just begged for my own death.

So I don't hold too much stock or judgment on you for not loving your WS in that moment.

Interestingly, for MrKate, and possible you too, the pain of the abuse was also too much to handle so love was not accessible at the time.

However, he also says he loved me the whole time.

I believe him. It was the kind of love I had for my kids at the time of dday. I loved them, but this pain was too much for me and I wanted to die.

At least for MrKate, this is his story. Love can be many things and expressed in many ways. He thought pushing me away and killing himself was an expression of love, just as much as he didn't care what he did as long as it stopped the pain he was feeling.

This doesn't make sense. I know I have a good point so I will come back later when I can focus. Or tomorrow. Or tomorrow after ☕️.

HopefulKate, that makes sense. Yeah, DDay and many weeks after I was nothing but anguish. I certainly didn't love anything. Maybe that's how I know that my WH didn't love me that year. Like you, I did loving actions for my kids, but I couldn't even feel that love. I would have had more affection for a stranger threatening to shoot me than I did for anyone in my life. I'd have been grateful for the murderer.

Though it kinda disturbs me that I could feel some love and affection for my dogs when I couldn't love anything else. Don't anyone tell my kids that, lol.

My cats laid with me when I spent those early days/weeks/months in my bed/floor/closet. I loved them as much as I could anything that brought me some comfort. It's like they knew and would circle me and lay on me and just sort of look at me.

MrKate fell in love with these cats then (He is a dog person) because they were taking care of me.

Yeah, they know. I'd sleep every night spooning one dog with another curled around my butt, lol. Animals can give love in the most uncomplicated ways and sometimes it's the most comforting love in the world. It's pure.

And now we have answered daddydoms question!

Love is being there for someone when they need it.

That she is still with you is a BIG DEAL. I know beyond a doubt that had I left my WH, I'd have my own home and I'd have a safe place to heal my heart and mind in. By staying, I have to heal my heart and mind alongside the person who shattered it. I have to figure out how to create a safe place for me in that environment

^^I no longer have a home or a safe place.

It's not merely a heart attack. For me it was a complete shattering a heart that had already been broken it many pieces as a betrayed child.

As much as I can understand trauma expressing itself sexually, it hasn't lessened the pain one bit on my part. It still leaves the bottom line where I know that I can become nothing to my husband.

^^ 16 plus years of being nothing while he choose to betray me with Long Term Adultery in my home and the last 3-4 years in my actual bed with a supposed friend is a whole lot to overcome.

I'm lucky I have any kind of marriage at all. The day the affair started was the day our marriage ended. The fact that I let it happen speaks volumes about me and how weak I was. The fact that she is even willing to contemplate building a new marriage, let alone all the pain and hard work involved in doing so, speaks volumes about her and her strength of character and love.

^^ I wish my SAWS truly understood this unequivocally. It takes everything within me to not give into the flight, as well as the fight instinct to punish (and I am very aware that there is no revenge or punishment that would make him feel what his choices have put me through, as well as the path they took to reopen the scar tissue of betrayals as a child of Long Term Adultery)

ThatBPGuy,

Sorry, I meant to get back to your reply earlier and dropped the ball completely. There goes my NFL career.

I think in her way, she is letting you know that when you say that it’s a trigger to her. It hurts deeply. I’m going to suggest stop saying that to her for a goodly while and just work on proving yourself.

I asked her this after you asked me, and she said to not stop saying it. Which I have to admit I'm glad about. I do believe it is her right to make that call however, and I would respect it if that was the case.

One thing I'll tell you is, that from my personal perspective, I think it needs to be said and I also think it needs to be heard. One of the things she said to me from the get-go is that she needs to see me putting more effort into R than I did into the A. I agree. While little things like making the bed or cooking dinner or saying "I love you" are small and mostly meaningless things after an A, they are still desired and needed. She needs to hear me say those words every day, several times a day, consistently, over time. She needs the affection, the kisses, the hugs, the work... even if she rejects it now. If I told her I loved her every day for a month or two, and then just kinda stopped and didn't continue... well, that would show her my lack of sincerity. If I tell her and keep telling her every day over a year, even when we argue, even when she can't say it back... that sends a much more sincere message. My hope is that consistency and time will help her to believe the words are genuine and meaningful.

Or perhaps if you wanted sex with the OW, saying “I love you” was the currency you had to pay. Worth thinking about.

I think you are spot on with this one, and that is exactly how I have described it to her (my wife) as well. To be more clear however, it was less the currency that the AP demanded and rather the currency I demanded. The driving force behind the A was my own emptiness and self-hatred. The AP was merely a means to an end. But here I was doing this awful, horrible, terrible thing, a betrayal that I never in a million years thought myself possible of doing, destroying myself, my family, my marriage... to do all that and have it be meaningless was too much to bear. If that was true, then I really was a horrible person, and I was in too much pain to accept that reality. So I had to try and convince myself that there were genuine feelings there for the AP. Also, as you said, the AP wanted to hear that from me as well, and that in turn kept her interested in me, and kept the A going which was feeding the need. At the end of the day, the AP was an empty person as well, completely incapable of loving or even truly caring about anyone, and so was I. We were two selfish people doing what we needed to feed our black and hollow souls.

Maybe she sees this new found love as guilt, to a certain extent. In other words, you’re so guilty over the betrayal you are clinging to her, and that is the basis for your love.

Of course, I'm sure she does. From a BS standpoint, how could you not? One day I'm husband, the next day I'm running around with some tart, and when caught, I'm all lovey again. And since a WS is by nature all about "me me me" than guilt and self need are a reasonable expectation. Again, this goes back to effort, time, consistency. A bullshitter will tire of bullshitting. A remorseful spouse will hang in there despite the difficulty. Maybe I'm wrong, but I do get the sense that she knows I love her, and intellectually she knows how and why all this happened. But it doesn't make it any less painful or less real for her. I lied to her for 5 months, on top of betraying her. Believing anything I say is hard enough, trusting that gut belief is even harder, and the proof is in the pudding.

And this is what she is fighting against. You have never really been there for her, then betrayed her, and now you’re in love with her. Not to disrespect you, but I can see why she’d be skeptical.

Me too. And I agree with you. Was I broken? Was I repeating the hurt done to me? Am I fixed now? Those answers are very relevant to me and my life, but none of that takes the hurt away for her. It still happened. It is history. Her history. Her reality. I'm a very lucky man to have a skeptical wife. It's easier to walk out the door and not have to be skeptical about anything.

For now, let it be enough she is still with you. Then just try and truly be there for her and she will accept what she will accept.

That's pretty much the plan. That and an endless supply of backrubs. I'll let you know how that works out.

All of us that have been fooled and manipulated, know first hand that one can never really know what another person is thinking or feeling. You know, that deep down kind of WS "feeling" that we were fooled by.

Since there is no way to really know what is inside someone's head, all you can do is witness the behaviors. I told my WW that I would far more prefer to marry a person that demonstrated loving behaviors: caring, empathy, affection, respect, nurturing, kindness, etc. than ever again hear about that someone loves me. I have learned the hard way that words of love are unreliable. Meaningless. Behaviors that reflect love are priceless and the only belief I have in the existence of love.

After the shitstorm that my WW put me through, I lost all belief in the concept of feelings. The proof was in the pudding. People can say the craziest untrue phony feelings based things to hide their broken-ness. When we started R, I told her that if the behaviors of love aren't there, there is no love, regardless of what she said.

On a related concept, I got sick and tired of "why". Why do people do the idiot things they do. The why ranges from horrible FOO issues to simply making bad decisions on a whim. The why can be complex or cruelly simple. I understand that "why" may be important to moving away from the being broken, but I can't control the why any more than I could control the deceptions and lies.

Just show me. That't it. Fix yourself and live the behaviors of love. If you behave like you love me, I really don't care what is in your head. If what's in your head keeps you from behaving like you love me, then it won't be what your thinking, it will be what you are not showing that ends the M.

From DaddyDom:

As if it were a script.

Gently, and to many, many other here, it was.

Only now after seeing it can a new one be written. I am seeing that here, on these boards. I am seeing this at home. I am seeing this within.

And I think that makes all the difference.

As if it were a script.

Gently, and to many, many other here, it was.

Now if we can only get Oliver Stone to direct it, we might really have something.

I think this is a Great idea actually!

How many movies have been made that do NOT portray any of this correctly?

although I guess I would call the trailer "trigger city" and then maybe no one would go.

Hmmmm....all posters would then be of kittens doing their kickass kitten thing.

But then I suppose the law suits would start about false advertising.....

But then my counter suits would start regarding people reading the fine print....and somehow it would be located in the privacy section of instagram and everyone already accepted so I'm clear!

Phew....got out of that one.

And to this

Love is being there for someone when they need it.

I would add

especially when it is a sacrifice

because true love means you are willing to put someone else's needs first just like we do for our children.

...because true love means you are willing to put someone else's needs first just like we do for our children.

Yup. It gets even more interesting and complex when we need to apply that same sacrificial love to ourselves. How do we sacrifice or practice love or forgiveness when it is ourselves that we must show love to?

Loving ourselves is one of the most difficult things we can do sometimes. How do we forgive ourselves for our faults? For the times when we were weak? For our failures? For our fears? How do we love ourselves when we feel we've let ourselves down in the most critical of ways? When we feel self-love is not deserved?

Perhaps the sacrifice we make in that case is in simply allowing ourselves to be forgiving of all of those things, and having the compassion and bravery to allow ourselves to see the goodness and value within ourselves as well.

We can't love others when we cannot love ourselves. We cannot forgive others when we cannot forgive ourselves. Fear, resentment, anger... these are boxes that love and forgiveness get locked inside of. In order to get to the contents, you have to open the box. Which is scary. But when you do, it begins to take the box away and opening it next time becomes easier and easier until it doesn't exist at all.

This, I think, is the key to selfless and sacrificial love for others. If you love yourself enough, then there is nothing within you so needy as to be a constraint that prevents you from giving that internal love to others who need it more than you do. And while it may sound awfully sappy, the real beauty in all of that is that in giving selfless or sacrificial love to others, that is when we are loving both ourselves in others in equal measure.

And this is what I implored Mr. ISurvived to do right from the beginning after d-day,

If you love yourself enough, then there is nothing within you so needy as to be a constraint that prevents you from giving that internal love to others who need it more than you do.

that is what is needed to be a safe partner and a giving partner rather than selfish and dangerous partner.