SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

And, even though this reply is already dissertation length, I have to tack this musing on at the end here...I'm not sure/fear that divorce is not a path to lessening the pain for many of these same betrayeds. I suspect that the very same issues/wiring/personality stuff that contributes to the presence of uniquely stubborn affair pain for them would also make for a similar experience in divorce recovery.

I can only give you my perspective on this. I recovered more in the first week out of the marriage than I did the entire time I stayed in it after DDay. I recovered by leaps and bounds once I was not forcing myself to live at ground zero with the man who caused the trauma. The cognitive dissonance of trying to live like I was married to someone who did this to me was profoundly damaging. It felt like bathing in excrement and pretending to be clean. Everything was tainted. The moment I made my reality match my values, all started sliding into place and I began healing. I'm a happy person now. I don't suffer from this pain anymore. I don't really have triggers anymore. I'm content with my life. I do not for a moment believe that I'd be nearly this healed even with a remorseful spouse. I'm grateful that I didn't have that to hold me back for a moment longer.

This wiring/personality stuff may explain why some of us aren't meant for reconciling, but it doesn't mean we're hurt more than others by infidelity. I doubt my pain was any larger than for someome like ChamomileTea who has reconciled. I just couldn't have healed the same way that she did. I had to leave to heal. She could stay and heal.

[This message edited by DevastatedDee at 3:51 PM, Tuesday, March 1st]

I love the honesty and responses on this thread. My first response was unfiltered, from the heart, but your responses made me ask myself some hard questions, again. There is a part of my brain that is accusing my tender heart of making excuses for being sad, or for clinging to my sorrow unnecessarily, for refusing to move forward. I've thought about it since yesterday, and I'm not sure it is that simple. I wish I could discuss it with less words, sorry for the length, again.

This year, finally, I have mastered the art of redirecting unwelcome thoughts, stomping on the ANTS, the automatic negative thoughts that drive so much of the hurt, letting go of resentment, anger and working on real progress. I understand the brain's addiction to repetitive thought and the chemical cascade that can keep us stuck in sorrow. I know, finally, how to access my untainted, non-triggering, happy endorphin generating memories to counteract the stress responses and the slide into negativity. It is constant, vigilant hard work. I see the intensity of my pain lessening, the time I spend in a pile decreasing, the days between breakdowns growing longer. These things give me hope for my future well being. But I know how big and wide open my heart has always been, and how easily I can and have been hurt in my life.

Prior to infidelity, the biggest hurt in my life was the loss of my father, whom I adored and admired as the standard not just for men, but for humans. He was the most kind and loving soul and maybe I got this heart from him. He had health problems for decades, cheated death a dozen times, and we knew it was a miracle he was still with us, but his death rocked me in a way I still struggle with, 14 years later. Like infidelity the pain has lessened, but the sorrow of his loss is very much with me, and I know I will miss him for the rest of my life. I buried him my father, focused on my kids and my family and my WH got a girlfriend and he hid his true self from me and misrepresented our relationship and his loyalty for a decade. These hurts are deeply entwined, and I view them similarly. I carry grief at the loss of my Dad who loved me unconditionally and the loneliness of a world without him in it. Now I carry the grief of the loss of the bond I had with my WH, which I know was real until it wasn't, and I don't see myself 14 years downstream any less sad over the loss of the life I knew and the innocence I carried inside me than I am over losing Dad.

My relationship with my WH was never supposed to be, I never saw him coming, honestly and on paper we make no sense. But he let me believe in true love again, he broke down my defenses and I let him into my most vulnerable spaces, and let myself believe we were a forever thing, true soulmates. I had given up on the idea of soul mate, or everlasting love and was adamantly anti marriage and had little trust for the motives of the opposite sex, beyond them presenting what they thought I needed to see to get me out of my clothes and into bed with them. I was determined to let my value be tied to me, not my body or how I made someone else feel. I thought I had built up all the defenses I needed to never be hurt again, was in a good place, solid and strong when I met my WH. We were coworkers, then friends, then lovers, then spouses, then parents, and I never saw any of this coming either, and I fell hard from the hubris of my life's false narrative. He let my worth to him become about my body, about sex, and that may be a factor in my inability to heal, origin story baggage.

I believed at my core that I could trust my WH 100% with my heart and his betrayal was inconceivable to me. My pain has much less to do with the sexual betrayal than with the betrayal of my trust and love, my reduction to object, not person. I am an extremely genuine, empathic, sensitive, caring and loving person. I am the worst personality type to even understand this, and worst, I thought he was one of the rare good guys, that I had found the ONE. I have a tiny journal I have been keeping for almost 40 years, and it is the story of us. How we met, all our adventures, trips, pets, careers, milestones, anything I thought worth remembering. It hurts to even look at it, but I have clipped together all the pages of our story that held secrets, lies and betrayal. It's a lot of pages, a chunk of my life and I cut myself some slack on my slow progress for that alone, because I know the odds of any marriage surviving such long betrayal are slim. For me, the hardest part is to realize that at the worst moment of my life, he turned away from me and inward to self preservation. Dealing with me made him uncomfortable because it made him look at what he had done and he prefers to pretend he is not that guy. Yeah. Me too. But I don't do pretend, I do full frontal reality in my life, always have, always will. It's both blessing and curse.

So. I am rambling, but in response to OP's question, I believe the answer is that many can heal, and do, but that not all are capable even if willing and ready. I'm not sure it's the deal breaker analogy, because I think that is a separate thing, a moral boundary, that may or may not involve healing. Had I left my WH, my healing would be farther along, but my emotional devastation would remain mostly unchanged. Some things in life are precious and unreplaceable, things stolen or lost to fire or disaster, and maybe the violation of those losses fade, but the wistful longing for what was lost remains.

I will reach a point where I know I have healed as much as I am able and that will be the best I can do with this wide open heart and wide open eyes of mine. Maybe there is a part of my personality or mindset that will cling to pain or prevent me from healing, I can't know that, at least not yet. I am not trying to make excuses, but connections and I think so much of our healing is tied to our inner selves, our individual stories and honestly, our ability to compartmentalize. I'm working on integration, and compartmentalization is counter to that goal. I can string together days of happiness, moments of joy, but only if I keep the truth in its holding cell. One trigger or one lazy peak in that direction and the sorrow, loss, regret, grief, hurt and deep disappointment that things didn't turn out the way my Story of Us was supposed to are right there waiting.

I'm not saying we should tell people things might not get better, I'm not sure I could have handled that possibility in the early phases of devastation. It is maybe a kindness to offer hope, initially, but maybe cruel for those of us wired to keep all our memories and feelings accessible. Had SI friends told me I might not heal in the early phases, it might have been more damaging than telling me I would be ok in 2-5 years. I think it is a possible that for some, there is no destination called healed, just a place that is manageable, and I welcome this discussion of not so much how to heal and eliminate this pain, but how to move forward managing it, like I do my grief over Dad.

FWIW, my Dad program is this: sad thoughts are countered with the memory of his smile, the sound of his laughter, the memories of all he brought to our lives and then I ask myself how he would want us to carry on. Not with sorrow, that's for sure. He had us play live music and hand out Mardi Gras beads at his service, because he never was one to dwell on sorrow but on finding moments of happiness. So I temper my grief with what would Dad do, and it really helps me and it helps me honor him. But if Dad knew what became of his charmed daughter's life, it would have hurt him as much as it hurts me, so I'm grateful he didn't live to see what has become of me and my storybook marriage. I do wish he were here to comfort me though, not going to lie about that. I miss his counsel at my core, just like I miss the relationship I had with my WH when our love was true and we had each other's backs against the world. The innate loneliness of realizing how on my own I am in the world is its own sorrow. I'm ok with that, I was before and I will be again, but it wouldn't hurt so badly if I hadn't allowed myself to believe otherwise.

I haven't found anything simple or concise to help me honor what my marriage was in the face of what it has become, except for our children and the love joy they have brought to my world. I didn't see that coming either. I read somewhere that having children or becoming a parent husks the soul. Truer words never spoken as far as I am concerned. Infidelity is a different kind of husking and my soul will never be the same, more raw and scarred than before. I'm working on honoring those scars and the growth they have brought me, even if it was unwanted and unneeded.

Again thanks for this post, for all these thoughts, and again sorry for my inability to write a short meaningful reply.

ps. so frustrating to write such long rambling thoughts to discover so many more thoughtful and reply worthy responses posted while I was compiling mine. I'm gonna spare the thread and just think about some things for a while.

Thank you HO and Dee so much again for replying. I guess I want to clarify a tad that I'm not really intending to be harshly critical of the "standard" approach in assisting BS's...but it sure reads that way, doesn't it? Perhaps I am leaking? Not sure. I just know I'm not intending to criticize as much as I am maybe just challenging/questioning some assumptions? Assumptions that say that a mostly-escaping-the-pain healing is there for the taking with doing the right work. That "stuckness" is directly related to what the BS does or does not do. That rising above the pain might not be one of the choices for some (many?). Again, probably beating this poor dead horse "deader"...but to the physical sufferers under my former care, none of that would have been pertinent or helpful. What would have been helpful is to come along side and say, "how can I help you IN your pain" rather than, "you can get yourself OUT of it?" Because there was no out for them. And I guess that's more what my deep question is. It's not even really (okay..it is some) personal for me. Personally, I know what I have signed up for in R and the pain its going to cost me. And I am willing to do it for a whole host of reasons. So, it's more just about the concept in general...

Can affair pain be deep, chronic, and lasting? (wanted to say permanent...but I will refrain).

If it can...how often/for how many is this the case?

To be brutally honest, I'm not 100% sure why this is so important to me. I suspect it has to do with the possibility of potentially overlooking what I have a hunch may be a significant demographic within the betrayed community. And, if I had to guess, I would say I'm sorta driven to say to that potentially overlooked tribe that you are SEEN. Heard. There is understanding out there for the potential uniqueness and nuance of your situation. And again, not comparing degrees of pain or suggesting it's any less or more intense for anyone vs. anyone else. But at the same time, this being potentially chronic for some is sort of a unique twist? And, until now, the main response (which I assert again is always well intentioned, compassionate, and wise) to this potential group has been pretty much limited to looking within themselves to see what they may or may not be doing that might be contributing to the chronic-ness. And, again, I know those questions do need to be asked. But I also believe there's a strong possibility that the answer might have nothing to do with anything they are or aren;t doing, and everything to do with the reality that their affair trauma has simply impacted them in a way that is going to be deeply and chronically painful. And maybe if that is true...perhaps that truth, as hard as it is, may actually set them "free"? Not freedom OUT of the pain...but freedom to find ways to live WITH it?

Maybe I'm still beating that dead, deader, and deaderer horse...

Thank you also, whatisloveanyway. You posted while I was replying as well. I am reading now but just want to thank you for taking the time to reply while I do.

WH

I suspect there is such a demographic. It’s hard not to wonder though what they have considered to be doing the work?

Most often when we come across this, it’s hard to think they have done everything. My husband had a back surgery that led to a problem in his hips. That led to seeing his back surgeon again to find that there were better therapies for the new problem.

It isn’t my husband’s expertise to be able to self diagnose. He could have said well now there is hip pain and I guess I have to live with it. The surgery must not have been successful. In reality it was two different issues with two different causes. In America we are least proactive about our mental and emotional well being versus our ohysical body and I truly believe experts are needed for both. Unfortunately we live in a world where not everyone can afford it for physical much less emotional.

Doing the work is a very broad term. Interacting with many here who might be who you are considering in your demographic, often the most prevalent is bottling up and fighting the battle in their head. People do not realize that affairs can lead to ptsd, which is not going away on its own. That’s just one example. Or maybe they did some things in the beginning and it seemed manageable, because it wasn’t the acute nightmare from the beginning.

I think the bs really has to be an advocate for themselves and I see many who do not want to keep bringing up things that are hurtful to their ws. So that also limits them from Proactively going into other treatments because they want that pain hidden. This is very prevalent in people who have remorseful spouses. My husband did this for a long time. But it’s self abandonment.

I think I keep writing you hoping to hear what you consider the work to be and getting you to consider if it was adequate. I see many folks from a religious background leaving it to prayer, surrender, talking to a pastor, etc. there is a place for that too but trauma can actually change your brains chemistry and moving beyond those things into medical technology could be the answer.

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:43 PM, Tuesday, March 1st]

Great post and responses here. I can pick and choose which ones feel more applicable to me and it's clearly a case of different strokes for different folks. I can wholeheartedly relate with the observation that the OP made when it comes to the general feedback on long term reconciliation issues with a remorseful WS, and I'm glad it's been identified.

I like the definition of recovery and healing as put forth in the book "Not Just Friends" by Shirley Glass. The author defines recovery and healing as follows:

"Recovery means that the infidelity is no longer the focus of daily life. Each partner has regained equilibrium and is able to perform normal activities and you can work together when you need to. Healing means that most of the time it hardly hurts at all."

The way I see it in a nutshell is this. If theres been a long period of time where you werent focused on the affair and its effects on you, but later there is a flare up and you find yourself on this forum or others like it asking for support or advice, then the verdict is that you "rug swept". If you DO think about the affair and can't get over it, then either you or your fWS "haven't done the work properly". So it can seem like you cant win and can feel to the BS like an added layer of shame on top of the shame that they already feel by being betrayed and staying. If the overall verdict of the responses are that remorseful fWS hasn't been the perfect healer, it fuels resentment in the BS that the fWS is not doing THEIR part to facilitate healing.

One thing I know for certain is that at one point and for many years afterwards, I was recovered and healed by the definition above. BUT, this was reversed when I began to focus again on the affair and the details of the injustices that were committed against me. Discussing the affair after many years for me was like playing chicken with a black hole. I allowed myself to go back to that dark place and explore it, and it started to suck me in. Rumination increased negative feelings such as anger, shame, sadness, etc. Doing this has started to erode the foundations of my marriage and by definition I have neither recovered nor healed. Ideally I want to get to the point where it's not factoring into my daily thoughts in any significant way and this is one reason why I don't plan on being on this forum for very much longer. I was here 16 years ago for support directly after d-day, and then I left after a few months. I got the support and advice I needed from this forum and moved on. I realize that many of the long term forum members can consider themselves healed and still be on this forum because they find satisfaction in supporting others and I am very grateful for those people (otherwise we'd all just be a bunch of bitter betrayeds). But for some people, myself included, it can keep my mind in that space that spins around the black hole. At some point, I will take the step of removing myself from this forum as a step towards evicting this subject from my thoughts. To me that is a fundamental step towards healing.

[This message edited by gainingclosure at 5:43 PM, Tuesday, March 1st]

I should also mention I noticed you have a second more recent dday. That reintroduces the original trauma and adds to it. I don’t think anyone on this site with that recent of a dday would feel any less hopeless than you do. That is such a normal response. It’s like starting over from day one but far worse. Maybe your expectations of yourself are also skewed.

I don't know, honestly, if some people cannot heal. I do believe that we all come out of this changed. Some say they are changed for the better, but I don't think that I am. I liked who I was before. I didn't think I needed a lot of tweaking. I mean, we can all improve, not saying I was ever near perfect, but I wasn't a profoundly flawed person who needed a wake-up call to become my full potential or whatever. I wasn't codependent. I was emotionally resiliant. I worked hard to take care of my family and had lots of interests. I was a decent person. I'm still a decent person, but I had more empathy for people before this than I do now, and I find that to be a flaw. I have a much lower view of humanity than I did before, but maybe that's just being realistic. I haven't lost my level of empathy. I just direct the full force of it towards dogs now and work with a local animal shelter. Probably because dogs are safer and 100% of the time they are deserving of it. I think working with rescue animals more directly and often is my only actual improvement as a human being. I'm happy and content, but I'm self-aware enough to see that I'm not as good a person towards people as I used to be. I'm less likely to be forgiving. I am a lot more selfish. I may date again one day, but my main reason for not seeking it out is that I have no interest in dealing with anyone else's nonsense. Not even minor nonsense. I don't even want to share the remote. I just don't feel any desire to compromise on anything and I know that's not a wonderful trait in a person. I'm just selfish as heck now.

On the flip side Dee, (and maybe because I chose R, and maybe because I have stupidly continued interacting with the several former waywards in my life and my wife's life) I am more "empathetic" to the drive of cheaters. I'm more capable of forgiveness along with having a much better idea of what forgiveness is and requires (and was perhaps always more capable than I thought I was). This is definitely balanced against my loss of "something integrity adjacent". None-the-less, I too find myself being more selfish. I wouldn't call it bludgeoning my fWW with the A or anything, but if she doesn't like my choice of use of time she can divorce me. I sort of made peace with that option and can use my time however I want once we are divorced. I'm just not going to sacrifice my desires in my M anymore.

[This message edited by This0is0Fine at 6:44 PM, Tuesday, March 1st]

I just know I'm not intending to criticize as much as I am maybe just challenging/questioning some assumptions? Assumptions that say that a mostly-escaping-the-pain healing is there for the taking with doing the right work. That "stuckness" is directly related to what the BS does or does not do. That rising above the pain might not be one of the choices for some (many?).

That's not an assumption for me though. I lived it. I took control of my healing and I achieved it through my own proactive, hard work. And I don't believe I'm an aberration or some special case, so yeah... I think if I can do it, anyone can. I think it's a matter of figuring out what keeps us stuck.

A thought on this thought from This0is0Fine:

I'm just not going to sacrifice my desires in my M anymore.

I think a good relationship is defined in part, by neither person having to sacrifice for the other.

If I had to give up anything, I couldn’t have stayed in this M. The odd part about the M being broken is I got to choose the foundation for the rebuild. I think we’re essentially after the same concept, but there is no additional sacrifice or compromise from me OR my wife. We give the space needed for whatever is needed, no taking, no compromises.

Back to the thread at hand, I spent YEARS stuck after the two key traumas in my life.

I know what stuck looks like and feels like.

There were moments here at SI when there was PERFECT advice for me to heal. But in that moment of pain, they may as well been speaking a foreign language. I wasn’t ready to pull myself up. I wasn’t ready to hear any great ideas about healing myself.

I get that there are people who are NEVER ready to pull themselves up.

I have just found at every turn in my life, every adversity, at some point — whenever that point is — we absolutely have the strength to choose our response to adversity. I think trauma is a huge part of the human experience. We never get to choose our trauma, but somewhere along the way, we decide to linger or move on.

I think anyone can heal and change and grow - whether from infidelity or death of a spouse or any other trauma. One thing that comes to mind reading this (wonderful) thread is that what "healing" is may look different to each of us. What that residual pain is/feels like is also different. While I suppose my 'label' is limbo or something pretty close to IHS, I feel mostly healed and I don't really know if that "mostly" would change to "fully" once I were to D. I can point to a plethora of factors for this (FOO, my personality, etc - things already mentioned on the thread), and suspect that every time I take a step in healing those areas, I gain some ground on healing the infidelity areas as well.

IMO, no matter how much I have "healed" from infidelity, there will always be a pretty deep scar that I don't see going away. In this vein, I agree with those who compare the infidelity trauma (or, I think, any trauma) to physical pain. I had a knee injury several years ago, and while my dr tells me the knee is fully "healed" from the traumatic (or acute) injury (it's called "maximum medical improvement', or MMI), I will always have pain as a result. No amount of physical therapy or surgery or anything else will relieve that pain. Similarly, when we are talking about emotional pain, I think we reach an emotional equivalent of MMI, that is "healed", but not free of pain. To me, life is not free from pain, so it doesn't feel like a surprise. We learn to manage the residual pain (physical or emotional) as best we can. We may find that some things work better than others... and we may find that some times we just don't have the bandwidth to manage the way we like (I'm currently trying to get finances in order for a relative with dementia that is triggering AF, so I'm trying on new tools to manage when my patience and bandwidth for empathy and compassion are not what I'd like. Sometimes it's successful, and sometimes it's not).

We suggest that, if they are "stuck" the only real possible reason for it is that they have failed or are failing to do (insert whatever recovery work/combination of receovery work here).

I agree with this. For me, one part is that telling someone in pain (physical or emotional) that they CHOOSE this doesn't strike me as very helpful in the MOMENT they are in pain. I think when in pain we humans tend to want comfort and validation. Hearing that I somehow choose to feel and experience pain is kind of the worst thing for someone with my particular wiring (ask any of my ICs - I arrived at the infidelity circus with REALLY good armor that required a ton of work to just allow myself to FEEL the pain without the shame for feeling it in the first place). I don't think I'm alone with those kind of pre-existing emotional walls (and it's also not the "only" kind of wiring or perspective)

Another part I find is that some folks seem to write about their experience or give advice in absolutes w/o qualifiers (eg you SHOULD, you NEED, WHY WOULD you, if YOU JUST kind of language vs this helped ME or perhaps trying X...). It just assumes that a certain perspective is the ONLY way to X or Y or heal. I suspect that while I try pretty hard to be cognizant of my own language, I'm likely guilty of similar language or absolutes. All I can do is try to be more aware.

Maybe I just liken a lot of this to the ideas of "new math" back in the day (my kids are grown so I don't know what's in vogue now). I remember so many parents having a ton of DEEP resistance to the idea that some brains don't grasp things when they simply memorize the multiplication tables (raising hand) or other math concepts. Some of us just see the numbers and "know" that 11-7 equal 4. Others have to round down, subtract, then add back (10-7=3, 3+1=4). Both paths lead us to an "answer", just as there are many paths that lead to varying levels of "healing".

You know, I don't think any BS claims to be free of A-related pain. I don't think any BS says anything more than 'life will get better' than it is when d-day is fresh. I know I've seen posts arguing that healing is impossible unless one Ds. I'd be interested in reading posts that suggest that all A pain can be released....

Recovery means that the infidelity is no longer the focus of daily life. Each partner has regained equilibrium and is able to perform normal activities and you can work together when you need to. Healing means that most of the time it hardly hurts at all.

Healing means that most of the time it hardly hurts at all.

We do ourselves a disservice if we expect more.

*****

I suspect that Glass would say, if she were asked and if she could answer, that one recovers and/or heals by facing the pain and processing it rather than by trying to suppress it.

For example, rumination in itself is not healing. Using ruminating as a catalyst to figure out what feelings are prompting the endless thoughts and feeling those feelings is. The anger, grief, fear, and shame that come with being betrayed need to processed, not stuffed somewhere in one's body. Welcoming the feelings is what makes them go away.

*****

I'm with hikingout: a comment to the effect that a poster has more work to do is usually a description, not a criticism.

Unfortunately, it's hard not to take that comment, and others like it, as a criticism if the comment is accurate.

IMO, one thing every BS has to do to heal is to take responsibility for themself. Once past the initial few months of reacting to d-day, the BS gets to and has to choose their path.

A BS who posts on SI about dissatisfaction with their healing has ipso facto stated that they have more work to do.

That work can take several forms. For example, one approach is to look inside, find barriers to what one wants, and take the barriers down. Another way is to decide, 'Nope. I may have more work to do, but I choose not to do it now.' (Those are just 2 of the paths one might follow.)

I think a good relationship is defined in part, by neither person having to sacrifice for the other.

I don't really think this is true. Some sacrifice is needed. There will always be competing desires or goals and it can't always be the same person sacrificing. I wasn't trying to be too over the top on my selfishness. I still don't mean to say I'm always going to pick myself. Even before the A, I still had a good amount of time to pursue my own hobbies and interests, but the default was to really to ask permission. Obviously we still have to coordinate as parents. I need to make sure if I am leaving the house the kids are taken care of.

Basically instead of, "Is it OK if I go to the gym for an hour?" I just say, "I'm headed to the gym for an hour". Instead of, "What would you like to do tonight?" I am much more likely to say, "Would you like to watch a show with me?" if I want to spend time together or "I'm going to play some games tonight" if I want to play video games.

I'm not really sure there is much of a functional change at all in terms of time use, maybe just an attitude change.

I don't really think this is true. Some sacrifice is needed. There will always be competing desires or goals and it can't always be the same person sacrificing. I wasn't trying to be too over the top on my selfishness. I still don't mean to say I'm always going to pick myself.

I grew up on sacrifices and compromises, so I understand what you’re saying. I’m just saying I give instead of give up something. Not merely semantics to me, but a different approach to my M.

It took time to approach it that way, but it was something I took from counseling. My IC and I agreed compromise was a dirty word. It sounds counter-intuitive in that we all have to compromise — unless we don’t.

In the old M, it was a competition instead of a collaboration. Previously, we had a series of lopsided compromises and bad trades, and those sacrifices built up resentments for me and for my wife along the way.

We learned to give, instead of take.

Or give instead of give up.

It’s more than a description, it’s a way I approach everything in the relationship. More strategic than tactical.

When my wife does the same for me, gives me the time or space instead sacrificing it - and in a strange way - I get to be selfish.

Instead of asking for permission, I do what I want when I want — my wife gives me the time. We haven’t run into any limits or competing interests yet — because the goal is now the same — rebuilding the relationship we always wanted. She does the same (although this took a while to get the balance back, where she felt comfortable being selfish in R).

So many more great insights and invested replies. I will continue to thank all of you for your sincere participation here.

I suspect there is such a demographic. It’s hard not to wonder though what they have considered to be doing the work?

This sort of speaks to the very question I'm probing here. The assumption again that, if there is significant long term pain, the work that has been done needs to be questioned. And I TOTALLY get that. I promise I'm not being adversarial AT ALL in my observation here. There's tremednous compassion behind questioning that, because, again, we know that without the work...and further, without the RIGHT work...there is ZERO chance of healing. But I also find this statement in a standalone way as evidence that it seems that we tend to automatically link the presence of deep/long term pain with a likelihood that the right work might not have been done. And that may very be absolutely true (maybe even likely?)...but this is what I continue to dig at. Does the presence of deep/long term pain necessarily mean that there has been a "problem" with the work? I'm still intuiting that the right and proper work can be done (back to the analogy...the physical therapy has been faithfully performed and followed etc.)...and there STILL be a deep and abiding pain. Which brings me to...

I had a knee injury several years ago, and while my dr tells me the knee is fully "healed" from the traumatic (or acute) injury (it's called "maximum medical improvement', or MMI), I will always have pain as a result. No amount of physical therapy or surgery or anything else will relieve that pain.

THIS^^ resonates like a diesel powered tuba to me. I've not heard this term before today. And I instantly now have a medical reference for a potential emotional equivalent. Emotional or psychological MMI. I guess that may be EXACTLY what I am probing here. That no amount of therapy or further work is going to relieve any more of the pain. I imagine in the medical sense that the MMI "ceiling" is different with every patient. That the amount of pain "left over" after processing the various treatments will vary. And that there might be a portion of those who have been treated whose "left over" pain is significant, again, despite doing the "work". There is a ceiling there. This seems significant to me.

That's not an assumption for me though. I lived it. I took control of my healing and I achieved it through my own proactive, hard work. And I don't believe I'm an aberration or some special case, so yeah... I think if I can do it, anyone can. I think it's a matter of figuring out what keeps us stuck.

I have counted on CT's patented bold compassion in this thread. And it is on display in this quote. Like a coach pressing to get the best out of a less than confident athlete. It's a beautiful thing. But it is (very very gently and respectfully) an absolute nonetheless that reveals the very thing we have been grappling with in this thread. The assertion that "anyone can" might, again, very well be absolutely true. But...if it isn't...doesn't that potentially become an almost unbearable burden to those who might not be able to? Man. In a massive ironic twist of trying to genuinely help and challenge people in a beautiful way, we end up potentially burying them with the idea that if anyone can do this but I am unable to then that absolutely HAS to mean that the "problem"....is....me? We might be unintentially adding to the already crushing weight they are carrying?

We never get to choose our trauma, but somewhere along the way, we decide to linger or move on.

Is lingering deep pain always necessarily related to a choice to "linger"?

A BS who posts on SI about dissatisfaction with their healing has ipso facto stated that they have more work to do.

I am interested in other responses from other posters in this thread to this statement. Would anyone else speak to it? It's super intriguing to me. Again...the stating of a necessary link between lasting/acute/ chronic pain...and the work.

Personally, I don't think it is a disatisfaction for me as much as it is simply an observation in myself (and numeorus others) that seem to have a high degree of post R chronic pain. And I understand that EVERY BS will have a degree of that. And I know gauging pain is a slippery thing, but I am more speaking of a degree of pain that is more acute than residual.

Goodness. I've posted a book again. Has anyone acutally ever beat a dead horse back to life?

Thank you all so much again,

WH

*Footnote. I understand my current struggle with this is related to a recent D-Day. So, much of this is perhaps more exploratory for me than personal. Yes. I am hurting now. And I am fully aware of why. But, the genesis for these questions came in the interim years prior to the 2nd D-Day. Further, I'm not even sure I am so much seeking "help" on a personal level in this thread (even though it is being so graciously offered...and is deeply appreciated)...but, just as much as I might be seeking personal help in this probe, I am also highly concerned for the numeerous "others" I have encountered both online and IRL (whatisloveanyway and gainingclosure right here in this thread and perhaps others too) that resonate with this experience of deep lasting pain depsite a remorseful spouse and doing the work. That tribe that I fear has gone unseen and perhaps unintentially further burdened with the notion that their chronic, lasting pain is somehow on them.

Is lingering deep pain always necessarily related to a choice to "linger"?

What you’re suggesting is that we have no agency. No free will. No ability to find our own path.

And I truly understand, because I lived that way for a long time.

Life sucks and then we die — that was my banner.

That banner represented my pain.

Then I saw that other people had recovered from trauma greater than mine. I saw people who recovered from things I didn’t think they should be able to recover from. I started to ask questions, I started counseling, I started to read or find examples, I wanted to learn my way out of my pain, if I could.

I had earned my misery.

We all have the absolute right to be as miserable as we want.

There is comfort in misery, at least it was consistent for me at the time. It was better than hope for me at the time.

For some people, it takes a lot longer to find the strength to get back up. But I do think it’s there when we really want it.

All of our injuries heal to some extent. We may have a limp, but we can still walk.

Our mental injuries are aided and hurt by our mental approach to them, but they heal. Even if we limp along.

Yes, at some point in our journey, I think at some point we can choose our pain or choose to move on from it.

way as evidence that it seems that we tend to automatically link the presence of deep/long term pain with a likelihood that the right work might not have been done. And that may very be absolutely true (maybe even likely?)...but this is what I continue to dig at. Does the presence of deep/long term pain necessarily mean that there has been a "problem" with the work?

No it does not indicate a problem with previous work. In my analogy I picked my husbands back problem that was fixed and then that solution caused him a problem in his hip. The hip required something different than surgery to address.

I would say moreso the work might have been actually very good. I would say the possibility exists that it is instead just incomplete.

In my own situation, I have conquered all sorts of things. But those things being in a better place illuminates other work that I want to do in order to have the quality of relationship with myself and others that I desire.

As I said some bs’s require EMDD therapy, some need some better illumination on their thought process and coping that could be improved. Some do need a divorce because they can’t live in the cognitive dissonance of staying and they just aren’t built to be able to. That isn’t indicative of a problem with the bs, but the bs advocating for themselves until they find how they can find more
Power over the situation.

The whole point is growth is a lifetime endeavor. That growth can help. Anyone adverse to seeing what else can be done to improve the pain they are in probably has told themselves a narrative that in essence would seem to a therapist that you need to stregthen your relationship with yourself.

You compare this to physical
Pain but I have watch my husbands resilience in seeking relief with his back and hips. He could have given up too soon and probably would not be out hiking with me like he wants to be. I am
AgainThinking the comparison you make with physical pain is different because we think of addressing it without shame or complicated feelings like we have when we are mentally hurting.

What would you tell those who you served as a pastor for? No reason to keep trying? I think we advocate for others much easier than ourselves.

What you’re suggesting is that we have no agency. No free will. No ability to find our own path.

VERY respectfully, I don't think I'm suggesting that at all. What I'm suggesting is actually far worse. That even engaging the fullness of our agency/free will, that we can still face long term abiding, more-acute-than-not...pain. That there just might be, possibly for some at the very least, pain(s) that we cannot choose our way out of. gmc94's knee. That pain just IS. It's there. She can't choose her way out of it. Agency is largely unrelated to it. Yes, that is a physical pain example. Is it not possible that the same could be true of emotional/psychological pain? Are we saying it's literally not possible in the emotional realm? I appreciate your limping metaphor. I don't think it's a crazy stretch to think that that victorious limp may be...pain filled?

[This message edited by Wounded Healer at 11:41 PM, Tuesday, March 1st]