SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

The flat line is getting flatter...

I just cant seem to shake certain things off. I feel like no matter how much I try, things just are not going to be as good or as exciting for my WW as the time of her affair.

We can go a few days where the affair isn't mentioned, but then it seems to creep back in.

The thing that seems to be holding me back at the moment and playing on my mind is the fact that i can not compete. My WW wont even admit that he made her happy. She keeps saying to me that I know how she felt. That they had fun, they had a laugh she looked forward to seeing him every night.

But lately when I ask if she is happy she says that

"I am happy with us. I'm just not happy with the way we are at times"

Then says

"I am saying I'm not happy with what we have. The things that have gone wrong. Not that I'm unhappy with u"

I don't know how to take what she is saying. Im not happy with how things turned out either but i had no choice. I had no say in this.

My wife keeps saying she made a mistake. Her mistake. She keeps saying that she was stupid. Everything I ask she hides behind she was stupid.

When I ask questions, she will say through I know how she felt. That they had fun, had a laugh Yada, yada.....

But i read all the time how people that had affairs hate what they did, hate the AP and hate the hurt they caused. My WW says the exact same thing. But how can she mean them things and say that i know how she felts?

Its like she is holding on to the feelings that she felt. That she is seeing them as a positive but at the same time using them as a negative.

Why isn't she seeing that she didn't have fun. the fun a laughs she was having were at me expensive along with her kids.

Why cant she let go and see this for what it was. Wrong

Not so gently, you won't get off the POLF as long as you focus on trying to figure your W out. The key to getting off the POLF is figuring YOURSELF out.

Your WS won't come clean. She won't take full responsibility for her cheating.

How do YOU feel about that? What do YOU want to do, given that your W isn't what we call 'remorseful' or 'contrite'? What do YOU have to do to get YOURSELF unstuck?

*****

Look for a recent post by Bigger. Check out his tagline.

I'm not saying you should D or R. I'm saying that the power to cure your unhappiness is within you. It'll take some hard work, and you'll have to make some difficult decisions with no guarantee of success, but in looking for answers in your WS, I believe you're looking in the wrong place.

Look inside. That's where your power lies.

(((p12241342))) I'm very sorry it is like this. I believe it is why most M's do not make it to a healthy place after an A. I know that I couldn't let go of the A. I knew my xWS not only enjoyed it but he kept breaking NC and put me through False R. By the time he got to a point where "he wanted to work on the M" I had already left. It was too late for me. The damage had been done and I couldn't get over it or move past it. Working on yourself is essential it may not change your WW's point of view but it may change yours. You may not want to be with someone who still looks back at the A fondly.

[This message edited by crazyblindsided at 10:53 PM, Wednesday, October 19th]

Well, "mistake" is basically minimizing. I didn't use to be so hardcore, but I was completely convinced in a thread I started about the "war on the word mistake". It was only a mistake in the broadest sense of the word. Like "Fighting a land war in Russia is a mistake". The problem is that mistake is inclusive of much smaller errors in judgement and decision making. So by gently shaving a little potential responsibility, even just semantically, isn't really tolerable.

She made a series of hurtful, selfish decisions.

As for "stupid", I think "the fog" and other such descriptions are accurate. They are only problematic to the extent they are used as an external blameshift rather than a recognition that they allowed their emotional state to overwhelm their ethics. Upon reflection, it would not be so much I don't undertand why I did that", "I was confused", "it was like I was in a fog", "I was stupid", instead it should be something closer to "I was unbelievably selfish and shouldn't have allowed myself to do that".

Then there is this nugget: "The things that have gone wrong". I almost want to use this as a go-to example of non-accountability.

The things <- inanimate and emotionless

That have <- spontaneous action without will or forethought

gone wrong <- lack specificity

The key here, as I read what you have written is that your WW is still failing to be truly accountable for her actions.

The key here, as I read what you have written is that your WW is still failing to be truly accountable for her actions.

Agreed. I think a lot of WSes confuse remorse with regret. They also think they can fake remorse. Most BSes "fall" for it initially because of they want to believe reconciliation is possible and they also want to believe the best of their spouses. They also don’t understand the damage extent, I remember thinking on dday "ok so he said he was sorry, he told me what happened, we’ll get through this" only to realise that this isn’t something easily fixable about a week later by which point I just wanted to die. 😞 BSes "fall" for minimal remorse signs (which are actually just regret for being caught) until they keep processing and they realise it is not enough.

I remember my lightbulb moment when my WH shouted "I wish you never found that text" (I intercepted a text between ow and him and that’s how I found out) in one of our conversations. It took me around 5 min to realise why that statement bothered me and then I realised: he didn’t shout "I wish I didn’t have an affair/I wish I didn’t meet ow". No, what he wished for was me not having found that text so he could continue fantasy life.

One thing that used to make my blood boil when my WH claimed to be remorseful (but he was mainly regretting being caught) was how easily he could fall asleep. Here I was literally a wreck, often crying, having lost waaay too much weight, experiencing nightmares and not being able to sleep and he was sleeping like a baby.

The amount of times it would end up in an argument and he’d shout "what do you want me to do? I’m sorry for what happened, I can say that again and again, it was a mistake, I don’t know how many times I can say it"… I felt bad for "creating" these arguments but at the same time it felt like it was not enough. Something was missing.

And yet once he found remorse the situation changed. We actually had talks as late as I needed and he would have problems sleeping himself. I remember there were moments when he was so stuck to me to ensure he felt if I was waking up so he could wake up with me, that I felt suffocated.

We recently had a disagreement. I can’t even remember what it was but I remember sleeping really badly that night and I kept feeling him tossing and turning as well. The next day we both acknowledged that our disagreement gave us both a bad night sleep, it made me immediately remember the days when, whilst claiming he cared about my pain, he slept like a baby, what a difference.

This is just one example of the difference between remorse and regret. You shouldn’t have to guide your WS to tell you she has no fond memories of her affair. You should SEE IT in her behaviour and hear it during your conversations without prompting, she should feel disgusted by it and that isn’t something she would hide, she should want to tell you that.

Very rarely WSes are truly remorseful on dday. It takes them a while to realise the magnitude of their action.

I would say however that a WS that isn’t experiencing true remorse a year and a half later is unlikely to ever do so.

[This message edited by Luna10 at 10:53 PM, Wednesday, October 19th]

P122,

I went back and read some of your older postings. From reading them I feel….

Your WW is still lying, omitting or minimizing to you about the affair.

She should write out a timeline with details and then take a polygraph? There is more to this story.

I think for your sanity and your right to make an informed decision this needs to happen.

It’s inappropriate that your WW is still in contact with the OMW even if she is the ex of OM.

The fact that the OMW would still be friends with your WW suggests there is more to this story, perhaps the OM OMW and WW were in threesome, one that went bad when OM fell in love with WW.

IF you still living with the OM and OMW or his kids close by or near enough to make you uneasy this can keep you triggered indefinitely. You may need To move or convince them to move.

There is nothing unusual with how you are feeling at 16 months. Rule of thumb is 24-60 months.

You do need to work on yourself. Those who survive this learn that they will survive with or without their spouse. Right now you are dependent on her.

Why cant she let go and see this for what it was. Wrong

I think she does see it as wrong and does hate what she did. I think she is owning up to why the affair happened and continued to be more than a ONS.

She is admitting she enjoyed the attention at the time of the affair.

However after the affair she regrets all of it.

In her honesty now, she is saying she is happy with you and your marriage. But she’s not happy that you are suffering and she knows that is her fault. That is the part that she wishes she didn’t have to witness.

She probably is trying to minimize the damage b/c it is just too painful to admit to you that the affair was exciting because it was new. Challenging. Infatuating. Whatever.

If you know the answers to the questions you are asking and you see your wife trying to get past it and work towards a better marriage, why do you need her to admit things?

In my R I had to accept things my H said. And I had to accept the things I read that he write to the OW. Did he love her? He wrote to her that he did. He was going to D me to be with the OW. But if you ask him now he will say "I didn’t love her".

Because he only thought it was love. When in fact it was just infatuation. When he ended it, he was tired of her. He had enough. He was hoping I didn’t find out and he planned to take it to his grave. But I did find out and he had to face it.

You can choose to remain in this warp and be miserable.

Or you can choose to accept what you know is the truth (despite what your wife says) and move on. I am hoping the acceptance will put you in a place where you heal yourself and choose to live a happier life. Don’t waste years frustrating yourself.

Because that is another way the affair wins.

And if you cannot accept the facts as you know them, then maybe R is not for you.

My .02 is that a series of decisions made contrary to what is known to be wrong points to a lack integrity, but is no way a mistake. It was a conscience decision, several of them actually.

You will never feel better by engaging in this manner with your wife.

It is clear to me she is avoiding digging into her why. I think IC should be a requirement. She keeps dropping the M word and I think you need to diplomatically tell her that a mistake is not accurate. It makes it hard to trust her when she can't even be honest with herself.

Look man. You are smack dab in the middle of the forest, but you need to detach enough to see all of the forest not just the fee trees in the middle of it.

Most of your problems are because you can't believe her words and likely some of her actions. It is her job to rebuild trust and find a better reason.

If she isn't digging into why then that is why your gut is screaming at you. She can't be honest with herself. She still protecting her own self image and is afraid to be accountable for finding answers that will let you move on.

I think in IC you need to work on your own independence or your co-dependent thinking.

Your safety is dependent on you not your wife. You need to entertain the possibility that your W does not wish to do any real digging and thus where you currently are may be inplace for years.

Focus on you. Detach and create some distance with your wife. She takes for granted that you want to work things out and it prevents her from doing her heavy lifting.

You say she is doing everything she can, but my experience (and likely your gut) tells you tgat is simply not true.

Detach, work on yourself. She may wake up and begin the real work of finding her real why. Until she figures out what she was trying to accomplish versus generic character flaws that we all have. Every human being can be stupid and selfish, but not all of us have an A.

You can't trust her not because there are more details, but because the why question answer she gives isn't deep enough to be accurate.

Her threats to leave are manipulation and only meant to blunt your questions. If you suggested that you wanted to leave I think her true colors will come out.

Your W clearly has abandonment issues and is deathly afraid you are going to drop her without warning. I would make you agreeing to stay with her linked directly to an honest effort in IC to dig in her real why.

Sorry, but most WS don't do the real work until they hit rock bottom. She has not gotten their yet because you both are looking at the M. The M did not cause the A. Your wife did. She has a lot of work to do and likely won't see as a requirement for real R until you detach and work on things within you. What parts of the A make your heart hurt?

Tou both need space to work on yourselves. A new M can happen later, but you can't build the old M back. Too many of the parts of that M are broken beyond repair.

I am not saying yor relationship is over or doomed, but the current way you both are approaching isn't offering results and it is time to try a different approach.

I woild make it clear you need time and space to work on yourself and if she really wants to R then she should do the same.

Sure she might let her fear of facing herself get in the way, but at least you know she doesn't feel the need to fix anything. At that point D and a life with her in it as little as possible is your only chance for safety.

What is familiar isn't always safe and what is safe isn't always familiar.

[This message edited by numb&dumb at 2:25 PM, Thursday, October 20th]