I had a few hard moments yesterday. Someone left a comment in my previous entry, with a link to a website. The website is about marriage, and has a message board filled with people in my exact position. Reading the stories of others was truly heartbreaking. And it made me feel bad about my own situation.
I think I've reached a point where I no longer care to analyze (and over analyze) what's happened. There just isn't much more that I can think about. It is what it is. I can speculate for hours and hours as to what my wife's motivation was, or what she was thinking. But what's the point? It's over with.
The only thing I'm left with now is the horrible mental image of what she did. That won't go away. And while I have honestly forgiven her, it's going to take a long time for the pain to subside.
So anyway, my wife told me that her best friend - the one who knew about everything before, during and after it happened, is planning a party in a few weeks. Of course we're invited. But I don't know if I want to go. I feel bad about it. But I feel some resentment towards her - like she could have done something to prevent what happened. And by "soing something" I mean she could have pressured my wife to talk to me about all the issues she was having. Had this taken place, none of the bad stuff would ever have occurred. So irrational or not, that's what I'm feeling. And I don't know if I can handle spending an evening around her, when I know how uncomfortable I'm going to feel. On top of my slight resentment, I also feel humiliated. She knows what my wife did. And that makes me feel like a total schmuck. I have a feeling if I tell my wife this, she's going to be irritated with me. She may even feel like I'm refusing to go to the party, simply as some sort of "punishment" to her. But it's not. I mean, how would my lack of attendance hurt her anyway? She can still go by herself.
I don't know. We'll see what the next several weeks yields. Maybe I'll come around.
9 comments:
Oh no! It was not my intention to bring you down...rather to help you see that all is not lost. You have a wife who is remorseful, that is a huge plus. What you are feeling is normal, you will need time to process all of this...alot of time! Please don't feel discouraged....
One of the most interesting things about MB is the time taken to look at emotional needs, both your own and your wife's. There is a questionaire on the site. Why not sit down and take a look when you feel up to it? Understanding our spouses most important ENs (as they are called) helps us to build a strong, healthy relationship.
I know you feel completely blindsided but some of this has to do with a complacency on your part. Paying attention to what is important on an emotional level for our spouses guards against complacency.
I was a betrayed spouse myself, I understand how difficult this all is. Her choice to do what she did was her choice...you are not responsible for that! You are however responsible for your own part in the marriage, past and present. Marriage Builders offers the tools to fix what is seemingly unretrievably broken. You LOVE your wife and she has dissapointed you, she screwed up BIGTIME and she KNOWS it. It's hard for both of you, she hopes it will all go away and you know that it won't. Well guess what???
It may seem hard to believe but you can be happy together again, you can rebuild after this fiasco. We did :) My H had a two year affair that was romantic, it has been 8 years or so ago and we are very much a couple. I hate to say it but without the wakeup call I doubt we would have been this close. It was the hardest work I have ever done but worth every agonising second. I truly do have a Happy Marriage unsullied by the past. You can do, please understand the way you feel now will not last forever. Take care of yourself, eat! sleep! if you feel you need Antideppresents then get on them for the time being. DO WHAT YOU NEED TO DO TO TAKE CARE OF YOU. You WILL be all right...you CAN get through this and be the better man for it.
Sorry for the lecture but I feel awful that you felt awful reading other people's stories on my tip...maybe on a second reading you can look at the site itself...find out about the Emotional Needs, read about how affairs start, how to affair proof your marriage. Read, read, read the articles and if the forums bring you down don't read those. You don't have the ability to find the success stories yet anyway. They are there and YOU can be one of them. Best, Karen
Karen, you didn't bring me down. What got me down was reading (and relating to) some of the stories from other people. It's certainly not your fault. I chose to read them.
I made a post on that board today. I also printed up that questionnaire - which will hopefully be taken tonight.
I will say this, in the brief discussions I've had on that board, it seems like there's a lot of doom and gloom predictions. I don't have that with my marriage. We've also never fallen out of love with each other. We love each other very much.
Our marriage is much stronger now than it was a few months ago. I feel really good about our marriage. Things are slowly getting better.
Feel free to comment anytime. I appreciate your input. I really do.
Thanks for commenting, I was feeling bad. Check out this thread, all success stories or links to them :)
http://tinyurl.com/24og5m
One thing to remember is that most of the newer posters are going thru so much, (just like you) so doom and gloom is par for the course. It's OKAY to be mad and sad, really. Just don't get stuck there!
There are also posters who have been around for a while and have understanding of the different phases of recovery. I haven't posted in years and have no idea even where my old threads are otherwise I'd link you up to mine.
There are a lot of reasons to be optomistic in your case..believe me after all these years I can spot those types of situations pretty quickly as well as the ones who most likely won't make it. I just don't want you to despair...and you are NOT in the latter category!!!!!! Hang in there. (((( MWH))))
THANK YOU!
Your E-mail made my day. And I'llbe sure to check out those success stories.
If you get a chance, drop me an E-mail. You can find the address in my profile here - BOBIHTB@GMAIL.COM.
MWH - I found your blog from the link on your post on MB. You are only a short way into this rollercoaster, but if you are really serious about saving your marriage, it can be done. It is not easy and it may take some time, but it is possible to recover.
Like Karen, I found the MB principles to be very helpful, even though we didn't follow them to the letter. I have also stopped posting there, although I do lurk now and again, hence my finding your posts and blog link. Try not to dwell on the negative stories. I tend search out the positive ones. You also need to be aware that not all waywards come out of the fog as quickly as others, so don't get discouraged if your W is not acting with the remorse you would wish. My H needed plenty of guidance in how to help me - he simply didn't have a clue - and I was getting more and more discouraged when I read what other WSs were doing to repair what they had done.
I could give you the link to my threads, but it's probably easier for you to read my blog, where I have now added you to my links.
Take care.
MWH:
Sorry your experience at MB didn't go well.
I can see from your blog that you are very well spoken, and are not afaid to lay it all out there.
Unforunately, you did get some of the doom and gloom folks to answer you initial posts, and then they felt they had to hammer you with it.
So the question is, Will your W cheat again?
I don't think so.
It seems that her reactions to you, and your actions to her, may prevent that. Trust, but verify.
But there IS alot of support at MB. And I recommend that you return. I also recommend that you learn about the Emotional Needs as detailed by Dr. Harley, and you might find out where things went wrong in your Marriage.
When you posted about your Wife stating that you could "dress better", I knew EXACTLY where that was coming from.
It's considered the "Attractive Spouse" Emotional Need. The other man in your case may have dressed nice, and could have looked like death warmed over. But somehow, he appealed to your wife.
And that's why you have this blog now.
This tryst of your W's may be the best thing that ever happened to your marriage, or the worst thing. Worst would be if you ended up divorced, without a home, no kids and paying CS and alimony.
Best would be: Learning about the emotional needs and applying them through your marriage and your life and improving the quality of your Marriage immensely.
MWH, you can come back to MB anytime. There is terrific info available to you and your wife. It WILL make a difference in your M.
My screen name is the same here as there. (small L and G not Capitalized, they have the world's WORST search function!) If WE can make it, so can you.
You are doing well so far on this roller coaster.
LG
Lousy Golfer, thank you for your comment. Like Karen's yesterday, it brightened my day, and quite literally put me in a positive mood.
I will be visiting that board. Maybe I'll post sometimes. Maybe I'll just lurk. I made a new topic today actually.
Just Surviving, for the record, my wife has shown plenty of remorse. I know she feels bad about not only what happened, but for the pain she's caused me as well. If I gave the impression otherwise, I'm sorry. Thanks for your comment as well. I'll be sure to check out your blog.
MWH - no I hadn't really detected in your posts that your W hadn't shown remorse. It's just that, sometimes, we can question our WS's actions based on what we read on MB that other WSs are doing or not doing. Perhaps my statement wasn't worded correctly, but I didn't want you to get the idea from MB that all WSs must react in the same way.
In fact, as lousygolfer says, some of the regular members are not at all happy if people don't follow the MB plan to the letter. It does work, that you can see from the success stories there, but sometimes I think they try to hammer it home far too strongly for my liking. All cases are not equal, and although I didn't follow it exactly, we are recovering well. The bits I took from the MB plan worked, and I just had to improvise to get the other things needed for our recovery to happen. I could tell that my H was coming out of 'the fog', but if I'd posted anything on MB at that stage, they would have said it was not happening. I think you know whether someone is lying or not, whereas someone on a forum is quoting generalisations based, in some cases, on their own situations.
On the other hand, my H was telling me things early on, and I only later discovered that they were lies, so you do have to keep your wits about you. I wouldn't advise blind trust. Looking back, I wish I had found MB earlier, and then our recovery plan could have been more successful, maybe.
By the way, I'm DH59 on MB.
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