Wow, Joe, I could have written so much of what you said in your last post. I am almost at 4 years of my H returning, and I still have some of these thoughts and feelings at times. Just last week I saw XOW, and while I didn't have an emotional trigger, I definitely thought to myself, "first off, wow she is heinous. Second, yeah, that really happened. My H had an A with that miserable psycho and broke apart our life. And here we are after all these years and I still don't have those in love feelings. It will never be the same as the first 10 years when I adored him. What am I doing?"
Sometimes I think it's better for me not to post here because I don't want to ruin anyone's hope or optimism if their S does return. The thing is tho, that your feelings about her and what she did won't simply go away over time. It is in a sense a choice to forgive them and/or love them again. Admittedly I still struggle with that at times. Sometimes I wonder if the damage was just too much to recover. My sitch was def on the extreme end. My point is, you can choose to love again and you can choose to work through things. The original issues in the M, must also be looked at and addressed. It's really hard.
I also have those feelings of "bleh." This is my life now. .... I got the guy! Winning! .... but I'm not winning at all. I second guess myself and my choices all the time. There are a couple things that keep me going and I want to share that with you. These are the things that I remind myself when I want to give up:
I have heard, read, and do believe that Ms that overcome hardships are ultimately a stronger bond. Experts write about the stages of relationships and they must go through difficulties to get to the last stage. It seems that if we can make it that far, then there can be a renewed commitment and bond. I think a lot of people give up before they make it there. Then, perhaps we will also give up even more easily with the next person?
Just as the M can be stronger after working at it, I think the same can be true of the self. This BD/DB/Piecing business really does strip us of armor or security in life. We are forced to look within ourselves, lick our wounds, and really become a better person. I always say the silver lining in this mess is the self growth that happens when we GAL, 180, and do the genuine hard work.
I think loyalty builds integrity and character. We all have family issues - with our parents, siblings or who ever - but we stick it out and make it work because they are family. I think of an H or W as family in the same way. Maybe more so because we chose them! If there are any children involved, all the more reason to demonstrate commitment to family.
I do think there are plenty of fish in the sea. My BFF is dating and we always scroll through match.com together and get in these convos about the guys and the messages they send. She has dated a few, but nothing serious. They are all human and they all come with some baggage. Just as our Hs and Ws do. So ultimately every R we choose to be in will require some type of compromise or work. Humans are all flawed, and I know my Hs flaws! They could be much, much worse. They also could be better....
Lastly, I ask myself, do I like who he is today? Sure he F'd up royaly in the past. And we all know it! But on a day to day basis, is he a good man, H and father? Because who he is today is the man I am with now and the man I am moving forward with in the future.
All baggage and history aside, is your XW today a person you would want to date or potentially marry? I think your answer might be in there, because you CAN recover from the pain of the baggage and history, but you have to want what is in front of you now.
Blu
“Forgiveness liberates the soul. It removes fear. That is why it is such a powerful weapon.” – Nelson Mandela
Wow, Joe, I could have written so much of what you said in your last post. I am almost at 4 years of my H returning, and I still have some of these thoughts and feelings at times. Just last week I saw XOW, and while I didn't have an emotional trigger, I definitely thought to myself, "first off, wow she is heinous. Second, yeah, that really happened. My H had an A with that miserable psycho and broke apart our life. And here we are after all these years and I still don't have those in love feelings. It will never be the same as the first 10 years when I adored him. What am I doing?"
Sometimes I think it's better for me not to post here because I don't want to ruin anyone's hope or optimism if their S does return. The thing is tho, that your feelings about her and what she did won't simply go away over time. It is in a sense a choice to forgive them and/or love them again. Admittedly I still struggle with that at times. Sometimes I wonder if the damage was just too much to recover. My sitch was def on the extreme end. My point is, you can choose to love again and you can choose to work through things. The original issues in the M, must also be looked at and addressed. It's really hard.
I also have those feelings of "bleh." This is my life now. .... I got the guy! Winning! .... but I'm not winning at all. I second guess myself and my choices all the time. There are a couple things that keep me going and I want to share that with you. These are the things that I remind myself when I want to give up:
I have heard, read, and do believe that Ms that overcome hardships are ultimately a stronger bond. Experts write about the stages of relationships and they must go through difficulties to get to the last stage. It seems that if we can make it that far, then there can be a renewed commitment and bond. I think a lot of people give up before they make it there. Then, perhaps we will also give up even more easily with the next person?
Just as the M can be stronger after working at it, I think the same can be true of the self. This BD/DB/Piecing business really does strip us of armor or security in life. We are forced to look within ourselves, lick our wounds, and really become a better person. I always say the silver lining in this mess is the self growth that happens when we GAL, 180, and do the genuine hard work.
I think loyalty builds integrity and character. We all have family issues - with our parents, siblings or who ever - but we stick it out and make it work because they are family. I think of an H or W as family in the same way. Maybe more so because we chose them! If there are any children involved, all the more reason to demonstrate commitment to family.
I do think there are plenty of fish in the sea. My BFF is dating and we always scroll through match.com together and get in these convos about the guys and the messages they send. She has dated a few, but nothing serious. They are all human and they all come with some baggage. Just as our Hs and Ws do. So ultimately every R we choose to be in will require some type of compromise or work. Humans are all flawed, and I know my Hs flaws! They could be much, much worse. They also could be better....
Lastly, I ask myself, do I like who he is today? Sure he F'd up royaly in the past. And we all know it! But on a day to day basis, is he a good man, H and father? Because who he is today is the man I am with now and the man I am moving forward with in the future.
All baggage and history aside, is your XW today a person you would want to date or potentially marry? I think your answer might be in there, because you CAN recover from the pain of the baggage and history, but you have to want what is in front of you now.
Blu
What a great post. thank you for your insight . Now is there a certain time and damage caused that makes it harder i wonder? Like if its only a few months and no A i wonder if its much easier to not think about down the road if you get back together.
I'm right there with you partner!!!!! You DB like a champ then you get into recon and all that confidence and certainly start to feel like it just vanish.
You start questioning yourself and decisions you have made. Was allowing her back in the right choice? You start telling yourself, I have a lot of attention from all kind of women/people, why would I want to be with a person that betrayed me. You start too cycle and have mounting amounts of intrusive thoughts. Thoughts that take you low as sh!t.
Then you become a person that tries to show your W how you feel, you want them to feel what you felt. You are consumed with trying to believe them and at the same time have some type of revenge, so they can know exactly what it feels like to hurt that bad.
You look at your W and and say to yourself, ewwwwwwww. What am I doing with this woman!!!! She disgust me, and five mins later you say I love her. Then that cycle continues all day, and you ask yourself, "what's wrong with me". I was so certain I wanted her back. The flooding of emotions are real and powerful.
This is what I have learned. People feelings change all the time, many different times a day. Your ExWNewGF feelings are that she loves you. Most likely true. Can those feelings change, yes. And that's what scares us. Changing feelings. That's why DB is so important it allows you too realize that nothing is certain and guaranteed. Knowing that nothing is certain helps us check our azimuth every so often too ensure what are still going down the right path. Before DB we allow unhealthy attachment to become our way of life. Now you know there's a way to attach in a healthy way, knowing that life holds no guarantee cards. Your W as well as yourself will always have changing feelings and knowing that now, allows you to correct course and understand that doesn't mean you can't make things right if the ship goes off course every now and again.
Your W has seen you strong and going thru this process she will see you in a weak vulnerable state too. She will see you pick yourself up. You will tell yourself, why I keep asking her these questions, I'm blowing it. I'm weak as hell. I thought I could just get over it and move on. But you won't just move on, because you will have to know. Until you realize, you already know and don't need to know. Crazy, I know.(That whole paragraph is a cycle). Allow yourself, to be angry, sad, mad, hurt, happy, joyful, playful, horny, disgusted and loving.
All those thoughts and feelings will subside and you will learn how to move thru them, and work them out.
I find myself cycling as well. We are over a year and a half at recon, BLU is years ahead of us, and we both still have the same thoughts, but mines come less and less. I think about so many other things now. Making money, going on trips, food, eating healthy. My days aren't consumed with the cycling no more.
Blu post is awesome! You can read hers over and over.
Remember there's only one direction that helps with healing and that's forward, going backwards always is hurtful and stunts healing.
Keep going!!!
Onward and upward
M:37 W:37 T:11 M:10 S17, S13, S10, S4 BD:06/28/17 OM confirmed 07/20/17 Recon the M 10/29/17 Working hard:2gether
Onward and forward
This process is not a sprint it's a marathon! Patience, Patience, Patience.
Sandi, how did you know that you truly loved your H after your EA?
I never stopped completely loving him. It sounds simple enough to say you either love someone, or you don't. If you "truly" love them then you won't cheat, etc., etc. I was like every other WW, I no longer felt in love. I wasn't attracted to him and did not desire him sexually. The years of resentment had eaten away at me, and when OM came along.....I felt alive, desirable, and I wanted to believe he could make me happy. It's embarrassing when I look back and remember how confused and lost I became. Anyway, when I made the decision to end my A, I had to figure out how to get rid of the fantasy, b/c that was my stumbling block. I was not in love with OM.....I was addicted to the thrill of the EA.
Being raised in church, I knew the importance of feeling remorse, so I had prayed that God would help me feel what was necessary to get to that place. One of the realizations I finally had was if my H could forgive me for everything attached to my wayward actions.....then who was I to hold on to the past and not forgive him? I had to let go of all the resentment from the past. The minute I did...... Wham! God answered my prayer......and I thought I might die from the remorse. I sincerely apologized to my H that night. I knew there was a lot we had to work through, but I also knew I still loved my H. Once I felt remorse and humility, a lot of the tenderness in loving feelings were restored.
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I don't mean this to sound harsh, but I don't believe that people who fully love their spouses willfully cheat on them to the degree that my XW did. So, my question is not so simple... but it is important. Fully loving someone is a choice. She says she chooses to fully love me, NOW. I find it so hard to believe that she is in love with me again, after treating me so badly in the past.
It's not that simple to explain, either.....and I can't answer for your XW. The WW I became was not the person my H had M. It would take way too long to give the story. I was terribly lonely in my M, and I couldn't bear one more night of TV, so I started playing an online game. I played for months, just to pass the time. One night, this man was my playing partner, and he was so funny he'd have me rolling in stitches. I had not laughed that hard in a long time. Anyway, I begin to look forward to playing the game, but it was really his company and how he made me feel. That was the beginning of my downfall. Did I go into it thinking I would have an EA? No! If the guy had started talking with the sexual stuff, I would have blocked him. I wasn't living like a GGW. I had not started online gaming b/c I was searching for a f---buddy. But what started and what ended was quite different. In fact, this game partner was not the OM I ended up with, but it was the one where I experienced the thrill, and did not want to lose it. For me, it was like pushing the envelope a little bit each time to get that feeling of "high". I knew it was wrong, but that's where the anger/resentment push the rebelliousness into full blown wayward activity. It was the beginning to more.....and then more.
I can't give you the answer you need, Joe. That was my sitch, not your W's. My poor H nearly had a heart attack when he discovered some of my online activity.....b/c that was not the woman he knew. Anyway, I finally made the choice to do the right thing and end my A, although my emotions were screaming otherwise. I made the choice to show respect for my H, although I did not "feel" it for a while. I didn't feel anything for a while, except misery.
I think on one hand you are saying love is a choice/decision......but I think you want your XW to "feel" in love with you. I'm not finding fault with it. You have every right to doubt her. Unlike your XW, I was not happy. It took me nearly two years before I finally had my come to Jesus moment....and that was after I made the decision to end my A! So, I had to do a lot of things out of choice, rather than "feelings". However, the feelings finally caught up with my choices/action.
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But I am not there in that happy place! I am struggling every day, and she is content with me and our situation the way it is now because she has me back in her life. She tells me that she is happy because she feels like she's getting back the life she threw away.
I'm just guessing here, but maybe this is where some of the trouble lies. Your XW wanted her former life back. She believes she has you back again, thus has her former life back. Has she had to do any work, other than pursue you? IMHO, you should not continue going along with her when you aren't happy. It's one thing when the couple is still married, but quite another once they've been divorced. Who says you have to give it another chance? Yes, I think you sound a little like a WAH, but the big difference being that you aren't her husband any longer, and should not feel duty bound. She just thinks she has you back....and her former life will be back as well. So, get the two of you into therapy, now, or get out of the situation. Don't keep on going along with her when you continue to struggle with these issues.
It is not about what you feel should work in your M. It is about doing the work that gets the right results. Do what works!
bubbs, that is something we don't discuss very often here, and I think that is because despite how diffcult our sitches are, we should in theory react the same way -- follow the rules, 180, GAL, and detach. I think it is fair to say that some of our sitches are much more difficult than others. If my H and I had a brief separation and there was no A, I cannot imagine it would be like it was. He not only had an A, but it was with someone I thought was a close friend and he left me for her for 10 months. We had a circle of friends and the humiliation was just as painful as the double betrayal. We have 3 Ds, my father died during this time and my oldest D had just been diagnosed bipolar. I had to send her to wilderness/therapeutic boarding school a few months after he left. So yeah, pretty darn extreme. I think that is why it has taken me this long and why I still doubt myself. (sorry for the hijack).
joejoe, as usual buddy, I can so relate to what you say! And thank you for the vote of support! It sounds like the 3 of us have had similar up and down feelings. I'm so grateful for these boards! Joe2017, I hope you are reading that you are not alone in this. None of us are saying that it's hopeless and you should give up, but we are all agreeing that this is SOOOOOO hard. There is that saying, "what doesn't kill us, will make us stronger." If that is true, we are flippen warriors!
Sandi, your words really helped me today. I know this isn't my thread, but I can relate to both the joes here, and you help me understand what my H could have possibly been thinking/dealing with too. Our sitch was different, but he has told me some of the same things. He says he never stopped loving me. But OW made him feel alive and appreciated. She was an escape from our difficult family life and M. He says now he wishes he could take it all back and that in a way, their R together wasn't real. You describe things much better than my H is able to. Thank you for that.
Blu
“Forgiveness liberates the soul. It removes fear. That is why it is such a powerful weapon.” – Nelson Mandela
I uncovered two texts to exes that XW sent, and did not tell me about. In one of them she broke things off with one of her exes. In the other she flirted with the other guy. She was confronted, and she blocked both of them.
I found out more things that she was hiding from me. An addiction. Apparently, an addiction she hid for a very very long time. I tried very hard to be her accountability. She decided to continue to use, and I was not willing to have this around my S.
I decided that I would never get full truth from her. She will always hide serious things like this from me.
I had to end it. I am feeling so guilty. I feel like such a failure. I feel like I let her down. I feel like I let her S down too.
But this is for the best. I have to protect myself and my son.
It was just too much for me. I wasn't strong enough. I'm crushed.
Last edited by Joe2017; 02/06/1906:30 AM.
Save yourself. Nobody is coming! BD:11/2017 Filed:12/2017 Final: 2/2018
Joe, I agree with DV and Yail, what you did took a tremendous amount of strength. If she's lying and has an active addiction going on that she didn't disclose to you, then those are absolutely grounds for ending things. You've been down this road with her before and you need to have a zero tolerance policy for that sort of thing. This is all about HER failures, not yours.
J - You were strong enough. You were strong enough to make the best decision for you and your S. That takes way more strength than being in a R that you know is not for you.
