Cheaters Anonymous Community Group
This is a support group for cheating spouses looking for understanding and strength. Betrayed spouses are welcome to post ONLY if they can do so in a supportive manner (no bashing...these posts will be deleted), and please do not comment on 'Cheaters Only' posts.
i posted this on the other infidleity forums, but wanted to post it here as well, to see if any Waywards can understand where i as a BS am coming from...and how hard it is at times to want to make an effort
ive been pretty low these last few weeks.
I've fallen back into my MO coping mechanism which is to pull away, shut down emotionally, throw up walls for protection, avoid vulnerability, and essentially give in to my fear of rejection.
my fww and I haven't had any intimacy since early DEC. She started a new job week of holidays and is on her feet all day, so she's been pretty beat when coming home. I've been sick for almost a month and a half, so I go to sleep earlier than normal, and consequently, we don't have our evening time to talk about things after the kids are down for the night.
the few times I did hang w her, my mind was racing about the past, and I had convinced myself that she was done listening to me bring up the same things I have for the last 2 years plus. She'd ask " "Anything on Your mind?" and id reply "no". ..when in reality my mind was racing on all kind of things.
I isolated myself, and pushed her away. she in turn, refrained from engaging me at all... so in many ways, it was a carbon copy of how our relationship became the year before she started the adultery.
we give each other a quick peck of a kiss in the morning, no "I love yous" ...
sometime in OCT I could no longer say to her "I love you" ...and sometime in DEC, she quite telling me "I love you" as well. no really hugging or cuddling or spooning.... for a while, I didn't want to touch her, but then some times Id want to touch her, but wouldn't allow myself to do so, because it seemed to me to be selfish and shallow.
yes, her multiple infidelities still haunt me, but at this point, my mind is my own worst enemy.
sometime Thur she had said something to the effect of "I fix people...thats what I do now...I fixed myself...the only person I can't fix is you (referring to me)"
man..THAT made my blood boil. I thought WTF.... your FIXED???? really.... yes, you haven't acted out since Dday, but FIXED???? hell..I;m not arrogant to think that I am in way fixed at this point, and it really pissed me off to have my FWW tell me, that she considered herself not only FIXED, but that she now is able to FIX others. but can't fix me!
when I hear stuff like that, it makes me think ..."you have no idea how NOT FIXED you are yet!"
I sometimes think, I spend too much brain power on LOOKING for ways in which she isn't getting better or isn't better and neglect to notice and accept the ways in which she has gotten healthier
this past FRI we hung out for a bit, had a drink or too and actually enjoyed being around one another. it was nice. part of my wondered, "Wow..this is nice... it would be nice to fall asleep in one another arms, or even be intimate". When we got in to bed, I was wondering if that might be a possibility, but I didn't perceive any signals or signs from her, so just went to sleep. I had thought, "hey, what would happen if I initiate intimacy", but I convince myself that doing so, would be shallow and selfish of me, and that it would make me no better then then list of men she had sex with from 2013-14.
Saturday evening, I felt like I was going to explode from holding everything in, but kept it in none the less and fell asleep on the couch. She put a blanket over me, and I woke up at 2 in the morning...and couldn't get back to sleep. around 330 I decided, that I wanted to be next to my wife so I crawled into bed. I woke before her and went downstairs to grab breakfast.
When she came down, she asked "why didn't you stay on the couch?"
that hit me as her saying "why did you come into bed , why didn't you just stay away?" ...even though thats most likely NOT how she meant it.....so my reply was "WELL NEXT TIME I WILL STAY DOWN HERE!" I was pretty pissed most of Sunday.
so Sun, the kids were out for the day, and we had the afternoon to ourselves. did some housework, and since I didn't sleep well the night before I was going to take nap on the love seat, and I figured she'd sleep on the couch. I also played this mind game w myself and thought "if she wants me around, then she will ask if I want to scissor w her on the couch, but if she doesn't ask, then I'll know that she doesn't want me around, and that all my thought are confirmed' ... so she comes into the living room, and says "why are you on the love seat? how about if we scissor nap on the couch?" ..which we do, and it felt nice to be close to her and drift off for an hour
finally once kids are down, we get a drink and head out to the deck, and I finally say "I'm very sad lately...this isn't a marriage...I can't live like this...I don't think you want to be around me, I don't think you want to hear anything I have to say, I think you're completely done in trying to help me heal from your adultery" .... we end up in a nice long discussion and she says, no, that isn't how she feels at all, but when I pull away, she just lets me stay there waiting for me to come out of my isolation....while I am waiting for her to offer to help pull me out.... so we end up in this stalemate
so we fall asleep in each others arms, and had a great morning w the kids before work and even had some real kisses before she left for work.
on the drive in, a was thinking about my MO.
my MO is " fear of rejection" ...it has been since I was a kid....I exhibited in during my first marriage as well. I isolate and withdrawal. the way I cope w my fear, is that I choose to avoid vulnerability....in the flawed reasoning that , I will protect myself that way.... but ive learned over the last 2 years post Dday, that when I isolate, and shutdown, I just harm myself, and get in the way of my own healing
so long story short (I know...too late).... ive decided to face my fear head on and directly...and I'm choosing to be vulnerable....and its scary for me, especially with the past serial adultery. we both have done IC, and MC, and DBT and EMDR and EFT and other stuff... but it dawned on me that, no matter how much therapy I go to, unless I face my fear head on, I am never going to move forward with my healing.
So today, I choose ....choose to embrace my fear....fear of rejection...fear of being hurt again...fear of opening up...because I can no longer live with out a connection....and I need to find out , if I can rebuild the connection w my fww or not, because only then will I be able to made an informed choice on staying or moving on.
and tomorrow...I'l probably go and change my god damned mind again,.......
but today.... today ..I choose.... I choose a different path
what do I need to do, to not let the smallest thing set me back in a downward spiral!!!!
3rd year (less then 2 months in). I'm just starting to believe there is some hope, and that I need to be willing to take a chance at being hurt again as there are not guarantees in life. but even 25 mo out, even when we have a nice close time, my mind is still my worst enemy
example.
Monday night, I told my wife that I want some closeness...I want affection...I want to hear that she loves me.... I told her I'm facing my fear and have decide to take a chance on being vulnerable.
Tues was a good day and evening.
Wed I wake up and decide I want to cuddle skin to skin w her in bed before we get up. In my mind, I start to have the entire conversation and in my mind I decide that I shouldn't even ask because she will say no.... but I push on and force myself to ask her anyway telling myself, the worst she could say is "no, can't do it right now" ....which in fact is what happened, but I was ok w it.....
then when she leaves for work, I realize we didn't tell one another we love each other, as we agreed to start doing again on MON eve, so I open house door and yell out to her as she is heading for the car, hey I love you....expecting her to say "I love you too" but thats not what she said...instead she said "IM IN A HURRY AND IM GOING TO BE LATE". so I immediately regress to my MO , slam the door, and think to myself F**K THIS!!!!! I text her that "it took you longer to tell me you would be late, then it would have taken to just tell me you love me..this is BS!" she apologizes and says she knows she is hard to live with. come home WEDS and we are ok.
THU (today) morning, her alarm goes off and she says "how about some skin on skin cuddling". and I say ..great! cause we haven't had that in months.... she says she set her alarm 10 min early so that we can have 10 min to cuddle in bed before getting up. I think , thats great. I appreciate her thinking of me and adding me to her schedule!!! I also realize that she did really hear me articulate what I want/need and made it a point to give that to me this morning.....
but as we lay there holding one another feeling each others skin next to the other...my mind starts going...and it starts going like this...
"I wonder how many of those men she laid next to like this....well she only spent the night w one of them..hmmm...I wonder if this is how the woke up in the morning...no STOP thinking these things....breath.... relax into your wife arms..... focus on NOW....breath in breath out... hey is that her toes, thats nice...toes... head to toe...oh no...thats what she told one of the APS in an email I read that she'd like to lick him from head to toe...god dammit...there I go again...STOP IT. DONT THINK ABOUT THAT CRAP...STAY in the NOW.......
and then a bunch more evasive thoughts.... thru the 10 minutes
and so on and so forth....
f**king maddening!!!!!!
so thats where I am TODAY.
and where will I be tomorrow?
better then I am today is my plan...even if its just a tiny bit better.
I have to be vigilant w my thoughts.... and keep focused on the PRESENT not the past
I also hate to open up. It can be paralyzing. However, I have seen the alternative, which is a gulf as wide as an ocean between us (as you know). I find the silver lining of an affair explosion to be the fact that you can cut the bullshit and be honest with each other about what you need.