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.
It has been 2 yrs and 8 mos since Dday and still I struggle over the OM. Why? It's crazy. The relationship only lasted 2 months. I know part of the reason why. Because I gave a part of myself to him. By having sex with him I was basically having a secret second husband. The relationship had to end suddenly at a high point. No closure to speak of. We see each other car to car and this thing is there hanging between us that must go unacknowledged.
Many of you know that I work in a house in his neighborhood half a day every other week. Sightings of him are common when I am there. This last time I was there the one thing I have feared the most happened. He drove by slowly while I was at my car putting things in the trunk. At least I did the right thing. I saw that it was him and turned back to what I was doing and didn't look up again. He did the right thing and did not attempt to engage me in any way but just drove slowly by. It's the first time he has seen me outside of my car since Dday.
I don't want to be back in a relationship with him but I sometimes still find myself wishing we could just talk. I banish those thoughts from my mind quickly. Stupid. All that would do is set me way back. I know this because at 20 mos he called me out of the blue for "closure" and I talked to him then though I shouldn't have. Did I get closure out of that? No! And I bet he didn't either. All it did was set me back. It took me several weeks to regain my equilibrium from that and I went back to IC to figure out why I was still so affected by him and why I have such a hard time saying no. i.e. I should have told him "No" I can't talk. He had also asked me at that time to keep that phone call a secret and I told him I would even though I knew I wouldn't. That's how bad I am about saying no and about confrontation. It's a problem. It had a lot to do with how I got into that A mess to begin with, all the way from OM#1 to OM#2 and everything that happened in between them.
I think closure is a myth in many cases like this. The more we try to get closure the wider the door opens. I think closure is obtained by just leaving the damn door closed! My counselor and i talked all this over today. We decided I am going to do something. I am going to write myself a closure letter. It will contain all the things that are still bothering me, my thoughts and feelings concerning all that happened with OM, and the things I still feel like i need to let go of and then we are going to burn the letter. "Closure" from within. I like it. I will be working on that this weekend.
Many of you know that I work in a house in his neighborhood half a day every other week. Sightings of him are common when I am there. This last time I was there the one thing I have feared the most happened. He drove by slowly while I was at my car putting things in the trunk. At least I did the right thing. I saw that it was him and turned back to what I was doing and didn't look up again. He did the right thing and did not attempt to engage me in any way but just drove slowly by. It's the first time he has seen me outside of my car since Dday.
I don't want to be back in a relationship with him but I sometimes still find myself wishing we could just talk. I banish those thoughts from my mind quickly. Stupid. All that would do is set me way back. I know this because at 20 mos he called me out of the blue for "closure" and I talked to him then though I shouldn't have. Did I get closure out of that? No! And I bet he didn't either. All it did was set me back. It took me several weeks to regain my equilibrium from that and I went back to IC to figure out why I was still so affected by him and why I have such a hard time saying no. i.e. I should have told him "No" I can't talk. He had also asked me at that time to keep that phone call a secret and I told him I would even though I knew I wouldn't. That's how bad I am about saying no and about confrontation. It's a problem. It had a lot to do with how I got into that A mess to begin with, all the way from OM#1 to OM#2 and everything that happened in between them.
I think closure is a myth in many cases like this. The more we try to get closure the wider the door opens. I think closure is obtained by just leaving the damn door closed! My counselor and i talked all this over today. We decided I am going to do something. I am going to write myself a closure letter. It will contain all the things that are still bothering me, my thoughts and feelings concerning all that happened with OM, and the things I still feel like i need to let go of and then we are going to burn the letter. "Closure" from within. I like it. I will be working on that this weekend.
http://www.dailystrength.org/people/602693/journal/9306485
With this perspective and the work I have been doing concerning this, I may be to a place of letting that guilt go and further resolving within myself the effect the A still has on me. I worked a long long day today, half of which was in OM's neighborhood, and had a lot of time to think. I did some very heavy thinking today based on that e-mail. I cried a bit several times today as I wrestled through some very hard thoughts. It's been a while since I have cried over this while working but I had a big confrontation of myself today too. It may sound a bit psycho, but I had a discussion with myself I told myself out loud that I am sorry for the pain and damage I caused myself. I have never done that before. I asked for forgiveness and for a while I refused. I had to discuss it with me for a while. I had to express to me how angry I am at myself. I had to make myself some promises and I finally granted me forgiveness. A little reluctantly and conditionally. Psycho, I know, but I have never really stopped self-punishing and I didn't plan that little psychotic episode I had today so hopefully it will actually prove to be helpful to me.
And you don't....
And in this case you are not even. It is your turn to go first, not your wife's. After a while, once the most profound pain subsides - she will follow your lead.
It is not your wife's job to help you. She didn't do anything wrong. You did. It is in fact all on you right now.
I certainly was in a lot more emotional turmoil two weeks out from dday. How could you not be when what had been true for 29 years of marriage suddenly wasn't?
That said, on dday I thought to myself that Gabi was in danger, and I wanted to give her the best shot at recovering from this if it were possible. I also forgave her that day. We even had recommit sex that day.
Why? Because after she spilled the beans and I knew she was being honest with me (I happened to have been a fortunate BS in that I knew the whole story before she confessed), I asked her the question I feared the answer to the most. "Do you want me or him? Because you can't have us both."
She unreservedly wrapped her arms around me and said, "You! You! You!" In the weeks and months that followed, she backed up those words with actions, even if at the beginning it was a bit wobbly at points. It is all detailed in our book.
While she did love OM#2, she told him this is what would happen if I found out. She never had plans or a desire to chose him over me.
I think Jay is spot on. If Gabi had your outlook and desired him over me, didn't feel she loved me anymore, I seriously doubt we'd be married today. If she had not been as cooperative in rebuilding and committed to rebuilding, I would have taken a different tactic.
That's not to say I'd be like your wife. I don't have it in my personality to be that way. But as I say in my Healing Steps for the BS: Uncooperative CS, when your CS shuts a window, you shut your window. A BS isn't free to invest in the marriage until they gain some security. Right now, your wife isn't getting the feeling of security from you. Based on what you are saying, it is obvious why . . . because you aren't able to give her that. I'm sure she picks up on it.
Truth is, I was an emotional wreck the first two weeks after dday because some things Gabi was doing created insecurities in me that it wasn't over. Once she firmed up and I felt no contact had been established, my emotional roller coaster started slowing down. A BS can't begin to heal or invest in the marriage without that security being reestablished. They just get more and continued pain.
Romantic love, by itself, is not the fullness of love. By itself it is infatuation. it is a necessary ingredient to marital love, no doubt about it, and many marriages let it die instead of kindling it and keep it going, But it has to include friendship, a sense of comfort and security, and a willingness to sacrifice for each other to be the fullness of marital love.
Out of time. Got to go.
It doesn't seem that your really want your marriage the way other cs do. That's ok but please if that is the case please set her free.
Please also remember that you are seeing these OW at their best...My AP saw me at my best. I was free, alive, beautiful when I was with him. He ALWAYS told me he wished he was married to me and I'm so different than his wife. But ya know, as hard as it to believe, I don't wake up this amazing and I get PMS and I overdraw the checkbook and days I binge and get stressed and I freak on the kids and the laundry get piled up and I watch mindless TV, etc. etc. He didn't see that side of me. I ONLY showed him my best. With him, there was no worry of laundry, packing lunches, what to make for dinner, cleaning the oven, paying the mortgage...etc. I was just me. I could be "free".
In fairness, Rain, people do change. I am not the same person I was that my husband married and he will admit that.....BUT...that doesn't mean I am not committed for us to grow together, for he and I to relearn each other. And if that isn't something you are willing to do, that's ok...that's ok....but, although affairs are sometimes a cry for help (my counselor told me that), that doesn't mean it was her fault. She deserves a man who loves her, desires her, cherishes her as she is.....
Why do I still struggle so over the OM?
Posted on 01/17/14, 02:03 am
It has been 2 yrs and 8 mos since Dday and still I struggle over the OM.
I was glad to read your reply to this Cole...As a BS who is in rebuilding, I have often wondered how you felt when you read Gabi's post in referring to the BJ she gave to the first OM and then to her struggles in getting over her emotions for the 2nd OM....this is written with total respect for the two of you....I just know in rebuilding (and maybe I'm not as strong as you)....I would have a very hard time reading how my husband had to wear a rubber band on his wrist to pop and say STOP to end thoughts of his affairs. That would confuse me with all the effort he has put into rebuilding and the love we have now. Reading about the BJ and love felt for the other....would give me visual triggers and it would really hurt me. If I did not believe that my husband was not fully committed to our marriage, love, friendship, comfort and security....I wouldn't be able to handle it ~~~ if he dwelled on how he would have to watch himself not to let himself fall into that place again. (Yes...he went through the cyber addiction and all that with his affairs).....I would not be able to handle it. I'm a strong woman but I wouldn't be able to handle reading my husband's excitement of the affairs.
I think this is what actually is reassuring - if Gabi can share even these troubling thoughts with Cole then he can assume that there is nothing she is hiding from him. And this in fact might be worth it.....
But I am sure Cole will speak for himself when he can.
You know that in the early days after Dday, I told him everything so thoroughly that he got most of it right in the first draft of the book! I was amazed. Yes, i combed through it twice correcting some of the details but he had it pretty close.
Both of us have been on here since a few days after Dday. We have written hard things. We haven't done much sugar coating for each other. He has posted things that have made me cry many times and I have posted things that have troubled him sometimes, i.e. about still feeling guilt over OM. You know what though? It was troubling me too and that is why I decided to tackle it. I've been stuck and it was time to address it. I didn't directly address it with him but with my counselor first and then I mentioned it on here, albeit a little tenuously. I WANT to get that man out of my head and though some painful things have been faced here, it has helped me. I believe I have made some important progress through this and Cole's realization about blame shifting onto myself made a difference. Sometimes we tackle hard stuff and it hurts but it helps us over yet another hump.
To address a few things, Calico, I could not possibly be more fully committed to Cole and our M. I love him completely and he asked for 100% of me on Dday and I have done my dead level best since then to give him that and that is the purpose of the rubber band. The thoughts I banish are varied but basically anything I am thinking that I feel is not helpful. It is, however, by no means thoughts of the excitement of the A's. Any feelings of excitement from those relationships were lost long ago in the sea of pain we have both struggled through together. I have done a tremendous amount of self-punishment over these almost 3 years and that is what a lot of the snaps are about. the self-punishment thoughts and any other obsessive thinking concerning any aspect of what I did or any other negativity and, yes, sometimes memories. they are there and they pop up. They just do. So I banish them as quickly as I can.
Truthfully, I have made tons and tons of progress these 3 years. I really don't snap the rubber band very often anymore but I wear it every day. It's kind of symbolic that I control my thoughts. They don't control me. It is this kind of work that will prevent a recurrence. Rug sweeping won't do that.