I was thinking of putting this as a journal entry, but then I thought this sounded more like a discussion for the general audience. So...

I had a sort of "revelation" of late. Recently, my W and I began reading "After the Affair." Still not sure what I think of the book as a whole, he makes some good points at times. One issue I disagree with, but that would get us off track. But one thing he said I hadn't read much about in the other two books I've read on the subject ("Not Just Friends" and "His Needs, Her Needs") is how an affair in the aftermath affects your self-worth, specifically speaking of the BS.

My first thought was, uh? I mean, I would think the guilt of the CS would cause that, they are the one's who hold the "blame" for the affair and nearly destroying the marriage, assuming it doesn't end there. Why would it affect my self-esteem as a BS since it wasn't my fault? Certainly I'm hurt, and it was a huge shock. But self-esteem? I know some of us here due to blameshifting and gaslighting feel our self-esteems attacked, but I guess in my situation that hasn't happened at all. So I didn't really get what he was saying here, as something real and not just incorrect blame.

And I've read about on here and other places where a rebuilding couple tends to fall apart sometimes a year or two out. And I posted a thread sometime ago about that topic, as some of you may recall, wondering what causes that.

Well, the thought occurred to me which made more sense out of both of those issues. I think when he was speaking about "self-esteem" and worth, what he was really talking about is dealing with 'who am I." As with any traumatic event, one's life changes significantly. Life doesn't go back to what it was before.

In my own case, I am doing things that before dday I wouldn't have considered as important. I'm spending more time with my W. Certainly a good thing, but before the A I felt my task like working on my next book or such was very important, and wasting time going to the store or lifting weights at the gym, while nice, would only take time away from what I really wanted to get done. After dday, my priorities changed drastically. I realize my W is much more important to me than getting that next book out. Yes, it will get out, maybe not as quickly, but it will get out. And that book, for all the fun of writing it, is not worth losing my wife over, or essentially telling her with my actions, "You aren't as important."

But it took the trauma of the affair to make that change happen. I would like to think I could have made the change in a less damaging way, but it is what it is. And in that regard, the change is positive. Other changes, especially for other couples, may not be so welcome. Like for me, the loss of security and innocence in the relationship. That's gone, never to be recovered. A change I lament.

But something interesting happened this week. My W said, for the first time since dday and the beginning of her affair, that she felt sorry and remorse for the security and innocence we lost because of her actions. She said she was aware of them before and sad at losing them, but this week, almost 7 months after dday, is the first time she felt within herself the sorrow over losing that in the A.

And she made a statement which clicked a light on. She was in a funk today, and we talked on the phone while she cleaned house. She was crying over this, and she said in many ways, its like so much has changed about her, she's not sure who she is anymore. Like she has to re-find herself. She looks back at what she did, and it doesn't fit who she was before the A. And it doesn't fit who she is now, and she has changed in several ways.

One thing I've learned is that any changes, no matter whether positive or negative, create a period of stress known as an identity shift/crisis. We encountered this some years ago when we made a major shift in religious affiliation. I had been a pastor of a very laid back style of worship and set that aside to start attending as just a person seeking to enter another group, starting at what felt like ground zero, a much more formal worship setting. That's a big shift, from leader to "who are you again?" And for several months, I would be standing in worship and have moments when I would look around as we worshiped and ask myself, "What the heck am I doing here?" It felt so strange, so...not me. And the whole time period was a time of redefining who I was as a person. Things I'd believed and held to most of my life to that point were thrown into question.

But sometime between one and two years of worshiping there, that feeling became less and less, until one time as the Christmas season rolled around, I found myself looking forward to the "new" Christmas hymns we would be singing. I realized it now felt like "me."

It took about one to two years for my new identity to feel like me. And I think that's what the author was getting at, what we are going through, and why around that time period people tend to have problems.

My W and I have made some major changes about how we relate to each other. Her interest themselves have changed since before the A. Before the A, for example, she loved to watch all the reality shows. American Idol, Biggest Loser, Dancing with the Starts, etc., etc. I didn't really care, couldn't stand some of them at all (the Bachelor just makes me want to gag myself with a spoon listening to the whining, "I thought he loved me!") But she watched these shows like it was a religion. One of the signs I should have picked up on early on but didn't is her interest in these shows faded. She no longer watched them. She didn't care about them when before, I didn't dare get in her way of watching one of those shows.

And since dday, she still hasn't shown any interest in those shows that she used to love. That's just one minor example. Her taste have changed. What she was interested in has changed. Even her desire for sex, as I've reported numerous times, has changed, apparently permanently, as that is now more than a year old and going strong.

So I think what happens is until a year has passed, most of us working toward rebuilding feel like things are pretty much up in the air. Everything is in flux, there's no sense of permanency. The question, "Who am I" goes through change in the aftermath of the A for both BS and CS.

But at some point around one to two years, that new identity, whatever it is, gets solidified and you start feeling like, "This is who I am." And two things can happen at that point. One, "I can work with this, or even love some aspects of it, our marriage is stronger, we are more in love with each other, etc." Or two, "I hate the new me, the new us, and I can't put up with this for the rest of my life."

Up until that happens, you're hoping things will get "fixed" and it will all end up great. But once the new identity begins to solidify as "this is it, this is what we've, what I've become," then it forces you to make a decision whether this is what you want to be. And if you don't like it, you jump ship.

I think that's why you may see some BSs after a year or two has passed, seemed to be doing well in the rebuilding, suddenly crash and burn, because they can't see themselves putting up with the "new me." When that settles into one's consciousness as "this is me now," it either scares us or reassures us.

But putting it in terms of an identity crisis makes sense out of why that happens, and why everyone says it will take at least around a couple of years to "get over" this, because that is how long it takes for whatever changes have been made, positive or negative, to feel no longer like a change, but like "who I am." No longer temporary, could change at any time, but permanent.

Does that make sense?