Rebuilding Marriage After Infidelity Community Group
A community for those who have been through the heartbreak of infidelity and decided to stay with their partner and try to re-build the relationship.
Hi everyone.
While rebuilding have any of you hit a really rough patch?
My H and I have had a horrible month.
He is trying to do all he can, but it to him doesn't seem to be enough because
I still have some major emotional days. Still experiencing insecurities, not
totally trusting, etc. He is aware that this takes time, but he is exhausted and "can't do this anymore, I am only human and I cannot keep doing this. It is wearing me down. And I can only take so much."
Well you all get the idea.
In short, he has told me that I need to decide if I am going to move past this or not. If I cannot put this behind us then I need to divorce him.
In addition to out therapy, I have encouraged reading etc. And please note I KNOW I always speak kindly to him. Doesn't matter.
. Obviously we need more help, but in his anger.He will say, "I am not going to read. I don't care what other people are going through (blogs,etc) am not going to group therapy."
I have tried to explain that reading up on anything gives insight and if we find one thing to help us reach our
common goal, then why not?
If anything perhaps he would get a different perspective on why it is such a difficult thing to move past.
And understand that here is no timeline.
Anyway.. I KNOW it has not been easy dealing with this. I KNOW there are days that I fall apart, but I also know I have made progress, albeit slow. PS excuse any typos-am on my phone
So thank you everyone. I don't know if I am looking for advice, just need to vent or both!
While rebuilding have any of you hit a really rough patch?
My H and I have had a horrible month.
He is trying to do all he can, but it to him doesn't seem to be enough because
I still have some major emotional days. Still experiencing insecurities, not
totally trusting, etc. He is aware that this takes time, but he is exhausted and "can't do this anymore, I am only human and I cannot keep doing this. It is wearing me down. And I can only take so much."
Well you all get the idea.
In short, he has told me that I need to decide if I am going to move past this or not. If I cannot put this behind us then I need to divorce him.
In addition to out therapy, I have encouraged reading etc. And please note I KNOW I always speak kindly to him. Doesn't matter.
. Obviously we need more help, but in his anger.He will say, "I am not going to read. I don't care what other people are going through (blogs,etc) am not going to group therapy."
I have tried to explain that reading up on anything gives insight and if we find one thing to help us reach our
common goal, then why not?
If anything perhaps he would get a different perspective on why it is such a difficult thing to move past.
And understand that here is no timeline.
Anyway.. I KNOW it has not been easy dealing with this. I KNOW there are days that I fall apart, but I also know I have made progress, albeit slow. PS excuse any typos-am on my phone
So thank you everyone. I don't know if I am looking for advice, just need to vent or both!
"When is enough enough?"
"Why do you choose to hold on to this?"
I knew that some part of me was clinging to it - BUT - I also knew things were not right between US yet, either.
Huz wouldn't read - but he did (eventually) do an audio book. He also would listen (with me - he would never have on his own) marriage builders radio/podcast shows.
A lot of the work was mine. Figuring out what it was I needed that I wasn't getting, for example. A lot of the work was me reading up on concepts for recovery and then saying: can we try ___? Or : what do you think of ___?
I won't lie. I was pretty resentful that he wasn't initiating any of the progress - but then again, generally if I asked him, he would at least try. In the beginning, he would tell me something was stupid, pointless, etc. and only halfway attempt - but if I showed enthusiasm and "progress" (took my bad days here instead of out on him) it seemed to encourage and perk him up.
Yes. We have had many stagnant points in recovery. Many where I felt like it was hopeless. Many where I wondered if I could ever be ok with MYSELF enough to move forward. Sometimes it took really shaking things up.
For me, the key to truly healing was replacing every bad thought, memory, fear, etc. with TEN brand new GOOD thoughts, memories, feelings. For every: why can't you just move forward? I had to hear ten : I love you because ____. For every email that had cut through my core and destroyed the foundation of my life, I needed ten in which he told me about his hopes and dreams and asked about mine. For every fight we had about the lies he told, I needed ten times where we went out together and truly enjoyed each other's company.
Fair? No. But that's just how it was for me.
I can tell you that what worked for me was to just stop. Stop thinking about him, the OW, the A. It's really difficult, but when those thoughts would pop into my head, I would just replace the thought with something
neutral or positive.
I discovered I was always - a l w a y s - thinking about my H. From what he'd like for dinner, to what he did,
to anticipating his arrival at the end of the day. It seemed like he was always in my head.
Then I'd wonder if he ever thought of me. I was making myself crazy. And it wasn't helping.
I went a week with replacing any thoughts of him with the neutral ones. Then as that got easier, I replaced those thoughts with more about me. What I wanted for me - nothing to do with him, us, marriage, kids. Just
me.
One of the things that happened was I was letting HIS A define ME. I lost a whole year of my life to his sins.
While my H never said anything, there was a shift in our relationship. A subtle shift and it was positive.
No matter what these jerks have done to us, we are still responsible for our own happiness.
There are times when I still get so angry. The pain is still there. Something just happened yesterday that
made me realize the infidelity is the gift that keeps on giving.
So I have a little prayer I say when I get angry or sad all over again. I just ask for justice, for the pendulum to swing the other way. And then I let go. I go and do something productive.
Make your life less about him and more about you!! Refocus.
Perhaps you have emotional days because you are still grieving. If he doesn't want to help you both figure out what happened, why it happened, what were the triggers to make it happen, then I don't think you'll ever be able to fully end your grief. If he feels he doesn't have anything to change, then what has changed?
Because you speak to him kindly, telling you to move on with it or file, is callous, and it deepens your fears, pushing you further into grief.
If he refuses to read anything to do with the topic, and let's face it, what does it take to read a page of a blog, this tells me there are things he wants to keep hidden, or things he doesn't want to face, and does not want to go there. Whether it be to relive his shame or to find out why it happened, he doesn't want to face it.
I am 11 months post 2nd dday (when he finally admitted to the A after 1 year of denial).
H for the most part HAS been VERY supportive, but obviously gets impatient with the length of time this takes to over come. I know his frustration and anger is based on fear =defensiveness.... That is when that stubborn side comes out.."i am NOT going to do read this or that."
And you are right to an extent, of course he doesn't want to face it. Realistic or not, who really does? He comes from a family of rug sweepers, so dealing with something at this level is all new territory to him.
As i write this i realize that when he does have the outbursts of frustration, they really aren't much different than my own emotional setbacks. We just express it in different ways.
I just need to be open and communicate with him that while my steps backward seem as though we haven't made ANY progress, own setbacks cause me to feel hopeless for the possibility of any progress we have yet to make.
I also know that in his anger he will spout off something he doesn't really mean (its that hot headed italian in him ( and no disrespect to any who may be italian and are not easily tempered)and it generally IS short lived.Fundamentally he DOES know what he needs to do if we are going to be a success story.
Since the original posting of 4/26 H as agreed to give GT a try!)
I chose to take a break. We weren't seperated in the sense that we were dating others but we were not working on us or being a couple. It was the best thing we did for our recovery. It's when we both kicked ourselves into change. I worked on finding the ability to forgive him (even if we chose divorce) ands he worked on comprehending the enormity of his actions.
I can't say that's what will work for you but something to consider.