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.
letting go of memories that were never yours
in therapy the there day, I was talking to my doc and giving them a status report. I'm doing well.
one thing that I talked about was how I didn't understand what acceptance was.
early on post dday, I thought acceptance was condoning the wrong.... and had a similar approach to forgiveness.
now I see that acceptance, is simply, no longer living in denial of what happened
a fact is a fact.
what happened , happened.
26 months post dday, an a butt load of therapy, I no longer experience and reexpierience the emotional trauma of the past, and facts and memories.
I realized that a lot of memories that re traumatized me, were never my memories....they were my visions...my mind movies.... my wife was very upfront in answering all my questions, so I have a pretty detailed idea of what happened w the 8 aps.... but. one thing I notice these days, is...those visions have all but faded and past....and they aren't memories...I wasn't there...I never experienced the vision ...other than as a mind movie.
I'm able to accept that these events have occurred and happened, and there is nothing that will ever undo the events and choices, but , I also experience that I can choose each and every day, on whether or not I am going to live in the present or live in the past.
and living in the past gets me now where these days.
The good news is that time really does heal some of this. Exposure to certain non-harmful triggers helps. (I listened to one song on repeat for about three hours straight until it was... just another song... meh... whatever...)
Patrick, I will say that it's important to have a plan of action for recovery. Whether you use an actual program (we used Marriage Builders) or go it yourselves, it's really important to have a plan in place so that you know when to cut your losses and leave. I 100% believe that infidelity is NOT NECESSARILY a deal breaker - but I also 100% believe that we are NOT doormats. You don't have to take whatever someone else leaves you just because you love them. Marriage is supposed to be a mutually beneficial arrangement and if you're just being trounced on, you get to step away and take care of yourself.
I honestly couldn't answer the question "should I stay or should I go?" even 9 months post discovery of my husband's affair because we hadn't really entered into any REAL recovery. I had accepted what had happened at that point and realized I had no control over his actions, but that's about the extent of our progress. Once we initiated an actual plan and started to actually work toward meeting each other's needs and enjoying each other's company again, I started to see true hope.
At this point in your recovery, it's 100% normal for your wife to still be "out of love" with you. That doesn't make it feel any better to you, I realize, Patrick, but - that doesn't mean there's no hope. It just means you (both) need to invest alllll the way into rebuilding your marriage to even better than it was before.
As for the 26 months? Who knows? I've seen women leave their husbands for affair partners only to three years later come begging for a second chance - and sadly - their ex-husbands had moved on in each of the cases. Hopefully, your wife will come to her senses and leave the "fog" long before then.