Sometimes, a person just spirals out of control. Sometimes, there's nothing to blame but one's own choices.

Believe me, I understand where you're coming from. I needed a REASON. I needed a WHY that was solid and tangible and NOT because my husband made a series of choices.

Here's the thing, I couldn't wrap my brain around him loving me (or claiming to?) and still making choices he KNEW would hurt me.

Don't we do it all the time, though?! ALL of us?

How many times have you chosen to light up a cigarette - KNOWING it could cause cancer and it WILL deteriorate your lung function? How many times have I eaten a donut KNOWING it's empty calories and filled with nothing but health damaging properties? How many times does a guy sit on a couch watching TV instead of going out for a walk/run? How many times does a woman have a couple of alcoholic drinks with a dinner?

We KNOW these things are "bad" - but we also know they are pleasurable. (Well... ok some of these things for some people, but you get my drift.)

Your wife found pleasure in her affairs. Maybe it was the thrill. Maybe it was attention she needed. Maybe it was her hormones all out of whack. Maybe it was that infamous "midlife crisis" stuff that I've seen almost every menopausal/per-menopausal woman go through where they feel undesirable and like they will never be sexy or excited again, and then BOOM, some sleazy dude winks at her and she's overcome with this drive to sow wild oats before it's too late. (Not saying all of the women I knew actually followed through with it, but it seems like most women DO go through it!)

I can't speak for your wife. I don't know what went on in her head. Chances are? It felt good at the time and to hell with the consequences (in the heat of the moment.) And then it started to roll downhill, as poo usually does, and she felt like she /couldn't/ reverse the decisions she'd made, so what the hell, might as well trash everything, because why bother even trying to fix it.

My cousin told me a story once of a girl who was doing her make up and she decided to separate her eyelashes with a needle. (EW??!?) Well, as one might predict, her hand slipped and she embedded the needle into her eye. This girl freaked out and jabbed the needle into her eye over and over in despair because she lost her ever lovin' sh*t over what had happened. She made what MAY have been fixable into a lifelong blindness in one eye. At the time, I thought it was the stupidest story I'd ever heard, but I see that pattern in people over and over and OVER again. People screw up and then they just lose their freaking minds and self destruct.

Not everyone does this, thankfully! But people do. They're not (necessarily) mentally ill in a long term, chronic sense of the word, they just go bat crazy over a short period of time.

I think unless your wife has made a lifetime of these choices (15 affairs in 20 years, for example) you can assume this is an isolated period of time in her life. A perfect poo storm of events and situations that just were made worse by two things:

1) She enjoyed the sex/attention/passion/thrill
2) She got so caught up her her own bad decision making that she didn't know how to turn the bus around so she just kept driving faster and faster toward the metaphorical cliff

Y'all stopped the bus together. Y'all are digging deep and sifting through all the things that lead up all the crazy decision making. HOPEFULLY, you all are also putting boundaries into place and working on those weak points that allowed for the affairs to happen.

Next step? Geeze, dude. Just go enjoy your wife. Seriously. GO ENJOY YOURSELVES. Chill with the WHY WHY WHY WHY and just go spend some time learning to LIKE her again. Maybe you never fully stopped, but go remind yourself of what it is about her that you found enjoyable and comfortable and lovable. It's an absolutely necessary part of healing. Cos straight up, doesn't matter how deep you dig, none of it will be worth it if you can't just enjoy being in her presence.

I agree with Allora - sometimes it just happens because it happens. There doesn't need to be some underlying disorder or addiction. Is it possible you're in too much therapy? Killing a bug with dynamite?

This book saved my sanity after Dday because it breaks the thought process down in analytical terms. You REALLY need to read it:

NOT "Just Friends": Rebuilding Trust and Recovering Your Sanity After Infidelity by Shirley Glass
http://www.amazon.com/NOT-Just-Friends-Rebuilding-Recovering-ebook/dp/B00120955S

Yes... yes. I loved that book.

But ultimately, I still whined, "Yeah, but WHY!?" for a long, long time. I could understand how, but not WHY. Because no why, no matter how well explained, no matter how well articulated would ever, ever, EVER be enough for me. Because I wanted the WHY to excuse my husband. I wanted the WHY to be this "ah hah!" moment where it all made sense.

But that's the thing. Affairs DO NOT make sense. There is NO logic to them. If there were, my husband would have sat down with me and said, "Hey, I'm weighing my infidelity options and wanted to know what you think on the matter..." LOL

thanks for some perspective
im my head now...nothing really helps

although, on the brightside, it wasnt anything crazy like 15 affairs in 20 years...
it was only 8 affairs in 15 months

and the first one started during the time when the two of us reconnected after years focused on twin toddlers...she was getting more attention from me then she had in years...we had more sex in 2 months then we had in years.... 5 times in 5 years vs 55 times in 60 days... yet
that still wasnt enough...she went and looked elsewhere...egged on by her at the time best friend who had been screwing around on her husband for years as well...who encouraged my wife to try it...because it would be fun and she deserved it.... then 7 more after that...2 in my own house...1 who was a friend in one of my bands...

i mean...to me...its the definition of insanity

so, i think one of the things that keeps me stuck these days...is that, my wife is in a constant state of stress.
kids, job, housework, home, recovery from dday...and over our talks this past year about her affaris, she said she felt stressed pre affair...

so i see her stressed NOW...all the time...and i realized today..that seeing her stressed is now my biggest trigger

our MC suggested i try to be supportive and validating when she is in a state of stress...but i cant seem to do that..because in my mind...i think...you are stressed because of the way our lives are NOW, and our lives are like this NOW, because of what you DID THEN!....

so, even though some things dont trigger me like they used to...her constant state of stress and agitation and sadness is a bf trigger for me....as i think

well...you werent this stressed before you started the affairs...now you are worse...so whats going to be your coping mechanism these days???

Hmmmm. It kind of sounds like you are also looking for a reason why it's not really her fault.

Instead of focusing on her so much, maybe it would be more productive to work on your internal response to triggers? If you are calmer then she will be less stressed.

its like a snake eating its own tail... i know that when im down, shes down...and vice versa. i get that my stress and triggers, increase her stress, which then increase my triggering

but sometimes, it just makes me angry that id need to consider doing something to decrease her stress , when this was all her doing in the first place

and ive been trying to decrease her stress... i get up a 530 w her every morning...make her breakfast, coffee, lunch while shes in the shower, start and clean off car from cold weather and snow, get kids up, fed, dressed , off to school......i buy flowers every week for her..... i light candles for dinner...my kids now insist we have ever meal by candlelight... 7 years old twins.... its not like a just sit in a corner and stew.... im trying to be proactive... but sometimes...i get so angry and wonder why am i the one trying to make her life nicer...when she f*cked this all up by her choices.... shouldnt she be kissing my a$$, instead of the other way around?

A couple of thoughts.

1. Keep in mind that your healing will tend to go through the stages of grief until you reach acceptance. In case you are unaware of them, they are:

Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance

From the sounds of it, you're primarily in the depression phase. Like you, I went through a period of rehashing through all that happened and lamenting the losses I'd experienced. Then I came to a point that I was tired of being depressed about what happened, realized all the focus on my losses would never change anything, would never erase what happened, and only prevented me from moving forward and rebuilding. So I came to the place where I decided what happened, happened. I can't do anything about it. I've cried over it enough. All I can change is where we go from here.

I had saved some emails between my wife and her AP. She thought she'd deleted them, but it only put them into the trash folder which had never been emptied. So I found them, and moved them into a folder on my computer. During that time, I found myself reading those. Like I didn't want to forget or something. But when I came to acceptance, I stopped looking at those. On a latter Dday anniversary, I brought Gabi with me and she watched me delete them into oblivion. It was my way of saying I was getting rid of the "evidence" because I knew I wasn't going to need it, nor was it healthy for me to ever look at it again.

You don't want to get stuck in this stage, but you will/are going through it. When it ends is different for everyone. There's some sense of fearing to let go, but at some point you'll be ready to do so if she's doing her part.

2. Triggers. I have some suggestions on how to deal with them in the following article:

http://healinginfidelity.blogspot.com/2014/06/pull-trigger-on-triggers.html

Hope that provides some perspective.

Cole, the thing is, i thought i was at the acceptance phase last month. and like you, i did keep old emails from her to her APs. I had passwords to her accounts. I recovered texts from phones, and archived mails. During the first year of recovery, id go back and re-read the stuff.

finally, sometime in this past fall, i had her watch me DELETE the email from her accounts, and watch me disable the accounts as well. Now, i still have backups of all that stuff, but its not easily readable...so id really need to do a bit of extra work to get them back... like 10 min ...ha...but i did let it go....

i think that was in NOV... but when DEC hit...boom... i plummeted..because DEC was the 1 year anniversary of dday

right after the holidays...i felt better... and on Jan 1 i felt great...i decided..new year...new life...new thoughts...and decided to let it all go

and we had a GREAT JAN 2016... but then, she slumped into a low mood...menopause starting up for her... stress of recovery, past year, kids...life... and thats when i crumbled again, and havent been able to snap back.

last night i realized thatmy biggest trigger these days , is when she is stressed and down...because i start thinking...oh no.... this must be how it all started...

1. We will really never know why
2. Sometime it isn't a disease or mental illness we can blame on this
3. This is something they have done, to us, themselves, their families
4. They need to learn what triggers them to behave like this.
5. You need to stop looking for why
6. If you have chose to be with your wive, be with your wife. Spend time with her doing fun and interesting things. Don't bring up the A. If you know everything there is to know... Stop. If you can't then it may be time seperate. It's not good for you and it will only push her away.

I have a terrible time with triggers sometimes... We don't talk about them.. He can tell and we hug it out.. And he says the sweetest things to reassure me. Then we carry on with what we are doing. Not dwell, no moving backward just forward.

For the first 6 months I resented moving into a huge home.. More expensive. My husband said if I ever wanted to move to downsize to lessen the stress on the family he would agree to it in fact he would start immediately looking for a new house. That being said...

This is kind of long but it put it into perspective for us. We now get massages every couple weeks and have aroma therapy diffusers in the home and while we sleep. It has helped with germs in the home too.

You may feel there’s nothing you can do about stress. The bills won’t stop coming, there will never be more hours in the day, and your work and family responsibilities will always be demanding. But you have more control over stress than you might think. Stress management is all about taking charge: of your lifestyle, thoughts, emotions, and the way you deal with problems. No matter how stressful your life seems, there are steps you can take to relieve the pressure and regain control.
What is stress management?
We all respond to stress differently so, there’s no “one size fits all” solution to managing stress. But if you feel like the stress in your life is out of control, it’s time to take action. Stress management can teach you healthier ways to cope with stress, help you reduce its harmful effects, and prevent stress from spiraling out of control again in the future.

No matter how powerless you may feel in the face of stress, you still have control over your lifestyle, thoughts, emotions, and the way you deal with problems. Stress management involves changing the stressful situation when you can, changing your reaction when you can’t, taking care of yourself, and making time for rest and relaxation. The first step is to recognize the true sources of stress in your life.

What are the sources of stress in your life?
Start a stress journal
A stress journal can help you identify the regular stressors in your life and the way you deal with them. Each time you feel stressed, keep track of it in your journal. As you keep a daily log, you will begin to see patterns and common themes. Write down:

What caused your stress (make a guess if you’re unsure)
How you felt, both physically and emotionally
How you acted in response
What you did to make yourself feel better
It’s easy to identify sources of stress following a major life event such as changing jobs, moving home, or losing a loved one, but pinpointing the sources of everyday stress can be more complicated. It’s all too easy to overlook your own thoughts, feelings, and behaviors that contribute to your stress levels. Sure, you may know that you’re constantly worried about work deadlines, but maybe it’s your procrastination, rather than the actual job demands, that is causing the stress.

If it makes you feel any better, its completely normal to bounce around the 5 steps of healing a bit. Triggers will start that cycle back up and hopefully it gets shorter and shorter with time.

What worked for me is having a phrase to repeat over and over when the cycle started. This interrupts the internal response that the trigger causes and reconnects us with our purpose ... in our marriage, in or family, or life in general. It can be anything that means something to you and gets your mind refocused on your goals. Some examples are:

“I am strong”
“I am capable of dealing with hard times in positive ways.”
"I have everything that I need to take excellent care of myself."
"I am healing my marriage"
"I can meet any challenge"

Whatever you connect with ...

But most importantly you have to stop allowing your mind to go down that path. It's a viscous circle and isn't going to get you where you want to be. As soon as the first step starts - change direction.

And honestly ... would it really make you feel better knowing that you were married to a bipolar, sex-addicted sociopath?

She got caught up in her needs and lived very very selfishly. How it affected you did factor in because at that point she was too deep into getting her needs met.

Sometimes there is no diagnosis for selfish behavior but there is a way she can work in changing that. That's what therapy is for and she needs to work on that.

I think what LisaLisa said really is what worked for me. I couldn't STOP thinking about something, but I could force myself *to* think about stuff. Cole mentioned how his wife would use a rubber band to snap her arm anytime she caught herself thinking destructive thoughts and this is often an effective method for betrayed spouses, too. For me, I was already hurting so bad, hurting myself MORE wasn't productive.

When we were in the early days of recovery, I too, blamed anyone/anything BUT my husband. Mostly, I blamed the OW. She "seduced" him. She "made" him have an affair. How stupid is that, right? But I, too, wanted so badly to protect (and maybe even justify?) my love for my husband so badly, that I couldn't envision that he would just do something so awful.

SO... when I'd get caught in hateful thoughts about the OW (she was the target of all my anger and hurt... as I said, I had to make the affair HER fault in my head, even though obviously she was only a tiny part of it!) I would instead force myself to think of ways I could be romantic with my husband. I would start planning dates, or putting together ideas on how to sexually surprise him, or I'd start designing loving gifts... because ultimately, I knew it was healthier to focus on LOVING my husband than HATING the OW. I couldn't STOP hating her, but I could turn my attention to thinking of ways to show love to my husband.

And yes! YES YES YES! It seemed absolutely ludicrous to be REWARDING him with love after what he did. Why should he get a major pay out of love after what he'd done!!? Except... someone has to stop the cycle of hurt. Truly. We both wanted to be together and we both knew we loved each other. We BOTH already knew he'd screwed up and we were BOTH really sorry for our own parts we played, so someone had to stop the screeching, careening bus from heading toward that cliff. Seriously. It's SO hard, and it feels so absolutely contrary to what one should do, but *punishment* doesn't work. It doesn't build loving feelings - in EITHER partner.

The thing I ended up realizing is that the more loving I was toward my husband, the more loving he was to ME, too. Instead of dreading coming home, he reveled in it. Instead of feeling like he "had" to go out with me, he craved it. Instead of being depressed all the time (one of his excuses for cheating, much the same as your wife's stress), he was actually finding joyful moments again.

ANY time I start to feel myself drifting from him or feeling like my love isn't where it needs to be, I start immediately investing time and energy into showing him love. Sometimes, it's honestly a "fake it til I make it" thing, because the sentiment just isn't there in that moment... and yet? I'll be halfway through writing him a love letter and my heart will be BRIMMING with love and passion and excitement. Taking actions to show love to him actually kindles loving feelings in me. This is key, because I think we're taught that we FEEL love and THEN show it, but sometimes it really does build (or rebuild) in reverse order.

So my suggestion? When you're knee deep in feelings of resentment or depression or anger about your wife's past transgressions - force yourself to think of something else. Maybe take pride in the good and loving things you've done for her, or maybe remember the kind and loving things she's done for you, or just focus on something SMALL like how pretty her eyes are in the morning or remembering her light up the last time you surprised her... and if you absolutely can NOT turn your mind to good things when you think of her, then think of something else entirely which is pleasant or gives positive affirmation.

For me, it often times was a simple, "THIS IS NOW, NOT THEN," because I would very often get caught in the past instead of living in the present. Thus, the suggestions Lisa gave would be absolutely perfect for times like those.