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.
a little over a year past dday
lots of therapy for both of us
lots of work
jan was a good month
feb not so much
my wife has been very low for the last few weeks, very emotional. she is also at the beginnings of menopause and starting bio identical hormone therapy
i can keep hope alive when we are both doing well, but i can't keep it when she is so low and depressed....nothing seems to make her happy...its almost like she wants to be miserable...like she goes out of her way to find something to be sad about
she has decided that she suffers from Emotional Fatigue Syndrome (Google it) ...
she has come to the realization, that the problem in our relationship was never ME...it was always HER.... she has diagnosed w ADHD last year...she says its a relief to know that, and in hindsight it explains a lot of her interactions w people over the years and loss of friends
no matter what though, nothing still can explain why she did what she did
what did she get from these men that she didn't get from me
attention? sex? focus? connection?.... respect...she had respect from me .....id be certain she did not get respect from any of those other men.
when she began her affairs, we had reconnected after 5 years of a a sexless existence. our twins were 5....we had sex 5 times since the kids were born..... we reconnected in a big way..... very lustful at times, be we couldn't keep our hands off one another...
she looked vibrant...beautiful, content, happy... and then i find out , while we reconnect...she started physical affairs w other men.
and for the life of me
i don't understand why
after dday last year , she said it was not about the sex, it was about the connection, which she said she felt she lost w me once the kids were born.... but I've asked her , wha connection did you have w these men...you trolled the internet for sex.... you only met these men to have sex...they didn't want a connection...they wanted sex.... but she and i had so much more then just sex...
and sometimes i am ok....sometimes I'm not....even the other day, we had an incredibly magical intimate evening....and afterwards, looking into her eyes, i started to think...how many other men has she looked at with that look in her eyes...how many other men has she dressed like this for.....and as i head off to the bathroom to freshen up, i get a glimpse of my middle aged body which has been overweight since i was a kid...and i think....this is all a joke...what women would want a man who looks like me.... no wonder she looked elsewhere...
and then i have to stop myself and tell me
no...this WAS NOT ABOUT ME
this was NOT my fault....
this was all ABOUT HER
this was all ABOUT HER CHOICES
and sometimes when I'm not thinking, i feel so close to her these days
and then i start thinking
and i think.... why am i even trying to reconcile w a women who did what she did...w no thought to me or our children..... ready to throw everything away for some mediocre sex with men who simply used her ...
i don't understand
i still don't understand
i never will understand
lots of therapy for both of us
lots of work
jan was a good month
feb not so much
my wife has been very low for the last few weeks, very emotional. she is also at the beginnings of menopause and starting bio identical hormone therapy
i can keep hope alive when we are both doing well, but i can't keep it when she is so low and depressed....nothing seems to make her happy...its almost like she wants to be miserable...like she goes out of her way to find something to be sad about
she has decided that she suffers from Emotional Fatigue Syndrome (Google it) ...
she has come to the realization, that the problem in our relationship was never ME...it was always HER.... she has diagnosed w ADHD last year...she says its a relief to know that, and in hindsight it explains a lot of her interactions w people over the years and loss of friends
no matter what though, nothing still can explain why she did what she did
what did she get from these men that she didn't get from me
attention? sex? focus? connection?.... respect...she had respect from me .....id be certain she did not get respect from any of those other men.
when she began her affairs, we had reconnected after 5 years of a a sexless existence. our twins were 5....we had sex 5 times since the kids were born..... we reconnected in a big way..... very lustful at times, be we couldn't keep our hands off one another...
she looked vibrant...beautiful, content, happy... and then i find out , while we reconnect...she started physical affairs w other men.
and for the life of me
i don't understand why
after dday last year , she said it was not about the sex, it was about the connection, which she said she felt she lost w me once the kids were born.... but I've asked her , wha connection did you have w these men...you trolled the internet for sex.... you only met these men to have sex...they didn't want a connection...they wanted sex.... but she and i had so much more then just sex...
and sometimes i am ok....sometimes I'm not....even the other day, we had an incredibly magical intimate evening....and afterwards, looking into her eyes, i started to think...how many other men has she looked at with that look in her eyes...how many other men has she dressed like this for.....and as i head off to the bathroom to freshen up, i get a glimpse of my middle aged body which has been overweight since i was a kid...and i think....this is all a joke...what women would want a man who looks like me.... no wonder she looked elsewhere...
and then i have to stop myself and tell me
no...this WAS NOT ABOUT ME
this was NOT my fault....
this was all ABOUT HER
this was all ABOUT HER CHOICES
and sometimes when I'm not thinking, i feel so close to her these days
and then i start thinking
and i think.... why am i even trying to reconcile w a women who did what she did...w no thought to me or our children..... ready to throw everything away for some mediocre sex with men who simply used her ...
i don't understand
i still don't understand
i never will understand
It's a hard pill to swallow and I still don't understand it because I'm just not wired that way. I've probably hurt him in a thousand other ways, but not that way. We all have our defects and weaknesses - this one just happened to be the CS's.
Once I realized its not my issue to figure out , life got easier. I only have responsibility for rebuilding the marriage, not my husband.
When her affair started, she went into sex-crazed mode, unlike anything in our history. In the beginning it was all an emotional affair, but it resulted in her wanting sex multiple times a day. Craving it like never before. It should have been a big red flag, but I just thought, "Finally! I'm getting the sexual relationship with her I'd always dreamed of." So I didn't look the gift-horse in the mouth.
The fact is an affair creates a lot of sexual energy. Even when her affair turned physical, she still craved lots of sex with me. It was so strong that it wasn't until our fourth year post-dday that it started slowing down at all. Currently, approaching the end of our fifth year, we have sex around 3x a week, which I've heard at various times is the "average." But the big difference now than pre-A is that she wants to do it as often as possible. She always acts happy and excited at the chance to do it. I never get the "okay, if I have to, I guess" attitude she has pre-A.
And initially I too wonder what the heck? How could I have been giving her sex so often and yet she still wanted more from another man? Didn't make sense.
True it, it never will make logical sense. That's because affairs are emotionally driven, not by logic. That said, it can be helpful to examine the underlying causes in her: how she allowed herself to go there. What her weaknesses are, what internal motivations drove her to go that route. That may take a counselor/therapist to digest and determine. It takes some honest soul-searching and digging by the CS. All not to do a blame-game, but to identify the issues so you can both take steps to avoid a repeat occurrence in the future.
But in the end, that will maybe tell you how much more than why. As Lisa said, they "wanted" to. My translation: I was responding to emotional desires that I allowed to grow because I fed them instead of starved them.
Even now, almost 5 years since dday, I have no good reason why she did what she did. She doesn't know either. There's no logic to why she allowed herself to get sucked into that emotional quagmire. I can tell you what I believe was going on in her that led her to do that. But it is still irrational and always will be because it was an emotional decision, damn the logic. We all encounter that in some part of our lives. Unfortunately for her and me, this was a big and devastating emotional decision.
I have a couple of articles on this subject if you're interested.
How Could He Have Done This to Me?
http://healinginfidelity.blogspot.com/2013/08/how-could-he-have-done-this-to-me.html
Evaluating the Why
http://healinginfidelity.blogspot.com/2015/01/evaluating-why.html