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.
016 has been going extremely well for me and my wife.
The holidays were rough. Very emotional. I pulled back emotionally thru out most of December, but once the new year hit, I felt a great weight lift off of me.
Mind movies and visions haven’t plagued me for some time now.
In fact, there have been a few times during the day in these first few days of 2016, that I’ve actually completely forgot anything happened….and when I remembered, I didn’t beat myself up for forgetting, I patted myself on the back for being able to get to the point in life at times, when the past is truly not part of my present.
However, I’ve experienced a few old triggers. Once is seeing a photo in my my head of the last AP, just working at a computer. Not doing anything involving my wife, just doing something mundane. The day after, it dawned on me that during the day, I had to interview 3 people. The first candidates name was the same as this AP, and the 2nd two candidates were from the same cultural background, and my wife attended a knitting group with members of our church at the coffee shop where she first met the last AP
Then I’d see photos in my head of my family with my first wife from the 1990s in my mother’s house at holiday times, and instead of me sitting on the couch w my first wife and family…I’d see , in these mental photos, that particular AP.
Weird and unsettling, but not distressful…. It was more of a “Why T F am I seeing this stuff…what does it mean?”
Aha….i said , in an epiphany the next morning as I sat w my wife over our daily morning ritual of a smoke and coffee on the front patio before work.
It didn’t cause me distress…emotional or otherwise, it just made me think hard about “why am I having this particular image come into my head” ….ta da
Then, last evening, as we were lying in bed planning on drifting off to sleep in one anothers arms, we started a conversation about music, and my wife asked what genre of music physically changes how I feel. I thought long and hard about it and said things like Lennon’s “Imagine” always moves me, but stuff like Kodo Taiko Drumming and Classical Indian Music performed live (ala Ravi Shankar) really stir up lots of energy in my body.
She said, “this is the type of music that moves me” and put on some slow blues….
And I immediaitely tensed….. and bam…the 7th AP picture shows up in my head…because he was a blues fan….and she thought she fell in love with him.
I laid there, tense…unable to speak…. Wondering if I should even tell her that’s what I was thinking, and where my mind ended up. She can always tell when I check out like that. Finally I said, “it’s him…I see him…it’s the music…he showed up as soon as you started the blues” I then asked her “this is too uncomfortable. Please, I need you to turn that off”
She did. She said, “as soon at I hit play, I realized that might be what you would think, but that wasn’t why I chose that music.”
So ..triggers are still there….still powerful…… but I am learning how to deal and let go.
That’s the goal.
Learn to let go.
Let it ALL just go
The holidays were rough. Very emotional. I pulled back emotionally thru out most of December, but once the new year hit, I felt a great weight lift off of me.
Mind movies and visions haven’t plagued me for some time now.
In fact, there have been a few times during the day in these first few days of 2016, that I’ve actually completely forgot anything happened….and when I remembered, I didn’t beat myself up for forgetting, I patted myself on the back for being able to get to the point in life at times, when the past is truly not part of my present.
However, I’ve experienced a few old triggers. Once is seeing a photo in my my head of the last AP, just working at a computer. Not doing anything involving my wife, just doing something mundane. The day after, it dawned on me that during the day, I had to interview 3 people. The first candidates name was the same as this AP, and the 2nd two candidates were from the same cultural background, and my wife attended a knitting group with members of our church at the coffee shop where she first met the last AP
Then I’d see photos in my head of my family with my first wife from the 1990s in my mother’s house at holiday times, and instead of me sitting on the couch w my first wife and family…I’d see , in these mental photos, that particular AP.
Weird and unsettling, but not distressful…. It was more of a “Why T F am I seeing this stuff…what does it mean?”
Aha….i said , in an epiphany the next morning as I sat w my wife over our daily morning ritual of a smoke and coffee on the front patio before work.
It didn’t cause me distress…emotional or otherwise, it just made me think hard about “why am I having this particular image come into my head” ….ta da
Then, last evening, as we were lying in bed planning on drifting off to sleep in one anothers arms, we started a conversation about music, and my wife asked what genre of music physically changes how I feel. I thought long and hard about it and said things like Lennon’s “Imagine” always moves me, but stuff like Kodo Taiko Drumming and Classical Indian Music performed live (ala Ravi Shankar) really stir up lots of energy in my body.
She said, “this is the type of music that moves me” and put on some slow blues….
And I immediaitely tensed….. and bam…the 7th AP picture shows up in my head…because he was a blues fan….and she thought she fell in love with him.
I laid there, tense…unable to speak…. Wondering if I should even tell her that’s what I was thinking, and where my mind ended up. She can always tell when I check out like that. Finally I said, “it’s him…I see him…it’s the music…he showed up as soon as you started the blues” I then asked her “this is too uncomfortable. Please, I need you to turn that off”
She did. She said, “as soon at I hit play, I realized that might be what you would think, but that wasn’t why I chose that music.”
So ..triggers are still there….still powerful…… but I am learning how to deal and let go.
That’s the goal.
Learn to let go.
Let it ALL just go
sounds like steps forward in 2016.