Journey Through Adultery - 6-21-11
Yesterday, we encountered a little bump in the road, and it revealed to me the degree of what I've said in the previous post really is true.
We were talking about the events where I had realized how selfish I was being by not wanting to do things with her and the kids over the years. I've mentioned the fireworks on the 4th. Another is Halloween. She and the kids really do up the yard, and when the kids come by once night hits, my sons will do sword fighting with a strobe light, and sometimes other kids will join them in their ninja outfits, etc. People, she says, actually have stopped and taken pictures of them and our yard decked out in webs and interesting lights.
Like she always wants me to go watch the fireworks on the 4th with them, she always wants me to sit out there with her as the kids come up to get candy.
My problem is that crowds are not my thing. Thus, why I generally don't like to go shopping much, or to the firework show, or even sit in the front lawn and hand out candy to kids. I can think of much better ways to spend my time, things that I consider "productive."
But as I've mentioned in previous posts, if it is important to her, it will become important to me. It isn't so much the activity as I want to do it to spend time with her. That's what I've come to realize.
But I responded to her at one point last night that I don't want to sit in a yard and hand out candy to kids when I could be writing. I don't want to slog through the traffic, sit on the ground for several minutes, sometimes even and hour, and then watch 15 to 20 minutes of fireworks going off which I've seen hundreds of times by now, fight the traffic to get back home, when I could be relaxing at my desk, telling a good story and furthering my writing career. Just based on the activities themselves, I would not chose to do them. Not that I "hate" them, mind you, but I don't consider them what I want to do. I would rather do something else more enjoyable, more exciting, less a waste of my time.
But, I said, because I know it is important to her, and I love her, I will do those things with her next time it comes up.
Now, I meant that to indicate how important she was to me, but it ended up having the opposite effect. She values those activities, feels they are important, and hearing me say that I still didn't think they were important and of value hit, as she said, some sore spots in her. She cried because of it. And in the process I felt my point being, "This is how much I love you and want to spend time with you...I'll do the things that I feel like are a waste of time because being with you isn't a waste of my time, even if I feel those specific activities are." But the message she apparently got was, "These activities you think are so important, simply aren't to me. Deal with it."
After talking with her, I think she realized what I meant by it, but it made me realize that she is still linking such activities as inherently part of "spending time together." So my not valuing those specific activities, to her, meant I didn't value spending time with her and the kids in what she felt was something special.
If the value is to be attached to those specific activities as "If you don't like doing these specific activities, then you don't love me," I'm sunk. I can't so easily change how I feel about them. The main difference between before and now is that before I only thought of my own self, how I felt, and didn't give a moments thought to the idea that if it was that important to her, I should do it even if I don't care for it. Now, I feel even if I don't like an activity, I'll do it with her (as long as there's balance in that we do somethings I do like and the stuff I don't like isn't too much) because I like spending time with her no matter the activity. She's become number 1, even over the writing or computer time, etc.
And we've decided, with the support of our therapist, that it is good to get some more balance from our overdrive focus on each other. That is, we've decided to scale back our gym time from every weekday whenever possible, to every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and she said I had to get some writing done today (hey, this is writing, isn't it?)
In part because it seems like so many people here encounter a wall sometime around one to two years after dday. They'll make good progress in their marriage, everything seems to be going along fine, but then at two years or so, it seems one of the spouses (usually the BS) can't take it any longer and pushes away their spouse, or the CS decides it simply isn't going to work, that she or he needs that OM/OW and leaves.
I've wondered about that, why it is that seems a key time in so many couples' lives trying to rebuild their marriage after an affair. And I have a theory. That's about all I have though our therapist confirmed that this happens.
I've gone overboard in devoting myself to taking care of her needs, making sure I've given her every chance of success in healing and rebuilding our marriage. I didn't want to get to the place where our marriage failed, we divorced, and I said to myself, "If only I had done such-and-such." I wanted to say I'd done all I knew and could think to do to make this work, and if it didn't, it wasn't going to be because I didn't give it 150%.
But that has resulted in my putting my own needs on the back burner. Granted, she is now fulfilling most all those in spades. She too is doing all she can to make this work. All that I would want her to do, she's doing. But like I've hardly written two paragraphs since dday, now six weeks ago. If I don't get back on the writing mode, what little progress I've made will start to erode away. I need to get back to writing. But if from here on out I don't get time to write, and we get several months down the road and have hardly done anything on my writing, I can see I'd start to feel resentful. In order to save my marriage, I'd have to give up my goal of being a well-known science fiction and fantasy writer and making a living off that.
So I'm thinking a lot of these marriages that initially survive an adultery, and the couple seems to get back on the right track, and grow stronger, and love each other more, may do so at the expense of inner dreams and needs they have. And if those go for too long unfulfilled, then the same thing happens that started the adultery...an unfulfilled need becomes the reason to do something "stupid" by suddenly ripping apart all that progress and leave the spouse.
Don't know if that's the reason in the instances I've heard about and such. But it could be one dynamic. So I want to make sure we get to some type of balance, where I put in the amount of time needed to make sure my wife's needs are met with her, but still have time to do the things I think are important for me as well. Maybe that way I won't suddenly find myself hitting a wall where our marriage falls apart a couple years down the road because I can't take it anymore, submerging my dreams and needs to make sure hers are taken care of.
We were talking about the events where I had realized how selfish I was being by not wanting to do things with her and the kids over the years. I've mentioned the fireworks on the 4th. Another is Halloween. She and the kids really do up the yard, and when the kids come by once night hits, my sons will do sword fighting with a strobe light, and sometimes other kids will join them in their ninja outfits, etc. People, she says, actually have stopped and taken pictures of them and our yard decked out in webs and interesting lights.
Like she always wants me to go watch the fireworks on the 4th with them, she always wants me to sit out there with her as the kids come up to get candy.
My problem is that crowds are not my thing. Thus, why I generally don't like to go shopping much, or to the firework show, or even sit in the front lawn and hand out candy to kids. I can think of much better ways to spend my time, things that I consider "productive."
But as I've mentioned in previous posts, if it is important to her, it will become important to me. It isn't so much the activity as I want to do it to spend time with her. That's what I've come to realize.
But I responded to her at one point last night that I don't want to sit in a yard and hand out candy to kids when I could be writing. I don't want to slog through the traffic, sit on the ground for several minutes, sometimes even and hour, and then watch 15 to 20 minutes of fireworks going off which I've seen hundreds of times by now, fight the traffic to get back home, when I could be relaxing at my desk, telling a good story and furthering my writing career. Just based on the activities themselves, I would not chose to do them. Not that I "hate" them, mind you, but I don't consider them what I want to do. I would rather do something else more enjoyable, more exciting, less a waste of my time.
But, I said, because I know it is important to her, and I love her, I will do those things with her next time it comes up.
Now, I meant that to indicate how important she was to me, but it ended up having the opposite effect. She values those activities, feels they are important, and hearing me say that I still didn't think they were important and of value hit, as she said, some sore spots in her. She cried because of it. And in the process I felt my point being, "This is how much I love you and want to spend time with you...I'll do the things that I feel like are a waste of time because being with you isn't a waste of my time, even if I feel those specific activities are." But the message she apparently got was, "These activities you think are so important, simply aren't to me. Deal with it."
After talking with her, I think she realized what I meant by it, but it made me realize that she is still linking such activities as inherently part of "spending time together." So my not valuing those specific activities, to her, meant I didn't value spending time with her and the kids in what she felt was something special.
If the value is to be attached to those specific activities as "If you don't like doing these specific activities, then you don't love me," I'm sunk. I can't so easily change how I feel about them. The main difference between before and now is that before I only thought of my own self, how I felt, and didn't give a moments thought to the idea that if it was that important to her, I should do it even if I don't care for it. Now, I feel even if I don't like an activity, I'll do it with her (as long as there's balance in that we do somethings I do like and the stuff I don't like isn't too much) because I like spending time with her no matter the activity. She's become number 1, even over the writing or computer time, etc.
And we've decided, with the support of our therapist, that it is good to get some more balance from our overdrive focus on each other. That is, we've decided to scale back our gym time from every weekday whenever possible, to every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and she said I had to get some writing done today (hey, this is writing, isn't it?)
In part because it seems like so many people here encounter a wall sometime around one to two years after dday. They'll make good progress in their marriage, everything seems to be going along fine, but then at two years or so, it seems one of the spouses (usually the BS) can't take it any longer and pushes away their spouse, or the CS decides it simply isn't going to work, that she or he needs that OM/OW and leaves.
I've wondered about that, why it is that seems a key time in so many couples' lives trying to rebuild their marriage after an affair. And I have a theory. That's about all I have though our therapist confirmed that this happens.
I've gone overboard in devoting myself to taking care of her needs, making sure I've given her every chance of success in healing and rebuilding our marriage. I didn't want to get to the place where our marriage failed, we divorced, and I said to myself, "If only I had done such-and-such." I wanted to say I'd done all I knew and could think to do to make this work, and if it didn't, it wasn't going to be because I didn't give it 150%.
But that has resulted in my putting my own needs on the back burner. Granted, she is now fulfilling most all those in spades. She too is doing all she can to make this work. All that I would want her to do, she's doing. But like I've hardly written two paragraphs since dday, now six weeks ago. If I don't get back on the writing mode, what little progress I've made will start to erode away. I need to get back to writing. But if from here on out I don't get time to write, and we get several months down the road and have hardly done anything on my writing, I can see I'd start to feel resentful. In order to save my marriage, I'd have to give up my goal of being a well-known science fiction and fantasy writer and making a living off that.
So I'm thinking a lot of these marriages that initially survive an adultery, and the couple seems to get back on the right track, and grow stronger, and love each other more, may do so at the expense of inner dreams and needs they have. And if those go for too long unfulfilled, then the same thing happens that started the adultery...an unfulfilled need becomes the reason to do something "stupid" by suddenly ripping apart all that progress and leave the spouse.
Don't know if that's the reason in the instances I've heard about and such. But it could be one dynamic. So I want to make sure we get to some type of balance, where I put in the amount of time needed to make sure my wife's needs are met with her, but still have time to do the things I think are important for me as well. Maybe that way I won't suddenly find myself hitting a wall where our marriage falls apart a couple years down the road because I can't take it anymore, submerging my dreams and needs to make sure hers are taken care of.
Replies
Yes, many marriages can and do survive adultery.
Many whereby both people truly are transparent, authentic, loving, and express what they need from each other, and then they both mutually give it to each other. A huge process which may also require some extended therapy, to determine some major causes and effects, and break those chains.
Have you addressed this yet in therapy?