BS here and i would have to say the answer for me is no. I think i will always feel traumatized.

We're more than 2 years into recovery but I'll say at two years I still felt quite traumatized. The first year I was especially insecure.

Now, though, he's my rock solid best friend.
He's got my six and I know it. I trust him more than I trust anyone.

YES.

Wow, Pep. How timely. My d-day #1 anniversary is in a few weeks.

It's interesting how you phrased your question.

If you had asked if I was surprised that I still felt grief or sorrow, I would have answered no.

But you used the word TRAUMATIZED. To that, I say, yes, I am surprised that I still feel traumatized. I'm surprised that I still feel shock.

So, tell us, when does the trauma fade?

@ 2 I was still worried
@ 3 I was okay but still upset and wary
@3.5 - 4 I finally let go
@ 4.5 she did it again...


Trust is like a time bomb....

Pepper, your point is?

That maybe @ a 2 year point all BS should be well on the way to getting over IT. That a BS should be beyond the pain and hurt. The BS isn't the issue. It's the WS. What will they do with that trust.

Dr. Harley says there is no place for trust in a marriage. I may feel my WW is being honest with me, but I will never EVER trust her again. This is something I've yet to share with her.
But that's a fact.
Most all BS need to be see that.

The serial cheater thing...the one time thing, the EA, and the PA... all those kill the very thing that most marriages are built on.
I'm not a religious man. But I don't think it matters if you have faith in god or mankind....once you are a BS your faith in your spouse is gone forever. It has to be. You have to realize no matter how much you love your spouse they have forsaken you for another. They have discarded all that was beautiful in your marriage. That moment when you felt you could love them forever is gone.
Sad songs...bad days....cloudy thoughts...

Many years ago in an angry moment I said all WS should be shot. I'm sorry for that thought (even to myself). Sorry for posting it here. BUT...the WS has killed something.
For ya'll religious folk, it's an eye for an eye, or turn the other cheek. In an unfaithful marriage you can do neither. Not if you want to recover.

So..... Pepperband... after my foolish rant....
A BS who loves uncondtionally an unfaithful WS... What should they do?

Are you asking ME for advice what you should do?

You may not like the answer.

I'm not a fan of "unconditional love".

I started this thread to get information ... sort of a survey of those currently @ the 2 year mark.

So sorry DD. That is something all BS's fear, I'm sure.




I'm guessing that her point was that we SHOULDN'T be surprised that we are still traumatized at 2 years. I think the post was to reassure us that the journey to healing is long. Correct me if I misunderstood your intent, Pep.




What Dr. Harley actually says is that there is no place for BLIND TRUST in a marriage. I heard him at the MB Weekend say that EVERYONE can be trusted under CERTAIN conditions, and that NO ONE can be trusted under CERTAIN conditions. A FWS earns trust based on the EPs they are living by. AS LONG AS THOSE EPs are maintained, the spouse can be trusted. If the FWS abandons any EPs, the BS has reason to feel that the FWS is untrustworthy (no longer living in the conditions where they can be trusted).

I hope that makes sense. It made perfect sense when Dr. H explained it.

Pep and I posted at the same time.

Pepperband

a poll affects people. You asked the question.

Sure I'm looing for answers.
I too know that the unconditional love is a bad thing.

BUT.... I think about about the love I feel for my children. Then the love I feel for my WW. It's not so much different.

You can slap me around for feeling that way. I've done the same to myself. But it is how I feel. Yes my WW could leave me. Yes my children can grow up and hate me. But I love them all the same.
When you get married you must have a certian amount of uncoditional love for your spouse. Maybe that's not a good idea. But it is what it is. You can't change your love for your children, no matter how old they are, nor your love for your spouse.

Blind trust, unconditional love, conditional love......
In that respect Dr H. is wrong. even when there's been an A. to really recover those things must still be present.
Yeah, I can be blind and crass. But I love with my whole heart. I don't come half stepping with my love. My WW may have not seen it. She does now. That hurts her the most really. That I've told her all the things she missed.

But all polls aside....A BS will never get over it. WS hate that poll result. Of everything I've told my WW, that hurts her the most. That I will never "get over it".

So again Pepperband...
Yeah, if you've got advice. I'll take it. Everyone here knows "I" need it.

Sorry if I mess up your post. Struck a chord with me.

DD.

I have no desire to slap you around. You are already bruised enough.

Here is a quote that really rings the bell for me. We will be 2 yrs. out mid July and it is still eating me alive. Sky

Quote:
One day you will wake up and the fog that you are in lifts and you will find that you have gotten yourself into a major situation. A situation that could/should have been avoided at all costs. You will have taken the innocent trust of you spouse and demolished it along with their spirit, ego, and self esteem. You will have taken the flower you once married and poured gasoline on it and struck a match. That soul will NEVER be the same, whether you decide to work on your marriage or end it. You have literally taken a human being and completely altered their inner structure. Not to mention the toll this places on your children whether they are adults or just babies. You will see the people that you were supposed to love the most, forsaken all others for, go through the most agonizing pain that a human soul can possibly go through. They will be Devastated, angry, remorseful for things they blame on themselves. They will dissect their entire marriage to find out just what went wrong. They will then turn that blame inward. They will start justifying your affair for you. If they were skinnier, smarter, into your hobbies more, maybe they should have cooked more so you wouldn't have to go out. You will watch this butterfly become entangled in the web of your affair and watch as the spider of the affair slowly encases them in a cocoon; then you get to watch it as it literally eats your spouse alive. Every detail of the affair slowly turns their insides to liquid and the affair will then suck the life right out of them.

This is one of the most accurate descriptions of what happens to the BS that I have ever read.

As a BS in second year recovery I still get surprised at the anger that comes out when something triggers the memory. It's almost like living in that moment of time again and feeling the pain all over again. I don' want to relive that moment but I can't get rid of the triggers - I can only try to minimize them by replacing the negative thought with a positive thought.

I like the above posted quote. It is an accurate description. I do feel like I've lost something that will never come back - maybe the feeling of security. This is something I don't think a WS can understand unless they have been in our shoes.

GG

I agree 100% with DD and skyrider and MF.

Sorry i forgot gg as well !

gg there is a post by Mark in the recovery section talking about triggers. It is amazing to me what "strange" things may trigger me and how "angry" i still get about it as well.

OK ... it appears we are all on similar time frames ... do any of you notice how QUICK your anger boils over?

Do you notice that if your WS does anything even remotely entitled, selfish, foggy, etc. ... that you go from zero to PISSED in 1 second?

Stuff that would have gone unnoticed pre-A ... now puts you on full alert.

Admittedly, its better now than a year ago, but I don't see this little side-effect ever completely going away ... just another one of the little "gifts that keep on giving".

Drop kick two years out the window.

Why would anyone put a time limit on recovery?

I'm thinking, settling for what you have is a better thought.

Or not............

All blessings,
Jerry

Yes to everything that everybody has said.

I am SHOCKED at how traumatized I still feel. I would not have believed that it all would feel this fresh after two WHOLE years.

My H will not post, but I know from his words that HE thinks WE are doing JUST fine.

He is wrong. We have discussed it over and over. I have been RH. He does not hear it.

Sigh.

OH boy...I guess I'm part of this club too.

Sad but very true. Even if you're lucky enough to have FWS that does "get it." Overcoming the damage done during the A can be all consuming for the BS. I don't think the FWS ever understands the emotional turmoil their BS goes through on an almost daily basis completely. It's nearly impossible to put into words. I feel like I have aged ten years in the past two.

Want2Stay

Absolutely MyRev! Things that didn't bother me pre-A now send me into a horrible tailspin of self-doubt, anger and rehash. Once you realize that your spouse is very capable of actions that would hurt you, the rose colored glasses come off. Any hint of the attitudes displayed pre-A are an almost instant trigger for me. I think this is one of the more difficult aspects of R. Trying to separate A related issues and behaviors from just everyday M stuff is exhausting. Just par for the course I suppose. So you're not alone in that symptom.

It's like that d*mn energizer bunny. It just keeps going and going and going and going. :crosseyedcrazy:

Want2Stay