He trying but it doesn’t seem to matter - How can I accept this?

This is way too long - so sorry. I’m on the downward spiral of this roller coaster. At least I know now I am not alone. I am trying to see just exactly HOW you get to acceptance and possibly forgiveness. My pain is big and raw. And I’m not even dealing with something that happened recently. I only just found out the real truth about our “Idyllic marriage.” My WH loves me. He tells me every hour. It’s not enough. Unfortunately, I see them rolling around naked together. Smiling.

He says it was long ago. He can barely remember it. He never wanted her, loved her. He just liked her and she was available and he was at a bad place in his life. And it wasn’t our marriage. It was so good. “I never loved her. It was just sex. I’m so sorry – I made the worst choice.” But there they are smiling, laughing familiar.

It’s a split screen movie. They are on the left. Florida, hotel, clothes discarded everywhere, rolling around, laughing. Hot stuff. I am in the screen on the right. On the bed with the two dogs. It’s November up north. I am 8 months pregnant. Alone, watching TV. Dry skin, swollen ankles, hemorrhoids. Sad and lonely. Worried about him and the business he’s so stressed out about. Thinking I have to pick up his dry cleaning tomorrow before he gets back in town.

I hate this movie and it is my constant companion.

The A lasted maybe 3 months. They were together maybe 8 times. I know – no big deal right? But I am shocked, destroyed. I need to know ALL the details.

He didn’t love her yet he risked me. By wanting her, making those choices, going back to her keeping it going, he put her in front of me. He says no but everytime they were together, he risked me.

He says she didn’t matter to him. Did I matter less?

It was a release for him. For all the stress. He knows it was wrong.

I am really getting worried because I can’t get past it. How can I accept this? Where was I in his heart? He wants to help and talk. So we talk, and talk and talk and talk some more. Over and over – the same thing and I get crazy and hammer him and he is hurt and sad and angry with himself and feeling like pond scum and trying to tell me to COME BACK – “I love you so much – You don’t get it. I’m here now and I’ve been her and I love you and you’re the most important thing and I made a horrible mistake and I love you… you get the idea.

It was 15 years ago. But it was still us. See, we were special. Back then, after 8 years together, I still desired him. Loved sex. Looked good. Until I got pregnant and then he was outta there! All my friends were “over it” (sex) busy with kids. I still wanted him. We were passionate best friends. Still are. I never knew about the A so it didn’t change. 3 months ago I was the luckiest woman I know. I was so proud of my marriage. 20 years! We had a great anniversary last year. SO romantic. I didn’t know. He knew. She knew. His 2 business partners knew and probably their wives. Maybe lots more at work. I didn’t know. I liked to brag about how much I loved him. My hero. And sex? We both still can’t get enough. Except now, I am struggling.

I am so confused. What is my marriage? A lie? He loves me – this is killing him – this “terrible mistake” that he made. How can he separate like that? Be in her and then come home to me? I don’t get it. Is it just a guy thing? I don’t think so – there are so many BHs out there.

He cries, “YES! I was damaged, stressed, self indulgent, selfish, altered, obsessed with business, a bad person, yes evil – for a short period of time.” And again, he is so so sorry. His face is filled with pain. When I get on a good rant articulating my revelation of the day about the shock and depth of my pain, I have actually caused him to get sick – vomiting. And I feel nothing.

He can’t bear to se me so destroyed, reduced. I say I was abandoned and he disagrees, saying he always loved me, so I convince him that no – when he was IN her, he was abandoning – devaluing – betraying – me and he gets it and agrees. I can even get him to admit he enjoyed it. I need all the gory details so I can be sure they have no secrets, yet they always will have. He says there are no secrets anymore. He hasn’t seen her and he never loved her and I know that. It’s not the point. I am so hurt that he did it.


I look at him and say – "It really was YOU ….with her…and I was here and available and you say you loved me, but you still chose to be with her…on my time – in my marriage" and then I usually start to sob. You chose to break your promise to me. And then you chose not to tell me for 15 years.

We’ve now had this same conversation 716 times in the last 54 days. Even I am sick of it. 3 months ago before I knew. How can I move on? I am stuck in this porno movie in the past. He loves me now and I can’t come back to now? It hurts so much but I can’t seem to make the choice to come back. I need to accept that it happened and move ahead, but I am to involved in grieving my pure marriage. I want my innocence and pure love and respect back. I want to be married to the guy I thought I was – my hero. Not this flawed assh**e who gave my marriage the finger. HELP!

Lilybelle,

If I could be so bold, I suspect you are grieving, and even though the events took place 15 years ago, you just found out so it is as if they happened when you found out. Thus, it may have been long over for your WH, but for you it is recent and it is right now.

Also, it is my observation not so much that you are grieving that he had the affair 15 years ago--yes it happened and yes it destroyed you--but you are grieving that you LOST what you thought you had! You are grieving the loss of your illusion. You thought that you two were "the ones!"...the ones who made it past temptation...the ones who would make it past MLC's...the ones who wouldn't get divorced...the ones who were special. Now, you are not so special. Your illusion has been shattered by the light of day and the light reveals that it was a pie-in-the-sky illusion of purity.

I have a few suggestions for you. You know the Five Steps of Grief, right? Acceptance is the LAST step...not the first one or even the second! So it is reasonable that you will experience and go through all five steps and eventually get to acceptance and forgiveness. So, I suggest you look up the Five Stages of Grief and see if you can tell what stage you are in, and what might be coming up next.

Next, I suggest that you stop asking for all the gory details--this just re-traumatizes your mind and heart everytime you hear about it. I know that part of you wants to hear what they shared and somehow destroy that...but it is harmful to you to hear that, and it is harmful to him to have to keep dragging up a 15yo memory! Soooo...I suggest that you take a moral inventory and decide on ONE LAST SESSION of asking questions and then commit to a period (say one month) when you will not ask another question. Here's why. What you are doing is basically picking at the scab. Every time it heals a little bit, you ask for gory details and pick at whatever healing your heart has done. You need to give it some time and allow it to heal. Now...what some people do is that...well...to be honest they don't want it to heal! They WANT to always have this leverage over their spouses head to use for guilt or to get their own way. So, I strongly encourage you to have ONE LAST session and then no questions for a month--to give yourself time to not be traumatized and heal.

Discipline your mind to not go over and over and over it. Every time you catch your mind starting that old movie, replace it with a current loving thing he did today. See, it's a little like Post Traumatic Stress Disorder--one thing triggers the memory and it's as if your body is reliving and retraumatizing, so one way to combat PTSD is to recognize you are having a trigger and become very, very PRESENT. Notice where you are right now. Notice things that you find pleasant right now--sights, sounds, tastes or smells that are present and make you happy. Training your mind like that can keep you in the present and help you not fall back into the past movie so often.

Finally, I suggest that you begin to come to grips with something. What has happened to you is in some ways similar to a rape--you have been violated in the most severe sense of the word. What often happens with rape victims is that they say, "I just want things to get back to the way they were." My dear lilybelle, things will not be the way they were. You will not get your illusion back. Things HAVE changed. YOU have changed! It will never be where it was just 3 months ago when you didn't know. But just because things won't be like they were does not mean they can not be Very, VERY good. You can still have a loving marriage with the man you love and have been with all these years. You can still be a mother and a wife. It will just be different from this point forward. You get to redefine things a bit. You lose your illusion, but you gain wisdom and reality. That's a painful trade, but a good one.

Start with looking up the Five Stages of Grief and get back to us...okay???


CJ

Lilybelle,

I am interested in how you found out after all these years? Did he choose to tell you out of guilt?

I sympathize with you. You are not alone. I found out while the A was still going on. It is over now, but is very hard to get past. I work on it everyday. I had an emotional outburst last night sort of like you talked about. Talking about it, trying to understand it. My FWH worries that I will never get over it. I know I will because I love him and I must get over it. Our marriage is worth it. Our children are worth it. I am strong and will survive with the help of my husband. And so will you. I know it is hard, but try to focus yourself on positive thoughts about your husband.

I too struggle with the "movie" of them together. I even went so far as to tell him I wished I had a movie of every event and word said for the past year and a half. Then and only then could I be sure I knew everything. Where I was - what the boys and I were doing while he was with her. Then I could know exactly what they did, what they said. I did ask for all the details. And for me, that was the right thing to do. Maybe it is not for you, I don't know. I felt a great sense of relief because the truth was less traumatic than my imagination. But now I have to get those images out of my mind. And that is hard. But I prefer the real images rather than the ones I had imagined. Sometimes I'll be going along and doing great then my thoughts will go there and I am torn apart again. But I will work through it. I believe in myself and my strength.

Listen to the advice that these folks have on this board. They are wise. They have helped both me and my FWH with our recovery. We are still struggling, but I am convinced that the books I got, His Needs, Her Needs, Not Just Friends, and Torn Asunder have helped us greatly. And this board has been very helpful. There is some great insight here. There is also a book someone recommended on the board called Total Forgiveness. I haven't seen it but it sounds good.

Good luck. I wish I had more words of advice for you. I hope my words of understanding have helped you as others here have helped me. Somtimes it is enough for me to know that there are others out there who are feeling the same pain.

ng