I've moved out of my house until I can get myself back together, clean and sober. The last few months, every fight between my wife and I was started by ME, either sober or drunk.
I'm on my way to recovery in both ways, marital and addiction. Moving out of the house was my idea to try and save our marriage. I need time away to work on myself and to stop beating her up mentally over and over. We do love each other and our story is too long for me to type, but the triggers still come, even if they bring nothing but sadness at this point, instead of rage and anger.
Like for instance, just moving to my sister's house, which is in same town as one of the men my wife made contact with online lives in. She never ended up meeting him, but still it bothers me that the guy could be living within 5 miles of me now. It's a very small town. He could even be one of my clients in fact.
So as I laid in a cold bed alone last night, away from home, that thought(trigger) hit me. Luckily I'm in control of the booze right now(hopefully for good, I feel I am on that road) and have replaced it with zoloft, campral,and out patient rehab so it didn't make me raise up in bed grinding my teeth in anger.
It's been five months almost to a day since I found out about her affair. The first few days just about any song on the radio triggered me to the point of crying. I never really paid attention on just how much music is devoted to love and betrayal(sp)
The man's name, a common one, is/was/is a trigger...
The name of the city he lives in 30 miles away...trigger
Most of my triggers are gone now, or at least I can manage them and tuck them safely behind a synapse or two. But when one does break out, I lose control and start an argument. I still have to make sure not to watch any films about adultery because that is a big trigger. "Alfie" got me so pissed off I'm glad he felt doomed at the end, heh.
For a while, I couldn't even get in my wife's car without triggering because I knew "he" had been in it. I felt like knocking over the condom shelf at the pharmacy once. I got so angry staring at them knowing that I got a vasectomy for us years back, yet she still had use for them with another man "95%" of the time....
I love my wife and I believe she loves me because she has proved so in so many ways before and after her affair. I know that the dry drunk "shell" I was in provoked her into an affair that I believe she truly regrets now.
So it's all up to me now, she wants us to move forward with a better marriage than before and I think it will happen if only I can make the triggers a little harder to pull. Or will they go away completely over time?
