So far I feel I'm given the task of healing, unfortunately I have so much pain that I would like my W to comfort me.

I like all of you BS, found my confidence shaken and found my self-esteem at an all-time low. My biggest problem is that I want my WS to do more and fight for me too. I want her to act the way I do, but that’s not her, I have found out she is grieving but she just hides it better, keeping all of her pain inside, think it protects me from the pain that she says she has caused.

I like the fact she is moving on and one of our recent discussions was how she would just like everything to go away. That’s her way of dealing with it, but I still would like her to read some of Dr. Harley’s material. It is my believe that I should just give her some time, but how much? A few weeks or what?

Why doesn’t she want to do anything and everything I would ask of her? I believe if I had an affair my W would have been punishing me not trying to make everything better.

DOES IT HIT THEM AS HARD AS US?

I have seen times where she screams that she can’t be that bad of person, but I seem to have pain everyday, while hers is rare.

I am sorry for saying this and it possibly being a hijack... but this is truly what I believe.

I will agree that BS's are destroyed to the extreme in this whole mess that they did not willfully create. They got victimized. They got rolled. It is far worse than suck. It is just almost the worse thing I can imagine. Witnessing the brutal dath of someone I love would outrank it I think, but not much else would.

That said, what is to gain from making sure the WS feels as much hurt as hard as the BS? I have never gained anything in a mature, grownup discussion when I used the defense of "Well you got to do it"

I also never gained anything when I keeped score and told someone that I loved them, wanted them, or needed them more than they needed me.

Everyone loves, needs and wants in different ways. That is were acceptance comes in, I think.

I am probably a foggy stupid WS right now... sorry I even posted.

patriot92,

I agree with what you said, but I would like my WS help me heal too! And right now she doesn’t what to deal with it! More over she has even said maybe you should have one. That’s not what I want, I want her and I want her to want me!

The healing of the BS is a tough one because the WS is also trying to heal. In my case it's like a Catch-22. For her, healing is not easy if we keep discussing the A and for me I can't move forward if I can't talk about it AND see her healing. So we are almost stagnant with our progress.

I'm trying to not talk about it as much so that I can let her heal. As she heals more then I feel like we can move closer to recovery. So, I almost have to sacrifice my healing for her in hopes that it will help me move on. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/rolleyes.gif" alt="" />

HLR,

Soon after Dday last year, we were going to MC, NC had been established (on Dday) and we were trying to rebuild. She then informed me and the therapist that she could not begin to think about SF with me because she felt so dirty and ashamed. Soooo..OK I accepted that (what else could I do..plan Aing you know). Don't worry about me, sweetheart, make sure you are OK, I'll get by. (sigh)

So maybe that is what your W is going through now. Maybe she has to heal herself before she heals you.

I have a theory about the WSs and selfishness. The WS's happiness always comes first in their minds.

Like you said on another post. Why did she go ahead and have the A and you didn't? SELF LOVE, SELFISHNESS, they come first in their world. We all revolve around them in our own orbits. Their happiness is numero uno to them. This is the way they are and we love them anyway!!

God bless us everyone!

k

Seeing that your a year ahead of me, when did your W help heal you?

I don't think an A is any form of SELF LOVE. I think an A is more about SELF HATE.

That is not what my WS has said! She claimed to have justified it by saying she was in-love with him!

YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TO HEAR YOUR WIFE SAY I LOVE ANOTHER MAN!

Oh, but I love you too, I love you both just differently…

PUKE!

You're dealing with someone who's TAKER has been in full control.

There is virtually no way for them to circumvent all of their feelings into supporting you.

I also think it depends on the remorsefulness of your WS.
They may still be unconvinced that this is where they want to be. They may still have anger and blame towards you.

Your needs have been unmet for a long time, but this is the wrong time to start expecting your WS to be the one to carry the load.

Your pain is out in the open for everyone to see -- hers is buried much deeper but its there.

She's probably wondering if this is the role you're going to cast her in for life. You'll always be the better person. It sounds to me like she's feeling that imbalance and would prefer not to be reminded of it.

She does not want to be reminded on a daily basis of how horribly she hurt you. That is a constant reminder of how "bad" she is. Your pain can make her run away.

As WS, I don't think I was willing to commit to helping her until I decided to commit to the marriage.

In my case, I was never "uncommitted", so throwing myself into helping her heal was a practical mission I immediately assumed despite my withdrawal.

Sometimes it was hard to know what she wnated from me. I am thankful that she was VERY explicit about things I could do to help her. It helped to know that, through it all, she really did believe that I was redeemable.

I'm like your wife to an extent. I wanted it to just be done with. But I knew it couldn't be that way and that she would be asking me to do some things that might be unpleasant.

I had to become very clinical and task oriented about some things.

From what I've read here, wayward wives seem to have a more difficult time deciding to recommit to the marriage. It seems that when women check out, they REALLY check out.

Low

HLR,

""Seeing that your a year ahead of me, when did your W help heal you?""

Well that is a good question. In her way, she is healing me, I guess, by acting like nothing has ever happened.

One time I brought up something that happened during the A and she said, "you know I forget all about the A and then you bring it up again" in a huffy sort of voice.

So we carry on. She as if nothing happened and me coming here and comiserating with you all...hoping I can find some answers.

k

Lexxxy,

I think you’re absolutely right! If that is the case do I let her come out of it on her own?

Are you a BS, WS, H or W?

You know, I'm gonna just put in my 2 cents.

I don't think that it is possible for a WS to heal a BS.

The WS can certainly help rebuild trust in a marriage, and the WS can certainly do other acts of reparation to show remorse, which is necessary to rebuild the marriage.

But heal the BS of the devastation of betrayal? That has to come from within the BS. in my mind, this is not something that the WS should be held responsible for.

To think that the WS can heal the BS, is to approach this from a BS victimization role. As long as there are victims, there is no healing.

Excellent advice, BrambleRose.

I often find myself putting aside my healing to be strong for my WW. When I show too much hurt, it pushes her away.

I read in a little book a paragraph on forgiveness...

"Forgiving is letting go of your hurt. If you are holding onto your pain because you want to show the person who hurt you how much damage he or she caused you, or if you act in a self-defeating way, always courting failure, allowing success to slip through your life, displaying your hurt by playing the role of a damaged person, perhaps you are making a big mistake.
If the person who hurt you could be influenced by your suffering to feel guilt or remorse and make amends to you, he or she would most likely be the kind of person who never would have hurt you in the first place."

If we play the victim, the healing will not happen. There is definately pain that has to heal... but I found myself at times looking for the pain so that my WW would feel bad or give me attention. This will not heal either of us. Both need to heal themselves in their own way and in their own time. Part of the healing for the BS is too become confident in their own person so that they are strong within themselves... not depending on the actions of the spouse. This will help both people to become stronger in their unconditional love.

Shaden

Thanks BrambleRose & Shaden,

I try not to show my WS my pain, that’s why I’m here and not ragging to her. But I do think she could show more remorse and do some things to help repair our marriage. For example I have asked her to read some of Dr. Harleys articles and with the exception of when I handed one to her she hasn’t taken the time to do that.

I am curious as to how long all of you are in to recovery. We are at the 5 month point and I cannot even imagine me not showing my hurt to FWH. Some days are okay, others are pretty rough. My emotions are still unpredictable depending on what triggers come up. I am on an AD, but still have some pretty strong emotions at times.
It seems as if this recovery thing is happening in layers....I finally came to the place of forgiveness this last week and am working hard each day to live in it. For the most part, it is the hurt that gets to me and the closer we get and the sweete he is to me, it is almost harder.
I am interested in the timeline of how this whole thing may play out....SH has said in MC, 18 months to 2yrs.....what are your experiences with the time it takes to reach certain milestones?
Also, our 26th anniversary is in a couple of weeks and we have been considering renewing our vows (actually, I am the one that is not sure of the timing, my H says he is ready today....has been saying that for months). I don't know...it just scares me a little still. Any thoughts?

HLR
Situations vary, no-one elses experiences can be a direct template for you I'm afraid.

In my case Squid had been a moral, loving person who had an affair in a time of weakness.

She tried to justify it to herself for MONTHS after ddday I suspect because if she admitted to herself that she had done me a terrible wrong, she would be admitting to have committed a wicked act. That was too horrible to face for her.

Squid has always had attribution issues. She has almost NEVER taken blame or responsibility for bad things she's done in the past. Over the years when we encountered a situation where Squid had hurt me or done something wrong, she would argue black was white then sulk, making my life miserable until I apologised.

Thats just how it was...even over smallish stuff.

So imagine how facing a mortal sin was going to be for her ?

She rationalised and justified her affair for months. " I regret it hurt you, but I do not regret my affair" I got for a few months. Then that softened to " I might have changed my mind. It just wasn't worth it".

Then a couple of months ago Squid apologised fully and heartfelt to me. She regretted every single moment of her affair ,it was terrible, shocking and if she could take it back at ANY price she would.

That was a year after d-day. A YEAR.

In fact now Squid is almost paralysed by shame and guilt over her affair. Its not something i can help her with much.

So did Squid do NOTHING to help me for a YEAR?

Of course thats not true. I have built a view of recovery that may be unique but DOES seem to be repeated in MANY recoveries i have seen.

Now I am developing a unique view of recovery based on my own experiences and studies of folks on here.

I think recovery has at least THREE seperate threads.

PRACTICAL - Day-to-day relationship and life support
PERSONAL - Individual recovery from overdependence and behaviours that contributed to the poor M that allowed an affair
TRAUMATIC - the recovery from the hurt, guilt and pain that D-day and withdrawal caused. Also learning to protect each other from hurt by selfishness.

I see that at least some of these three are required even if a divorce is chosen, but all three are required if a recovered M is possible IMO.

I think the first one non-MB aware folks will go for is day-to-day. Its thee natural place to start as we all have the skills, however latent to make each others lives better, which also make our own life better.

Chicken soup , intimacy, SF, openness. Etc.

Squid THREW herself into these tasks. She was transformed as a wife and mother since MANY years even three months after NC being in place. Now she is a wonderful wife and mother. Wonderful.
My own personal recovery has progressed faster than Squids - but then again FWS and FBS timelines are different. Maybe I had to get strong first to help her now ? I dunno.
Traumatic recovery has not been so fast. Frustratingly so for me. I feel I DESERVE a bit of dedication to healing my heart after a year of holding our whole lives together, but in truth Squid has helped me massively by apologising and by reinforcing her feelings of regret and guilt over her affair in many small ways.

For example we were at lunch yesterday and we joked together that culminated in my saying " I must be crazy !"

Squid touched my hand and said " You're crazy for still loving me, but I thank God for such craziness".

Then back to joking. No big deal, just an assertion of her love for me, her gratitude to me and her appreciation of me, along with her regret and commitment to change.

RIF and Orchid helped me realize that the PRACTICAL recovery can provide a platform that allows FWS to be confident enough to risk hurting FBS again in order to help us heal from the TRAUMA without fear of being kicked to the curb.

This seems to be a very real risk of many or all FWS in early recovery.

My hug einvestment in making Squid feel safe and loved, helped her contribute to recovery threads in her own order.

So HLR, while only YOU know the facts of your situation, if your FWW is contributing HARD to the PRACTICAL recovery then you ARE in recovery.
It is important - imagine having a healed heart but no effort to reintegrate your practical lives..No shows of affection..no active caring. No good 'spousely' behaviours.

Haveing said all that I got a lot fo affair information early on after d-day from Squid and from OMs GF. if you still have questions about the affair, these will need answering at some point.

When Squid closed up in withdrawal, I said " OK, baby, we don't have t talk about this now, but some day if we are BOTH to get past this, you will need to open up with me over this."

Finally, and I know I sound mean, quit feeling sorry for yourself and HURL yourself into being the leader your family needs. Invest in your family and your husbandry and fatherly skills starting NOW not when you feel less hurt. I'm more than a year in and I STILL feel hurt sometimes.

BS rehabilitation is ACCELERATED by active life-improvement IME. Waiting until you feel better before rebuilding is never going to happen.

Its like fat people wanting to diet to lose weight before they start attending the gym so that they will look better and it will be easier for them - in truth going up the gym ACCELERATES the objective of losing weight !

I hope this helps.

BTW "It alright bloody Bob telling me i should stop feeling sory for myself, he doesn't know how terrible and hopeless I feel".

Yes I do. I am just a bloke like you, nothing special, and I am telling you what worked for me.

All blessings HLR

Edited for IHSB - d-day was 21st July 2004. NC since 16th September 2004.

A w/PBR - Aug 2000 (several ONS 1 year prior).
d/d Nov 2000.

Found MB Dec 2000. Joined Jan 2001.

False recoveries - Feb 2001 - July 2003 (many)

True recovery start: August 2003.

It's been 2 years. Steve is right. What has also been said is that the recovery can take 2 - 3 times longer than the A. I believe that one more.

If both are working on the recovery, you will see progress sooner. The BS will take the longest to recover (IMHO) because the start of it for the BS was after the WS had been doing it a while. Also once the shock wears off, there tends t/b stages a BS goes through before recovery of the BS can truly begin.

JMHO,
L.

ItHurtzSoBad,

You can click my link and read my story and here is my BIO:

Imagine I took my W on a special trip for our anniversary and she invited her lover out to dinner one night. Yes that’s right on our trip she said guess who happens to be assigned to a client working out here? Her OM was just a former colleague to me at that point, I would find out three days later! You can read the whole story by clinking the link The story of Help Less Romantic

Now I do understand your pain, I really do, that’s why I talk to all of my new friends here at MB. I have no one to talk to about the A, I don’t want to hurt my W by talking about it to much and I have made the conscious effort to hide the whole thing from our children, family and friends. My W has said she would be devastated if they found out, but me I get all of the pain.

She say she knows how much she hurt me, but when I tried telling her that I cried everyday during the first month. She replied “if you can’t move past this, maybe you should find someone else that well love you the way you want.” She has no idea that the pain isn’t something that just disappears; I have tried to tell her that there is not a day that I haven’t thought about it. But lately I have decided that even talking about it once and awhile was causing her more pain and not making me feel any better.

Yes, I want to heal and move-on, but so far the only magic wand I found is ourselves.

We want the quick fix that can make everything all better.

The only magic wand is our self, we each hold the key. I like all of you BS, found my confidence shaken and found my self-esteem at an all-time low. Think about that do you want to be around someone who is miserable and unhappy. The answer is no, we all want to be around happy fun people and we are now challenged to do that at a time in our life where it is the hardest thing to do!

We must become the confidante fun loving happy person our spouse wants to be around. Nothing can changes the past, yes we can learn from it and try and make a better life, but we can not live in the past.

My biggest problem is my taker side fights some of my best decisions, wanting my WS to do more and fight for me too. I want her to act the way I do, but that’s not her, I have found out she is grieving as much as I do, she just hides it better, keeping all of her pain inside, think it protects me from the pain that she says she has caused.

So yes, we the BS have the undoughtily task of healing, when we are hurting most. Ironic, unfortunate it doesn’t matter, I know now I must find that inner strength to become the man I was and the one my WS wants. Sure we all have found we have issues and changes that we need to make in our life and we should, but they alone are not the answer.

I love my W and find that she withdrawals and hides her pain and I don’t want her life to be a living he11. If it is what kind of M is that?

I want her to look back and say; “I’m so sorry, Thank You, you did so much for me.”

So keep writing ItHurtzSoBad, I’m a few months behind you in recovery and we all need each other. Not sure how much that helps.

Thanks b0b pure*,

I think your right on point! And I'm trying to do what you are say we BS need to do. How long was squids A?