This is just an update on where we are:

I don't like continuous posts so have started a new thread.

my original story is here if you don't know it:

original post

small crisis (deviation from Plan A) is here:

second post

Things have been great since last Wednesday. To look at us, you would think we were a happily married couple (even behind closed doors). WW went to IC (formerly MC) to get a referral for the psychiatrist. I have no idea how that went. She sees psychiatrist next week so may get some help for her depression. That will be good.

Things are running along very smoothly at the moment. I cannot see that she has had contact for a week. She is not really talking to her support group like she was before. She seems to be isolating herself in a way and that may not be good. Hopefully the psychiatrist will help in that.

My WW is no where near to being a FWW and we are not yet in R (IMO) because I don't think she is voluntarily complying with NC - she just has no option. She says that she is happy that she has no option and that it is helping her.

She has her passport back with all visas updated and I have a new iqama for which I gave her a copy so she can leave the country at any moment if she chooses so none of us is trapped here any longer. I wanted her to have the passport ASAP so she would not feel like she were being held captive. I thought that would help her mindset.

Anyway, things are going along great and now, this morning, I am depressed. Maybe not depressed - just melancholy but I am not sure why. I need to snap out of it.

Once again, things appear to be going really well.

You've been in damage control, Traicionado, and now it's time for that post-adrenaline slump.

You might find this article from 4060 interesting:

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I used to love to play a song written by David Mullen in the mid-nineties called “After the Hurricane” in which he sang “after the hurricane; crawling back through the rain…” It used to describe the often intense situations I often found myself in – the high stress, high emotion, emergency type situations that were so demanding. The song spoke of the quiet after the intense adrenaline rush when one needs to be still and recover.

This time after the hurricane can be most accurately described as “Post Adrenaline Depression”

“Post Adrenaline Depression” is more common than you might think.

For more than 40 weeks Richard Carlson's book Don't Sweat the Small Stuff – and It's All Small Stuff was on best-seller lists, having sold five million copies in North America. The book contains simple advice about stress management and reduction.
Elsewhere, managers and workers flock to professional seminars and courses on coping with stress. Stress management is a growth industry!

Wives of men in MLC are equally susceptible to “Post Adrenaline Depression” as their partner is in his MLC. In fact she is often more so affected. So, what is it?

“Post Adrenaline Depression” that often occurs at the end of an emotionally charged, highly stressful event. Women may recognize it as similar to the “post-partum blues” that many experience following childbirth. Men may recognize it as the empty “drain” following an intense situation at work.

Wives of MLC men typically experience “Post Adrenaline Depression” following a discussion with their MLC mate and also after periods of intense pondering over his MLC or affair. In recovery the periods of intensity are prolonged over an extended period of time often several months. When “Post Adrenaline Depression” finally hits it brings with it all of the symptoms of burnout.

The major symptoms of Post Adrenaline Depression and Burnout are:

• physical and emotional exhaustion;
• cynicism - which is an attempt to protect oneself from exhaustion and further disappointment
• ineffectiveness
• reduced energy
• fatigue
• irritability
• low mood
• depleted physical and mental resources
• a feeling of weariness

The term "burnout" was first coined by New York psychologist Herbert J. Freudenberger, who was involved in the free clinic movement in California in the 1970s, to describe severe drug addicts.
But Freudenberger, who experienced burnout himself, began to study burnout in physicians, clergy, childcare workers and others. He began to observe similar problems and symptoms and came to define burnout as "a state of depleted physical and mental resources."

A burned-out person becomes fatigued and frustrated by striving to reach an unrealistic goal or by devotion to a cause, a way of life, or a relationship that has failed to produce the expected reward.

Stress is the culprit
Stress can play havoc with our brain’s neurotransmitters – those chemical messengers that keep our brain in balance. Stress releases a group of hormones from the adrenal gland that are intended to help our fight-or-flight response. They provide “emergency services” to help us overcome whatever is threatening us or causing us stress.

Stress can exhaust the supply of adrenaline by imposing prolonged demands for this essential hormone. When the emergency subsides, the adrenaline system demands time for recovery and it creates a state of reduced energy, irritability, and low mood.

What you can do about it

- Prepare yourself for a period of “Post Adrenaline Depression” before you speak with your spouse
- Pre-plan a “bonus” for yourself as a reward for completing a stressful task – e.g. a spa, a single Bernard Callebaut chocolate, a glass of Baileys…
- Set aside a specific period of time for recovery
- Get alone and quiet. In quietness and comfort shall be your strength.
- Journal. If you have not yet created a FortySixty Blog – why haven’t you? Journal your feelings and your experience in your private blog
- Spend time with a pet. Research tells us that those who spend time with a household pet are calmer and more at peace than those who do not.
- Be Still. The Psalmist wrote “be still and know that I am God” Take time to sit in prayer and especially to listen
- Give yourself the liberty of recovery time.



What are some of the things that you do now for your “Post Adrenaline Depression” recovery?

Do you know of someone that could use this message?

Have you taken your own "me time" yet today?

THAT'S IT! ¡DISTE AL CLAVO!

Seriously thanks. I have seen this in me before at work. My feeling this morning was that I probably need to be very careful around my WW for the moment. I feel like I need to distance myself a bit without making it obvious. I can do that easily enough. I just hope I snap out of it before long. I am going to print out your post and keep it in my pocket for when I need a gentle reminder.

I'll try to keep updating but right now everything is so darn uneventful. I had thought about the blog a few days ago. I wish I had done that much sooner because I have already forgotten so much.

Dea nada, Traicionado. Para eso estamos!

You can best judge whether you need to distance yourself or not, but my advice would be concentrate on putting into yourself, instead. You've been putting out an awful lot and you're depleted. What you want is input into your soul, until your reservoirs are filled once again. Nurture yourself. And be patient.

The reason I mention distance is that I am somewhat depressed and I am afraid that I might say or do something, consciously or unconsciously, to try to provoke another stress incident to get the high back. I just need to be very careful right now, I think. I need to stay firmly on Plan A.

OK, gotcha. But still... as soon as you begin doing little things for yourself, the depression will begin to lift. I understand your cautiousness, but if you are treading the Plan A path, that will give your W plenty of security and give you room to do what you must do to aid your sanity.

I have never been in the military so don't ask why I ended up in a mine field in the Kuwaiti neutral zone - I don't have a good answer for it in my own mind. One of the things I did learn was that, due to military cost cutting, lands mines are not 100% reliable. What that means is that you don't actually have to step on one for it to go off. If a mine is in the sunlight, just your shadow moving across it is enough to make it go off. Plan A is not a path - it is a tightrope at the moment.

I have your printout in my pocket as I write this. Thanks again.

"My WW is no where near to being a FWW and we are not yet in R (IMO) because I don't think she is voluntarily complying with NC - she just has no option. She says that she is happy that she has no option and that it is helping her."

traicionado,

If given that the purpose of NC is to allow the WW to "dry out" from the addiction to the OM, what difference does it make whether she adheres to NC voluntarily or because she has no choice? Either way, she will break the addiction. It may take a little longer because it is not her free will, but as long as your marriage reaches the desired outcome -- who cares?

Your calm and mental precision has been my guiding star. You are a few months ahead of me on Plan A and I use your example to remind me that things will get better. You have done much to try to R. Your WW is being dragged along for the ride. You are the BS yet the responsiblity for R falls on your shoulders. Juggling emotions, thought and happiness is a job for which no sane person would apply.

Perhaps you are feeling depressed because at times it is difficult to see progress in your R attempts. Open your journal. Don't read every word you have written, but read the highlights and try to get a sense of where you were those long five months ago, and how far you have progressed. Remember the raw hurt and anger? Most of it seems to be behind you. Celebrate minor miracles. As you walk the Plan A tightrope, the surest way to fall is to look down. Look ahead and focus on your goal. Look at your daughters when you get home from work and remind yourself why you are doing everything humanly possible to R. Try to see your wife in the big picture. She is conflicted. Her upbringing will persevere. Things will get better.

If you need to vent, email me as you please.

ToddAC,

Darn you! Can't you let me feel the least bit sorry for myself for one minute???

No. You are right. I am beginning to think the Bigger loaned you his 2x4. That's okay. Whack me on the head because I need it.

I do think it is adrenaline deprivation that has me down. I like to work under pressure. Always have. Whenever I made a slam dunk in my work, I had a short-lived euphoria followed by a week of depression.

I agree that I am dragging my WW along for the NC ride because, without NC, she stays locked in the fog. Whether she likes it or not, she does need time and I am forcing her to do that. So be it. I am not apologizing. I simply don't accept that my WW has yet committed to R just because she has not yet walked out the door. I am not sure how I will recognize that she is committed (if ever) to R but so far I have not seen it. I say "if ever" because I have not planned that far ahead yet. I feel like I am doing the R for both of us but that is the deal I signed up to so I have no right to complain. It is not a job I wanted but it is one I am darn sure going to finish. That is not pride talking. It is simply because I know it is the right thing to do. If I do start to complain, take a big roundhouse swing with that 2x4.

Yes I will start the journal and today is a good day to do so.

Thanks for the reality check.

"I simply don't accept that my WW has yet committed to R just because she has not yet walked out the door. I am not sure how I will recognize that she is committed (if ever) to R but so far I have not seen it."

I disagree. It is not your gauge of her feelings, or even her feelings that count; it is her actions. She has stayed put. Maybe it is a case of "no decision" on her part. Hey, your goal is for her to stay home with her family and she is doing so. Five months of not moving to be with the OM? You are indeed lucky. Again, celebrate minor miracles. You are making progress. When you are mired down in the muddy road of Plan A, it is hard to believe that progress, but it is there.

THWACKK!! Ouch! I think you may even have left a mark. But I needed it. Thanks.

Oh and, FWIW, I don't seem to be depressed any more.

Amazing!

Things are calming down. The crisis situation is winding down. This is where the emotions stored and put aside break out. This is perfectly normal. With your analytical and rational thinking I guess reading about the five stages of grief as defined by Elisabeth Kubler-Ross would help you a lot. Her theories were put forth to describe the phases people go through when facing death. In affairs certain values that are so basic to us die so I can fully accept that we go through the same phases. The death of a marriage as we knew it.

Also have in mind that we do not necessarily go through the stages in the order put forth by her. Some people skip stages and some take them in a different order or take more than one stage at a time. Reading your posts I think you have gone through them in the “right” order and that is good news. You see – after the depression you will find acceptance. Not acceptance of an affair – but acceptance of the changes it might lead to.

One thing about depression. I think it is underrated. I think it is important to realize what “negative” thoughts are constructive and what thoughts are just negative. Realize what is causing the pain and tackling those issues. If images of OM and WW are disturbing you then denying it won’t get you anywhere. Accepting that it causes you pain allows you to counter the images. And just like it is accepted that love is a choice then depression (other than clinical depression) is also a choice. Realizing this allows you to plain outright deny yourself the “luxury” of self pity and misery.

When I was faced with one of the toughest periods in my life (seriously ill child) I sank into a depressive state. At a certain point I asked myself “does this do me or my situation any good?” I realized that some of my negative thoughts were caused by issues I needed answers to, so I got those answers. Some of the thoughts were pointless and just plain negative. Cold but true but thoughts like “will my son die?” had no purpose whereas thoughts like “could he get better treatment?” needed answers. By breaking the depressive thoughts in these two categories I managed to get answers that were needed and push the rest out of my mind. Like I say; depression (other than clinical) is a choice.

I’m telling you this traicionado because you are one of the more analytical and rational “victims” I’ve encountered. I think if I were ever to be in a “Lost” situation, stranded on a desert island, I would want you close by and ToddAC to write the script!

traicionado,

The reason the whacking left a mark is because that was a 2x8. The hapless 2x4 crumpled on the first blow!

It's a fine line between depression and happiness for us BS. Don't let that line be the tightrope and if you do fall, fall on the side of happiness. I sincerely believe in the power of positive thinking. The success of the cognitive therapeudic approach is a testament to that. Keep happy, productive thoughts.

Consider the sequence of the following by Frank Outlaw:

Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.

I am aware of the 5 stages since I found it the other day. I do think I followed the order correctly but my three-legged dog theory got me through some of them very quickly. I got stuck quite a while on denial mainly because my WW was out of the kingdom (OOK as we like to call it) at the time.

It is funny. I got hooked on "Desperate Housewives" and downloaded all the episodes from iTunes (we are one year behind here and I couldn't wait that long). I ran out of them so decided to download "Lost". I am hooked. Almost finished with season 1. I think my depression is just a temporary low after having survived an intense crisis. I also think ToddAC kicked my butt out of it. I guess I wanted to feel sorry for myself for at least a day but he refused to let me.

Mental images of WW and OM don't occur to me any more. Night before last I woke up with a dream. We were at a restaurant eating and she had to go to the restroom. I saw that she went behind a partition in that direction but didn't see her get all the way to the restroom. I got up and walked around the partition. There she was talking to OM (they were arguing BTW). Needless to say I woke up in a bad mood because, in my dream, she had broken NC (I also didn't get to hear what they discussed!). Later in the morning I decided it was not fair to blame the WW for my dreams. I have triggers but they are random and unusual at times.

I am on Plan A. I will Stay on Plan A. I also have adopted a fatalistic view that, regardless of whether we recover or not, my life will go forward with no regrets. Acceptance? I don't know. I have no indication at this time that we will not recover but I don't accept it as a given either. There are many obstacles to her leaving and I am none of them. She is her own person and has her own choices to make - as it should be. My Plan A is simply trying to be someone that any woman - including my wife - would be happy to be with. if that woman turns out to be my WW, all the better but I don't worry whether it will be her or not. Time will decide that for me.

All I know is if I were stranded on that island, I would want me there too. That used to make me sad in a way. I don't go there any more and give myself that luxury of self-pity. I have no problem with life not being fair. Nobody ever promised me it would be.

My mother did some good things for me and some bad things. One good thing is the sense of responsibility I had to learn from her (notice I didn't say "she taught me"). One bad thing is the baggage I carried most of my life being brought up by a PA disciplinarian. 20-20 hindsight - I would have preferred beatings. Fortunately someone was watching out for me and a "miracle", of sorts, happened that cured me in a single night in a rather Dickens style.

The marriage, as I knew it, has died. The marriage itself has not. I now know the difference. I am in acceptance on the first one and denial on the second. In other words, I haven't given up just yet.

"She says that she is happy that she has no option and that it is helping her."

This sounds very promising to me. It sounds like your wife wants to do the right thing. Many who are cut off from their fantasy just get furious, and decide to ruin what is left of the marriage if possible.

Hang in there and realize that there are lots of ups and downs. If she can keep away from the predator, I think you will see the woman you married come back.

ToddAC,

I like your progression by Frank Outlaw. I have never seen that before. I am somewhat more simplistic and, for many years now, have lived by the philosophy that you simply don't give a pig a pancake. If you have small children and read to them, you will know what the end result of giving a pig a pancake is and it is best avoided. I think it is just another way of saying what Frank Outlaw said.

believer,

I hope you are right. I miss her very much. I wish I had your faith.

Thanks to both of you. Today is going to be a great day. I can already tell and it is only 3:20 AM.

YIKES!!!!! I hope you are not having trouble sleeping. I remember those days.

No worries. I am up at 3:00AM every day. Just my bioalarm. I guess I just keep hoping Benjamin Franklin was right. So far I see no evidence.

Are you and your wife spending 15 hours a week together doing fun things? That is part of the program here too - based on the theory that over time, couples lose touch with each other, and time together can change that.