Thanks, Maverick.


The "movies" you see are the result of a trauma. This happens after any trauma - it is the natural product of a brain process that is attempting to capture information, encode it logically, and to make sense of it when the the particular situation is NOT LOGICAL.

Let me try to give you an example.

Say you were involved in a tornado. This happened to me recently, so it's a very easy example!

Many events are happening at once, and the flood of information into the brain is too much for the brain to take in at one time. The sound of the hail, the sound of the wind, the sight of the lightening, the sight of the "big things" flying past the window in the night lit up only by the flashes of lightening, the sound of the power lines being ripped from the house, the sound of the roof being torn off, realizing you have no power, searching for candles and matches in the darkness, trying to find an emergency battery operated radio at 4 in the morning in the dark, the sound of trees falling, the feel of rain coming in sheets at you through the door, the sense of cold water on your bare feet, the sound of fire engine sirens coming up the road, the realization of crackling sounds being live power lines down in your yard, the sense of danger, the yells of your neighbors in the darkness......yet all of this happening in just under 3 or 4 minutes.


Your brain cannot make sense of this, and so much more.

You replay it all, in order to figure out what happened first, then how you reacted, then what happened next, and what you did to react to that. You play it slowly in your mind, you talk about it with others, so that you can process the events to put them in order, to line them up with the witness of others, too, so that you can be sure that what you saw and heard is the same as what others saw and heard. Your brain seeks input from others, to be absolutely sure that what it "knows" is RIGHT. Because the brain doesn't like to store information that is unreliable. In fact, it will NOT store unreliable information - it kind of keeps it in a special way, and codes it as "hmmm, very interesting, but I really don't know if this is true or not, so I am not going to count on this information to make any real judgements or decisions on". Later on, if the information is deemed credible and trustworthy, then the brain will go ahead and store it. But if enough information comes along that proves it as garbage, the brain says, "Nope, that information is bunk and I just don't believe it," and the brain trashes it as far as reliability goes. The brain may have that as general information goes, but not use it for any kind of decision making goes.

So it is with an affair. You find out your WW is having an affair. That is a huge bit of information. You get pieces of information, some reliable, and others, well......you just don't trust it, do you????

Nope. So what does your brain do in this case?

It cannot appropriately rely on this information from a WS. It "sort of" can rely on it, depending on the kind of delivery you got from the WS. If the WS seemed pretty genuine, and was pretty forthcoming, then you might rely more on the information than you would on information from a WS who was cocky and entitled, who was reluctant to talk and denied having the affair at all. So you weigh the information, and your brain unconsciously and consciously attributes a value to the information - it says to itself, "this information is reliable to a certain extent", and will rely on that extent for decision-making.

And ONLY to that extent.


That is why you feel nervous or anxious about making decisions right after d-day. Because your brain has a naturally built-in system for reliability valuation, and it KNOWS how to rate information in that regard.

And you know a WS is not really reliable in the truth department. A valuable natural defense mechanism, our brain!

So, it is probably very good advice to wait before making any major decisions following d-day, in order to allow for that processing to alleviate. You need time to let this process run its course.

Regarding the sexual intimacy and the movies. What's happening here is that your brain is doing the natural thing again. It is attempting to make sense where sense is absent. It is natural for the brain to attempt to "fill in" information that is lacking.

We are creatures who seek information. We are logical, and as such our brains use information that we have and postulate more information from it. In other words, you have a given amount of information from your WS - and you are filling in information on your own! The bad part is, it isn't what REALLY happened, it is just you guessing what might have happened. Like a detective, you are filling in ideas of possible scenarios to solve the case. It is a natural process.

Had I woken up and not heard anything the night of the tornado (I would have had to sleep like the dead!!), I would have had to fill in how the tornado passed through the neighborhood, tore through the back side of my yard, then crossed one direction, turned, and came back again.

You are doing this because you don't have the information you need to fill in all of the blanks. You are just processing this in a way that is seeking "internal" information, and there actually is NO real internal information to be had. In some cases, the BS asks because they need the details, in other cases, they don't want to know. Some people feel like the real details would make the movies worse. I don't know - my mind was worse than the details, so when I asked, the movies went away. The real life details were pretty boring and mundane compared to my active imagination!

I hope this helps you. A somewhat boiled down scientific explanation as to (partly) why you have movies in your head. There's much more to it than this, but this is a good part of it.

Schoolbus

Perfect explaination Schoolbus. I appreciate how you took the time to explain it like this...thank you.

I have decided that I'm not going to ask any more questions about the sex. I have asked a lot of questions about it, and it seems now that I'm just repeating the same questions just to get the same answers (trying to fill in the blanks...like you said in your post). I was thinking last night that no matter how many questions I ask about the sex, the answers are never going to satisfy me anyway (WW is as honest as a snake oil salesman). Now, after reading your post, I know I'm making the right decision to not ask anymore. If WW was an honest person about the affair, then maybe asking would help me...but she wasn't and I will never believe her answers, so I'm wasting my time asking.

Thanks again

INTROVERT< YOU SAID THIS ON ANOTHER BOARD:



" just joined (and, got edited already ).

When I found out that WW was having an affair, I booted her out...brought her back...booted her out...brought her back. She admitted to a one night stand...I brought her back...found out about more details from OM...booted her out.

The last time, there was an altercation (she refused to go). I stood my ground in the doorway...she went nuts and tried to fight her way into the house...I called 911, and hung up right away, just to scare her, and to make her leave. The cops showed up and saw scratches on my arms. They pressed charges against her (I guess they have to in DV cases...zero tolerances). She has a NC order against her and is not allowed to speak to me. She lives at her mother's now, and I cannot get a hold of her (she is scared to call me back).

What the heck do I do now?

Her infidelity has been exposed to pretty much everyone, but other than that I think I screwed up plans A and B lol.

Help.

Edited by introvert (06/03/08 11:23 PM)

Top


#2072482 - Today at 12:58 PM Re: I've screwed up the plans


I am going to ask why you need to know about sexual issues NOW when you are not even able to SPEAK to your wife? It does not make sense to me. Please explain...

After the original dday, we spent 2 months in recovery (what I later found out to be false recovery). I did however admit in another thread that we did break the NC order and had sex one night since the 2nd dday. So, although we are in NC with each other right now, I have had sex with WW since dday and have had the pleasure of experiencing the "images" and "movies". And since we do plan on trying to recover after the NC is lifted, I would like to be prepared...because I plan on taking back what is mine...in an aggressive manner (if you know what I mean).

sorry to jump in here so late. i have skipped thru the thread and just wanted to add that YES you can be as good if not better then the om.

to reinstate the sexual intimacy with my w. once i felt she wanted back in. om was 10 yrs younger then my w so 15 younger then me. she said certain things that ticked me off about him.

well i had had conversations with the younger guys at work about still being able to make a woman happy so i took it as a challenge to them. and to both my w's pleasure and pain i beat that kitty up. night and day like we were 2 17 yo's.

you see the reason i think most PA seem more exciting is that we men stop laying the leather to our w's and start making love to them as our marriage goes on.

with om it's fresh, forbidden, and of course that makes it hot.

i quess i looked at her as someone else so i made it new for me. thus it was fresh and hot. and i wanted to show her that the old goat still had some horn left

See pops, I think I have the opposite problem as you. I have a very strong libido...WW doesn't (well, not until the PA started anyway). I like the raunchy, porn-type stuff while she is more into the intimate "love making". I have not asked her how it was with OM (whether it was more "sensual" or "my way"), but I have a feeling it was more in the "sensual" category. My problem with the images and movies is that, if the PA with OM was more sensual, and that is what she would like me to do...it is a heavier burden for me to engage in sex that way post A. The A has made it harder for me to imagine "making love", whereas "my way" is a little less of a burden on myself, mentally.

Some of the act of sex needs to be seen as a give and take thing. I get that you have your favorite "flavor" but I'm sure that you see the benefit it doing it her way sometimes too. Taking turns and giving to your partner will make it better for both of you.

Could you think of ways to mix both styles? Maybe a little bit of the rough stuff and a little bit of the sensual? That way you both will be satisfied. Don't look at it as much as a burden but as an opportunity to do something that she enjoys. You may find that when you fulfill her need for sensual, she is more enthusiastic about fulfilling your need for raunchy. It works for me and my H.

i like a little of both. the w now likes the making love style.

well i gota check out for today. maybe i can catch up with you tomorrow, intro?

Ya. I'm not saying that I never tried to do it her way, but maybe I leaned a little bit toward my way more often than not (she likes me in control, so that's bound to happen). I just think that it will be hard to get more into her way post A, because of the resentment that I have toward her and her A.

It may just be a time thing. It's painful. And the intimacy hurts.

I know that there was a moment about a month ago where I was just sitting with H on the couch and I had my hand on his chest. All of a sudden I wondered if he had ever sat with OW like that, just kind of snuggling, and I couldn't do it anymore. I was physically ill and had to get up.

But I REFUSE to allow OW to steal the intimacy between me and H. I have found that when I look at it that way, I am almost reclaiming it from HER instead of being reminded that HE did it. A little semantics, but it seems to help me.

I've found it much easier to be angry with OW than with H. Its something I am working on.

My IC explained it to me as an issue of diminishing returns. What was I going to do with the information? Was it going to change my mind about R? If the information was not going to contribute then it was information with diminishing return.

Just my 0.02

Excellent advice. From now on, before I ask questions at the drop of a hat, I will ask myself if the answer is going to be a diminishing return. If it is, no point in wasting my time or any more aggravation over it.

Very helpful you guys...cheers