H and I have our wedding anniversary coming up this week and the milestone seems to bring up a whole bunch on teary emotions in me. I am constantly reminded of how he broke my heart and cant seem to bring myself to "celebrate" . Its our first anniversary since D day and its like I am conflicted. I feel conflicted in that the old marriage is gone, What we have right now is great but the old weding date seems unrelated to it. H seems super happy about celebrating it and I cant stop crying with sadness all the time this week.
H is the love of my life and he broke my heart and I feel like I am mourning that and trying to heal that. At the same time he and I are working hard at building a new relationship and I dont know how to deal with the merging of the 2 with the anniversary celebration.

"H seems super happy about celebrating it and I cant stop crying with sadness all the time this week."

I think your WH is for celebrating because he gets to show how happy he is here with you. To give you security in your marriage. He's not looking to leave.

Maybe you can meet half way and tell him that you just want a quiet diner. No big party for you, something for him to do with you on that day.

wmf,

You are at about 6 months after d-day. This is a very rough time for recovery. It's normal to feel the way you do, and don't be surprised if some anger starts to bubble up, too. You begin to feel like the recovery has a sure chance, and so you get more comfortable with letting out that anger.

In fact, at about 6 months, I let some Plan F-U go to bat for me....yeah....pleasant memories, those. :crosseyedcrazy:


I remember my first post-d-day anniversary. Just before the affair, my H had bought me a beautiful ring for our 30th anniversary, and then just a few months later, he had the affair. Well, coming up on this next anniversary, I struggled with wearing this ring. It drove me crazy.

Then, I started thinking about our marriage. The diamonds in the ring sort of told the story of our marriage.

The ring has many diamonds in it, some princess cut, others round. They are set in rows of two and three, alternating. Along the edge there are more rows. Some of the stones are slightly larger, others a bit smaller. When you look very closely at each stone, using a jeweler's loop, you can see each and every flaw. You can enumerate the problems in each stone, and document the clarity of each stone with precision. If you look at each stone with the naked eye, you can sometimes catch that one stone is maybe a little different from another, a little smaller or larger, a little darker or lighter, maybe. But if you look at the ring in the sunlight, it shines gloriously, glinting and reflecting, springing rainbows all around you.


I began to think of each diamond as a year in our marriage. Each year had little flaws. Some had larger flaws, while others had virtually none at all. One or two of the years were nearly perfect, and others were darker, some were harder and others were not remarkable at all.

I suppose that the year with the affair was akin to the most flawed diamond.

But in the grand scheme of the ring - within all the years of the marriage - it was just one. Just one diamond.

The ring was still beautiful. It could still be worn.

The marriage is still beautiful. It can still be lived, and loved, and it is different from the ring, because it continues to evolve.

I put the ring on. I wear it.

I recovered my marriage. I live it. I celebrate anniversaries, because those celebrations remember both the best and the worst of who we are. Just like the ring.


SB

I think he is happy beacuse he is here with me and he says so in so many ways. Its just hard for me to open up and accpet that message yet and then celebrate because of it. I feel like the crack in my heat will take a while to stop bleeding and accept that.
His idea of celebrating is a nice dinner out with me (not a group party) but I cant bring my self to call a babysitter to set that up. Its like I am paralysed and my body wont co-operate and move in order to achive that. I am still mouring the loss of my old Boyfriend and cant celebrate yet with the new one.
I have been feeling so positive about our recovery and progress and this is just throwing a huge rock in the way.

I had your emotions, to the T. I actually told him to go and have a good time. I refused to participate in his plans. The next year he gave me a car which I discarded. The third year I agreed to go out to dinner as long as he didn't make it about the "date of that legal agreement we entered into". But he did.
And this is funny. He tells the waitress its our A and she seemed so bubbly about it. When she brought oiur appetizers I mentioned how much she seemed to like her job. She replies that she's just walking on air, that she had just reconnected with her old HS BF from 15 yrs ago and how she just "felt 16 again."
My H went white. Of course our trouble started with that old" feel 16 again" thing with his HS GF. I still ingnore that anniversary, but I do celebrate our Vow Renewal anniversary.
Our old marriage is dead, but we do have a new, better marriage than we had before.

Hi SB


You know I have bene keeping an eye out for the anger but it has not surfaced and not sure if it will , but when it does I'll be ready and prepared for it.
In the meantime what does surface is a lot of sadness. I really never loved (nor dated) anybody before I met and married my H. And now that I have loved him for 16 years I can say he is the love of my life. I said aloud the other day I wish I had other BF's when I was younger who broke my heart and then he would not have had to be the one to break my heart. I know it hurts him to see me sad and I wish I could hurry up and heal not only fo rmyself but also so he would not have to see the pain of it in my eyes.

I am confident I will recover my marriage and will live to celebrate it. I know I'll give it my all to get there. I hope to celebrate all the milestones of my M , I am just not sure I am ready already .
I wished my sadness was the kind that caused weight loss on the contrary it is leading to a lot of junk eating and a weight gain which I can assure you in not helping matters in my head in the least

wmf,

with the eating


when you go for the food


ask yourself - "is this to fill my stomach or my heart"


eat only for the stomach


Ask GOD to fill your heart.

He will.

SB

Thanks it kinda comforting to know that I am not the only one to feel this way. It makes me feel strangely Ok with allowing myself to feel the way I feel without thinking that it is damaging to my long term recovery.

Its like I have to keep chanting to myself its just a trigger, it will only last this week, next week will be better.

I feel guilty about my unwillingness to celebrate dampening my H's enthusiam for it. If he is happy I say go for it. Its like you said "Go have a good time", but in reality how can he do that without my enthusiatic support?

Mouth not listening to the brain. Too busy chewing the junk
Its like a vicious cycle , each pound makes me sadder and each sadness adds a pound. I think I need duct tape may be that will do the trick.

SB, not to TJ, but darn, you have shown me that I still have a lot of growing to do. Loved your ring explanation. I guess I have to decide to quit making him "pay". I feel sheepish. It could be good...having 2 anniversaries in a year.
I've got some thinking to do. Thanks. GF

He didn't go. He actually understood my feelings, but thought if i celebrated the A, it would give him a sign that we would be OK. He actually told me that he would marry me all over again. I just couldn't say it back to him. It had only been e few months since D-Day. But it has been over 4 yrs and i am now seeing, I have to loosen my stance on this. You are still in the "my marriage just got field gutted" mode. And your feelings are very understandable. GF

My anniversary was on 3 months post D-day and we only exchanged cards. H's card to me was a novel and mine was one or two sentences...it was the best I could do. I was sad like you; still hopeful but sad. Afterall, this day is when you celebrate the vows you took with him and he broke them. If he wants a quiet dinner with you then put on your best smile and let him woo you. Maybe just watch your favorite comedy so you have some laughter to mark the day.

Sounds so simple and yet cant seem to find the smile to put on, only tears come streaming down my face even at the thought of this image

gf only to of been there to see that waitress

SB
I have been thinking about your ring analogy and it seems to help.
We have so many years of marriage between us and the first half 2008 so far is the most flawed diamond in our ring. Like you said I am sure there are unremarkable years too. But the latter half of 2008 has been a powerful time. I should celebrate the power and journey of learning that H and I have been on for the past 6 months and celebrate how far we have gotton.
I hope I can find a way to smile thru the tears that I cant seem to stop.
I am afraid that the sadness is getting so strong that it will consume me.

Turns out I worried needlessly.
H tried to console my fears eary in the week saying if I did not want to celebrate the anniversary of our "old" marrige then lets just see it as a day to take for ourselves to relect on the fact that we are together and look forward to the year to come .
So it was a quite evening, I did get a babysitter and H and I went out to dinner. I got H an "ILU" type card and not "Happy anniversary " one. We have recently had fun doing crosswords puzzles and found out that we were both terrible at it so I got him a book of NY times crossword puzzles so we could be goofy together when ever we wanted. Just a little something to keep us connected.
Here is the disspointing part. Nothing from H. Not a card not any kind of little fuss.
I guess I sure said I did not feel like celebrating so perhaps that meant he was off the hook.
The part that he was enthused about celebrating and actually even remembered that we had an anniversary looked so promising. It actually kinda made me smile inspite of my tears. At the same time it seems like I got a glimse of what happiness can be like and not really get any.
In fairness to him I am not sure what grand (or little) gesture he could have done to to uplift me. He got a little teary with the card and gift and said he was dissapointed in himself for not having had a better plan in place but that seems to little a comfort to me.
Reminds me of something he used to say to me pre D-day. "Actions speaks louder than words" referring to the fact that I said I love him but never quite showed him enough, Ironic isnt it

wmf,

My husband sort of did the same thing a couple of times. I was so down that he just didn't know what to do - my messages to him were that I didn't want to do anything........I couldn't "move through it" and so he thought that the less he did, the better.

Then, of course, the rollercoaster goes up and down.

So I make this thing happen in my mind that I can and do want to move through whatever it is

and somehow he is not informed

so he is still stuck on the idea that I don't want to talk/think about that certain thing

only I do

and he avoids it.


Then, I'm all disappointed because he avoided it. Which makes him feel like crap, because he was trying to do the right thing and ends up STILL doing the wrong thing.

For quite awhile, he could not win. Didn't matter what he did - because that rollercoaster ride I was on moved so much faster than he could keep up with.

In fact, it moved faster than I could keep up with!

And how in the world do you explain this to him?????? I couldn't. Only someone who lived this could begin to understand - and believe me, on his side, he is living a whole other world of his own rollercoaster.

Somehow, his rollercoaster is hitched to yours. Only, sort of like being hitched as the last car, but in another time zone, without a telephone or a map.

You two WILL get on the same page. This recovery ride is not for sissies, and it is wrought with disappointment, pain, and tears.

But at the end of this ride, there IS a better marriage. Those diamonds do shine when you are able to hold your hand far enough away from your face to see the ring as a whole.

Right now, your focus is one day at a time, one week, one month. You are getting there - if you don't believe it, go back and read the first 15 posts you made.

SB

GF,

You will know you have truly forgiven him when you decide he owes you nothing.

Someday, decide the debt has been paid. He will love you for it.

And that will be the best gift you have ever given YOURSELF - the gift of forgiving HIM.

SB

SB
Its like you are writing down whats in my mind and I was unable to put into words.
Its exactly like that, he is doing what he thinks I want, except what I want changes depending on my view from the rollercoaster chair. Some times its up sometimes its down.
I know he feels frustrated cause he cant seem to do no right and I am afraid that he will give up cause from his point of view no matter how hard he works he cant seem to make me happy.
He does make me Happy and I see that he tries to do what ever the RIGHT thing is, unfortunately like you said our timing is off.
I cant even imagine reading my 1st 15 posts again. Just the thought of it makes me shudder there is so much pain, so much uncertainty and so much hopelessness that I dont want to revisit.
I am in a better place in some respect since D day but lately there seems to be a sort of depression that has crept up.
I am sure it is compounded by the season and all that is going on in the country right now. My H's brother also just passed away this month from cancer so there has been a lot of family stuff too.
I just know that I am stronger than this and I should be able to do a better job of dealing with all of this. But lately it all seems too overwhelming and I think the whole anniversary thing just broke the camels back.
So I am hoping its temporary and next week it will be all behind us and bring renewed hope and strength.

My 6th wedding anniversary will be extreamly dificult. It will be the 6th anniversary of "that legal agreement" that my wife and I entered into.

It will also be the 1st anniversary of me finding her and OM's cars at a hotel room together at 3am on the date of our 5th wedding anniversary. After she said thats not what she was doing, after I brought ice-cream to her work earlier that evening, and after I gave her money for her rent that day.

It will also be the 1st anniversary of me showing her the pics I took of there cars together, her denying it, me teary eyed asking her to please just tell me the truth, and her replying with "You know what, F**k you" and storming off to be with OM for 3 months.

Ahhh, the memory's
She will probably claim to not remember any of it.

I hope she is not expecting a lot from me this year.