I'm not him.

Your encouragement means a lot to me, Believer. I suppose that was what I was looking for. It is right to be suspicious, though. I was an SA. The stories of people even on this forum who have WSes and go through this and then the WS goes right back to what they were doing, astonishes me. I cannot imagine it. After realizing that SSS really did love me and desire me all those years, I could not hurt her again if my own life depended on it. I want those years back. I want to undo the damage that I caused. But I suppose that is just being self-centered or self-focused, because I want it.

What else do you think she is going to conclude? Your actions in the past have not demonstrated love.

Sounds to me like she's finally getting angry, and you're seeing some of the anger and feeling some of her anger. Sounds pretty normal to me. You need to expect this, GM. Not sit and feel sorry for yourself because of it.






GM, this is a real problem. You should not be falling apart. You need to protect your wife from your own nervous breakdowns. You are not creating an environment where she feels safe enough to work through her pain and anger. Your continuous mental state of "I'm falling apart" every time your wife displays pain and hurt causes her to take two steps backwards in this healing process instead of moving forward.

At some point you have to become the strong one and support HER through the normal emotions of anger, rage, and grief that a BS needs to process.

TST, thanks for jumping in. That is what I needed to hear. I have heard this many times before, but still when things are emotionally horrible, I get weak and weepy and lose sight of what you just told me. I have been told this over and over, and it is so easy to forget. I guess that IS being self-focused. I must help her or fail.

Thank you.

Doesn't matter!




Doesn't matter!




It might, but it doesn't matter!




Yes, you did. So what are you going to do about it?




Doesn't matter!




Then let your actions show it by being strong for her.




You've hurt her so deeply, and you call that love? Again, let your actions show it by being strong for her.




Again, then start letting your actions show it by being strong for her.




It's a great goal, that again, can only be achieved by letting your actions show it by being strong for her during these times.




DUH!!!




I hope with the time you've spent on this board and the time you've spent coaching with the Harley's that you know much more than just "I love her now".

I'm sorry GM, but what you have to do now is stop feeling sorry for yourself. Everytime she needs to vent, you need to somehow learn what it's going to take to sooth her through that time, regardless of whether she stays in this marriage.

You need to view this whole picture through a different lens. That lens needs to be one that allows her the freedom to make whatever choice she needs to make. One that also includes you continuing to do whatever it takes to help her heal from all the destruction.



Doesn't matter!





Not by yourself.



Yes!

The real question is, "Are you willing to learn how to love her?" It doesn't happen by having emotional breakdowns.




Ah, now we get to the heart of the matter. You're calling out to God. If you will earnestly seek Him, you may find the answers that will allude you otherwise.

Now stop feeling sorry for yourself please, and start laying out a plan of action to help your wife when she's in pain. You might stop over to the recovery board and read the thread started by WHofRLT about helping BS's overcome triggers.


Regretting your past is not a bad thing, dwelling on yourself IS.

I see. You've recently acquired so much insight into yourself that a psychiatrist can't help.

If that's true, why are you falling apart?

GM

Let's look at this clinically-

You have engaged in extra-marital affairs your entire marriage.

You had a long-term affair with a prostitute.

You have ignored your wife for these relationships.

With this history, it could be concluded that you have SA.

I am not trying to beat up on you. I am simply pointing out the very apparent facts.

This aspect of your life needs to be examined and "autopsied" to really get the root of your choices and behavior. Without facing this part of your life, you can't get past it. Without some kind of active work to change the patterns, they will return.

If you won't seek medical help, perhaps you should consider the Every Man's Battle week-end intensive through New Life Ministries. It isn't an end-all solution, but it could be a start.

There are other things that will have to be in place as well.

Do you have any accountability people in your life? It can't be
your wife. It needs to be men who have the b@)($ to say "WTH are you doing? You are out-of-line." Men who will know when you are bs-ing.

If you are to have a chance to get healthy regardless of what your wife decides to do, you have to face yourself and it sounds like you are trying to hide from who you are.

"Every Man's Battle" is an excellent book.

I was being rhetorical, I guess. I am seeing a psychiatrist. Right now just for anti-depressant meds, but he has given me the name of someone to deal with the other issues. I will be calling him.

I was falling apart today. Generally, I have been pretty much together. At times, SSS and I have actually been having some fun. It isn't all a crisis. Anyway, these posts have helped me. I am glad I asked for it. It is like that old cliche after someone slaps you. "Thanks. I needed that."

Ok

I enjoyed the pathology metaphors:)

I am trying to change who I have been. Yes, I don't like to think about who that was. I guess that is running from it in a way, because it is uncomfortable. Somehow, I don't see that avoidance as aberrant. Under a microscope, if you place a little vinegar on one end of the slide, an amoeba will move away from it, because it is uncomfortable. But that mirror is everywhere I go. I look in it and see someone who had some very bad characteristics that have been catastrophic for my marriage and to SSS. I see some other characteristics that have been very good for a career in medicine. Empathy, honesty to a fault (except in my marriage), ethical, except in my marriage, persistence, determination, hard work ethic, humor, and a great analytical ability, except for analyzing myself. Everyone loved and respected me. In 24 years of practice, I was never sued, which is almost unheard of. I was great at what I did. People came to me for the answers. But in my private life, it was Jeckyll and Hyde. These days, 7 years removed from my career, I mostly see the horrible things in the mirror, and I want to go back and change myself. I want a mulligan. Like in the Shawshank Redemption, when Red told the parole board, "I want to go back there talk some sense into that young man, but I can't. He is long gone. And all there is left is this tired old man." I wish I could go back. I really do. But I have the capacity to remake myself...and to compensate SSS, and to take care of her and make her safe. That is what I intend to do.

I understand what you are attempting to do here. Expose yourself as "not 100% bad". I am certain it made you feel better about yourself to write out all your accomplishments.

What you may not realize is, you have basically written an indictment about your lack of love for your wife. Your list of where you had success shows what you value.

Making yourself look good (listing your accomplishments) highlights how little you've cared for SSS.

If you were trying to show how much you now love your wife, you just failed. You turned the spotlight back on yourself. Again.

FYI ~~~> This only makes what you did to your wife worse by comparison.

This is sarcasm, isn't it?

Do you think that it is appropriate?

Do you think you deserve "sweet and supportive" responses, and that you are in any position to challenge those that are not?

Yes, it was. And no its not. My bad. I was looking for some advice, though. Stellakat often responds with invective. That is not helpful, even if it is appropriate for the person I have been for so long. It seems that this forum is designed to help people not bust their chops, even if their chops deserve busting. All it does is make the reader reject what is said. I am sure there is method to that madness, and the motive may be good, but if it comes across more like madness than method, it accomplishes nothing and might as well not be posted. That is just my opinion, of course. And that is an opinion of a marital criminal who ought to be in prison.

So what?

:RollieEyes:

Then stop it because sss can only take so much. FWH and I have had our moments of him not being able to handle what a [censored] he was but the BS needs to know she can count on you. If I'm having a bad day and FWH's reaction is he can't handle my sadness or anger at some point I'd have to tell him to get out or let him leave. You need to suck it up.

I don't think that Stellakat's post was "busting your chops". I think that if you read it again you might find it very helpful. It is pointing out to you that until you can answer each and every one of those questions, you do not deserve to be given the time of day.

It is not good enough to say that you cannot answer the questions (except the one about loving sss). You need to answer them and then deal with the implications of those answers. If the answers are ones that cast you in a bad light (and how could they do otherwise?) you need to work out whether and how you can move forward so that those positions are no longer true. It is not good enough to say "I won't be that person again"; you are that person just now. You have been for 25 years. Statements and declarations do not make you a different person.

My thought was that your sarcasm was indicative of your attitude to building a new marriage. Think hard about whether this might be true.

You want things to be better right away. What are you going to do about the fact that they won't be? Are you seeing only warm and supportive comments as being helpful advice? Do you want to dismiss posts that are otherwise? How is this attitude, if it is yours, going to help or hinder you?

I will take that to heart, Pepperband. SSS loved me for my good characteristics, and they are still there, I think. The empathy and social consciousness are things that she still values. I'll take whatever crumbs I can get at this point. The case worker when I was hospitalized reminded me that beating myself up continuously is not helpful. That is the basis for what I wrote. I beat myself up all day long. Nobody is all bad or all good. Nothing is that simple. You know that.

I was writing from my heart, and I cannot be the person SSS wants me to be, if all I am is a bad guy. She is not a fool. She loved me for a reason. I have to build on my good points and extend them into our marriage. I think I am making some progress. It is up to me entirely. When some on this forum want to see this as a movie script with a nefarious villain who must be eliminated in order to save the heroine from destruction, it departs from the reality.

Agree, Raven. Same thing TST said. You are absolutely right.

I know SugarCane. Sometimes good things can be said in the wrong way. Things that need to be read and taken to heart can be rejected, if they are presented in an unhelpful way. It is tough to know what someone is really saying on the internet, when body language is not there. A message can come across in entirely the wrong way. That is why emails can be so dangerous. I tend to sound more didactic and dissembling than what my thought really are when I write, and it can really come across as phony or insincere. It is an old habit from writing long medical reports for 30 years. Believe me, my heart is where it is supposed to be, and I am working very hard, though it might not sound like that, the way I write.

Pre-A days this would have rolled off me but post A it just screams sympathy. Perhaps you didn't mean it that way or perhaps as a BS I'm now hypersensitive. My FWH would tell me things like this too and guess what...I didn't care.

So you have a hard work ethic...yippie...your treated your wife like dirt. So you are honest with others...yippie...you lied to your wife like a dog. So everyone loved and respected you...yippie...do they even KNOW the real you and the bs your wife lived with?

Were you all bad GM? Probably not. Having a strong work ethic or a good sense of humor are good qualities but is irrelevant when you mistreat someone. You should remake yourself. You should make yourself into the man that you'd want your sons to be... not only for sss but for yourself.