In the last text that I sent to the OMGF, I stated something similar.

I'm not sure it's absolutely true, however.

I don't have bitterness toward OM for the affair itself. It was not his obligation to protect my M and family.

However, he is a complete and total scumbag, and his every action is a disrespect to my FWW. The way the A was carried out, and the lies he spread when he faced his own exposure were slimy and disrespectful.

Today that hum of anger is strong. It's been growing the past few days. I need a hobby.

So, the negativity inside finally grew to a crushing proportion.

When it's just that small hum, I can face and carry it pretty well. I can fight it back and go through my day.

Yesterday, this wasn't the case. It grew to a beastly roar, and I couldn't even look at FWW.

Her reaction during these breakdowns... perplexes me. It annoys me, yet I appreciate it. It infuriates me, yet I respect her for it.

When I hit these points, the hurt and anger have built up so much, that I can no longer be outwardly positive until I shut it down. Unfortunately, FWW can read me like a book, and as I start to withdraw, she's on me. She's a soldier. She knows why I'm closing in, and she knows that I'm just ready to pop. And so she grabs her needle...

I fought against letting it out the hardest I ever fought last night. I told her that I refuse to make her cry, that I refuse to be the cause of her pain. She responded that she was already the cause of both of our pain. I still refused to speak my pain and anger. She cried anyway.

I gave in finally. Yes, the weight is off. She knows that I work that way, but I still HATE it. Part of my refusal to let it out is because I know this won't be the last time. Yes, these breakdowns are happening with less frequency, but I still hate them.

Am I failing to be honest by not letting it out?

Anyone have any redirection techniques that have worked for them?

Any recovered waywards who weathered firestorms, did that work for you? For your BS?

It just doesn't seem constructive to me, even if I can see a minuscule benefit.

Wow, you sounds just like my DH! Yes you should let it out. It is so much on her for her to have to delve for it...knowing it will hurt her but wanting to alleviate your pain anyway.

Take it from a WW or FWW (jury is still out on that) I don't want protected, I want honesty and intimacy so I really know where he is at. She wants to make ammends and can't do that if you are protecting her from herself.

I agree with sunny - just let it out. I would rather my BH let his feelings out with me, no matter how much it hurts me or he *thinks* it will hurt me, rather than shutting me out. O&H has to go both ways. None of us are mind readers, regardless of what "label" we wear, BS, WS, former, current, none of the above. And we (FWW) NEED to see the devastation our past behavior, lack of boundaries, and lack of EPs has caused. And, we also need to see where our BH is "at", emotionally speaking. We need feedback on how we're doing at need-meeting, implemeting EPs, you name it. She needs to know where you are at and what you need.

Do your best to avoid lovebusting, but don't build a wall between you and your FWW. Trust me, I'm living on the other side of one of those walls and it is not a good place to be.

You most definitely need to let it out! I struggle with this as well, not wanting to hurt my H, but you know what? Not to be a love buster, but our WS hurt us! This is not a revenge issue, it's being true to your feelings. Isn't that part of being radicaaly honest? Not to hurt her, but to be true to you.

You need to go with your feelings.

Gonna pick on WPG here, but I thank you all for your responses.

LBing is exactly what I am trying to avoid. I just haven't found a way to express or release the negativity without doing so, so I choose to stuff it down, which I know is wrong and doesn't work.

I showed her a journal page that I wrote one day about a month ago trying to stave off a breakdown. To me, it was horrible. She told me how much it sucked to see inside my mind, but when I said it was horrible, she expected to see worse than I had put down.

I could possibly transcribe it to here, don't know what the use would be, though.

She expected to have me call her names, or to use certain words; dirty, slimy, slutty, whore. I do not believe my W, even being a FWW is any of those. She DID allow some scumbag to treat her in that manner, but I don't see her in that way. It is hard for her to not imagine me thinking that way about her, because she feels that way about herself.

I refuse to contribute to that feeling, and I feel that is all I do when I get into these spots. I can't win. I suppose "protecting" her from my pain and anger is a DJ, but no matter how I word or control it, it always feels like an AO/DJ blitz when I let it go.

I have a tidbit caught in my mind with this whole thing, and I suppose I should consider the source.

My brother's first wife had an A, and the situation was similar to my own. The introduction of children knocked him down the priority list and he withdrew. In his case, it was within a year or two after baby. I fought for 7, trying to take his experience and avoid it. I just didn't know the toll it would take on me.

In his case, however, he eventually ended up having an A of his own, carried forth in a horrible manner, and is now married w/ 2 children w/ his AP.

He told me there is an "expiration date" on these breakdowns. In the back of my mind, that expiration date feeds me horror. I fear the day that the "just get over it" mindset overtakes care, and my pain and anger destroy the final thread holding it together.

DoormatNoMore gave me the suggestion on my thread about journaling. My DH was journaling for a while during the early part of recovery. We actually have had some good exchanges via email - I don't know whether he felt a little better about writing things to me rather than saying them face-to-face. Although we haven't even had a good email exchange for nearly 2 months now. Yeah, sure it "sucks" to see inside the mind of the man we betrayed, but that is a consequence of what we, the FWW, did. And I don't think we (FWS) will ever even begin to "get it" until we truly see the depth of the pain we caused our BS. The devastation that I caused my DH overwhelms me at times, as I'm sure it does your FWW. But when he and I aren't communicating, I have no idea where we/he are "at", KWIM?


I know exactly how she feels - I expect not just my DH, but pretty much everybody - to use those words to describe me. And I was called those names, in anger, on DDay #2. I still struggle with not seeing myself that way and not hating myself for what I did. But I have received a lot of wise counsel on this board that beating myself up, hating myself, is completely non-productive - it takes away valuable time and energy that I should be putting into my M.

But that's a completely separate issue of how you respond to her when you feel the need to express what's going on inside you. I know you want to protect her from any more pain - I get it. But when you are protecting her, you're not being O&H. And I didn't think of it before, but perhaps it is a DJ because you are assuming what your FWW can and can't handle.

The regulars can give much better advice than I can - but I know you've weighed in on my thread and H's thread, and you've been very helpful to me and our situations have a lot in common - so just chiming in. Stay strong.

HHH,

This is my first post. I am 35yrs old and my wife and I married very young, she was still in high school, lol. I thought we had made a wonderful life for us, 2 kids DS 8 and DD now 3. In 2007 we had our DD after 11 yrs of marriage. In less than a year (April 08) she meet a guy from church while on a W & W trip. They quickly became friends when they got back. To make a long story short for now, she completely hid the secret part of their friendship. She came out to me on Nov 17th 09. I had no idea! We are trying to recover also. Most everyday I feel as you do even though she is doing all she can to be the wife she should have been.
I fight everyday not to say ugly things to her. I don't want us to be another broken family. It usually takes me a week or so before I have to at least write her a note with the way I feel. I may start my own thread if I can handle the pain of it. I've been lurking for quite a while.

@Blue75 Love to see you on your own thread. Also, making a signature line highlighting where you are in recovery is very useful for others when speaking with you. It helps us know more about your situation.

And of course she hid it from you. Affairs and dishonesty have to go hand-in-hand. It's impossible to have an affair if you are totally honest with your spouse and don't do anything without their enthusiastic agreement! Well, unless for some bizarre reason your spouse WANTED you to have an affair.

If you think of your unfaithful spouse's behavior in terms of Love Bank balances, Exclusive Needs-meeting, the desire to "cake-eat" by deceiving both the betrayed spouse and the affair partner, and Contrast Effect, oftentimes the answers simply fall out on their own. Why did they do this particularly hurtful thing? To throw you off the trail or to gain some additional time with the lover! It's so common that it boils down into elements shared amongst almost all affairs. There was nothing unique or special about the affair. It's the same thing over and over again, affecting over 60% of all marriages.

If you or your spouse never have an affair on one another, you're in the minority!

So when you start your own thread, @Blue75, give us some more details. Have you sent a No-Contact letter to the Other Man yet? What Extraordinary Precautions do you have in place to protect your marriage from recidivism? Is your unfaithful wife being completely honest and transparent with you? Are you spending at least fifteen hours per week alone with your wife filling one another's intimate emotional needs?

Gonna try to keep up on my thread better. While I do enjoy the compliments to my "positivity," I don't want to be a misrepresentation.

So, I suppose it's 8 months in to recovery in total, and 3 months from complete disclosure. Found MB some time this August and started working with the online articles. Stumbled on the forums later, messed up much like 'ol Blue here (YOU'RE MY BOY, BLUE!!!! You're my boy...)

I have found it very nice sharing support and experience with others, as well as receiving it. DoNoMo is my hero.

Sometimes it feels like my LB$ is not in fact static, but more like a revolving credit account. When those interest charges hit FWW's account... OUCH.

It's not easy.

If I have a resentment, it's that it took an A for her to want to fix things. It's like "Hey, I have given you every reason to walk away, but how about you stay and try to make it better?"

Or, as I told her one time "It's like you ripped out my heart, squatted over it, and took a dump. Then you picked it up, handed it back to me, turned around, and asked if you could have it back."

UGH. REALLY?

I didn't want to give it back. She shoplifted it somehow. I think I was sleeping heavily, and she snuck it out from beneath my pillow.

Sometimes I feel like I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop so that I can go. At the same time, I'm leaving that up to her.

Yes, you're going to feel like that for a while! As her Love Bank balance increases again since her intense dishonesty and independent behavior have ceased -- an affair is probably the ultimate example of that toxic combination -- you'll have a day here and a day there that you forget the affair entirely. For me, the first time that happened was August 2-5, 2010. Look at my D-Day below? Yep, nearly a year before I had a single day I didn't think about what she did.

And, of course, trying to remember the days you didn't think about something? That's pretty tough, right?

Anyway, clue in to your feelings. When I'm feeling down, I do a kind of "personal evaluation" to figure out why. Here are the kinds of questions I ask myself:

1. Did I get enough sleep last night? Plan to talk with FWW about it, and discuss my plan to get to bed earlier.

2. Am I coming down with any sort of sickness? Plan to talk to FWW about it if so, and make a plan to handle it together if it gets worse.

3. Has my wife done anything that has made me feel bad in the past day or two? If so, plan some conversation that day to fit in an "I'd love it if" statement, talking about how I feel.

4. How well has she met my most important emotional needs (SF, O&H, RC, Affection, Admiration... but it changes sometimes) in the past few days? Can I name when and how she met those needs very well? Plan to mention how much I admire how she met those needs for me, and ways I'd love it if she met those needs in the future if she didn't quite hit the mark.

5. Have there been any job or other life stresses affecting me? What can I do about them? How can my wife help? When can I plan to talk with her about those stresses and get her help brainstorming solutions together?


Do ya notice the blindingly-obvious common aspect to all of those questions? Yep. My wife has a huge need for Conversation. So much that it's truly, really impossible for me to fill completely. The OM filled it by talking to her non-stop for 2-3 hours per day or more. He was unemployed at the time, and I truly think his return to employment after a leave of absence played a role in my wife realizing her relationship with him was based on a fantasy.

Anyway, I can manage about 2 hours of talking, but we're also meeting my needs during our window of 9-11PM every night and those -- ahem! -- don't always involve talking a lot, you know?

I guess what I'm saying is that if you consider your wife's feelings and include her in every one of your plans, you tend to meet several of her needs in the process. And after a while, it becomes second nature. When you demonstrate this kind of care and protection, you have a leg to stand on when making "I'd love it if" or "I love it when" statements to reinforce the behaviors that make Love Unit deposits in your wife's account in your heart.

And when the balance exceeds the Romantic Love threshold -- it sounds like it peeks above it every so often for you already! -- your Giver kicks in and you temporarily forget your resentment. That's really the key to the whole Harley program. It's Pavlovian. You're re-training one another with positive stimuli and responses, until just the mere presence of your mate provokes a positive response in you.

I have the posts you did on my thread saved already, and the ones you have done recently on balancing the Giver and Taker and how its important to do both when you are in Intimacy as well as Conflict. Now I have to keep this one too!

I really do feel like I am in Marriage Builders 101, great stuff!

The fact of the matter is, I think I even have days where the thought doesn't cross my mind. I'm kind of cloudy on that, but it feels like I have had those days.

That's what makes the days that I feel the anchor even worse.

Anyway, I realized driving home today, that I need some new travel routes.

On the way home, I drove past the location where the defilement of my FWW occurred. The flash in my head was her driving down the road with him, all laughs and smiles, on the way to betray me.

It was like a punch in the gut. I've got kind of a throbbing numb feeling as I type.

I really can't wait to finish school and leave this town behind.

HHH,

I just wrote on another thread about the same thing. Today my family drove down a road I know they drove down together. It ruined the rest of my day.

Re-focused my energy into some sneaky, late afternoon SF.




*Explicative Deleted* you, trigger!

I am having a trigger kind of day too. Glad you handled it well. I find that doing anything...enjoyable...really helps with those bad days! Finding a way not to have to drive by that place would be good too.

Yeah, I'm in the same boat. I have to drive past the location very often, sometimes two or three times in a day. I then have to continually put brakes on my mind. I wish I could move to another place, but it doesn't seem possible.

Hum level 3/10.

Work days suck right now.

We are going to dinner at the ILs, and I am going to set up their wireless network for their computers. FWW gets some Momma time.

Later tonight; a grand experiment in SF. We are marking Sunday as "Make-out only night."

This means no skin-to-skin contact with erogenous zones. All erogenous zones MUST be covered with one layer of clothing. Clothing barriers are not to be crossed under any circumstances.

Why? To build anticipation.

Realized tonight how much UA time affects me.

Worked morning shift, came home, took a shower together, and hung out a tad. She was reading, I did some computer stuff, and we watched a movie.

Ate dinner, then watched another movie.

Heads up; watching movies together does NOT fulfill UA time. I knew this, but was initially happy to oblige.

Was looking forward to putting "Make-out only night" to the litmus, however DW has a stiff neck. Rubbed it out while we watched the movie. Things happen, so whatever. Better for DW to be feeling well, really.

So, anyway, I was giving some simple affection; just a soft caress - and I get hit with a random flash. An electric shock runs up both my arms, and I recoil. I fought it, tried again, flashed again, recoiled again. Third attempt, same thing.

Talked about it for a bit when we went to bed. Decided no more movies after dinner, no more double-features. The damage was done, however, and here I am up at 2AM, when I usually fall asleep no later than 10 or 11PM.

I fell asleep for an hour or two, but the brain is in overdrive.

Hum level 8/10.

This.