Was kind of a "Greatest Hits +" album.

Dig it, though.

Wow.

I think it's been a month since I nuked last.

Not that I haven't gone down the hole. It's kind of driving FWW nuts, though. When I don't get something out, I tend to spend longer in the dumps. She also wants to know what is in my head and whatnot. But, you know, mamma always said "If you ain't got nothin' nice to say, then don't say nothin'!"

This month blows. I only have rough estimates for the days that I busted her on the texting and for full disclosure. I know the day of ILYBINILWY, but it's vaguely unimportant. What I DO know, is the date of the day she first slept with douchenozzle. The day before her birthday. Great.

Seems her birthday is the day she has chosen for cheating on me.

Aaaaaaaaaanyway... hate Corey Taylor, but he keeps turning out music that gets me through;



It's only common sense so please don't take offense
I gotta say what's on my mind
Cuz all this bitterness has made me second-guess
And I have waited all my life
You know it's true - it isn't me, it isn't you
I can't be your man
But here's what I don't understand

If I can't live without you
But I can't breathe when I'm with you
What are we really doing here?
I don't wanna live without you
But God only knows what I've been through
Cuz dying is all we're doing here

You leave me suffering 'til I can't feel a thing
It's all I got when I want more
If I waste one more day then they can take me away
Cuz it'll be worse than it was before
You know it's true - it isn't me, it isn't you
I can't be your man
But here's what I don't understand

If I can't live without you
But I can't breathe when I'm with you
What are we really doing here?
I don't wanna live without you
But God only knows what I've been through
Cuz dying is all we're doing here

If I can't live without you
But I can't breathe when I'm with you
What are we really doing here?
I don't wanna live without you
But God only knows what I've been through
Cuz dying is all we're doing here
Oh, if I can't breathe when I'm with you
What are we really doing...
What are we really doing here?
I don't wanna live without you -
I don't wanna live without you
Cuz dying is all we're doing here

"If you ain't got nothin' nice to say, then don't say nothin'!"

I call that "The Thumper Defense"...because thats what Thumper's momma always told him

Excellent choice of music, HHH...there are lots of songs on that album that speak to me, too.

******

"We are what we think. All that we are arises from our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world." -- Buddha

Everything we do is a choice.
Everything emotionally we feel is a choice.
Therefore, anger is a choice we make.

I can say this with 100% certainty because I lived it.

I chose to live a very, very angry life over the past year +. I won't get into why, but just know that I was not a nice person to live with. I was very disrespectful to my family, especially my wife. I think God I never got physical..but sometimes words hurt more than any blow ever could.

I think that anger, and living angry, is much like an addiction. It isn't a normal addiction that makes us feel good...obviously...but its one that is very hard to escape from.

At some point, there will be a "bottom" that you'll hit.

My "bottom" was the day my wife said "We need to talk."

I knew that I couldn't keep living the way I had.

I knew that I had to *choose* a different way of living...that my unhealthy anger was sabotaging my marriage and, worst of all, making me be someone that I never thought I would be.

I had to *choose* a new way of thinking...to save myself and to save my marriage.

I had to *choose* new ways to react to situations that were going to come up....kids, school, other stressors...none of that was going to go away. None of that was going to change.

We talk about "triggers" so often on these boards. Well, they aren't going to go away....just like my family, job, school, etc. was not going to go away.

Its how I reacted to these things is the only thing that I had any control over at all.

For some things, I have a set "plan" on how to deal with it. For other stuff that comes up...deep breaths, and thinking before I react really helps. That way, I don't say hurtful things.

I can't tell you what to do, I can only tell you what helped me:

First thing I did was to "Let go, and let God." Cliche, I know, its somewhat cliche' and hard to do. I hadn't had Him in my life for a long time, but He was always there regardless of whether or not I saw it.

I fed my brain/soul/spirit with positive thoughts. No more "garbage in, garbage out". Every day...hell...damn near every hour for a few days, I looked up and read positive thoughts. Before, I just quoted these "smart" people because I thought that what they said made sense.

It wasn't until I had *lived* it, that what they said *really* clicked with me and thats when I gained some small bit of wisdom.

When I was upset about something, I didn't let it build up. From the sounds of it, you tend to bottle things up for days on end, and then, as you say, go "nuclear".

Get it out ASAP, as the anger comes.

I can't say any of this will work for you....I am not you, and I do not think like you.

But, I hope that in some small measure, maybe it will.

And know that you'll have good and bad days. I do...but know that tomorrow is a new day, and that you have a new chance to do better. Its all any of us can do, really.

May peace truly be with you, HHH.

If each day were your last, how would you spend it? We can't truly know when our last day is.

Would you worry about the experiences that you didn't have, or be thankful for the ones you shared?

There is a mindset in which people worry about the things they haven't done, and a lot of those people think that way while they are living, and it leads them toward very poor decisions, destructive decisions.

How would you live if you began and ended each day at peace?

This is the way of the Samurai... interestingly enough, it is also the way of PoJA. We can be the most attractive, smart, successful, funny, talented people... but if we do not consider our spouses, if we do not earnestly place importance on them, in all of our actions - then we fail our spouse. We fail our retainers.

Argh. Can't find Hagakure today...

Been nice reading it, reflecting, and reapplying. Kinda keeps me centered.

Been kinda spiraling since the 1st... NO NUKES, NO NUKES, NO NUKES!

It may be coming up on a year since this whole sh*&-storm started, 11 months since I was given a clue... but it's just 4 months of me knowing what actually happened.

I'm doing what I can to maintain balance; I don't want to shut FWW out, but when it's the same-ol-same-ol dragging me down, it just feels abusive to let her in, too.



Nevermind the face that you put on
In front of me
And nevermind the pain
You've put me ..through

Cause every little thing you say
And every little thing you do
It makes me doubt all of this

What are you waiting for?

Look what you did
Is this who you wanted me to be?
Well it's not me

Look what you did
Is this how you wanted it to be?
This life you gave away
Was meant for me

Forget about the trip that you've been on
Or so it seems
Nevermind the lies that you told, my tears

Cause every little thing you said
And every little thing you did
You made me doubt all of this

Is that what your waiting for?

Look what you did
Is this who you wanted me to be?
Well it's not me

Look what you did
Is this how you wanted it to be?
This life you gave away
Was meant for me
Was meant for me
Was meant for me
Yeah, Yeahhhhhh

Look what you did
Is this who you wanted me to be?
Well it's not me

Look what you did
Is this how you wanted it to be?
This life you gave away
Was meant for me

I don't know how I can face this pain
I'll keep it inside so you can't see
I don't think I can go on this way, 'cause it's not me

Short and simple; F$%K THIS WEEK!

By now, she had kissed him. By now, he had began groping her at work. Two days from now... yeah.

Had those bad thoughts this morning... the images were so vivid that if I could retell them, I think I could be a horror director.

This week, FML.

"Where some people see coincidence, I see providence..."


Got a stomach virus... down for the count at home....

The day could have been worse.


I'll take that for now...

HHH,

I haven't posted on MB for a long time, but I still do read every once in a while and following along on your thread, I felt I just had to post.

It gets better. Your wife seems to be doing everything she can to help you get through it and that is huge. In my sitch, my wife took almost 6 months to get through WD after NC had been established and it was probably another 3 months or so after that before I saw the real her again. Since then (it's been 2 years), she's been everything I could ask for as a wife and helping me heal. And even with my wife doing everything I could ask, I still have times where I trigger terribly. But those times are fewer and farther between and much shorter in duration.

Just wanted to say I know what you're going through and to keep your chin up. It does get better.

H4U.

Thanks! I got kinda neglectful and forgot to do exactly that; thank you for taking your time to post.

That is what I came here for; to hear from people who have been in a similar spot. It helps.

It reminds me of several people I have worked with over the years who looked at the struggles I had with school - but I kept at it, kept going, and after a lot of trial, error, failure, and success... I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. For those people, they found hope for themselves seeing someone in a similar (or worse) situation struggle... and then succeed. I've bumped into several who decided to better their own situations, and tell me that I inspired them. I don't take that credit - but it is flattering. I do encourage people to seek further education, and feel that I chose a field that not only is very needing in new professionals, but is also so widely applicable, that anyone can find something they would love to do within it.

This whole thing has become no different.

To me, whatever is in my transcript; I never failed. Every class I attended, I retained a lot. What's funny is the recall that has occurred throughout this process.

This event in my own life, and how it applies to my previous studies, and current studies, and how it will apply to future studies is a thing I have actually come to value. It's given me a new perspective to examine things from.

This article got me thinking about that;

http://www.cracked.com/article_18983_5-complaints-about-modern-life-that-are-statistically-b.s..html

Time for a break - there are days that being here just reminds me of why I'm here.

Time to forget for a while...

Just my opinion from my position; but the damage to an LB$ done by infidelity cannot be understated, especially while still in recovery.

I KNOW there is a constant drain, though it may not be quite as severe as it was 6 months ago.

Got lazy, got complacent... let UA time slide... and it lead to a lightening strike; "Today, I do not feel 'in love' with FWW."

A year ago, I don't know where that thought, that feeling, that statement would have led me. Sharing it with FWW felt like a mistake... she took it as a failure of some sort.

I told her that it wasn't a death-stroke, or the end of the world, that it was just a signal that we have not been meeting proper amounts of UA time - that it's not a fairy-tale, and that the feeling has to be rekindled.


I have my own part to own up to. I'll pop onto the computer for a minute, so she will watch TV... by starting a 1-hour show she has recorded. So, she starts a 1-hour program to entertain herself when I was going to spend 3 minutes dinking around.

My side of the street; 1) I need to state directly that I am only going to take a short amount of time with whatever it is I am doing, 2) I need to finish, and rather than submitting to her hour-long program, get back to UA time. Not do my own thing till she finishes her show.

... for Portishead.

Bristol's contribution to Hip Hop... or Trip Hop... is just so Haunting...

Q: HHH, what do these random, babbling posts of yours have to do with Marriage Building? What do they have to do with recovery?

A: Everything.

Infidelity has the wonderful effect of sucking the joy out of everything in your life. Food sucks, so you don't eat. Music only serves to depress you; even the stuff you once found joyful becomes torturous. Everything in your life all of a sudden looks completely different through the lens of betrayal.

So, sometimes I post up slip ups with MB principals, and sometimes I just post like I'm treating this thread as my personal blog.

Well, in a way, I am. I am sharing a return to some sort of "normality" - random thoughts and rambling, whatever. Every once and a while, the coaster feels like it's coming off the tracks, and I have to post a scream. What I hope to do is probably the same as a lot of people; just to give people a realistic vision of recovery, and hope.


Which makes it strange that I feel the following is a "side note;"

February 6th was 1 year since ILYBINILWY. In the next few days, I finally began to snoop; first text messages, then the phone record.

March 13th is 1 year NC.

I am still angry, I still hurt. I can eat, I can concentrate, I can look at my FWW in the eye... 99/100 times.

Yes, sometimes a foot wanders towards the threshold. If UA time is not met, it is easy to fall out of love due to the hemorrhage in my Love Bank.

Keep the car on the tracks....

HHH....I hear ya. And I know exactly what you're feeling.

You're one year post dday. You're much further along than I was. At one year post dday for me, I was still dealing with my W's withdrawl and was not able to deal with my own chit because I was doing everything I could to pull her back to the marriage.

Those feelings you're having right now are normal. It's the same process ALL us BS's have to get through. Some can process more quickly and for others it takes longer. In our recovery, we progressed by leaps and bounds in the 6-9 months after NC had been in place for a year (it was during this time frame I got that remorseful apology every BS is looking for).

Keep plugging away....You'll get there.

Well, I'm not quite sure where to "put" our recovery at this point.

1 year post Dday, almost 1 year since NC... but trickle truth persisted until the end of July.

I don't know. I really don't give the dates a ton of thought. I go more on my how I feel or how my thoughts permeate.

Today is a day where my GAD is busted. Bleh.

HHH, you don't know me or my story and I've only posted here a bit, but I wanted to give you a bit of encouragement. You are doing the right thing! In my experience, recovery is very much a 2 steps forward, 1.75 steps backward kind of thing. Your wife loves you and is remorseful and doing her work and I think that foundation and applying the MB principles will continue to work in your favor.

It's a long road. The hardest thing I ever did was give my dh a second chance. The best thing I ever did was give him that second chance. That doesn't mean there aren't still stays I want to stab him. But I know it was the right thing to do.

Hang in there!

Oh, I thought of something that sometimes works for me! When I am feeling like you are, I tell my dh that it is time for me to be Princess For A Day! Excessive pamering is needed. Sometimes it is a night out, sometimes a bedroom picnic, sometimes a weekend away, sometimes him doing all my chores so I can lay in bed and watch a whole season of Friends.

But what it gives is a BIG LB deposit. It helps get me ahead of the withdrawls created in the bank from memories. Sometimes you have to get away from the day-to-day and really focus on each other. See if you can get a big LB deposit and maybe it will jumpstart you again.

That is spot-on, I would say.

So, on Sunday I was at work goofing off, and was showing people what I've learned in Judo so far.

Yes, even in my 30's, I can be stupid as a 16-year-old.

Anyway, let's say that when you do a fall and mess up on a mat, that it stings. When you do a fall on regular flooring, and you mess up... it feels like you broke something.

I was sinking anyway, but then I had a sore shoulder to deal with... which sent FWW into caretaker mode. Typical guy, I downplay... but guess what it was?

Extra attention and pampering.

I'll be d@#$ed if I'm going to injure myself weekly to keep myself happy, though. >.<