What is a t/j?

Thread jack. I asked you a question from another post and it wasn't really following your thread here.

Thanks so much for answering. I hope you do find out his or her name so we could let the BW know. Thanks again.

Thanks HHH. Great advice. Since we have just begun trying to attempt to adhere to UA time I guess I am not sure what affect it will have on resentment, I am guessing as you suggest following the plan for recovery will have a dramatic impact. I think the plan of confusion and avoidance/withdrawal is what has made the resentment fester.

So we had a date night this weekend. Didn't go so well. We ended up discussing A's on both sides which created some triggers and movie playing on both sides, which created stress, resentment and withdrawal on both sides. Then came home to middle child having an hr and a half tantrum. Wasn't exactly the intimate night I was looking forward to! But, I was able to pull off some SF at the end to pull it all together again. Still disappointing though. When there is heavy relationship and affair discussions to be had, how do we have those discussions, say how we feel about things, without having that sequence of events take place? I cannot discuss my H's ONS without starting to shake violently and fight back tears and withdraw. And likewise he cannot discuss the things I have done without being very hurt and withdrawn. Hard to turn it around when we both fall into that pattern at the same time. What's your suggestion there on how to have these hard emotional discussions without love busting or withdrawing?

Thanks I will NEVER learn all of these acronyms!!! No problem at all!

What's your suggestion there on how to have these hard emotional discussions without love busting or withdrawing?

A currently relevant historical analogy:

Q: I am the captain of a large passenger vessel, and would like advice on how to prevent my ship from sinking next time after ripping open four of the watertight compartments on hitting an iceberg!

A: Captain Smith, next time, MISS the damn iceberg!

UW, you and hubby cannot "talk" about the infidelities on both sides WITHOUT generating disquietude and unpleasant feelings. (On another note, if you COULD do so, your marriage would be suffering from an entirely different set of problems - centered on apathy.) We're not discussing hitting a road hazard, and damaging tires. We're addressing each of you realizing your own guilt in trying to destroy your union, and analyzing the other's efforts to do the same. There is no way to do that "nicely".

STOP IT!

Tough to do. If there are unanswered questions about the affairs that would be beneficial to discuss, schedule time to discuss them, but not during scheduled date/UA time. I had to get out of bad habit of saying things like "Why did you do this for scumbag but not for me?" and change them to "why don't you ever want to initiate SF with me?".

Don't know if that helps, but food for thought.

Tough to do.

Yup.

Ya know what's tougher? Staying in the rut of re-hashing "your infidelity/my infidelity" and NEVER getting out to move the marriage ahead.

And as an aside...."Why don't you ever want to initiate SF with me?" is admittedly an improvement from your first stage, but can you formulate an approach that is less....caustic?

Caustic? Suggestions?

One minute I'm talking about marital recovery, the next minute, large vessels hitting ice bergs...so what do you mean by 'stop it?' Do you mean not talk about our history? I understand the UA time, working to meet each others EN's, no love busting...but there IS some degree of discussing or dealing with the history to the moving on isn't there?

Thank you IP. Everything helps. Our scheduled UA time IS our time to discuss things (ie time away from little ears), but we have decided to make sure we schedule discussing unpleasant things for certain nights and leave the rest for fun. Things do have a tendency to come up on their own though (triggers, etc). Just thought I might get some suggestions for avoiding the downward spiral of events that can take place when they do.

Add to my '30 days to a better vocab' list...compliments NeverGuessed...disquietude and caustic.

Our daily SF plan is one thing I have stuck to like glue, even after a crabby date and child meltdown, and it makes me oh so happy! And motivated, positive, etc. The affects of having EN's met, I guess.

UW, Dr Harley's suggestion is to never bring it up again once you have all the truth. Continually bringing it up keeps the affair on the front burner and keeps you both upset. Harley tells people to not talk about it.

Thanks ML. I am trying to think of scenarios of when it would come up. For instance, if you have some kind of trigger occur, see something while you are out together, on a date night for instance, that reminds you of the A and you get emotional. Should you not speak about that? What if your spouse says, whats going on I can see something is bothering you, should you say nope, nothing, even though thats not true just to avoid bringing the A up? Seems to go against the concept of radical honesty. Not saying this comes up every time we are out or every conversation, but it does come up. Also for me, I am a talker. I like to talk it out. If I am having a bad day thinking about things, and I put a voice to it, makes me feel a lot better. Bottling it up just causes me more stress. Even if you have all the details/truth ironed out, there are just days I want to talk about it, feelings regarding it, etc. And that doesn't usually end up in a spat, just so happened last weekend it did. But even if it doesn't it is not a fun happy conversation of course. So am I not supposed to do that? How does this all apply to Dr Harley's principle of not talking about it?

If you have a trigger, don't talk about the affair. Simply tell him that you are having bad memories and it will blow over. RAdical honesty does not mean that you talk about every unpleasant thought that crosses your mind.

When you have triggers, it is better to change your thoughts to something pleasant than talk about it. Talking about it makes it WORSE for you not better.

The affair should never be brought up again once all the facts are known.

Talking about unpleasant things keeps the tragedy in the present and that causes more stress. It will take you forever to recover if you are talking about it. The less you talk about it, the faster it will fade into the background, I promise! Train yourself to think of something else when it comes up and whatever you do, don't talk about it!

Here's another Dr. H article, about "keep talking about the affair".

From here Coping With Infidelity Part 3: Restoring the Marital Relationship

Ok. This is kindof taking the topic elsewhere, but here's my blogging thoughts about all this. Not sure if there will be a question in here or just a long comment about what I have been going through, and I'm sure it is COMMON among betrayed.

One of my biggest issues with the ONS and getting over it, moving on, or even not talking about it anymore was this. I felt like WH did not GET IT. Yes he understood it was damaging, no he would not choose to do it again. Yes he wanted to work toward recovery. But did he really, really, understand what having sex with another woman did to me, and to our marriage??? I threw up for 12 hrs straight after he told me, until I was throwing up blood. Could he ever understand how devastating something is to have that kind of physical response to it? I feel like a precious stone in our marriage, you know the one called fidelity, represented by having intimate moments and sex only betweeen the two of you, was stolen a decade before and I didn't even know it, and now it was GONE, FOREVER. We really could never get that special thing back again. Did he understand that? Did he understand his A and AP would be the white elephant in the room for the rest of our lives??? That he had crossed a line that could not be uncrossed? Yes I know we can move on, work toward a happy marriage DESPITE the ONS but it will always be there, somewhere, lurking in the shadows. Did he understand the MAGNITUDE of that? Yes he regrets it, of course. I don't care if she was the most beautiful woman and best sex in the world (she wasn't, of course) it isn't worth it, but simply having regret because it didn't pan out and being willing to move on was just not enough for me. I guess thats why I wanted to continue to talk about it over the course of time, because I wanted him to see the damage it had caused ME and US and UNDERSTAND just how far reaching that damage was. Know what I mean? I know this sounds vindictive and brow beating, maybe it is. I just felt like, sorry...was not good enough. In that case, one might have all the details and even have an apology, but how do you move on and work toward recovery when you feel your spouse has NO CLUE of just how hurtful and damaging their actions were. And in my case when he says he 'didn't even think about me, didn't even remember he was married...' how do I accept the fact that he doesn't understand how damaging it truly was so he can REMEMBER HE IS MARRIED the next time. IMO, I am in support of almost all MB principles and actions. But no matter how high you build the walls, there will be somewhere, sometime, that an opportunity will present itself again, and then it will come down to personal character and what you choose to do, whether you choose to cheat again or not. Just my opinion.

Anyway, it has been a year and a half since I found out about the ONS. It was BEFORE finding out about the ONS that we had a session with Steve and also bought the home program. Honestly, I was just not ready to 'put the past in the past' so to speak and work to meet each others EN's. H was still lying to me, for one, and I knew it! How the heck was I supposed to not go back and rehash when I knew that there were still lies. Wish I had you all in my back pocket at that time to push me to do a poly... H had no idea what kind of mass destruction he had done in our marriage back then. I was not OK after yrs of deception just saying that's ok H, now you are ready to commit so lets just start working on meeting each others EN's, I'll just start cleaning the house more after a decade of your selfish and destructive behavior and we'll just move on. Thats why I kept bringing it up, I needed him to understand the gravity. I think he does now, the best that he can anyway, which is why I am ready to move on.

Shew! That was quite a vent. Sorry. I know this post makes me sound like a battle ax, walking around here bringing up all his wrongdoings on a daily basis, brow beating him with them. I don't think that is the case. Mostly, I've just been sad and in mourning. We really have not talked about his ONS much at all, due to his detachment problems, but I have wanted to and this is why. I just want to know he understands the gravity of the situation. I guess so I can feel like he won't ever do it again, if the opportunity does present itself. In my case, with a ONS, this wasn't a long term affair with a bunch of needs being met. It was a ONS with a girl he hardly knew and wasn't even attracted to. And trust me, it was NOT because his need for SF was going unmet, he has had all the SF he has ever wanted on a silver platter. No matter what we do to avoid other people filling each other's EN's, the opportunity to pick up a girl for a ONS could easily happen again. Guess thats why I need to feel like he gets it. Now I need to stop previewing this because I just keep adding more...

I don't know ML I am having a hard time being convinced on this one. For instance, knowing my H cheated on a business trip, and that he came home and gave me his work clothes to wash...which I used to love because they smelled like him and I love the way he smells...and that I handled his laundry that might have HER or HIM AND HER together on it (which I will not elaborate on) and just happily washed his dirty laundry and dirty little secret away like the dumb wife at home...that is something I STILL think about every time I wash his work clothes. Not that I'm saying I should call him up every time I do the laundry and tell him about it...just saying I feel like he should know that I think about that every time I wash his work clothes, in others words, know how hurt I am and how far reaching it is. I would think that is exactly what radical honesty is, sharing that I struggle with that. Am I making any sense here...probably not but I am thinking I should talk to him about getting his work clothes taken to the cleaners from now on...