I have known for a couple of months now. I want to work things out, but can't seem to get past the very violent anger I feel toward both parties involved. I do not feel at all inclined toward forgiveness at this point, but I know that this is essential to healing the realtionship and moving on. I have been reading anything I can get my hands on, staying in the Word, praying, and none of it seems to make any impact on my anger. Talking with my spouse seems to help calm things down, but I question if I will ever be able to return to the level of trust I once had, or if this marriage can be saved. What do you do with the anger?

EJosef,

Sorry to see you here under these circumstances. How to deal with the anger. Well first I should ask do you have violent tendencies? If so then you should get some counselling for that. That wouldn't do you or your wife any good. It would just damage any hope of recovery and you already know that. The anger will subside over time. Yea I know that time is creeping by and not going anywhere as fast as you would like it to go. Think about how you are talking to your spouse about this. You said it calms you down a bit. Is it because you are "punishing" your spouse? You have read some stuff here which is a great first step. Read more and more. Post here to vent all you want. We all know the feelings you are going through.

As for me and what I did about my anger. For me my anger was, at first, more towards myself for neglecting my marriage and putting my WW into the position to have the A. It took me about two months for foregive myself for that. I can't change the past so why bother. I can't make my wife love me or do anything for that matter. What I can do is change the things that I didn't like about myself. Learn to be patient. Learn to relax. Take life day by day. My anger was enveloped by the deep pain and hurt of what my wife did to me. I had always gone to the gym a couple of days a week. After DDay I started going about 4-5 days a week but while I was there I stayed a little longer and really busted my butt. I tried to leave there exhausted. That helped me alot. Not only for the anger but because I was becoming more healthy at the same time. You need to look after yourself right now. Take a look at the info regarding Plan A. Study it and see how you can apply it to your situation. Please let me know if there is anything I can do to help you through this. This sucks. No two ways about it. But it does get better.

Hi Mark,

Thanks for sharing your wisdom. I think you are right about changing those things that need changing in myself. I asked my spouse many times before D-Day if there were issues or problems, always met with a resounding 'NO', but I always felt it was a lie.
I am not a violent person, but this discovery has opened a whole Pandora's Box for me emotionally. I am not concerned about doing anyone physical harm. It's just unnerving to be SO angry. I guess more physical activities would help here, too.
I still feel like any attempts to make amends by my spouse feel trite and insincere. Sometimes even that makes me angry. Maybe I am trying to punish, but I don't understand all the why's of this yet. I hope that comes with time. I don't intend to give up, I only want to know a constructive outlet that will help me work toward my goal: keeping my spouse and marriage.
It's hard to tell if something is just a phase or if it's a cry for help. I think I need counseling, no doubt, but I hope to reach the point where we can work together very soon. After the anger always comes the pain of loneliness.

Hi Mark,

Thanks for sharing your wisdom. I think you are right about changing those things that need changing in myself. I asked my spouse many times before D-Day if there were issues or problems, always met with a resounding 'NO', but I always felt it was a lie.
I am not a violent person, but this discovery has opened a whole Pandora's Box for me emotionally. I am not concerned about doing anyone physical harm. It's just unnerving to be SO angry. I guess more physical activities would help here, too.
I still feel like any attempts to make amends by my spouse feel trite and insincere. Sometimes even that makes me angry. Maybe I am trying to punish, but I don't understand all the why's of this yet. I hope that comes with time. I don't intend to give up, I only want to know a constructive outlet that will help me work toward my goal: keeping my spouse and marriage.
It's hard to tell if something is just a phase or if it's a cry for help. I think I need counseling, no doubt, but I hope to reach the point where we can work together very soon. After the anger always comes the pain of loneliness.

EJosef,

I asked my spouse many times before D-Day if there were issues or problems, always met with a resounding 'NO', but I always felt it was a lie.

Yea I did this as well, starting about two weeks before DDay for me. Well actually about a week before DDay when my wife told me that our marriage wasn't strong enought to have children. We had been trying for a year and that week was supposed to be the "try" week. Anyway I noticed that for the prievious two weeks she was acting very passive. Falling asleep on the couch real early in the evening. Not much talking at all. I asked if everything was Ok and she said yes. Then the week that we were supposed to "try" my questions finally made her tell me that remark. At the time I just blew it off like I did everything else for the past 10 years. It was the next day that I woke up and realized that I had totally neglected our M and that I was in real trouble. Still didn't know about OM until I overheard a phone coversaton my wife had with her best friend. Anger, hurt, pain? Oh yea. My life was disapearing right in front of me.

I am not a violent person, but this discovery has opened a whole Pandora's Box for me emotionally. I am not concerned about doing anyone physical harm. It's just unnerving to be SO angry. I guess more physical activities would help here, too.

This is good to hear. I'm not violent either but can understand your feelings. I had emotions come out that I never thought I had. Who are you really angry at? Yourself, your WW or the both of you for getting into this mess in the first place? My anger towards my wife subsided a great deal once I understood how she got to the EA. This site helped me tremendously. If you can read the article about why Women leave men. It was an eye opener for me. I hit everyone of the top ten on the hit list.

I still feel like any attempts to make amends by my spouse feel trite and insincere. Sometimes even that makes me angry. Maybe I am trying to punish, but I don't understand all the why's of this yet. I hope that comes with time. I don't intend to give up, I only want to know a constructive outlet that will help me work toward my goal: keeping my spouse and marriage.

What does your wife want from you right now? If your attempts to make amends feel trite then they are probably coming out that way. Are you talking to her because of the sole reason you want your life/marriage to remain or be the same as it was before, or is it because you truley love your wife. I had to ask myself this quesion early on. At first I felt that my whole life was coming apart. All the stuff that I/we had worked so hard for was going to disappear. The house, cars, Chance at a family, everything. That is what scared me the most at first. Then I realized that it was my wife that mattered most. I would have traded everything I owned to make our marriage work better then it ever was. I would have cut a leg off just to hear her say she loved me with all her soul. You are fairly new to this so you don't know all the why's yet. Have the two of you agreed to start marriage counselling? That is a good place to start as long as you find a counselor that is there to help you fall in love again instead of preparing you for a civil devorce. My MC sucked. All she wanted to do was get into my childhood and determine why I was so selfish and neglectful. Not that that was bad but it wansn't my priority at the time. MY Marriage was.

With more edjucation for you, you will see that your anger will subside. However don't try and edjucate your wife right now if she doesn't want it. Move at her pace. I learned the hard way. I wanted to "fix" the problem as fast as I could and wasn't listening to what my wife was telling me. I pushed so hard that she eventually left me for a month. From the day before Thanksgiving to Christmas Eve.

Read all you can here. There is some really good stuff. You are going to have to learn the art of Patience. This will be the most difficult thing for you to do in life. Trust me it will. Start the Plan A for you and eventually your wife will see that changes. She might not acknoledge them to you but she will slowly see them. One more bit of advice I learned the hard way. Have no expectations of any sort right now when it comes to your wife. Protect yourself and live by it. don't go into a situation thinking that she will act a certain way. You will only set yourself up for dissapointment. As I have said in many of my posts; Try to make tomorrow a better day then today. Look for the smallest sign that today was better than yesterday. That is all you can do right now. Hope some of this helps.

First off, guess I missed this in your first post, but I am the wife! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" /> Also, the amends that seem trite and insincere are his, not mine. My anger has not really brought me to the point of feeling the need to make amends yet, and yes, that is my 'Taker' talking, but my 'Giver' is beaten and bruised, and I'm feeling just a tad defensive about the whole thing.

As for what my spouse wants from me, I cannot truly say. He has had several addictions (drugs, porn, gaming, etc.) for years. I would say that we are beyond Plan A for now, as far as I can tell. I laid that down on D-Day (before he found this site yesterday). Getting his after-the-fact cell bill a few weeks later didn't do me any good, however, and I began compiling info about OW (home & email address) and anything else I could get on the two of them. Found out he'd signed up for an online dating service last summer when I took a trip with the kids and he was home alone for two weeks, and other interesting factoids.

From what I've read here, I wasn't meeting his emotional needs, but how can you do that when someone denies anything is wrong? Short story, it seems like he is just trying to justify his behavior without admitting there's a problem- does that make sense?

Whenever I ask him what he wants from me he just says "a happy home", but he can't give me his vision of that. I do the best I can with 6 kids, and I haven't let myself go physically (most people don't believe me when I say I've had 6 kids). I am at my wits end trying to figure him out. I am hopeful that since he sought out this site and brought it to my attention that we will be on our way soon. So again, you are right about patience. I know in my heart this didn't happen overnight and it won't go away overnight either.

I guess the impatience stems from wanting him back in my life, as the most important person in my life, for the rest of my life. We've been together for over 20 years now (since we were 17), and the thought that this has happened has left me devastated. I never thought anyone could do this to someone they said they loved, but it's staring me in the face everyday.

I know he's sorry and is working toward serious reconstruction, but I just can't believe he loves me if he did this. I am so angry and hurt, and I can't help but wonder if I'm stupid for wanting to work things out. But I am compelled to take that risk.

I wish you all the best as you work things out with your spouse.

I'd like to address you're question on why someone who loves would betray. It's a very bitter pill to swallow...but the fact is...that people who no longer love their spouse, don't betray (or at least not for long)...they leave.

They definitely are not the ones who want to try and rebuild a marriage...as there is little in this world that is more painful or hard then living with a BS (or a betrayer).

It's not easy having to face the BS each day, knowing the harm the WS has caused. Seeing the pain in the BS's eyes. It's difficult living with someone who no longer trusts you...even when you're doing everything right. You've got someone who is outside looking up when you've said the sky is blue. The WS who is serious about saving the marriage, is in a difficult position, one where they must try to open up and share that which is going to cause you an incredible amount of pain. They live in constant fear.

Of course, you're going through all these emotions too, just on the flip side. It's horrid looking into the face of someone we love and wondering who they are. We don't trust them, we can't believe them, and yet, we so desperately want to. We fight ourselves as much as them. We're hurt beyonds words, we're confused, we question them, ourselves, our faith in others, and even in some cases our faith in a higher power. We jump from one emotion to another without any warning. We may be crying uncontrolably when all of a sudden rage takes over and we're slaming the doors and yelling.

See...I'm getting to the anger issue! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Anger is NORMAL!!!!!! And it's very likely that the depth of your anger is something you've never faced before. You didn't have any idea that you could get this angry. You've never experienced it! So...you're fighting to control an emotion which is completely new and overwhelming. Take a walk...do something physical. Punch a pillow until you arms are heavy. Get physically tired...that helps a lot.

Then sit down and WRITE it all out. You don't have to do anything with it, just write it for yourself. Write down everything you feel, even if you really don't understand it. Then take it, put it in a box and put it away on the back of a closet shelf. It's only symbolic...but it's a good way of "putting away" the anger. Yes, you will still be angry at times...but try and remember that you've put your anger on that shelf...because you want to move through the anger...not live with it.

Good luck as you and your H travel your healing path together.

EJosef-

Welcome, first of all! I don't have much time to really get into this but as WS and sitting on other side of fence, I'm just as curious as to how other MBer's have handle this high energy emotion! It is charging and detrimental and when unrestrained "deadly" at times....

Mark and wifey have some great points...1) work on YOURSELF. 2) Use a vehicle to release your anger: journal, punch pillows (not H), go to massage parlor, acupuncture. So many ways you can release this energetic emotion as it appearsthru your words that you're passive, meek. Forgive me if I'm off the mark. But if this is the case as wifey said IT IS an unfamiliar emotion and you have to go thru the process of identifying and properly releasing it!!

I'm going to follow this thread as I'm curious of others input and solutions.

Blessings to YOU E!

In Christ's Name!
<><

How do/did I deal with the anger?

My anger so suprised me when I found out. I lashed out. I hit him. I split his lip , blackened his eye, bruised his ribs......he sat there and took it. I have never in my life biffed anyone...I hit him till I could not anymore. I BLAHED it. Just wild slaps, punches, girlie things I guess.

Even over the next few days I BLAHED it more, but..just the occasional one though..a biff here and a biff there.

Now I just look back and think...****!

How did I overcome it?..I wrote my feelings down. In letters, he read what was meant for him , the othrs just tucked away, probably never to be seen again. It helped though, it helped a great deal.

I have found, although I haven't been doing it as much lately, writing is so therapeutic...my C told me to write in 3rd person as my 1st person wasn't releasing as much as he said I was releasing when in session; he's read some of my "work".

I did attmept it and found that by writing about catch22222 in 3rd person I would write longer, elaborated much more on issues that concerned him err me err whatever! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> ...I highly reccommend this approach as it was much more liberating and added so much more value to my sessions.

You still own those feelings going thru this process as they naturally come from within, but when you stake that claim in writing as though it were someone else, something happens in that exchange that causes YOU (1st person) to let go of the junk easier. At least that's been my experience. It is only MHO!

In Christ's Name!
><>><>><>><>><>><> (school of fish)! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

<small>[ January 04, 2003, 11:31 AM: Message edited by: catch22222 ]</small>