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WH and I are not in R yet, but moving in that direction, eventually, slowly, but the mind movies just won't stop! How do you handle them when your in a successful R? How long do they usually last? And how do you handle them when your in R and your WS is there?

I'm really struggling with this right now, but I want to know is R possible while the mind movies are so prominent?

I struggled with mind movies for the first year of R. They would usually hit during sex. Basically, I tried not to make it a big deal. When a mind movie would start to play during sex, I would focus on my wife and not worry about myself.

I was eventually able to desensitize myself to the mind movies by letting them play out in fast forward. If it didn't go away, I would play it again. I did this over and over, until I was bored with it.

So sorry for what you are going through.

mind movies are the worst...

I would distract myself with counting things.. sounds crazy, I know. if I found myself having one, or one coming on, I would count anything within eye shot. there was a time I could tell you how many spindles were on the stairs, or how many circled objects were in the kitchen.... sounds insane now, but at the time, it worked for me.

like hardenmyheart said, letting them play out over and over, desensitizing, helps for some.

taking control of them and writing your own mental script for them helps others. ie: have the ap or your wh fart in the middle of a "romantic" scene or a giant bird swooping down and carrying one of them off...

having your wh available to talk to when they happen works for some too. being reassured that they understand and are willing to listen.

writing it down.
keeping a rubber band on your wrist and snapping it when one starts.
imagining a big red stop sign.

whatever works for you.

unfortunately, mind movies are a normal part of this mess. it is possible to R if you're having them. over time (and doing the hard work on both your parts to work through this during that time) will help, and they will slowly, too slowly to be fair, sorry, diminish over time.

We are 2 months into R and im already bored with my mind movies. I replayed them endlessly until I just didnt feel like crying over it anymore. Now that im past the details, I feel better about R now and feel like im moving in the right direction now. Im past the who, what, where, and when and now we are working on the why. Btw, there's a lot of pieces to the puzzle, for some people, when it comes to the why. So dig deep and get every little thing out, its been helping us tremendously. Good luck

I had a rather difficult mind movie event happen last week in which I had uncovered an inconsistency in my FWW's story about the incident. Eventually I typed it up into my journal and let her read the entire thing. This of course prompted discussion and found out that she TT'd on this and another incident.

Afterwards, I sat down and typed up the other prominent mind movies I have had for us to discuss.

Thank you everyone for the replies, I hate that 3 years out and I'm still having mind movies (thanks to TT). They're worse then before, it's like the images are on repeat over and over again, especially when I close my eyes! And there really bad during sex!

My mind movies in the past went away to a point, but they never fully left during sex, now these new ones are so much more intense, it's driving me crazy. I try to keep myself distracted during the day, but I can't sleep at night, the second I lay down my mind takes over. I want to desensitize from them but I don't see that happening for a long time!

taking control of them and writing your own mental script for them helps others. ie: have the ap or your wh fart in the middle of a "romantic" scene or a giant bird swooping down and carrying one of them off...

THANK YOU for this! This is amazing advice. I feel like this will stop the movies from at the least ruining my mood and at the most ruining my day.