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This is my first post so please excuse my lack of acronyms!

Do you tell your spouse when you trigger? its been 4 months since i found out about my husbands affair and 2 months since we have reconcilled. i still get triggers 6 or 7 times a day and while i've been doing a lot of work towards moving past them i wonder if it would help to talk to my WH about them.

part of my thinks he should know when im struggling but im wirried about the negativity ruining the amazibg progress we've made so far. just wanted to know what has been helpful for other people.

Thanks in advance, while I haven't posted before I have found reading other posts incredibly helpful...

[This message edited by Alexisk17 at 1:44 PM, July 3rd (Wednesday)]

Yes! Share!!!

If you are scared of rocking the boat with sharing your triggers, how stable can the boat really be?

He brought down your world and he needs to help you in anyway. Keeping your triggers bottled up with eventually lead to a blow up. It may take days, weeks, months, years, but it will happen. You will grow resentful of having to deal with this by yourself. You should not have to deal with it yourself. You didn't do anything wrong. You didn't do this to your marriage.

Part of me wants my WH to know and see how much I suffer. I want him to see how this really is devastating to me. If he thinks everything is peaches and cream and I am dealing "great" with it, then I almost feel like he may go out and do it again. Sort of a look how easy she handled it, it won't be a big deal if I...... Fill in the blank. Not saying your WH would do that. This is just my cynical view on it right now.

Edited to add : it will help you heal. Sharing is like taking the burden off only your shoulders and letting him shoulder some of it with you.

[This message edited by Blameitontherain at 2:07 PM, July 3rd (Wednesday)]

hi there...i used to not share my triggers for fear that he would leave, or that it would rock the boat, or that he would not think i was healing fast enough. huge mistake. true attempt at r does not include this. if you have a trigger and want to talk about it....then do it. doesnt really matter if it ruins the dinner, or the date night, or the special moment....it wasnt going to be nice anyway because you have this pain that needs to be addressed.

and if he gets mad or frustrated, then so be it. you have to be strong and make that a requirement for r. if he cant handle the pain that he caused and the ramifications or fallout from his poor choices, then he can leave. i know that sounds harsh, but it is so true.

getting all of this out is imperative to healthy healing i beleive. and i am saying this from experience. you being able to share your triggers and him being there for you to answer the questions, reassure you, and deal with the situation through that pain shows that he is really owning his mistakes.

I share the big ones. Otherwise, I'd be talking non-stop.

I share. I don't do it to upset my husband, I do it to help us both. He understands why my moods shift and getting it out in the open helps me overcome it.

I am now triggering on love stories, even lousy ones. It's a bummer. I have no trouble taking a cheating-based murder mystery, though....

When watching a TV or a movie and one of us triggers, we might ask, 'Is this getting to you?' We answer honestly.

I understand wanting your H to read your mind, but unless he's very, very unusual, he can't. Tell him what you want him to know. Ask for what you want. Stay honest - it's best for you, and you provide a good model for him.

And remember: as you read SI, take the counsel that makes sense to you; ignore the rest.
*************

I think the mods and guides weed out posts without acronyms. I could be wrong, though.

Welcome to SI, 'the best club you never wanted to be a member of'.

I share ALL my triggers with my WH. All of them.
He's the cause, and if I bottle,them up...they just gain more power and get bigger (at least in my case).
My triggers vary daily and wildly. They can hit from out of the blue, or I can know they are around the corner and prepare for them.
Recent triggers include:
-Hearing the name of a city he went to on a business/pleasure trip with his OW
-Seeing a gorgeous Armani suit I got him, that he recently disclosed that he sent pictures of,himself in to OW
-Seeing an old phone bill, and realizing I never checked it (why would I,right?)

Triggers are horrible. If you are in in IC, talk to your therapist about coping mechanisms that can help you get control. I have a forehead tapping sequence and mantra I use, it helps more and more of the time. Have your CC help you both with how he needs to respond to you when you are triggering. That was the MOST helpful thing for me. My WH used to go immediately into defensive mode, and that just inflamed me like crazy

i think it is important to share triggers as well. As others have said...our WS's are the cause, and they need to understand what brings the triggers on so they can help us deal and work thru them.

my husband has gotten to the point where he can anticipate some of the things that make me trigger and helps me avoid them...or at the very least be supportive when we cant.

i dont think sharing the triggers ruins progress made...i think it brings painful things to light, so you can work thru them together...and hopefully they wont be triggers anymore. IMO, if your WS says/makes you feel like you cant share your triggers, that is not the sign of a remorseful spouse trying to help you heal.

Yep, I tell him. On the way to MC the other day I had to get the train that OW might get home from work. I nearly had a panic attack, I was scanning the place for her, I felt sick. Even the destination of the train, the name of where she lives, triggers me. So I texted him. He wasn't very comforting though, he just said I could kill her if I saw her. He's better when I'm with him, but he's angry at himself for causing them. He asked me for a list of things so he could prepare for them.

[This message edited by hobbeskat at 5:17 PM, July 3rd (Wednesday)]

Thank you all so much for your responses, I don't know anyone in a similar situation to mine so I'm having a hard time getting advice or ideas for these sorts of things.

So far I've just tried to push the thoughts away but I know I need to let him in and share my darker emotions. Through this whole process I've pretty much shut down and am having a hard time feeling anything, good or bad. Then out of nowhere comes all this anger and I snap. I knew this was going to be difficult but didn't know it was going to be this hard...

Triggers. Yes I share them most of the time. We are leaving for my hometown - where the A started so I have been having - and will have a tough time dealing with a whole new set of triggers.

One BIG trigger here is that there is a woman that resembles the AP. We have talked about this. When we see her (as she is an acquaintance) I have asked him to just be aware, pull me close or grab my hand.

Hugs to you. They are very difficult. I even loathe the word!

[This message edited by LA44 at 3:22 PM, July 4th (Thursday)]

YES! I tell him every time. He got us into this, he can deal with my pain! So far he has been very supportive about it. One trigger is driving by her house. At first when we would be going somewhere that we would normally go by her house, as it is the shortest distance, he would go the long way around because he knew how upset I would get. I eventually told him to stop, just drive by there, I can't avoid it forever. For me, facing my triggers has helped me deal with them to where they do not upset me as much. Some of my triggers have went away completely. But you need to tell him. My wh actually told me he wants to know. He explained that it is better for him to know what sets me off than to wonder what it is.

Trigger: Facebook.

For some reason the BF has felt the need to add a whole bunch of the girls at his work. It bothers me a lot. They are irrelevant ppl, and I've never even met half or them or heard any of their names. I really can't take these Facebook relationships that would probably never exist without Facebook. I'm trying to remain calm, but it has me sliding back to that time when he had Facebook friended the girl he was cheating on me with. :(

I was thinking more about this post just today. I used to trigger all the time in the shower. Maybe just being nude made me feel extra vulnerable. But you know what? I can't stop taking showers and eventually that trigger stopped. I reclaimed the shower for me.

You are so close to your D-Day...be patient with yourself and as suggested by all here, share them with your spouse. Holding it in and subsequent rage that results from that is exhausting

Good luck to you.

We are very new to trying to reconcile. I think there are some triggers I will definitely share as they come up, and others I probably consider too stupid to share.

Yesterday while we were hugging, he murmured something to me and called me "baby". In the e-mail I found to one of his whores, he called her "baby" and "sweetheart". I stiffened right away, and said "don't call me that." He said ok. I asked "you know why, right?" and he said yes. I told him he'd have to find something new. He's been trying a few new ones on me since.

This morning was the first time since D-Day that we've gotten a little physical. That, of course, triggered my feelings of inadequacy and I had to ask if he was going to compare me to "them". He said no, but that he believes I will. Ya think? He just continued to hold me and rub my back until it passed ... for now. I'm sure it will rear its ugly head again.

Yesterday he went out and bought a laptop for himself. Big trigger. I didn't say so yet. But I think it's going to have to come out.

I text him immediately when they happen, its always when Im at work. He texts or calls right away and talks about it until I'm feeling better.
He is always right there and ready to talk. Sounds awful to say, but he better he caused this shit.

I don't share any of my triggers. I did in the beginning. It's been 3 1/2 yrs since Dday #1 and I yr from Dday#2.
but still trigger. If I hear her name ( which is a common one), or name of town she lives in or drive by hotel where they use to go I trigger. Of course there have been many OPs over the years so a lot of things trigger me.
I'm reading a novel right now called "The Affair" by Collette Freedman and I'm really triggering. It tells the story from the BS's side, the WS's side and the mistresses side. I really identify with the BS, of course, especially when she discovers what's going on but for some reason I can't put it down.

This week has been a really hard week for us. In MC on Monday we started discussing specific details of A which brought up a whole host of new triggers. I've been filling WS in on the big ones and just left the little ones to myself. He has been so sweet when I bring it up, he is really trying to make it work in his own way.

To top it all off I found out this week that WS isn't keeping up his end of one of the dealbreakers to R, he has been buying pot again. He has been "omitting" the fact that he's been buying it once a week but a quick look at his text history shows he's been picking up. So frustrating! At this point I'm just sitting on the information and waiting. Not sure what to do with it yet...

Finding out he's been lying about something so stupid has made me totally disengage and withdraw from him. The rational side of me knows he isn't cheating but the anxious part of me wonders what else he is lying about.

So, how do I reconcile WS's incredible effort in most areas of our marraige with the fact that he is still being dishonest about one area?!? I suppose we are both human and no one is perfect. I don't want to beat him down about the pot because I don't want him to feel discouraged about R. One of us has to feeling good about where we are at and right now it's not me... So why not let it be him?

There is a trigger we share. The hospital where OW 2 works shares the same last name as my AP. we call a truce on that one. It's kinda funny when you think about it. Not really.

[This message edited by rachelc at 8:27 PM, July 7th (Sunday)]