(As a disclaimer- I am fully aware that what my H went through on that day and since then is devastating... These are just my thoughts on my own journey to healing- as most of it has not included him...)
August 14, 2009… My heart pounds just thinking about sitting in the car with my H and hearing the words, “How was picture day with [AP]?” Oh my God… Oh My God... Oh My God... He knew! He knew and I wished the earth would swallow me up. No! No! NOOO!!! I look back now and I wonder- Who was that person? How did she get there- and what had she done with the person I thought I was?
I did my fair share of blame-shifting- although, I didn’t TT for very long. The words my H spoke to me very soon after d-day ring often in my ears… “Just get to the end, baby…” And I did. And it was fucking hard. Hard to say and hard to watch the words penetrate his fragile psyche.
August 14, 2009 is when my journey to my true, authentic self began. At first, I just wanted to save my marriage. See, I was used to being rejected and my knee-jerk reaction had always been to beg- ever since I could remember. So I begged- as I had become accustomed to doing, but I was so sorry- truly. Vomiting, snotting, sorry- from the bottom of my soul. I was transparent from the beginning- I left my phone with him. I found out (much) later that he had VARs set out around the house and in my car, and listening to those every night actually helped him trust me. It was clear that I was NC. It was clear to him that I was sorry (not just because of what I said to him, but because of what he heard when I was sobbing to my mom- my sister- they all heard the same story- the actual truth). Several months into “R” he confessed to several indiscretions throughout our marriage. I knew at the time that I had no right- none- to ask or to be hurt, and so I took it and buried it- it’s what I had always done.
So we limped along for about 8 months, and it was about that time that I found out he was having AT LEAST an EA with a 22 year old and had slept with another- and another... And then I started healing me… I had taken him as far as I could take him, and healing US was a fucking joke… So I did IC, and he was amazing. We talked about my relationship with shame (after all, I was the exit affair partner in my Hs first marriage). We talked about the never-filling bucket inside of me. I had no idea how to be filled. I certainly had no idea what "self-soothing" looked like. Other people did that shit for you, right? 
I figured it out. My own company ain’t so bad. I love volleyball, and I love reading, and I love organizing pictures and dreaming of putting them in all those scrapbooks I just swear I’m gonna use. I love singing. I’m pretty damn good at it too. I’m a really good mom, and I can look at myself in the mirror and know that, even though I did what I did, I am a really good wife. (And I would be an even better wife to someone who wanted to be married to me!) :-)
The insecure, broken, flailing, begging, scraping girl that had occupied my soul for about 35 years is no more. The one in the mirror is genuine, authentic, trustworthy. She is a phenomenal friend, and she doesn’t surround herself with people that suck the life out of her. She says the things that need to be said, even if they might hurt.
I sure as hell wish that I could have gotten to this point without doing what I did, but I didn’t… This is where I am- this is what got me here. And recovering from what I did to myself in my affair is what led me here. The journey has been painful, and it is still painful. My marriage is in the exact same state as it was pre-A, but I am better… One-step-at-a-time. One-day-at-a-time. I am better.
I am so grateful for this site. I don’t post often, but I am here almost everyday. I punished myself in the Menz threads for about the first 3 years- imagining that it was my H that was posting in pain and anger. And it helped me understand him so much better, because he wouldn’t talk to me. And that’s ok. I am grateful to UO and MJ for pushing me and making me think- for reminding me of my true worth. I am so grateful to each one of you, and I am so grateful for DS and MH for pouring your time and energy into giving us all a safe place to scream, yell, say “fuck” a lot, and heal…
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you...
