I want to switch my brain off. I know all I can ever know. Timeline and all. I could retrieve and read all the texts they sent each other but should I?
He is being everything he could be.
But still. This is torture. Will it ever end ?
"We're not broken, just bent. We can learn to love again."
I also would not likely read the texts, but that is just me. I feel the need for those details, but when I get them they rarely truly help. I think you need enough detail to make your "reptile brain" calm down and trust him. This will take time. I think it can be said that our Hs were in a truly altered state during the affair. It doesn't excuse it, but I am starting to see this wisdom on focusing on the idea of making sure we don't end up back in that position, and not trying to "own" the affair somehow, or take back power, by inserting myself in it.
This was the most shameful thing my H has ever done. I am not sure I need to understand the precise texture of it, the sound of the flourescent bulb, number of blow jobs, etc. to believe that he is glad it is over, sorry it ever happened, and wants to spend his life making it up to me.
This is the way I feel today -- however Wondertwin's post about needing details resonated with me as well, but I feel sometimes like the search for details is pain shopping. I feel better, but then I don't, when I hear them.
Give yourself a few days or a week on individual questions, and see if they crop up again and again. If so, consider asking. If there is no clear purpose except to establish that it was indeed a terrible, hurtful, despicable thing your H did, then maybe you can skip it.
Good luck. It is a tough question for all of us.
[This message edited by bionicgal at 5:24 PM, November 17th (Sunday)]
He now knows his behavior was disgusting and would so like for none of it to have happened. He wouldn't feel that way if the horribleness hadn't been exposed and the consequences felt, IMO.
When you say you are torturing yourself with details you can never know, I can totally relate.
One of mine was, what day did things turn physical? WH could remember it was before Xmas and it was the first day it snowed. I do believe him, he has always been like this - remembers what, where, not so good with when. It tortured me but one day I just had a huge breakdown and realized - I will never know. Never. I think it was also kind of encompassing the other things about his affair that I will never know. Details like you mention. Other stuff. It hurts so much that no matter how forthcoming the WS is, there are still things we will never truly know.
You have been heard, by a fellow sufferer. Strength to both of us. Someday it WILL be better. Count on it.
I totally understand what you are going thru and wished I was not the kind of person that needed to know everything. No matter how many times I ask, what I ask, I will never know everything. I did find out that he was disgusted at his choices in the light of day and that it was not "all that" as perhaps he thought it was at the time.
My fWH's A was 3 years, 35 days/nights together due to business travel, and likely over 100 sexual encounters. The betrayal was huge, but after a year, I believe the details do not really matter. In my case, I felt I needed to know everything to recover, and I think that was true. I needed to be able to put together many of the puzzle pieces. No detail was too small to know for me to ask about. If there was a video of the two of them, I would have watched it.
With all that said, I am not convinced that it was a healthy process for me to engage in, and at times continue to engage in. I believe it is a distraction from feeling the depth of the pain of betrayal or the sadness of losing the man I thought my husband was or the grief of losing what I thought was a happy 11 year marriage to the love of my life.
This hell that we are thrown into is not of our making. We all have so much in common, and yet, the recovery is different for each of us.
As everyone has said "you can't unring the bell." Consider what you need to know and why you need to know it. How will knowing it help you? Or will knowing it only serve to hurt you?
Pain Shopping
Quite right! I took photos from my phone of the txts on his phone and sometimes I look at them, I printed some emails and sometimes I look at them. I also found some photos of her!
Then I moved onto finding out as much detail I could about her and her husband, kids etc. I don't know why I do this. Maybe to corroborate his story, maybe to make myself feel bad - and remember.
Some days I think the details don't matter and some days I want to know. Ultimately, they don't matter, I know enough. But its finding a way to get my head out of that when I go there.
"Everyone says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive" - CS Lewis
I am at a different cross roads because I torture myself between pain shopping and rug sweeping. I am still unable to differentiate between the two.
Today I remembered a close family friend used to have lunch everyday down the street from where the hotel was where he would meet MOW. I "almost" brought it up... to rub into his face yet another time WHAT THE HELL WHERE YOU THINKING? But it turns out that when I had this thought I was getting dressed because he was taking me to buy the Christmas tree decorations. I want to do the tree our daughter's college colors. (new decorations = spending money)
So I pulled out the justice scale and thought ... rehash this shit and ruin his day (he gets depressed, angry and beats himself up) or go do our shopping and have a nice dinner somewhere? After all, I really can't change or control whether our friend ever saw him pull into the hotel and at this point it doesn't really matter.
Don't get me wrong... 1 1/2 years out and sometimes I need that answer and could care less if I ruin the day but today just wasn't one of those days.
XOXO
