People, I hate it, What works? Stop signs? Last night it was like, bam, bam, bam. One after the other. I wanted to be there, in the moment, and I wanted to be doing what I/we were doing. Why, oh why do I get these thoughts? What could they conceivably be pointing to that is helpful? When they were questions ("Oh, I wonder if he did X, ") I thought it would help to ask if they, indeed, did X. It didn't really, so now I know for the most part, and I still can't shake it.
I know it has to do with me wanting to feel special -- and feeling that things were taken from me. But, what do I do?
Any suggestions appreciated.
"Forgiveness means giving up all hope of a better past."
I will say my SAWH has a few new techniques since his A, so I have an idea about what they did/how they did it. As far as crazier stuff, I am pretty sure they enacted pornography scenes and talked about masturbation quite a bit via text. And called one another baby.
I like the breathing thing. . . I will try that. Last night it just seemed the more I redirected, the worse it got. I will try, also, to focus more on just being in my body. Stinks, though. Wondering why this seems worse 6 months out. Mind movies were bad earlier, and occasionally I get a complete break, but this stinks.
WH told me that with the OW it was fast and no emotion involved. So when I am starting to disconnect from the flashes I say so (although usually he can tell and says something before I do) then he stops and just holds me tight until we either fall asleep or I get connected again.
The days I get to the gym arent as bad. WH just bought me a punching bag so on days I need to get some energy out I dont have to haul the kids to the gym with me if he isnt home.
One thing I have found is to.....just don't be intimate!!!
okay....lame joke. Seriously.....breathing works well for me as well. Another helpful tip to redirect your mind is to concentrate on one specific part of his body....maybe a freckle on his chest, or his ear....anything to make your focus razor-sharp on one thing, displacing any room to focus on the distractions of mind movies.
This works pretty well for me. TIP: works best if you can focus on a typically non-sexual part of your spouses body. I think this is because I am a man, I know her fAP was keying in on the two key parts of a womans body....so put my focus elsewhere....less risk of mind movies taking over. Occasionally I get caught up in the moment, concentrating on the typical man-attractions and if the mind-movies start then.....pretty much takes me out of the game. But that is happening less and less frequently.
Down side to this technique is it takes away from the intimacy of the moment by really reducing your complete involvement due to narrow-focus. Up side is I am able to physically maintain the ability to be intimate.
Works most of the time.
God be with us all.
I don't know how long it's been from DDay for you but for me as time went on the mind movies got less and less.
It spoils our best moments -- for me -- because I usually don't vocalize these 'flashes.'
They come when my WW is at her best. When she's being kind or intimate or when she's giving me a nice goodbye kiss before one of us goes to work.
I guess it's jealousy on my part? I certainly feel jealous when I have these flashes.
Like everything else related to the A, they suck.
Glad to see that I'm not the only having them.
Stay strong and thank you for the post.
I get this weird flippy feeling, almost like I "am" her.
^^^ This is the part that frustrates me so much. I don't know what it is, or why it happens. Maybe it's actually something my brain does to protect itself. Maybe it's the results of an explosion - burnt out melted wires crossing electrical currents. It's getting less now, but at the beginning it happened constantly.
Honestly, if my emotional strength is sapped, sometimes I just go with it - some kind of weird aversion therapy. Almost like a role-reversal, where we're the ones having the forbidden tryst and she doesn't know about me. I'm the one with him and she's somewhere else in her bed, lying there wondering what he's doing, who he's with, what I have that she doesn't have, blah blah. It feels more than a little sick, and I'm still completely jealous, but it helps me feel more powerful and less pathetic in the moment. I don't know if it's healthy or not - it feels like it's probably not healthy but it keeps me 'in the game', and I know having sex with him is healthy for me.
Sometimes I just have to stop trying to shove it all out of my head. I don't think it's realistic to expect THAT to be the one place that I can put it out of my head. For me, I mostly try to put my energy into asserting my own dominance over her, whatever that looks like. I say to myself, 'Yup, they did this. Can't have been ALL THAT, because where is she now? Not here.' Again, it helps if I focus less on the thought of them having sex, and more on the thought of her lying alone somewhere, crying and pathetic as she remembers being with him and abandoned by him. It does help somewhat, in my case, to know that he broke her heart.
If I'm 'her', that means she is 'me'... so maybe I just transfer all of my pain onto her and leave myself with the good stuff.
Anyway. It's not like sex was ever some mystical, emotionally intimate experience for us. He's always had vulnerability issues.
The reality for us now is that we have a more honest and open Intimate relationship. We have gotten to a point that we know exactly what each other wants and enjoy ourselves. For sometime you feel like you are crazy. Those feelings do fade. I don't know if they disappear completely....I'm not there yet 100%. But now when it does happen mentally "I kick her out of my bedroom" it's like I'm not feeling the anger at the moment and she's nothing more than a pest. So in my mind I kicks her out and tell her "fuck off and get out...and she does"
2Beautiful daughters DD 6/26/10 (he broke down & confessed) DD#2 3/14/11 H in OW's car TT 7/1/11 (NC broken, through emails)
In R
A few things that really worked for me was to get really relaxed before hand, long soak in the tub and perhaps something to get my mind going, a little erotica perhaps. The next thing was to make it all about me, and my pleasure, this really opened me up sexually and ultimately was a great thing to do for me. I was always focused on being quiet so the kids didn't hear, and worrying about how I looked, and my mind was anywhere but focused on sex. But making it about me, and making me the center of his attention really helped. I focused on the physical aspects of what felt good, and how I felt, with encouragement and feedback we expanded our play a bit more and more. Now Sexy Fun Time is that, and can be quite an event.
The other thing that worked early on was to talk about the things he was doing that made me think of them, and why, and try to avoid those, or get reassurances from him that his mind wasn't there, or that with me it was much better.
Later when it would happen I would ask myself who is he with now, who did he choose, it was me, and that made me more confident, and often I could picture her being jealous of what we had. That helped.
Lastly it's ok to stop once in a while too. if you can't get it out of your head sometimes you just have to stop, and reassess things. Not finishing will not kill either of you.
This is normal stuff and we all get through it differently, but please know it's normal and talk to your H about it, and how you are feeling, if you don't you can't get resolution.
(((and stength)))
I am a year and 2months out and I often feel this way during sex. I have felt as though I am above the bed watching them together. My understanding is that this is a symptom of PTSD and something that people who have experienced sexual abuse do to detach themselves from their abuser. This makes total sense to me since our spouses have become our a users in a sense and we have been traumatized by their affair and the aftermath of trying to deal with the shock and pain.
For me recognizing this as PTSD helped me to recognize exactly what was happening. In order to combat becoming detached, I focus on the good physical feelings that my body is having. I focus on my breathing, on the physical touch and after a bit I am back to my reality. It takes work and time to lesson these experiences. At least it has for me. I am still working on the negative feelings I have after sex, when I start thinking I am no good, etc.
Hope you know you are normal!! There is a reason we react the way we do.
Kids, yes.
Currently in Limbo, possible R. WH says he wants R. I'm not convinced.
