Your character is what you do when you think no one is watching.
The only thing I know to say is the hard work will need to come from you H. He can not figure this out on his own. He must get IC. He needs help understanding why and how he allowed this to happen.
I insisted on this in order to proceed in R. I wouldn't budge on this. And the results of my H's IC was extraordinary. He has done a ton of work to get in touch with his inner world, address FOO issues and reconnect with himself. This affair is all about him.
You have hard work to do, too, and it's mostly intensive self care. But as long as he is living in the fog of his behavior and is unwilling to initiate recovery with you and repair the damage, it's going to be an incredibly frustrating time.
(((phoenix2015)))
I can relate to your hope that he'd think differently of her now. My H was still TT (trickle truth) at 4 months. He actually said that she was nice, and under different circumstances, I'd have been friends with her. I think he would have maintained this sunny attitude about her if I hadn't done some digging on her. He learned she'd lied to him about lots of things. It isn't about the OP though. I think you know that. With time (and reflection), hopefully he'll see her differently.
Take care of yourself during this time. It's a long, rough haul. No, you shouldn't be over it yet. He needs to be supportive of you, and looking within himself.
Sorry you had to search the web for help due to adultery by am glad you found SI.
17 month "veteran" here. I found SI 6 months after DD.
The hard work? It's two fold so far for us. The hard work I had to do to recover from my wife's decision to choose adultery.....which was chaotic at first. 4 months of heavy fog, lots of TT'ing and outright lies.
At that point I pretty much wrestled with to D or not to D......and even THAT was too much to even contemplate early on .
Another hard work for me was accepting that my wife killed our M. Not all BS share my view on this...but my M was effectively killed when my wife chose adultery over it. It was hard hard hard for me to accept this...IC was beneficial....but this process was a very solo very hard one for me. Like all of this...once I complete a process I feel like others before me have, but before that occurs I think I am somehow special....my trial is somehow different. So far....I have seen nothing unique or different about my trials. sigh. Still...very painful.
About 6 months out I had a pretty complete confession from my wife. That is when my "hard work" really started to materialize. Over the next 6 months I processed enough of this trauma to "accept" it happened. That seems simple , right? It want for me. The shock of this new reality my wife thrust upon me was very hard for me to accept. 12 months out I had firm acceptance.
Forgiveness came next.....it came as a whisper. Lots of reading (17 infidelity and adultery books, prayer, 12 months if weekly therapy sessions.....MC and IC mix).
14 months we were focusing more on pre-M issues....but I still have A-related triggers and discussion points. I get why it is said to be a 2-5 year process.
That is my hard work in a very concise format.
WS hard work ? My fWW did not choose to put the "f" in front of that until about 9 months out.....and it, too, was a process. She avoided looking in herself, she picked and choose what she did to help me heal (partial application if "how to help your spouse " booklet, no timeline, slow to admit he damaged our family including our girls, etc).
Your husband thinking. 4 months and done? Yeah, I thought this would be quicker too. But if he has read How to help booklet.....he knows better but us not choosing to do better.
Best advice I can offer? From 0-6 months this is a SOLO journey ONLY!!!! Way to early to decide on R, too early to think you are "in this together", to early to even decide on ANY life altering decisions.
I better stop there.......I have regrets over MY 6 month period post- DD.....fear I will overwhelm you with thoughts as I try to keep you from taking my path.....a path with additional pain that I allowed to be applied to me.
It DOES get better . We are much better now at 17 months out....but i am still raw from this journey .
God be with us all .
[This message edited by blakesteele at 8:31 PM, January 14th (Tuesday)]
I had posted something about this a while ago. I've seen some post here wanting to save their marriage, relationship, but not often themselves. "What can I do?, what should I say, how do I help, fix, prove?!?, I get it now, I see it. I know now what I want". All good questions, all great reassuring statements. Then often, poof. They're gone. Their marriage over or things aren't better fast enough. They may not have another affair. They're a dry adulterer. Just like a dry drunk may never have another drink yet not ever be sober. There's so much more to healing from the choice to have an affair than never cheating again. You need to develop and grow spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. Without the digging and the work, that initial guilt and shame that seemed so fresh and brutal fades. The marriage you were terrified you lost seems to be at least temporarily saved and now those changes you committed to become stifling and confining. "I'm not a child, I have been good, I haven't lied lately, about anything like that". Your BS that you viewed as the love of your life, how could you have not seen it, is now jailer, parent, nag. "Will they ever trust me, get over this? It's been (fill in the length of time) I've done everything I could". Nope. You haven't even started. You're still impulsive, discontented, restless, selfish, and now you have a healthy dose of judgmental and critical tossed in because you get it. You don't do that stuff anymore like those idiots. You have morals. You are now a finger pointer at those losers who can't get it together. In one word, insufferable. You've never dealt what the affair caused you to lose and what it meant. Your escape, your validation, your holes, your boredom, your ego, your attention habit, unresolved FOO issues. All those toxic dysfunctions still alive and well but not having a secret,a person, people, ready and waiting when you slip away to fill, assuage, stroke, feed you. Now you have depression, numbness, just a hint of tapped down rage that echoes with a sharp remark or silence. Withdrawing, detaching, distancing. You are in a full blown affair again, without the other person. No fixes, no health, no growth. Not fucking someone else mentally or physically is not being faithful. There are no short cuts. Do the work. Get healthy mentally, emotionally, physically. The initial pain is what so many mistake for a wake up. It isn't always. It takes consistent focus and progress. Make goals. As you achieve, high five yourself, pick the next one. Make them realistic. If you've never told the truth in conflict don't pick I will never lie again. It's not realistic. Pick I will think about something before I say it. When you fail, fess up immediately. No contact. No mental contact. That doesn't mean no thoughts will come but don't obsess and daydream. Transparency isn't a punishment for cheating. It's the only way to love an authentic life. Honesty is not an option. Don't just profess your love, live it. Songs are changed, tv shows are paused and addressed. Hugs aren't ended by you. Conversations aren't started by them. You don't ask if you can go out with the boys/girls. You know. You say no thank you and don't run home to tell your spouse how "good" you were. You're an adult, not a child. Live your remorse. Carry your own water. Self soothe. Embody your potential rather than just referencing that you have it.
All good questions, all great reassuring statements. Then often, poof. They're gone. Their marriage over or things aren't better fast enough. They may not have another affair. They're a dry adulterer. Just like a dry drunk may never have another drink yet not ever be sober.
There's so much more to healing from the choice to have an affair than never cheating again. You need to develop and grow spiritually, emotionally, and mentally. Without the digging and the work, that initial guilt and shame that seemed so fresh and brutal fades.
The marriage you were terrified you lost seems to be at least temporarily saved and now those changes you committed to become stifling and confining. "I'm not a child, I have been good, I haven't lied lately, about anything like that". Your BS that you viewed as the love of your life, how could you have not seen it, is now jailer, parent, nag. "Will they ever trust me, get over this? It's been (fill in the length of time) I've done everything I could".
Nope. You haven't even started. You're still impulsive, discontented, restless, selfish, and now you have a healthy dose of judgmental and critical tossed in because you get it. You don't do that stuff anymore like those idiots. You have morals. You are now a finger pointer at those losers who can't get it together. In one word, insufferable.
You've never dealt what the affair caused you to lose and what it meant. Your escape, your validation, your holes, your boredom, your ego, your attention habit, unresolved FOO issues. All those toxic dysfunctions still alive and well but not having a secret,a person, people, ready and waiting when you slip away to fill, assuage, stroke, feed you. Now you have depression, numbness, just a hint of tapped down rage that echoes with a sharp remark or silence. Withdrawing, detaching, distancing.
You are in a full blown affair again, without the other person. No fixes, no health, no growth. Not fucking someone else mentally or physically is not being faithful. There are no short cuts. Do the work. Get healthy mentally, emotionally, physically. The initial pain is what so many mistake for a wake up. It isn't always. It takes consistent focus and progress.
Make goals. As you achieve, high five yourself, pick the next one. Make them realistic. If you've never told the truth in conflict don't pick I will never lie again. It's not realistic. Pick I will think about something before I say it. When you fail, fess up immediately. No contact. No mental contact. That doesn't mean no thoughts will come but don't obsess and daydream. Transparency isn't a punishment for cheating. It's the only way to love an authentic life.
Honesty is not an option.
Don't just profess your love, live it. Songs are changed, tv shows are paused and addressed. Hugs aren't ended by you. Conversations aren't started by them. You don't ask if you can go out with the boys/girls. You know. You say no thank you and don't run home to tell your spouse how "good" you were. You're an adult, not a child.
Live your remorse. Carry your own water. Self soothe.
Embody your potential rather than just referencing that you have it.
Phoenix, yes, there are good days and bad days and over time the good outnumber the bad. Finding a quality therapist that connects well with you is a tough job -- unfortunately, a lot of people give up after the first try. I went through 2 ICs before I finally found #3 and she just told me she's retiring this summer . We saw 3 different MCs over the past 2 years: 1 gave me only one 45 min session to ask every question I had about my H's 15 month affair and then I was to stop asking, 1 actually nodded off during one of our sessions, and one seemed to need to be reminded why we were there at every session. I'm not making this stuff up! My husband, fortunately, found an amazing IC who helped him rediscover himself. We are both very grateful that we finally found two good professionals to help us through this difficult journey. It's made a huge difference - but it was a job finding them. Please keep posting and reading - that helps so much. Take good care of yourself, too.
But I want to point out that for many WS, including my own, the reason they don't dig deeply is not because they don't care or that they don't have time, it's because it's painful and scary. Many WS ARE WS because they have avoided self awareness, sometimes their whole lives. To insist that they do so at a time that they feel guilty and shamed is doubly hard.
But oh so necessary.
For a BS, we are often driven by extreme pain to search desperately for answers and can be so hurt that the person who caused the pain is not doing so. Unfortunately they are often trying to avoid the pain (again, how they sometimes end up a wayward, not dealing healthily with the "pain" that comes with normal life).
There were times I had to actually fight with my H to get him to answer questions in writing, etc, he was so avoidant. It did get better as his self-awareness increased.
Your expectations are valid and your experience is, unfortunately, not uncommon. BTW, it is quite uncommon for WSs to bring up the A on their own. Also, since APs tend to be a "mirror", admitting to oneself that they were less than desirable tends to boomerang back. Once a WS becomes truly humbled (ie "gets it") they can see that they were projecting for the sake of their ego.
Best of luck.
People actually in R can share with you what their WSs have done to heal but I can tell you that what you describe is MrH after his first A. Yup, first...there was another years later.
He did more this time around but still not enough so I'm in limbo.
SMH- he's just the same. Even down to the research...except it's watches for him. At least right now. During the A it was a certain type of vintage fountain pen.
I posted the other day in general about a research article that was forwarded to me. They listed the ten factors that help heal a M based on surveys and who knows what else.
Here they are: -open and honest communication: discussion of feelings/emotions, how you plan to R, how running into the AP will be dealt with and so on.
- discussion of details of the A: how it began, what it consisted of (PA/EA), where it happened, how often...
-the A being ended
- WS's empathy - BS's empathy
-genuine apology from the WS
-WS acceptance pf responsibility
-mutual understanding of factors leading to infidelity
-WS involvement in trust-building: checking in, wearing ring, access to accounts and records
-forgiveness
I find that this is what I need and MrH hasn't done this fully, thus I feel unsafe, unloved and in limbo. I also believe that many WS feel like we should just rush to the forgiveness part. The part that requires the least amount of effort from them, right?
I did all of this, and regret it deeply. I thought because my WH went NC on his own and apologized, it meant that he "got it." Nope. In my case, I got TT for four months. Four months I spent researching endlessly, reading this site (but never posting), and trying to heal our marriage myself. He attended MC with me, but barely participated, and I ended up spending my one on one sessions with the MC talking about him and giving her information about his FOO and other issues that he didn't. There were always long silences before he spoke. I thought it was because he couldn't get his thoughts into words. In reality he was choosing carefully how much he would share so that he didn't get caught in a lie.
When I finally posted on this site, 4 months after Dday I got advice that saved my marriage and more importantly, saved me. In a nutshell, they told me to stop. Stop trying to fix my marriage, stop trying to fix my husband. He wasn't doing enough. I offer this same advice to you.
Find an IC. Work on healing yourself. Tell your WH that he isn't doing enough. Tell him exactly what you need, and if he can't give it to you then you have some hard choices to make. Read up on the 180. I think it will help a lot.
I don't know that I have the courage to insist on IC because I feel like he will get an ineffective counselor and nothing will change. It really has to come from him....
The desire to change has to come from him, but it's eminently reasonable for you to require IC as a condition for R. That doesn't force him into IC - it just allows him to choose between losing you and possibly keeping you, if IC helps.
I recommend that your req be something like, 'IC with a goal of changing from a person who cheats to a person who's a good partner (one who doesn't betray anyone). I also think your H needs to sign a release that allows his C to talk to you about his goals and progress - otherwise he can tell you one thing and his C another - and I think you should schedule joint sessions periodically to make sure he hasn't lied to his IC.
Remember, you can usually change Cs if one doesn't help.
You mention fear. R takes a lot of courage. It's OK to be scared, but to R you need to remember that you're courageous, too, and that you can do things even if you're scared to do them.
I don't think WSes can make necessary changes without outside intervention into their internal processes. I think you need to demand IC, even though there's no guarantee he'll find an effective one the first time - or ever. No IC means failure to R, IMO. Any IC provides hope for success.
Again, the above is JMO.
