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I have a document with tidbits of information/advice from SI that has helped me on this journey. I have re-read these many of times to help ground me. Thanks for all the great advice! Below are just a few, my document is literally pages long.

Please share advice that has helped you in R.

People are flawed. Now, once they are forced to look at themselves, what do they do? That's the true measure of a person, IMHO.

-catlover50

In the aftermath of an incredible injustice done to his people, an old Cherokee chief told his granddaughter that he felt like there was a fight between two wolves going on inside him. One wolf is hostile, filled with hate, anger, resentment, superiority, and ego. The other wolf is filled with goodness, love, peace, hope, compassion, and faith.

His granddaughter thought about this for a moment, and then asked him......Grandfather, which wolf wins?.

The old Cherokee replied....The one I feed.

End of story....enter my interpretation;

-I think blakesteele shared this story

The carrying your own heart until the WS proves they are worthy of handling it again resonates with me.

-??? (sorry!)

But one practical consideration remains: a remorseful WS who does the work necessary to R has a better shot at not cheating again than any new person any of us is likely to meet. My W says she was well defended against an invitation from any man. Now she's defended against invitations from women, too. (I don't think I'll ever let her have a pet, though. )

-sisoon

My IC calls this "being worthy of your tears." Is he worthy of all the pain and angst? Is he worthy of your time and effort? Is he worthy of YOU? If the answers are yes, then you keep plugging away. If they are no, then you reevaluate your perceptions.

-??? (sorry!)

It almost seems like in order to successfully R, the BS has to have a measure of maturity and generosity that is equal to the amount of immaturity and selfishness the WS had. There is no fairness in the equation at all.

-Brokendancer17.

Disclaimer: Early on I did not record who said what.

[This message edited by ILINIA at 5:46 PM, January 18th (Saturday)]

Not making any life changing decisions for a year was really good advice for me.....and the quote below about triggers and the 'immediate effect' helped me a lot...I believe this was from a book someone here at SI recommended but don't remember the title.

"The immediate effect of that emotional recall flushes the system with the chemistry of that exact emotion - but it is not happening again. It is how we think about it that drives the emotion."


For me, understanding that the immense pain and physical effects I felt when I triggered was my body's 'trained response' to this trauma and understanding that the key was how I chose to respond was 'freeing'. I chose to respond differently and triggers became less and less hurtful, finally dissipating to nothing.

Two things right off the bat that helped me.

One, was some advice from njgal480 (an awesome member). I am paraphrasing here, but it was along the lines of "don't put how you think on the wayward, that the wayward thinking is not how most of us BS would think" . For instance, for me to have an affair I feel I would have to be in love. Ergo, FWH must have been in love!

Second was from DeathbyBetrayal (as quoted by EasyDoesIt) and it was "desperately trying to unfuck the donkey". I was driving myself insane trying to get FWH to unfuck the donkey with all my woulda, coulda, shouldas and "what if" thinking. Can't unfuck the donkey and it is pointless to go down the woulda, coulda, shoulda, what ifs line of thinking.

THIS IS A GREAT THREAD -- we BSs need more positive input...

this one from Spotless helped me:

"We can't change the hurts of the past, and dwelling there too long can lead to unnecessary pain. We can't predict the hurts of the future, and dwelling there too long can lead to unnecessary anxiety. The now is where we should be, so we can experience life in real time."

To all of us...its going to be okay...it really will.

From Rebreather, this was great. She posted this before my second Dday, but it helped me with both.

First, I suppose you get to ask any questions you want and need. However, this particular one tends to come off as blaming the betrayed for the state of healing, instead of the wayward who caused the injury. I wouldn't be needing to heal at all if you hadn't been fucking someone else. It can be horrifically offensive and utterly condescending.

That said, the first I heard of the 2 year mark was from my former boss's BFF psychologist. Yes, my boss and I went through this at the same time, if you can believe that shit. Anyway, the mark was "it takes about 2 years to start rebuilding trust, if there are no other injuries." So, that 2 year mark can start pretty far out from dday. I think that is where we get the 5 years.

I love the affair math concept, because this is how I look at it.

Assume for a moment that we need one day, just ONE DAY to heal from one lie. That's not long, right? A day? A lie is kind of a big deal, but lets get over it in a day. Now, how many lies do we have to get over? 10? 20? What if every text message sent gets counted as a lie. How about every time you told the AP "I love you." Every time you told her a story about your childhood. Every time you called us on the way to her house to throw us off your trail. Every time you nuzzled her neck. Every time you came inside her. Every minute of every phone call. Every time you spoke to the AP's mother. Every time you stayed the night at her house when you were away "for work." Every time you had a meal together. Every time she saw you naked. Every time you took a shower together. Every time you helped her make her bed. Every time you came home to me and didn't look me in the eye, making me feel less than. Every time you had unprotected sex. Every time you looked at her ass. Every time you touched her breasts. Every time you watched a movie together. Every time. Every time. Every time.

I estimate alone that there were 20,000 text messages...at least. So how many days is that for me to heal, with all the other goodies added inl? 30,000? 40,000? I'm at about day 1600. And I'm doing pretty damn good. If you ask me, I am on the fucking light rail to healing!

The question a wayward spouse should be concerned about, is IF their betrayed spouse will heal. Not WHEN. Never underestimate the magnitude of your betrayal.

All of those are great!

R is so frickin' tough! I tend to post when I'm down, but I am hoping to counter it with some positive vibes for R! Here is a tagline that I saw one of my first times on, so I don't know whose it is:

Never hold a grudge. While your holding a grudge, the other guy is out dancing.

Wait, we need a little Rick, too!

Oh, no! I cannot stop....

[This message edited by ILINIA at 8:54 PM, January 18th (Saturday)]

Love the gifs, thanks ILINIA.

One thing i did to help myself was to keep a daily journal of all the things my WH did for me...things i noticed in him that were different...changes that he made. It could have been something as small as him noticing i did some stupid chore around the house and thanking me...or as big as him realizing how disrespectful something he did was, immediately catching it and changing the action. I wrote down everything. Then, on the days when i felt crappy, i could look back at this big long list of all these things and see, in black and white, what he was doing to make himself a better man for me.

This came from SorrowBhindSmile and is a big help to me when fWH is at work at night. It is easy to think all is bad when alone at night. My list reminds me things are getting better all the time.

Be gentle with yourself - if you feel yourself dissing your recovery process, well, stop. Say something nice to yourself instead.

This one from Sisoon.

There's more, but I can't figure out how to track it all down.

I remember Jrazz told me to take the leap to go to IC and that it would not be as scary as I thought it would.

I'll add something, a thought that helps me. Even good people are imperfect and make terrible decisions, sometimes they smoke or get heavy or drink to excess and literal kill themselves. Sometimes they drive drunk or while texting and kill others. In the big scheme of things, the decision to cheat isn't even remotely the worst mistake people can make. My mother added that you should put yourself in the shoes of the adulterer and treat them as you would want to be treated. I complained that I would never cheat, and she said that truly, circumstances right, you just don't know. Everybody says "I would leave my spouse" if they cheated but most don't immediately. In other words its hard to predict sometimes what we each would do once the circumstance is really in front of us.

The thing that resonates with me right now is from KYRIE. She told a story about her mother being betrayed 30 years ago, and how that betrayal defined her life. She said that she refused to mimic that reaction to heartbreak.

That stuck with me. Do I want to give up everything about living to give in to that piece of me that hurts so bad? Do I want to feed and nurture that pain, or do I want to live?

I want to live. Thanks SIers. Amazing people.

The A is about the WS's issues, not about anything the BS did or didn't do.

The WS cheated in order to avoid her own pain.

The BS is just collateral damage in an A.

Follow the SI guidelines. The mods enforce them. They're nice about it, but they enforce 'em.

Eachday, I get just about as far your your post, and I was thinking of Kyrie's posts also. When I read her posts, I'm impressed by her understanding and compassion. They remind me of the kind of man I should strive to be,

Illinia, the Cherokee chief's story about having two wolves inside fighting hit it right on. Is it amazing how the commonality of human emotions span cultures and time? I understand exactly what the old chief was feeling - and now I understand the lesson he learned.

I have always thought I would NEVER be able to laugh about any aspect of the affair, but Sisoon's joke about not being sure he ever wanted his wife to have a pet was so funny I laughed inside, and felt lighter because of it.

Thank you all for this thread.

You know it is ok to sit back and not feel all wonderful and hopeful about R at times right?....

.....It is ok to be where you are. There will be another stage. Not all are comfortable. I have found not fighting them helps.

Tired Girl

What a great thread!

"Trust the process" someone said. And TG's messages always rang true.

Tushnurse said something that really reasonated with me too: she was tired of being negatively affected by her husbands choice. That made me give up the fight a little.

The fact that we should never underestimate the betrayal- SO VERY TRUE, and I say that as a former wayward....

And someone write me a long post about the BS's life now being uncomfortable and that they had to grow, and not be pissed off about HAVING to grow...

The best advice I have been given is to wait at least one year before making any life-changing decisions.

That this wasn't about me. That was a very hard concept for me to grasp and I don't think I could have ever really believed it without SI.

You're not broken, just a little bent."

This is one that I've used forever, but it bears repeating. "When someone shows you who they are, believe them."

And from my triage class: "you can't take care of anyone else unless you take care of yourself first." Seen various iterations of that one.

The first lie that is told in an affair is the one the WS tells themselves.

...unsure who this is from. Most likely Sisoon, Rebreather, Skan......one of the first SI members I connected with.

Your wifes affair is not about you, not about the OM....it is about her.

.....MULTIPLE SI members had to keep telling me this!

Took me months to fully own and accept that...and about $600 in IC sessions! But this is 100% correct....even my wife agrees with me now....but I could not accept that for months...........but this really was THE statement that started my own personal journey.

Even as this statement was repeatedly put to me I thought my experience was somehow....different...unique. I honestly thought my wife and I were in this together.....turns out my journey is just....normal. Funny how my wife felt the same way about her AP and her A.....

Surprising how personal growth can share some similarities....regardless how healthy or unhealthy it starts......

Cool post ILINIA....nice change of pace....thanks!

God be with us all.

Regret is all about the person expressing the regret. Remorse is all about doing whatever possible to help the person who was betrayed.

...from Skan just tonight!

Where the heck was this when my wife had regret but no remorse, Skan?!?!?

Regret.....still all about the WS, no chance for R until Remorse shows up.

I totally get that now....and will pass this along to people who struggled as I did....with a slow-to-find-remorse WS.

Peace.

The piece of advice that was most helpful to me was that I don't have for forgive him all at once. I can forgive the pieces and parts of his A in any order, of my own choosing. At nearly 4 years out, I have forgiven all but 2 things of his LTA. I hope that I can get past these last two, but even if that doesn't happen anytime soon, I'm ok with that.

This probably would sound simple and obvious to somebody who hasn't gone thru betrayal, but for me, it was an amazing concept. It put the control in MY hands,