I know that this is a issue that has been a big part of the problem before I cheated I tried to talk to my wife about this many times before I had an affair it seemed to go in one ear and out the other sometimes it might change things for a few days but usually it didn't seem to matter I wonder if this need to be touched the showing of physical affection and it for me is a great need and my wife's lack of addressing this need was part of the reason why I chose to look elsewhere to meet this emotional need.
No. This isn't why you cheated. It may have been a problem in your marriage, but you could have addressed it, or divorced her rather than having an affair. You need to ask yourself deeper questions about why you chose to stay and cheat.
Why does it hurt so bad when you long for your wife's touch but she refuses to touch you? I'm not just talking about making love but holding hands cuddling sitting close to each other those types of things
Can you not see the pain that she is in? Your touch is associated with your betrayal of her. Every time you touch her, she probably is reminded of how you touched someone else, how you wanted their touch.
Also, your posts seem to concentrate on your pain, not hers. And they seem to blame her,as if you were not responsible for your choices and actions within your M. She won't be feeling emotionally safe with you yet. How can you expect any kind of comfort from her right now? What are you doing to help her heal and feel safe?
ds5, ds7
Took a while, but I like the me I am, without him.
why does it hurt so bad when the one whom you love and is supposed to love you does not take and try to meet your needs
Umm...wow! I'm biting my tongue here!
How long is it since she found out?
We are all waywards here and the only judging we can do is calling you out on your actions or lack thereof, alas the 2×4's you get.
I am assuming your dd is recent because you have recently registered. She is hurt by your actions to have an affair and your excuse of her not being touchy feely with you is bs. Do you really think housework is going to help her heal?no. You need to be open with her, vulnerable, show her that you're sorry, and not with household chores. Yes, heal you, but you need to help her heal. Go to IC work on your boundaries and fix your shit.
I suggest clicking to the left on the healing library. Some books to read is not just friends, after the affair, how to help your spouse heal.
MC and IC will help the both of you in communication. Some people are just not that into touching or lovey dovey, and they show their love in a different way. From what I am reading about you is your love language is physical touch, but what is hers? Learn her love language and go from there.
What I'm trying to get across, is that you seem to be focusing mostly on getting your need for physical touch met, without, perhaps, thinking about how your BS is feeling about you and what you've done.
Remorseful wayward spouses try to empathise with their BS, try to help them heal on every level, expect nothing & are grateful that the BS has given them the gift of reconciliation. It's a hard road and there are no short cuts. But there are many WS on here who can show you that it is possible.
I'm a BS, not a WS, but I'm posting on this board because I would love it if every WS could work on saving their M and making the hard deep changes necessary for that to happen.
You're right, there will have been issues before you cheated. And, at some point, these will need to be worked on. But, trying to work on those things right now is like trying to work on a papercut on the M's thumb, when there's a knife wound to the stomach and the M is about to bleed out. First you have to deal with the critical problems, once the M is more stable, that's when you can look at the other things.
If you're not sure what the critical issues are? Here are some: - Trust: deception, lies, betrayal have killed the trust in your M. - Fear: of being hurt again (your BS), of being emotionally vulnerable (both of you), of conflict, of all the triggers out there that hit your BS in the stomach all the time, & so many more - Manipulation: You manipulated her to make sure she didn't discover the A. Your BS will be asking herself whether she can be with someone who did that to her. - Sex/Touch: Everything will remind her of what you did. She will be suffering emotional trauma for a long time,wondering if you did that with someone else...and each time that thought comes up, it will hurt her deeply. - Your history together: You probably rewrote your M history during the A to justify it to yourself. That distorted view will make things harder. Now your BS will be looking back at your history with new eyes, wondering if it was all a lie and if any of it was true.
[This message edited by Softcentre at 10:43 AM, August 16th, 2014 (Saturday)]
It sounds like you are riding the tiger of the early days. It all seems like such a horrible, terrible mess that can't be untangled. Broken dreams, indeed.
You are obviously struggling with a few things. The magnitude of the devastation to your BS is one of them. Getting a grip on it is a mixture of unfolding empathy for your BS but also realizing how much the betrayal has cost you personally. Although your BS was not honoring your request for more touch and physical intimacy, I'm guessing that there were still positive things you received from the relationship that have been completely nuked by your choice to get your need met at her very great expense. It's kind of like seeing a loved one in a coma or on life support or something and feeling horrified that they are going through it. Then we realize that some of our horror is grounded in the implications the new situation has for our own lives. Before, you were not getting your need for physical touch and intimacy met. Now it seems like it will never ever be on the table because of what you did.
Stop.
Close your eyes and take a some slow, deep breaths.
Four by four by four. Four seconds inhale, four seconds exhale. For four breaths.
Okay.
I am not saying your need for physical touch and intimacy is not legitimate. It is, and it sounds as if you actually have tried to address it and that she, for whatever reason, has chosen to refuse that request. However. What is at question is something much deeper. It is your willingness to betray her to get that need met. That is the thing that is exploding her brain, most likely. Your lack of integrity.
Let's talk about integrity for a moment. One definition of acting with integrity is that it's really a three part thing. First, it requires a degree of moral reflection, that is, knowing what is right and what is wrong. Second, it requires acting on that knowledge and choosing the right. And third, it requires being willing to say that our choice is based on what we believe to be right. In that context, your BS has strong evidence supporting the idea that you lack integrity.
The word itself is related to the word "integer", which is a number that can be expressed without a decimal point. 1, 5, 392, those are integers. 1.23 and 3.00005 are not. So in a way, integrity has to do with wholeness. Having all parts of you be consistent and aligned. Your BS probably thought she had that in you. That there was no part of you that could or would betray her in such a manner. Until you did. Now she is having to reconsider the entirety of you, and realize that you weren't an integer after all. There was some hidden decimal part to you of which she was unaware, and that part has proven itself to be very dangerous to her personal sense of safety and emotional security. Those things are the backbone of our sense of "being okay". Her sense of okayness has been seriously shot to hell, and will take a long time to recover, with or without you.
So.
What do you do with all of that? Your pain and anguish are palpable. You had a legitimate need. You could not meet it by yourself. Your BS was unwilling or unable to help you meet that need. And then...that's where the integrity train jumped the track. You had choices. Not comfortable choices, but choices based on integrity are not necessarily comfortable. So your work is in figuring out why. Why did your integrity train jump the track? What gave you the mental green light to go ahead and get your need met at the expense of your BS, your marriage and your own soul? This is the thing you did not fix the first time you cheated. It is the same switch. In my opinion, that is the direction in which true healing lies for you, and for her in as much as you can facilitate her healing. Some of it she will have to do on her own.
This is a long, rough ride. But. You have a chance to dramatically improve the rest of your life and the lives of the people you care about. It is going to involve dealing with some fairly massive suck for a while. You are courageous to just put it all out here. I was never that brave, so I know you have the courage. You obviously want to start untangling this, so I know you have the motivation. Keep posting and reading. Reading other people's experiences will help you put your own in context.
You will get much support here. Proceed with conviction and valor.
Strength to you from a fellow EvolvingSoul.
[This message edited by EvolvingSoul at 11:32 PM, August 16th (Saturday)]
Digging our way through.
That was fantastic! I love what you said about integrity and being whole. It seems like that is the basic problem for every wayward. Thank you for that. :)
I think you are right about wayward thinking being a manifestation of the breakdown of integrity, or a lot of times never really having formed it in the first place.
Okay the book is Integrity by Stephen L. Carter. It is an examination of what integrity is and how our ideas about integrity shape our culture and in particular looks at the disconnect between what we say we believe about integrity and what we do. It was published in 1996.
[This message edited by EvolvingSoul at 11:36 PM, August 16th (Saturday)]
I was up above it. Now I'm down in it.
