SurvivingInfidelity.com® > Wayward Side

Outfield posted 10/24/2017 12:09 PM

So this is my first time here. Still trying to get used to the acronyms so forgive me if I don’t use them enough. I had an A that lasted almost a year. D-day was a few months ago. I was careless and my wife found out, needless to say she was shocked, angry, all those emotions. Fast forward to now, we’ve both gone thru IC, starting marriage counseling in a couple weeks.
We’ve had several talks throughout this ordeal, and I’ve learned I’m a terrible communicator. She is the one who always brings up topics and I usually have short answers. When things are going well between us I feel like we’re making great progress. Then she brings up a topic and says I’m not doing enough to initiate conversation. I guess I just want to avoid it. I’m doing all I can to gain her trust back (cell phone and email open to her) but we’re not quite there.
I married an amazing woman and I neglected her for several months. Not only her but our kids as well. Now I’m doing what I can to hang onto her and our wonderful household. Some days I’m amazed we’re still together, but that just shows how great she is and how’s he we love each other. I’m hoping in time we’ll get back to as close as we used to be. It’s going to be a long journey for sure.
Me: WH 40s
Her: BW 40s
D-day July ‘17
3 kids

WalkinOnEggshelz posted 10/24/2017 19:22 PM

Hello and welcome to SI.

Recovering from infidelity is a long process. The average time is 2-5 years when both are working very hard together. At this stage, you are barely scratching the surface.

Other than IC, what are you doing to work towards becoming a better person? I recommend reading "How to Help Your Spouse Recover From Your Affair" by Linda J McDonald. Another great book is "Not Just Friends" by Shirley Glass.

In order to make this work, you are going to need to learn to be vulnerable with her. When things seem like they are going well, she is still thinking about your affair. You will need to open up to her and learn to carry the heavy load. Not talking about it doesn't make it go away.

You have come to the right place for help. Keep an open mind. Stick around. This won't be easy, but you can do this.

Guiltyinky posted 10/24/2017 19:25 PM

What are you doing to figur out your WHY, start to improve yourself? What are you reading? It's going to take years to earn back trust, not weeks. Three months sound awful fast to be starting MC, as you have a lot of individual work left to do. Remember, the marriage didn't cause your infidelity, you did. Focus on fixing you, that's the quickest path (still years) to earning back trust.

You say you are doing everything you can to earn her trust back, but you then say you just want to void the topic. Sounds like you deserve the continued lack of trust. Get to work on you fast.

bravesgrl01 posted 10/25/2017 21:00 PM

This was me in the beginning and im still learning. You have to start the conversations no matter how hard they are. Stop avouding them. You have to do the whys. That is what im working on myself. Keep your head up

Outfield posted 10/26/2017 10:07 AM

Yeah I see that. We just had a conversation, brought up by her of course. But we seem to accomplish something each time we discuss. I know I need to figure out the WHY with me, I’m working on that. I was just telling her that I know it won’t happen overnight. But she knows I’m in it for the long haul and that is reassurance for her, that I’m not going anywhere.
Thanks so much for the comments, I feel like I’ve come to the right place for guidance and advice when I need it. Gonna be a long road to recovery.

DaddyDom posted 10/26/2017 12:16 PM

Learning how to initiate conversations is hard, especially for a WS. Most WS's would prefer to NOT talk about the affair, because it only hurts us and reminds us of how shitty a thing we did and how guilty we feel. We also tend to tell ourselves that bringing it up will only serve to hurt our BS's more, and that's true to some degree.

The thing is, our BS's NEED to talk about it, in order to process what happened. Yes, it hurts them to talk about it, but it also helps them more than it hurts, because it allows all that sadness and anger and pain to release and to process. That much, they can do on their own. They can initiate their own conversations.

What's missing for most BS's is YOUR part of the story, all the things they don't know. Early on, this is often the Who/What/Where kind of questions, and if you are willing to be honest and open, this part can move pretty quickly. Just remember that they were not there for most of the affair, so to them, this is all new, a puzzle without most of the pieces, and so they are relying on you (the person who betrayed and lied to them in the first place) to fill in those pieces. It helps them a LOT to not have to drag that info out of you. That's one of the things you can help with.

Once the Who/What/Where is mostly filled in, then comes the much harder questions of How/Why? Again, the WS temptation is to rug sweep on this. We often don't want to admit to ourselves or to our spouses how bad things got, how we really felt at the time, the fine details about how we ended up betraying them, making them feel kicked to the curb and discarded, and how we took to some other (usually much inferior) person to fill those needs.

Again, your BS needs this to heal. And quite frankly, so do you. Most of us WS's tell ourselves a lot of lies and justifications and other bullshit to allow this to happen. But why? Was getting a piece of tail worth risking your entire marriage over? Usually not. Most of the time, the affair is a symptom, not the problem. (Well, speaking for the WS I mean). The real problem is within you. What need do you have that wasn't getting filled? Did you feel unloved, unwanted, unsatisfied? Did you end up blaming your spouse for this? Did you feel that you deserved more, deserved some happiness in your life?

As you talk and start to dig, you might be surprised to find out how much of that train of thought was a cover-up for things missing in YOU. Was your spouse really unloving or was it just a reflection of how you were treating them? If they were being loving, why was that not enough? Is it because you didn't love yourself enough and thought you actually deserved someone less, someone as miserable as you were?

Don't be afraid to open up. I can't gaurantee what result will come. They will probably be mad and hurt, that's true. But the likelyhood of them processing that pain and respecting that you were open and honest and owning it, will go a long way towards restoring trust and respect.