SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So, there I was thinking I had fixed myself a long time ago with my therapy/issues WAY before I even got married.

Well, turns out I have issues still and this is magnifying my grief, fear, anger, pain, and sadness. Lucky me. :) Well, at least I'm going to do it now, rather than later or never...

Everyone here kept asking and saying go to IC/MC. I didn't. I thought I was the "fixed" one because I didn't cheat. Well, it turns out it's harder to R with the baggage WE both brought to the M.

Is this the case for some of you, too?

Well, thanks everyone for the advice and support in the beginning when I first got here. I was too blinded by pain and anger to really work on myself. And, apparently R is really hard when we're not individually healed.

Well, I just wanted to share what I recently learned...

Good luck everyone sending loads of love to all of you!

[This message edited by libertyrocks at 12:24 PM, June 14th (Friday)]

Dear Lord yes, I'm the one coming up with all the FOO issues. I told him a few nights ago that with as screwed up as I am and didn't know it, you'd think I would have been the cheater!!

I have major FOO issues and yes my reactions have been way over the top. My dad was very cold to me growing up and never told me he loved me. He was also a very scary man, so I feared men, but I also looked to them to love me and when I got rejected it always felt like the way my dad made me feel. Every relationship I have ever had has been with someone with emotional intimacy issues.

So with my WH's latest A and the continued broken NC's it kept reinforcing the rejection of me until I completely spiraled down.

I am slowly getting better, but I have to do it on my own. I cannot look to my WH or any other man make me feel loved or whole. I am finding that acceptance within myself now.

Oh, yes...it takes two.

I had father problems as well, where he was the "totalitarian" dad and everything was his way. And so frugal I'm amazed how healthy-physically-we all grew up, sometimes.

My mother is NPD and has fear of abandonment and finally as a grown up can see those traits in both of them.

One thing this has shown me, is that prior to A and now D, I was walking in my father's footsteps with DD-he was my primary role model, as my mother was busy with her two favorites, my other siblings.

Now I bend over backwards to end up somewhere in the middle, both in my life and in parenting and I see how my father could have relaxed-just a little-and my mother could have bent-just a little-but no one did.

There is a theory on having a totalitarian or dictator parent, where a child can grow up very codependent and that's me to a T. So you see, with Perv so NPD, it is so darn classic it's scary. We just walked into the roles and BAM!, as my parents did in their way a little, too.

What the difference can be, I think, is when we can admit to having issues, because we give ourselves a chance that way, whether a spouse will be in the future or not.

Well, I also thought I had worked through my FOO issues. BUT when I had a totaly breakdown at our last MC session I realized there is still a lot of hurt there. I dont think it is harder to R because of it. I actually think it is healthy because we brought those emotions and issues into our marriage subconciously. If we don't heal through those our marriage will be affected by it in the future.

Its hard becuase my main FOO issues have been being abandoned, having my sense of safety and security destroyed, acting out negatively because I felt like I was being controled. Now I look into my marriage I brought those traits in Pre A and after her A it brought back all those emotions from when I was a 10 year old boy. I have been struggling the past few days with the feeling of safety and security. I feel my marriage is so volitile and frail. It isn't something I feel secure in yet. It totally sucks!! Our M is better but I still dont feel safe. So YEAH another thing I need to overcome. Trying to find the strength.

I dont think there is a normal person in the world...

I needed IC and had been seeking it prior but not with the open mind after the A.

I was totally wack-o, IC is good for everyone IMO

Karma -- I laughed when I saw the header because I thought, "Is there a BS WITHOUT FOO issues?"

The thing is, most of us learn to live with this stuff. Being cheated on is just a brutal blow, and of course it brings all the hurt and pain you've suffered right back up to the surface. Some of us live with stuff that will NEVER feel good to live with -- like infidelity, we just learn to live with it. Infidelity rips the wound open again and all of that original hurt just pours right out. My therapist keeps saying "I think that is a very old pain, a very old feeling", and she's right. And we tend to use the same coping mechanisms that we learned when little -- even if we know better.

Can I just say how much infidelity sucks? Again?

[This message edited by Blobette at 4:13 PM, June 14th (Friday)]

Before M, I had a ton of therapy due to my FOO issues. I had never had any stability in my life. That's not true, my Mother's 3rd husband provided a stable and loving home, from when I was 5, until he left when I was 10. Of course, I still had to visit my birth father who was a good old fashion church going, bible toting, serial child molester and rapist during those years so I guess they weren't really all that stable. After one of those visits, husband #3 was gone and creepy husband #4 was there. Tons of FOO issues. Tons of therapy.

There's only so much therapy can do. A stable life is what I needed. I got an education, married, had children... WH was an emotionally abusive alcoholic but I didn't take it personally. It usually didn't threaten my well being. When I did feel my well being was threatened, the boys and I would pack up the truck and take an educational field trip (we homeschooled) until WH could play nice again. It was an agreement we had that worked. We called his other personality PJ (Psycho Jerk) and I would send an e-mail telling him to let us know when PJ was gone and where we'd be until then. I understood his FOO issues and he understood mine. WH worked hard to support his family, he respected my parenting, we had a great sex life, he was loyal...

We both came from extremely messed up families. Neither one of us has dealt with his A and it's aftermath well. I refused to waste any more time and money on more counseling when I could spend it having fun with my boys. WH's IC was actually destructive to our M. The first two MCs we tried were a waste of time and money. Eventually, we found a MC that was worth spending time and money on. We've been seeing him over a year.

Yes, FOO issues help make R challenging but I suspect I never would have married my WH to begin with if I hadn't had FOO issues. And, he would have probably never married me if I'd had a family I could have turned to for support. And if he hadn't had FOO issues, he probably wouldn't have married me either. We were both people who had survived abuse, overcome it, gotten educated, were living well, we're well traveled... We had so much in common, we understood each other and shared the same vision of our future together.

I didn't understand that he was an alcoholic. I didn't know much about alcoholism back then. He's been sober a year now. Now, maybe we can start to R. I have so much PTSD from the first year post A, sometimes even I don't want to be married to me now.

Is this the case for some of you, too?

Yes.

Makes it all much harder....in so many ways. Stick with the self-work.

[This message edited by MC_Jack at 6:00 PM, June 14th (Friday)]

My mother cheated, my father drank. Living in that situation, when I was in my late teens, I spent a couple of months in a mental institution. A few years later, I was sexually assaulted by a psychiatrist.

So yes, it's fair to say I have FOO issues but I worked through them. If anything, I resent that his cheating resurrected all the garbage I went through.

We each have had a few IC sessions with our MC. It does help that our counselor knows about my past and how much more of an impact his cheating has had due to it.

I think if you are a bs with abandonment issues, like me, you are more likely to attract unhealthy partners that are more likely to cheat. Remember, affairs are not about us.

Yes!

I have a long history of past issues. In addition, I have dysthymic disorder, OCD, and have struggled with PTSD in the past. I have been on continuous medication for the OCD and dysthymic disorder, but it cycles. When fiancé did what he did, things definitely got worse for me- and those are issues I came to the relationship with. I bring up my DD's dad and ex-fiancé a lot as well. I haven't been with either of those men in YEARS and had worked through a lot of that anger, and pain. When my current fiancé cheated, it triggered all of those old memories for me.

Now, when I look at certain women that I am attracted to, I can almost sense that they are a fixer upper. I guess I'm not there yet where I can detect the healthy ones.

Uh - yeah - raising hand and joining this group ;(

I can't even list all the FOO crap my WH's A brought to the surface for me. My IC said I had built so many walls to protect myself and was happily living in denial about just how bad my FOO issues were. When Dday happened, the atomic bomb that went off when I read his texts to OW knocked all those walls down and I couldn't put my FOO issues back into their happy, denial boxes I let them love in.

I think it's unfair to say you were living "in denial" about how bad things had been in the past. Just because you moved on with your life, doesn't mean you were in denial about the past. I worked hard on overcoming the horrific things I managed to survive. I did my time and more in therapy. There comes a point at which no amount of therapy is going to make a difference. WH knew about my past and knew about his (sort of). We were supposed to have survived and lived to thrive. He was not supposed to have become an abusive unfaithful drunk and taken me down with him.

[This message edited by Ladyogilvy at 8:00 PM, June 16th (Sunday)]

It might not be a denial about what happened, but more a denial that they still may affect our lives subconsciously. I acknowledged the things in my past, but I didn't think they had any effects on me. Boy was I wrong. Maybe its not denial, maybe its just a lack of awareness.

Wow, everyone. We're all in a circle holding hands here...figuratively speaking, that is.

I had NO IDEA our FOO issues would impact our adult relationships and rehash all the old pain, hurt, abandonment, and other negative feelings.

I feel like a baby lamb learning to walk...I'm learning so much here at SI.

Thank you for sharing. I know it's not easy.

I'm still "ignoring" the things that happened to me as a kid...

[This message edited by libertyrocks at 10:42 AM, June 17th (Monday)]

Maybe it is just me and my friends, but don't we all have some FOO issues?

I mean--please show me somebody who grew up in a perfect home, happy all the time, never had pain or loss, never dealt with health problems or death, always got what they wanted, no money problems, had perfect relationships with siblings, etc. I don't know anybody who fits that description.

I was raised by a depressed alcoholic mother, and a father in denial. I'm the only living member of my family now, due to bad choices. My FWH's biological father died with HIV due to imprudent lifestyle choices for many many years. His mother is a sad & angry woman, and his step dad a pathological liar.

So-- so yes, I think FOO issues have an impact on healing, but I think everybody has to come to terms with something,

I have FOO issues and so does WH. IMHO we all have some sort of FOO issues - some not as bad as others.

It would seem that everyone has some foo issues. But we on this forum are a self selecting group. So it maybe be that affairs have to involve some for issues to occur, and it may not be as prevalent in the general community. Or there is a certain percentage that never get caught.