(((cantaccept)))
It is helping me to move away from the small, specific details (how many times did he fondle you, kiss you, tell you he loved you, orgasmed, etc.) and view as big a picture as I can. For the better part of this year I dug for details...and got a lot of them. In some ways this was necessary so that I could step back and see the big picture....and specific emails both during my wifes affair and during her fog helped make that picture possible. To be sure it was painful....but, for me, it was necessary.
Now I see the affair in a clearer light. It is not THE issue within our marriage...it really is a symptom of our marriage. The real details that ended with adultery being invited into our marriage came from within my fWW....in my case this was programmed into my wife during the formative years.
The details I speak of are the many ways in which my wife avoided conflict, avoided her feelings, hid and kept secret small details of her life, kept intimacy at a safe distance from where it could damage her... She kept this from me...but most importantly from herself. I really think my wife was so detached from parts of herself that she didn't recognize parts of herself.
This is why I believe the affair my wife chose to have would have happened regardless of who she is married to.
Yes, a partner has influence on the other....but it is the seemingly small details throughout the marriage that led our WS to adultery...and those details were many times just known to our WS...we were not privy to them. Sometimes they weren't facing what was inside them either.
Now....what do we do with this new found wisdom?
Don't have a good answer other then we do the best we can....we start by looking at OUR details....see what we weren't facing, how we coped with life....and start there.
It sucks....but maybe if you have enough details to really see your husbands affair in the big picture light it will make the details seem not so dreadful and you can process through that phase?
I went for a walk in the park tonight...cried in the middle of the ball field....so I still feel a great deal of pain even with this big picture idea....the details are still very much a part of our marriage now.
I do pray for my wife that she will have the courage to open her heart, to really face herself, to accept that not so good parts of her exist. I pray the same prayer for myself. In this regard I believe BS and WS alike are broken.
God be with us all.
[This message edited by blakesteele at 9:39 PM, August 27th (Tuesday)]