For me the first year (just barely up now)was filled with processing the intensity of the feelings and going over and over them. Finding out, coming, so slowly to the understanding that NOTHING is black and white...nothing...Finding out that NOBODY lives in a Disney movie
First year was filled with "trying" to make sense of how and why it happened. It was reflecting on myself and trying to make changes in myself that would strengthen my relationship.
It was questioning myself, debating and debating and praying what to do when to talk what to say.... what to ask, what not to ask and 24/7 sometimes, analyzing it.
It was feeling bad that I felt bad....Am I overdoing this? Am I not compassionate enough, understanding enough, trying enough? Questioning and questioning all that I did because my marriage and my husband was so important to me...I think that is why....
It was feeling compassion at times and extreme sadness and self pity at times...and sometimes, more confusingly, all those feelings and more, all at once.
It was crying every day...every single day...that is still the case....but why I cried, the reasons were different...self pity, confusion, pain, (having Deja vu now...yikes!!!!!)
It was working on the relationship despite this sadness and pain. It was somehow trying to manage triggers...knowing that they were just that, triggers, and that is was not happening again. It was working on my own self esteem that took quite a hit with all of this, (it was Not my fault...was it? How did I contribute...did I?) AND at the same time knowing that I am a pretty fantastic person. I AM. I am worthy of love. I AM a good person. I try sooooo hard! Does he, didn't he see this? He did...nothing to do with me, right?
It was slowly, slowly realizing again that he is a fantastic person as well...a human one, a human man and now I can love the real person....I tell myself, don't be afraid to do this...don't be afraid to love and trust....he is a good person...he is a human who made mistakes...I have to tell myself this over and over and when triggered go over it again...re think what I know is the truth...that he is human (so am I so struggling to forgive imperfectly)...nothing more, nothing less....
It was feeling sad about me, him , the As and all that was going on. And oh my GOD, It was sooo much, so much, so much (sometimes still is) all at once I FELT like I wanted to run away (wouldn't really) but boy that feeling, so often so so so outside myself or too into my thought and I was so overwhelmed with all of this, all of these changes and revelations that I just wanted to escape...still have that now and again.
It was talking about the As but it was so fresh, still so painful, I held back and did not ask all (I'm not talking about the little what they did how they did it details here)did not ask or perhaps know how or WHAT to ask to move us forward to move us anywhere...also, in the early times, I knew that he maybe wasn't ready...perhaps I sensed that. He was in the process of coming back to himself as well.
Meanwhile life does not stop....though so many times I wished, like Superman, I could stop the world from spinning...just hold on, stop for a minute and let me think! It didn't work that way. Life went on and on.Family issues continued, work goes on, raising the kid, finances, trips food, movies, and slowly, slowly some laughs and a few natural moments that were in their "naturalness" still bitter/sweet.
Yes, It would never, ever be the same, and acceptance was and is a struggle. But so many thinks in life are like that...the world is always changing and so are we...nothing is every exactly "the same"...I tell myself this. It helps but interna\lizing all this "clear" thinking is such a struggle....
The first year passed. Almost with the new year. Some sense of first round completion, though I did not think that until now. I felt some relief...we, I, me made it through the first year and maybe the worst of the pain and great, great confusion and initial struggles to reconnect. The sadness (which was always a bigger feeling for me than any anger)
and oh my goodness, such a MIXTURE and MESS, bit MESS of feelings, such a tangle confusion of feelings, well, it is like all the colors of play dough mixed and squished and pounded and stretched and finally rolled into a tight little gray ball...no longer each color distinct....my feelings like that...still, I think.
Starting second year....same conversations but new perspectives. Time and distance made a difference. It is not any easier, but it "feels" different now. I see what I did not, he speaks about them in a different way....so many dimensions of understanding makes it more gray, less black and white....
Again, just a mix and my feelings well, I don't really know yet, but this closer to a more truthful talking,not that the truth was withheld, but it was not yet REALIZED in this way....a new dimension of understanding, well I think has helped...so I see how little it had to do with me...almost nothing at all...and how much to do with his pain at the time....dimensions of understanding that even I understand why it happened...wish it didn't, but this new understanding, able to talk and see it BECAUSE of having gone through the pain of that first year, the intensity that made it impossible to talk and see, has greatly calmed down.
I still feel sad that it happened, but with now so many dimensions of understanding, the pain is subsiding...sadness, all kinds of regrets for him, me and so many reasons, still play on me.
Coming to a new understanding, being able to do this is all at once giving relief and at the same time other strange indescribable feelings also emerge....understanding it better, is also painful and I am not quite sure why....but I am still so glad to have it anyway...no way forward, as so many more seasoned here say, but through....
These new talks...he says "you can ask me talk about anything...now I am not afraid as much to do exactly that...I pray I do the right things, talk about it in a "good" way....find peace...find some peace. Second year is strange...didn't think it would be emerging like this, I don't want to live with him in fear or unanswered thoughts...still hard to talk about the As with him...but it is different now...somehow.
