Your DDay was just over a month ago? And now your WW wants you to get over it, and that otherwise, you're trying to CONTROL her?
Oy.
Has she read How to Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair? or Glass's book Not "Just Friends"? Those, I believe, are pretty standard recommendations. Also, the link in Wayward - I think you even commented on it - has some good info. If you're not willing to share the site with her - and I fully understand why this should remain a safe space for the BS - perhaps you could copy/paste it into a document without the header/site info?
But okay. To answer your question, what seemed to be most accurate to me was the first few paragraphs of a lengthy treatise on Infidelity Trauma; I can't link you to it, but if you use google to search, it should be one of the top three results returned; the URL will begin with 'healingafteraffairs'.
From that site, these phrases have remained with me since I first read them:
Infidelity feels like a malicious ambush targeted toward you, the unaware recipient.
It feels designed to willfully inflict a mass amount of pain - an undercover operation to steal your dignity, pride, and dreams.
It's an ambushing, robbing and murdering of your soul. The moment you realize you are under attack, it's too late to do anything. The fireball of hurt has already ripped through your heart.
...infidelity is a calculated set of lies and choices - a covert operation, planed, controlled, directed and orchestrated by (the unfaithful spouse). Once the extraction is complete, leering at your anguish, as if now, you understand their disgust for you, and sneering with achievement as you accept their hatred.
Infidelity is torture of the heart, callous, calculated and cruel. It feels like acid eating through the depths of your soul, burning away the innocence of hope.
Infidelity feels like intense hate that is meant to agonizingly carve the love right out of your heart.
A sadistic and vengeful way to say, "I despise you like no other person on earth." It is the combination of evil and hate that rips at your heart, spitting a venom of condemnation, from someone who feels like the devil; only this time the devil is wearing your spouses face.
It is the ultimate rejection of your very being from the person who knows you the most.
It is horror that terrorizes every moment of your life as it kills your dreams of what your life is, was, and will be.
The shock of the assault feels no different than if your spouse plunged a knife deep into your heart, while you let out a bloodcurdling scream of destruction to your self-esteem and safety. It is mocking of your love, a statement of reprisal.
The two italicized sentences are the two that brought me to tears when I first read it, because I was so shocked and yet so relieved to realize that what I was feeling was normal - and that I wasn't alone.
In your example, you should add that the reckless driver turned out to be your wife, and that crossing those several lanes of traffic was intentional - that she saw you and knew you would be hurt, but the thrill of ride was more important to her than anything else.
A remorseful WS is one who is recognizes the damage she's caused to her BS, and who shows empathy and a willingness to own what she's done and then commit to helping to heal the BS AND also addressing and healing the issues that allowed the WS to do what she did in the first place. It should be noted that a lack of empathy is usually part of the infidelity package. After all, my husband acknowledges that he actually thought the words "This is going to hurt [BlueIris]" just moments before he had sex with OW, but obviously it didn't matter to him. I have said so often to him that it's obviously that that pain was the price he thought I should pay for not looking like and being like OW.
So yeah - lack of empathy, selfishness, often emotional immaturity, an inability to be introspective, and an external locus of control - combined with poor boundaries, can be a pretty lethal combination when it comes to remaining faithful to a spouse and marriage vows.
You'll surely know by now that recovering from betrayal can take 2-5 years, so your wife's response is...well, it's awfully discouraging, I know. I hope she's willing and able to see just how off the mark she really is.
I'm sorry that you're dealing with this additional layer of pain. My husband was helpful after a couple of months and for the first 18 months or so - and at least made some progress before then - but at 2.5 years out, he has less patience and empathy, which ...well, it concerns me. I don't think I could have handled it if, when I was bleeding out like in those first months, he had tried to tell me to get over it.
Also wanted to add - your wife should be moving hell and earth to figure out what she's done - what the real cost of her joy ride has been. That it seems like you're doing the heavy lifting is troubling. Have you read anything about co-dependency and whether any of it describes you?
Peace to you, 36yearsgone. Peace and strength.
