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My definition of “authentic life” is you live your life what you hold as values not living a façade because you are living what you think others want you to be. I believe when you are not true to yourself and present a different picture of the real you you are living out of sync and creates the inner unhappiness. I just started reading a book by Dr. Phil titled Self Matters and it talks about living an authentic life. I do believe to a degree we have to put up some façade to get along in society and that is normal polite manners and dealing with other people in a respective manner. In my situation the conflict is when WS says he wants to married to me and work on R yet hangs out with people who do not respect the marriage and the WS is conflicted between me and friends. It saying family is very important yet working 50 hours a week and hanging out with friends over spending time with family. I hope this helps.

For us, living an authentic life meant recognizing and taking ownership of each of our contributions to our marriage problems and working on them. I tended to procrastinate and put off dealing with problems. My H had FOO issues that lead to his compartmentalizing his life. He had to committ to working on the by-products that he had used to run his life. Those included secrecy, lying, blame shifting, ignoring the family, refusing to talk and share intimately, not asking for help, seeing his faults as the faults of others, etc. It can get overwhelming when your life starts stacking up the walls they use as a safety mechanism. Ultimately, they build so many rooms that need continual maintenance, they feel like they are losing control. They either shut down or do something stupid

like have an affair.

I have seen the question asked about whether the WS is in IC. IMHO, I would think IC for the WS only helps when the WS opens up with the IC about their issues. Frankly, I'm not really sure how open my own WW is with the IC. And so, I'm not really sure how much value it will have.

..maybe compartmentalizing doesn't allow for such grief and hurt to take its course.

At very best, compartmentalizing helps mete out trauma in a way that the mind can tolerate.

However, you hit the nail on the head; it becomes really pathological if it interrupts processing grief.

When compartmentalization is a problem, shut-down becomes the emotional default. You can't move past something you refuse to acknowledge.

The thing is, if this is a long-term coping mechanism, it can be really hard to unlearn, especially without professional help.

Edited to add: I don't say this to be discouraging, but rather to help prepare you, because it's really hard for a BS to be patient while the WS learns new coping techniques. For example, it's been over 2 years since my d-day, and my husband is really only now opening up any of the boxes he stored in his attic. First, he and his IC had to shore up other coping techniques. And then, they pulled the marriage boxes out and set them aside, and dug further into his past first.

They had to. He was in no shape to cope with what he'd done to me, our kids, himself---our family---without first learning new skills AND dealing with some FOO stuff.

It can be a long road for the BS of a compartmentalizer, but as with everything else, everyone's different. I hope your wife's attic is a little airier than my husband's.

Millions of hugs to you. I know how it sucks.

[This message edited by solus sto at 3:25 PM, August 29th (Wednesday)]

However, now we have new insurance and it doesn't cover MC.

This is very unfortunate. I hope you can use some of the recommendations to find some professional help.

My fWW cannot have a civil discussion about anything that might point out any flaw. None of us are perfect, but she is the type of person that will not admit fault. She didn't like MC either because she doesn't like dealing with anything in the past. I will say that if you do go again, you really have to keep your anger in check following the sessions especially if she is opening up. If she feels threatened by your response, it may help her to justify compartmentalizing as a safety mechanism.

I tried to give my fWW time to adjust before dealing with the rugsweeping. My personal opinion is that you can't ignore it. You can give it time, but sooner or later, you have to address it. The suspense about killed me.

Take care of yourself. I hope you find a way to work through this and I wish you peace along the way.

Thank you guys. Everything you have said here has really helped me understand. I will bring up counseling again despite the issue with insurance, but we can not ignore any of the issues that lead up to A.

I have issues of my own to deal with obviously, but her current issue doesn't allow for progress in the most important part....our marriage.

My H was/is a master compartmentalizer too. I don't even know how he did it tbh. He basically lived two separate lives when we first were dating. One with me and being in love and another where he would hook up with anyone he could. And somehow he kept it all a secret for years. I think he must have put me in a separate place, because otherwise I don't know how he could live with himself. Nothing in his life was authentic for so long.

Well, I found out she broke the NC rule. Oh well...square one. She straight face lied to me. Questioned her for over 30 minutes and would not break. Till I had to show her evidence. Now she's pissed at me. HUH!

In the end, I'm wondering why I'm even sticking around. She doesn't have a reason for wanting to be in the marriage. Least she doesn't express any valid reason other than finances.

I need alcohol.

Well, I found out she broke the NC rule. Oh well...square one. She straight face lied to me. Questioned her for over 30 minutes and would not break. Till I had to show her evidence. Now she's pissed at me.

I don't have much to add besides shared understanding. This happened to me three weeks ago. The one instance I discovered turned into two and then a third. The lies just kept coming. I'm married to a master compartmentalizer as well, but at least he's agreed to IC. It's pretty much the only reason I'm hanging on.

(((((MyNewReality))))))

A part of me expected this. I was ready for it. Of course it opened up the wound again and there was some bleeding, but I can handle it. I feel like now I have the higher ground. I always did...just never really felt it till now. Her ass is sleeping downstairs in the couch.

I'm really sorry. I know you had a lot of hope that she was ready to commit to the marriage again.

I think we were all afraid there was a chance of this happening though because of her desire to rug sweep the whole thing. I'm glad that it was not months or even years of false R though. She has shown you who she is now. See her for what she now is.

((((atsenaotie))))

Thank you. This really helped me. She backslid last week. It got intense, but what it did is helped her see that she can NOT help herself. She needs to detox from the OM to finally reconcile for real.