SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Totally understand. Thanks for your contributions and patience.

Thanks, blakesteel. I will try that exercise.

Any chance you can or do have a real life girl friend to visit with?

I do have a few really great friends. 2 of which whose families took me in to their home as a teen and treated me as one of their own. So they are familiar with my background. I have been emailing back and forth with my friend's mom and it has helped. she's going through the same thing with her husband.I have such a hard time reaching out and asking for help. I think because I'm the one everyone comes to with their problems. I'm always the listener. I don't want to be a burden. I need to stop this though. There's nothing wrong in asking for support. Thanks for listening!!

I don't know. I do believe our childhoods certainly help shape who we are but I feel adults need to take responsibility beyond that and stop blaming childhood

I don't think I was blaming my childhood at all. I'm just trying to explore the possibility that this could be causing problems for me and I not even realize it. Because if it is, it's my responsibility to fix it. I've always felt grateful for the one thing I did learn from my parents. I learned the type of parent I didn't want to be. I wouldn't change anything about my childhood, even if I could. It's made me who I am.

Hi scuba chick. I hope you see from the responses to your post that you are not alone and that we can relate to how you are feeling/ have been there too. There are so many of us here whose FOO or childhood trauma add to the pain of the betrayal of (yet another) loved one. It is brutal. It feels like you have fallen down a time hole and you're back where you started, all the fear and self-esteem issues you thought you' overcome come flooding back.

Your post and the ones that follow have brought me to tears, for the little girl inside you and me, the little boy inside blakesteel and others. If I could put my arms around them all and tell them it would be all right, that we will come through all this, I would.

And I believe we will. We are not alone. You are not alone. I have good days and bad days. Like you sometimes I think I am getting worse. I lie in bed shaking and I think the sky will fall in, or it already has. But on a good day I see new beginnings. I feel free to be me for the first time. I don't think I have to please anyone, I feel like it is ok to put me first - I mean, he did, so what do I owe him really? A chance to put things right, to prove himself?

And in a crazy way, if my IC is to be believed, this is actually a chance to address the things that happened in our childhood, in our lives that followed, to make some sense and make some changes in ourselves. To work out why we feel so alone, so vulnerable, why it is so easy to send us right back there and what we can do about it. Work out after that whether we really want our WS or if they are up to making the changes in themselves.

I hate that my WH had an A, I hate that my Dad was a mentally abusive b******, but that is my past, it will probably always inform my future, but I won't let it destroy me. I have four small children, the rest of my life ahead of me and I want to make it better for me and for them, not to repeat the sh** patterns of the past. My husband was a fool but the end result might still be good. I really believe that.

Kiwi,

Thank you for the thoughtful response. It's comforting to know that someone truly understands the way I feel. Some days I feel empowered by my past because I know I have survived so much worse and unlike back then, I am in control of my life and future. I don't know how I go from one extreme to the other. I get mad at myself for allowing this to break me. The last two days have been much better for me. I'm in a better place but I know I still have a ways to go because I can cry just by talking about it. I really appreciate the support and advice from everyone!! Thank you!!