SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I loath what I saw. I want to be better than this. I keep thinking that I'm getting somewhere better, and then discover I am nowhere close.

Be careful with this. Coming clean was never the problem. Revealing the truth isn't either. She is just learning to see you, without the masks. It's a hard process to come to terms with, and extremely challenging for her to accept, and for you to reveal AND also accept. But it is so needed...revealing the brokenness that's within allows for the root to be exposed and the healing to begin. Her trust is shattered, yes, of course. And it won't be rebuilt overnight. Don't let that discourage your work. Remember as many have said, this is a marathon not a sprint.

This:

there is so much little of her left for me now than there was at Dday1. Or 2.

I'm sort of processing a bit...remember, she needs to give to herself, and you to yourself. We must heal ourselves. You will be able to help her in her healing process as you build a better relationship with you, but the healing will remain something she has to do. She cannot give you her right now. She's trying to pickup the pieces to herself...if she is giving you her then she's failing herself.

Keep facing yourself in that giant mirror, but don't get to a loathing place. Remember, sit with it, process it, show yourself compassion for all of the brokenness within you that likely started when you were just a little girl, forgive, and move the feelings outward to an understood and better place. Don't hold it tight with loathing, you won't be able to release it that way.

she needs to give to herself, and you to yourself. We must heal ourselves. You will be able to help her in her healing process as you build a better relationship with you, but the healing will remain something she has to do

This is something I struggle with, and something I always have. I know logically that I need to heal myself and she herself. I know I need to build a heathly relationship with myself before any real healing can take place for either of us. But I can't seem to do that. It feels selfish.

Me not practicing self care is one of many things that lead to my A in the first place. After the 1st miscarriage I tried to be the rock. My focus was entirely on my wife and trying to heal from the tragedy of losing a child. I had already been in that mode since the year before when her father was diagnosed with cancer and passed away 7 months later. I didn't do anything to take care of my own grief over either thing.

After the 1st miscarriage both my IC and my wife told me I had to take care of myself during all of this and let the grieving happen. But I didn't know how. And because of this after the 2nd miscarriage I completely broke. My understanding of life and the Universe shattered, and I turned inward. 2 months later I started my A.

Self care feels selfish at this point. Our entire relationship has focused SO MUCH on my shit. My FOO, my depression, my anxiety, my rage. Even now so much is focused on me with my BP2 diagnosis earlier this year. It has always been about me. And I've had free intensive therapy through my wife for the past 13 years.

How can I focus on myself and my healing now after I've shattered her world? Again, for the 3rd time in 3 years? I don't know how. When we fight and she leaves me alone for hours is the only time I feel like I have an opportunity to do so. I'm doing it right now. I can't wire my brain to associate self care with horrible fights. It tells my brain I can only focus on self care when I am angry or sad. That I need to leave my marriage in order to build a relationship with me. I can't tell my brain that is the only option. But it is what happens.

I am so lost right now. I am also in the midst of a BP2 episode that feels like it has been happening since shortly after Dday3. Then it was the 4th anniversary of my FIL's death. And then what should have been our first child's 3rd birthday. And to top everything off A season starts next week. Everything is piling on. And in the midst of it all I can't trust anything my brain or gut is telling me right now.

I truly don't understand how to manage all of this. I am scared I am going to do something I will regret the rest of my life to simply escape this turmoil. But most of this turmoil was created by ME. I can't run away from it. That is what caused it in the first place.

Ugh. Such a pity party right now.

I know I need to build a heathly relationship with myself before any real healing can take place for either of us. But I can't seem to do that. It feels selfish. [...] Me not practicing self care is one of many things that lead to my A in the first place.

These two statements together directly contradict one another, no? It feels selfish, but when you didn't do it it led directly to a very destructive and selfish act.

I get what you're saying. I truly do. When my wife betrayed me I felt like I had given her everything for so long, and somehow she hurts me beyond anything I had ever experienced and STILL can't give me what I need as support to heal from the pain SHE CAUSED? It felt so unfair. The idea that I have to yet again hold the reins to my own healing by myself because she didn't know how was irritating.

But I had to learn that she does not have the tools to help me heal. She doesn't know how because she never applied healthy tools for even herself. That's how she was capable of doing this to me in the first place...by being unhealthy with herself.

She tried to focus on "helping me heal" for a long time after D-day, and always failed...why? Because 1) she didn't know how, and 2) it was inauthentic...she was running off a check-list bc she didn't know what to do, because she had never done this even for herself. She was also focused on her own selfish need to want us to Reconcile which was yet another part of why this was failing.

She had to realize that she had to show up for her emotionally. She had to face herself, her pain, her issues. She had to learn to do it for her before she could ever apply it toward me. Learn her why's, her patterns, her FOO issues...weave through them, heal them. The longer she prolonged this, the more the pain remained between us both. She was unhealthy, and I was detaching and beginning to get to a place where I was going to make her move out, and keep away from me because of her prolonged unhealthiness.

When we don't face ourselves and heal ourselves we not only extend the duration of the pain but in my wife's case, she hurled even more pain toward me. It's still selfish. She wants to be near me because she can't face herself, but she's not willing to face herself under the veil that she's "doing it for me".

Think about it: You hurt her on a deeply emotional level. Yet, you yourself are/and have been hurting on a deeply emotional level and you've sought out escape as a means to cope. So you try to show up for your wife in her emotional pain...but how? How do you do that? If you dont understand your emotional pain, or how to show up for your own stuff...how will you know how to do it for her? it will always come across as completely inauthentic because you dont know. You can do everything external you want to do for her...buy the groceries, give her gifts, think of date nights, clean the house, pick-up on her chores, feed the pets, pay her bills...whatever external you can think of, but you didn't hurt her externally...you hurt her internally...that has to be addressed.

You won't be able to do it another way. You for you, her for her, and THEN you two can support, guide, love, care for and compliment one another's lives.

[This message edited by maise at 12:45 PM, October 5th (Saturday)]