I think I've been writhing around all these years trying find a solution that doesn't exist. I've delayed my healing (and probably it kept my fWW from healing more too) trying to work through it only to have me blow up regularly.
I've been putting together a list of questions for counseling that I want to get on paper. Clarifying questions about him, what he meant to her prior, what happened after, etc. We may have even gone over these before, but being on the receiving end of infidelity is kind of like being on the receiving end of a concussion. Your head is muddled and you experience a lot of memory loss.
I also have committed to being calm and collected this time around so that it may end up being productive. Whatever the end result may end up being. Making a plan for separation or working to heal while still married. Either way, I'm in a better position to handle the outcome.
I think you're right that you've delayed your own healing. Healing isn't about the WS. It's about how we deal with the victimization of betrayal, whether we hold onto it or release it. While it's true that some people simply cannot release themselves from victimization while remaining in relationship with the perpetrator, others can. Either way, there's no guarantee of true healing, true release of the victimization. One may choose to expel the perpetrator and still hold onto the pain. It's still a choice that we have to make, a choice to let it go.
There's nothing that can get a BS riled up more than those three little words, "let it go". They seem to trivialize our experience, as if our pain was small and unimportant rather than the brain-altering existential crisis we experienced because of it. "Let it go" doesn't serve justice. It allows the perpetrator of our pain to "get away with it". We didn't cause this anguish, someone else did, and it's NOT FAIR that there are no real consequences for them. It's NOT FAIR that their foundation hasn't been rocked, that their life simply goes on as if we weren't psychologically destroyed by their actions. But, and it's a tough "but" to accept... that's the reality we find ourselves in. We can choose to hold onto the pain. Or we can let it go.
I don't think your healing is stymied by lack of information. I think maybe you're holding onto your pain. And quite frankly, a lot of people do that. For them, "let it go" means letting the WS get away with it and/or treating the betrayal as if it were insignificant. But that's not really what it's all about. What it's about is releasing our feelings of victimization. We don't choose whether we're victimized or not. That's out of our control. But we DO choose whether or not we remain that way. In infidelity, our agency is denied us. The WS deprives us of choice in willful deceit and disrespect of our autonomy. But in the aftermath, WE choose for ourselves what ground we'll stand upon.
For me, I chose to remain in my 30+ year marriage with my imperfect fWS. That wasn't his choice to make. At that point, he had destroyed the marriage and I was free to stay or go. MY choice, not his. And then the hard part... reminding myself every day that I CHOOSE the ground I stand upon. I take ownership of that choice and in so doing, I reaffirm my own agency. I'm not a victim. I'm not trapped. I decide my life.
The sense of victimization is tied up with loss of agency, as if someone else were dictating our choices to us. But that's not the reality of TODAY. The reality of today is that it's MY CHOICE. And just as the victimization is linked to loss of agency, so too is pain tied up with victimization. We don't choose pain. It happens. It's a result of an action. Becoming a victim is a result of an action. But lingering feelings of victimization aren't truth. The truth of today is that we ARE free to make choices and we ARE free to choose the ground we stand upon. Taking real, true, meaningful ownership of your choices illustrates the truth of your agency and denies continued victimization. These things are incompatible. They can't coexist. You can't recognize the truth of your own power and still hold on to continued victimization.
There is no time machine. We can't change anything that's happened in the past. And we can't control the future. Trauma has a weird way of messing up our sense of TIME. Confronted with a trigger, the past feels present, but this is a trick of the amygdala of the brain. The past is NOT present. It only feels that way, and feelings aren't facts. The fact is that TODAY, we have freedom and command of our own decisions. Holding onto victimization keeps us holding on to the pain. Holding onto the pain keeps us from recognizing the TRUTH of today. It keeps us from experiencing our own power.
Once I had reconnected with the truth of my power, everything changed. I was able to realize that there was NO WAY my fWH could restore what he had taken from me. The important part for me was that I knew he would if he could. If that time machine was invented tomorrow, he'd be camped out in line to use it. But, that's not the reality of the situation. He can't take it back. There's no appropriate recompense for the damage he did to me. What coin for pain? He can do the best he can, and he did, but after that there's nothing he can do. Still, there was this whopping debt he owed me and no way to make it right. But this too is the power of choice. I can't "forgive" that debt. I'd choke on the word. Some things are unforgivable. But, like a good accountant, I can "write it off" the balance sheet as a loss... and let it go. Marriage is incompatible with prolonged resentment, score cards, grudges. My CHOICE was to stay in the marriage. MY choice. MY power. We can't punish our fWS without punishing ourselves. To hurt one is to hurt the other. We aren't two separate halves if we're truly whole. I chose to be here. I chose to be "whole" in terms of "us".
I know all that makes it sound easy. It's not. It's hard work to remind myself of it when I'm triggered or when I'm angry and out of sorts. What it all boils down to though is EMPOWERING YOURSELF. What your fWW did eight years ago is immaterial to healing. Healing is in YOUR hands, not hers. You just have to CHOOSE what it is you want for your life and then keep reaffirming your ownership of that choice. Believe in yourself. Believe that you have the wisdom to exercise your own agency. "Calm and collected" comes from KNOWING that you really are in control of your life. We lash out when we feel deprived of our innate power, but when you're secure in the knowledge that you are sufficient to deal with whatever comes, that power cannot be denied you.
[This message edited by ChamomileTea at 3:40 AM, November 17th (Tuesday)]
