SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

When you can look in the mirror and recognize that the one person with the power to solve your problems is staring you in the face, it's a relief.

Relief...yes! And I'd add opportunity...and also responsibility.

Serenity prayer is a good one. And anyone who has a hiccup with the "God" part can, as you suggest, simply replace with a "anything but me...as I'm not god" of their choosing. All of my sobriety chips (18 and counting) have the serenity prayer on one side, and these words on the other: "To thine own self be true". Maybe that phrase is something akin to "Live an authentic life".

Mini t/j:

Wish I had figured out the parallels between the allure of secrecy, and addictive like qualities of an illicit affair and an xAP as a "drug" requiring withdrawal going in. The reality both blinded and blindsided me, and SI has been instrumental in helping me begin to understand this one complicated part of the mess I created. As one poster said to me, I have my little ball of delusional strings wound up so tight it's going to take a hell of a lot of work to unravel.

Mini t/j over.

Yes the staring in the mirror is sometimes a scary thing as well. Especially when you don't like what is staring back at you. I know I have a lot of work to do in IC. My previous IC visits, I was I guess looking for ways that I can fix the marriage rather than asking how to fix myself. The last visit I broke down in my IC's office and we instantly started working on me. I see sometimes you have to sink down to bottom before the water gets clear enough to see again. I started reading "healing from the shame that binds you" I think is the title, anyway I never had any idea the different types of shame can be so destructive. I believe I will learn much from this book.