SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Genuine questions:

Are you afraid to talk with your wife about the affairs?

What prevents you from having the conversations that Unhinged suggests?

You’ve said yourself in one of these threads that you think there is a better than 50/50 chance that your wife is hiding something major from you. I don’t believe that Zen’ing out is going to permanently resolve that.

You got advice here about mindfulness and being in the now, you took it and saw some immediate improvement. That’s good. You seem really hesitant to dig any deeper, even though the same community is saying that isn’t the full remedy.

I say this anticipating it will annoy or upset you, but it’s meant in good faith.

InkHulk,

My god inkhulk, I must make a stand. I am not "afraid" of the truth. If I were, I would have bolted years ago! I am also not "Zening out". That statement is very dismissive of my hard work! Do you not see that?

What I am attempting to do is to approach my life and my relationship with a remarkable woman from a more tender position. To set aside my hurt and nurture hers. If that is bothersome to you or others, then so be it. And if what I am doing now, in the future proves to fail me or my wife, then again, so be it. I will pick myself up and try again, because I am not afraid of failure. I am not afraid of peer pressure either. I will listen and I will evaluate and I appreciate the variance of opinions of those here at SI but I refuse to act in what I do not see in the best interest of my wife based on group think.

I have never been a cruel person, and I will be damned if I am going to let the pain of infidelity and my blundering process of dealing with it harden me, sharpen my edges, or remake me into a suspicious, bitter, old man.

I have spent over 40 years believing that if I new the full story, every gruesome detail and every probable reason for my wife’s decision to turn to another man that I could then come to a resolve and peace. That belief served to cause me to suffer long after what my wife’s behavior had.

It is dawning on me that, at this late date, my wife could not possibly answer with full clarity what she did and why. People’s memories are just not that precise. Time warps it, rewrites it, and shadows the lucidity of it.

I’m 73 years old and my wife is 72. How many more painful years would you have me spend, knowing that one or both of us probably have less than 20 years on this earth, beating detailed confessions out of her? Where is my kindness in doing so? What does that say about my love for her? How is that not a different form of betrayal on my part?

Yes, you are correct, I am becoming "annoyed" but I also know that you and others are speaking in "good faith".

I shared this thread both as a confession and celebration, a triumph over a longstanding, cruel angst but it has veered off into just more pain.

Asterisk

ItIsWhatItIs,

Thank you for your kindness and support. I feel heard and comforted by your thoughtfulness towards my wife. That said, I am tired of swimming against the current.

I am thinking it is time to let this thread find its end for it is serving no one.