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Rafi,

I did see her post and she has seen mine. We agreed to both look at each other's posts, which is informative. It is interesting to see how people respond, and that gives us greater insight into each other. I find this valuable, I think, for both of us. Because if she is done with him and focused on me and the family, then we have a chance here. If she tosses this chance away again, like so many times before, we won't make it. We still might not make it.

My anger is seething right now. Never felt anything like it in my life. I don't do anger. Or I didn't. But I do now. Boy, do I ever...

She reads this sight voraciously and, I believe, it has given her some perspective into the minds of other waywards and other betrayed spouses. I think this is helpful.

I doubt she will post again, but I will. I will vent and ask questions, but I won't say my plans, as if I had any save getting through the day...

Redrock, that was a wonderful post. I'm going to print it off after people go home for the day. Thank you for that.

Christy, it seems we have very similar paths. I don't know if I can continue with Edith. I'll just try to be nice to her while expressing my feelings. She is absorbing it all and just trying to stay loving, regardless of my anger and sadness. She is ready jump up and move on to a better marriage going forward, but what I really need now is a stretcher and an IV...

Thankfully, I have confirmation that OM is moving out of town and away from us. He is no longer at the school and perhaps that is some solace. I guess he came and conquered and off to bigger and better things. Good for him. Happy hunting.

[This message edited by notperfect5 at 11:36 AM, May 14th (Thursday)]

NP5, It is always your choice whether to continue yor M or not. I don't think there is a right or wrong choice, only the one that is best for you. I wanted to share a little of my story so you could see that eeventual R can be a viable option despite the horrors of her betrayal. It seemed that you were getring a lot of advice to walk away so I wanted to present the other side.

It is unbelievably hard. There are still times I struggle with the feeling that I "sold myself out" by staying and working on my M with the person who bull-dozed it. And I have not forgiven him yet. Idk that I ever will. But there is also growth, closeness, a feeling a true partnership that we have now that is amazing. I would never willingly go through the pain of his A to get to this place, but I do wonder why we couldn't get here without it. Maybe we could have if he had been a different person then.

Whatever you eventually decide to do, you need to take care of you.

The thing to fight is the pressure from the WS to decide whether to D or R NOW. It is easy to understand why they feel that way, but try to avoid a snap decision.

How you feel now may be very different from how you feel in 3 months or 6. The hardest thing to do in life, or one of the hardest, is to stop and think, really think, about what we want. Inertia is such a powerful thing we wind up choosing things we don't intend.

Thanks for the update! I'm glad you'll continue to post here, and I think it's wise to not divulge plans here. Maybe you can PM with people here about potential plans etc.

Besides the anger, how have you been feeling lately?

Best wishes

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Hit him in his pocket book! Be a cry'n shame if posom lost the use of his fingers for a while...definitely keep him from dialing up other peoples wives

[This message edited by SI Staff at 6:30 AM, May 17th (Sunday)]

For me, after a massive d-day, then TT then all kinds of crap...I was too scared to actually leave. I tried R. ( And my ex is now openly gay). But, at the time, he said the right things and did vaguely show he was willing to work on being a safe partner. At least I thought he was. He did IC and we did MC. Everything seemed "better".

I'd say 6 months later is when I hit a real anger phase. I mean RAGE hit and he just wanted it to go away and "why can't you just let go???" type stuff started coming out of his mouth. Which just made me angrier. I was just coming out of the shock and denial stage and starting to absorb what he had done. It was baaaaad.

Shortly after that...he turned to a former AP as a coping mechanism and I found out on Christmas Day. Not sure if it was "just emotional" or what, I've never gotten the answers to that. He defended by saying, "He understands the situation and I need a friend right now!" and "What about MY feelings??" He had never stopped to really try to help me heal from what he had done. He was still only focused on himself.

I knew then I was done.

My point being...you are going to go through a lot for the next several YEARS. Rollercoastering all over the place. Anger is going to come in waves for YEARS. If she rugsweeps your feelings, and you stuff them down...guess what? You are still in the old marriage. If she tries to hurry you along because talking about this is too hard and you are healing "too slow"...still in your old marriage. If she won't post on SI and work through everything with others who have walked this path...still in your old marriage? If she is incapable of self-reflection and real change...still in your old marriage.

Sometimes it takes awhile to be ready to say, "I'm done." As you go through the healing stages, you'll get a clearer picture of what YOU want for your life and how you want to be treated. You'll see who she truly IS.

Been out of town in a music competition with DD1-3.. ( and #4 and DS5). I spent 8 hous on a bus with my mind movies. Edith flew up to meet us. Girl's did great but I was a wreck through most of it.

Edith at one point said, "Oh, (NP5), please don't look at me like that. I'm so sorry I hurt you... Then she started to cry. Not because she was scared or feeling like the truth was leaking out... Only because she had hurt me so.

I really don't know what to do. She's flying back to do work stuff and I'm doing another 8 hour bus ride with 5 kids....

Is there no end to the mind movies !?! I don't want to go thru the next 2-3 years like this!

Hey NP5. Very sorry you are hurting brother. You've just had another dday which has ramped up the PTSD. Not to mention set everything back to square 1 in your healing process so you are certainly bound to be raw for a while.

I have mind movies of a different kind and are pretty violent. Several other less violent mind movies around a very traumatic period in my life that lasted a few years. I have been doing EMDR therapy to desensitize those mind movies and has been working for me. For the long term, you may want to look into IC that specializes in PTSD/EMDR treatment. It was recommended to me by a few people here. It's not for everyone and there have been a few that have said EMDR didn't help them, but there are many more where EMDR did help. Look into that.

For short term, there are breathing exercises that you can do to slow down your nervous system that will help reduce the frequency of the mind movies as well as help with the rage/anger issues. My IC sent these breathing exercises in an email. I'll copy and paste them into a pm. You're more than welcome to try them or not. Hopefully they might be able to give you some relief. They have worked for me in the past.

It does get better NP5. Hopefully there is no more TT to set you back again and that you can start moving forward in your healing process. Time will help those mind movies as well.

Thoughts are with you.

yop

Thanks , YOP, I'll look into it. It hit me pretty hard tonight. As a family, we were just amazing. Ruled the competition. I was told several times how amazing we were as a family. On the inside I saw my wife having sex with our music teacher and I just died, in the inside. We could have done some great things, Edith and I. We could have gone far and our family thrived. Now I see us dying from the inside out, the cancer of infidelity destroying our past, present, and future.

I'm thinking of all the good that has been destroyed. OM and my wife put a torch to it all. For what? A fantasy. A few hours of scandalous pleasure. And the did it over and over. They knew what they were doing and they chose this.

They. Chose. This.

No soliciting

[This message edited by SI Staff at 8:53 AM, May 17th (Sunday)]

I'm sorry to hear that you're hurting so much, NP5! Like others have said, look into PTSD/EMDR therapy, it might help you tremendously!

Things will get better, with time and your work on healing yourself! I was a mess for the first year and a half, and now I'm basically fully functional again. You have to remember that you're barely a few days out since your last D-day. It's like getting hurt in a traffic accident - at first you're in a hospital and it's terrible, and you wonder if it will always hurt like that. But then you go home, you attend physiotherapy etc., and with time and hard work on healing, you get much much better again. So don't despair! It's a marathon, and you and your kids have every chance of coming out of it in a great condition!

Best wishes

I am going to disagree. It never gets better. What actualky happens is that you realize that it doesn't exist anymore. That wonderful life that you built was torched by someone who said she loved you, but we all know that she doesn't love you as people who truly love you don't lie, take on boyfriends and who want to be with someone else.

She is gone. That life is gone. Your choice is starting a life with a woman who has the capacity to love you but also the dark soul to not only cheat on you, but dig her heel into your neck with deceit and trickle truth. Dude, your KIDS had to expose the affair.

Or you can start this new life concentrating on the happiness of yourself and your kids. Find happiness with people who want to be happy with you. Then one day you'll wake up and realize that, outside of your kids, you actually don't *need* anyone to love you for you to be happy. To answer your question, this is when you'll be healed.

Eric 1 is right here, IMO.

I am not a big proponent of reconciliation because you'll always be walking around on crutches rather than getting proper treatment and not needing them anymore.

The dark soul who crushed you is still there, as is the risk, as are the thoughts, and even many who succeed say that the old person and relationship are gone and it's a brand new one. So if OP is going to start a new relationship, then why would it be with someone who is capable of causing such harm and had the gall to do it rather than chance it with someone new ?? But ultimately, it's his choice.

I do applaud the people who were able to make reconciliation work for them as I couldn't do it myself. People's tolerance and pain levels are different. I am just a burn it down type guy who's one experience at reconciliation turned me against it big time.

NP has a much harder hill to climb. He has codependency issues as I believe he has admitted before, he has 5 kids under the age of 16 which makes it harder to detach for the kids well being as well as child support and further would make his marketability on the free market be diminished. He has this attraction to his WW which seems will never let him leave. This isn't a bash fest on NP5 because I do feel for his situation, a nasty situation that he neither asked for nor deserved. And he can correct me if I am wrong on any of these points.

So I see him staying here regardless of anything.

However, with more emphasis, I agree with Eric1's thoughts completely and will back those up every day of the week

I agree with Divinely Favored and disagree with NP5. While OM may be leaving town, it's not "Happy Hunting". If anything, he should be hunted down.

All that has happened in this case is that OM will move to another town and there will be another NP5 left behind until this Om gets his life destroyed somehow.

The OM and WW were both at fault here and while OM should be punished for what he did, WW should always feel consequences as well. It's not always fair that WW gets full reconciliation and loses nothing while OM gets destroyed. I am not a big proponent of that which is why I usually come down against reconciliation.

However, in this case, with the way NP5 is feeling, it seems like there will be consequences of some type for WW.

YOP said:

I have been doing EMDR therapy to desensitize those mind movies and has been working for me. For the long term, you may want to look into IC that specializes in PTSD/EMDR treatment. It was recommended to me by a few people here. It's not for everyone and there have been a few that have said EMDR didn't help them, but there are many more where EMDR did help. Look into that.

Another vote for EMDR.

It was amazing for me, helping me get out of the PTSD loop of mind movies and triggers. EMDR was great for my triggering. I can't say enough good about it, so likewise recommend.

Good luck.

NP's wife's lover needs to be torched to the ground.

Once in awhile I'll pay for the people behind me toll or buy a coffee for the person behind me in the drive thru. I do it because kindness needs to be paid forward before it is received.

NP'S wife should be driving the process, and salting the earth with him. If she's not willing to do this - with vigor and the intensity of 1000 suns - then she still has feelings for him.

I agree Eric but she is primarily responsible for this and doesn't need a free pass either. It would not be just to go only after him, though personally I would like to find the guy beaten to a pulp. NP5 will let her off easy IMO and that's not right. His decision I guess

Again, that's why I can't reconcile nor ever would. Because my WW was every bit as bad as the idiot who was banging her and I had to torch both of them to grid of the disease.

None-the-less, I am supposed to be supportive here and only wish NP5 the best from here on out.

With this, I conclude my involvement in this thread

Agreed.

That's why I have her doing it. It's a sign of good faith on her part and it does not stop NP from helping resolve the rest of the mess that she made.

But my gut is that she would want to protect him, her lover that is, because she still loves him.

OM and my wife put a torch to it all. For what? A fantasy. A few hours of scandalous pleasure. And the did it over and over. They knew what they were doing and they chose this.

Few hours ?

It wasn't just lust...They were emotionally involved too..

Then she lied.

Then she gaslighted you.

Then she made you doubt your sanity over and over again.

She knew what she was doing..

Facts:

Your kids had to out her.

You had to get a fucking polygraph, and even then you had to talk to her before getting your results.

Actions speak louder than words

Do not hear with your ears, see with your eyes, and even then only believe half.

Your wife says some heart warming shit, cries a maybe a little but her actions have never shown anything other than "fuck you, fuck what you think, fuck how you feel, and fuck our family."

So come on NP5 don't give her "that look" anymore, she already said sorry and took the poly what more do you want?

She is there, right? You still married to her right? You are sleeping with her right? Than what is your grievance?

Forgive my sarcasm I am trying to show you how ridiculous her logic is, your mind movies are valid and normal.

Reconciliation works when BS and WW are commited 150% and WW demonstrates wth actions and shows true remorse.

Bro you have been dealt with some shit cards not gonna lie, but you need to think of your kids by setting examples.

What do you believe in? Let me Me ask you my question,

You have sons? You have daughters? How would you feel if their spouse did this to them? What would you like them to do in that situation?

Don't answer it, all I am saying is that what you do right now and moving forward will set a precedent by leading with an example and showing them.

If I come off like an asshole I am sorry, I just talk like that, but I am speaking to you like I would any of my siblings or family member.

Please take care of yourself