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Sir, I want to congratulate you on becoming a chopper pilot! That had to have taken a phenomenal amount of strength to finish the course under the circumstances. That's true grit, brother.

This old navy vet (four years) says: Thank you for your service!

Maybe therapy might help you. After 30+ years, I kind of doubt that you'll get much out of it, unless you can find one who's BTDT. Same with MC. I've read enough horror stories here to know that MCs are generally subpar regarding infidelity.

My reco would be to simply tell your wife that you've been struggling lately and need her help. There's nothing wrong with that at all, IMO.

Asterisk, sounds like our wives deal with this in similar fashion. My wife and I have a good relationship despite what happened. She’s definitely not the same person she was 33 years ago, she knows she did wrong but we don’t talk about it. I will always hurt from it but I imagine everyone on here hurts!
I always have questions for her but every year that goes by they seem less important. I won’t threaten divorce to get them answered, I should’ve held her feet to the fire 33 years ago but not today. She’ll answer them if I persist.
The woman I see today teaching her grandchildren how to paint and sew is a different woman, I’m a different man too.
I won’t drag her to MC but I might try IC since several folks on here thought it might help me, after going it alone for so long it will be tough.
I was kind of surprised about the cowardly comment too but to each their own!
Thanks for posting Asterisk, I value your opinion!

Unhinged, yes it was extremely difficult under those circumstances. I truly believe it was a miracle from God that I completed the course!

It was challenging enough with a clear mind lol.

Thank you for your service too!

"My reco would be to simply tell your wife that you've been struggling lately and need her help. There's nothing wrong with that at all, IMO".

The above comment is excellent advice.

I had actually buried this so darn good 33 years ago that it seldom bothered me then triggering 2 years ago brought it all back to the surface. I know it’s because I/we didn’t deal with it correctly but finding SI after my trigger has helped tremendously. Plus the poems!!

BTW, you’re pretty cool for being Navy :)

[This message edited by 31RS at 11:53 PM, Wednesday, August 5th]

I'm not big on consequences.

That couldn’t be more clear. You’ll be encouraged a new (not really, but…) ** NO POLITICS ** Because… consequences: BAD!

She’s not the same person, I truly believe person she is now wouldn’t commit adultery.

Maybe so, but she IS the person RIGHT NOW who refuses to talk to you about this, even knowing (since she’s read at least one book) that doing so would HELP you tremendously.

So don’t call it a consequence. Call it a boundary if it makes the peanut gallery feel better. Set a boundary of "I will not forever stay with an adulterous wife who refuses to talk about it, knowing that’s exactly what I need to heal".

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:29 PM, Thursday, August 6th]

gr8ful, I understand where your coming from. My wife isn’t refusing to talk she just doesn’t want to but as I mentioned earlier she will talk if I ask her to and I will because being on SI has given me a better idea of what questions to ask.

The only time she’s answered questions was 2 years ago when I triggered but I missed some good questions because this was her first time answering questions since her affair 31 years prior and I was needing any info she would give me after 31 years of imagining the worse!

My questions 2 years ago were - why?, when?, where?, why him, if not him would it have been somebody else? How many times? Since it was to punish me did she do things with him that she didn’t with me? Did she think of me when she was with him? Why didn’t she divorce me instead if she was this unhappy? Will she do it again?

So I missed some important questions but we’ll sit down soon and I’ll ask her those other questions. I’ll let everyone know how that goes.

31RS

I had actually buried this so darn good 33 years ago that it seldom bothered me then triggering 2 years ago brought it all back to the surface.

This makes complete sense to me because buried pain does not always stay buried and sometimes one trigger can bring it back like it happened yesterday and this does not mean you failed to move on and it does not mean you are weak - it means the wound was never really given air truth or care at the time and your mind had 31 years to keep filling in the missing pieces.

So I missed some important questions but we’ll sit down soon and I’ll ask her those other questions.

I hope that conversation gives you some peace because needing more truth after all these years is not about punishing her - it is about finally giving your own mind something real to work with instead of the imagination having to do the job and whilst you may not get every answer perfectly after this much time but you still deserve honesty care and willingness from her now...the affair may be old but your need to understand what happened is current...

I'm not big on consequences.

That couldn’t be more clear.

What consequences did you impose?

And how did they prevent pain for you?

You miss the point. Consequences too often simply don't accomplish the stated objectives.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:35 PM, Thursday, August 6th]

Thanks for the kind words ButterflyinProgress!

I was shocked how strong the trigger was, when it hit me it took me back to 1993 in seconds like it just happened.
31 years to fill in the missing pieces was rough because we all have a tendency to worse case everything especially the unknown.
I know know that I should’ve gotten help soon after disclosure.

You are correct, I just want peace, I’m not looking to punish my wife I just want to understand what happened.

I just want peace, I’m not looking to punish my wife I just want to understand what happened.

From your posts it appears you were able to suppress everything for a long time- sure some important things changed (no longer felt like you were making love with your wife, the specialness was gone, etc.) but you were able to not dwell on it, concentrate on your son and function for the most part. As you wrote you pushed it to the back burner- that all changed when you had the panic attack. Since then, don't you think the ultimate trigger in your life right now is your WW? You're stuck because your WW refuses to change or open up. The frustration level has grown so much that you've been compelled to come to this board for help. Yeah, IC for both is a good idea followed by a good betrayal specialist MC. But right now, you're feeling the massive weight of injustice and regretting rug sweeping all these years. You also need to show your WW that you're not 'stuck' and that there are potential options if she's unwilling to do the work.

You need a break from your WW. No, don't go running to a lawyer and filing for a divorce (though that's always an option.) But you need to get away from your WW for a bit- maybe a weekend or up to 10-14 days, with absolutely no contact with your WW. WW should have no idea where you are or when exactly you will return. I am a big believer of getting away from the wayward for two main reasons:
1) how do feel being on your own, even for a relatively short time? Take the time to sit and contemplate your feelings and thoughts about how you want the remaining third (?) of your life to play out. Do you still want to be dealing with this 10-15 years from now or is it simply untenable? Have some co-dependency issues you might need to explore or are you ok being away on your own? When you start your return trip back home, how are you feeling? Optimistic and looking forward to seeing your WW or is it a sense of dread? and

2) Make her suddenly experience and live with her own thoughts of the unknown. Waywards hate this. You've always been there- her dutiful husband, old reliable. Let her wonder, at least for a short time, what you're doing, what you're thinking, does he still love me, and what are you planning. Let her develop all those similar thoughts that I'm sure you've developed over these years and have had to live with no answers from her. Some may say this is cruel, but it is nothing compared to what you have had to endure.

Without knowing a lot of basics of your life now, it's tough to give specific advice. Are you now employed in a civilian job or fully retired? Does your WW work? Solid financially? Do you and your WW have joint banking and investment accounts or separate accounts? Separate or joint credit cards?

Basically, do you have the time and means that you can leave for a short time without your WW knowing where you are or able to track you?
-Do you trust your son and your boss or friends (anyone that your WW would contact to locate you) not to give up your location but to just tell your WW that you're safe and you want some time to yourself.
-Stay in contact with your son on a daily basis. If your son asks you why you're doing this, just tell him to ask his mother.
-Leave your cell phone and buy a burner phone.
-Leave a brief note to your WW writing that you will return but since she refuses to talk about her affair you need to get away and think for a time.
-Then get out and be selfish for you. Jump on a plane or go on a road trip. Have some good clean fun. Do what you want to do just for yourself and think.

Wherever you go and do is up to you and your financial situation. No matter what type of trip you take it'll probably be cheaper than an apartment lease or a lawyer's initial retainer. Your WW never had a consequence, better late than never. While it's not much, it should open your WW's eyes- she'll at least know that this is serious and the rug sweeping has ended.

So many cheaters, and I include my husband, cheated because they wanted to. He did not have a toxic childhood. He was a very beloved child.
When I was in college I had a sorority sister who stole. Her family had money. She would occasionally talk about what she had stolen that day. Someone finally asked her why she did it and I’ve never forgotten the answer. She said it sounded like it was gonna be fun and she did it because she wanted to. And never saw a single sign that she felt guilty. If there’s one thing I have learned about human nature… it’s all over the place. So you, another BS, have to sort out what possessed your wife to behave that way. And guess what. You will never get a satisfactory answer because there isn’t one.

31RS,

There are probably hundreds of proper ways to conduct yourself. There are, most likely, an equal number of ways to treat your wife. One of the unique things about SI is that there are numerous ideas presented and many, if not most, of them are great, if applied in the proper context of the situation. Not one of us has the full truth. Understanding this, I’d like to add, from the peanut gallery, some more to the conversation.

One of the issues that separates your situation, therefore, I believe, a proper response to it, is the length of time from D-day to the trigger you experienced which resulted in you being here.

No one, including you, is disputing that you swept the issue under the rug. Pretty much everyone supports the notion that in doing so it set you and your wife up to be hurting now. I believe that if you could finger-dial back the clock 3 + decades that how you might want to address the affair would be extremely different than 31 years post. What that difference is, is debatable but I do believe one would be hard fixed to make a case that you "should" go about finishing your healing and reconciliation as if it happened yesterday.

I will be frank. I struggle with the concept of you leaving the house with no information as to where you are going and when (or if) you will be back. Not because there is something inherently wrong with doing so, (I guess). You are a free agent. However, my discomfort comes from the reasons given. To create fear in your wife. To have her hurt like you hurt. Let her experience the pain of not knowing if you love her. Let her suffer the agony of possible abandonment.

I don’t know 31RS, is that what you want? To injure your wife in the way she injured you? (Not that anyone is suggesting infidelity)

Let me ask you this: If she punches you in the face, should you then punch her in the face? An eye for an eye, tooth for a tooth? Is that you? It sure isn’t the man I hear when I read the kindness in your words.

I marvel at how many people here advise you to treat your wife, 31 years post affair, as if she, at 59, is affixed to what she did at 29. That she is not a different woman. Even that she is unrepentant. Granted, she is resistant to going to counseling, and I believe she is making an grave error. But does that mean she needs to be punished 3 decades post date with painful consequences? I’ll wager she has punished herself far more than any of us know.

31RS, 2 years ago you experienced your 1st trigger. Sorry to say this, but it probably won’t be the last. I doubt that there isn’t one of us who hasn’t shadowed boxed our own demons. Triggers are the mind’s rewinding time to replay an event as if it were happening now. And it is agonizing. However, I would like to add the perspective that the trigger is not the event. And that punishing your wife now is addressing the wrong issue and the wrong person. Think about it, is her doing the process exactly right what will bring you healing and peace? Honestly do you want her to have that kind of power over you? Healing is best found within oneself. Of course, what she does or doesn’t do plays a role in your healing. But only a role, it is not the panacea as so often promised.

Asterisk

Asterisk wrote:

I do believe one would be hard fixed to make a case that you "should" go about finishing your healing and reconciliation as if it happened yesterday.

I think one thing might be being missed is that 31RS has said that she's willing to sit and have the conversation if he really wants to.

Based on talking to him in his other thread I think 31RS is preparing himself to do that. I also think that would be at least a good starting point. Sit her down and explain exactly what this is doing to him as eloquently as he's been describing it to us here. Then see what happens and go from there.

I think that would at least get the ball rolling and it doesn't require a nuclear option.

Wow, a lot of information coming my way fast but as I’ve said before I know it’s all out of honest concern and I appreciate that.

Pogre got it right, my wife will talk to me if I ask her to! Schools starting soon and the grandkids spend most of their summer with us so I’m sure everyone here can understand why I need to wait a little longer to talk to her, when the grandkids go back to school. I will let everyone know how it went, what I asked and her answers. Stay tuned….

NukeZombie, I don’t dwell on the past but I can’t control triggers and that’s what brought all this to the surface. Last month I spent 10 days at an Army buddies house in another state. My wife stayed home and when I got back home I gave her a big hug and kiss because I missed her.

I’m retired from the Army and spend most of my time helping folks in our community. Repairing houses, plumbing, electrical and other issues for people who can’t afford it. The Bible talks about helping widows and orphans. It’s my way of giving back some of the blessings God has given me. Most of the time my wife comes with me to help.
So now that you know me a little better you can probably tell I’m not the kind of guy that’s going to scare my wife into talking or leave and not let her know my whereabouts. She was wrong to cheat on me and I was wrong for not dealing with it years ago.

Asterisk, as you can probably tell by what I’ve already posted above, I’m not going to punish my wife. I plan on spending the rest of my life with her and get my questions answered so we can move on and hopefully stop looking in the rear view mirror.

31, I might come across as hard edged but I do have a valid point. You are looking for answers you are not going to get. There are ws written about, and written by, who were rotten partners and should never have been in a committed relationship. Your wife seems to be someone who did a very stupid thing when she was younger but has gone on to be a good wife whom you still love.
My point about looking at why she did it is that it is not going to change one thing. She did it. You made the decision to stay married. So you can drive both of you crazy trying to get an answer she can’t give you. Alcohol. Youth. Boredom. Who knows.
It sounds like you like being married to her. It sounds like she wants to stay married to you. Would you trade her for someone else? I would not trade my husband. We fit. Perhaps you and your wife do too.

Cooley2here, you’re not being hard edged, you make a good point.
I’m not looking for detailed information just want to sit down and go over our past so I can start closing this chapter of our lives. I’m curious about a few things and will ask her.
She already told me alcohol and drugs were involved and she was young and stupid but she said that doesn’t excuse it.
No, I wouldn’t trade her for someone else. Other than what happened 33 years ago we get along very well.

31RS,

Sounds like you’re on the right path. Glad to hear you’re not just going to punish your wife, especially since you plan on staying with her!

I have some sympathy for her in the sense that this must have seen like a bolt out of the blue. I’ve been married for nearly 20 years, and if my wife brought up something from long ago that had never been talked about I would be a bit stunned. Of course, what she did was ENORMOUS, and she needs to help fix what she broke all those years ago, so you are not in the wrong for bringing it up in the slightest. All I’m saying is that I’m sure she was surprised, and her attitude makes sense. She didn’t talk about it the first time and that seemed to work out just fine for her, so she’s probably thinking you’ll let it lie and it will go away again.

Not punishing her is one thing, but I want to support you in working through it with her. You do not have to suffer in silence, even if it’s unpleasant and uncomfortable for her.

I’d love to hear her side of the story too. The "I’m punishing him" thing sounds like a post-hoc rationalization. I can see having a revenge affair as punishment, but just an affair? One thing that did occur to me is the following. When my daughter was quite young - like 5 or thereabouts - she went through a phase where she was very bad. We actually put her in therapy. It turned out that she has serious anxiety (which we’ve long since been able to manage, but is something she still and will always have to struggle with). The therapist explained that what she was doing was testing our love, as in, will you still love me if I do this? How about this? Ok, but what if I do this?!?!

I wonder if something similar was going on in your wife’s head.

Letmebefrank, no, I’m not going to punish my wife for something she did decades ago, I truly think her main reason for not wanting to talk about it is that she’s very ashamed about what she did 33 years ago. She’s probably suffering inside like I am.

The reason I brought it up out of the blue was the trigger about brought me to my knees, extremely painful! I thought I was having a nervous breakdown so I needed her to talk immediately and I had to threaten telling my son to get her to sit down and tell me what she did and why she did it or I was going to lose my mind. 31 years of thinking the worst had finally caught up to me!
I know this will always be a very painful memory for me but it’s now a part of our history.

You really peaked my interest with the comment about your daughter’s anxiety. My wife was diagnosed with anxiety about 25 years ago. She struggles with it greatly some days. She grew up in an environment where you had to earn love it wasn’t unconditional and if you didn’t earn it consistently you were punished!
Man, looking at what I just wrote makes a lot of sense. It doesn’t excuse what she did but it does seem to put another piece or two into the puzzle.

Thanks Letmebefrank!

31

The only advice I have right now is this.

If it were me, I'd ask to talk to her and tell her that what she did all those years ago broke something inside of you and made you put up walls in your relationship so you would never get hurt again.

I'd follow that by telling her if she ever truly wanted a chance at breaking down those walls and having a truly authentic connection in your relationship, maybe not the same as before her cheating but a real loving marriage, that it would take working thru all this pain in therapy with her.

If she just wants to continue as you have for decades, As mostly unattached partners as parents and grandparents, then she can continue to hide from what you need to fall in love with her again.

Of course no guarantees except that certainty that it will never happen on the path you are both on now.

31RS, fellow aviator, also showed up here, 30 or so years after the fact. BTDT. Got hit with emotions and memories that I thought I was done with.

I’m going to offer a different kind of advice, which is a therapy you can do with yourself to change your relationship to the memories. It is called freespotting, and you can Google on it to read more. A therapist named Clint Matheny has an excellent description of it which I’m going to flat out copy and paste here. He didn’t create it, he’s just an advocate.

**********

FreeSpotting operates on the principle of focused attention combined with emotional processing. Here’s a simple outline on how it works (read the entire page before you attempt the process):

1. Selection of an Object: Choose a simple, stationary object to focus on that will require you to move your eyes to look up like this example: This could be a spot on a ceiling, a mark on your finger, or the tip of a pen. The object serves as an anchor for your attention. Your eyes should be focusing up.

2. Time Constraint: You set a timer for five minutes. This limited time frame helps to create a sense of urgency and focus.

3. Emotional Engagement: While focusing on the chosen object, you allow yourself to fully experience the unwanted emotion. This step is crucial because it’s not about distracting yourself from the emotion but rather confronting and processing it.

4. Processing: As you maintain your gaze and attention on the object, your mind begins to process the emotions and associated thoughts. This can lead to a cognitive shift where the emotional intensity diminishes, and you gain a new perspective on the issue.

5. Resolution: After the five-minute period, many people report a sense of relief or a decrease in the emotional intensity. The technique can lead to a transformative experience, as the emotion that once felt overwhelming becomes manageable or even neutralized.

The effectiveness of FreeSpotting lies in its simplicity and the user’s willingness to engage with their emotions directly. It’s designed to be a self-help tool that can be used independently, without the need for long-term medication or extended therapy sessions.

ADDITIONAL IDEAS ON USING "FreeSpotting"

1. Use freespotting on something you are embarrassed about, such as a negative memory, experience, situation, or even an annoying person. It could be a belief like, "I’m not good enough", or "Nobody loves me". It could be a life-threatening situation like a car accident or someone saying something unsettling to you. It could be the grief you feel from losing a loved one. It could be interrupting a panic attack. It could be an unwanted emotion you want to change.

2. If your emotions are not intense enough, imagine the details of the experience. What happened? What did you see, hear or feel? What did someone do to you? How did you feel when you knew something terrible was about to happen? Point to where you feel it.

***********

Most therapist will tell you that you need to see a therapist before you do any kind of therapy, but the fact is you and I am pretty much everyone else on here has been attempting to treat ourselves for years and decades. We’ve been talking to friends or drinking a few beers or just sitting and stewing in the pain. This is better.

If you try it, you’ll find that your attention keeps bouncing back-and-forth between the point you’re staring at and the emotional that you are recalling. This is a feature, not a bug. It is in that tension between the two things to think about that the processing occurs.

It worked for me. It is almost too easy to do, I’ve even done it while sitting in the back row of a large meeting where the speaker was droning on. I just put my attention on a mark on the wall, and brought up the thing that was bothering me. Five minutes later and it was improved.

This method and others that are like it, like EMDR, work by reconsolidating your traumatic memories, at least that is the theory. When you bring up a memory, it becomes editable, and you can change the emotional effect attached to it at that time. Our normal process is to bring it up and just totally stew in it, strengthening the emotional attachment. This does the opposite.

So… Recommend you Google on freespotting and also on Clint Matheny. He has a really nice page talking it through. But in a pinch there’s enough instructions above so you can just give it a shot.

I’m a firm believer that why while your wife can help you, the true answers are within you.

Such a tough read.

You and I have some things in common. Our betrayals happened in the 90's. We did NOT have the immediate resources such as SI at our disposal and therapy had a much bigger stigma back then than I think it does today. We both put our needs on the back burner, in large part, "for our kids". We both choked down the trauma, the massive disrespect, the sorrow and grief of loss, the anger over treason. IMO we both white-knighted/white-knuckled all of it for YEARS. You were NOT a simp. You were dealing with somthing so heinous that you simply could not process it effectively and you should NEVER have had to. Many stress analysis tests put marital treason just below the death of a spouse as to trauma impact. It literally causes many of the same physiological symptoms and seriously erodes physical (massive cortisol build up in your system) and mental health. The mind and body always remembers regardless of how hard we try to "stuff it" down. Talking about triggers, the loss of a good friend after their betrayal was a big part of what caused me to look for remaining answers for my old betrayal and brought me to SI some years ago. Marital treason is a *%$#! to get over/through.

That said, my experience in dealing with a quasi-regretful WW lasted a decade before it all ended. Multiplying that by tre gave me serious pain just thinking of it (I have since moved on and found a worthy woman to spend my life with and make my wife. She too is a brutal infidelity survivor who immediatelly cut off her traitor). I have nothing but empathy for you sir.

Id like to comment a bit on this:

The reason I brought it up out of the blue was the trigger about brought me to my knees, extremely painful! I thought I was having a nervous breakdown so I needed her to talk immediately and I had to threaten telling my son to get her to sit down and tell me what she did and why she did it or I was going to lose my mind. 31 years of thinking the worst had finally caught up to me!

I know this will always be a very painful memory for me but it’s now a part of our history.

Triggers are powerful things which I know all too well. They become exponentially more so when the thoughts and emotions behind it have been accumulating for decades. It must have been absolutely volcanic. The flip side of this coin is that, gently, you chose this course (as did I), and it too must be owned. Theres a lot of water that has flowed under that bridge. With this as a backdrop, may I suggest that you will never get the resolution you seek, but you can come to a place of acceptance. Accepting that:

- You married someone capable of doing the worst thing that anyone could do to you and that you chose to stay with her.

- That, though she has shown a measure of regret, she has and probably never will come to a place of full remorse (witness her saying that if you ever disclose her treason that she wants the opportunity to "tell her side of the story")

- That it is probable that it is not just that she is not willing to get to that place and ready to give you whatever it is you need to heal, that she may be incapable of doing so (my first wife was not).

- That thirty years of behavioral reinforcement have led her to believe that things were "good enough".

- That continuing to stay with her is a tacit admission on your part that it is also "good enough" for you (can be tough to swallow).

Acceptance.

There is more that I could say here but I think you understand where I am going. You and I may actually be from the same generation and, if so, I get much of your mindset and really want to encourage you to get into IC with someone who specializes in betrayal trauma. When I finally gave in and availed myself of this assistance, it helped me a ton and even after the bulk of the work was done, I still went in for maintenance appointments, usually after I had been triggered as well.

So glad you posted here and hope you will continue. I wish you well.

ETA: Just saw your age. We are definitely from the same generation....children of the 60's can you believe?

[This message edited by DobleTraicion at 6:30 PM, Saturday, August 8th]