SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I have been having a really hard time with R this month. This being the month that the EA was in full swing. I have been doing a lot of fence sitting.

It doesn't help that I just found out that my fWH is working with his AP's BFF. A BFF that tried to step in when the AP got kicked out.

I nearly left today.

But, my fWH surprised me with a public apology for the pain this has caused me on FB and has finally posted for the first time on the wayward side.

I feel awful for him. He is being seen in the wrong light. (He never posted sooner, because he said he has difficulty expressing himself). Part of the reasons for the A.

He came across as blaming the AP. He didn't, I made him change that point of view. I was sick of him taking on all the blame. To me he was still protecting her and her BFF, by not addressing their role in the A.

....and no BS wants their WS to have that outlook of their AP...as some helpless victim they took advantage of.

Believe me (read my profile) his AP was a viper who pursued him relentlessly. Of course it is his fault he fell for it.

I feel my fWH posting (Zugzwang) is another step in recovery and showing what he is willing to do to prove his love and help heal us. I hope he continues to post.

I hope he continues to post as well. This has been a very healing place for both me and my wife. She rarely posts or reads out here anymore, but during the time she did post here, it was very much needed, and it helped with her healing, and with the healing of our marriage.

Best of luck to you and your husband.

Dear Hopefulmother.

I saw your husbands thread and your reply. I can remember very well close past discovery when my H first starting posting here.

Many BS found comfort in his posts and thanked him. However, in WS challenged him outright, stretched him - pushed him to look deeper.

Like you on one hand I felt I wanted to give some clarity. To support him.

On the other I wanted to use the opportunity for us to have a public conversation with SI members support.

I received very similar responses to you. And I felt pushed out and powerless. At the time a kind of invisible and misunderstood all at once. (not sure if this is how you feel).

both being on SI is both helpful and challenging.

Instead of responding on SI I started journaling my thoughts and feelings. I also thought outloud to some trusted SI members via PM regarding his posts and the responses he was receiving.

Over time - my jornalling and thinking did change.

Whilst some responses I still seen even with nearly 16 moths restropection as harsh and counter-helpful, Many now I am grateful for as they pushed us both further in our healing.

the thing is ppl on the other side of the msg board don't know which question or which challenge might be the right challenge to help. So they just have to run with what they see from their perspective.

It is the nature of the boards to some degree.

there is a lot of kindness here too! And if you are ever very concerned then you can always ask a moderator for some guidance, or to review a thread and see what their thoughts from a neutral perspective here are.

My H. doesn't post a lot - he is a writer - writing comes easily and he can hide in his head. He needed to find ways to show me and tell me all the wonderful things he would write on SI.

But I can say SI and my therapist, combined with TRE therapy, my children and two very true friends have helped be to heal and continue to heal.

In terms of reconciliation. I do agree with quite a few of people in Wayward that your H. looks to be in very early days of self discovery. If you felt very close to going then you too may feel this way.

He does need to continue doing the work for himself. Like his apology and posting.

I understand how powerless this can leave you feeling. Truly I do. You can heal together. And you can support one another - but it is his weakness that led your marriage to this place and he must find and excercise his strength. You can not reflect, heal and reconcile for the both of you.

Take care of yourself. SI is here for you too.

Meg

Double post

[This message edited by MegM at 12:24 AM, August 19th (Monday)]

I feel you HM, I wished my husband would have defended me and our marriage a long time ago, in fact I came back on today because I asked him to back me up on something and he never ended up doing it. WTF though, why defend other people, why let them get away with everything when we are treated so harshly by our spouse. They are as patient and understanding as pie with others but when we have a problem, then tough cookies to us???

That is so backwards, it seems like they should defend us to the fullest because they have to live with us, and if they really love us they would do it easily. I envy women who's husband sticks up for them, I called out my sister-in-law recently because she constantly ignores me and only emails and calls my H, not me, so I told her to quit that mess, and he emailed his brother right after and apologizes for what I said!!

Loyalty is high on my list and it sounds like you just wanted to know he has a loyalty to you, your feelings, your needs. Why else would he choose you? I am glad he said those things and I think it was spot on for you and I am happy for you guys, don't let anyone else tell you what you need to recover.

Also I hope some of the more negative posters did not discourage him from posting again, although I fear they did.

[This message edited by stupidgurl at 2:59 AM, August 19th (Monday)]

I hope your WH hasn't been put off from posting again.

My fWH also has a great deal of difficulty expressing himself, and just thinking about his emotions, thoughts etc is all very new to him, so posting on the forum was a big step for him. He posted once and some of the responses he got were quite harsh and he has never posted again, which is a great pity.

It's a tough situation - because let's be honest sometimes a WS who is still half in the fog/denial/blame-shifting mode etc needs to catch a huge wake-up. So I see what the posters over there are trying to achieve. Personally though, I feel that when the WS first starts taking baby-steps towards acknowledging their issues they need a more gentle approach than they get over on the Wayward forum. The people on that forum can seem harsh and relentless in pushing and stretching the newbies. In reality all the things they point out are 100% on the button, but to a newbie poster I think it's pretty terrifying and intimidating, kind of a baptism of fire.

I read the Wayward forum a lot and I have huge respect for the regular posters there, I just feel that sometimes they need to realise that it is heck of a daunting for someone new to the forum, new to the soul-searching and unfamiliar with baring their souls and dirty laundry to public scrutiny. If they would start out slowly, build some trust and then start putting the pressure on, I feel it would be better. JMHO.

Thank you guys,

I know I shouldn't have stepped in. My H thought it was kinda cute. He is okay. He knew his post would be taken that way. He has been reading for some time.

He just sucks at relaying what he wants to say and means through writing. Which discouraged him from posting. NOT because he didn't want to do the work. But, because he feels he is not good at writing.

Like I posted, he has always put 100% of the responsibility on himself. I just don't subscribe to that theory.

We have been arguing for months about that. He wanted to show me how he now feels about the AP. To show me he was willing to be chewed out to make me feel better.

Which was a big issue and reason for his A. His self-confidence and need to have positive attention even if it meant others were putting me down. He craved his ego boosts and what I gave him didn't matter.

He may be a newbie to posting. But this affair will be nearly a year now in two weeks. He is no newbie to working on himself.

My husbands affair was many years ago and he is completely emotionally indifferent to the OW now - but he still thinks she's not a nice person. In my opinion, (and I'm not talking about anyone but me here) there's nothing wrong with that stance.

But he reached his emotional indifference via disillusionment and anger towards the OW first. For me that actually helped me to believe the indifference when it finally came. If he had never become angry and disillusioned with her on his way to his emotional indifference towards her, I'm not sure that I would have believed in it as much as I truly do now.

I can't explain it any better than this; for me (and this is only me I'm talking about here - I'm not saying it's the same for everyone) but for me, I needed to see all the positive emotion he felt about her balanced out by him feeling negative emotions for her before he settled on the correct and desired state of true indifference. I don't think for one second that there are any lingering 'positive feelings' in him for her because I saw them balanced out by negatives. I truly believe that there is just no more emotion left in him of any kind for her anymore. He'd used them all up. I saw him. He went through them all regarding her imo. For us, that worked.

In my mind, when he was angry at her, it didn't mean that he was blaming her for the affair itself, or avoiding blame himself - it just showed me that he was angry at her because he knew that she played her own part in it as well as him. He did not blame her for his own wrongs but he didn't see her as 'innocent' either - and as I happen to agree with that, I can accept it and be happy about it. He now says if it wasn't her it could have been someone else - but that doesn't change that it was her.. you know? He wouldn't 'like' whoever it was - and she still has to own her own part, same as him.

So, all that to say, hopefulmother, I know where you are coming from because I was the same at one time. I needed him to hate her for a time. It may not be that way for everyone, but it was for me and my husband too. It didn't last forever, it was just a stage that we went through while we were working all this out. He didn't stay there in this stage, and neither did I, but it was a stage I needed at the time - and actually it helped me to become more indifferent towards OW myself.

I hope your husband keeps posting as you and he work through all the stages of this.

Zugzwang = in chess, when you don't want to move. Usually, when your position is "set" or solid, and any move weakens your position.

You still have to move though.

Yes, jjct my H is a chess player. He has used that handle for years. So fitting for him now. It means that any move he makes will result in a loss of pieces. So he is standing still. That definitely applied to him nearly a year ago.

sinsofthefather

exactly...I really think that now he can't stand her, I may move to pity her.