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Reconciliation :
Forget why. I want to know what (happened emotionally)

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 rbf1234 (original poster member #39471) posted at 7:46 PM on Tuesday, August 20th, 2013

Sorry for the long post.

After many months, I think I have a good grasp of the WHY. (FOO stuff + MLC + etc.).

Unfortunately, it doesn't seem to help me much.

The question I am struggling is WHAT. As in, what happened emotionally. What was going on emotionally/what did he feel about me that made it possible for him to have such profound indifference to my feelings and wellbeing (at best) and with cruelty and malice (at worst)?

We have had the following exchange several times that leaves me frustrated.

"I thought you loved me."

"I did love you."

WTH? Then I feel I need to educate him about what it means to love someone, or worse, I am with someone who has no clue what it means to love someone ... and OMG is that depressing.

Then finally we had this conversation.

"I thought you valued and respected me. I thought you were committed to the marriage. I thought you would never do anything that would risk blowing up the family." (or something like that)

"Yes. Clearly by that standard, I failed."

(Note, it was late at night - he may not have been thinking clearly and might not said they same thing during the day).

So I keep coming back to the question, what happened?

What did he actually feel about me during those years?

I don't know what I need this question answered. But maybe it is as if the sexual acts are beside the point. The negative emotions (including callousness, resentment and blame) feel like the real betrayal. And until he can describe it/admit it, I feel as if I won't know what actually happened in our marriage.

We haven't made much progress on this. He has found this a difficult question to answer. Not sure why. Lack of insight into himself? Scared of hurting me more by saying anything other than assuring me that he always loved me?

He now calls this the "you want me to say I hated you - which isn't true conversation"

I sense he is getting closer to being ready to answer this question, but MC has been away over the past couple weeks, and when we tried do do it ourselves without him, the convo didn't go very well.

Not sure why it didn't go well. Maybe I think I want to understand more about his negative feelings/ indifference, but in fact it will just make me upset?

Does this sound familiar to anyone? Is this an important questions to answer? Or am I just setting myself up for a situation in which I am encouraging him to say blamey resentful, mean things to me.

(Then there is the difficult question: what does he feel for me now? And, what is he actually capable in terms of loving someone.)

Please help. Thanks!

posts: 191   ·   registered: Jun. 7th, 2013
id 6456199
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crazyblindsided ( member #35215) posted at 8:41 PM on Tuesday, August 20th, 2013

Me too. For some reason I keep thinking if i know this part then I will understand. My WH told me I had neglected him, said that I didn't love him anymore or was attracted to him. He projected this all onto me.I felt none of those things, at the time of his A I thought our M was doing good I thought his job was making him unhappy

My WH rewrote our M and the MOW helped in the process.

fBS/fWS(me):52 Mad-hattered after DD (2008)
XWS:55 Serial Cheater, Diagnosed NPD
DD(22) DS(19)
XWS cheated the entire M spanning 19 years
Discovered D-Days 2006,2008,2012, False R 2014
Separated 9/2019; Divorced 8/2024

posts: 9075   ·   registered: Apr. 2nd, 2012   ·   location: California
id 6456272
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Yakamishi ( member #38230) posted at 10:08 PM on Tuesday, August 20th, 2013

That is exactly what I'm dealing with

Me: BH
Her: WW Mrs.yaka
Kids:4
Variouse clues to EA. WW promised it would stop.
D-Day of EA 9/13/2012 2:01PM found 2 yrs of text messages, confessed to EA
D-Day of PA: confessed on 9/22/12 11:53 PM. Worst moment of my life

posts: 251   ·   registered: Jan. 23rd, 2013   ·   location: MA
id 6456383
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PeaceLove187 ( member #33559) posted at 10:30 PM on Tuesday, August 20th, 2013

I have no idea if this will be helpful but I found an online article on loving two people and it clarified some things for me. Basically they studied people who claimed to be in love with two people at the same time and concluded these people were trying to make one "whole love" out of either end of the love spectrum--the passion of new love and the comfort of established love. Somehow these people were able to convince themselves they could have it all--the tingly feelings of new love and the comfortable feel-good of companionate love, but as much as they want passion to last forever it just doesn't work that way. So ultimately all they did was create tons of stress for themselves (and obviously their BS!).

The study doesn't address what made these people think they deserved two lovers, but it does address the different kinds of love expressed for each of their lovers and sort of explains how the WS can claim to love the BS despite all evidence to the contrary. I know my H kept insisting marriage is supposed to generate the tingly feelings of a new love forever and I kept telling him he's holding me to an impossible standard. Apparently these researchers agree.

Here's the link:

http://evolution.binghamton.edu/evos/wp-content/uploads/2009/08/Can-You-Love-More-Than-One-Person-At-The-Same-Time.pdf

BW--Me, 59
FWH--Him, 61
Married 37 years
Empty Nesters

posts: 647   ·   registered: Oct. 8th, 2011   ·   location: Midwest
id 6456403
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84CF ( member #40112) posted at 10:55 PM on Tuesday, August 20th, 2013

I dealt with exactly this with my WW too, if it's any consolation. I have no better understanding of it than you do. What you say about feeling like you have to educate your WS concerning what love means, and how depressing it is to think that someone you have been with for so long ultimately never understood, rings so familiar to me.

I've actually been trying to force myself not to worry about the "why" anymore, as I frankly don't think that the reasoning will ever be rational. When I fall off the wagon, however (which is often), I think about two things. 1) as many of the other posts describe, bad feelings about herself led to projection of bad feeling onto me and the marriage, which allowed her to justify her actions to herself, at least on some level. This is still the most difficult part for me to accept, but there was nothing I could do to fill what was missing inside her. 2) I honestly am not sure how deeply she thought about me at all, which means that loving me or not loving me simply never entered into the equation. This is so antithetical to the way I live that it's impossible for me fully to comprehend. But it's what she has said and I think, again, it's simply that our definitions of what love is are, in the end, very different.

posts: 54   ·   registered: Jul. 30th, 2013
id 6456434
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RedRose ( member #39584) posted at 11:11 PM on Tuesday, August 20th, 2013

I feel like this as well. After false R twice, I don't think he really did love me like he says he did. He knew how devastated I was, that I wasn't sleeping, had high blood pressure for the first time, yet still chose to continue the affair. It has opened my eyes to the kind of person he really is . . . which is really sad.

BW-37
WH - 38
2.5 year LTA
2nd A 2/20/16

posts: 164   ·   registered: Jun. 18th, 2013
id 6456460
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sailorgirl ( member #38162) posted at 2:06 AM on Wednesday, August 21st, 2013

What was going on emotionally/what did he feel about me that made it possible for him to have such profound indifference to my feelings and wellbeing (at best) and with cruelty and malice (at worst)?

For my fWH, it wasn't a question of what he was feeling about me, but what he was feeling about himself.

He acted arrogant, cold and angry at me. But the feelings underneath were fear, self-hatred, and hopelessness. He resented me for being healthy and happy and deserving more than him.

He projected his disdain for himself onto me. He pushed me away because he knew I would abandon him if I found out "who he really was",

Anger is a safer feeling to express than anything he had churning around inside. Fear and panic aren't manly, but anger seems strong. In WH's FOO, any sign of vulnerability brought attack and so it was better to go on the angry offensive.

I don't know whether any of that resonates for you. fWH was actually completely miserable being a cheater, and he lashed out at me a lot. But since d-day, he has never emotionally abused me like that.

What did he actually feel about me during those years?

I'm thinking not much. I was compartmentalized, a punching bag, or a mirror for his feelings. It was all about him. He was reenacting FOO dysfunction and spiraling into self-destruction . . . I was collateral damage. Now that he is healing his brokenness, he is capable of empathy and understanding of other people again.

[This message edited by sailorgirl at 8:08 PM, August 20th (Tuesday)]

Married 14 years, three amazing kids
H had 17 month EA/PA
D-day 1/5/13
Reconcilling

posts: 787   ·   registered: Jan. 17th, 2013
id 6456663
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84CF ( member #40112) posted at 11:24 PM on Wednesday, August 21st, 2013

sailorgirl, your post rings true to me in my situation. Thank you for it.

posts: 54   ·   registered: Jul. 30th, 2013
id 6457920
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crazyblindsided ( member #35215) posted at 11:52 PM on Wednesday, August 21st, 2013

thank you sailorgirl your post is eye opening.

fBS/fWS(me):52 Mad-hattered after DD (2008)
XWS:55 Serial Cheater, Diagnosed NPD
DD(22) DS(19)
XWS cheated the entire M spanning 19 years
Discovered D-Days 2006,2008,2012, False R 2014
Separated 9/2019; Divorced 8/2024

posts: 9075   ·   registered: Apr. 2nd, 2012   ·   location: California
id 6457961
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Gr8Lady ( member #36307) posted at 2:32 PM on Thursday, August 22nd, 2013

The answer to me is it has nothing to do with you, or his feelings for you during affair. It is about him and what he wanted to do. This is classically inability to predict the consequences of his actions. It was all about him. Not you.

BS: Me (70yo)FWH: HIM (72 yo)) serial infidelities over past 35 years
DD: Multiple unconfirmed until 2013

friends wife lasting 10 years. TT over a
year a year. Now his health is declining,
among the lack of communication.

posts: 762   ·   registered: Jul. 31st, 2012
id 6458485
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StillStanding1 ( member #40144) posted at 8:20 PM on Thursday, August 22nd, 2013

Thanks, sailorgirl, your post was really helpful to me too!

(((rbf))) I completely empathize. How can WH have "loved" both of us?

Sigh....

[This message edited by StillStanding1 at 2:22 PM, August 22nd (Thursday)]

Me: BS50s Him: WH50s
M 25 years - DD DS DS
LTA = 2+ yrs, Dday - 2/13, S for 1 year, now R

posts: 1632   ·   registered: Aug. 1st, 2013   ·   location: Midwest
id 6459071
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struggling3 ( member #34671) posted at 8:29 PM on Thursday, August 22nd, 2013

GR8lady hit the nail on the head. I don't think the state of our marriage or how they feel about us has diddly squat to do with their actions. It is their ego and selfishness. period

Me - BS 58
H - WS 60/very remorseful and supportive

discovered 4 month long EA
R - slow and steady but very optimistic

posts: 640   ·   registered: Jan. 29th, 2012   ·   location: New Jersey
id 6459090
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Biskit ( new member #34791) posted at 12:11 AM on Friday, August 23rd, 2013

After 25 years and an affair later, here is finally the "why" I was given..."I was emotionally detached from you",. My response, "Really? four kids and 25 years of marriage and out of the blue, you are unattached?!" That was my "throw drink in the face" moment, literally! The crap they tell themselves to make them fill less guilty. Later, I asked again, and he said, "Honestly, I felt unattached to you", newsflash, why didn't I feel that?

posts: 17   ·   registered: Feb. 13th, 2012   ·   location: Georgia
id 6459343
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