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I figured out something this morning. As my WBF and I were laying in bed, we went to hug each other. Just as I was allowing myself to get lost in that feeling of him holding me, I felt the sadness creep in, as it always does. It's the same thing that happens as we start to make love, or kiss, or send silly messages, or just about anything sweet and only supposed to be between us...

Only today, I realized why. Every kiss, every hug, every intimate moment... I am hit with the realization that it's possibly not where he wants to be. I feel like I'm a "fill in". I feel used. I feel like I'm what's available... and it takes away everything sweet and exciting and special, and replaces it with self loathing on my part.

This feeling of being used, and settled for is unbearable. How can we ever believe them, when they say this is where they want to be? That we are the ONLY one they want? Because we know they lie, and that when we heard those words before, they were also with another.

The W sits there and wonders how they can make things better. And maybe in many cases they actually do only want to be right there in our arms. But how can we ever believe that again? Seriously? If we were disposable, and tossed aside for some other model, aren't we now having to live in some fantasy world, to believe them again, after all they've done?

It wasn't a fantasy to believe in my relationsip. To believe in the man I love, and who claimed he loved and only wanted me, and would always be true to me. So now, after we know without a sliver of a doubt, that they lied to us, didn't want JUST us... aren't we now going to have to live in a fantasy, to survive this, if we want to R?

How do we ever truly feel that hug, kiss, or moment, is truly 100% the only moment he wants, and I'm the only one he 100% is with, in his heart and mind???

I SOOOOO want to get lost in those moments again. But all I end up feeling is unsure of him, used, and pathetic

[This message edited by TrulySad at 7:57 AM, September 10th (Tuesday)]

It can happen. It will take repeated and consistent actions of his loyalty to the relationship. Earning trust back just takes time.

These are issues that I faced during false R and I always had this feeling of looking behind me...the shadow of OW lurked in the corners.

Here is what several counselors had to say that I can relate to: I've been told that some points of view are that in a monogamous (ETA that I understand it occurs in the other types of relationships, also,) relationship there is supposed to be a level of trust that exist between two people. It is no secret that the trust is broken when a person is cheated on. But what the counselors said also is that part of that trust includes a kind of innocence and a pact between two people and once that is broken, can be very difficult to feel again. It's the innocence of trust that seems nearly impossible to get back again, but one of the counselors believes it can happen, with work, time an repeated honesty...it has to be almost proved and then proved without slip-up for various lengths of time and via actions, which frequently prove more than words.

When a dday falls on our heads, it isn't immediate to regain that feeling, that innocence, because they are not the same person any more.

The hard part also is the understanding that it's likely not going to be the same as it was before an A and is not going to be, for each person is now different...rather, what can a relationship be made of instead? Perhaps considering how it could be newly and freshly built is better than trying to get back what was there before?

[This message edited by Ashland13 at 11:27 AM, September 10th (Tuesday)]

I think you're right MovingUpward. I know time can make a difference. I think one issue I have is that I've given it so much time, in two past relationships, and learned it didn't change things... so now, I'm afraid I've been trained into believing this relationship will go the same way. Once a cheater, always a cheater. Common sense tells me that's so wrong to assume, but life had taught me different.

Ashland13, I think I like your counselor. Calling it innocence is a very good way to put it. It's pure, naive, and untampered with. And then they do this, and it loses it's innocence. It changes so much. And the TT makes it almost impossible to beleive anything they say down the road. I want to scream at them here... DONT THEY KNOW HOW DAMAGING THE LIES ARE?!!! They've essentially trained us to know there is always more out there. That they are never fully telling us the truth.

My WBF keeps telling me I don't understand. That I don't see how he really feels. I think he needs to shut up for moment and hear what I'm saying. How I'm really feeling, and why. Quit the excuses, quit the reasons why, quit the expectations of me and how I should see things, and just see the damn, ugly, devistating reality we know as truth.