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Victim Impact Statement

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 plainpain (original poster member #40139) posted at 6:58 PM on Wednesday, October 23rd, 2013

I feel like I need to write something down for myself on paper - like a victim impact statement - so I can articulate all the ways my H's A has altered and affected my life. It seems that new things are coming up all the time, new realizations of how deep and far this trauma goes, and I have to continually keep reminding myself that I have forgiven him. But I'm not always sure what exactly I've forgiven him FOR. My ability to be a present, emotionally healthy, joyful, creative, non-prescriptioned mother has been severely impacted by his selfishness, cruelty, absolutely disrespect and disregard for even my very life... I have to find forgiveness within myself for that. For not being able to be the mom they deserve to have because I am suffering PTSD. And now having to worry that OW, who is pregnant, might be viewed as a 'better mom' because she has no moral compass, no conscience and is therefore NOT suffering from PTSD.

The trouble is that every time I sit down to write something, I am just overwhelmed by how much bitterness that I have inside of me, and how devastatingly cruel he is capable of being. Instead of feeling better, I just feel so very much worse.

Do you ever just feel like your entire soul is being ripped in half? Or like maybe you have actually snapped inside somewhere, and something is now broken beyond repair, but you aren't really quite sure what it is? Like your life is a movie, and every thing that ever happened to you in your life has been leading straight to this one devastating point in time, and now you have to choose who you are going to be... and all you really want is just to never have been born at all?

How do you even try to explain that to a person who maybe isn't actually even capable of empathy?

Me: Believer, 40s
Him: Liar, 40s
Married 19 years
1 year EA/2 month PA/incidental infidelities I can't begin to process
OC born 2014
OW:21
In successful R. It only hurts now when it rains.

posts: 875   ·   registered: Jul. 31st, 2013
id 6534373
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heartache101 ( member #26465) posted at 7:00 PM on Wednesday, October 23rd, 2013

I promise you it will get better.

It just takes time..

Journal a lot and focus on your children.

There are degrees to which you let people back into your life and degrees to which you let them back into your heart-which, of course, are not the same thing

posts: 3225   ·   registered: Dec. 8th, 2009   ·   location: Indiana
id 6534376
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Ostrich80 ( member #34827) posted at 11:44 PM on Wednesday, October 23rd, 2013

I hear you loud and clear. I know my kids have suffered at times from a mom who's been unavailable emotionally. It's hard to close one door but keep the other open. Closed to keep from losing your mind but necessary to keep one open for those that played no part in the mess their parents are in.

BS..me
WS..him
Been with him over half my life
4kid
DD1 10-01-09 DD2 02-12-12 discovered it never ended
OW..nothing special. Just your average skank
Status..#$%@????

posts: 5738   ·   registered: Feb. 15th, 2012   ·   location: midwest
id 6534769
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hathnofury ( member #32550) posted at 12:18 AM on Thursday, October 24th, 2013

(((plainpain)))

I have actually done this. As part of my and WH's therapy, I had to write an Impact Statement. And because my WH is likely Asperger's, he does have a great deal of trouble with empathy so I understand what you mean. I identify so much with what you posted.

My history is different than yours, but all of the feelings and effects have been the same. Writing the impact statement nearly drained me. I shared it with my group therapy people and my support group people, and it made some of them cry because they were going through the same impacts as you and I. But it was extremely hard to read it aloud to my WH. I did it in the presence of his therapist and mine, so we could both have support. In the same appointment he did his full disclosure, and in all honestly I think my statement had more ramifications than him finally telling the full truth.

I posted it here when it happened over a year ago. I will repost it for you to help you gather your own thoughts a little better.

Impact letter

I hate that the person that is supposed to be my very best friend, who knows me better than anyone, has lied to me every day for the past 16 years. And never felt compelled to come clean of his own admission, ever.

I hate that the person who promised to love, honor, and cherish me, in sickness and health, in front of God and 150 of our closet friends and family, and never did any of it. Repeatedly violated his vows to me, repeatedly chose the most raw and serious of betrayals, and risked my life, our children's lives, our future, our finances, our safety to break these vows.

I hate that I have as a result lost my innocence and blind faith in people, and will never 100% trust ANYONE again.

I hate that I chose to marry someone who was never ever fully honest with me from the beginning. Who never intended to be faithful to me. Who lived by a separate set of rules that I didn't know existed, and never gave me a chance to see you as you really were so I could make fully educated decisions about my life.

I hate that you have spent hours, days, weeks, months of time acting out while I was at home pregnant and/or caring for your children. Spending thousands of our dollars to do so.

I hate that I have to tell my OB what you have done to me, see the reaction in her face, and that I need to get tested every year for the rest of my life. That you could get hit with a truck and die tomorrow, that I would still have to do this every year, and that you could kill me from the grave as a consequence of your choices. Worse yet, that I have to tell her I'm still with you after all you have done.

I hate having to tell my lawyers what you have done to me, and they tell me it's always worse than I know. To hear them say that sexual addiction is the worst kind of addiction to happen to your spouse, the most invasive and personal betrayal. That I can look forward to you bouncing between several addictions and continuing to be put at risk, so I have to plan accordingly if I choose to stay in order to protect myself. Worse yet, that I have to tell them I'm still with you after all you have done, that I know all this and am still here.

I hate when I share my story, the reaction of people when they hear it. To see them physically wince, recoil, look at me with horror and pity. I hate even more when it is someone who has already walked in my shoes, and has seen it get worse. I hate that I know it can get much worse, and specifically what all that can entail, and yet I sill choose to risk that it will.

I hate when I read back over my journal of everything that I have been through this past year, how bad it really was and is. That for my own protection, you can never know the full extent of everything I have went through. And worse yet, even if I could, you do not have the capacity to understand it. No one should have this story. No one should every have been through what I have been through this year.

I hate that you have spent thousands of dollars on drugs to do the things you did, and lying and covering it up for years. That now you will always have ED as a result of abusing this drug (talk about irony), and I have to figure out how not to take that personally if I ever choose to pursue a sexual relationship with you. That you have blown out your hearing and put vital organs at risk, and have shortened your lifespan as a result of this abuse.

I hate that you lied to me, even as early as a month ago, about what you did. That you think I couldn't have figured out you've cheated abroad, on business trips, with streetwalkers and transgenders/men, anonymous encounters, group sex, the excessive drug use, the unprotected sex of all kinds, the sex recordings, etc. without you telling me. That you have ALWAYS underestimated what I am capable of.

I hate that I will never be able to trust you on trips away without me again, and that you have put me in a position to place boundaries like no more travel for work, ever, that make ME look like the unreasonable one to everyone else because they don't know the whole story.

I hate that you chose to make recordings of me explicitly against my consent, and that I will never be able to know if with absolute certainty that no one will ever see it again.

I hate that as a result of your actions, I will spend thousands of hours and thousands of dollars in therapy and therapy-related activities and doing self care like preparing a post nup, excessive medical care, etc. That is not how I EVER wanted to spend my time and money, both of which are critically tight for me.

I hate that as a result of your actions, your choices, I am going through the absolute worst crisis of my life and I can't share it with my best friend, my mother and father, or my sister because it will forever impact they way they view you, your relationship with our children, and with me. Because I can't remotely risk them exposing our children to that knowledge right now and forever damaging them no matter how noble their intentions and efforts. I hate that I have had to rely solely on a network of complete strangers to get my through this.

I hate that my greatest fear is I am setting an example for our children that it is okay to endure something like this from the one you promise to love, honor and cherish for the rest of your life. Even worse, I fear you are teaching them it is okay to do this to the person you make such promises to. That one day one of them will be a sex addict, and I will find out when they die or are imprisoned, or after some equally horrific event, as a result of their actions that they learned from you.

I hate all the secrecy we have to maintain because of your actions. I live in fear the wrong person will find out, and it will forever ruin our lives even further than they are now. That you will lose your job/career, no one will want their kids to come over, no one will touch us with a ten foot pole. I hate how the general population would assume that it is in some way MY fault you are the way your are, when nothing could be further from the truth.

I hate that even a year later you are still very broken and can't see what you are. Can't see how you treat me. That you still feel entitled and victimized and still stick your head in the sand and pretend you can go on like nothing happened for the most part. That you are still lying to yourself and others, about more minor things, but still lying pretty much all the time without even realizing it. That I can't know if you will ever be able to overcome any of this.

I hate what you have done has made me become, over our marriage and especially in the last year. When I read what typically happens to spouses of sex addicts, I thought that could never happen to me, that only happens to people who choose to stay with addicts that refuse to get help and continue to lie to their spouse. That I would never become the bitter, resentful, crazy person that spouses of addicts can become. But I have. And I hate that I have to reassure myself about things like it is ok that I don't want to violently kill you, that that can be a normal and healthy response. I hate that I envy people who would have taken a Xanax, filed for divorce, sent the kids to the grandparents, and gone on a girlfriends only cruise to vent and plan the ultimate revenge.

I hate as result of this transformation in me, you have compromised my ability to parent. That our kids miss their old mom, the one that was fun and spontaneous, patient and loved them beyond question, that was always there for them and always put them first. Now they have a mom who is often sad or angry, has a very short fuse, has trouble doing fun things with them and lines up babysitter after babysitter to go off to do unknown things that she often comes back even sadder and more unfocused on them than before she left.

I hate that you have made the possibility that I will have to leave you, that I will have no choice, a very real possibility. That you had a YEAR to try to make things right, and you chose for the most part not to. Through the worst of it, I never wanted to leave. But I can't keep living with someone who lies to me.

I hate that I feel like I will never be safe again.

I hate that against all odds, even if we both do everything in our power to save us, and we succeed, I am still settling for less than I truly deserve.

BS 43, SAWH 38. M 15years, together 17. Body count in the triple digits. Both in recovery, trying to R.
Three kids under age 11.

posts: 1503   ·   registered: Jun. 21st, 2011
id 6534812
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 plainpain (original poster member #40139) posted at 3:39 AM on Thursday, October 24th, 2013

(((hathnofury)))

I am afraid that if I see it all on a paper just like that, I will have to give myself a shake and I just won't comprehend how I can actually forgive him. But I feel like I have to acknowledge, if only for myself, just exactly what he has done. It's like I can process it in pieces, but to put the whole thing together... it's just too much.

Me: Believer, 40s
Him: Liar, 40s
Married 19 years
1 year EA/2 month PA/incidental infidelities I can't begin to process
OC born 2014
OW:21
In successful R. It only hurts now when it rains.

posts: 875   ·   registered: Jul. 31st, 2013
id 6535040
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hathnofury ( member #32550) posted at 4:22 AM on Thursday, October 24th, 2013

(((plainpain)))

I wrote mine a year after DD. I don't think I could have written something like that even if I knew all the details sooner. Don't force it now when you are not ready.

What is important is to write what is happening and what you feel as you feel it now somewhere. Because you will want to look at it later as you process things and find out new information. You will see yourself getting stronger, and healing no matter how things turn out. You aren't under any sort of deadline to forgive, or even accept what has happened. You do everything at your own pace.

Everything you are feeling is totally justified and normal. With time it gets better. Right now you just need to focus on what is best for you, so you can do what's best for your children. You don't have to explain anything to anyone, just do it for yourself. And keep posting, there are so many here that know exactly what you are going through and can give you ideas how to get through it. There is no "right" way, just what is right for you in that moment.

BS 43, SAWH 38. M 15years, together 17. Body count in the triple digits. Both in recovery, trying to R.
Three kids under age 11.

posts: 1503   ·   registered: Jun. 21st, 2011
id 6535082
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Thefly559 ( member #40268) posted at 8:43 PM on Thursday, October 24th, 2013

Hathnofury that was very deep and emotional and painful for me to read. It is so similar to how we all feel. It sounds like my writings in the beginning when I journaled to release the pain. I am sorry we are all here.

"respect? you don't deserve it, you won't get any from me unless you earn it"

posts: 1033   ·   registered: Aug. 11th, 2013   ·   location: nyc
id 6535994
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