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Hi William,

Just wanted to reach out and say I'm sorry you are hurting so bad. So many of us identify with the trauma. I think you were in shock initially, which is why you were able to appear so calm and level-headed. It is no surprise that you reached a breaking point where previous coping mechanisms failed you. No surprise at all.

What you are feeling is totally normal. Whether you are a Marine (thanks for your service btw) or not, you have experienced trauma (different trauma from previous) but this is trauma. You have to expect effects. They often say around here, "You can't go around the pain, you have to go through it".

There are many wise experienced people here. They will help guide you. Some of us are here to empathize and listen. We're not ready with true-life experience and examples of how to get through this -- we're still in the battle ourselves. But those wise SI souls know their $hit. I can parrot them, but I'm still working to implement their advice.

I'm almost at my one-year mark and have made a monumental step forward today (actually my WH has...). We've been cautiously in R, but today he finally started digging deep and admitting things to me and himself and started proactive, self-motivated actions to further his own healing.

There are some on SI who insist that the WS be immediately remorseful and willing to move heaven and earth to R. My WS wasn't. It came gradually. He did not follow the W script or handbook. But he is making huge strides forward.

My point is that try to look at the overall trajectory when you look at the healing process. There are more huge peaks and valleys on this journey. It's inevitable. But you are strong and you will make it. You will be okay.

One day at a time. One hour. One moment if necessary. One foot in front of the other and you are still moving. Hang in there. You. Will. Be. Okay.

thank you for your words.

i have realized and accepted that i cant get through this alone. lots of traumatic hours spent calling around trying to establish a VA file, figure out how to arrange stuff with them being that i live in italy, finding counselors in italy that speak english, figuring out how i fit in within the national health service here and what they can do (and how many months i need to twiddle my thumbs before they do it), etc. each step wants to know the "why" i need help ... its pretty emotionally exhausting to open up and tell them ... well, stuff i crammed into the box when i was in the military is coming out and ... my wife cheated on me multiple times with multiple people in multiple ways over an extended period of time.

i have to go through it to get help BUT that doesnt make going through it any easier.

ive been talking with my wife. she isnt holding back anymore. in some she glossed over stuff that i then misunderstood and in some cases she was very clear and i still misunderstood. in other cases i understand.

we discussed the one night her extended PA guy was in our home, around my child, and in my bed

we discussed the first person she behaved inappropriately with - which ran all the way into a full sexual encounter.

we are going to continue discussing things until its all out. i guess the next thing on "the agenda" is the next person she acted inappropriately with - a guy she exchanged graphic texts/pics with and was planning on a 3-some with

then i guess we go on down the WAY TOO LONG of a list of guys and throw that sh1t into the sunlight.

she agrees a marriage is over when the freaking papers are served but yet offers up "i dont know" or i thought the marriage was over so i didnt think it mattered". cognitive dissonance. she says she didnt believe i loved her anymore and crashed. but i can even trace via emails, sms, etc together that it was right when she was first starting her stuff that was when she rejected me the most in our life. its almost as if she went out and found the most gross, creepy, f'ed up in the head, dependant, psychologically unstable guys possible to mess around with while pushing me even further away. WHY THEM? why did she feel she had to push me away too? why do this? why anything? its almost like she was trying to hurt not just me but herself. why? its not like she found some nice guy or oops it happened. she pursued them. she initiated everything with each of them. why them? why do this? "i dont know" is very exasperating and scary - if she doesnt know how whatever flipped a switch in her happened and how to stop that switch from flipping then how can i trust her when she says it wont ever happen again?

me - panic attacks, shaking, vomiting, unable to concentrate, black outs, sometimes feeling suicidal, and a host of other issues. the stresss i had buried from my time in the marines (multiple combat ops, etc) is all coming out too. a bit disconcerting to dream of the time a friends brains splashed me all over the face (gas mask, worn, luckily) cand then a second later to dream she is having sex with some guy.

her - being very supportive, being transparent and honest (i think shes being honest. i dont know. i dont know if she sugar coats it to make me feel better or if its the truth. i have no foundation of trust to stand on, my world was swept apart. she used TT on me for over 7 months. i do know she is telling me stuff that i would NEVER have discovered on my own.), showing true remorse, and trying to help me. no longer hiding stuff, no blameshifting, no rug sweeping, no gas lighting. alot of pain, shame, guilt, and regret. shes agreed to a poly, we probably do it in april or may. she agreed to remove toxic people from our lives who arent friends of our marriage, she lost 99% of her friends in one fell swoop (many in a huge circle of friends that dont know about the affairs but do know the people she had the affairs with).

some of the details i hear make me wonder. she denies she ever had an orgasm with any of them. how can you have sex with someone 4-6 times and 10-15 "other" sexual encounters with one particular guy and never freaking orgasm? how? why go back? she says the sex was always very mechanical and devoid of anything - but i wonder. no way to find that one out because the only other person who would know is the guy(s) and they have no interest in being honest or maybe they dont know. she says she wrote terrible things to them (about how she "cared" for them and "hated me"). i havent seen them yet. i still havent recovered her phone data. but i wonder how it will feel to read that sh1t. was it real? is what she saying now real? how do i know?

i havent really hit "anger" yet. i think im still in denial. i keep hoping that at some point i see or hear something makes me realize that it was all a bad dream, didnt happen, or somehow something changes an inexcapable truth. i know it wont come but im stuck there

i can feel a river of anger under everything. its there. but its distant, not tapped into, and im afraid what happens when it comes roaring out because im afraid that the things i might say are going to be really evil and make things worse. the few times anger poked out for a second i said some pretty harsh things (true things, but in a very vicious way designed - subconciously?- to hurt her).

im sorry you are all here (its a terrible club) but i am so thankful that you are all here because without you id be lost. i dont know if i said that right but its meant in the nicest possible way. i know i come to this site everyday. i spend hours here. reading. it helps me. you all help me. without you id be lost.thank you!

Hi William,

I am so glad you are pursuing C and realize you need it. You've been hit by major trauma and from what I've seen, often recent trauma "opens the vaults" of old trauma too.

I'm sure you must feel completely overwhelmed. It's so hard to sit in front of a screen and know there are people out there REALLY hurting and struggling, and all we can do is offer comfort and hope via a few words on our keyboard.

Every person who's read your story, I'm sure, wishes they could reach out and give you a hug, tell you that you will be okay, or sit with you and have a beer. We are on your side and wish you the very best.

So sorry for your pain. Your heart and soul have been through the meat grinder. Focus on the very basics: food, water, exercise, sleep. Get through one minute at a time. Find something to do that you enjoy. You need to do triage to yourself first.

Keep posting. Hang in there. It will, eventually, get better. You are strong. You will be okay.

thanks.

it feels like swimming in a disgusting river. the BIG facts are out but finding out everything about so much stuff is a killer. we have really only covered 3 of the some odd 8-9 people/things to cover and it feels like it took an eternity to do so. the really big affair (the long term ea/pa) is still to come. hearing this stuff is reducing me to jelly. not knowing is worse but god, we can only talk about this so much at a given time so it just stretches out and out and out and feels like a never ending saga .

my wife is being upfront and she gives what i ask but i cant help but show disgust on my face, react with some anger, and end up crying and shaking. its pretty hard on us both. shes disgusted at what she did but it makes me so !

she is terrified that i wont ever be able to get this stuff out of my mind. shes been afraid to go to work or comes home early because shes afraid i will hurt myself. that cant continue forever or she gets in trouble.

im now 2 weeks over a FIRM deadline for my book (due to translation times needed and market windows) and i cant even seem to work on it. it NEEDS to be done, the publisher is being really good (take your time, its okay is their message) but ultimately if i dont get it done NOW then it needs to wait another 6-8 months or maybe even a year and misses a big opportunity. argh!

Hey william. Wanted to let you know that I just read your thread and my heart goes out to you. Not that I can relate to too many pieces of your story, but one thing that struck a chord with me was your dreams. A lot of my old baggage is now coming out of me. I'm not a vet and would never pretend have anything in common, but my brother committed suicide back when and if I wanted anything to remember him by, I literally had to scrape his brains off it. I know the picture and it ain't easy. My heart goes out to you and I will be following you now.

Good luck with all of this. Wishing you all of the strength in the world to get you through.

And I don't mean to be trite when I say...Thank you for your service. Really. Thank you.

[This message edited by yearsofpain25 at 1:18 PM, January 29th (Wednesday)]

My exWBF also told me often in false R that the sex he had was meaningless and made him feel empty and made him miss me more...that he had to use viagara and it wasn't rewarding, that the sex he had with me in false R was mind-blowing and connected and didn't even deserve to have the same name as the other times with different women. And yet while he was telling me this, he was keeping up the same behavior in secret.

"Why" is a question that will torment you. And the only real answer is: because they are broken. And unfortunately we get swept up as collateral damage. She had an amazing man in you, and couldn't take it...what a shame.

I am glad you aren't getting blameshifting now and wish you the best of luck and all the strength in the world as you keep facing this down. Do get help, it will carry you through.

As for the book...I work in publishing. If the manuscript is a little late, and you miss a target, it's not the end of the world and happens often.

yeah.

i hear from her NOW that his /the long term EA/PA) smell made her sick, his sounds, his touch. that she never loved him but tried to convince herself that she did. that sex was terrible. that she hated it the whole time. that she never orgasmed.

ive read some of her emails she sent to herself at the time. in it, she talks about how she felt she loved him. that one time she smelt the smells of sex on her the whole next day and loved it. that she felt so good when he had sex with her. she talks about a jacuzzi, a hotel.

ive asked her to reconcile those things (no, we havent talked about him yet in our talks ... we still have lots of other people to get through first, im following an order of "when" it happened ). i hear, i orgasmed, but never from what he was doing. sometimes while he was doing it but never from what he was doing. sometimes i touched myself when he went to the bathroom. she says jacuzzi was a fantasy, never went to a hotel.

its hard to reconcile these two vastly different views that she is giving me. she tries to tell me how she feels NOW about what happened which is good. i need that. but its hard to know what she was thinking when it happened because i get two diametrically opposing view points (her writings versus what she says), it makes me feel sometimes that she is full of sh1t. other times when she asks me "if i really felt that way about him, id still be with me, he wanted me, i broke it off. i chose you. i feel so ashamed. i want you. i love you. please, cant you see that" i believe her.

i dont know. did anyone else experience this kind of weird dissonance between the events you can research and the ws view of the events now?

also, i - again - wanted to thank you all for helping.

YOP25 - yeah. you get it. its a BRUTAL chain of thoughts. i collapse under the chain. i heard a truck this morning cleaning street. it made a sound like start of an air raid siren. boom. then thoughts of stuff, then her, then stuff, then her, then collapse. how did you handle this? did you take anything? does it trigger you sometimes?

ss1 - thanks. im looking into roller blading. never done it. i buy my first set ever next week. i plan on spending hours sliding along the streets.

nora - you are right. but its so hard. my head knows that but my heart hasnt accepted it. the conflict is enormous.

the va people are driving me crazy. never answer. shuffle me along.

Hey William,

just wanted to affirm that you are not alone brother...

in some ways your 'why' is easier than what a lot of us have to deal with - because when a WW purposely seeks out to be degraded it reveals that she is severely hosed up emotionally. So the answer to your why question is that your wife is majorly disturbed emotionally.

Many of us don't have it clear cur - I will elaborate more later if I can - but when it is not so obvious, the WW can remain in the state of self-delusion that her feelings were 'reality' and that the M is wrong or the H is the 'wrong' guy. In thus case, you remain in a limbo without knowing it, and the WW is not heavily motivated to dig deep.

anyways, we pulling for you.

mc jack - i had never looked at it that way. i do see your point. i guess which is easier to understand depends on which pair of shoes you are standing in. i can understand the self delusions better than the sheer crazy nature. sigh...

but ty. actually i think your reply hits it on the head and sooner or later i need to accept that this was the actions of someone seriously emotionally disturbed. i know that in my head but the heart is slower. also, it makes me really afraid that she just flips that switch again and goes crazy again.

william - I'm sorry you're here. Regarding the do it again issue, there is no guarantee...that's one of the risks we have to take if we R. I will say however, if your WW has emotional issues (mine does too), unless she's got a good therapist and can really change the way she looks at the world, the chances of recidivism are probably a lot higher.

Peace

YOP25 - yeah. you get it. its a BRUTAL chain of thoughts. i collapse under the chain. i heard a truck this morning cleaning street. it made a sound like start of an air raid siren. boom. then thoughts of stuff, then her, then stuff, then her, then collapse. how did you handle this? did you take anything? does it trigger you sometimes?

Hey william. I wish I had an answer for you and if you find one please let me know. My problem is I repressed this stuff deep down and I thought I had been fine with all of it for a long time. Truth is I never dealt with any of it. I was everybody else's rock and I was already emotionally detached at the time it all went down. I've continued to be that rock, or "dead inside" as my wife used to say (out of love), so I've never dealt with any of it. Here I am 25 years later and my mother caused a trigger that buried me under an avalanche that I'm now trying to get out from under. I don't want to thread jack you here as this should be about you. If you're interested and have an hour to kill, I vomited out about 80% of my issues with 4 threads called Dealing with an affair 25 years later. Careful with Part 4 which is where I dropped a nuke with some of the graphic details of my brothers death. I knew that was going to stir the pot a little for some of the people here on SI. I've received some pm's on some of this stress stuff. Crazy shit out there my friend. You know all about it.

To give you some more details outside of all that vomit that I posted, my chain plays out a bit different than yours. Since my brothers death in 1994, it's played out as a black and white movie about someone else's life in my head. It doesn't seem real and yet I know it is. Mine isn't caused by sounds. The "flashbacks" come mostly when I'm alone. Especially in my car. Out of no where it will hit me like a 2x4 across my face. Or there are some things in movies or tv that will cause it. I'm starting to come to the conclusion that if I get a visual where two people are close and one of them dies violently and unexpectedly, it will trigger the film in my head. But mostly in my car or in the shower by myself when I have too much time to think. It kinda goes like this:

queue black and white countdown at beginning of movie...counting back from 4...3...2...1...

bring up first scene of cleaning remnants from the insides of my brothers head off of a green dragon figurine that he owned. This image will stay up anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds....fade to black...

bring up next image of yellow crime scene tape across his bedroom door. This image will stay up anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds....fade to black...

bring up next scene of him saying his silent goodbyes and my b-day party before he killed himself. This image will stay up anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds....fade to black...

bring up next image of splattered suicide note in contaminated evidence bag. This image will stay up anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds....fade to black...

bring up next scene of cleaning up said crime scene with my dad several months after his suicide. This image will stay up anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds....fade to black...

bring up any number of scenes from the toxic environment I grew up in. This image will stay up anywhere from 5 to 10 seconds....fade to black...

Then repeat. You get the idea.

Afterwards my coping mechanism of wanting to have sex appears. I don't do conventional drugs, but my drug of choice is sex. Sex is my escape and makes me feel physically better and mentally better for a little bit as it's an escape for me. And that's how I dealt with it...until now. Which is why I'm here on SI and vomited here like I did. I know I need IC but have been afraid to face all of this shit. I guess I will go and find a way with IC to deal.

If you find an answer to the "footage at 11 images" in your head, let me know. Having a dark morbid sense of humor is also one of my coping mechanisms.

As for the rest of it. I feel for you william. Unfortunately I agree with many of the others here in that your WW is the key to how you are going to be able to work through a lot of this. There are no guarantees that she won't slip and it won't happen again. What triggered a lot of what's going on now with me is that my mother started to get all weepy and started talking about the OM from her EA/PA from 25 years ago. For her it never did end and the damage to my family of origin (FOO) is still on going. That doesn't mean that it can't end for your wife. But she's the key to it and unfortunately I can honestly say after 25 years, there's nothing you can do about it. She has to fix herself. You can only fix yourself. You don't even have the entire story yet. That's the reality. I want to be optimistic for you and sounds like you guys are working though it to possibly get to R? Ultimately you will know what works best for you and the two of you as a couple.

Hang in there william. I'm thinking of you.

thanks!

if i figure it out ill bottle it and send it to you.

i was doing "okay" until i looked through her old emails. she deleted almost everything - either when she got it (what she says) or at some later point. who knows at this point (although most took place over the i-phone - something i now HATE with a passion). anyway, i find emails to herself about her one long term EA/PA.

-how she hates him and loves him.

-how oral sex together.

- how she has never been loved.

- how she wants him to give her more oral sex and how he tells her how good she tastes.

- how she wants to be able to kiss him in public.

- how she wants a night in a hotel with him and to use toys (both of which she says never happened)

- how she wants him more than ever

- how she wants to delete her present; being married and a mother.

- how 10 years around the world (with me) but she finds him in her old home town and it was worth the wait.

- how about jacuzzi (which she says never happened)

- how she cant wait to lick and caress him

- how he came inside of her (she swears with condom) and then he basically threw her out of his place

- how they exchanged rings (with skulls on them, so they could wear them "together")

- how "why is she a mom" and "why is she married" and that these two things mean she cant offer enough to him and she is afraid that he will leave her because of them.

- how she went to his house, fell asleep waiting for him, he came in, she woke up (she claims she never went to his house to wait for him).

- how her body mixed with hers

- how when she got her belly button pierced she was so worried about the piercing that she couldnt enjoy his tongue.

then a charming one to the tattoo studio of her ONS. she writes the secretary a few days after her ONS and tells the secretary to thank the guy for his "good job", which of course can be taken two ways and im sure it was meant both.

the details are the killer. god.

william. I'm so sorry. Saying those details are rough is an understatement. What I'm about to say to you may sound harsh. I don't mean it to. My perspective is not coming from that of a betrayed spouse. My perspective is from the betrayed child. Yes. Your daughter has been betrayed in all of this too.

That list of details you have here. I have an almost identical list in my head from my mother's diary. Same points, only with all of the graphic details to with each point you have listed (minus the tattoo and belly button piercing - wtf). I even have a few details where she mentioned teaching my brother and I how to be "expert lovers". Dude! That's my mom!!! I'll spare you the gross details. The point is, your wife's thinking is identical to my mother's thinking. Not to say that she is the same person. She isn't, but this line of thinking is absolute poison. She is broken and you cannot fix her. Flash forward 25 years to see where my mother's thinking is at...it's the same as it was at the beginning. 25 years of psychiatrists, psychologists, and a pillbox the size of your old footlocker and I can honestly say, that line of thinking has not changed at all. It has wrecked havoc on my entire life. My family was obliterated by that thinking.

Narcissism. They create this fantasy world for themselves. It's not that they are trying to hurt anyone else, they just don't think about ANYONE else whatsoever. All that matters is what is good for them in their own fantasy world. I've had to deal with it my entire life. She's my mother. I can't get out. After 25 years I have seen her lose it all from this line of thinking. My dad, me (she was never a parent to me again the day I read that diary), my brother, jobs, friends, and the funny thing is...she doesn't see it. She doesn't see any of it. Never has. Never will. She will twist anything around so that it suits her line of thinking. SHE WILL NEVER GET IT. Maybe things for your wife will be different. I really hope so.

I say this out of love for you and your daughter as someone who lived through that nightmare. If it were me knowing what I know, if I were you, I would get out. Easier said than done with a loved one I know. And who am I to tell another human being what to do with their life. Just consider what I've said is all.

william. I really am thinking of you. Your situation makes me very sad. I will keep you in my thoughts.

I start my own IC for the first time on Mon next week. If I beat you to that answer, maybe I will send you the bottle.

With love,

yop

ETA: My mom has said a bunch of stupid shit lately. I'm pretty sure she's now sleeping with my dad's best friend and one of her co-workers too. They "do things for her to take care of her so she's not alone". Whatever.

[This message edited by yearsofpain25 at 7:59 AM, February 4th (Tuesday)]

a really "shocking" detail is that

- in aug 2011 she decided she was "done" with me and she began in sept 2011 with a ONS and much electronic exchangings of pics, sexting, etc. its like the switch flicked.

- around christmas/jan of 2012 her LTA guy and her began to have serious problems. they broke it off (but started it again shortly after, i think - this is the one relationship we still have left to discuss so i dont know many details) she exchanged a massive flury of sexual emails+ pics with many guys, she had a ONS - all within a few weeks of these problems/breakup.

- in mid may she decided that she was done with the LTA and ended it. in june we began to talk about reconciliation and even had a roughly 6 month false reconciliation (false because she significantly lied and covered up the affairs, claiming there was one and that it was never physical - so basically a sack of lies to build upon).

i sense a TERRIFYING pattern here...

your mom is one scary individual too.

my wife's mother as well. rampant sexual, physical, verbal abuse in the house of my wife growing up as a small child. some of the stories make me cringe. she has "black spots" in her memory for periods that extend over several years which says whatever happened then is very traumatic indeed.

do you still have contact with your mom?

I do still have contact with her. We get together about twice a year. She comes to my house for x-mas, and there is one family vacation she has come with us on these past 3 years. I'm starting to rethink letting her on these "vacations" with us. I moved two states away so that I could keep her at arms distance but still get to her when I had to, suicide attempts, etc. I talk to her minimally by phone or even when in person. My wife actually does most of the talking.

Over the years people have told me to cut her out of my life. Like you, I can't do that. I never did look to her as a parent again after dday. But she is my blood. I do have many positive and happy memories with her. I do lover her. She is my mom after all. But I have never trusted her. She has never shown anything to try and win back any trust. She doesn't care about that. That doesn't suit HER needs. I have lots of rage issues, especially when she's around. I'm completely on edge and sometimes I want to scream at her. My rage is right under the surface and sometimes I will even shake. I never do scream at her or show her in any way that I have issues with her. I like to think that I'm better than that and above all of it. What would be the point. I've said stuff in the past. It doesn't matter. She twists it around so that I'm either a terrible child with anger as she thinks I'm being disrespectful or she'll twist it into..."oh poor me". I've given up a long time ago trying to repair anything with her. Why bother? Makes for a hard life.

My dad and I had a conversation about the entire mess recently. We have both come to the conclusion that neither of us can make her happy. She can't make herself happy. Therefore, she will never be happy and will continue to never think of the consequences of her actions.

i sense a TERRIFYING pattern here...

Honestly, this is pretty bad--there is something very wrong with her that she is going to have to fix. The timeframe for that no matter what is incredibly long--and that's if she commits to it and hits a place where she can see her actions without the mist of justification fogging them up. I really don't how how she can become safe for you or anyone else anytime soon.

Honestly, this is pretty bad--there is something very wrong with her that she is going to have to fix. The timeframe for that no matter what is incredibly long--and that's if she commits to it and hits a place where she can see her actions without the mist of justification fogging them up. I really don't how how she can become safe for you or anyone else anytime soon.

yeah. it scares the dickens out of me.

every relationship, always, in the history of the world has problems and at some points the problems are bigger or more serious and life is always going to have moments of huge stress. thats just the way it is.

her reaction to these stresses and problems is to make extremely unhealthy and dangerous decisions, almost without even thinking about it. flip a switch, flip it back, flip it again - a self destructive pattern of behavior.

its not even about going out to find "something nice" ( ) - the last ONS ... he SPIT on her face a few times while having sex with her and basically used her like a piece of meat. she tells me that she didnt like it, didnt orgasm, etc ... but that a few hours and days later she was thinking about going back to do it again. its basically looking to punish herself somehow - or maybe to punish the entire world by punishing herself. i dont know.

this kind of mindset is completely alien to me. this is all stuff that i never saw, never knew was lurking under the surface, and now that i know it is there ... it scares me.

it puts me in an impossible situation, almost. i can verify everything she tells me, watch her to the best of my ability, we can work on R and M together, and through it all it can be completely sincere from her part. then stress or something arises and ... boom ... the switch gets flipped again.

i CANT watch her every movement. i CANT control what she does. i CANT make her make wise decisions. I CANT remove every temptation from her life. i CANT remove every stress and problem from her life forever. i CANT predict if and when the switch gets flipped. but yet, somehow i am supposed to slowly build trust in her knowing that this is the elephant in the room and that its a very real thing.

it puts me in a crappy position. in order to R i have to allow her to rebuild trust. in order to have a healthy M i have to trust her. yet ... there is this crazy switch inside of her. its like trusting an alcoholic to hang out in a bar all night with friends pleading with them to take "just one drink" - how can one do that? how can i do this?

the other really terrifying part is that we have yet to really explore her LTA. i feel i need to know in order to move on. yet, im scared as hell to know.

im not even sure if i get "all" the details - not because she is lying but because evidently "she cant remember" all sorts of really basic things. did you have oral sex with the last ONS? "i dont know, naybe, i cant remember". how can you NOT know? jeez! argh. i end this now before i either get really start or

woke up last night with a terrible dream. sometimes i feel this whole thing is a terrible dream.