SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So, here's my issue: I'm 13 months out from DDAY (as of today, I think) and my wife has exhibited some tremendous growth personally, despite some early battles over things like timelines, and friends of the marriage.

Here's where I'm stuck: I have a tremendous amount of negative feelings related, I think, to the manipulation during the lead up to the affair, as well as the affair itself. My wife spazzed the fuck out several times during that time period....basically calling me a shitty husband, and trying to separate and/or divorce, all while saying I didn't do as much as her.

All this while she was in an EA, and then PA. Project much?

These feelings manifest themselves as anger outwardly, but it really pops up in moments of frustration and/or stressful situations.

It's almost as if the affair resentment is sitting below the surface, and when unassociated negative feelings arise (due to work stress, or issues with my family, or whatever) the affair-based resentment gets brought up to the surface along with the other stuff, which would lead me to believe that I'm not dealing with it properly.

Now, therein lies the rub.

I don't know how to deal with it. I'm a thinker; I intellectualize, rationalize, and analyze. I tried working out, but the frustration and exhaustion that comes along with exercising brings all that bad shit to the surface and I get reaaaaallll "fuck it", real quick. I don't know how to approach this. I'm lost.

[This message edited by FacePunched at 2:47 PM, February 9th (Sunday)]

Oh I'm right with you. I'm normally very easy going, and tough to get riled up, but this has sent me into orbit.

I have never been, nor ever would be violent toward my wife, but she admits she has been shaken by how angry I've been at times.

The OM is in hiding; has moved his office to a secret location, changed his phone number, removed his website, and threatened me with a protective order. (if your state doesn't have these their intent is to protect women in cases of domestic violence. He should have to wear a skirt to get one)

I don't guess I can help you much though, as I have no idea what to do with the anger either. Can't beat the OM or he'd squeal all the way to the courthouse. What to do?

Bet you didn't even know it was possible to put a hole in the side of and ice chest with your fist? I feel sorry for the ice chest, its only mistake was falling off the freezer due to my own negligence.

The only thing that seems to help is to try to force yourself to stay busy. That gets old, then you resent having to work yourself so much, just to stay busy so you don't dwell....

[This message edited by Justgreatnews at 3:11 PM, February 9th (Sunday)]

FacePunched, you're not alone. You exactly articulated how I feel.

I too struggle with the A feelings seeping into all other areas of my life.

Washing the dishes isn't washing the dishes anymore. It's washing the dishes after your W has a long A.

Honestly, the best coping mechanism so far has been anti-depressants.

Facepunched, I'm like a broken record but I needed EMDR therapy to help me with PTSD symptoms and it helped me work through my anger and resentment too, because I was stuck. I'm a thinker too. I couldn't analyze my way out of this. I wasn't used to feeling a lot of emotions. I'd spent a life time of shutting them down and avoiding them.

Have you been able to express this anger to your wife directly or did you hold it in? Have you written out your feelings to get this stuff out somehow?

You have a lot to be angry and resentful about. So did I. But I also think of anger as a surface emotion. Are there other emotions underneath it that you haven't gotten into yet?

For example, during your wife's affair and she talked about S/D did you feel guilty for being a shitty husband that she said you were (even if you weren't)? Were you fearful that you were going to get divorced? Are you now angry at yourself for finding out that you were actually or that you were able to be manipulated/duped by your wife at that time?

I ask because those feelings were under all of my anger and resentment. The anger was all encompassing and masked all the others. It took a while to get through the anger and realize what else was there.

brings all that bad shit to the surface and I get reaaaaallll "fuck it", real quick.

What do you mean? It's gets overwhelming, so it's easier to just shut down and walk away?

Also I would add that Year 2 sucks. It just did.

I don't know what to say because I know it's not an easy road.

Just wanted to say thanks to everyone that has responded so far.... I'm at work, but I'll go all-in when I get home.

I know what you mean, I had an episode like this that started last Wednesday up to Saturday.

Here's where I'm stuck: I have a tremendous amount of negative feelings related, I think, to the manipulation during the lead up to the affair, as well as the affair itself. My wife spazzed the fuck out several times during that time period....basically calling me a shitty husband.

My wife said those things before her A. Basically told me that everything was my fault, she didn't had the life she could have, etc. She did not even remember saying those things. But it can't stop spinning in my head, even if she say now that she's the problem and have to fix everything.

I don't know how to deal with it. I'm a thinker; I intellectualize, rationalize, and analyze. I tried working out, but the frustration and exhaustion that comes along with exercising brings all that bad shit to the surface and I get reaaaaallll "fuck it", real quick. I don't know how to approach this. I'm lost.

Yesterday, when my strong episode of rage went down (I haven't told my wife, but I was strongly thinking about leaving her or beating the hell out of her COW), it was because my wife took the time to appease me. I took a couple of hours to think about what made me mad. I am also a thinker. I'm also used to find solutions to everything, and barely never fail (It's also my job, so...). But now, I can't fix her, I did it for too long, she have to find a way to fix herself.

From DixieD :

Are there other emotions underneath it that you haven't gotten into yet?

I think it is a good question. This is the conclusion I got to last night. Part of my anger is because I'm tired of going through this. I have the impression it is defining my life and I want to go through this.

Another part is really anger about what she did, the lying, manipulation, cheating, etc. How can an intelligent girl cannot think that she could lose her job, home, husband and childs for 15 minutes of fun?

And the last part is about her working on herself, but not telling often what she is going through, her plan, etc. She listen to me a lot, and do a lot so I can be better, but I need her to talk to me about what she is going through. I'm also under the impression that we are going back to routine, which is partly good, and partly scary...

The anger and resentment just sitting beneath everything, had been there quite a bit from time to time.

A lot of it is a lack of basic human respect for me and our family.

If anyone was to describe me before this latest A they would tell you I was probably the calmest, most even tempered easy going guy they knew. I had an incredibly low boiling point.

I have no idea what they even see now. Not sure I care. It's definitely not the person I used to be, that's for sure.

Excising while much needed was not helping me either. Just gave me more time to think about everything. Like you I tried to analyze and rationalize it, trying to make sense of something senseless. I found that trying to apply logic to insanity was itself insane, and doesn't work.

Not sure it a cure all, but I would like to recommend journaling to actually give form to those feelings and get them out of you. It is not something I did prior to DDay but I find it immensely helpful.

It's almost as if the affair resentment is sitting below the surface, and when unassociated negative feelings arise (due to work stress, or issues with my family, or whatever) the affair-based resentment gets brought up to the surface along with the other stuff, which would lead me to believe that I'm not dealing with it properly.

At 13 months I'd say that's pretty normal.

intellectualize, rationalize, and analyze.

I'm an INTP personality type. ^^^^^^ so I do a LOT of that. Unfortunately, the emotions brought up by A business, doesn't lend itself well to this type of thinking.

The problem is that after an A has been somewhat rationalized, analyzed and processed, it goes into the A file. Then when new negative "incidents" occur that A file gets accessed, along with the associated emotional trauma.

I go back and analyze it again to see how the A and the new incident might be related to each other. I look for patterns or changes in previous patterns. There might be useful new information to synthesize and use in other areas of my life.

I have found that the negative emotions have lessened with time and with each time I access the memories/information.

The knowledge of how I process, has been really helpful. I have learned that If I wait for the frustration and emotion to pass, I can get down to the business of organizing new information among old information.

It does mean that I need to get out of the situation immediately. I need some alone time to process before I discuss with FWH. Some things have parallels with the A, yet have absolutely nothing to do with it all. Knowing the difference helps me manage my responses and my frustrations.

Maybe you can find a way to use your natural tendency toward analysis to help you ride out the emotional wave.

I can relate to everything you wrote. At 13 months I was right there. Shit at 2 years I was still there. It was not until recently that it seems to be under control.

I look at it like a 16oz jar. Psychologically I can hold 16oz of stress before I say "fuck it". For the first year the jar was over flowing with A stress. As time and processing happened the amount of A stress decreased. During the second year the amount of A stress stayed right around the 16oz mark. Whenever a different stressor was added even if it was only a couple oz it made the A stress overflow.

When I was having a bad day Broevil would say "are you sure this isn't about work, or money, or your health?". It would piss me off because she was partially right. It was sparked by external stressors. But that was only half of the story. All of those other stressors were natural and if my jar was not already full to the rim Iwould have been able to handle them ok.

I think the solution is 2 fold. First being time, as processing time for the A goes by there is more room in the jar. Second is separating the different stressors realistically and being able to apply effort to them in the most practical and efficient way.

As I started dealing with my health issues there was more room in he jar. As I was able to deal with my work issues there was more room in the jar. As I was able to rebudget our lifestyle there was more room in the jar.

Great comments on this thread.

Thanks for the jar analogy, Chicho. That's a helpful way to think of it.

I'm not 13 months out, and my jar is definitely overflowing with A already. I think I could fill up 2 jars with A right now. So today, while we're packing and moving to another house, I feel so angry and resentful I can barely breathe.

And I, too, a logical, analytical thinker. ISTP. So add lots of details to the mix. But even if I can get my mind to grasp A issues intellectually, my emotions just don't give a f*ck. And that's fairly new territory for me.

I guess I need to get used to it if this is where I can plan on being a year from now, too.

My metaphor is a pipeline of feelings. It's got a finite capacity, but the total amount of grief, rage, and fear is far greater than the pipeline can transport quickly. On D-Day, it hits max capacity, and stays there for a while - 2, maybe 2.5 years for me. That's all....

IMO, you've got to stop intellectualizing. These are feelings, bro, and you have to feel them to let them go. You can't think them away...that's simply not how our brains seem to work.

Physical activity helps a lot with anger - writing your anger out, or hitting something safe, or throwing a baseball at a photo of...well, you may want to start with om, but you'll probably change quickly to a photo of your W....

Some people think anger masks other feelings. That's true for a lot of us, some of the time. It's equally true that anger can be a 'true' feeling; it can even be masked itself by other feelings. IMO, real anger is a necessary part of recovering from being betrayed.

Try to take this one poster at a time. Here goes:

DixieD-

Have you been able to express this anger to your wife directly or did you hold it in? Have you written out your feelings to get this stuff out somehow?

So, the stuff that bother me most frequently is stuff that I've already shared with my wife, yeah. I don't think I feel 'safe' expressing my anger to her. Not in the physical sense, mind you. I've never so much as touched a woman in anger. My wife's mother cheated on her husband when my wife was 4, and the man stripped her clothes off while beating her and calling her a whore and other things. My wife took her 2 year old sister and hid in the corner and cried while this was happening. So that being the case, male anger and/or rage is something that I don't know how to express around her in a manner that is both cathartic for me, and non-threatening to her, because I know the history there.

For example, during your wife's affair and she talked about S/D did you feel guilty for being a shitty husband that she said you were (even if you weren't)? Were you fearful that you were going to get divorced? Are you now angry at yourself for finding out that you were actually or that you were able to be manipulated/duped by your wife at that time?

Yes, to all of the above. I am angry because she was guilting me into thinking that I was a bad husband while she was fucking my friend. I was mad because she bitched and whined to our friends and co-workers about the work *I* wasn't doing at home, even though we had talked about the fact that the work distribution was going to be uneven while I finished school. I'm mad that my (now former) friend never apologized to me. I'm angry that I handled DDAY1 all wrong, and that I feel like had I stayed hypervigilant a little while longer, the PA wouldn't have happened. I'm angry that, even to this day, people look at me like *I'm* the lucky one in the couple who managed to snag someone out of his league...because during the affair and the lead up, my wife always whined about me to her friends about our marriage issues, while I kept my mouth shut and covered up for her shitty behavior, and in some ways I'm still doing it now, with the affair.

What do you mean? It's gets overwhelming, so it's easier to just shut down and walk away?

What I mean is that for some people anger is a motivational, energetic emotion. Anger has a lot of 'oomph' to it, and some people can channel that into working extra hard, or working out, or whatever. Not me. For example, if I start going to work out, when things get tough and I get frustrated, then all the other angry, affair-related thoughts creep in and I just lose focus and want to quit whatever it is that I'm doing. If it's work, I want to walk out. If it's the gym, I just want to leave. Maybe it is a way to get those angries to simmer back down so I can avoid them.

The only time anger is a motivating factor for me is when it comes to lashing out at people who hurt me. This is going to sound fucked up, but I do my best cutting, sarcastic, self-esteem crushing work when I'm hurt or angry. I don't do this to people within my circle, though. So, for example, my wife, family, friends are all spared from verbal daggers, because if they something hurtful, I give them the benefit of the doubt that it was unintentional. And so I have this drive to be vengeful and vindictive towards the people who hurt me, but I refuse to direct it at my wife, and I can't direct it at OM because the consequences are too high. So I don't know where it goes.

Greengiant-

Another part is really anger about what she did, the lying, manipulation, cheating, etc. How can an intelligent girl cannot think that she could lose her job, home, husband and childs for 15 minutes of fun?

And the last part is about her working on herself, but not telling often what she is going through, her plan, etc. She listen to me a lot, and do a lot so I can be better, but I need her to talk to me about what she is going through. I'm also under the impression that we are going back to routine, which is partly good, and partly scary...

Right on, on both of these points. My wife is an intelligent woman who runs her own business, keeps mental track of all of our various schedules and appointments in her head, and always knows exactly what we need at the grocery store....so how the HELL did she not ever think of the consequences, not once, not for a second?!?

I'm right there with you on the second part, too. My wife is doing work on herself, and I see changes, but she doesn't ever talk about the mental aspect of the work she's doing....but she always wants to know what's going on in my head. It's to the point where I'm ready to just say, "No. If you want a ticket to ride the rollercoaster inside my brain, the cost of entry is sharing what's in your noggin, unprompted."

I think the solution is 2 fold. First being time, as processing time for the A goes by there is more room in the jar. Second is separating the different stressors realistically and being able to apply effort to them in the most practical and efficient way.

It's a good simile, Chicho. I think that where I get hung up is that I can parse out the various stressors while it's happening. Meaning, if work is pissing me off, I know at the moment that it's work that is pissing me off; I don't lose sight of that. However, the affair-related anger starts rumbling to the surface, and when I tell myself, "Calm down....you're really just angry/frustrated with work..." the other side of my brain says back, "So what? Fuck that. It might be work that kicked this party off, but you have a right to be fucking livid about all this other stuff, too. Have at it."

Thanks all. I await your next round of thoughts.

Cross-posted with you, Sisoon.

IMO, you've got to stop intellectualizing. These are feelings, bro, and you have to feel them to let them go. You can't think them away...that's simply not how our brains seem to work.

Yeah, I agree. I just don't know how. I might go to IC, I think. We can't really afford it financially, but I don't feel like I can afford to wait emotionally.

FP - I could have written your post, just a couple months ago even.

With time comes a little peace. You get further away from the bullshit and it appears smaller in the distance.

Being angry at yourself is just so difficult it's almost impossible get to the other side!

Wondering if you can forgive yourself for what you deem as screw ups -

I'm angry that I handled DDAY1 all wrong, and that I feel like had I stayed hypervigilant a little while longer, the PA wouldn't have happened

Ic will help.

The resentment will fade. they say around here the 2nd year can be the worst.

FP - IC could be really good for you. A lot of them have sliding scales for those who can't afford it. You may get assistance through your employer as well. Or you can invite the BM thread over to your house, provide the beer, and we'll give you a century of collective IC.

FP, I feel like I'm in a pretty similar place.

My wife also did some shitty things during her A, not to mention the BS that came after DDay. She did her best to convince me I was the sole reason for our marriage going sour, and while I was trying to convince her to go to MC so we could attempt to fix it, she left me for a week. That was two months before DDay. She came back and agreed to go to MC where we all we talked about was how I was fucking up our marriage.

Ok, so after writing that, I can feel the bitterness and resentment coming up. It mostly seems to sit just under the surface, content to fester until I get frustrated or angry, then it permeates my thoughts.

I guess I don't really have any help for you, but wow do I relate to this. It just seems like so much to deal with, I don't know where to start.

At 20 months (does that count as Year 2? Or am I not even in Year 2 yet? God help me if this gets worse!), I too am feeling EXACTLY like you FP. I am very angry some of the time, with that very angry feeling sitting just beneath the surface the rest of the time. I don't have any words of wisdom, but I wanted to tell you how much it has helped me today to hear that others are feeling the same way as me. I'm not crazy! I think continuing to release our feelings to each other, people who understand the way we feel, can be the best release. Free counseling in a way. I just wanted to thank you for hitting me where I needed it today by speaking the words I am too wound up to speak.

Or you can invite the BM thread over to your house, provide the beer, and we'll give you a century of collective IC.

I second Tred's suggestion.

Man I have to tell you that IC really helped me.

My W cheated on me and then lied about it for three years. During this time she projected so heavily that she convinced me I was mentally ill and was harming our M.

Whatever reason I went I was glad to have an IC already.

Sometimes you have to express your anger at the person who harmed you, KWIM ? Getting angry at her for eating the last apple isn't healthy either.

It took me a long time before I could really express my anger. I did not shout or anything, but ti was cathartic.

Has your W earned her way back to the M ? Does she apologize or express her feelings ? Actually believing that she suffers from her consequences was key for me too.

Or you can invite the BM thread over to your house, provide the beer, and we'll give you a century of collective IC.

Now that would be one hell of a "Sausage Fest". Not sure the alcohol would be cheaper than the IC.

FP, I know there are people out there who can exercise their anger away. I'm not one of them. Maybe you aren't either. I need to express my anger as anger. I can't redirect it into an activity and get it out there and have it subside. I need to vent it directly.

I recently mentioned on the smashed/burned thread in General that I beat the hell out of punching bag while my husband held the bag for me. There was a lot of FU-MFer and venom involved with that whole scene and I don't recommend it to everyone. But why it worked for me was that I got to vent all that anger out to the source and I had years of pent up anger to release. He was very willing to stand there and take it.

You aren't getting that chance because of your wife's history. That is understandable. Do you feel kinda shafted (frustrated) because of that?

I think this anger is also tied to injustice, and knowing there will never be justice served. No justice for us as BS, but also an injustice because people who thought the WS were awesome, will not understand the truth about all of it. It's frustrating.

I was able to express to him that I was angry because I also felt guilt or fear or whatever the other emotions were. I think LA44 has mentioned before about BS's writing their own timeline and I basically did this too. I wrote out and told my husband while he was doing THAT, I was doing this or feeling this during that time. It helped me get my feelings out there and for him to acknowledge what I was going through during those times. Gave some validity to those feelings and took some of the emphasis off the anger alone. It expressed feelings that weren't as threatening as anger.

I think another important stage of healing is coming to terms with the anger we have for ourselves for allowing things to happen. That's a whole other thing to process. I had to think about why I felt guilty. What in my past contributed to that? IMO, you've already started this process by what you posted in MH.

And so I have this drive to be vengeful and vindictive towards the people who hurt me,

Me too. Can you look back and you see when that started and why it happened?

My wife is doing work on herself, and I see changes, but she doesn't ever talk about the mental aspect of the work she's doing....but she always wants to know what's going on in my head. It's to the point where I'm ready to just say, "No. If you want a ticket to ride the rollercoaster inside my brain, the cost of entry is sharing what's in your noggin, unprompted."

Sounds like a fair deal. You both share what you are working on and discovering about yourselves.

Good luck with everything.

ETA: I don't want to make it sound like I don't have some anger/resentment under the surface some days because I still do, it's just not anything like it was. And I have to express it when it happens, if I try to hold it in or ignore it, it festers.

[This message edited by DixieD at 2:15 PM, February 10th (Monday)]