SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Thank you for this. I had tears running down my face as I read this.

Wow, I so needed to read this today. Thank you veronique12 and kyrie. I am stuck too, and know I need to get out of this flight and fight mode. I have been unable to stop those feeling when they come. I know FWH has been nothing by remorseful for over 2 years now. It is time to move forward at a faster pace. These thoughts are a huge hurdle I need to get through. This perspective is very connecting to me today. Hugs to both of you for sharing and taking your time spelling out your thoughts in far clearer terms than I have been able to do.

Hugs to you both.

Kyrie-That was an awesome post. It should be put into the Healing library. It's absolutely something that others should benefit from by reading. Standing applause for your post.

Kyrie - answering as a wayward who told her AP she loved him, that was spot on!!

Thank you for explaining how it was not love so eloquently...

Following and learning! This club suck!

Keeping perspective is tough work. It doesn't take much to throw you off course, does it? Grief, anger, disbelief and fear can make your brain shift into very black and white thinking – and I believe that really sets you up for despair. I have to remind myself that it's called a FOG for a reason – you just can’t see things clearly in fog.

For me, the phrase, "But at the time . . . " can really do a number on me, if I let it. It's not hard to conjure up even just a small moment in time and see myself living in an oblivious, trusting state all while my WS was actually thinking those wacko thoughts about another person and then acting on them (and for me, he didn't just do that for a brief, fleeting second. No, he thought and acted that way day in and day out, night after night for 15 months. It's pretty hard to say 15 months without screaming a series of expletives.)

That small, innocent sounding thought – “at the time” or “but there was a time” -- can bring on big triggers, rage and hopelessness, can't it? It’s truly unimaginable. Your mind races with thoughts of what were we saying to each other, what was going on between us, what were we doing while he was thinking of, alone with and having sex with someone else? I mean, it’s that kind of ruminating that can make you feel like you are going to lose your mind. It’s no wonder why so many people can’t get past it, can’t push through. They’re locked into the trauma of that very thought, “but there was a time.”

V12, my argument to your post was written more to me than you or anyone else. Just as our WSs did some unreal mental gymnastics to pull off their betrayal, we too, have to do our own kind of strenuous mental work to help get us out of the hole we've found ourselves in. I think the difference is that unlike our WSs, we are choosing to work with the truth, all of it, even the ugly parts, rather than with foolish lies.

Dig deep to find out what is true, what is real, and when you do, hold onto it with all you’ve got.

PEACE

Kyrie, thank you so so much! This thread touches close to home. Your response is extremely extremely helpful in getting my head recentered. Thank you.

((((Veronique)))), there are so many similarities in our stories. You aren't alone.

Arnold01 recently shared some research; I recalled a TED talk I once saw by Daniel Kahneman about our two "selves" - one being our experiencing self and the other being our remembering self.

The experiencing self is the "you" in the moment who lives through the event. The remembering self is the "you" that writes the history. It is also the remembering self that is consulted when planning the future. Choices are made based on the remembering self's construction of what happened in the past. Now here's the problem. The experiencing self and the remembering self don't agree on what happened. In fact, Kahneman has shown that certain discrepancies are hard-wired.

I bumped Arnold's thread, too:

http://www.survivinginfidelity.com/forums.asp?tid=524121&HL=39751

[This message edited by IWantDoOver at 9:15 AM, March 3rd (Monday)]

OMG Kyrie's post says it all. After my wife had a 4 month affait with some loser, I wondered how she could go from telling him she loved him, to being back with me again. it is as if they are in a fog. My response to whenever I asked why it happened was that she doesn't know, she wasn't thinking and just got caught up in the excitment of someone new paying attention to her and him telling her he loved her. She even said she thought she no longer loved me in order to justify what she was doing.

Thank You Kyrie, you really helped me with that post.

I am also having a really hard time dealing with this issue. I think there are two main reasons (other than my own struggles with self-esteem):

1. My WBF had an A while travelling to work in Brazil. He is back now, and won't be returning. I'm having a hard time feeling like the "2nd choice". It would be very difficult, and probably unrealistic for him to actually leave me for the OW. It makes it harder for me to believe him when he tells me that he would want to be with me without the distance from OW.

2. Previously, I was engaged to another WBF who had an 18 month A with a girl that he worked with. Initially, he told me that he wanted to be with me, but after a while he admitted that he really did love the OW, and she was the "one that he was meant to be with". They are now married and have 2 kids. So, as you can see, my previous experience makes it hard for me to beleieve that the love that my current WBF expressed isn't real.

Hannah, I totally understand your points, esp #2. My sister had an A while married to her first husband and ending up marrying the AP. They seem really happy together though I do worry about them in the long term since their relationship was born out of deception and lies.

Most A's lose steam after they are out in the open however--bc the "love" isn't legit. It's fantasy.