SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Here here! Tears here at the insight so beautifully described. Thank you so much Owl.

Owl, umm. Wow that is profound. Thank you, you have posted to me a few times and they usually leave me speechless. I still have so much work to do.

Swat is not happy today. We had planned another trip for his vacation next week. Today he said he wasn't going and it would just be the kids and me. I was a little shocked at first because he has said we were trying to work it out. He explained why and I understand. He is just so tired and spread thin. I can see he isn't feeling well and is struggling. He hasn't really opened up much recently and doesn't allow me to try to comfort him much. So I get it and supported his decision. I'm his biggest trigger and I'm trying to do what he wants and needs. The kids not so much. DD threw an absolute temper tantrum, which caused they boys to be upset and they copy her. Swat took them outside for about a half an hour. When he came back he had changed his mind. He will spend part of the week with us.

I'm worried, DD was kind of smug when she came in. I know the look, I've done it myself. She played him and I think he knows it. He said he will be down after he rests for a few days. He said he's going for the kids and family time and there will not be any personal conversations. I'm pretty sure he really doesn't want to go and from some of the things he said, he really doesn't want to be around me right now.

This is tricky. I'm happy because he will be there and I get to spend some time with him. I know that I have to let go of the outcome and he could decide to end the marriage and any attempts to R. But spending time with him is important to me. I'm sad because I think he was tricked by DD, which she likely learned from watching me. I just have this sense that we are running out of time. He seems to be distancing himself more and more and he may have reached the end of his rope. It is just a feeling I have, he hasn't said anything and I'm not mentioning it to him. Right now I'll take what he is willing to give me. I will support him as long as he allows me to.

SS17, I know you guys are dealing with a near-term crisis right now, the vacation, what to do about it, SWAT's exhaustion with you and it and everything.

I can't help you with that, you guys are working though it.

But I am going to go out on a limb, or even several limbs, and hope they don't break.

I think you are right. I think another crisis is coming. But it is not going to end in SWAT leaving you. That is YOUR irrational fear, YOUR projection.

But I suspect he is nearing a another mental breakdown. He won't leave you, because loyalty is the very essence of who he is and he is utterly loyal to you. But he is going to crack again under the pressure of loyalty without trust.

What is really killing him, I suspect, is the knowledge that you abandoned him. I doubt he knows this himself. You have to figure it out for him, and help heal it.

There is no way, given his childhood, and the way he bonded with your family to fill the broken in his own, that he does not fear abandonment deep in his soul.

And honey, I am sorry, but you DID abandon him. Not by having sex with OM per se, but in the fantasies that you built and nurtured and defended that made it possible.

If you look really hard, it would not surprise me if at the core of things, at the deepest center, you will find a tight ball of rage. Rage at SWAT. Rage at him for putting you on a pedestal you knew you did not deserve to be on, and that you did not know how to climb off of. And that your fantasies were your escape route off that pedestal. That by telling yourself that you wanted, and needed, and would be fulfilled by acts, things, that he would never do. That would validate your sense that the real you was different, darker than the you he kept forcing you to try to be with the pressure of his love and adoration and esteem. And that to escape that pressure is why you abandoned him in your heart, betrayed him in you heart long before you betrayed him with acts.

It was of course coming from your broken. But he is also right. It was not about OM--but it very much WAS about him. About killing his love for you so you could escape its pressure.

I do not know for sure that any of the above is true. I could be wrong. But--I think it might be, or might be something close to that.

Whatever it is I want you to find it, so you will be ready to catch him when he does fall apart again. So you can tell him, YES, I DID do what you feared the most, I DID abandon you. And I have looked and seen the darkest reasons why. And I can tell you about it. And I will tell you why I do not feel that way any more, and never will again. And why I WILL NOT EVER abandon you in my heart like that again.

Because I think that is what he will need to understand to start to trust you again, and in trusting, start to heal himself.

Owl (or anyone), I don't know whether or not I need to start a new thread on this topic... If so, chime in and I'll repost this question.

I've mulled over in my mind your last post, the one where you explained what "just" means, the one where you explain that it may not have been the OM, but there was something there that was more valuable to the WW than the BH. (That's a very insightful way of looking at it. The rephrasing of the question which desperately needed to happen at my house.) Mind you, I know I haven't spent as much time on this as I need to and plan to, however, since reading your post last night I've been asking myself: What did I find in the situation (i.e. the Affair, the circumstances, the AP) that I could not/ would not/ did not find at home with my BH? Every answer I have so far come up with circles back to the response: BH tried to give me ___ or did give me ___ or would have given me ____ if I had only asked. Anyone have any useful questions to break through this?

Danke

Been thinking about owls posts. The rage described, maybe, I don't know. I do know that I can and have been angry with him for things in my past, and it totally is not his fault. I would get angry that he ignored me for so many years. I blamed him for ignoring me and causing me to turn into a "party girl". I blamed him for my first marriage, which was a total disaster. If he hadn't ignored me I wouldn't have done those things. Not quite rage or to the extent in that post, but it is something I'm trying to address at IC. Those things were all my reactions to his not being with me. Some how in my messed up mind I placed the blame on him. Now I know that is utter garbage, but to a teenager it made sense. As a young adult my thought process was already flawed and I still blamed him for causing my actions.

I remember having a conversation with him when we started dating. He said he had always cared about me, but it was creepy. When I asked why, well you were way to young and your my best friends baby sister. You never date the sister, its like against the code. He laughed about it. Logically I understand, hell it would have been statutory rape. I even understand the reluctance due to his friendship with my brother. I understand this now. But it made me angry because of the things I choose to do because I thought he didn't care.

Like I said, not his fault. All me and my messed up way of dealing. I never addressed that anger and it probably did build up and it may have been a factor. Again more fodder for IC.

SI can be a blessing and a curse. The blessing part is I can rant to you all and you listen. I can express my fears and insecurities and you support me or tell me I'm being an idiot and you give great advice. The curse is seeing how messed up I really am and how much I have hurt my husband. I love my husband with everything I have, I always have and will. Yet I'm so messed up I still cheated at that is so freaking painful. Daily I feel sick and want to cry. It has been pointed out to me several times and several different ways how much I have hurt BH and sometimes I think he and everyone else would be better off if I was dead or just disappeared. Then my f'cked upness wouldn't be a problem.

I'm not suicidal and I could never do that to my kids. I did abandon someone I love very much and we are all suffering because of it. I can't and will not allow myself to abandon my babies.

Thank god I have IC this afternoon and I think I'm going to need some type of medication. I'm all over the place and my nerves are shot.

SS17, my apologies for a very, very brief threadjack:

Neznayou, unfortunately I cannot write on your other thread where you moved your question because of the stop sign.

Owl, I didn't know your status when I moved the question. And I've seen in the past where the mods are pretty firm about the stop sign thing. The original post is on this thread; if SoSorry doesn't mind, perhaps you could respond here.