SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Like many of you I spend lots of time thinking about my WWs affair and how it has affected me.

She tells me it's in the past and I need to get over it. I told her her adultery is not an easy thing to get over. She replied she was an adulterer but not anymore.

She doesn't want to discuss "the past" because it causes her anxiety and my questions are just another way of corralling and controlling her.

My WW did the same thing to me. She would rarely talk to me about it and told me to stop living in the past. Then something happened: our youngest got married and left our home. As I realized that I no longer had a family that I was responsible for I became much bolder and insisted that she either answer my questions and talk to me about it in general or I was going to divorce her. Not a threat like "I'm filing tomorrow" but more along the lines that I'm like a simmering pot that will boil over if she kept up her lying, minimizing, and blame-shifting. Once she realized that I was dead serious I got a lot of what I wanted. Working in IC along with getting some cooperation from her was moving me toward healing for the first time. Then suddenly we were responsible for a child again and the momentum died. Whatever progress I had made has slowly eroded over the 4 years since then.

So, it's all about power. If she believes that you will divorce her if she doesn't change her current "get over it" attitude it is likely you will get what you need from her. Or you will find out she really doesn't care about your healing and you can either keep living the way you are now of make a change.

I keep trying to come up with a way to describe what her affair has done to me.

Here's the description I am thinking about this morning.

Her affair is like this: I'm walking along a highway when a reckless driver crosses several lanes of traffic, hits me and sends my body flying through the air where I proceed to get run over by several other cars.

The reckless driver, stops, looks at me in the road and before driving off says, "Sorry about that. It won't happen again."

Then she drives away and leaves me bleeding to death.

This need for the WS to "get it" is universal. Even a very remorseful, empathetic WS is unable to truly live your pain - they can only imagine what it must feel like. My point is that these analogies reflect your desire that she understand your pain. It is probably useful for you express how you feel but cannot make her feel it.

If you see her lack of empathy as R stopper than you need to rethink the whole thing. I firmly believe that underneath this desire to make WS "get it" is a strong desire to punish them. To square things. It is probably the thing that leads to RA for some, but most BS just suffers through it until they can find peace and let it go or simply resent their WS forever. Bottom line is that they never get it - no matter what they say.

...all that may be true about him persuing her, but she chose to allow it to go to the next level. I agree with everyone on here. She doesn't get to say how this goes or what you talk about. The criminal doesn't decide their jail time. You should sit in MC and say that stuff...all that you need to know.

...all that may be true about him persuing her, but she chose to allow it to go to the next level. I agree with everyone on here. She doesn't get to say how this goes or what you talk about. The criminal doesn't decide their jail time. You should sit in MC and say that stuff...all that you need to know.

I agree with you completely.

We are in IC and MC. She spends a lot of time lying in MC.

Then, why bother? Is she there just to punch her MC ticket?

To me, that was another huge betrayal. In the forum where we were supposed to be meeting as equals and working on our relationship, he was actively deceiving me and the MC (both times continuing in the affair and hiding it from both of us).

Sit with that for a minute, 36. Just sit with that. This is another ACTIVE betrayal, another choice where she chooses to hurt you instead of doing the right thing. If she's not committed enough to the marriage to at least belly up to the MC table and participate without lying and deceit, you really don't have a marriage.

I'm so sorry.

Cat

Do you call her out on the lies in MC? I definitely would. Don't put up with any of her shit.

It is hard to get someone to understand the full extent of the pain they caused you when they have no remorse for causing the pain in the first place. I asked my wife what is the worst emotional pain she had ever been in. She explained what it was and I remembered that time. It was an extremely hard time for her. I told her, "Well that is what you have done to me but double." Not sure if she fully comprehended the pain but it gave her a reference point to understand about where I was. I also told her that our marriage is like our legs. When she had the affair she broke the bones our legs. How they mend, or if they ever can be mended again, is up to us. I fear that her attitude will make any amount of recovery difficult. Her lying and deceitfulness is a wall that makes a person not even want to try to rebuild a broken marriage. I will keep praying for you.

[This message edited by WilliamM at 2:30 PM, October 11th (Wednesday)]

Do you call her out on the lies in MC? I definitely would. Don't put up with any of her shit.

I absolutely do. The first time I walked out. Since then I have corrected every single falsehood.

Easier said the done. The mind does what the mind does.

I understand. Truly, I do. That is codependent behavior, and it won't help anything.

The only way she really gets it is by suffering consequences for her actions.

I will keep praying for you.

Thanks, I can use plenty of that.

She replies that none of "these people" know her or her heart.

She's right.

But the problem is YOU don't know her heart right now, because she is not showing you ANYthing.

There is a chance she still locked up in the same cognitive dissonance (the bullshit where she justifies her actions) that allowed her to cheat. Stuck in the wayward mindset as it were.

The 180 may not be enough. I wonder if serving her divorce papers would wake her up? Maybe not. But nothing else seems to be getting her from behind her selfish wall.

As to your original question, I described the pain to my wife, it feels like a rat chewing on my heart.

But the problem is YOU don't know her heart right now, because she is not showing you ANYthing.

You're right. I don't know her heart. I'm not sure she even has one worth knowing anymore.

This has been like going to sleep with the love of my life and waking up with a f^ck!ng monster.

I have not read anything about co-dependency. I never thought I had that problem, but am beginning to wonder if it does describe me.

It does. I hope you understand that I don't mean that as an insult. I struggle with the same issues still (see my signature). They were exacerbated by my marriage to someone who was mentally ill and completely dependent.

The only way you get anywhere with this is by serving her divorce papers and implementing the 180. She will continue to manipulate the MC and use sessions there as a weapon as long as you let her.

It does. I hope you understand that I don't mean that as an insult. I struggle with the same issues still (see my signature). They were exacerbated by my marriage to someone who was mentally ill and completely dependent.

I don't take that as an insult. The truth may hurt but it may hold answers to questions I am already asking myself.

36yearsgone,

She doesn't want to discuss "the past" because it causes her anxiety and my questions are just another way of corralling and controlling her.

I find that statement by your WW so frustrating. IMHO a WS should be so remorseful that they are willing to answer your questions as may times as you ask for as long as you ask.

For me it felt like the one who should love and protect me the most cut my heart out with a butcher knife and left me on the floor to bleed out.

Yeah no. I don't feel bad for her at all. She lies and cheats and she has anxiety???!!! She needs to face what she did and own it. Until she does that, all bets are off. You play you pay. Take control of this situation.

I would describe it as the most traumatic thing that has ever happened to me.

I think your analogy of someone doing you great 'physical' harm is a good one. I have also explained to WH that it is much worse than if someone had approached him with a foolproof way of stealing all my money and possessions and splitting it 50/50 with him and he'd done it - and yet society would view that as worse I think and never think you should just get over it in a flash.

Mine was a double betrayal with my friend and I know at DDay I felt as though the whole earth had been ripped out from under me. I didn't know where I was any more, everything I believed about my life, and events, was proved to be completely false. I remember clearly walking to the shops in the weeks afterwards, and feeling as though I was floating and not really there. I ask remember staring at my own hands and feeling that they weren't part of me. I don't know how you get over that in a hurry, when your own partner has just shown you that actually whatever is happening or whatever they / your friends / anyone else is telling you, it could all be a complete fallacy.

So yeah, our WSs suffer, sure, and of course they don't want to keep facing the horror of what they did. But tough. It is the only way to begin to wade through it. And of course we question whether they're right, and even feel guilty for making them upset, because we are so much better at empathy (generally), and it isn't in our nature to selfishly cause someone harm.

Are you continuing MC with her?

Why? What are you or she getting out of it if all she does is lie and you spend your time pointing out her lies? Seems like a total waste of time and money.

Are you continuing MC with her?

Why? What are you or she getting out of it if all she does is lie and you spend your time pointing out her lies? Seems like a total waste of time and money.

So far I am.

I was totally blindsided. We were supposed to start living together as I had just graduated college, found a job and was looking for a job. She actually stood me up as I waited for her in a parking lot for her to drive the 100

miles from her home to close to where we would live. No cell phones then. After hours of worry her parents told me she went to a horse show with a guy she knew instead of meeting me.

After that I was in a daze. I thought I knew who he was but could not conceive of her doing such a thing. Anyway the next two weeks were a daze. I have lost close relatives and friends that died. This was much worse. It’s like death and betrayal together.

Be honest. How would you compare this to the loss of your son? Many people say only losing a child is worse than being cheated on by your spouse. My closest relative that died was a cousin that was killed in a plane crash. I had to be helped into the funeral home. Being cheated on be my fiancé was worse. We worked through it but it was never the same for me and I ended it two years later.

The way I described it was I felt like a ghost. Like I died. The world kept moving around me, life going on as normal for everyone else. No one noticed I was gone, my wife had already moved on to someone else and forgotten all about me or was trying to forget what was left. I was a specter just walking through the memories of my old life. I no longer had a taste or appetite for food, didn't need sleep, couldn't speak to loved ones or laugh or sing or enjoy music.