MidnightRun posted 4/17/2018 16:18 PM

Vermin indeed.

As for her, she'll never look at Annapolis the same.

still2suspicious posted 4/17/2018 16:31 PM

LCL,

Although I have never posted on your thread I have read every single entry.

I have nothing but absolute admiration and awe of you. You, sir, are exactly the type of person this world needs more of.

I wish I had 1/1000th of your resolve, then maybe I would not still be in this hellhole. Maybe you could hold classes for some of us!

When I read about your "chest candy" you would have thought you were my son! I couldn't contain myself. I am sure it is extremely well deserved.

I will only say your STBXWW and POSOM are getting exactly what they deserve.

Thank you so very much for your continued service for us, and our country.

I would salute you, but since I am just a gramma it is probably not allowed.

Enjoy your vacation. You deserve it!

PS: just about every single man in my family has served, and I am damn proud of all of them!

PricklePatch posted 4/17/2018 16:33 PM

LCL, I am glad your going and seizing back Annapolis. There is something fitting in that. Btw make a new thread here. When you go over the posting limit or in D/S. It’s up to you.

Atrowspark posted 4/17/2018 16:39 PM

Did you ever look through the stuff you downloaded from the PC's and tablets to see if there was more than what your PI was able to find out?

LtCdrLost posted 4/17/2018 17:10 PM

Did you ever look through the stuff you downloaded from the PC's and tablets to see if there was more than what your PI was able to find out?

I have not had the time. Something I'll try to do in the next two weeks.

MidnightRun posted 4/17/2018 17:18 PM

You've done a yeoman's job.

Pace yourself; enjoy SD.

heartbroken_kk posted 4/17/2018 17:26 PM

A few points about the transition you are in right now. You've discovered the A, exposed the A, decided the marriage is over, and filed for D. You've completed most of the fact-finding, determined what reality is, developed your strategy, thwarted gaslighting and manipulation, and executed your plan. Most of this is fairly cerebral, completing tasks you appear extremely qualified to undertake.

The next phase has a lot more emotional work in it. You will have to figure out what it all MEANS in the broad arc of your life. Divorce is truly life changing. And it forces you to feel things. You will have all the feels and some of them will suck more than you can imagine.

You cannot short cut the next phase by being efficient. You will go to sleep and your subconscious will work on your problems and wake you up with disturbing dreams. Some trigger will send you back in time and you'll have to deal with a memory and the emotions it evokes.

No doubt in the service you've witnessed or learned about PTSD, or even been afflicted by it yourself.

The thing about betrayal is that as a trauma, it is very personal, and surprisingly judgmental, and when the feels come up they can make you question your deepest sense of self and your ability to assess others too.

If you shouldn't have trusted your wife, but you did in fact trust your wife, then WTF does that mean about your ability to judge others, and to chose your next partner? This question will bother you a lot, because you threw your lot in with her, with all your heart. And then this happened. It really rocks you as you process that and figure out how to move forward with a positive outlook.

When you get to the warm beach, be purposeful about your emotional self-care. I suggest you find a therapist who specializes in helping people after infidelity and divorce. Try a few sessions, talking it through, and see what comes up in the asking and the telling.

Your recovery, the process of getting through this, not only in getting a piece of paper with a judge's signature severing your ties to to your STBXW, but in moving forward as a single man again, will give you another little colored bar on your chest, but it will be on the inside, under your skin, next to your heart where nobody can see it until it's probed.

Take care of you. Skip new relationships for a while so you can do this solo and do it proper. Take your time. Don't rush. It's a non-linear, iterative process so be patient with yourself.

LtCdrLost posted 4/17/2018 17:38 PM

WTF does that mean about your ability to judge others, and to chose your next partner?

It means either I was deceived all along or the person I trusted changed into someone or something else. I'm not going into a spiral of fundamental self-doubt over this. That's just not how I'm made. Ma'am, I want to thank you for that question as sincerely as I can.
Are you familiar with something called the OODA Loop? It is an acronym meaning "Observe, Orient, Decide, Act". It's worth entering into your preferred search engine if you'd like to gain an understanding of "OODA". It is how I have governed my life for almost 15 years, it is a concept which helped me get through this. I'm going to allow myself to mourn my lost marriage properly but I'm not going to internalize my stbxw's character flaws.

[This message edited by LtCdrLost at 9:38 PM, April 17th (Tuesday)]

MidnightRun posted 4/17/2018 17:43 PM

A breed apart.

Cooley2here posted 4/17/2018 17:50 PM

This might happen to you or it might not. Your intense training has prepared you for all sorts of explosive dangerous situations but it never prepared you for being stabbed in the back. The trauma that you are feeling is part of the fight or flight response that all animals feel. If you area having trouble eating, if you throw up, or have a bad upset stomach that is your body’s way of unloading any extra weight. Your reptilian brain knows you are in danger. It is lightening the load so you can run. Sometimes in the midst of all the problems that go along with infidelity we forget that we are animals and we respond just like they do. Our bodies want to get out of danger. It does not recognize the difference between one form of trauma or the other. It just floods your body with adrenalin, cortisol etc to get you moving. Don’t be surprised if these hormones come and go. The problem with them is that they flood the system but they take hours to leave the body. Some days you will feel exhausted and won’t know why. Well this is why. You are revved up to do things and there’s nothing you can do because you have to grieve.
Now that you have taken care of business you are going to confront what it is really like to be single. You have thought and felt like a married man and that has carried you through. You will have to rewrite your definition of yourself and you will do this in the midst of a lot of pain. KK did a great job of explaining this. Don’t allow this pain to fester. Therapy is good for getting the pain out.

[This message edited by Cooley2here at 5:52 PM, April 17th (Tuesday)]

steadychevy posted 4/17/2018 17:52 PM

I hope you're able to reclaim Annapolis. My WW took me to a hotel her and her AP had sex in to stay when we were travelling and also to the restaurant they ate at. There were lots of choices for both but those were the ones she wanted. We stayed at 2 other hotels they'd been in, too. Didn't bother her a bit. I haven't reclaimed any of those. Tried one but won't go back.

I wish you well, LCL, and success in reclaiming anything that's important to you.

StillStanding1 posted 4/17/2018 18:19 PM

Please don’t take kk’s question personally. This is a question that most BS’s find themselves pondering in the aftermath. It’s very normal and I’ve seen it come up in MANY threads. It’s because of the great mindfuck we go through. The person we trusted did this. How do we learn to trust again? How can we ever trust another GF/BF/S? I think it’s a normal question after betrayal. We want to protect ourselves from getting hurt like this again. Never want to be deceived again. It’s a lot to get your brain around.

Have a safe trip tomorrow and enjoy that west coast sunshine. We’re in between snowstorms here right now..... sigh...

Charity411 posted 4/17/2018 18:34 PM

I've followed your thread from t he beginning but haven't commented. First of all, thank you for your service. One of my best friends is a retired Lt. Col. I'm always in awe of what it takes to serve our nation. You've handled this whole situation with utmost calm and efficiency on top of all that.

I would like to echo that while you have been immersed in your plan of action, you haven't really had a lot of time to absorb the impact of the loss of your marriage. There will be feelings and questions that will surface when you least expect it. I get that you've lived you life in adherence to a methodical system that clearly helps you get through things that us civilians can't fathom. But unfortunately not all things that happen in our lives fit into a neat system that we can predict or control. If we bring that up it is not meant to offend in any way. This is just one battle that we've all fought, so we have that experience and hope to impart some wisdom in that regard. It is out of genuine concern.

Enjoy your time looking at the ocean and feeling the sunshine. You need it and deserve it.

LtCdrLost posted 4/17/2018 19:03 PM

I didn't intend to come across as dismissive of KK's comment and the points raised. KK, I apologize if I conveyed that unintentionally. I'll allow myself the time to mourn the loss of the marriage and my stbxw unmasking herself as the deceitful person she truly is. But she's the broken one, not me. I'll go on as though she died last week, and as emotionally traumatic as the "death" of my spouse may be, time will heal the wound.

SoMelancholy posted 4/17/2018 19:21 PM

I think perhaps kk’s question was primarily a rhetorical one. Not necessarily a suggestion that you are the one who is broken. It seemed an example of some of the types of things we ask ourselves when processing betrayal.

heartbroken_kk posted 4/17/2018 19:38 PM

Sorry if my phrasing meant I was asking you the question directly. More that the question is one that all of us who were betrayed need to answer.

I take no offense to your nicely worded (better worded!) response.

Are you familiar with something called the OODA Loop? It is an acronym meaning "Observe, Orient, Decide, Act".

No, not until you mentioned it. I did look it up. thank you! I guess I don't need to explain the iterative process of healing, you've certainly learned the concept.

I think my main point is that you should be prepared for your subconscious to be uncooperative as you move forward. You can put your STBXW in a compartment of "broken people I once knew", but it's a leaky one and every now and then you'll get a wiff of it. Don't be surprised by that.

Most likely you will handle the triggers well on the surface but the subconscious nature of this is that (for example) you could be irritable in ways that baffle you and others. You might not notice that you are irritable until it manifests in some interpersonal relationship you value.

alphakitte posted 4/17/2018 19:56 PM

^^^ Like

SCARLETT94 posted 4/17/2018 19:56 PM

Lt. I hope the vacation in SD is soothing to your soul.
It's ok to be sad and mourn the person you thought she was.

It's too bad really that she is no longer that person.

You are as mentally tough as anyone I've seen on here, SpaceGhost is the closest to you that has posted on here imo.

But you are still human. So try to go through the pain and not avoid it.
That will help you too get over it quicker.
All my best.

[This message edited by SCARLETT94 at 7:57 PM, April 17th (Tuesday)]

PricklePatch posted 4/17/2018 20:09 PM

Enjoy your vacation. Honestly, I think just not going into the computer stuff should be a option. I know you have made some plans.

I think we all just want you to get this poison out of your system. I liken infidelity as to being a trauma of a thousand knives, each infected. Sticking with the Chaplin and working through them is a great idea.

Make the most of your RR. I have to be honest for me vackay sounds nice but being busy is better. My mind races, so doing mundane tasks helps me. As silly as it sounds, I am sure you have a way for your mind to leave your body to survive waves coming over you. Yoga classes might be relaxing for you.

SCARLETT94 posted 4/17/2018 20:28 PM

PP...... Thank you for the unintended laugh.....
Navy seal in a leotard lol!
Pictures or it didn't happen 😉

Ps. I know you are sincere, just been a bad day for me so thank you 😃