SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Ray

Not to pile on, but honestly, what do you hope to get out of all of this? It does seem like a cycle of lather, rinse repeat.

If your wife is truly done with you this time, respect her wishes and stay away.

If by some miracle you two do get back together, then I ask you this, why be so hateful and angry towards this woman? Is she such an awful spouse that she deserves to be subjected to this kind of bullshit? Of course not. So again I ask, why so angry?

You and I are around the same age as our are wives. I look at my wife every fucking day and I KNOW how blessed I am that she is in it. Everyone on SI can count on two hands (with fingers left over) as to how many people in their lives truly have their backs. Even after you cheated, she still tried to have yours. Yet you repay that kindness by treating her like shit?

I’m usually pretty even keeled when I post but I say this as kindly as I can. Man the fuck up, take real and meaningful responsibility for your actions or stay away from your wife forever. Perhaps it is too late already for you to repair the damage you’ve done to your marriage, but it’s never to late to do the same for yourself.

Ya, pretty sure help is needed inside this echoing mass of darkness. No, I didn't come on here at the behest of my bs. I do like the responses, tho. Sometimes I see, in myself, the change from a monster to a gentleman. Then darkness returns as I remember who I am and what I've done.

It's not some darkness..

like you're Batman or something

This is you, and I believe you have control over your abusive ways, you just choose to let it be. It's easier this way, you don't have to do things differently and you're probably used to getting what you want when you behave like a jerk. Probably scares the shit outta your wife and she feels no other way than to submit out of fear of what you're capable of. It gets you results in a mean and sick way. Complete control.

I don't know.. just my thoughts, and what I've seen in your posts here. We can't fix you, you gotta help yourself.

Thanks doc.

Great response Ray. Very insightful. FL took the time to offer you constructive criticism and you reply with a smart ass remark.

Yeah it’s pretty apparent why you actually post. Best of luck to you.

How's that attitude working for you?

Nearly every post after your original post has been dismissive,or sarcastic.

Lashing out at people who are giving you good advice just further proves to your abused wife that leaving was the best option.

This is who you are.

The "moments" of regret you have are only an aberration.

Leave your wife alone... in peace.

pigpen

Where do you want to go with this now? You know you are not safe for her right now. So now what?

My guess is this is where you both cycle back around. This is going to be your life. This is going to be her life. Don't you want something more?

You chose this when you chose the A and now you have to choose again. Every time you cycle through this you have to choose again. But it's not just that you have to, it's that you get to.

Maybe stop flailing (that would be the yelling and driving away...you know that's abusive) and stop apologizing without genuine remorse (using SI as a confessional won't really do much for you, it's going to take more than that). People here can't help you, YOU have to move, but they have gotten pretty good at offering different directions that you can look to get some traction.

Maybe stop with the barbs that push people away and in your down time, think about how you came to where you are now...on the road with your W holed up in a room away from you, with her desperate to figure out how to start over, how to be away from you.

Not ready to talk about your FOO? then start closer. Who were you before you met your W? What did you want then?

Who are you today? Are you alright with that. And I mean are you all right with that even if she is gone from your life. Do you like sitting with how you think of yourself right now?

Maybe put some thought into how to change being on the road together. Is she beside you because she enjoys that life? Is she afraid you will betray her again if she takes time to settle somewhere away from you?

Take some time to read through your old posts. Look for what has not changed and start there. Do something different. You only get one go at this life.

Wow! Apologizes y'all. Thought being real was part of being on here. Sarcasm has become a blanket of comfort, hiding from the storm. Sorry for wasting the valuable time of those on here.

Honestly, this is just a crying shame. You want to be with her. She wants to be with you. The only thing stopping that from happening is apparently your inability to control your rage... and of course, the key to controlling rage is identifying it's source and then dealing with the underlying feelings. I suspect that yours comes from anxiety and shame, although it's possible that there's some depression or even a hormonal imbalance (which should always be ruled out in both men and women).

So... what's stopping you BOTH from being happy could potentially have a solution, but for some reason you and she are stuck in this awful pattern of victim/perpetrator/rescuer.

My understanding from reading your posts is that you had a sexting affair with a cousin approximately ten years ago and that you have achieved sobriety in that time. Not to minimize the pain of emotional infidelity (because I've been there as the betrayed party myself), but why is this still unresolved a decade later??? Seriously, I'm asking. It seems to me that both of you are stalled in healing, so what are the issues which are preventing recovery? Why are the two of you still locked into these destructive drama roles?

If you haven't done so already, please explore the "Karpman Drama Triangle". You can find more information online. What are your thoughts on that? You don't have to post it here, but consider journaling it out while you run various examples of relational failures through it. I think you might be surprised at what you find.

I also hope you will look for an article online called "The Four Horseman" by John Gottman. Journal out examples of communications failures, both yours and hers, and explore how they trigger the drama roles above.

ETA: Please bump to the top of your reading list, Terrence Real's I Don't Want to Talk About It: Overcoming the Secret Legacy of Male Depression. Your FOO sounds like one of his case studies.

[This message edited by ChamomileTea at 10:10 AM, November 24th (Saturday)]

Hello LetItRain. Born Navy raised Army. 18 schools in 11 years. Step dad made drill sargents cry. Bullied all childhood and started running away from home at 6 years old. Skip some lifetimes, addict(recovering 25 years) alcoholic(recovering 12[?]years) biker trash, trucker, long haired freaky looking critter. Grew up feeling like a pussy and never really got away from that. That's some insight into my foo. Guess I've been on my own for a long time, but chose the roads that looked like I did. Wasn't aware of a different path. Make sense?

CT...

I'm going to vehemently disagree with you

His wife is an ABUSE VICTIM. Period.

His affair is a red herring.

There is no drama triangle. There is no reading. There is no four horse. There is only ABUSE.

She is a victim of prolonged emorional, mental and physical abuse.

If he was punching her in the face...we would not be telling him to examine "break downs of communica tion on his part and her part"

If he was kicking her leg we would not tell him to "journal his feelings of failure".

Sorry... None if that holds him accountable for the prolonged ABUSE perpetrated on his wife.

Pigpen64...you are an abuser. You need structured and supported help from a professional to STOP the abusive behavior you are displayed over the last 10 years

....and journaling about her communication failures isn't it.

YOU ARE DANGEROUS TO YOUR WIFE. Stay away from her. Seek immediate help to stop escalating this selfish, dangerous behavior

Pigpen,

Yup, sounds like you had a childhood with a lot of volatility, strained relationships, potentially abuse, poor modelling of communication skills and likely a lack of how to show someone you genuinely care for them. The list of issues could likely go on. Life can suck. People see atrocities many of us can only fathom, life isn't fair, blah blah blah. My question is so what are YOU going to do about it? You got dealt a shitty hand for sure, but at some point you either say "I am going to continue to play with the shit cards I got dealt and keep losing" or "I am going to seek a new set of cards and play the game differently".

You can't change what you were born into, the messages we hear as youngsters, the way we are treated, it all shapes us, no doubt. BUT, it does not need to define us forever. Yah, it is hard work, really hard work, but it is possible. There will be two steps forward and one step back. Behaviours don't change over night. When changing our thinking, you have to be conscious of it, bring it to the forefront of your awareness, maybe even say it out loud and name it.

Skip some lifetimes, addict(recovering 25 years) alcoholic(recovering 12[?]years) biker trash, trucker, long haired freaky looking critter

I don't know you well enough to know if these comments are made in true self deprecation or sarcastically. If this is how you see yourself, please start your healing here. To call yourself "trash" and a "freaky looking critter" suggests you have very little self worth, you see yourself as "less than". Work on changing that internal dialogue, write out a list of attributes which are positive, things you have done right in your life. They are there, I guarantee it.

I remember years ago in a MC session with my husband the counsellor asked me to list the things I disliked about my H and the things I loved about him. My list of frustrations was short, my list of things I loved about him long....but I was choosing to focus all of my attention on the 3 things which irritated the shit outta me rather than the 20 things I loved about him. It was an opportunity for me to gain insight and challenge my thinking in the future when I recognized I was again ruminating on the nit picky things. Challenge yourself.

If you want something badly enough and are willing to put the effort in, it is possible. The clincher is, that it is entirely up to you and your effort/desire to change. You decide who you ultimately become.

These issues far exceed infidelity IMO. They are the core of who you are and need to be addressed for you to be a safe partner for anyone...and really, to be a good fellow human being.

Good luck. I hope you ask for a new set of cards.

[This message edited by hopeandhealing at 12:47 PM, November 24th (Saturday)]

I haven't seen any posts citing physical abuse. That would certainly be a different issue, P4L.

IMHO, all infidelity is emotionally abusive to the betrayed party, so that just goes with the territory. Verbal abuse is common as well, but not necessarily unrecoverable if the wounding party is willing to get help.

Of the many horrible things I have done, physical abuse isn't one of them.

Have another therapy appt tomorrow. Working on my ebt(emotional brain training).

What I'm doing is rewiring the circuits to change these godawful ways to something productive.

And for those keeping tabs, my wife is in her hotel room and I've stayed in my truck.

🦃

You PHYSICALLY get in her face and yell and scream at her.

You PHYSICALLY intimidate her

You PHYSICALLY removed her access to her ONLY mode of transportation(the truck)

You PHYSICALLY left her in 30 degree weather...200 miles away from anyone or anything she knew.

You may not "hit" her....but you absolutely use exert control of her safety by means of physical intimidation.

[This message edited by prissy4lyfe at 7:58 PM, November 24th (Saturday)]

Later

Pigpen,

There is more to sobriety than not drinking.

What you have described in the past, and what you continue to describe is an alcoholic who has stopped drinking i.e. a dry drunk. What you are lacking is what the program talks about as a psychic change. I spent 15 years in a dry drunk, then started drinking again and that mixed up with my affairs nearly lost me my family.

In AA this is called a psychic change. A psychic change appears to be in the nature of huge emotional displacements and rearrangements. Ideas, emotions, and attitudes which were once the guiding forces of the lives of these men are suddenly cast to one side, and a completely new set of conceptions and motives begin to dominate them.

Problem is that you continue to engage in these abusive behaviors, lather, rinse, repeat and your wife continues to bear the brunt of your shitty choices, attitudes, and actions.

[This message edited by sorrowfulmate at 7:53 PM, November 25th, 2018 (Sunday)]