SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

*note - one problem with too many rules is that the dumb ones that you were probably rebelling against (good girls should not be sexual) get tossed out with the really really important ones (stay away from married men). Your husband can you figure this out.

Pippen, great post. You captured my WW well too. A world surround in rules layered on top of rules. So many rules that the ones that really matter are buried under 100 that make no difference at all (or aren't even really rules). This is a huge problem in society today, I read something years ago that said the average person commits a few felonies a day in their (totally normal) life. So "crime" loses it meaning when we're all doing it, which, in a lot of cases, I'd argue it has. The same thing for a million "sexual rules" or "good girls do/don't do" rules. It all loses it meaning. <graphic stuff upcoming>.. Good girls don't enjoy sex, don't swallow, don't do anal, don't have sex more than once a week and don't cheat on their husbands. Well, one of those rules REALLY F**KING matters. The other "rules" well, if I could banish all those thoughts from everyone's head with a snap of my fingers this morning, the would would be a much happier place.

Too many rules is a problem. Rules that have no basis in reality, or rules that actively rob experiences from a marriage are a huge problem. And I see this, over and over in my life. My friends who are cops and live in a "rules on top of rules" world; well.. You go out for drinks with these guys, prepare for a bar fight and a night sleeping in your own vomit. It's nuts, and I think a lot of it is because they are so repressed and "rule bound" in their everyday life. And the other one, hopefully not too offensive, is highly religious women. There's a reason, I've seen it first hand, that so many men have a fantasy about the "church girl". Because when you live your life in a tiny box (of your own making) and suddenly see there's more, well, a lot of people go absolutely wild.

Too many rules are a bad thing for all of us. The rules that matter are buried in reams of rules that make no sense or difference to anyone, and expecting people to "figure out which to follow and not" is a really poor way to run a society.

No stop sign!!!

I have a WH that doesn't seem to remember past transgressions, can't seem to remember certain details, however he was drunk or on drugs when these happened so I expect some memory loss from him,

Being kept in darkness would be to much for most BS's, however you have a BH that has/is literally trying his best to come to terms with his new reality,

Tbh I haven't read a lot on the Wayward Side as I don't want to trigger,

I have however followed your BH's thread which has lead me to this thread bc of a comment made there.

Im not sure what I was expecting but I'm disappointed with what I have read here from you.

You will get back from your marriage exactly what you put into it,

Seriously IMHO He deserves to know everything so he can start to heal for himself, He has every right to want to know everything & to dig as much as he can to find his answers.

He didn't ask for this new reality!!!

Have you seen a neurologist or head trauma specialist. I would talk to your PCP and explain what is happening and go see someone else other than just an IC. Be proactive to figuring out why you forget things.

Here’s what I see: You engaged in relationships and sex that was secret, illicit, rule-breaking, and totally against what is acceptable in your community. During that time, you met your husband and had an immediate attraction to him. But he fit the norms of your community. You wanted to be a person who could be with him and you wanted to leave behind the other person, so you hid what you had done and what you had felt, super-compartmentalized, actually forgot, mentally moved on. It was hard to do that on a dime - you had a links to the past (the EA that you brought in to the marriage) but that stopped after a while. You thought you had successfully left behind that part of your life and moved on. And you were so used to hiding that part of yourself from your husband (and from yourself) that it didn’t even feel like the “you” who married your husband doing that.

@ Pippin- this really spoke to me. I can understand why I would forget details and push the memories aside I just still question when. When did I stop feeling guilty? I know that I felt guilty...but I don’t know for how long. How long until I can totally forget it all as if it didn’t happen to me? I’m still searching for those answers, not for my BH but for myself.

Have you seen a neurologist or head trauma specialist. I would talk to your PCP and explain what is happening and go see someone else other than just an IC. Be proactive to figuring out why you forget things.

@zugzwang- While having forgot so much has been both disturbing as well as unimaginably difficult for my BH we don’t have the financial means right now to rack up medical bills for this. We both understand how and why I would dissociate from the A and bury many memories so deeply. That doesn’t make it easier. I continue to push myself and try to uncover any more prudent information. I don’t want to trickle truth. I want to be able to give him all of the answers that he so desperately needs.

I didn’t know what to expect from IC but I was disappointed with what I got. I decided not to go back to the IC I was seeing. She claimed to have experience with infidelity and marriage counseling but based on how the 4 sessions that I had went, I felt that I needed someone new. I felt like I got better advice, insight and help on SI than from her. I felt like I had to constantly defend my BH to her and I felt like so much of what she said was very against advice we have received on SI. While I did understand why BH was concerned that I was being honest with the IC, he also understood how what he was asking of me was counterproductive.

I’m still trying to let go of the outcome but it’s been harder to do these last few weeks while things have been going relatively well. I’ve been working on my healing while BH has been focused on his. We’re approaching 5 months since dday. We’re both bracing for a storm up ahead as it’s been relatively calm lately. The conflict avoidant part of me just wants to wish it all away. I don’t want to give my BH what to be angry about. There is still a lot of work for me to be doing and I’m trying to direct my focus.

Did you talk to your IC about why you were disappointed and how it was different from what you expected? Would that conversation make you worried or frightened? I find those conversations valuable, especially I am shying away from them. Did you talk to her about explicit goals and what was off the table, i.e. you are definitely staying with your husband and definitely not changing your religion? I wonder if she is entertaining ideas about you being happier away from your husband or religion if you don't make those facts explicit.

The conflict avoidant part of me just wants to wish it all away.

I had an affair before getting married which we rugswept - found a simple and easy explanation for it, spent a few months in IC and apart from each other, then got back together and got married. We didn't even call it an affair since I broke up with my boyfriend (now husband) the morning after it started. Look where I am 20+ years later, dealing with all the stuff I didn't deal with then. I know it's hard and would be so much more comfortable if it would just get quickly and easily resolved. And you need rest periods. But I hope you can really embrace this time as a chance to get better, because you have a long, long life ahead of you and it will be much better if you live it as fully and genuinely as possible, and have as much emotional intimacy with your husband as possible. It's human to look for comfortable and settled. I try to resist that every day.

Did you talk to your IC about why you were disappointed and how it was different from what you expected? Would that conversation make you worried or frightened? I find those conversations valuable, especially I am shying away from them. Did you talk to her about explicit goals and what was off the table, i.e. you are definitely staying with your husband and definitely not changing your religion? I wonder if she is entertaining ideas about you being happier away from your husband or religion if you don't make those facts explicit.

I didn’t straight out tell her what my problem was. My husband would discuss his sessions with his IC as well and I felt like the advice he was getting was real and concrete. He only had two sessions and I had 4 but I felt he got a lot more out of it than I did. His IC set goals with him. I kept asking my IC “what should I do next?” “what should my focus be?” “Where do I go from here?” Etc and crickets.

She kept saying things like “well, how could you remember?” “He can’t keep going on like this.” “He’s going to just need to accept what you told him and move on with what information he has.” “If he keep this up it’s going to upset you too. You can’t live like this.” In the scope of what I’ve seen this doesn’t seem all that bad” “he’s going to have to come to terms with the fact you can’t remember anything else.” “He seems to be emotionally unstable.” “Now he’s controlling and manipulating you.”

This is just what I could remember off the top of my head. Initially I was irked by comments like these and I thought that perhaps she was testing me...would I agree with her or would I be able to say, “no, it’s understandable for him to feel this way, etc.” by the fourth session I sensed it wasn’t a test and she was really making comments like this which rubbed me the wrong way. This was not what I had in mind.

One thing that came up during a session that had some truth to it was discussing another time of my life that I had blocked out. I knew for a while that I had no memories of my grandmother. She watched me every single day of my life until she died when I was 6 years old but I have not a single memory of her. I don’t remember a vision of her, I don’t remember her voice, I don’t remember her documenting my life with pictures...nothing. She asked if my mother discussed her passing with me. I know my mother and I know she didn’t. My IC said that my 6 year old self found this abandonment of such a prominent figure of my life to be so traumatic that I blocked out all memories of her.

I would come and sit and talk but she wouldn’t lead the conversation in one way or another. She rarely interjected and I had to stop for long enough or straight out ask her to say something. I was looking for advice and help and I can’t imagine getting it from her. I was getting better “therapy” from SI and my BH.

I’m pretty intimidated now to go out and find someone new. It wasn’t easy to open up about everything and I’m petrified to start from the beginning again. I’m also terrified that it will take some therapist hunting and I’ll have to do it repeatedly until I find what I’m looking for.

You did absolutely the right thing. Your former IC seems to be pretty clueless.

Do continue to look for another one. At least that experience will help the decision making process.

Notwithstanding the memory loss conundrum, you seem to have the right attitude, which is half the battle. Please stay positive and try to remain cognizant of your betrayed husband's needs at all times.

Good luck.

TBI, would be easy to rule out for the reason of not remembering stuff. Have you had any? Just watched a 20/20 thing or dateline about it. That's why I was wondering. As far as forgetting everything because you chose to bury it...I just don't get that. I know that I chose to do that type of stuff but push comes to shove it was less about actually forgetting as it was about refusing to admit to stuff because I wanted to avoid consequences. I think most of us did what you were talking about however we didn't really actually forget any of it.

Given what you've said about your IC and your H's, it looks like you have a good idea of what you want from an IC.

As you look and interview prospective ICs, you can ask if they work the way you want, and I urge you to do so.

That doesn't mean you'll find one, but at least you'll recognize if a prospect is what you want or not.

[This message edited by sisoon at 5:18 PM, June 28th (Friday)]

@zugzwang- I’ve never had a head injury. I work with patients with TBI and cognitive rehabilitation. It’s not that. There is so much more to it and understanding that the mind is a marvelous thing and memories are so very complex.

I’ve been trying to understand more about it. I read somewhere that if a child is raised in a loving home with good child development, they are more likely to process a traumatic event better. However, if a child’s psychological development had distrust, fear or abandonment, then they may be more likely to respond to a traumatic event with dissociative properties. Because of this and certain events in my childhood it doesn’t surprise me that my mind went this route.

Another article I read stated that, “One of the reasons why repression is hotly contested in the psychology field is due to modern-day research, which finds trauma can actually be forgotten (not simply repressed). Although people are wired to automatically store experiences — good and bad — into a memory, brains can “wall off” memories of particularly harmful experiences as a kind of self-protection. Extreme trauma disrupts long-term memory storage and explains why it can be difficult to remember horrible events.” It seems that mental blocks are usually a form of subconscious protection which was what I had done.

Many of the details that were initially difficult to remember, I was ultimately able to remember many of them. There’s so much more to understand.

My “relationship“ with the AP was over an 8 year period. My BH was begging for all the details going back to the very beginning. Every encounter, every feeling, every act that we did and how many times. All the when’s, where’s and what’s.

Imagine the AP was a former girlfriend/boyfriend that you had. You were together for 8 years and have barely contacted them or thought about them in 3 years. In the last 3 years your life had also changed drastically. Can you honestly say that you could accurately give your BS all of those answers? How many times would you say “you can’t remember” or “you’re not sure.” NOT that you didn’t remember that you had sex, NOT that you didn’t remember the AP, but you can’t remember exactly how many times you had sex with them over 8 years, etc.

There were also a lot of things that I initially didn’t remember about this AP as well as some other old partners (not AP’s) that BS found texts with but seeing the texts or google searches jogged that memory and I was able to give him a lot of information in the timeline that he needed. His asking questions on the timeline also helped me to remember more forgotten details.

I betrayed my husband by having still kept in contact and having been physical with AP while dating my BH and after we were engaged, as well as making plans to meet during our first year of marriage particularly when things got tough. As time went on and I became the person I wanted to be with the life I wanted to have with my BH and children I rewrote a lot of those memories.

I didn’t forget that this man was an AP like many thought. It was the times of our physical and emotional contact that got blurred in my mind. Time makes memories fade. Memories get altered. Memories are really so very complex. BH wanted EVERY. SINGLE. DETAIL going back to 2008 when I first met AP in my timeline. I had many facts that I was able to share with him, however, when I told my BH that “I couldn’t remember” exactly how many BJ’s were given in my entire time with this AP it has nothing to do with a TBI.

There was also a lot that I couldn’t remember immediately because the trauma and stress, not to mention the incredible guilt and shame that was connected to the AP and specifically during the timeframe since I met my BH also does not need to be explained by a head injury or a psychological disorder.

Immediately after dday I panicked and like many waywards I said “I didn’t remember” because I thought it would either make it all go away or because I was too afraid to hurt my BH or incriminate myself. I didn’t want him to see or know what a terrible person I was. This was why I had always withheld all details from my past. This is what made it turn into the boy that cried wolf but after coming to SI and beginning to work on the timeline there was no information intentionally withheld in order to avoid consequences.

We rewrite our memories all of the time. Look at any woman that bears more than one child. Take for example an ordinary woman who didn’t have severe morning sickness, a traumatic birth or PPD. You can even take a woman who did experience those things. They remember that pregnancy was uncomfortable, they remember morning sickness sucked and they remember child birth hurt...but they do it again and again because God allows us to forget these facts. Even if you don’t forget the actual fact that it hurt, you do forget the actual pain until you are there in that moment. Time allows all of those memories to lessen and fade and many to ultimately be forgotten. Now a woman with a 13 year old may remember she had morning sickness. She may remember it was constant and it was terrible. You can press as much as you like, she won’t be able to tell you exactly how many times she vomited. If she tells you, “she can’t remember” that doesn’t mean something is wrong with her. My daughter is only 2.5 and I can’t answer that. I don’t remember my morning sickness being bad at all but BH can tell you differently. Rewriting memories, altering memories, fading memories- this is all normal.

This is really just to vent for all those comments that stated “there’s no possible way not to remember. “I can’t remember “ LYING. I’m not trying to justify that it’s ok not to give My BH details. I’m not trying to stop remembering things. I’m not trying to undermine BH’s need to know. When I say, “ I don’t remember,” it’s because I don’t have an honest answer to the question he is asking. This A wasn’t last week, last month or last year. It wasn’t over a short period of time either.

Unless I’m missing something, having difficulty with my memory should not baffle as many of you as it seems to.

ETA: I showed my BH this post and he asked if the two car accidents I had (rear ended someone in 2013 and was rear ended in 2015) may have been a mild TBI . We laughed because I honestly forgot about those incidents as a possible brain injury- doink!

[This message edited by Change4thebetter at 7:19 PM, June 28th, 2019 (Friday)]

Ok - the 'I don't remember' thing seems to be pretty common, but how much of it is real?

Do some WS genuinely not recall most of their affair? Certainly.

Do some WS use forgetting as an excuse to avoid consequences? Certainly.

How is a BS to tell the difference?

Here I think effort counts for a lot. If details are important to your BS (and even if they're not) make a timeline. Review old emails, credit card receipts, travel, business meeting, whatever - EVERYTHING you can think of and write out a timeline. Some of this will spur your memory - and it probably will be an unpleasant project, but we BS's are in a pretty unpleasant place ourselves.

Consider a timeline a step (one of many) in winning us back. Even if you're not completely successful in remembering everything, the effort will let your BS know that you're serious about recovery.

Reconciliation is REALLY HARD WORK - and if you want your marriage to survive, you really have to give it all you have.

[This message edited by nightmare01 at 7:49 PM, June 28th (Friday)]

I don't think anyone expects you to remember every little detail. And,though your husband really wants to know it all,realistically he knows that's impossible. Realistically, I imagine everyone reading here understands that.

It's not those little details that people are calling you out on. It's the unbelieveable story that..what? 3-4 years ago, you had sex with a man who wasn't your husband, had a pregnancy scare, then went back and had sex with that man again...and you forgot about it.

I've had 4 kids. I remember the pain of labor with each. I didnt forget the pain, and go on to have the next child. I got pregnant,and gave birth, again, and again, and again, because no matter how much it hurt, in the end you have this beautiful child. So the pain it took to get them here,was worth it.

Just like reconciliation. The WS has to be honest, and vulnerable...the hard work. Regardless of the pain it causes. Because,in the end, you can have an amazing marriage. And all of your hard work would be worth it.

Nightmare brings up a good point. If a ws truly doesnt remember, and want to give the BS the answers they need, they should be digging for that information.

Your husband is the one digging. He is the one finding things and confronting. Why is that?

It's not those little details that people are calling you out on. It's the unbelieveable story that..what? 3-4 years ago, you had sex with a man who wasn't your husband, had a pregnancy scare, then went back and had sex with that man again...and you forgot about it.

I agree. And so do you, because you said yourself after your BH proved you were lying that you always felt there was something off with the memory. You didn't tell him beforehand that something felt off; you insisted that there was absolutely, positively no "there" there. Not a chance. Once he found irrefutable proof, ok, fine, now you'll admit your memory felt shady.

To say that this is all a perfectly understandable confusion, and that we should not be baffled, is disingenuous. I say this as someone who also lied, evaded, TT'd, and genuinely can't remember everything. I cannot believe I wouldn't remember if I had sex with OM again after I got engaged, and that was 30 years ago.

It's the unbelieveable story that..what? 3-4 years ago, you had sex with a man who wasn't your husband, had a pregnancy scare, then went back and had sex with that man again...and you forgot about it.

Bingo! This is what is unbelievable. Not little details of where and when a date was. I have never met anyone that has stated they completely forgot about a pregnancy scare while cheating and then claim they forgot about it. It couldn't have been that traumatic since you went back to him. Just saying.. I get how your husband sees it as BS. From an outside POV the traumatic event reasons just don't cut it. (I had a lot of female friends) with traumatic backgrounds in my teens and 20s....sister-in-law being one and had an abortion they never forgot a thing. Haunts them to this day. Then you add that you have experience with people that have had TBI and trauma experience and that just adds to the whole mistrust for him because you know how it works and can use that experience/insight to manipulate the situation to your advantage. You have an uphill battle over some large details. Not smaller ones that get foggy over time for just about anyone.

As time went on and I became the person I wanted to be with the life I wanted to have with my BH and children I rewrote a lot of those memories

.

What caused you to become the person you wanted to be and how did this change manifest itself into actions or behavioral changes?

When did you define how you wanted to be? Was it at this time, earlier in your life or while engaged or married to your husband?

Precisely what behavioral changes took place?

What changes took place in your AP's life at this time and how did it impact you?

What personality or physical trait enabled you to compromise the foundation of which your relationship/engagement and marriage stood? Another way to put it, AP had a quality in him that touched you emotionally, physically or psychologically in some way. Even if his quality was being a POS, at least he had that. Some women love POS's. Eventually they find out it's not good for them, but still.....

AP had a quality in him that touched you emotionally, physically or psychologically in some way.

I don't think APs do this at all. I think APs are just mirror images of ourselves. Absolutely alike us and let us be the shittiest version of a unhealthy immature human being. They don't touch us in an emotional, physical, or psychological way...IMO it is an absence of all those thing. They allow us to be numb enough to get a drug high from sitting in shit.

I agree with Zug 1000%. ^^^ Anything else is a romanticized version of what happened.

I do hope you're giving my question some serious thought.

You are digging to find reasons why you "forgot." Your husband is digging, and finding, the truth. Why are you digging for excuses? Why aren't you doing what your husband is doing? Why aren't you digging for the truth?

[This message edited by HellFire at 11:57 AM, July 1st (Monday)]

I appreciate all the comments. I also know it’s time to drop excuses to why I couldn’t remember. I don’t know why I had a lot of trouble remembering details or facts that many questioned how is it possible to forget.

I have been doing my share of research and I tried to learn from my BH. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to remember. I’ve cross referenced bank statements with texts, my calendar, my google activity and anything else I could think of. I’ve driven around places I drove at the time of the A. I haven’t found out or remembered anything new to share with my BH but I haven’t given up.

@Jorge- I need to give your questions some thought.