SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

So I ask, what are other ways you can get sustenance now that you are older and wiser? If not by pleasing others, what will you do?

I will take care of my own needs, and for the needs I can't meet myself (like social needs), I will look to safe friends who accept me for me, and not the masks I wear (very important coming from CPTSD).

I've started doing this in the past year or so since starting CPTSD work. It's incredibly painful and scary, but results is simply... freeing.

This is true, yes. But in my mind, I think you missed a step. Why are you chasing love? What if you just stopped, for now, and did not look for love? Then what? What if you just worked on building up the 'real you' that you would like them to love?

I will be 100% honest with you here. I am chasing love because I am in a lot of emotional pain and loneliness. I have been in pain and loneliness since the breakup, and I know love can help me temporarily relieve the pain. Logically speaking this is a classical trap, and answering your question I see it more clearly now. But that's the honest truth.

I know taking time to build the real me is the best play right now, especially trying to come out of people pleasing. I simply don't know who I am, or what I like (because I had to suppress it all my life). But right now it's just more uncertainty and pain to add onto the already mountain of pain. I will do the right thing and climb this mountain.

The steps that (finally) worked for me were:
1. Stopped people pleasing
2. Started pleasing myself. Did only what felt good to me.
3. Realized how satisfying and enjoying it was to take care of myself by myself (no outside love required)
4. Enjoyed this time spent on me. Vowed to keep it up forever
5. And then I realized, oddly, that more attention and affection were bestowed on me, I guess because people could sense that I was safe and not needy. They were attracted to the real, confident me

Well shit I think I'm barely getting on step 1 at best lol. May I get your opinion on a long-time fear of mine? That is the fear of time running out. When I look at your list of steps for true change, I get triggered by feelings of "but come on, how long will that take?" My brain then goes into comparison mode with others not too different from my OP example of injustice, except the feeling here is fear. Logically I know it's a necessary step, and that my comparisons are nonsense. Logically I know that my reaction is likely a trauma response that needs to be worked through. Emotionally though it makes a big mess. So my question is: Do you see this as part of the necessary steps to improvements? How did you approach this feeling or fear (if you had it)?

Thank you.

Have you read Journey from Abandonment to Healing by Susan Anderson? It's a great read with great expercises, especially for people like us.

Nope, but I can pick it up. Recently finishing up on Bradshaw's "Healing the shame that binds you" and Pete Walker's "CPTSD: from surviving to thriving". So that book will be next

@Superesse

Ah, but what if the reward sought is unattainable, no matter how much we attempt to gain it?

I think the point of what we need is to not seek rewards for our actions, but instead have the rewards generated from within. That way we can look at the other person objectively, and not through rose colored glasses (which hands up I've done with my XWF throughout our entire relationship).

Some therapists have theorized that we subconsciously choose mates who will fit in with the schema we formed in childhood about our value. I don't like such a fatalistic view of human mate selection, but I see evidence in my life that I accepted quite a lot of "better than nothing" handouts, all along the way. Because truly I didn't think the goal I sought was attainable for me. I mean, it hadn't been true in my FOO.

Definitely agree with this. From the way I see it, we don't actively seek out abusers similar to our parents. We are just used to being abused, and see what healthy people would call abusive as normal. We see comfort in what we know (which unfortunately is abuse), and we know how to handle it (by people pleasing). So naturally for an abuser, they cycle through healthy people (who have boundaries and won't put up with abuse) until they end up with us (who will accept the abuse, maybe not even seeing the abuse as abuse). This can change for us with better awareness and setting boundaries. Until this paradigm shift happens, we are in danger of further abuse (whether in R or in new relationship imo).

The things we do for love.....

And the things we'll force ourselves to put up with for love

oldme, you're onto something, but remember, it doesn't have to be "abuse" we dealt with in our FOO. It can just be lukewarmness. And that is the best we ever saw, for the most part. It sort of sets the bar for all future love relationships, doesn't it?

My maternal grandmother wrote little me a love letter when I was maybe 2 years old. She lived far away and missed me, and when I came across this letter later in my childhood, my reaction - which I can still recall - was "what was going on with her? She sure was gushing over me, how odd." Now, I wonder if she wasn't just expressing a normal, healthy affection for her granddaughter, but since it didn't "fit" my template for the adults in my life, I sort of pushed it away?

May I get your opinion on a long-time fear of mine? That is the fear of time running out. When I look at your list of steps for true change, I get triggered by feelings of "but come on, how long will that take?

Not many of us know when our life will end. You can be active or passive or some combo of both about it, and you get to choose your path.

The negative thoughts are in us all. Human beings usually are their own worst enemies. But we can do difficult things even when we're scared or angry, or ashamed, or in grief. You can use your thinking to countermand the negative thoughts to a great extent.

You might do everything right and still have an awful life. You can be passive as hell and get everything you want. The best way to get what you want, though, is to take action. (Daoists talk about 'non-action', but even that is an action.)

The love that you need and deserve comes from within. You've lost your conscious connection with the self-love that's in you, but the self-love is still in you, ready to be awakened. I urge you to go for that love, not love from someone else. If you build your self-love, you'll always be loved, even if you're alone.

You're at least as imperfect as the rest of us, but you are still lovable, loving, and capable. You are fully deserving of self-love. Go for it.

There is a lot of injustice in my story.

Am I rightly angry? Absolutely.

But if I don't find some way to heal these people win.

I have been using gratitude as a practice. Even if I am gritting my teeth while saying out loud what I am grateful for.

I am using another spiritual practice I saw on a video as well. I will try to be general since I don't think we are supposed to talk about religion. Certain Christian people refer to this practice as speaking the name of their deity over their lives.

This is helping me survive the moral injury. Sometimes people think a person should just be over it. But they don't know what it is like to walk in another person's shoes.

I wish us all peace and healing.

To be clear, I am not recommending any particular spiritual practice but these were 2 things that were congruent with my spiritual beliefs that help me cope with the emotional pain from WH's shocking betrayal and his continual actions against me in the divorce...

Unfortunately we’re a bit hard-wired to make invidious comparisons, from comparing our own childish incompetence to that of adults to the way the school system differentiates and grades us. I think it was Brene Brown who said if you look for reasons why you don’t belong, you will always find them. And the converse is true. Ditto, if you look for reasons why you are inferior, you will always find them. And the converse is true.

It is great you can see how damaging it is to make invidious comparisons and you can catch yourself doing it, then you can ‘spit in the soup’ - make that comfortable bowl of invidious wallowing unpalatable and look for reasons to be happy with your lot. You will always find them.

People pleasing is definitely FOO issue. PP comes from our deep-seated feeling of self-unreliability. When we feel incompetent and incapable of providing us happiness and safety thar we desire on our own we look outside. This sense of low self-worth comes from external influences like bad parenting, bad friends, bad teachers, or the school environment and also films, advertisements, and social media.

The only way to overcome PP is to prove that I can depend on myself to achieve the happiness and safety that I desire. There are plenty of ways to do it. One way is to do things that you wouldn't do them alone.

Treat yourself as the only ingredient you require for your happy life. Treat others as value additions. They will enrich your life, but they are not absolutely necessary.

Also, this is such a great thread. I love every wisdom poured in this thread.

This is an amazingly helpful post. Thank you everyone and thank you oldmewasmurdered for writing the question and your deep thinking which I feel like I really relate to. Also everyone’s comments have been so helpful!

I have a question. How do you find inside what you are seeking from other people? What are the steps you take?

[This message edited by Squish at 2:05 PM, Sunday, July 2nd]

Everyone in this world has their trials. Infidelity is one of ours. It's even one of the WS. What people do when faced with faced with trials is the real meat of it. A test of faith.

The love that you need and deserve comes from within. You've lost your conscious connection with the self-love that's in you, but the self-love is still in you, ready to be awakened. I urge you to go for that love, not love from someone else. If you build your self-love, you'll always be loved, even if you're alone.

This may sound sad, but I don't know what true self-love feels like. I have a lot of self confidence from being an overachiever, but that's not self-love. I can do self-compassionate things, and say that I love myself, but it doesn't generate any warm fuzzy feelings. I have mastered 100 ways to please others and to put on masks, but to turn that compassion inwards is a foreign feeling.

But you are absolutely correct. Even in my childhood trauma work developing self acceptance, self compassion, and self-love is a key piece to recovery. I guess we can start by doing self-caring things because logically we know they are the right thing to do, and actively stopping the inner critic attacks. I hope that eventually the feelings will come. "Fake it till you make it" I guess.

The only way to overcome PP is to prove that I can depend on myself to achieve the happiness and safety that I desire. There are plenty of ways to do it. One way is to do things that you wouldn't do them alone.

Would you mind giving a few examples? I'm drawing blanks on what you mean.

Treat yourself as the only ingredient you require for your happy life. Treat others as value additions. They will enrich your life, but they are not absolutely necessary.

Words to live by for a recovering people pleaser. Thank you.

I have a question. How do you find inside what you are seeking from other people? What are the steps you take?

Sorry Squish is this question addressed to me? I don't understand.

[This message edited by oldmewasmurdered at 5:44 PM, Sunday, July 2nd]

I am chasing love because I am in a lot of emotional pain and loneliness. I have been in pain and loneliness since the breakup, and I know love can help me temporarily relieve the pain.

Sorry, but I feel this thinking should scare anyone away: who would want to get involved just to help someone "temporarily relieve the pain," like a Tylenol? Actually, now that I think back, this sounds like the motivation of the last 2 divorced guys who woo'd me and then moved on, right before I met my current husband. Rebound Ronnie? Please, don't do that to someone who may want to really be loved for themselves too, not just to relieve another's pain. (I know you were just being vulnerable with us in sharing that; still, it worth looking at your motivation from the other person's perspective, no?)

All that said, I firmly believe we are made for inter-connectedness and inter-personal love, so I too have doubts about turning more or less inward for that kind of love and external validation, you know?

As you wrote, oldme, your primary ache goes back to before the XWW. I wish you could work on healing those parental and family relationships, if at all possible, as your first therapeutic effort, rather than "moving on" with those old wounds unhealed. I think we can heal that old pain, and when one feels more okay about the past, one won't look to someone else to meet that craving. Make sense?

And the things we'll force ourselves to put up with for love

Now here's the thing, if you have to force yourself to put up with something, then it may not be love.

In my case, after my XF cheated on me, I did give it a (short) college try. Problem was that I knew that I would never be able to heal myself with her, like you, I felt like a huge injustice was done to me, as it went against my values ad morals.

So I did what I thought would help me, which was to break the cycle. It was relatively easy (in the sense of no kids/assets), and it hurt like hell for quite a while (lingering effects over years), but NC, good friends, time, an focusing on myself helped me out of the abyss.

So, I do get your sense of injustice, but the base question you might ask yourself is, 'What do I want to do abut it?'

I can totally relate. I did not know I was capable of being so angry. It was almost scary. I tried to use the anger to motivate me to get work done. I mean as angry as I was I could not sit still. It is hard to deal with such anger and lead a normal life.

I know a person gets tired of hearing this but time does help. Some day the emotions won't be as strong. The betrayals have changed me. My give a damn has been busted so many times that I am not the same person I used to be. I no longer see the world the way I used.

I am sorry this has happened to you. I believe this is one of the worst things person can go through.

oldmewasmurdered - lol sorry that didn’t make sense in the slightest.

My wh had a looong lta. I understand how you feel, yesterday I was thinking about how I will never be the same. The magic I believed in in love is gone. The innocence I had is no longer. And it was so worth it he dropped her after I found out and told me he could never leave me. Gut wrenching

I’m trying to do all of those things- focus on me, do the 180, be ok to let the m go. But I’m finding it hard firstly to figure out what I now want in this life. But also as another member put it, I’m having such a hard time doing the below

The love that you need and deserve comes from within. You've lost your conscious connection with the self-love that's in you, but the self-love is still in you, ready to be awakened. I urge you to go for that love, not love from someone else. If you build your self-love, you'll always be loved, even if you're alone.

And I feel the same way you do as you have noted….

This may sound sad, but I don't know what true self-love feels like. I have a lot of self confidence from being an overachiever, but that's not self-love. I can do self-compassionate things, and say that I love myself, but it doesn't generate any warm fuzzy feelings. I have mastered 100 ways to please others and to put on masks, but to turn that compassion inwards is a foreign feeling.

You are not alone. I hope I can learn something to help me move forward and calm my soul. Find the good things in my life that are waiting for me. I hope the same for you too.

I so believe the quote in my tagline…

One thing I realized years ago it that life isn’t a playground. If someone did bad on your half there wasn’t the near-automatic response of beating him up next day or telling the teachers. Sometimes people do bad and/or wrong things, and we don’t get payback per se.

There is no way I can get even with my ex. First of all it would require I get her to an emotional attachment stage equivalent to the one I had for her. Then I would have to expect her to have the expectation of monogamy. Then I would have to lower my morals to where I could go pick up a random woman for sex (and considering my age that’s not likely…). Of course I would need to time it so she walked in on us.

So what punishment does she deserve? We have timeframes for legal crime, like 1-10 years for burglary. 100 pushups for a BJ? Run a marathon for every month of infidelity?

No. we can’t get even. That’s just how it is.

What we can do is decide we don’t want to be where we feel this need for revenge.

If we are reconciling then a need for revenge won’t help things… The revenge might come later on when the WS realizes the enormity of what they did and what they risked in the form of remorse-pain. But I don’t think we BS will feel any pleasure from that pain.

If we decide the relationship is over then trying to one-up them (have a bigger house, better car, nicer new spouse…) simply keeps them in our life. Not really conductive to moving on.

My ex? Well… I have been successful in life. Financially, family, career, lifestyle… I am truly blessed. I didn’t get all this as a form of revenge. It just happened because I worked diligently at it in all ways: try to be a decent man, a good father and husband, got a degree or two, advanced my career and careful in finances.
My ex? Last time I heard (and that was about 5 years ago) she was twice divorced, two young adolescent sons (one doing time), living on benefits… I doubt this was God’s revenge for cheating, but I am 100% certain it’s the consequences of ongoing wrong decisions.

Hearing that about her… Didn’t make me feel any better or as if I had gotten some revenge. I was long over her. If anything I felt a sense of loss that such a beautiful and promising life had been wasted in such a way.

My own experience with self-love was that I always had some and used it, but I didn't recognize it as such. It took several bouts of therapy with good ICs to realize that. The same ICs helped me expand my sense of self-love, so I recommend finding an IC who will help.

Asking for help - for example, by posting on a peer-counseling site - is a sign of self-love. It's a sign you know you can live a better life and deserve to live that life. Consider that. Savor it. Keep it up.

You're loving, lovable, and capable, even if you don't realize it. You're loving, lovable, and capable, even if you don't realize it.

I Googled it and fit well right with what I was trying to convey. You can Google more lists like this. They are helpful.

Edit: if you don't like taking dance class then you could take music class or karate class or whatever class you like

[This message edited by Lurkingsoul12 at 9:28 AM, Tuesday, July 4th]

I’m trying to do all of those things- focus on me, do the 180, be ok to let the m go. But I’m finding it hard firstly to figure out what I now want in this life.

Sorry to hear you're going through this feeling. If it helps, I find the process of being inquisitive and figuring out what you want is a process of putting things in their right place and then letting your mind/body take you to where it knows you want to be.

The fundamental question is what will make me happy and what's stopping that from happening? And go from there.

For example: Say you want to be a great tennis player, that's what will make you happy. Great. Now what's in your way to achieve that? Oh no say let's you lost dominant your arms from an accident. Well that places roadblocks that needs to be cleared.
Here I find following the serenity prayer helps. "God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference."
Things you can't change: You will need to accept that you will worse for a while without your dominant arm. So to not hate yourself you need to set new, achievable expectations.
Things you can change: Maybe you go back to basics practicing with your off-hand.
Each time you go back to the question "what is stopping me from being happy", you can then approach the new obstacle and apply the serenity prayer to see if it's something that can be changed, or needs to be accepted, or a combination of both.
Then as all the obstacles get cleared, you naturally walk towards happiness.
In this example, maybe you eventually give up on playing tennis to be a coach or tennis broadcaster. You've accepted each step of the journey, so it doesn't feel like a rug-pull from your original goal, but personal growth instead.

Bringing this back to the topic of surviving infidelity, I would recommend you do the same. Start with simple things "I want to be happy", "I want to be loved". And ask yourself why are you not feeling loved? And what can be done about it?

Be kind to yourself, some of the things we BS have to accept in an A can be very hard pills to swallow.

Sending you strength :)

@Lurkingsoul12 Thank for the challenge! My first response was "I can do this challenge out of obligation to improve my self-love", then I read the first item on the list

if you don't like taking dance class then you could take music class or karate class or whatever class you like smile

Good idea. My dancing makes the inflatable tube man look like a ballet dancer.