Affair Over but Stuck

[NH115]

Hi Hurt06.

My W and I are in a very similar situation. It's amazing how similar the rhetoric is with unfaithful spouses.

My W had an EA a few months ago. She cut things off in December, and from everything I can tell she is sticking to no contact, but she is definitely grieving. She also says that she wants to reconnect with me, but doesn't know how. The sad fact is that until she goes through that grieving process and gets OM out of her system, she won't be able to reconnect with you. There's no shortcuts. Patience is your friend.

Affairs are almost always results, not root causes, of other relationship issues. You're not responsible for her decision to have an A, but it's important for you to honestly assess your role in setting the stage for it. What was missing in your relationship that she was trying to find in her A? Addressing those preexisting issues will be vital to healing your M.

You mentioned things she criticized you for and then claimed not to remember? That's not unusual. My W criticized me for things like reading books and going to church. She dug up things I supposedly said or did 15 years ago (most of which I don't remember) to justify her behavior. This thing she's in is a fog, no doubt.

Keep posting. You have found a great place on this board.

[Hurt06]

Hi Hurt06.

My W had an EA a few months ago. She cut things off in December, and from everything I can tell she is sticking to no contact, but she is definitely grieving. She also says that she wants to reconnect with me, but doesn't know how.

Keep posting. You have found a great place on this board.

Rzrback

Thanks for the support! My wife said the same thing back in SEP, that it was just and "Emotional Affair". She lied about all this to our pastor and continued for several months to deny and lie about the sexual part. She has also said she wants to reconnect but doesn't know how. I have heard the "I Love you, but I'm not in love with you" and never meant to hurt you statement.

I travel out of town a lot and she seems to look forward to me being gone. I feel like I am walking on glass and trying to stay neutral and non conformational about everything. I do occasionally slip and let my emotions get the best of me with her around but I am working hard to get a handle on this.

Any questions I try and tactfully raise are met with anger and "you will never get over this" and our marriage is damaged beyond repair statement s from her. Yet she stays and says she wants to work on things....very confusing.

We do have deeply rooted communication problems that I have been working on for months. I am seeing a separate therapist and have learned and incredible amount about myself and how I was throwing myself into work and not meeting the needs of my wife in a way that needed.....I have done a complete lifetlye change. I accept that I had a part in "setting up my marriage for the affair and accept full responsibility for my part" I have worked trolleys to improve myself and will be better no matter what the outcome. I am 1000% committed to my wife and kids and just need to gt the fog lifted so that we can have a marriage that is 100 times better than what we used to have.

[NH115]

Rzrback

Thanks for the support! My wife said the same thing back in SEP, that it was just and "Emotional Affair". She lied about all this to our pastor and continued for several months to deny and lie about the sexual part. She has also said she wants to reconnect but doesn't know how. I have heard the "I Love you, but I'm not in love with you" and never meant to hurt you statement.

I travel out of town a lot and she seems to look forward to me being gone. I feel like I am walking on glass and trying to stay neutral and non conformational about everything. I do occasionally slip and let my emotions get the best of me with her around but I am working hard to get a handle on this.

Any questions I try and tactfully raise are met with anger and "you will never get over this" and our marriage is damaged beyond repair statement s from her. Yet she stays and says she wants to work on things....very confusing.

We do have deeply rooted communication problems that I have been working on for months. I am seeing a separate therapist and have learned and incredible amount about myself and how I was throwing myself into work and not meeting the needs of my wife in a way that needed.....I have done a complete lifetlye change. I accept that I had a part in "setting up my marriage for the affair and accept full responsibility for my part" I have worked trolleys to improve myself and will be better no matter what the outcome. I am 1000% committed to my wife and kids and just need to gt the fog lifted so that we can have a marriage that is 100 times better than what we used to have.

Good! It's good to hear that you're looking at yourself. And again, what your W is saying is very common. Much of it is not an attempt to lie to you per se, but rather to lie to themselves and justify their behavior in their mind. I'm willing to wager she's as angry or angrier with herself than she is with you.

I will caution you on "getting the fog lifted". A core principle of DB is that you have zero control over your spouse's thoughts or actions. Your primary responsibility (other than your children) is to work on yourself; to become the best version of yourself you can be. Not to win her back; she will only decide that on her own, but rather to be the best man you can be. You will need to do that to weather what's coming. Be the best man you can be, but let go of any expectations about how your marriage will turn out. This is something I still struggle with.

As painful as this has been, I'm in a way glad that it happened. It was and is a rite of passage for me; I've changed in so many positive ways, physically and emotionally. I've been able to finally overcome some early personal baggage and get on a path to what will be a better life, regardless of what happens in my marriage.

I'm glad to see you're working with a therapist. Make sure to Get A Life (GAL). That could mean spending time with your kids, getting in shape, working on your career and/or business, practicing your faith, if that applies, taking up (or resuming) activities that make you happy. Be a strong, stable, positive presence when you're with your W, no matter how she's feeling that day. That will help you create a life you want and just might get your W to start thinking twice about giving up on you.

[Starsky309]

That's a great post, Rzr.

[sandi2]

She has been tested for hormones and has a slight imbalance. High Estrogen and almost no Progesterone among other imbalances with thyroid. She is having trouble with her hair, skin, and has developed a mysterious acid reflux that no doctor can find. She has admitted in counseling that everything is foggy and has been for a while. I not sure about all this.....very lost and confused while trying to deal with my own grief from the affair.

I want to share something personal with you. I have serious hormone imbalance problems. I have to go, at least once a month, to a hormone balancing specialist. You would not believe the amount of meds I have to take, and extremely expensive. I have so many things wrong with me till I can't even remember them all. I am doing much better than I was this time eight yrs ago. I was seeing specialist, etc., and at one time I was on 4 different types of AD's at once. Can you believe it? No wonder I was messed up! I could barely function, and had a very high stressed job, on top of all that mess. Then other things started happening and everything just intensified in my life. I felt so dead and empty that I wondered if i was alive at times.

The point I wanted to make, by telling you all of that about myself, is that I still had free will. My body was messed up, I was deeply depressed, I was stressed to the gills, but I knew right from wrong! I was as honest as they come, but then I cheated on the man who loved me the most. Was I in a fog? Oh yes, indeed! And although I can sympathsize with your W's hormone imbalance, I am here to tell you that she cannot use it as her excuse.

It would be easy to blame those choices on mental/emotional issues, or other health problems. However, I see that as taking the easy way out..........for me, anyway. So, I just wanted to tell you that b/c those issues do affect us a great deal, but as long as we are in our right mind, we still make choices to do what we do. I cannot say I didn't know what I was doing. I knew.......and i knew it was wrong.

[NH115]

Thanks! I'll take a Starsky endorsement any day

[Starsky309]

Thanks! I'll take a Starsky endorsement any day

Well it's not exactly the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, lol. More like a good Yelp review for a decent woodfired pizza and microbrew joint.

[Hurt06]

Thanks guys I really appreciate the support and insight.
It would be easy to weather all this if the lies and deceptive behavior would just completely stop and and have a moment of clarity and honesty.

Its the mixed signals that get confusing, almost a hybrid of partial truth and effort.

I guess this board is full of Wives and husbands giving mixed signals.

Based on her actions would it be more likely that she has a hormone imbalance or is grieving from loss of the OM and the fantasy of the love that they had?

[Starsky309]

Based on her actions would it be more likely that she has a hormone imbalance or is grieving from loss of the OM and the fantasy of the love that they had?

In decreasing order of likelihood, I'd say:

1. She's still in contact with OM, and is lying to you about it;

2. She's cut off contact with OM, and is in withdrawal and "grieving" the end of the relationship;

3. She has a hormone imbalance.

[sandi2]

Based on her actions would it be more likely that she has a hormone imbalance or is grieving from loss of the OM and the fantasy of the love that they had?

Did you even read my last post?