WH came back. Piecing. Almost at 2 year mark.

[BluWave]

Hi everyone!

Whenever I fall off the wagon (and don't read/post for several days), it's hard to pick back up without a large chunk of time. Please don't apologize for hijacking my thread! Any and all conversations are welcome. I learn so much from all of you, your perspectives, and just reading your stories.

I will come back when I have more time and can address you each personally (because I think that's important), however I only have a couple minutes right now. It is also dawning on me that I may not be doing a good job protecting my anonymity. I have shared so much about myself and I know there are a lot of readers that don't post. I am not sure what the harm in that is though. Maybe I am naive, I don't know.

So we attended Retrouvaille last weekend. I am still digesting the experience to be honest. I also think it's important not to share too much about it, because for anyone reading that ends up going in the future, I don't want to take away from your experience. So I think it's safer to only share my impressions.

- I very much appreciate the program and the way it is designed.
- The more I think about the presentations and the material, the more I can see how it makes sense and works.
- I also have a renewed respect for the Catholic church and their commitment to marriage and family.
- I have learned a lot of valuable tools that I fully intend on using in my daily life.
- I can see how this is a process and it is up to ME to take responsibility for ME and MY part in changing to make this marriage work.
- I feel fortunate that my H is committed to doing anything for me, our M, and our family.
- This feels like the start of something new that will lead me on the right path towards a better reconciliation.
- I am definitely a believer that if two people both want to stay married, attend this program, and both actually do the work, that any M can be saved. But it really does take both people.
- I have an enormous amount of respect for the couples that reconciled their Ms and shared their stories.
- I can say more confidently now that I want the same thing.

Have to run back to work. I'll be back later :-)

Feeling More Hopeful,
Blu

[BluWave]

Leahsue, yes, he is referring to Brene Brown. I'll watch it again today, as I had been at work and didn't finish it. I'll stop by your thread soon too :-)

Ownit, thank you for sharing your story. I need to check out your thread too. You wrote this, "Please don't hold your H to a standard of perfection that none of us can meet. Judge him only by his actions today." I will think about that even more and take it to heart. I feel that I am now getting to a place where I can do that.

Matrix, THIS here really resonated with me:

"I felt like if I forgave her, it meant that she got away with it. It meant that she was able to have an affair, have sex with another person and she still got to keep her husband and family. I could not ever accept that and it killed any chance that we had at reconciling.

I urge you to to find a deeper understanding of unconditional love and forgiveness. I wish I had so many years ago. I love my wife with every ounce of my being and she is gone now. I know you love your husband, so please try to truly forgive him. He is back and he is trying the best way he knows how. Give him the benefit of the doubt and try to not define him by the worst thing that he has ever done."

Thank you so much for sharing this. It means so much to me. As much as I have harbored this resentment, I also know that it isn't right and cannot continue. The hurt and anger only holds me back. I am learning to free myself of it and forgive--not for him, but for me--with the hope that the consequence is something much greater in life. This has become a spiritual journey for me.

Matrix, Can you link your last threads for me?

2016, I got you girl (wink, wink).

Blu

[Coconut]

Hi Blu,

your dedication to your M is inspiring,

<<<Insert effective words of encouragement here>>>

C-nut

[25yearsmlc]

Blu,

This is so utterly profound "Sometimes I even miss the hurt and anger because it's safe. It's powerful. This is unknown and uncomfortable."

Remember Gertrude Stein's words, "“Given the choice between the experience of pain and nothing, I would choose pain.”

Yes, pain is real and visceral and understandable. Numbness and nothingness are just a void. What can you do to transform that void into something real?

I am reading this thread over. Not sure how I missed this^^^ but I'm sitting with it.

Good reflective thread.

Here's a weird thought and no hijack intended...

when the part of me that admits I STILL want things to work out, the other parts of me, which is almost all of the cognitive parts (i.e. my head)

I feel disgusted with myself. Very shocked the "real 25" would put up with any of it and not just give the finger and run, never turning back.

I think it's like those gamblers who have lost a bunch of money and yet still play a high risk game instead of walking away...

they must think they can somehow make up for the money they already lost, by making it ALL back....

but in reality they just keep playing the same game - with very low odds of winning.

But walking away without hope of getting their money back, means way way too much has been lost forever.

Something to discuss in T and work on.

[Matrix]

Blu,

My only real thread on here was when I first joined and I was asking the group if I should confront my WW about her PA. I got a lot of different opinions and decided to wait it out because I was not in a position emotionally to confront her.

I never really had a thread detailing my sitch or my day-to-day journey. I mostly read and comment on other people's threads.

My story is very, very long and would take pages and pages to tell. I find most of the help for me here through other stories that I can relate with.

I just wanted to share what I posted with you, because I have been there. I was so full of anger and resentment, that my W eventually wore down. She did everything in her power to save us after her A and I just didn't know how to heal. I buried my head and hid in a dark place for many years. The sad thing now is that I know how to heal and forgive. I have learned so much here and from reading so many other books. It is like a light went off and I now see how I could have saved my M and now she seems to be very far gone. My sitch has improved somewhat in the last few months, but still nothing to report as a possible starting point of any kind of R.

Anyway, I am happy that some of my words resonated with you and I really want you to understand that remorseful, former WAS will eventually wear down and simply won't be able to live with being punished for the rest of their life. They will eventually forgive themselves and will not continue to wait around for you to forgive them as well.

Some advice that I would like to offer and have you try is this:

Every time you get angry or feel resentment start to build or stare at him across the room and want to tear his eyeballs out or start to trigger about the OW, I would like you to try and "love" him through it. Go over to him, wrap your arms around him and tell him that you love him and that you are glad he is your husband. Even if you might be seething mad inside, just make yourself do something loving for him right in that moment. Try this for a few weeks or even a month and see how you feel then. Creating these loving habits can sometimes lead to new and real feelings and those new feelings can get you to a new place of real love and real forgiveness.

Take care.

[25yearsmlc]

Blu


Just read the part about Retrovaille. I'm so glad you got a lot out of it.


keep us posted!

Fortune favors the brave---

[PsySara]

Blu,
Thank you for posting your impressions of Retrouville. I have been super curious about it but I know my WH would never agree in a million years. I see a lot of parallels in our way of viewing the world, I think we would be besties in real life or frenemies, lol!

[blueboy]

Hi Blu,

How did you deal with time apart from you H, my W left me for OM for 5 weeks and I just can't seem to move on from that? I can't stop thinking about it and asking questions about what they did in that time. It's just haunts me every waking moment.

How did you and your husband cope with this?

Thanks

Jon

[BluWave]

C-nut, thank you. I think your courage and growth are inspiring. We started posting at around the same time and I feel a connection to you. I still smile when I think of your first threads and how hard we hit you with 2*4s. lol. You took them better than anyone :-)

25, please DO hijack my thread! I have learned so much from you over the years. I recall summer 3 years ago, after H left me for OW. I was on vacation with my children in this beautiful, near perfect, place; sunny and gorgeous day, crystal blue waters, happy kids, etc, etc. There I sat, emaciated from weight loss, restless and anxious from racing thoughts and months of sleepless nights, and as I have said before, I was a shell of a person. My go-to safety net, where I didn't feel entirely lost, were these forums. If you posted it, I made sure to read it. You didn't know, but you got me through some very dark times.

It is because of the vets like you that I am here posting now. I just know that there are 100s or 1000s of readers out there just like us. If anything I share brings them comfort too, then it is all worthwhile. .... Okay, I am way off track now :-)

I watched the Ted talk yesterday and I really enjoyed it. She talked about the importance of vulnerability and that it is necessary (risk) in order to have joy in life. What stuck with me the most is that she talked about our addictive culture and how we numb pain. She said that you cannot only numb pain, but you are also numbing the other emotions, including joy. That made me think. Hard. I have spent a lot of time numbing myself and perhaps that is why I have been so stuck.

I can relate to your example of gambling. I think our vulnerabilities are the chips we have to put on the table if we want to win any prize. When someone has broken our trust or heart, it is that much harder to put the chips down. So now we have to put down all of our chips, and so we have that much more to lose also.

Over the last several years there has been an ongoing match of head verses heart. Rational mind verses emotions. Decisions verses feelings. Really there isn't one winner is there?

For me, what I am learning on this journey is that my heart, feelings, and emotions are constantly changing. Like your blood flowing and your BP, it is never stagnant, and if it is, it will clot off and then the entire system (body) is at risk. When you go into your doc's office and get a BP reading, it does not have much meaning. It is one snap shot in time. If you took 10 readings in a row, they would all be different. That is how I think of our emotions.

My head, rational mind, and my decisions are something that have changed too. However they are not bouncing up and down and all over the place. They are evolving and improving over time. As I grow and learn, I can mold and refine them to suit my needs. They are within my control. I choose to control them and let them win more of the battles. Therefore I trust my decisions over my emotions. Ultimately, it is because of this that my M will survive.

Blu


Blu

[BluWave]

Matrix, thank you. Your position and advice are invaluable to me. I truly want to move forward in this life with my H. I want to wholeheartedly understand him and forgive him (and more so, I want to understand and forgive myself). This is for many, many reasons. It is not just because it is the right thing to do, because it's better for my kids, our finances, and because of the connection we had before. It is a spiritual journey of sorts for us both. We both want to fully look within ourselves, and each other, and be willing to change for the better. I think if we both can do that, I believe that our relationship can be better than before.

I appreciate what you say about looking at him across the room and reaching out to him. We both need to relearn affectionate habits with one another. I can say though that enough time has passed, and work has been done, that I don't have strong triggers regarding OW. She, and his R with her, have little to no meaning anymore. As we have dissected our sitch, and continue to understand one another, we have learned that she was a symptom. Neither of us have any respect or put any value on her or our Rs that we had with her. In many ways I pity her, as I think she has very little authenticity in her life.

These are things that have just taken time. I am sorry that you are in the position that you are in and have regrets. That must be difficult. I hope you will continue to post. Everyone here, myself included, can learn a lot from you!

Blueboy, if you read through my threads, you can see that it has been a HUGE struggle for me. The hardest part of my sitch has been understanding and forgiving the betrayal of the OW. It has taken a long time--H has been back for 2 years now and I am starting to feel that I am getting there. We each went to IC and then we also went to MC together for a year. We have read books and tried to gain deeper understanding ourselves and each other. Part of it has also been allowing myself to feel all that I need to in order to move through the process--anger, rage, sadness, devastation, fear, anxiety, etc, etc. You name it, I have felt it.

Part of my healing has been turning to him and seeing his remorse, hearing his apologies, and feeling his ongoing commitment to us over time. I think that only took us so far though. We are in a place now, where we need to do the harder work. That work includes really understanding fundamentally who we are as people, how we feel about who we are, and then having to change the many bad habits that we have developed over the last several years. Many--from negative thinking, to eye rolling, to no affection, etc, AND in front of our kids. For years. I think the tools we have gotten from Retrouvaille are enormously helpful. I truly believe it takes a willingness from both people to do this work. I hope you and your W are both willing to make it work.

Blu