Hopefully Drifting Ashore (Riding the Wave 4)

[wayfarer]

Thank you everyone,

Sage and May thank you so much for helping me sit in my feelings and walk with me through them. I can't tell you how much I appreciate your words when I'm feeling so low.

I was really really struggling that day, and honestly something ovrrnbw said made me realize that it was my depression and anxiety driving the bus that day more than pretty much anything else. And Steve helped me to accept that I get to be sad and angry. But it's my job to sit with it and deal with it it's not my job to dump it on H every time it happens because more often than not those feelings are about me and not so much H.

However there are things that I should be sharing with H. Going bat crap crazy over Christmas this year isn't just pandemic depression (apparently this is a thing) it's me trying to make up for the utter and complete sh!tshow that me and the girls had to live through last year is definitely one of them.

The other thing that feels pressing is H is missing huge swaths of time in his memory from November to February of last year. One of the things that sent me spiraling is little things keep happening and he has zero recollection of why he has things he apparently doesn't know he has, or doesn't remember doing things or saying thing during that time period. Like at all. i.e. Found a bag I threw in the back of our front hall closet. It was an overnight bag for when he spent a night with OW that he had left out in the living room for months. One day anger/lock down cleaning I got sick of looking at it over and over and over again and threw it in the back of the closet. I cleaned the closet a couple of weeks ago. He had zero recollection of the clothes still in the bag. I had to tell him he bought them for the last night he spent with OW over night. Immediate shame spiral for him. Another time H looked at me and said "Hey I'm looking though my fit bit info did I not run in January?" I had to say "No you stopped going to the gym regularly after you told me you wanted to move out and get a divorce. You didn't have time because you were staying out with her all night 3 or 4 nights a week and catching up on sleep the other days." Just mouth agape he says "Oh." Girls brought up something the 3 of us did last Christmas time with out him. He said "I don't remember that. Why don't I remember that?" The girls had to tell him he didn't remember because he wasn't there. Then he said "wait why wasn't I there?" And they just stared at him. This keeps happening again and again. I don't want to rub this stuff in his face and I don't want to feel like crap every time. But apparently this memory gap thing is kind of common. The emotional crisis + lack of sleep + alcohol (or drugs but that isn't my H's thing) = memory gaps. But we seriously need to have a conversation about the fact that I'm fine with helping fill in the gaps for him, and I'm not doing it to shame him. And the flip side is that I also don't want to have to feel like I'm being kicked in the stomach every time I have to remind him that he had a full blown affair while living with his wife and two teen age daughters.

Out side of that we are doing well. He's so doting and kind. He tries every single day. And like wooba said I need to hold on to that. How hard that man is trying to make everything right between us is what I need to focus on.

[may22]

Hi WF,

Thanks for the update... I know this is all so hard. I'm glad he's trying and I hope you can start to share bits of this with him.

FWIW my H's memory is also cr@p for pretty much the length of the entire A. Annoying. He also seems to have forgotten that he used to travel a ton and the girls and I had a life and did things without him while he was away-- every time a movie comes up that he hasn't seen and the girls I had seen together while he was traveling, he gets so confused-- you saw that movie? but I didn't see it!-- right. Because you weren't here. Maybe this is also partially the pandemic playing into everything, too, given that we are mostly just the four of us (or the two of us if the girls are at school) All. the. time.

Of course you aren't reminding him to shame him... I don't think you need to take any responsibility for how he takes or doesn't take the reminders onto yourself. you've got enough on your plate right now as it is. I imagine that the next six months or so are going to have lots of these little reminders for you, holidays probably more than most... not trying to be depressing, but realistically I think it isn't going to end until you've gotten through at least the first anniversary of all of these incidents. So maybe if it hurts to say it out loud you could just give him a look and tell him to drop it? He'll figure it out pretty quickly, I'll guess. And then you do take your moment to be sad and angry, maybe say some choice words under your breath about your H's decisions a year ago, or just close your eyes and take a couple deep breaths and blow it out till you want to deal with it, on your own terms.

xx M

[BluWave]

(((wayferer))) Have you heard the expression “death by one thousand cuts?” That is how us, the betrayed S , experiences the end of our M. I believe I read this in Esther Perels writings. It is also something that H and I have had to talk about in the early days of recon.

And yet still to the day, a memory is sparked, and it is suddenly tainted or has taken on a new meaning. Because for us, every lie, misunderstanding, change of plans, missed call, credit card bill, packed gym bag, D’s homemade ornament that is pulled out every year that looks exactly the same — EVERYTHING that took place in that time period — now has a new meaning. Most of them sting, although some worse than others, but there are at least 1000.

What I can tell you is that in time, they don’t hurt as much. In fact many of them I have forgotten. For years my stomach would turn every time I drove by this one intersection — where she rented an apartment after leaving her H for mine and I would see MY car parked there with my Ds car seat — but now I can’t even conjure up the energy to remember. Sometimes I make myself. But it doesn’t hurt enough. Also, with every passing year, those memories also continue to change and evolve and are replaced with better ones. Some, not all.

But that is us. My H doesn’t have this same perspective at all. He doesn’t attribute the same meanings to things that I do. I have had to remind him, “remember, dumb$$? You left the dog at your moms and she played me the voicemail and you lied about what you were doing! Don’t you remember?” He doesn’t. Because for him, that entire time period is one big spider web of interconnected lies, shame and times he would rather not recall. For me each cut hurts. I don’t even remind him anymore because I see the shame it brings him and I don’t want to pull him down.

All I can promise you is that over time the wounds will heal. And as you move through time, you can also shift the way you choose to remember them and how much power they have over you. I couldn’t rush this but it did happen.

Blu

[cardinal]

I hope your holiday this year was made of more ups than downs, full of love and compassion for yourself, and a few new, better memories in the making that BluWave speaks of. Sending love your way!

[may22]

Hi WF,

Wondering how you're doing. And if you have the time, wondering if you can walk me through a little of how you have been able to walk this path.

I'm trying to figure out what is holding me back, right now. I think my H wants to be in piecing-- at least, that is what he's saying to me. I am no longer worried about AP, or her popping her troll head back up in our lives... at least, if she does, I know I'll be fine and can walk away. She doesn't take up zero percent real estate in my head, but far far less than she did... less than 5% and on the way down. When I do think of her these days, it is like dog $hit on the sidewalk-- gross, unfortunate, navigate your way around it and keep on going. I'm definitely looking forward to the day when there is zero dog $hit in my path. But progress for sure.

But.... how do you know if YOU are ready to piece? I've thought a lot about things you've said, about H trying and me not recognizing it, and I believe there is truth to that. He *is* trying. He is finally, FINALLY starting to say more and more of the things I was waiting to hear, about being truly remorseful and regretting it happened. It still doesn't feel like enough. Will it never be enough? Will I just keep being angry about this for the rest of my life?

I've spent so much time focusing on me and trying to not give a $hit about where he was. For so long, it was because it was incredibly painful to really listen and focus in on what he was telling me. Now, those words have changed but the hurt remains. Part of me wonders if I have only surfaced that hurt now, that it was too much back then.

He says I only look at the negatives between us, that I'm ignoring all the positives of what we're building back up together. I don't know. To me it still feels like the wound is there and raw and it would be dumb to paper over it. It hasn't yet healed, for me.

Anyway. how are YOU doing? Where do you find yourself these days?

[wayfarer]

Hey May,
I've been kind of avoiding posting because I really don't know what to say. I wanted to say something profound as it's been a year since I've joined this community, and I found some truly kindred spirts. But I've no profound thoughts being a year out. Marriage in any iteration has it's ebbs and flows. That includes R and piecing. Along with that I've been walking through the anniversaries of the worst of H's behavior, and it's been hard, but he's trying so much harder knowing this is all kind of killing me. And I don't really know what to say about that either, because I struggle to marry who he was and who he is now. I let my mind wander and ask myself fruitless questions about who is the real version of him and what are his real feelings? And then he scoops me up in his arms and says I'm the love of his life and I better never leave him, and I'm breathing again. And that's probably the perfect place for me to be in to help you along here.

OW does live in my head rent free, but she takes up minimal real estate. Only when I'm having to face the days I know were hardest for me does she take up more real estate than I would wish. I know it will get easier with time. Much like when my mom passed those firsts are the hardest. And every subsequent one gets a little easier, but some days just suck no matter what. I imagine things like December 12th, January 8th, Feburary 5th. Will always be a little harder on me because those were big awful days. And the dog sh!t analogy is probably the best way to put it. But I still don't regard the A with disgust. I never really did. I register it all with anger and occasionally sadness. It's weird though. It's anger at H and OW with their carelessness for my girls and my life. The sadness just in regards to how I was feeling in that time. Like I wish I could go back and hug myself and tell myself that people don't leave because I deserve it. I still really struggle with the abandonment. I've grazed that with H, but some day we'll really have to dig into that. It isn't so much that I don't think AP should never cross your mind, but you allowed her to taint things in your life that she didn't deserve to have power over and if she's taking up minimal real estate in that aspect I think you're doing well.

So honestly some vets have very hard lined ideas on when you're ready for piecing. But other than profound remorse we didn't really fit into the check boxes especially because he never left. Also pandemic so it wasn't like we could whisk off to the next available Retrouvaille weekend or something. Another things is I really had to dig around on the boards for thoughts on when R becomes piecing, because there isn't like a DB check list for that stuff. So what I determined was R is the part where you two come back together and there's attraction and flirtation, and you are trying to figure out who you guys are now and if it'll work if you try again. For the most part it seems like its genuinely dating each other again, and if those pieces fit and the WAS/WS can be remorseful and the LBS can forgive and both parties are not just willing to work but truly devote themselves to self improvement and rebuilding the marriage that's piecing.

IMHO you're trying to cram R and piecing into one box and it isn't working. None of this is about papering over the pain. Just this last week H and I had to talk about the A again. Hitting a bunch of misery anniversaries was hitting me hard, and I was trying to just push through and enjoy my family and H was trying to lavish me with love, affection, and attention but neither one of us discussed that with the other and we got our wires crossed and got in a fight. Because I was trying to have all this family time and he was trying to have one on one time and neither one of us were understanding how the other was trying to deal until I snapped on him for not thinking about the kids and he snapped on me for not going with the flow. Once we talked it out and I cried a lot, and he teared up a little we realized same goal different paths. Regroup, do better communicating on this stuff in the future, and move on with our day. The is going to color our MR for a little while. It just can't be the only thing it focuses on. On NYD we talked about our goals for the year. Not one of those was get over the A because it's part of the fabric of our story now. But working on us was still definitely on that list and probably will be forever.

May I don't know if anything your H does will ever be enough. That's for you to determine. But as I've told you many times it's not his job to heal you from this pain. It's his job to seek your forgiveness. It's his job to forgive himself. You can't leave the burden of healing from this solely on him. I will say it's an incredibly difficult transition from withholding to becoming vulnerable again. I'm still struggling, but I think that's ok. I should still be playing something things a little close to the vest so I can feel safe, as time marches on and H evolves into a true partner it's becoming easier and easier to let him in without fear. I think you've addressed your pain. I think you've addressed your anger. I don't think you've addressed your fears with actually moving forward with R and getting to piecing. H halted your R attempt in Spring. You were burned. That's some scary stuff. Because you have to question your own sanity for willing putting yourself in a position to be burned again. But love is a risk. It's high stakes no matter what because that's your heart. This isn't something you can science or even soft science your way through. There is not real method to that kind of madness. This is a leap of faith. You have to take a very honest inventory and have that conversation with yourself. Are you willing to put your heart out there for H to possibly break again? I know you've reasoned yourself into "this time if he messes up I'm not scared for him to leave." But that's not the whole of it and you know that.

Lastly I do think your H has some merit. I think you are in a place right now where you are only looking at the negatives and I think that's your fears keeping you stuck in that place. I think you see your MR in the context of a pros and cons list and it's difficult for you to see your H beyond what reason has told you. Maybe H was right that you weren't seeing him. But at the time that was an in appropriate ask. And the ask was because he was wanting you to see him the way AP did. Which was an impossible ask. However, I think, and this is just my opinion, you've spent so much time dead set on saving this MR for your kids that you've lost a lot of those other pieces. Even the lusty part of this mess you guys have been in was about exploring your sexuality with someone you were comfortable with and a desire to connect on any level with a person who had been keeping you at arms length for years. When is the last time you looked at H and thought "yeah i'd climb him like a tree right now if these tiny roommates weren't around all the time?" When is the last time H genuinely made you belly laugh? Or gave you butterflies? When was the last time you guys were in the middle of a conversation and you smiled a little and thought to yourself this idiot is my best friend? May I think if you really want to give R and piecing a go you need to date your H again. You guys are great co-parents and roommates. You're really good partners at running a household. But romance, lust, attraction, deep friendship. All the things that keep a MR together after the kids are gone seem to not really be on your radar. Yes you guys need to work through the A. Yes you guys need to rebuild your MR. But how can you do any of that if you aren't even sure about dating the guy? If this is the path you want to take you have to compartmentalize the bits and pieces. Not pathologically. Not forever, but just so you guys can make an attempt at rekindling, because there needs be some fire and desire if you want your MR to work. I just don't see the point in even attempting to keep a MR together if you just want to be legally married roommates for the kids. But that's my opinion. So take what you will.

I hope this novel I wrote helps at least a little. xoxoxo

[may22]

Wayfarer, THANK YOU. This helps, a lot. I'm thinking through a lot of things right now. I feel some movement inside of me, maybe a path opening up that I didn't see before, but it is still a journey. I don't want to hijack your thread and so will move my response over to my own, but please know how much your perspective helps me.

Also... I don't think you need to try to be profound what you say always has such depth and truth and resonates. It doesn't have to be something special. I do think that your experiences and perspective can be really helpful here. It shows, to me, that DBing is a state of mind rather than a collection of actions. The actions can help to precipitate the state of mind and the letting go, but it is what happens within you that is the most important thing. Just an observation.

xoxo M

[wayfarer]

Update: There isn't much to say, but I'm sure I'll ramble on anyway. I'm getting some pandemic fatigue. Which is exacerbated by dealing with exH to work on paying for D18's tuition balance for college in fall. She was accepted to her school of choice, and her program of choice, and was accepted into something called a "Core Honors" program. She was given a lot of money, but not enough, and it's an expensive school. I can swing half, but the reality is I don't want to. I have my own loans that I'm paying off and mommy and daddy paid for exH's education. D16 is doing her annual PITA ritual where a month or so before or after her birthday she just flies off the rails for no d@mn reason and bio mom and my H are ready to throttle her. I as the extra parent has to just sit back and watch the ride while D18 keeps asking me for the tea. Work is piling more and more on because I'm proficiently working at home therefore I need more to do apparently. I genuinely hate the class I'm taking in my master's program. Also I live in WI. It's freezing. We've been colder than Anchorage for almost a week now. There's like 3ft of snow on the ground that's just really ice hills now. I know to expect this every February. Yet every February comes and I wonder why I live where the air hurts my face. So all in all being locked in is getting to me and I'd very much like a vacation.

H and I are doing well. Lots of talking and quality time. We lock ourselves in the MBR a lot lately. I love our kids but there's a reason teenagers in normal circumstances are out with their friends all the time. The pandemic is kinda killing that, and our vibe...lol. We talk about everything. The poignant and the mundane. He's still very remorseful although we talk about the A less and less these days. He still goes out of his way to make me feel loved and appreciated. I'm really hoping that doesn't ever go away. I do my best to show him how much I appreciate how far he's come with a lot of stuff, like being willing to talk about feelings and digging into that, being more easy going with the girls instead of imploding an already tense situation, not leaving the burden of the household on me, etc. Most of the good habits he developed have stuck. I can say it's definitely changed my attitude around a lot of things. When I'm not left to bare the brunt of running the household or do all the emotional heavy lifting in our relationship and/or with the kids it's amazing how calm, go with the flow, and spontaneous I can be. To be clear I don't find that amazing. H is still finding it amazing while also realizing how our own individual actions can effect our partner. We rented a fancy hotel room in our downtown area for Valentines, and we have off the next day. I think it's really more of an escape motivation than it's a romantic gesture, but either way we've come a long way from last year.

A lot of that makes me think about something BlueWave posted recently, and May. About playing through the what-ifs if I had just walked away from this. If I hadn't subjected myself to a miserable IHS. Where would I be? Honestly Bluewave's point of starting from scratch gives you a whole new relationship to mess up in your own super fun personal way. I think she said it in the way of the LBS's flaws already being there out in the open. It's easier to callout and it's easier to own your part. I think about that a lot. Would I be trying this hard to show my H how much I appreciate how hard he works inside and outside our home for us if we hadn't gone through this? Probably not. He wouldn't be able to point out the micromanaging. And I wouldn't be able to not to take it personally and get defensive immediately. Same with his short comings. And I think about May watching her H slow waking up and finding his humility and remorse. As hard as it was to watch H go though the whole A, grieving the A, being confused about what he wanted, and then remembering who I was and who we were, I don't know that I'd like to take that back. I don't know that I would've been able to trust him again if I didn't watch the process in real time. I don't know that I would've believed it was anything other than lip service if he had gone and tried to come back. That's not to say my path is everyone. I know very well, my path isn't for most people. But for me I'm not sure it could've happened in any other way for us to be where we are right now.

[may22]

Dearest Wayfarer,

As always, so happy to hear from you. You *have* come such a long ways from a year ago. Earlier this week I spent some time reading through your thread at Sage's suggestion and am seeing all the similarities in where I am right now to your sitch many months ago. Which makes me both think WOW I sure like to skip ahead in my brain and feel like I should be farther along, but also underscores the value of your posting for me and so many others. So even if it feels boring or whatever, I just want you to know how helpful it is for those of us that come after you.

For instance, I was reading back at the beginning of this thread back in July and it was a big change that he was treating you like his wife and not sulking or hiding his phone anymore, but also no ILYs yet. Somehow in my mind, you've been in this place you are right now where he is sweeping you off your feet to say he loves you and never leave him forever... but I had forgotten that it took time to get there. And here I am still struggling with what feels like the glacial pace of my situation changing, and yet my H *is* saying ILY now without any caveats, smiling with his eyes and hugging me just because, and the sulking etc behavior has been gone for a long time. This gives me so much hope that I'm on the right path. And what you've said all along, that he's going to be all-in far before I can be-- that never made sense to me but I'm starting to see that possibility open up, now.

The other thing Sage said is that the very slow pace of my H's changing feelings, just like yours, does help you to trust the process more than if it had been a overnight epiphany or was something you hadn't seen with your own eyes. I know, for instance, that if my H had left, I wouldn't be standing anymore. To me, as much as the enormous betrayal of what he did do is something I'm still processing and the trust will be slow to build back, the betrayal of actually leaving, of choosing that life with another person, of needing that relationship to fail and then somehow deciding he wants back in here... that level of betrayal feels so much harder for me to ever forgive. I don't know that I ever would or would want to. I'm having a hard enough time forgiving the betrayals that he did commit-- that final step of walking just seems like something I could never get over.

Maybe not everyone is cut out for the IHS version of this process, and right now I'm living the pain of seeing how slow this whole thing goes, at least for my H. (I know you've said your H does everything at warp speed, so that is a plus for you for sure!) And when each little thing comes back, I'm hit with the realization that it was missing for so long. Did that happen to you too? Like my H told me over the weekend that he feels this change in the little things, that instead of feeling a rolling of the eyeballs when the first thing I do in the morning is make coffee he feels happy that I'm making myself something I enjoy. Of course what I hear is that he felt until now annoyed that I made coffee. And also that little spark of love he feels or whatever (he said it was a feeling of love that he had when I made coffee) is a tiny little spark compared to the overwhelming tide of TRUE LOVE he said he felt for AP in the past. (Ha ha I can tell one thing he is REALLY regretting right now is saying all the $hit he did about how he felt about AP.) But I am trying to separate the past and the future from the now, and be happy that there is a little spark, that he says ILY, that I feel it too in those moments when he smiles with his eyes and hugs me like he's happy to see me. You also talk about fear in your posts from last summer, and I still have that too. I'm wary. And of course don't really know that we'll get to where you are even if we are walking parts of the same path right now. But following behind you and seeing where you are now does give me hope and I think I needed some of that right around now. It's just really hard to let go of what happened in the spring, for me.

I had meant to ask how your Feb 5 went... I know you'd mentioned before that was a hard day last year.

Thinking of you. And wish I could send some warm weather your way. xx M

[Elbereth]

Wayfarer, I read your whole sitch and I admire you so much! Glad to hear things are going well for you!