Update

I wish I had an update.

I wish things were different.

But I don't.

I swear, it is as if time hasn't passed.  If you ask me, it is because she has not helped make it past.  She doesn't feel bad and she is just waiting for me to get over it.  Same old same old.  I did get an apology a few weeks ago - finally.  I thought that would make a difference.  And it did - a little.

But now I am stuck in that not wanting to continue this marriage.

So why do I do it?

I am questioning that more and more.

I Don't Feel Like It Today

Sometimes I can push everything down and try to be nice and understanding.

I just don't have the energy today.  I just can't do it.

I have had a good string of being decent and accepting and there have been some good moments.

I'm just hitting bottom today, and I don't know why.  I suppose I should try.  The counselor would suggest it.  But damn it...  I don't feel like it.

I just don't feel like it today.

Blame and Guilt

I hate it that if I get angry, I am made to feel bad.

This affair has not been resolved, and when it bubbles up again and I question your commitment, you make me feel worse - as if I am not allowed to have these feelings.

Well, guess what.  I feel like crap.  I am struggling to work through this.  And if I have a bad day, you need to suck it up and take it.  I know I can't punish you forever.  But dammit, this sucks.

(And I'm allowed to be pissed off that you are checking him out on Facebook.)

When I am pissed off about it, don't threaten me that I am going to lose you.

Again? Still? Why is my hand being forced?

So, it appears she is now reaching out to another old boyfriend/flame.  The pattern is exactly the same.  I know, I know.  She is going to argue that it isn't - but it is.  Why does she have to reach out period?  What the hell?  It starts out with little "innocent" emails.  Then, the event blossoms from there.

Whatever the intent - why would she do this again?

I wish I could think of an analogy.

If you get caught speeding, the next time you are down that road, you have to slow down.

If you are caught with your friend's drugs, the next time they ask you to hold a package, say no.

Why put yourself in this situation - even if it is innocent?

I am so beside myself I do not know what to do.

Same Behavior, Different Guy

So, in my snooping, I have discovered that in the past week she has contacted another old boyfriend.  I believe she is now using a different email address.  She is sneaking around.

So, do I confront her, and thereby admit my snooping?

Or just get the heck out.

Too much for me.  Too much.

Getting Past the Hurt - Can't Do It. Part 1

I read two posts today that seem to fit me exactly.  They are closely related, and, since Jeff Murrah has already done the legwork, I am simply going to respond to his words here.

I read this blog regularly.  Here is the first entry, edited, with my responses:

How do I mentally get over a cheating woman?

Beginning in media re ... my comments are italicized in brackets.

The freezing of time with trauma is one of the first obstacles to overcome.

With this ‘freezing’ effect, the cheating seems to have happened ‘just yesterday’. [YES, YES, YES!! I said virtually these exact words to my spouse! YES, YES, YES!] In the world of emotions, time is meaningless. In the world of emotions, you will feel as if the emotions are just as raw as when it first happened. [Absolutely. Time has not passed. Absolutely, precisely.] Like a scratch in a record that forces the album to repeat something over and over to the point of irritation, the trauma keeps playing repeatedly in your head and heart. [Endlessly.]

Emotional reality operates on a different set of rules than cognitive or objective reality. In cognitive or objective reality you can look at a calender and see how long it has been since the cheating. Your intellect can begin calculating distance from you and the affair, yet your heart refuses to allow any distance to happen. This puts you in a bind between your head and heart. [Intellect and logic do not come into play. Emotion completely and utterly overrides everything.]

Unfreezing a trauma often involves resolving whatever emotional issues the trauma brought up for you. In the case of a cheating wife, your issues may include issues of betrayal, being lied to, being defrauded, the loss of your manhood, embarrassment, or any number of others. Each of these issues will need some resolution before you can move on. [This is among the most difficult parts for me. I do not know what emotional issues I need to get over. And, at this point, I honestly don't see myself getting over them. I can not see beyond day by day.]

Blog Etiquette: Is is appropriate to create a blog entry by copying and pasting someone else's? I have probably approached some line here, but let me be clear. I am responding to Jeff Murrah's words in a blog I read regularly at, http://surviveyourpartnersaffair.com/ . This entry - and another closely related entry, really hit home with me today and I felt compelled to react. He expressed better than I could exactly what I felt regarding moving past the hurt. Thank you Jeff Murrah. (I hope you don't mind me repeating and sharing your words.)

Women's Infidelity

Well, I feel as if I have stepped into something here. Or, at the very least I have walked in on someone else's uncomfortable discussion. I will avoid all the noise surrounding this and get to the point.

Apparently a book called Women's Infidelity has caused somewhat of a stir. (The website is here: http://womensinfidelity.com/) I have spent very little time with it, and, frankly, don't intend to. It is a little too detailed - and a little too late! - for what I need. So I will not get distracted on it.

However, there was one paragraph that seemed to express my spouse's circumstances exactly! Here it is in the discussion of "Stage 4":

The women in stage four included those who chose to stay married and continue their affairs and those who chose to divorce. Some of the women who continued their affairs stated that marital sex was improved by maintaining the extramarital relationship. Some thought the lover was a soul mate, but for one reason or another did not leave their husband and did not feel torn between the two. Others realized that their feelings were intensified by not sharing day-to-day living arrangements with their lover. Almost all of the women in this latter category were having affairs with married men. They believed their affairs could continue indefinitely without disrupting either partner’s primary relationship.

I have highlighted the particular relevant items with bold font. The are "did not feel torn between the two" and "without disrupting either partner's primary relationship." This is exactly and precisely what my wife felt! She continues to maintain that her feelings for each of us were independent and had nothing to do with each other.

I don't know what to make of it - I have some deadlines coming up and other things I need to work on. But I wanted to put this out there. I will reflect on it more later.

Big Fat Lie

Admittedly, things are going better.  In other words, for the past few weeks (since I last wrote) she has tried, well, to be nicer.  Ok.  That's a start.

However, I am hounded by the fact that her life for the past six months was a big fat lie.  Everything we did was coupled with him.  Are the experiences we shared genuine?  In part.  But they are clouded over by the knowledge that, for example, the mystery text you received at that time?  That was from him.  The great time we had that day?  Oh, that was the same week you were with him.  The words of love and affection you were typing?  Those were for him.

How did she keep up that lie?  How did she maintain that front?

She would argue that it doesn't change what we shared.  But it does.

[Is a bowling analogy apt here?  Although you may knock down all the pins in one frame, you don't actually score that frame until you know what happens in the next two rolls.  And yes, those rolls can negate the good from the previous frame.  Ok.  Maybe it doesn't work.  Don't get distracted.]

Nevertheless.  I am not feeling close to her today because I am dwelling on the lie that she lived.  Yes, things have gone better.  But things haven't gone away for me.  Do I pretend I am not having an emotional hiccup right now?  Or do I acknowledge it to her?

She is going through the motions now of appearing to reconcile.  I don't want to seem ungrateful, but you were going through the motions before too.

I'm actually kind of numb.  And I don't want to blow it if you are genuine in your expressions.  But I don't want to be tricked again either.

So I don't know how to respond.  You are finally being nice, and I don't know how to respond.

Blog Housekeeping - Anonymous Comments

A rather boring - but important - note on the administration of this blog.

I have enabled anonymous comments.

I welcome (even crave) comments.  So, please, comment away - even anonymously.

Blame

The All Knowing Internet will ask you to examine your contribution to the affair.  Were you not loving enough?  Were there things you could have done differently?  Did you work too much?

Let me be clear - and this is supported by her - I had no hand in this.  It was pure selfishness on her part.  Honestly, our life was going great.  We enjoyed spending time together, as a couple and as a family.  Our sex life was great.  Home repairs were rocking and rolling.

She sought out this old boyfriend on her own and engaged in this behavior for six months.

So when I am told that I can take this opportunity to improve what we had - we had it awesome!  And she agrees.  Don't give me this "surely there was something you could have done" business.  No.  She did this all her own.

And yet, the effort falls on me.  And I don't have the strength to do it.  All I see is him and her.  All I hear is her words to him - words that I thought I alone was hearing.

I can not progress past this point.

Holding Pattern

So, after storming out of the last counselling session, it would appear that we are in a holding pattern.  She is waiting for me to get over it and I am finding that I need more to "get over it" - more than her saying "get over it."

And, not only am I not getting help from her, she is increasingly angry that I am angry.  It is quite the circle.

I want to be able to get over it.  I told her the other night that I wish I could get back to the way it was.  Her response - her angry response - was that I am not letting myself get over it.  I am the one going on and on.  She has stopped communicating with the guy.

(I maintain that the only reason she stopped was because I caught them.  On the night I caught them they were exchanging explicit emails referring to the next time they were going to get together.  For some reason, to me, that makes a difference.  It's like snatching a cigarette out of a smoker's mouth to have them reply, "See, I've stopped."  But you didn't want to.  And you were still doing it.  And now you are actually somewhat mad at me for making you stop because you really wanted to finish that pack.  I acknowledge that it is somewhat unfair of me, but a large part of me wants to yell, "But that doesn't count.  You didn't want to!")

So where was I?

As usual.  Resentful.  Sad.  Angry.  Wishing that she would do something to convince me that she feels bad and that it was a mistake.  The fact that she doesn't do that ... well, I'm not ready to face the implications of that yet.

Anger is My Companion Today

Look, intellectually, I know it is not healthy.  But I am angry today and I am going to embrace it.

Discussions last night took an ugly turn, and yet, I am being made out to be the bad guy.  I am the one taking it too far.

She is the one, however, who did NOT delete the email account the two of them used.  And, in fact, she reactivated it last week on the off chance that he did try to contact her.

Loud voices punctuated by finger pointing followed, at which point I was labeled as reading too much into it and taking it too far.

[Let me interject, here - there never has been an occasion of physical violence, nor has this been insinuated.  But, yes, I do get loud and I do emphasize my words with literal finger-pointing ... from across the room.  That, apparently, is taking it too far.  I believe yelling and finger pointing are, although not helpful, perhaps, are not surprising and not atypical reactions to the events that happened.  But apparently I don't get a pass on that.]

All of this sounds crazy.  How can this be spun that I am the one going too far?  Ok.  Maybe she didn't contact him again.  (Hard to say, exactly.)  But hell, she left the door open for him!  What would have happened if he had walked in?

And, again, I am the one taking things too far - imagining things that didn't happen.  Getting angry over something I made up in my head.

So, today, Anger, welcome.  Sit beside me.  Can I get you anything?  Don't be shy.  If you need something, let me know.  I appreciate your being here.

Starting Down the Spiral Path - Again

So, this morning I have once again started down the path of dwelling on things.  And my mind spins.

We don't talk about the event or circumstances at home, so I feel like I am in limbo.  I don't know where my thoughts stand with her, much less myself.  We are busy with kids and schedules and home repair, and I am just going through the motions.

I think for her it is easier, in some respects.  She has had her fun and now she is just waiting for me to get past this.  I am put off by her lack of concern and smugness.

But I keep this all to myself because it doesn't go anywhere.

I have no faith in working things out, at this point, and it wears on me.

A Fellow Blogger Deserves Credit

I have found this blog post - and love it!

http://makingmyownjelly.blogspot.com/2013/09/two-weeks-ago-on-monday.html

This specific posts describes the day she found out about her husbands affair.  I can so relate to her emotional response.  I feel compelled to copy and paste this paragraph:

"... I just feel and think. I feel empty, angry, devastated, happy, lonely, scared and hopeful. I think about all of the signs that I have missed, my future without him, my future with him and mourn the relationship I once had."

I know the feeling, I appreciate the feeling, I live in that feeling.

Thank you again, Katy.

The Work Week Begins

And so , the week-end is over and time for a different kind of stress.

During the week-end, the stress is about being together.  Will things go well or not?  Will we talk or not?  We will pretend things are normal, or will she acknowledge that the situation stinks?

Although that stress is quite frustrating, it is a known stress.  At work I am left to my own mind and my own self.  Paranoia creeps in.  (Is she contacting him?)  Self-doubt comes to the fore.  (What the heck am I doing?)  I am left to my own thoughts.

It is difficult to manage my thoughts on my own.  And, honestly, sometimes I don't even try.  I just sit at my desk and let the ugly thoughts flow.  I'm not proud of it, necessarily.  But it does happen.

Angry? At me?

So, I don't get the anger directed at me.  This may be one of the toughest things to take - at least for this five minutes.  My hurts rotate and go up and down - but for now, I don't understand the anger.  On the one hand, I don't get a free pass when I screw up.  But don't I get some leeway?  And, it seems that the anger when I do screw up is greater than it should be.  Why am I the one trying to keep my anger in check?  Why am I the one making the greater (as I perceive it) effort.  I have a LOT more to get over other than the fact that I came home from the grocery store with everything except the one thing I went to get.

If we are measuring responses, I am a lot more justified in being angry than she is.  And yet, I'm the one in the proverbial doghouse.

I just want to be treated nicely.  Don't I at least deserve that?

First Joint Meeting with Counselor

So, the first joint meeting is over.  And our mission is to find a way where she can demonstrate to me that I still mean something to her.

Or something like that.

Yes.  I am confused too.  And I resent it.