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DD2 is closing up on us, we are in the middle of affair season. I have been feeling like I am in the POLF for some time now. More than 6 months and it only seems to be getting worse.

I always used to be able to tune into my good feelings towards WH and our relationship as soon as we were in a good place, before DD, but also after DD. Obviously the first 12-18 months after DD those feelings were never only positive, they were severely tainted by excruciating emotional pain, sadness, anger, PTSD symptoms. But I still felt the love that has always been our base, our anchor, I felt that I still wanted us, wanted to fight for us. This was also why I decided to give WH a second chance after DD, because I still felt that deep love for him and hope for a future if certain things would happen.

These days, it sometimes feels like it may have been too little too late? I see changes in him, it's just they came after more struggle and at a higher cost than I could stand. And now I find myself feeling more and more numb. I no longer go into that deep turmoil, but I also no longer feel any really good feelings in pur relationship. Even when we are in a really good place, it's like I'm just numb. I can't really access that feeling of love or belonging or happiness anymore? I am still holding out hope that this is the dreaded POLF and that it may pass with time. At the moment thought, it's a bit unnerving.

I was always so, so head over heels for my WH. For more than 20 years I never fell out of love with him and not even after DD, although I sure wished I could have stopped loving him then so I could just have left and put an end to the pain as soon as possible. Cut my losses. Now that we are moving forward, he's trying, he's changing (not perfect but still steady change in the right direction over time), I can feel no joy over that change. I for the first time have no idea if I even love him anymore or not. HB the first year has turned into something quite mechanical and emotionless for me, I never feel close or really connected to him and recently I had a health scare and didn't even share it with him. This was something that surprised even me. I found a lump that needed to be checked and I kept it from him for weeks, until I'd had all my exams and scans. I just didn't feel our relationship was a safe place to share my worries and I didn't feel close to him emotionally in way that I felt natural sharing it with him like I have for our whole lives together. He was hurt that I hadn't confided in him, I understand him, I would have been hurt and angry had the tables been turned. But I just couldn't talk to him? I feel such a huge disconnect.

How the hell do you know if it's time to call it quits or if it's part of the process that'll pass?

Sounds like POLF to me [or at least my version]. I found the POLF was an emotionless void - kind of scarier than the extreme emotional swings of year one. Just nothingness. And that is the place you figure things out.

If you are religious - think Job wandering the desert

If not - think of a broken person traversing a barren land solo and, despite all hardships/challenges - emerges a warrior.

You can't force it, you can't rush it and you can't control it. You eventually emerge from the other side.

How the hell do you know if it's time to call it quits or if it's part of the process that'll pass?

Well this is the $1,000,000.00 question isn't it. And while the answer differs for everyone I'll give you mine. When you can look yourself in the mirror and know you did everything you could to keep D from happening and now you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that's the only thing you can do.

And...also know you reserve the right to change your mind at any time.

DDay1 was summer 2017 - DDay 2/3 were fall 2018 (same LTAP). Attorneys involved and C&D sent winter 2021 [due to LTAP cyberstalking and creating fake profiles to try for more contact]. I have severe PTSD. And I often paraphrased the Princess Bride [see my tag line for more]. Goodnight sweet WH, sleep well, I'll most likely D you in the morning...

"POLF" isn't in the list of abbreviations: what is it, please?

Plain Of Lethal Flatness

When you can look yourself in the mirror and know you did everything you could to keep D from happening and now you know beyond the shadow of a doubt that's the only thing you can do.

I suppose this is what I haven't reached quite yet @Chaos. But I am closing up on it, however not quite ready to throw in the towel yet. But I am feeling more and more disconnected from WH as well as our M in general. I am actually doing nothing to bring us closer anymore. I always used to be the one to keep us close in every way, keep the connection for the most part. These days I just cannot bring myself to make 'bids for connection' as Gottman calls it. And when WH does, (which is fairly seldom because he is not used to having to be the one doing that for 20 years and it's a work in progress I guess to start taking on that role more for him), I don't really connect properly with him? It's like I'm not able to fully engage emotionally? I miss feeling the love for him, and for our M. Now I just feel meh. Not horrible bit absolutely not great either. The magic is gone I suppose. And I'm a magic kind a girl. In everything in life I always look for the magic. The feeling of something special, some awe, something that makes me feel deeply. And now, with him and us that's gone. I know a lot of people would be fine with a marriage such as this, fine, functioning. But to me, it's missing that deep connection at the moment. If I can't get it back over time at least in some form (although we ca never have what we hade before) I'm not sure I'm willing to stay for the long haul. For now yes, but for life? Who knows.

IDK ... it could be angst in the runup to the antiversaries.

I was a wreck during the A period in 2011. It got a little better each year. I'm in the A period now, and I have to look pretty hard to find feelings about it.

IDK ... it could be angst in the runup to the antiversaries.

@Sisoon, I suppose it could partially be affair season angst. Although I have to say, apart from the week of the date when the affair first started I haven't really thought much at all about it being AS this year. Which I am both surprised and very relieved over. I am expecting the time closer to DD to become difficult again. But last year I was an utter mess the whole 3 months of AS and around DD I was falling apart.

We have been doing an intensive 6 week program in couples therapy as well that we are in the middle of and that has been very emotional and has taken a toll on us both. It's sort of an intensive emotionally based program where you dig really really deep into underlying fears behind coping behaviours and attachment models. It's been very intense so that might play into things a bit as well, we are both slightly emotionally burnt out from it all and there's a lot to process in between sessions every week. So that might be part of it also.

But mostly this feels like something I've been stuck in now for more than six months and it keeps getting worse. I seem to have developed a barrier to making any sort of effort to support or initiate any closeness between us. We are intimate, now and then, but always on his initiative these days, never mine, and I always feel sort of disconnected emotionally which I didn't used to feel. I want to be close to him but it's like I can't really connect. It's quite unnerving to be honest because it is so unlike me in any part of life to feel emotional disconnect and just sort of flat. I don't really feel depressed, I don't feel any anxiety, I just feel mostly numb. There is no real conversation between us at the moment and I keep more and more to myself. It's not that I don't want to as much as I feel like I just can't? I feel stuck in this no-man's land of feelings. I almost feel like I would rather feel rage than feel nothing? at least I would feel something then.

I have (and am in a way) still going through the same thing - but honestly I cannot imagine not trying something different and just sticking with that feeling. I mean you have to ask yourself, how much suffering is just too much?

You know that saying: "Absence makes the heart go fonder"? Well while I don't think that's necessarily true I do think that a little bit of absence can bring some clarity. And my friend, it's clarity that you need.

In my case after d-day1 I felt JUST like you described:

But I still felt the love that has always been our base, our anchor, I felt that I still wanted us, wanted to fight for us. This was also why I decided to give WH a second chance

That was me all day long. I had the distinct displeasure of having a d-day 2, and those feelings, while not totally dissolved, were weakened a little, but I still loved him - still thought there was a chance, in the beginning. But fast forward like 9 months and I felt just "blah" - again, much like you describe:

I see changes in him, it's just they came after more struggle and at a higher cost than I could stand. And now I find myself feeling more and more numb. I no longer go into that deep turmoil, but I also no longer feel any really good feelings in pur relationship. Even when we are in a really good place, it's like I'm just numb. I can't really access that feeling of love or belonging or happiness anymore

Eventually, I decided to leave. So WH and I divorced and then I moved out and far away (did D first then move out due to COVID) - and I really thought I would be gone for good. But the distance helped me appreciate the positive changes in WH and in myself...and I realized I did miss him. At first it was slow - but I found myself missing things about "us" and enjoying talking to him more because he was no longer in the "R" context - I mean there was nothing holding us together anymore, but us.

I'm not suggesting divorcing...I AM suggesting to at minimum, take some time for yourself. Like real time - time that you can get away from that situation and do other things with other people (I don't mean anything akin to cheating). Take a vacation by yourself or with friends - in other words, disconnect a bit from your WS and find YOU. You may find that you want to share more with your WS...that some of that longing and friendship and looking forward to talking to you comes back. Or you may not. In which case you will know where you stand.

And I do not think it is outside of the realm of okay to tell your WS exactly how you feel and what you intend to do about it. I mean my gosh, if a BS needs a bit of time to themselves to figure out if they want to continue with a relationship after it's been gutted by the other half, or if they just want a little time to themselves, they should have it.

For me and WH, even now, 5 years post-end-of-A it's not all roses. We now date again and some of those feelings you are missing now did indeed return, but not all of them, and I realize that some of them just aren't going to. The pedestal I had WH on in my mind is long gone as are the crazy "can't wait to see you" feelings I used to have, even when I was gone for a few days. I used to travel quite a bit and I would miss WH almost immediately, and while not pining away or anything, was super happy to come home. Put another way, it always seemed like every trip, no matter how great the location and the company and no matter how much fun I had, would always be better if WH were there too.

It's not like that for me anymore. But for me, that's okay. I have discovered that I don't think I want such a tied-down commitment as I used to have with WH. I don't want to date anyone else - I just want to spend more time with me and friends and family and not have to coordinate schedules...and sometimes, unlike before, the trip would not always be better if WH were there to share it. I have my own fun now (and it's not like I wasn't independent before WH - I had plenty of fantastic times on my own), and I like it.

But for you OP - I do not think it is a BSs duty to sit through POLF or the realization that the A may have been the marriage-ender you didn't think it was for some extended period of time. To me the POLF is when your mind finally slows down - the heart pounding madness/craziness/emotional whiplash of the A/post-A has slowed - and you can take a minute to reassess where you actually are and what you want to do about it. You've been fighting so long to save the burning pile of crap your WS created that you haven't had time to look and see what it is you've actually saved, and if you really want it after all. You now know what you have - and you're not too excited about it - shocking. That does not mean toss it out - it means figure out if it really is still what you want, and giving yourself some uncluttered space to do it.

EDIT:

I didn't see that you said this:

There is no real conversation between us at the moment and I keep more and more to myself. It's not that I don't want to as much as I feel like I just can't? I feel stuck in this no-man's land of feelings. I almost feel like I would rather feel rage than feel nothing? at least I would feel something then.

I'm not suggesting you do that kind of keeping to yourself. I am suggesting that you do some purposeful me-time activities, and just come out with it and say so. In all honestly in the time I was in POLF-land, before I realized I could extract myself from that at any time, I think this - what you all are doing - would have sent me further into my shell:

We have been doing an intensive 6 week program in couples therapy as well that we are in the middle of and that has been very emotional and has taken a toll on us both. It's sort of an intensive emotionally based program where you dig really really deep into underlying fears behind coping behaviours and attachment models. It's been very intense so that might play into things a bit as well, we are both slightly emotionally burnt out from it all and there's a lot to process in between sessions every week. So that might be part of it also.

I mean my gosh that sounds like the last thing I would have wanted to do at the stage you are at - intensive couples therapy. IMO you really are at that point where you are assessing what you have and what you want to do with it so it's not the time to try to do some team-building. Instead it's time for you to decide if YOU want to remain part of the team and I think some intensive YOU-time is in order.

[This message edited by ThisIsSoLonely at 8:41 PM, Thursday, October 10th]

The pedestal I had WH on in my mind is long gone as are the crazy "can't wait to see you" feelings I used to have, even when I was gone for a few days. I used to travel quite a bit and I would miss WH almost immediately, and while not pining away or anything, was super happy to come home. Put another way, it always seemed like every trip, no matter how great the location and the company and no matter how much fun I had, would always be better if WH were there too.

This has always been me. Fo more than 20 years this is how I felt about my H. It never passed. I haven't travelled since I entered the POLF so can't speak to how I would feel about it now but he did go out of town a couple of nights for work recently and I did not miss him, pine for him, long for him, and I slept like a rock on my own.

I miss feeling like that about him. It's a huge loss to me privately (not to mention for the M but that's not really my worry anymore). I genuinely loved being so in love with my H. Loving our family and our lives together was such a huge source of happiness and joy in my life. God I miss feeling like that. It's been such a huge part of me, my disposition, my life for more than half my life, it's left a huge void in me now that I've lost it. I can't even get that nice feeling when watching anything slightly romantic anymore, I just feel immediate and utter disgust and start feeling sick if anyone even kisses on screen these days no matter how cute or innocent. Sometimes I start crying because all I can see and think of is him with OW and the loss of what was once us .

I am not sure how to quote a previous post but your last post is exactly how I feel right now. I am 2.5 years from first d day with a very complex time frame finding out more betrayals.
I think regardless though I may still feel this way even if I had found out everything right from the get go. I’ve definitely been in and out of the polf the past six months. I don’t cry as much but I also don’t have the upside either. I miss how I felt about my WH too. I miss having a sense of peace about my marriage. And yes I do feel peace within myself. I know I will be ok on my own. I’ve spent a lot of time by myself in our second home and it has done wonders for me. Like you I tend to feel more peace without him, but that is recently starting to turn around and my anxiety around him has eased.
I am continuing in the relationship for so many reasons. Reasons in my younger years would not have been enough, but at this moment they are. And I feel ok about that. Not great, but I kind of have an acceptance around it. He is such a good partner now but I do not feel any deep love or generally good feelings about our marriage. I think man, if you had treated me like this without the affairs what a beautiful love story we would have had. But the affairs and his previous poor treatment of me that I now see was linked to his general selfish nature previously is there and it has left a scar for me. I know at some point I have to let that narrative go. There’s no turning back time. I think we are both doing the best we can in this moment. Big hugs to you. I see and understand your feelings of loss.