SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Asterisk -

So, instead of shifting that anger towards my wife, knowing it completely unjustified at this stage in our relationship, I turned to you guys. I’m exposing a side of me I just hate.

Not easy to share — and thanks for doing it. Because you finding us now, all these years after the fact, makes perfect sense now.

Infidelity is about as unfair as it gets.

Infidelity puts us in a competition we don’t even know we’re in.

Our spouses purposefully turn away from us.

And, you took a higher road than most of us and buried the side of you that you don’t like, buried the anger you could not properly vent.

You go and see the Doc and he has a potentially unfair medical diagnosis, another chance for you to vent about the inherent unfairness of it all.

I’m no mental health professional (although three of my family members are), but darn if it doesn’t add up.

So you’re taking a full inventory, and that’s a good thing.

You’re a bit older than me, but I would invest in a punching bag. Some great therapy in punching some anger out on those things. Or hike up your favorite hill/mountain/tall place and yell at the world (kind of fun).

It was a righteous anger then, and it is now — until you process it some more.

As you noted, you previously chose suffering. Now, I think you are looking for a way to suffer….less.

For me, I did figure out how to choose my focus on the elements of life that have gone better since I started healing.

But what about long-term suffering? Short-term suffering, sure, that is to be expected. But in my case, I’m talking about 3 decades of suffering. I just shake my head in bewilderment that I’ve spent the last 32 years reminiscing, dragging into the current moment, bedroom images and non-understood reasons for the affair.

What a paragraph, and I think it applies to me, if only for 16 years. I wish I'd left, but I didn't. Now: how to get out of this choice of suffering?

Unhinged, my friend,

Why? What was the risk?

There is so much more to just my wife’s affair that coincided with what should have been our time of reconciliation. A larger family tragedy that took center stage, overshadowing the work my wife and I would have otherwise been applying ourselves.

As I mentioned before, we were living in a new town and state with, by my choice, no family or friends support systems. 10 months post D-day, when my wife and I and our marriage was at the precipice my daughter was raped. All attention shifted to her, the police, the hospitals and a yearlong court proceeding. The anger that I was maintaining pretty well just exploded inside of me. Anger at the guy, anger at myself, anger at the police, anger at the courts, anger at life! And I could not show an ounce of it. My only job at that moment was to keep my family from imploding and my daughter from ending it all.

I hope my explanation answers your question made above, and at the same time answers a different question you asked me in another thread. "Holding my wife’s feet to the fire" and allowing my anger to roar into existence just wasn’t important.

Though the criminal process seemed eternally long and unfair to my daughter. The police and the courts did do their job, and I am thankful for them. But our work, stabilizing our daughter, keeping her home intact was just beginning and were my only two things to accomplish. As time ticked forward, things began to settle down and become normal again giving us a needed rest. The affair, as terrible as it was, paled against the rape of my 15-year-old daughter.

Asterisk

[This message edited by Asterisk at 6:11 AM, Wednesday, November 5th]

Oldwounds,

I'm a bit numb at the moment but extremely thankful for your understanding and support.

Asterisk

Eric1964,

What a paragraph, and I think it applies to me, if only for 16 years. I wish I'd left, but I didn't. Now: how to get out of this choice of suffering?

I'm probably the last guy to give you good advice other than to listen to the many here who worked through the process in a more timely way than me. There is an amazing amount of collective wisdom here that I'm just now attempting to attach myself with.

I wasn't sure, due to how you phrased something so I'll just ask. Do you still wish you had left? If so, why not. There are many people here that chose that path and have found full healing. Maybe try, if you haven't, leaning on their success stories.

Asterisk

I'm so sorry about your daughter. I can't even begin to imagine how incredibly hard it must have been for you as her father.

I'm at a real loss for words here, brother.

To reframe your thread title, it seems like suffering may have chosen you.

I’m so sorry for your daughter. It speaks volumes of your character that you set aside your own pain to make room for your daughter’s.

I hope and pray you can still find your peace.

Asterisk-

Have you been to talk therapy at all? The reason I ask is you had these traumas back to back and likely that created some sort of compound effect. You must have felt like someone came in and robbed your daughter of her innocence while the innocence of your marriage had just been robbed.

I wonder if there is some sort of combo of these two events happening so close together that it’s simply less that you chose suffering but that you could not find your way out and these two events being tied together make it impossible to find healing on your own?

I think sometimes men suffer differently than us. They are taught to be strong and protective, they aren’t given the same tools or practice in their upbringing and social circles to process emotion or even feel it’s okay to have them. Often then they keep trying to push it down. (Not saying woman don’t do this as well, I just think the conditioning men have traditionally in our society makes being sensitive a flaw?)

I have heard good things about EMDR therapy. And honestly, some of the psychedelic therapies are showing great potential for being able to overcome trauma.

I think you have been holding this for long enough in your own. Sure you are coming here and letting some of it out, but we can not give you the connection that you can experience with in person dealings.

So very sorry to hear about your daughter. How helpless you must have felt, and how much worry and pain that must have added to your heart.

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:05 PM, Wednesday, November 5th]

Unhinged, InkHulk and HikingOut,

I shared this information because I could see by Unhinged’s backup questions that my answers were not making full sense to him. I do believe that is true as well for others, but they were not so direct. Because his fair challenges were jabbing where it hurt, my knee jerk reaction was to lash out, which was totally inappropriate. Then, when his next two questions were poking the same bear, I thought I needed to give a fuller explanation as to why my wife and I failed so miserably at reconciliation protocol.

I want to thank you for your concern, but I do have a favor to ask. I do not wish to remain on the topic. It will suck all my energy away from the affair issues that I need to address as it rightly did back in 1992.

I will close this topic off by answering HikingOut’s question. Did I get counseling. Yes, all through the year of courtroom drama our entire family was in counseling 2 times a week and my daughter alone another 2 times a week. And it saved our family’s spirit and probably my daughter’s life. My daughter continued her counseling for many years.

Time to move on. Thanks for your understanding.

Asterisk

Asterisk, I owe you one massive apology.

This whole time, for five months, reading almost 200 posts from you (quite a pace! ), I been wondering this one thing. It just didn't make any sense to me at all that a man as smart, thoughtful, and introspective as you would have ever swept infidelity under the rug.

I have seen BH comes here who will not or cannot "hold her feet to the fire." And to be completely honest with you, I could neither understand nor condone what I saw as weakness, fear, a flaw of some kind.

That's not you.

So... I swung a 2x4.

Oldwounds saw that shit for what it was and, to his credit, called me out on it.

The affair, as terrible as it was, paled...

I'm sorry for BSes. BTDT, and sympathy helps. But when one's child gets hurt in any way, especially violently, all I can think of saying is, 'I'm so sorry,' and that seems so inadequate. I'm very happy to read your daughter is working through the effects of the trauma. I'm so sorry she experienced that terrible violation.

*****

Have you done work on your anger in IC? Have you done anger work on your own? It looks like you stuffed it - did you ever look at it in the light of day?

*****

I think we have a lot of control over our mind and feelings. You've got to start as close to reality as possible. You might be addicted to suffering now, but you experienced 2 major traumas. I'll acceot that the trauma was worse for your daughter, but parents are affected by their child's pain. I don't think you chose to suffer. I agree that suffering came looking for you.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 3:47 PM, Wednesday, November 5th]

Hey Asterisk -

Honoring your request about moving on, but I would add, based on you offering more about what you have been through — maybe the first step for you — is being more kind to yourself.

You’re right, you never had a chance to go through whatever protocols people go through to recover from infidelity.

And for damn good reasons.

All of us needed strength after the shock of an A to start healing, your strength was utilized for your family instead.

So, give you some kindness and credit for being the rock your loved ones needed in a time of crisis.

No need to bury anything anymore, I hope you have been able to bring your wife in on some of your modern realizations of the damage the A caused.

Among those steps I utilized (the old Sisoon R three step, you heal you, your wife heals her and you both heal the M), you are finally taking a look at healing you.

Again, take a bit to appreciate how amazing your strength was in helping your family when they needed that strength.

Maybe the thread topic title is off a bit.

You didn’t choose suffering — you chose to TRY and bury it, in order to help others.

Now you’re figuring how to tackle it, instead of allowing suffering to own you anymore.

Absolutely. I can completely understand.

Unhinged,

You owe me no apologies. I was feeding you ½ truths and expecting you to accept them as full truths. Clearly, you are too smart for that strategy. I’ll have to figure out a better more strategic approach. 😊

Honestly, not that anyone would have had reason to suspect, it is part of what I was sharing with my post "I became a liar". The messaging there was not all about my wife’s affair, but I had concluded that sharing my daughter’s situation here as off topic and inappropriate.

I got efficient at lying, a thing that went against the grain of my soul. But, I had to lie every day when I went to work, the grocery store, bank, family counseling, marriage counseling, very court session, climbing, boating, it didn’t matter. My rage and grief had no place in those places, and I had no right to pelt strangers with my emotional breaks. For 5 years, anytime I was alone, I cried with grief-tears uncontrollably and then would reset and enter the world as daily life demanded. Today, those tears have returned and they have no place here.

So, I think the apology needed to go the other way around. You’ve proven to be a good friend Unhinged. I’m so fortunate that you happen to reengage at the same time I arrived.

Asterisk

Sisson,

Thank you. I know your concerns are genuinely from the heart, and I appreciate it. I too found anything I could do or say to my daughter was "inadequate".

Have you done work on your anger in IC? Have you done anger work on your own? It looks like you stuffed it - did you ever look at it in the light of day?

Sigh. No, I did not seek individual counseling for either issue. Oddly, I believe in the process of therapy, and have benefited from it on the marriage issue and my daughter’s struggles, but no. I did not have the money because the costs associated with all of this stuff was astronomical. And I was spent and didn’t have the will to address my anger/rage. I had to "stuff it" for I had other obligations.

I’m an odd duck with an odd belief when it comes to anger. As with all belief systems there are flaws and weaknesses and mine are no different. The 1st assumption I hold dear, is that no one makes me angry. I may allow myself to be angry, and anger may be appropriate, but it is my responsibility to control it. I also maintain that when I allow myself to get angry, it is more likely than not, a failure on my part. It might be a failure of understanding. It might be a failure of my will to be reasonable; it might be a failure to forgive and so forth… Overall, that system works well, but as I said it doesn’t fit all situations all the time. So, should I "look at in the light of day?" Oh man, I’m going to have to sit in the dark and ponder on that. And I mean what I say here, I will sit with it for a few days.

You might be addicted to suffering…

Well shoot, that sent chills down my spine. I wanted to type in ALL CAPS, nope not me. But then again, when one is addicted, he/she typically can’t see it, even when it is killing them. I can see, I’m going to be sitting in the dark (a lot) for the near future.

Asterisk

Oldwounds,

Honoring your request about moving on, but

And there it is, the "but". Actually, your but phrase helped lower my emotions a notch or two. So thanks, for it hit my funny bone.

No need to bury anything anymore, I hope you have been able to bring your wife in on some of your modern realizations of the damage the A caused.

I’m not sure I agree with the 1st section for sometimes there just isn’t any resolve, one just has to accept and move forward and deal with the after effects as they rise up. And no, I have not been keeping my wife updated. She knows that I am active on this site, and she knows why but she does not ask so I do not share. Plus, as I have said many times, what I am currently dealing with is my own issue, she has no role in it anymore. She did her part; it is me that has not crossed the finish line. However, you guys are helping me pick up the pace. Thanks,

Asterisk

Hikingout,

Absolutely. I can completely understand.

Thank you, and I know there is not a person here that doesn’t want the best for me. I feel the same way back.

Asterisk

One thing that I see by being on here for a while, is the anger that BS feel towards themselves for not doing something years ago. That needs to stop.
One of the things that we all know is we’re going to change as we go through life. It’s all about learning and making mistakes and growing up. None of us are ever ready for the blindsiding thing that happens to us. We never are.
It never occurred to me that my husband would cheat. I would never have known about it if I had not been told. I wish I had not been. I don’t think I’ve seen my story, or anything close to it, as long as I’ve been on here. It’s almost as if once I was told I had amnesia. I didn’t think about it, I just got on with my life. I looked after my kids, I cooked meals, I got along with my neighbors and when my husband was at home we interacted with each other and we made love and had fun as a family. I don’t know how I did it other than the fact I had no recourse. I had sick parents and siblings that were nowhere near me and had their own lives to lead…and I never thought about it unless he was a little to friendly. One time I blew up at him for a remark he made to a friend but we went right back to our lives.
I did not live with angst. When I went to work after my kids were older it was to help others.
It took me more than 10 yrs to tell him I knew. He admitted and that was the end of it. No questions. No conversation. We have a good life. I come here to give some hope to people who have a chance at R…however, I do not push R if the ws had terrible behaviors or did not recognize the damage they have done.
Your story is different. Your wife had a relationship with another man. I never had that worry. I still say accepting the unacceptable is possibly the best you can hope for.
I am very glad it appears you do not have surgery in your future, at this point.