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