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If I may ask, how long did it take you to reclaim your power? Did you do IC/MC? If so, did you find it helpful in reaching this point?

Sometime on d-day I decided I would not let my W's A ruin my life. I quickly committed myself to healing and to having a good life. I also quickly decided I did not cause the A; it was on her, totally.

Also, although I knew I wanted to R, I quickly decided that wanting and doing were separate. I'd R if I could and D if R didn't work.

*****

MC? That's a little funny because my W got us time with her IC on d-day. I expected her IC to take my W's side, and I expected her (the C) to look at our M as a system and look for problems in the system. But I thought venting to someone other than my WS would be good for me.

Nope. She placed total responsibility for the A on my W. She checked to find out if I was responding to being betrayed within the range of normality. She told my W to answer questions truthfully, holding nothing back, if she wanted to R, etc/, etc., etc. In 2 years of MC, I'd say my W was confronted 95% of the time and me, 5%. On d-day, she confirmed that I was on a path that would lead to my healing.

Not many therapists can be both IC to one partner and MC to a couple. Ours was able.

*****

I've always thought that a therapist works for me. I've gone through several bouts of therapy in my life, and it was always because of something I wanted to change in me.

So I recommend choosing what you want to change about yourself and asking the prospective IC if they think they can help you.

Therapists aren't experts on life. They are, or should be, experts at 1) perceiving who and where you are on your journey; 2) perceiving conflicts between what you say you want and what you do; and 3) confronting the conflicts in ways that you can hear and use to change yourself in ways you want to change.

Because believe it or not, you betrayed yourself as well

Completely agreed BackfromtheStorm. I feel like a stranger in my own skin. I don't know how I could have made the choices that led me to cheating on my wife. Even if she decides against R, I need to do a lot of work to reconcile my own self-image.

You need to take the lead on fixing this, and so far I'd say you're off to a good start. I think you've poked around and read enough by now to know it's going to be a long, bumpy ride so I'll spare you some of that.

Thank you for this Pogre, I really appreciate hearing it. BS said that she'd started poking around the forums but found it a bit overwhelming. There are a lot of painful emotions here and it's difficult to know what will be triggering. Her pain is still very fresh; I think in time she might be more comfortable looking around.

On d-day, she confirmed that I was on a path that would lead to my healing.

Not many therapists can be both IC to one partner and MC to a couple. Ours was able.

I recommend choosing what you want to change about yourself and asking the prospective IC if they think they can help you.

Very wise, thanks sisoon. I had my first session with IC last night. It was my first time doing therapy, so I didn't know what to expect. I must say that I had a great experience. It was like having a conversation with pure, non-judgmental empathy that is equipped with the tools and knowledge to help you root out the source of things you don't like about yourself. I wish I'd gone to therapy long before cheating.

Two things my IC said really stuck out:

1. She said that the only question that she considers off-limits when doing couples work is "why" the affair happened. Who, what, where, when - all fair game. But "why" never provides an answer that justifies the affair, and any reasons shared are registered in BS' nervous system as a safety threat. BS is then consciously and subconsciously always on the lookout for those threats, which only hinders their healing.

2. This quote from IC: "Nothing that we talk about that provides you insights is as impactful as changed behaviour". As we continue to progress through sessions we'll be uncovering a lot of things about me that will help me learn more about myself. But it's the tools that she's equipping me with that will help me change my behaviour over time.

For example, last night she told me to start the "ritual of connection" with BS. In order to rebuild safety in the relationship, we need to spend at least 5 minutes every day performing a "devotional act" to the relationship. The specifics of act itself aren't as important as being intentional about its purpose.

I'm already looking forward to my next session next week.

BS has her first session with an IC today - also her first experience with counseling. I hope that she finds her session as helpful as I did.

I never had betrayal trauma therapy in my case because she came back to me after short so I buried everything to preserve her self image and that destroyed me gradually in the following years, so I don’t have direct experience with the healthy process of recovery ❤️‍🩹

But reading around and studying it seem The healing process of a BS go through stages:

- initial shock, it can last about half a year

- the grief and sadness, always there but it will skyrocket and that can take a year or more

- then anger and disgust can become prevalent, is when the BS healed enough to stop blaming themselves and start to see it wasn’t their self worth or flaws, but it was the WP and the OP fault, flaws and choice (but mainly the WS, OP is just a rat happy to roll over in the mud, still had no power, in the end it was the WS call)

- then the BS might have enough clarity to understand if they truly want to R

It’s a soup of emotions and everyone lives it differently, this one is just the common process betrayed partners go through.

I think it may help you to understand what is going on, be mindful of her not trying to bury her emotional healing because she’s going through Limerence and she’s dreaming of bringing back things to how they were before your betrayal.

That will never happen, you may rebuild your relationship with her, she might rebuild with you, just know it will never go back to normal.

Betrayal killed the old relationship, it’s burned to the ground in ashes.

Love may survive or return in another form, and you can rebuild, even if sometimes some of the ashes will show up in your new life, is normal is the new reality you’ve chosen.

I think you have good chances to R with her, because the kind of betrayal and yout remorse seems genuine (many of our partners have zero guilt or remorse initially, that makes it so much harder)

Ritual bonding sounds good, be sure is no performance and is real and felt intimacy, both emotional and physical (not only "sex" as intercourse, but sex as physical intimacy of touch, looks, hugs, holding, breathing together, think holistic).

One thing maybe not everyone experiences but it was my case so watch out for it:

She may develop the "ick" for you, even if she reconnects emotionally a BS can develop physical disgust for your body and presence, can very well persist in cognitive dissonance ( imagine something like "I love you but the idea of touching or our bodies touching makes me want to vomit"), and is a bad thing both for you receiving it and for the partner feeling it.

It can appear even years later even after R , to me it appeared weeks after she came back and never went away for 17 years, it got worse and I was blaming myself and had no idea why (I told you, I never processed the betrayal).

Not to scare you but as you seem genuinely reformed and concerned about her and your relationship, if that happens is a nuclear bomb in the couple, a IC can address it and it can go away. But is a body thing not rational or emotional is a physical repulsion, read about that let’s hope it doesn’t happen, just be prepared to addressing it with therapy asap if it does.

As someone who experiences this, I can tell you I never told my wife about my physical repulsion for her until few months ago (imagine feeling nauseous and need to vomit anytime you have physical intimacy. Not fun).

Not sure if BS tell about this, I couldn’t tell her because it was shameful and humiliating for her (and I would have to face the unresolved issues that I swept under the rug), likely is the reformed WS who needs to develop a connection and sensitivity to check in about both her emotional and physical connection

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 11:02 AM, Saturday, January 24th]

It may be that the BS's 'why?' is an attempt to find out how the BS failed and/or what the BS could have done to prevent the cheating. It's a useless question, IMO, because I haven't yet run across a BS who doesn't think, 'I understand what my WS says, but how could they not have stopped themselves?'

I didn't gain that wisdom until I asked 'Why?' a couple of 100 times. Did your IC give you any guidance in answering 'Why?' If not, I'll suggest something like, 'It wasn't anything you did or didn't do. It was me.'

Also, I got a lot of good info from asking, 'What was going through your mind when _____?' My reco is to tell your BS your inner process even if they don't explicitly ask about it.

*****

Your IC sounds like a good one. Her emphasis on changing behavior is great. Too often therapy delves into the historical and cultural forces that shaped a dysfunction, when the goal should be to replace dysfunction with eufunction.

My experience with change via therapy has always been spending some time surfacing the source of one of my dysfunctions; but my successes came from focusing on removing resistances to acting the way I wanted to act. That meant getting through a lot of fear, not so BTW. (Even now I can see and hear one of the therapists I worked with saying, 'You can do hard things even when you're scared.')

We can focus on the resistances to eufunction without delving into the whys that explain the dysfunction.

I don't know if I can say anything beyond what you've already read, but....you should understand that cheating on a pregnant woman is the worst thing a man can do short of leaving her entirely with the baby. It really is a HORRIBLE thing to do because pregnancy is the time that a woman feels most vulnerable, she's not perhaps feeling great physically, she worries about herself and the baby, what will the future bring, will baby be okay, will I be a good mother - to do this is a really low down, rat fink kind of thing to do, and every time I hear someone does this, I'm thinking you should have your MAN card pulled. A man is supposed to protect his family, his woman, his child(ren), his home. That's your job on the most basic, primal level. Yes, I DO believe in gender stereotypes because they are based in biological reality. Your woman has the children, that is a tremendous responsibility in all ways and real limitation on her freedom and ability to choose in the future. Your job is to protect and support her and your kids. THAT IS YOUR ROLE. And you flunked. And then you told her, which is even worse, I would have let this go and never seen that trollop again.

Stop focusing on yourself and how bad you feel and how sorry you are and all this bullshit because if you really felt that way you would never have done this. You did not take your role seriously. You have to tell your wife I FUCKED UP. I did NOT do my job by you or our child as a MAN and I am sorry for that and I will stand by you through this WHATEVER YOU DECIDE TO DO, I will back you up and support you no matter what your decision is. I don't know if that will do any good, but you can try, you have to change how you feel about yourself and your role in life and in this relationship, and stop acting like a teenager w ho doesn't want the responsibility that you have now and will have. But that is your role and if you don't want it, you better figure that out and not play these games in the future. If you can't mature to the point where you keep your hands off another woman while your wife is pregnant, perhaps you should not be married and perhaps you are not ready for fatherhood. What kind of man do you want to be for your wife, your family, your community? That's what you have to focus on being and ACTING LIKE IT. You are the sum total of YOUR ACTIONS. We all are. I may fantasize about cheating or other men (especially in those Baerskin fleece commercials) but I'm not going to do those actions because I know the kind of person I want to be. Even if I am tempted, I'm not going to take the action.

What kind of man do YOU WANT TO BE and you should express that to your wife and live up to it if you can. If you can't, then maybe you two should consider a divorce. It's a terrible thing at this point in a relationship but I also figure don't throw good money after bad or cry over spilt milk. You're either going to be the kind of man who cheats on your pregnant wife carrying your child.....or you're not. Only YOU can decide that. It will take time for her to see in external reality that you will be the kind of man you tell her you will be. But for God's sake, stop the whining. Men don't whine. They DO.

OP - Be governed by your ideals of what a MAN should be and how he should behave in all things, not by what other people say or think, but by how YOU SHOULD BEHAVE. This should always be your guidance through life along with any religious beliefs you may have. If you do that, whatever happens, you will not go far wrong, and your wife and everyone around you will know, that even if they disagree or they don't like you, or problems arise....you are a man they can respect and someone who is authentic. The best men don't lie and cheat....aspire to be one of them.

Not going to add recriminations. You received enough well deserved berations at this point. Googling info about betraying a wife who is carrying your child must've been difficult and enlightening. Two things I will say:

1. Go to any AA meeting and you'll often hear statements like this from new attendees:

I don't think I'm an alcoholic? I only drink socially. I can be restrained when I need to (e.g. when I'm DD), although I often plan as to avoid that responsibility. Yet sometimes I can get too carried away. I don't foresee any challenges in staying sober, but I'll consider AA if I notice issues there.

Youll also see veterans glance at each other knowingly. You can read between the lines. Time for you to face the "man in the mirror".

2. You need a strong, successful (in his professional life, marriage, and parenting as a father) male mentor/coach. If you cannot find one in your personal social spheres (not unusual sadly), ask your therapist or find a mens group where you can find a mentorship. Success breeds success. When you find someone who can coach you up, be transparent as possible and be open to tough input.

IMO, large integrity gaps indicate a large developmental gap. I dont know what your upbringing and childhood looked like but many times these gaps can be traced back to those developmental years aka, "family of origins". That said, you are now 41 not 14. Time to build inner integrity brick by brick. It will take time and hard work. I am wont to say that human behavior (and the rationale behind it) is wildly difficult to change. Not impossible, but will take much effort. Put succinctly, regardless of what your faithful wife decides about your future together, you are going to be a father and that child deserves a mature, strong, dependable, man who has a strong moral center as a father.

Put another way, time to man-up like you never have before.

Good luck. Keep posting here.

[This message edited by DobleTraicion at 1:21 PM, Sunday, January 25th]