SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Yes, I was the unfaithful party in my marriage. I am not asking anyone for sympathy. I’m here trying to figure things out the same way you are, and I was responding here with the intent of being helpful. Helpful to you, to get the outcome that you are expressing you desire, not in "defense" of your WH.

I have dated many men, many of whom were made to be emotionally repressed by others. You would be amazed how easy they fall in love with a woman just by her being kind, understanding, empathetic, and, well, soft with them. They are not used to that at all, and many don’t even realize that they have been desiring that softness all along. Maybe "tenderness" is a better word here.

I have been in the same relationship for the last 10 years, married for 6 of those, with a man like that. I feel that I have learned so much. I’ve seen my H make amazing progress with healing from his FOO issues and previous marital abuse, and with being emotionally intimate/vulnerable. I am so proud of him for it. But it took patience and continual softness in order to de-condition him from that emotional repression and "toxic masculinity." It’s not as simple and easy as just cognitively understanding his conditioning and deciding to dismantle it. He had to feel safe to do that work, as sharing feelings is inherently vulnerable, and it takes a lot of time and practice. That isn’t cowardly. That’s human nature.

Yes, I cheated. I regret with every ounce of my being that I hurt him and abused his trust. I took a huge chunk of his progress and stomped it into oblivion in the dirt. It has taken a long time and a lot of effort, and obviously it’s still an ongoing work in progress, but he is starting to trust me with his feelings again. I make sure that I make sure not to punish him for that, because I did at the beginning of our reconciliation journey and it was an incredibly foolish reaction on my part. It took many apologies, much begging for him to open up, and many lesser positive interactions before he finally let me back in.

The other day, he got super deep with it and even cried into my shoulder as I hugged him. Even though it was hard to see how much I have hurt him, I sent a prayer of gratitude up to God in that moment. I’ve never felt closer to him than I have recently. Even though we are still healing, there is so much love between us still.

It’s like many people on here say, after infidelity, it’s possible to build a marriage that’s even better than it was before— even though they definitely don’t recommend the cheating part! Somebody gave the metaphor that it’s like being diagnosed with cancer, going through chemo, beating it, and then achieving better health than you had before your diagnosis because now you’re grateful just to be alive and you start taking much better care of your body. The cancer isn’t what made you healthy, but you end up healthier afterwards as a result. I hope that will be the "prognosis" for my marriage as well. Yours, too.

Anyway, I’m rambling. This is all just to say that I will stop replying on your posts as per your request. But I would encourage you not to discard anyone’s input entirely just because they have cheated. Some of us— hiking out, for example— can offer useful advice.

[This message edited by GotTheMorbs at 3:08 PM, Monday, January 12th]

T/J
GotTheMorbs,

I don’t post much anymore but I’ve been here a LONG time. I’ve watched Coco’s entire journey.

I am a mad hatter (meaning that I was betrayed by AND betrayed my H) and am an addict in recovery. I’ve worked hard and most of the knowledge I’ve gained has cost me deeply.

Gently, the fact that you posted a several paragraph reply to justify your position and state you won’t reply further demonstrates that you are still stuck in wayward thinking. Your experience is just that—your experience. Coco has had very different experience and expressed respectfully that you not reply on her threads.

Maybe just respect that. And if you’d like to start a thread to further discuss this with people who are open to your input, I’ll be happy to participate. Please respect the OP’s request and don’t reply to me here.

End T/J

Coco,
Babe, I understand completely. Grew up surrounded by military; married a soldier and then a Marine. I realize how blessed/lucky I am that JM did the work and all the heavy lifting, but I still have to remind him from time to time that I don’t read minds, and he has to tell me what he is feeling. You do you. 💗

Babe, I understand completely. Grew up surrounded by military; married a soldier and then a Marine. I realize how blessed/lucky I am that JM did the work and all the heavy lifting, but I still have to remind him from time to time that I don’t read minds, and he has to tell me what he is feeling. You do you.

Oh, I do. I don't have any problem telling him exactly what I need. He's so resistant. I don't understand what he is so afraid of. What's the worst that could happen? No one will die. The world won't come to an end if he admits he isn't perfect. I could D him, but he'd live.

I don't think that's what he cares about most. I think he cares most about his image. He doesn't want others (whoever those others are) to think he's a failure as a husband/partner.

I appreciate the first part of your post. I was thinking the same thing. I wasn't going to respond because I said I didn't want anymore interaction. But yeah, it feels like WW thinking.

I find the posts condescending. I also feel that they don't have any clue about the BP perspective or how R needs to work.

I did read the post in general. I listen to you and HO because I can feel from your posts that you get the BP's perspective. You two are not new WWs still stuck in the WW thinking.

(On a side note, I thought it was against the rules to mention another member by name like that. I'm pretty sure I got banned from another forum for doing that.)

I wonder if your H has so much bottled up inside that the slightest crack might lead to a catastrophic outcome. So he keeps himself carefully balanced, zeroed, comfortably numb. He does things for you and the family because he believes that is his job, his mission in life, not unlike the General Orders drilled into his head. He keeps score not out of fear or spite but because he's tracking himself. It's like your car; if he can't use it then it's ALL yours, which includes maintenance and whatnot.

Maybe what you interpret as CoD tendencies is actually his way of maintaining his carefully constructed internal balancing act.

It seems the same with his "acts of service" love language. If his acts are not received by you as unvoiced love then why keep shouting into a void? That gets bottled up, too, the frustration turning to resentment - more shit to bottle up and tabulate.

I can't remember what he does in the military. I was in the Navy for a single tour, long ago. The military values self control, a measured life, cool and calculated. As a lifer, high ranking (enlisted or officer), I'd imagine that a high level of self discipline would be extremely difficult to circumvent - more shit to bottle up, more shit to balance until it's all zeroed out.

In other words, he's fine. Not great, not bad, consciously balanced, carefully measured, comfortably numb...

...because if he's not, he becomes unhinged, unglued, a disregulated catastrophic train wreck...

Terrifying.

Coco,

After reading this I have two ideas that might be helpful.

One: My wife and I both recently retired and it forced us to reset our stage. We had to rethink and restate what we wanted going forward. We didn’t have a solid plan going in. I think this can be normal when one or both spouses retire. In our case, we selected a path that wasn’t even on the table two years prior to our retirement and we are completely enjoying it! Just wanted to plant a potentially positive seed, that right now might be an opportunity and that something positive might be possible at the other end.

Two: I worked for the military as a civilian senior manager. Many prior retired enlisted personnel have worked for me. It was not uncommon for a higher ranking ex-military person to not do well with someone questioning their choices or actions. They were not used to it, and their prior approach had always rewarded them up the ranks. They had to retune their egos from a give and take orders environment to collaborating and receiving constructive feedback.

SL

Unhinged, very insightful.

He learned to bottle things up as a child. He was not allowed to express his thoughts or feelings. That has been reinforced in the military.

I agree that he keeps things bottled up for fear of what my happen. In MC, he has said it's basically a fear of getting into trouble. To him, that means being a disappointment. He had an IC tell him once that his dad took all of his power away as a child. When he married me, he gave me his power.

He, himself, has acknowledged that he's CoD. As a child, he learned that the way to be safe was to do what he thought his dad wanted. I think his mother was like that, as well. One thing that confound me is that his dad wasn't abusive. He was controlling and domineering (which could be abusive, I guess), but he didn't yell or call him names or physically hurt him or anyone else. That's why I can't figure out why he's so afraid.

I know why. He's afraid of being unlike, unloved. It's hard for me to empathize with that because I couldn't care less what other people think of me. The only thing I can think of is that the real him is someone who most people wouldn't like or approve of, like a psychopath who wears a mask, so he keeps himself hidden. I don't think he's a psychopath, btw.

The issue with his acts of service was that he never took the time to find out what I really wanted. He just did things. We didn't know about love languages in the beginning of our M. I would get upset or annoyed because whatever he did was invariably not what I wanted. I would tell him precisely what I wanted and he would still do something else.

It was like he didn't believe what I was saying and thought I had a hidden agenda. I realized later that was because that's how he operates. He would say he was fine when he wasn't. He would say he didn't need this or that when he did. He assumed I was the same way.

We have tried in MC to get him to understand that I am not like his father. I'm not going to think he's a bad person for expressing his needs, wants, and feelings. The opposite is true. I want him to express himself. He is finally starting to do that. I'm hoping that, once he retires, he will get into IC. He says he's already gotten the ball rolling on that.

[This message edited by cocoplus5nuts at 11:22 PM, Sunday, January 18th]

Still-living,

We have been talking about what we want to do once he fully retires. It's difficult because he still struggles with expressing what he wants for himself. In his head, it's about doing what he thinks I want.

I scare the crap out of him by telling him I need a 6 bedroom beach house so all the kids and their potential families can visit at the same time. That's my dream. He doesn't understand that it's the ultimate. I'm fine with less.

He definitely has a hard time when questioned by me and our boys. He takes it as a personal attack and shuts down. That comes from foo. No one was allowed to question or disagree with his father.

We've been working on that some in MC. It would be more helpful if he worked on that in IC. He needs somewhere that he focus solely on himself. He can't seem to separate himself and his wants and needs from me.

Like I said above, he's finally started dipping his toes in. He has also initiated getting IC. 🤞 that he'll follow through.

Lord it sounds like we married clones.

I relate to SO much of what you described and it is exhausting. JM will be upset and it oozes from every pore. I ask what’s wrong. We’ve graduated, mostly, to "I’m not ready to talk about it" instead of "Nothing." When he will finally talk about it, he feels better. I want to shake him until he understands we could have avoided 2 days of walking on eggshells. 2 days of me wondering wtf he’s upset about.

I know you are doing the very best you can. You will know if and when you need to do something different.

I want to shake him until he understands we could have avoided 2 days of walking on eggshells. 2 days of me wondering wtf he’s upset about.

Yep. My H has gotten to the point where he will at least think about what he's feeling instead of denying. I was astounded when he said in MC just a few months ago that he didn't know he had any feelings other than anger, which he suppressed.

He still does the same behaviors, though. He's not aware of what he's doing until after the fact. I guess it's still progress.

The most upsetting part for me these days is how it has affected his relationship with our kids. All of them had told me that they don't want to talk to him about important things because they don't want to deal with his reactions. He doesn't blow up or anything. He gets sarcastic and negative. I've told him this. He still reacts the same way.

He goes through life on automatic pilot, completely oblivious to anything except his task at hand. He misses so much. I've talked about him trying some mindfulness practices. He doesn't have time. Too busy. And, that's exactly why he needs to try them.

he's fine. Not great, not bad, consciously balanced, carefully measured, comfortably numb...

...because if he's not, he becomes unhinged, unglued, a disregulated catastrophic train wreck...

Unhinged,

Could you explain this further? Why is this terrifying?

It just seems to me that keeping so much bottled up creates an internal pressure that can't always be contained, like a boiling tea pot without an opening. Maybe that's why he had affair, as an outlet, to blow off a little steam.

I don't understand how people can live without a healthy outlet for stress.

It's why I believe infidelity is self-destructive.

My IC and our MC both say that if you don't say your feelings, you will act them out. That is true with my H. He bottles things up and huffs and puffs and sometimes bangs and slams things. In the past, he would deny that anything was wrong. More recently, he has been acknowledging that he's upset and can sometimes say why. A lot of times, he doesn't know what he's feeling or why.

I couldn't do it, either. I'm the opposite. I have a hard time holding things, even in public. I don't blow up or cause a scene, but I will say something right away if I'm bothered.

I don't understand what is so scary about emotions. They can't hurt you.