Me,BS 42 WH (masame5) 44 Married 22 yrs, 8 kids D-day 10/9/12 (caught him through fb chat)
D-day #2 11/19/12 thru 11/21/12 (found out about all the rest of the A's.) 8 AP. D-day #3 Oct 18, 2023 it's happening again... 3 AP's plus so many attempts

So tired of being asked...

I am obviously hitting anger in the midst of processing things. WH had therapy today and his therapist 's suggestion to how he can help me through his work trip this weekend, Ask her what SHE needs from you for accountability to feel safe this weekend. What! The! Hell! Why does everyone ask ME what I need to feel safe? The things I need are impossible right now. I need to feel that my WH won't do any sort of wayward behavior but I can't trust him for that so I'm just supposed to somehow think of something?!?! And if one more person tells me that I just need to feel and process my emotions....I might just smash something. I. Don't. Want. To. Process. Anymore. Right. Now!

So normally I'm a very even keeled, sweet person. I've been discribed as someone who wouldn't hurt a fly. That I'm a peacemaker. And I rarely curse. But this whole situation has broken my give a f button. So I ask, how do I handle the rage I feel right now. Its not something I'm used to dealing with so that's even an extra layer to this. 11 years ago I literally took a baseball bat to a bookcase in the freezing cold in a tshirt. And apparently I was absolutely terrifying to watch because it was so out of character. Do I do that again?

9 comments posted: Tuesday, October 31st, 2023

Almost at 2 weeks, need help with monitoring

So here we are at almost 2 weeks in this mess for the second time. WH has just started IC, I've had 2 sessions of IC about this and we've done 2 MC sessions about this. But in all of that we didn't work out a plan for WH's work trip this weekend. He and I have agreed he needs to go so him not going is not an option. He will be flying out early Fri morning and come back early Sunday morning. I will be driving him and picking him up from the airport. He's supposed to be rooming with another work friend. My problem is how hard this trip is for me to deal with. WH knows he is not to mess with his location on either of the 2 tracking apps we've got running on him. But he'll already be at a hotel so I'm struggling with how I can feel safe? Location tracking will simply put him at the hotel but obviously cannot tell me things like if he goes to a different hotel room. Because of my deep anxiety on this I can't think of how to make myself feel more comfortable. And I'm tired of being asked, "well what do you NEED in this to feel safe?" Dude, how can I feel safe in this scenario? I don't know what I want or need other than to have not been ever placed here but that's not something I got an option in. The only other advice I've been giving is to journal, process and not DO things because both my IC and MC say that I handle things by doing rather than processing. I'm tired of not doing things. Processing hurts like being ripped apart. And I definitely don't want to just white knuckle my way through this weekend. I need suggestions...

3 comments posted: Monday, October 30th, 2023

Disassociation? Nunbness? All normal?

So here we are a week and a half from d-day. The last week and a half my nerves have been shot. I could barely stop shaking at any point. Tears, heart wrenching sobs, and anger that bubbles up like I never feel has all happened. I forgot to eat, couldn't sleep more than a few hours each night. And today it's like my body decided to pause the feelings. I can feel some things like aches and pains everywhere. I feel tired. But mostly I just feel worn out on a deep level. And like my emotions are just numb. Songs, images, little things that have been setting me off are happening but its like my body just doesn't have the strength to care anymore. I have started to get my appetite back and I did take a sleeping pill last night to try to get some sort of solid sleep. So what is this I'm feeling? Is it normal? And what happens next? Am I about to get hit with another round of absolutely debilitating emotions?

6 comments posted: Friday, October 27th, 2023

How to actually process your emotions?

So it has almost been a week of the second nuclear bomb going off in our lives. I asked for more details and he did give them, although I think there's more. He trickled more details via text this morning too. Its just exhausting and traumatizing and its not a pain that you can have lots of support for. If I had been diagnosed with cancer for example, then itd be ok for everyone to know and pitch in support. With this I don't even want to go anywhere because then I have to pretend. How do I do things like homeschool co-op or church or family events and act normal so no one judges him so he has a chance to heal? Its just so him focused and its not fair. I just feel stuck waiting for his first appointment on fri. But even that is not clear thinking. It will take weeks of therapy to even glaze the surface of him working on himself before I can see what he truly is. I'm just so exhausted.

12 comments posted: Tuesday, October 24th, 2023

Well, I'm back here in this hell again 😭😭

I was here in Oct 2012. We went through this roller coaster. After agonizing work I found out he had 8 A over 7 or so years of our M. We worked hard. IC and MC. On our anniversary sept 2013 we had a beautiful ceremony to recommit our marriage to God and each other. IC revealed that WS might have a sex addiction. Fast forward about 5 years and another baby. He had issues and it seemed military releated to his time overseas. He started meds through the VA and seemed to get better. 3 and a half years ago we bought our beautiful house we live it at now. Everything was (what I thought was both of our) dreams come true. My dreams of being a stay at home, homeschooling mom with a supportive husband were there. But trauma has always been lurking. My stepdaughter has wounds from her childhood and mentally went downhill worse and worse. In 2020 we took guardenship of our grandson. Late spring of 2021 WS was offered a 30 day position for work 2 and a half hours away. Work would pay for his living expenses and he would gain skills working at a higher level. If he did well he could prove himself for future promotions. The original agreement we had was he'd come home fri evenings through sunday evenings. He did it and dug into the work. Meanwhile I struggled hard. I was basically a single mom. Sure I didn't have a job outside of the house but there was no one to help me during the week. Meanwhile he'd go to restaurants and sleep in a beautiful hotel suite with relaxing evenings by himself. They extended the opportunity for longer. He came home for shorter and shorter periods of time and said it'd be easier if I would just pack everyone up and come to him some weekends. Sometimes we did but it was tough on me. I started telling him I didn't think I could do this and I wanted him to come home. I was triggering from his first infidelity but also feeling like I wasn't being fair because so much time had past. It was clear to everyone in my family that I and the kids were not WS's priority. I ended up going on antidepressants and the first time I laughed after about 2 weeks on them both WS and the kids turned in shock. It had apparently been that long without a laugh from me. WS pleaded to stay longer. I'd feel guilty at the idea of making him give up such an amazing opportunity and agree to just a bit longer. After almost 6 months he finally did come home. He was frustrated by the job and was glad to be back to his regular office. At times I'd tell him I felt like my mental health was ignored and he'd say, oh well that's why I came home but then he'd talk of his frustrations at being at that post. Life calmed down some off and on but crisis was always there as my stepdaughter spiraled. It was exhausting dealing with her, rasing our grandson who was obviously struggling and acting out (he was 3). Then she met a new guy and slowly, ever so slowly seemed to start getting stable. Hints and words of my being to strict and expecting too much from her as a parent were rough. Sometimes WS agreed with me but mostly he seemed to think she was doing fine and I was too critical. Her and that guy got married and in aug last year. It was also at that time when I thought things were finally settling down that WS signed up for a reddit group for random meetups in ohio. We allowed our grandson to move back in to his mom's and that lasted 7 weeks. She said her husband cheated, he said they had an open M. He showed evidence of her agreement. Who knows. All I know was once again I was dealing with a broken now 5 yr old who was again in shock and acting out. By about Dec things were awful between stepdaughter and us. WS and I agreed she wasn't responding correctly but he also thought I was still too critical. I set up MC for us to help us work through this. Stepdaughter started getting somewhat stable again and in about feb got an apartment near us. We worked with our therapist and allowed her more parenting time. Then she lost her job in march. While not divorcing her husband she also started a new relationship with a military guy stationed in texas. He came to visit, she went to visit him and for weeks it seemed like getting a job was not a priority. Finally in mid april she got a job. In early May WS was getting extremely angry and distant. Little things would set him off. I found out he was not remembering to take his ptsd meds correctly. One day we almost admitted him. He actually went to his VA clinic to possibly be admitted only to be told he was at the wrong place for that. He came home and asked for 24 hrs to try to get himself straight. He slept a lot and the next day was a little better. He asked for another 24 hrs. We worked together to help him make it through. Slowly he got into his VA dr and worked on stabilizing his meds. Then shortky after that stepdaughter said she was losing her apartment. WS said she should live with us. I said no. We've literally had to kick her out 7 times over the years and I didn't have it in me to deal with anymore chaos in my home. WS resented me deeply. My parents helped her get an apartment even though she had burned yhem many times. They decided it was better to help her even if it was losing money, just to help us have stability. WS and I went on a trip together the first week of june for a thing of WS's work. On the way down he told me how much he was tired of being what I wanted him to be and he wanted to be his real self. I cried but tried to figure out how to work on us. Over this summer he had more and more work trips and wasn't home much in the evenings or weekends. The kids got used to this as normal. We continued MC to work on things with my stepdaughter who was again stabilizing in her new job and new apartment. She earned back parenting time and in mid aug, with the therapist go ahead we decided to do a trial of grandson living with her again. Through sept she was late to work, called off and we could see the seeds of her soon losing this job too but she was doing ok with parenting and so we said we'd see what happens. Last sunday life 360 was acting weird. It would say WS was near toledo where he was supposed to be for yet another conference then itd pop to he was at a hotel. Then 10 minutes later itd say he was 200 miles away at the conference. Then to a restaurant near the other hotel near home. He was also later getting home then he said he'd be. I triggered hard. I called him in a near panic and explained that I understand that life 360 looked like it was messing up but that I just needed some safety. He came home and said sure you can look at my phone but couldn't find it. After we finally found it I looked through his messages but only found texts from a friend where he talked about our loveless marriage and how he didn't think we'd make it. I cried and told him I too was feeling hopeless. Monday we fought again but he suddenly took tues and weds off to get things done at home and for us to reconnect. It was wonderful. Although not perfect I thought maybe things would be better. But I still had a growing pit in my gut that something was off. Wed evening he went to the vfw for a meeting. The kids were at awana and I was cleaning. I don't remember what I was looking for but I opened his nightstand and found another phone. It seemed barely used. Only 5 or 6 phone calls and all were very short. It didn't have network access. And nothing else on it. Something was definitely wrong. I realized his laptop was still here. I searched since he was still logged in to his gmail. Finally in his trash I found my worst fear. He has a reddit account to a group for random meetups. Over and over again he was arranging meetups and sending pics of himself (even his dick) to women and saying things he'd never do with me in the bedroom. He even asked about when a local gang bang was. And he had plans to meetup with someone on our anniversary while the kids and I were away at an overnight event. I picked the kids up, took them home with instructions that I wasn't feeling well and needed to go to my friend's. I made sure they were safe and our farm animals were cared for. Then I fled to a McDonald's parking lot to wait for my friend to get her kids situated and for us to meet. From there I literally froze. I couldn't make any decision to go anywhere or do anything. WS called me to check in as we had previously discussed and I told him what I had found. He didn't deny that it was him but said (and is holding to) he never actually went through with any of the meetups. He said he always ghosted at the last minute. He asked me to come home and I said I don't know what to do yet. And we hung up. My friend arrived and we sat in the parking lot because I literally couldn't decide do anything. I didn't want to go anywhere. I didn't want to decide anything. I just froze. Meanwhile my phone is blowing up as my older kids start to realize something is really not ok with mom. She never just disapears like this. I would text back simply that I was ok but couldn't talk about it. At that point my friend started managing things and called another friend to come sit with us. We sat until about 130am when I knew my indecision was keeping them awake in a stupid parking lot. I must force myself to make a decision. I had promised the kids I would come back that night so I went home and layed on the couch. I got maybe 2 hours of sleep. My friends convinced me to go get std testing given how much I've been potentially exposed to. I sat in the parking lot of the Dr's office for 30 minutes before my froend coaxed me to go in. I was shaking visibly and was a wreck at the idea of taking my pants off for this. The nurse hugged me as I cried and the dr decided she didn't want me to have to do an internal exam since I had no symptoms. She did a urine test and ordered bloodwork for me to go take. I couldn't do it after that though because WS had encouraged me to get in with my IC and so I went. Then we went together that evening to an emergency MC appointment. Fri I did the blood test and took my boys to a trunk or treat event where my friends surrounded me then I fled home and hid mostly. Sat we again did a session of MC. That night I suggested we watch a movie as a family to give us all a break from this and to give the kids some sense of normal. WS got drunk (which is an increasing issue as he walks the edge of a possible alcohol problem). He goes between he is really fucked up mentally and doesn't know himself even to how I didn't make him feel like more than a worker for me. He has his first IC session on this fri. Yesterday we didn't talk too much. I've barely eaten (my friend keep reminding me to eat a few bites otherwise I wouldn't think of it) and I'm barely sleeping. Today I've promised myself to try to keep life as normal as possible for the kids because they're terrified. WS keeps asking if I'll stay and if I can't stay with him will I at least stay until the kids are grown so their lives aren't turned upside down. But I can't make a decision other than let's see what counseling brings. This weekend my 18 yr old has broken up with her bf and decided to quit college. Now I will say we didn't like the bf and she wasn't doing well with college anyway. My nearly 15 yr old quit her job and hid at my stepdaughter's apartment so "dad had a bed to sleep in". My 9 yr old stared out the window off and on for the 4 hours asking when I'd be home while I went to my sister's to watch a movie and get out some. My kids are in crisis, I'm in crisis and I just know there's more I'll find out WS has done. There has to be more. I don't even know where to go from here. Part of me does want to reconcile and part of me doesn't think I can with our history. What next?

11 comments posted: Monday, October 23rd, 2023