"That I need to set some down occasionally, and rotate through them, and that I’m trying to get that rotation down pat so that everything is well-maintained and we’re living a happy life together. But what happens is that, instead of me prioritizing the ball that most urgently needs attention in order to amend the rotation, H pressures me to pick up whichever ball would most soothe his immediate feelings. Then the next day he complains about a different ball that got deprioritized, so I pivot to juggling that one… And it repeats. This way I am always soothing him, building my life around his day-to-day wants, never getting the rotation righted, and he is never satisfied with the way I’m managing anything. And I feel like a constant failure, so my mental health plummets, and I get paralyzed with depression and suck at managing everything even worse"
I think the problem that some of you are failing to grapple with is, I need to change myself in order to make sure I recover and abstain from committing infidelity again, and sometimes my recovery timeline is at odds with the reconciliation timeline.
Whenever we talk about the Work, it's "What made you able to cheat? Do you want this marriage? Are you embracing radical honesty and authenticity and showing up as your true self? Are you meeting your own needs? Are you creating a life in which you can be a happy and whole person outside of your marriage? Maybe you need to let go of the outcome..."
And then you'll also say "Regular marital issues need to take a back seat. Figure out whether you want to R or D and commit to being 'patient'..."
I want to acknowledge that I experienced this, and I think it's pretty common that the ws recovery to be at odds with the bs recovery. My therapist gave me an assignment of separating my woulds and shoulds, and only do my shoulds for a period of time. This was terrifying to me at a level that would sound silly here. Basically, I felt my marriage operated on my servitude, I hustled for love. To stop putting those balls in the air after having just cheated on him, I felt complete dread and doomed. I was going to lose him for sure, why even keep trying if I am just going to give up on the overperforming. He surely wouldn't want me without it. That's just self-protection, unhelpful narratives, and me perpetuating the very thing that was making me miserable.
I did it though, and it was horrifying at first. And, as I started to really clock what was happening, I realized it became a relief. I saw 1) that my overperforming was not his expectation and he loved me anyway. This was a very big awakening to me, the narratives in my head were not from a true basis. 2) It allowed me to soften and be vulnerable in a way I had never ventured. Ultimately I think that willingness to see he did love me even if he wasn't showing it to me currently, and to become softer with him is why we are still married today.
And, he responded so much better to my vulnerability than my self protection. I can't claim I know how your husband will react, but I would like to affirm you on a couple of things:
Yes, you should be authentic. Letting go of the outcome so that you can feel stronger about yourself is a needed part of the work.
I think when you asked Inkhulk - what is it that you think I am doing? My answer would have been trying to manage the situation. And, in that management you stay in your logic completely, and to me what's missing in all of it is your heart side. At least in the way you address it here in the forum. You are still very self protective in a situation that typically does require the ws to lead the way in terms of vulnerability.
Well what if the marital issues left me lonely, so I was vulnerable to catching feelings for the first person that demonstrated an interest in talking to me? What if I had sacrificed my social life so much to be a mum to a toddler (not exactly a thrilling conversationalist) and a wife to a man who sat in silence any time we spent time together, because his need for decompression after talking to people all day/week long and for "quality time" with me was being put over my need for connection to other adults, including to him? How do I change my actions to ensure my social needs are being met?
This is a great question because it offers a way of trying to bridge your other questions. So, you are to a place where you see that you sacrificed your happiness to exist in this relationship, and you are no longer willing to do that. That part of it is healthy. But, when I say in you stay completely in your logic, you don't really feel your feelings, you react to what is happening with just your brain. I recognize it because my tendency is to be exactly like that. It's why I had a hard time gaining empathy, with without it didn't lead to a sustainable remorse. Logically, I could relate to why my husband was upset, or at least I could derive that from an argument and see it in hindsight but I wasn't feeling my feelings or his. There was only pain.
What I learned is I disassociate from my feelings because I learned to use as a major coping mechanism to survive my childhood and young adulthood, is it rendered me as a non-empathetic person. I never recognized myself that way, but the truth is if you disassociate from your feelings, you are much further removed and disassociated from another person's emotional world.
You keep demanding logic from him as a result. And that's exactly the part he can't give you right now. I know you want to see him trying. I get that if he doesn't you probably will divorce. And, that's okay. I am okay with you having a life path that doesn't include this marriage. I don't judge that even a little bit. I do not think everyone is compatible or that there has to be a bad guy in that.
But, you claim to want to make the marriage work. It also feels to me like you are incredibly resentful of who he was in the pre-A relationship and haven't gotten to the perspective yet that you contributed to this dynamic all along. Your resentments are born of a paradigm that you were co-signing.
In reality, the time to have shown completely up with these new boundaries would have been the choice to make instead of cheating. Now that you have cheated, it slows down the ability to build a new paradigm. If you had worked on this directly before cheating, your logic about basically leaving him to fend for himself would hold water.
That's what you are getting pushback about in this post.
I get you went back to school because you want to be able to financially care for yourself if it goes south. Logically, he understands school is good for you. But in the emotional muck that one swims around in post cheating signing up for school and prioritizing it now feels like you are putting him aside to get school done so you can leave. Whether he is even fully aware of that fear or not, it's a point of contention. He keeps looking to be prioritized because when things get hard you check out on him. Historically, it's been through cheating and getting your needs met elsewhere.
you keep presenting these scenarios since you have gotten here of why you can't accommodate him or he shouldn't fear this or that. Anything from can you go to bed with him at the same time he goes to litigating your position in a PowerPoint. Yes, he may have understood how you work and what you meant, but inside of him, he just want to have his feelings understood. I think that is hard because when things are scary to you (or maybe at all times), you tend to intellectualize it all. That's the disassociation I see and recognize in you.
What if my low self-esteem and need for external validation is a big part of my why, and my marital issues are actively sabotaging my ability to feel good about myself? If my understanding of my worth is tied into whether my husband is satisfied with how I'm meeting all of HIS needs, and the family's needs, and the household's needs, at the expense of my own, and he's never going to be happy because of the habit of pivoting to whatever it is he wants me to do from day to day instead of prioritizing appropriately, as well as meeting my OWN needs, so that I can be a functional fucking human being... Then how am I ever supposed to cultivate self-esteem and self love, and rely on internal validation instead?
I so understand this. I remember feeling this way, and not for a little while, for a long time.
What I have been trying to say to you is, keep focusing on your work. When I say your work, you are not just trying to be less codependent, which is essentially the struggle you are describing here. But, at the same time the relationship is a two-person activity, whereas the being less codependent is a one-person activity. If you wish to reconcile, then you must work on your relationship skills at the same time all of this is happening. Which means leaning into your emotional side and finding that connection to your empathy. I believe you are trying, but I also see resentment in it. And the latter is likely being seen and felt by him which is not optimal.
I can see your husband is looking for things that make him feel like he is a priority to you. For example early in the recovery process, he asked you to go to bed at the same time as him, he felt uncertain of what you would be doing. You knew you were going to be cleaning so your knowledge of that seemed to invalidate his request. You felt more comfortable with avoiding it with cleaning, citing it was in the better interest in the marriage long term because then you would argue less. I think there is an avoidant/dismissive aspect of this that should be part of your work towards becoming whole. Even if you do not agree with the example. I can only tell you that I read dismissive/avoidant in so many of your posts and reconciliation takes a pointed leaning in. It just does.
The work involves not just the ending of some of your codependent tendencies, but also to learn how to have a deeper connection. You are very self protective, controlling, and closed off. I know that place, I have been there.
How am I supposed to be authentically me and leading a fulfilling life if my marital issues result in me just constantly self-abandoning to manage his feelings? If I'm structuring my entire life around managing his feelings and doing what he wants, living as something that only exists to serve him rather than being my own individual person, because he's not willing to manage them himself and there's this unhealthy lack of separation between his emotions and mine?
Post infidelity, there is no connection between the two people that is reliable or secure. The ws is actually in better shape in that way, often we see they are willing to stay, they haven't really done something that destroys our security. There is uncertainty, sure, and it's not a cakewalk for us, but the BS is decimated in security, trust, respect, love. It's quite the paradox as a ws to come out of codependency while still looking for opportunities for connection can be nurtured. Your husband wants and needs the latter but only knows how to make the bids as he always has. He doesn't have the bandwidth. I know you don't think you do, but you have more than he does by like a lot.
For me, that meant I needed to do things to help show him my love, provide assurance without being asked and prompted. The marriage is absolutely on fire right now. I can also understand so are you in a lot of ways. You have been self-abandoning a long time, and you see that problem clearly. You can resolve that you are not going to participate in the toxic cycle, and you should commit to that. What I would suggest, if you really think you want reconciliation (which really at this point I am not convinced you do) then you have to find a way to build a bridge of connection without having to self abandon. To me, it wasn't self abandonment to want our marriage, and knowing that I showed him such disrespect and lack of love that I betrayed him, I had to lean into those repairs at the same time.
What if instead... I just stepped out of that toxic cycle? What if I stopped being codependent, met my own needs, built a social life outside of my family, engaged in my own interests, allowed myself to prioritize effectively, and got my shit together finally in a way I could be proud of, even if that means my H could become so unhappy in the meantime that he exits the marriage...? What if I started loving myself so thoroughly that I come to know that I'll be okay with or without him?
I think that his unhappiness mostly comes from feeling unconsidered, unloved, abandoned. What if you could find a way to help him see he is loved, considered, and you are strong enough to deal with him not being able to deal with all this right now in the way you think he should? I get why you feel this way, it doesn't feel like you can have both, but you can have both. That's where patience comes in, that's where keep working on yourself, that's where you realize that gaining stability in the relationship has to come before asking him to change comes.
What if the reason he is like this with you is because you cheated on him earlier in the relationship, and since then he really questions deep down your reasons for still being there? And then you cheated again, confirmation that you are never going to prioritize him? That is likely what is happening, but expressing too much has historically pushed you further away. you have explained the terrible communication dynamics in this relationship, that I think both of you contribute to, and that is so exhausting that it gets in the way of either of you trying.
I did ultimately lean into myself actualization from early on and was the fawn for a long time, but I realized that was going to be a long journey, and it was. It took years. I had to temper that with making romantic overtures with a man who oscillated how he felt about me all the time. And, I had to see it was that way because it's a natural consequence of my own actions. It's not because he is abusive, it's because of the damage I created. I built the reality I was living in with him, so I planned a date night a month, a weekend trip alone with him once a quarter, I wrote him love notes and did things that helped take things off his plate. I helped him see why I was still there and still trying. (I am oversimplifying this because there was his subsequent affair, which in many ways was a confirmation that now that I was changing he wasn't going to like the new me and was going to leave. I did not cause the affair, he chose it, but it's not hard for me to see I was telling him one thing verbally and nonverbally telling him it was over in my actions and priorities.)
Because if there's not room in the marriage for BOTH of us to show up FULLY as our authentic selves... Then that's not a place I want to be anymore. That's where I've let go of the outcome.
How do you think you can encourage him show up as his authentic self and still be loved? You ultimately just keep finding ways to manage him rather than engage. And if he has toxic tendencies, then until he has time to change that's who he is authentically. I am not imagining this, you tell us enough to understand what you are trying to figure out with your long chats with Chat GPT, or things you say here. What would he say if you said "How can we both approach this relationship as much of our authentic self as we can? How can I make you best feel loved. Here is how I best can feel loved. If we are going to get through this, then focusing on loving behaviors is going to be key for both of us"
You guys keep saying "Be patient, be patient," but what does that functionally MEAN, if not capitulate to his every demand? I am perfectly willing to talk about the infidelity and figure out actionable ways I can support his recovery, but he's not talking about it. I ask him, "What are you feeling right now? Is there something bothering you?" When his whole fucking demeanor has changed, and he'll mutter, barely audibly, like a pathetic kicked puppy, that he's "fine," that nothing's going on. He doesn't bother to introspect about what the feelings are or where they're coming from; he just stews in them, and there's literally nothing I can do for him at that point. It's incredibly frustrating. So I just have to let him have his feelings and fucking figure it out on his own, and just worry about myself. Because what other option do I have? Sit around and stressed about it and fawn over him while he manipulates me into doing what he wants again? As was previously stated several times, f u c k t h a t.
I think he doesn't feel seen or recognized in any of it, and talking to you about it becomes exhausting so he is passive aggressive about you not making him feel loved. I think honestly that's the focus, replacing the idea that love is "doing whatever it is he wants" with being proactive and showing him love? I think it's hard for you because you do not feel loved right now either and that's incredibly triggering for you. But some of that feeling of being unloved comes from your past, and your plight to find self-love. Whereas he may have that same issue, but also cheating is such a middle finger, that it resonates no love long after it's over.
It's at an impasse - to be softer you need him to be softer. And that's what it boils down to, you can't expect him to start that process with the lack of stability the betrayal has caused. There is no trust, no certainty. You seem to be willing to brace the uncertainty but you do it with one foot out the door, even if you are not cognizant of that. And it will have to be you to lean in. You can rail against me on that, call it a mindset or whatever you want, but it doesn't make it not true. I am just the messenger.
I am honestly so disgusted by the "Good Wayward/Bad Wayward" binary mindset that seems to be so pervasive of late. A Good Wayward lives on their knees, doing the Work as long as the BS permits them to, begging for forgiveness and waiting to be picked and to feel like their marriage might, by some miracle, survive... But god forbid the Bad Wayward considers whether they also choose the marriage and their BS, does the work even if it's inconvenient for the BS, develops a fucking backbone and assesses whether their BS is also engaging in their own recovery work, while not exactly waiting around for evidence of it forever... rolleyes
I generally think what you seem to be feeling is a reaction of us saying "The Wayward has to start the repairs, they have to lead the effort to build trust and connection" I generally think you are blocked from that because you are so mired in your resentments towards him. You can't really hold remorse because part of you feels deep down the damage he has done to you is as much or greater. That's not going to build a reconciliation. And, it doesn't have to. If you feel like you have picked the wrong person and you need to focus solely on you, then you probably should just move towards divorce.
A BS has to do their own work, yes. The first year, year and a half, it's nothing but the grieving process for them. All I have said is it's going to take longer before he has a reckoning and joins you in the work. He is on his own timeline, and that takes patience. I am not asking you to be patient with toxic conversations.
Blowing him off because you need to focus on becoming the deer is probably just a continued slow death of this marriage. Whereas, I think if he could reach a place of reassurance from you that he is an important part of the equation and not just another task you need to prioritize, it might become easier for him to make space for you to have the time and energy to expand.
Instead, all I hear is this is my direction, and here is why. That's what you have been saying at different points since you got here. A marriage requires "This is our direction". It's okay not to want to be married for that specific reason. But if you are trying to reconcile, that's not going to work. It's just not.
[This message edited by hikingout at 6:49 PM, Monday, August 24th]
