It has been a long day. Not exactly bad, but not good. I will say that so far it is better than the day before it, so I have made progress. I spent the morning reading and commenting on blogs. It was nice and relaxing. In a way, I can see other people’s problems much more clearly than my own. The solutions seem simple (but actually implementing the solution never is) and I like to help people so I try when I can. Sometimes it may be just a friendly word or it might be me helping teach the neighbor boy how to actually mow the lawn.
My problem is I am struggling with my role in the healing process. I have accepted responsibility and I know I need to help her heal and I am supposed to heal myself and also work on our marriage. That is a lot of things to juggle at one time, especially for someone who does not deal with emotions well. I need to prioritize who comes first, but that is nearly impossible.
I should put my wife first because she is the victim in this affair. She never got a say in any of it so she should come first. Then I would think my marriage would come next and myself last. Sounds simple but it is not at all this simple. How can I put her first when I struggle to get out of bed? Is this just another example of me being selfish? If I have to put myself first to help her then my marriage comes last? But if it is last, neither of us would want to stay. So does it come before both of us? But then that would put her last and that is not fair to her. She needs to come before the marriage because at the end of the day she may not want to stay, so I need to help her heal first. I mean I really want a wife who is happy and healed so she has to come before the marriage. So then I am last in all of this. That sounds right but if I cannot function because I am not good myself then I am no good for anyone. What a mess?
These things go over and over in my head. I know there is no right or wrong answer to these questions and I am sure they mostly are dependent on the situation, but that does not make it any less difficult to stop going over them.
I am not looking forward to going back to life after the weekend. I have been here helping my wife after surgery, taking care of the kids and making sure everything is taken care of and I like this job. But Tuesday, it all goes back to the craziness, except my wife will still be healing and I cannot be here to help. I am hoping she will be up and moving by then so I don’t freak out all day.
I took the kids to Tomorrowland while my wife was sleeping. I was surprised that I did not have a huge trigger or something like that while I was there, but the movie was really good. I would be okay actually paying for it again. There were some quotes in the movie that I should have wrote down because I really thought they made me think in a positive light. Once my wife can move around then I will try and take her to it.
I know this is a rambling post. I am in full avoidance mode. I am trying not to talk, think, and picture anything about her or the affair. This means my thoughts have to go from one to the next without time to pause and really think. Just move on so you don’t feel. See it then move on to the next and never fully focus on what is in front of me or in my head. It is a good way until you get a head full of negatives that never end. Then it is much harder. Right now, I don’t have the negatives just a lot of stuff.
My youngest keeps asking to go to one of our old family friends. I say old because we are trying to stay away from them. If you keep up with my posts, this is the family that the wife made a pass at me a few years ago and I did the right thing. I said no, removed myself from the situation and called my wife. They are also the leaders of the church my family used to go to. Since my wife has stopped going they use him to bug us about coming to church. They know I really have no interest in going because I have never hid this from anyone. My wife has tried to go but last year she decided to stop going. Well, my son still likes playing with their kids and we allow it sometimes, but each time we do he comes home with church question after church question. It drives us both nuts. So today I am unfortunately not letting him go over there. He doesn’t get it, he just knows that he can’t see his friends. What a mess! Instead it has been movie, board games, playing outside, you name it we are trying to do it today. Poor kid.
Now what. What do I do? I have been thinking about this for a while. Lots of people have been sending advice and letting me know what they see from their perspective which is extremely helpful but I still have to decide on a path. I feel we are going nowhere. We are still stuck in our relationship. Yes, we are getting back to where we were, but we can both agree it is no where close to where we want to be. Some days I wonder if we ever will get there, but I will try. I will fight. I will see if what we are now making can be what we both want. We can see what this marriage we currently have will become. Will it morph into a beautiful butterfly or will it hatch a demon from hell? Who knows?
Last thing and then I am off. I have been toying with the idea of writing a story. I started one a long time ago and I am thinking about picking it up. I would create a separate page for it but I am trying to decide if it will be worth it. I have never really written before. Not like this and except for the story not any other time. I will have to decide. In a way it is just as scary as writing all this, but a different scary.
Did I mention that this is a rambling post?
It’s not about what it is, it’s about what it can become. – Dr. Seuss
Surviving the affair....the cheaters perspective 
Do it! It will free your mind and you’ll get lost in your story and characters. It’s a great distraction. I’m finishing one. Well I was in the last chapter when I spilled wine on my keyboard yesterday. If you need any advice or encouragement I’ll root for you. Just give me a holler.
You’ll see what a great way to focuses and distract yourself it is.
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There is no order to the work. You just kind of co-mingle the healing. You are most important in that you can’t do anything positive if you are not okay and from your description, your depression is still notable. If course your wife us paramount. She needs you and constant reassurance. All parts make up the whole. And healing is a joint undertaking. Neither one of you can do it for the other, but holding hands and working together helps immensely. The alternative is doing it alone and I can tell you, that is hard. And lonely. Or maybe that should be harder. And lonelier. And there are lots of potholes along the road.
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I recommend you see the film ‘Salt of the Earth’ 2014, it certainly puts a lot in perspective living in such abundant societies of the 1st world.
Sound’s like your getting on 🙂
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I don’t think it’s possible to put this sort of problem in an order hun. We went through something similar and our very wise marriage counsellor gave us some good advice. She told us to concentrate on us. Not as seperate issues. It’s not just about your wife needing to heal, you have to heal too. Take the affair partner out of the picture. You both want to stay together so just work on that for now and the pain of the affair will start to be secondary. After all the reason you write this blog is to help you find a way to heal. If your wife was going to leave she would gave by now. I know you are having intimacy issues too and that can add pressure. You say that you get sick. This is going to make your wife worry about you. Making love doesn’t have to be about sex. Go back to basics and even if that is just hugging and kissing for now, it will take so much pressure off the two of you. Explore each other and just enjoy getting to know one another again. You are taking too much on yourself and being depressed is hard enough without all that. Take a step back for both of you. It’s what we are doing and it seems to be working. It’s not about her or you it’s about the two of you together. Kc is right immerse yourself in writing it will be very therapeutic.
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Hi there. I have been reading your blog since a few days. And I wanted to write some thoughts about it. My apologies if my ideas are wrong, I am no infallible man, I made my share of mistakes in this life, more than you’ll ever be able to make.. And sorry for my English, I am no native English speaker.
I get the impression that you ‘want it’ too much. You want redemption, you seem to carry a burden of guilt every second of your life. While it is true, you made some horrible mistake, it is also true you were forgiven by your wife for this mistake. Yes, you were forgiven. Not in the way of ‘let’s forgive and forget and get on with our lives’, too much has happened for that, but she appears to be willing to work together with you to get back to the marriage you had before. Well, not back to the marriage that led to you being unfaithful, but back to the happy days you spent together. So basically, she has forgiven you or she would have severed all contact.
While it is good to have remorse, and to feel genuinely hurt by the mistakes you made, it will not help you to go on on that path and to work your butt of to show your wife you are so sorry. It is not what she expects you to do. She wants to see the man you were, the man she chose, the man she fell in love with, the man she happily married. Of course she wants to know you feel very sorry. But she does need no man feeling sorry for himself. And, in a way of speaking, crawling on the floor for her.
While not really knowing what led you to being unfaithful, it is wrong to take all guilt on your shoulders for that. Of course, you were the one who did it. But there was some reason – or reasons – why you did it, why you could bring yourself in that vulnerable position by cheating on her. I am not accusing your wife in any way by saying she had a part in it. What I want to tell you is that you need to find out, together with her, why you made that mistake. Did you have communication problems? Did you feel neglected? Didn’t you feel loved any more? And was that a matter of wrong perception, or were those ‘little’ problems real? Why I am saying this, is because you need both to work on your future. And that means taking away the reasons why your relationship turned bad in the first place, leading to your cheating. Or was it just simply lust from your side? Even then you and your wife have to work this out, as she is part of the solution. Because a relationship is between two people.
So give yourself some room to breathe. Just be who you are. You seem to me a wonderful man. The man she fell in love with because you deserved that. You know, sometimes (or rather too often) I do something stupid. Even trivial things. But I learned not to be angry with myself, because that does not help the problem. Sometimes I even might say ‘asshole’ to myself, but then I just try to establish the fact that I did something wrong, in an objective and detached way, as much as I’m able to. And then I try to think how I cold avoid that mistake in the future. Of course I fail a lot, I am no better human than any one else. But spanking myself and being angry, feeling sorry for myself and having self-pity is not going to help to solve my problem.
Be proud. Be proud of yourself for you are intelligent and man enough to face your wrongdoings, be proud of your wife for she wants to stay with you despite her feelings being hurt so badly. But never forget: always be yourself. And yourself is the man your wife feel in love with, for many good reasons 😊
Sorry if you feel what I wrote is not completely correct, but I hope you’ll give it some thought and take out the things that may be applicable to your situation.
Take care
Love, Yann.
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In the opening of this post you mention not knowing what should come first – you, your wife or your marriage. In many ways, I don’t think it matters. From day to day the order of those things will change, and other things (such as the kids) will jump to the top. It’s not an all or nothing situation. What I believe does matter is that you recognize all of them are important and need attention.
Often where I think couples get themselves in trouble is that some of those (partner, spouse, marriage) fall off the map completely. Someone may “say” that they are still important and still a priority, but if you look at their actions they don’t match the words. When that happens, marriages find themselves in trouble. But as long as you continue to prioritize time for yourself, your wife and your marriage, things will continue to improve over time.
Effort is all anyone can ever really ask for.
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