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pathtopeace

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pathtopeace

Hi All,

 

This is my first time posting. I have gotten a lot of comfort and guidance from reading your posts over the years (thank you). I found something that has helped me in recovery and felt I should share in case it will help anyone else.

 

I am a BS and my husband had an affair that lasted 11 months. We are 2.5 years past D-Day. My husband has done everything humanly possible to help us recover. The OW lives far away, abided by immediate NC and has not bothered us since other than checking my business consulting website occasionally (I can see the IP addresses and know hers). On D-Day we wrote her an email together and asked her to please respect that the affair was over and that we were moving forward.

 

My husband immediately started IC and we simultaneously did MC. The counseling helped us both see the clear path to the affair, made my husband aware of why he made such an incredibly damaging decision, and showed us things we could fix in our relationship to make us able to meet 100% of each others needs.

 

Things are much better and our marriage is much stronger than it was. We are having fun again. Oddly, except for the affair recovery, we are the happiest (individually and together) and healthiest we have ever been. It is the silver lining that emerged from the hell of the affair.

 

With all those stars lined up, you would think that I would be able to move past the triggers. I have been very frustrated with myself for still thinking of her and them and playing the movie images in my mind. It has gotten much better over time but it is like the affair is dead but the ghost of it still haunts my mind.

 

I had tried the re-focusing, the self-care, the self-talk, the meditation...all of these things. They all helped to some degree but I was still haunted. Recently, I found this website that talked of forgiveness: How to Forgive Infidelity | GoAskSuzie.com

 

Forgiveness of the OW was something I had refused to do. When I was honest, I had not even completely forgiven my husband. As to the OW, I had a LOT of hate in my heart for her still. The articles I read indicated that if I could forgive her (in my own heart and mind - I will not be contacting her)...then it would help me move past this. I was willing to try ANYTHING to escape the affair ghost and the triggers.

 

So for a few days now, each time the ghost grabs my attention, I have been thinking forgiving thoughts towards my husband and the OW. The forgiveness towards my husband is easier because he has fought hard to make amends and I see his remorse frequently (also I love him and want to go forward).

 

The forgiveness towards her has been trickier because I had no relationship with her, did not know her and have no contact with her so there is no way for her to show remorse (not that she necessarily would). She said and did some awful things to me leading up to D-Day in an effort to break up our marriage, which is how I found out about the affair. She left me voicemails at my business and emailed me. I never responded but, instead, took the matter up with my husband. Other than the email we wrote her on D-Day, I've never had any contact with her and do not plan to. I see her as his partner in crime because she knew he was married, but the brunt of the burden is his. He promised vows to me - she did not. Still, I have the natural rage against her in my mind and never got closure beyond the one D-Day email that my husband and I wrote. Crafting something forgiving to say was a big challenge for me.

 

What I think as to her is: I forgive you OW. What you did to me was wrong. I'm sorry that you had such a menacing and selfish spirit that allowed you to hurt me when you had no cause to do so. Thank you for respecting our wishes and no longer contacting either of us. I wish healing for you because I know if you are healed, you will be a better person to those around you and less likely to hurt people in the future.

 

It's been a bit of a struggle. It's hard to go from hate and wishing awful things on someone to forgiveness. But I've done it the last few days each time I thought of the affair and I have finally gotten some relief. It's like going forth with a forgiving heart feels lighter than a heart full of hate. I feel like this is freeing me from this sad place I've been for so long.

 

I have read and re-read the articles several times and I am now just going to keep practicing and practicing along with the other tools (focusing on positive things, self-care, meditation, letting my WH help me heal).

 

After reading LS for all this time, I know everyone's situation is different. I know that I could not have benefitted from this forgiveness approach closer to D-Day. I had to have plenty of time to come to this on my own. It is like the last piece of the puzzle for me though. It may not ultimately be a lasting answer for me but I feel better now. I am tremendously grateful for some relief from it all. I am sharing it here in case it could help anyone else with triggers.

 

My heart goes out to all of you. You don't even know me but your posts have helped me through some of the darkest days I have ever had. Thank you.

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Betrayed&Stayed

You're not alone. I'm still working on forgiving the OM. I think it has to do that he got away with it; no consequences that I know of.

 

You're right that it's easier to forgive a WS that is putting forth the effort and showing penitence. Like you, I haven't heard from the OM since D-day. I don't know what he thinks about his affair with my wife. Is he ashamed and learned from it, or is he nonchalant about it?

 

Forgiveness is hard. It goes against human nature. Every Sunday I recite the Lord's Prayer "Forgive our debts, as we forgive our debtors" and I still get a lump in my throat.

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pathtopeace

Thank you, Furious & Betrayed and Stayed, for the support and kind words. It is kind of a forced humanity though. Forgiveness has literally been a last resort that I am trying as I am looking for ways to manage the mess that goes on in my head. When it started to help, I was relieved but it wasn't an altruistic move on my part.

 

Betrayed & Stayed - I think often of the fact that OW seemingly has no consequences. I spent time looking at her FB and googling her to see if I could see any indication of whether she was suffering. This was just a way for me to obsess and bring more hurt to myself. I knew this and did it anyway until I nearly drove myself nuts. One thought I cling to was something that I read. It said that the consequence to the OM or OW was that they lost their affair partner and that they have to live with their actions. At any rate, the more I thought about what consequence she deserved, the more I suffered. I never knew surviving this would be this hard or take this long.

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Queen of Sheba

Forgiveness. I don't do it really!!! So it's damn hard! The hardest thing I've done in my life and I don't know if I will make it. I'm everso slowly forgiving WS little parts here and there but I don't know if I will truly ever get there. It would be easier, if he got it. Got just what he did. Not just the affair but everything along the way, all the choices etc. He seesm to have stopped apologising too, like it's 3 months so he's said it enough. Nowhere near buddy! Can't forgive shed loads of hurt when only being asked for a pint of forgiveness. In order for a WS to be fully forgiven I think they have to really go some in showing they are sorry and not just carry on as normal when the BS doesn't mention the affair for a few days! Things will never be normal again so the WS needs to remember that at all times. The BS is thinking about the affair so much of the time without saying anything and as much as I realise its difficult for the WS, the WS should be working hard for that forgiveness.

 

As for the OW. I always forgave her. Yes she knew what she was doing but she didn't know me. I actually think we may have got on quite well if we'd met! She was foul to me when she chose to tell me. She gave me more information than I needed to know and used social media to get at me. However, very little of the time did I project any anger towards her. The WS future faked, and lied to her almost as much as to me. He led her on and really hurt her. She presumablt thought get at me hurt me hurt him and there may be a chance of getting back together and even if they didn't I'm sure she thought if she couldn't have him then nor would I and wanted to hurt him. I understand that. He hurt her why shouldn't she want to hurt him. I wanted to write and apologise on his behalf but the way she was it was best to just ignore everything. We did get the police involved in the end to stop her.

 

The driving mad on the social media. Oh was I there! Drove me mad but had to do it! You can't explain why can you but you have to do it?! She was breaking her heart although WS doesn't believe it, but of course for him it's easier not to believe it. Don't women get more emotionally involved in affairs and men its sex or that's the perceived wisdom? Well he's spouted it so he can't have it both ways. I always said he should have apologised to her when he finished it, might have been one way to undertaken damage limitation! Unlikely but might have led to a conversation but that's another thing that shows where he didn't think! I think the fact that your OW hasn't contacted you or done anything shows that she is being pretty decent. You don't know what lies he told her. (Ok "decent" poor choice of word! But she could be breaking her heart

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pathtopeace

"

He seesm to have stopped apologising too, like it's 3 months so he's said it enough. Nowhere near buddy! Can't forgive shed loads of hurt when only being asked for a pint of forgiveness. In order for a WS to be fully forgiven I think they have to really go some in showing they are sorry and not just carry on as normal when the BS doesn't mention the affair for a few days! Things will never be normal again so the WS needs to remember that at all times. The BS is thinking about the affair so much of the time without saying anything and as much as I realise its difficult for the WS, the WS should be working hard for that forgiveness."

 

For what it's worth, Queen of Sheba, I was still a puddle after 3 months. It takes the time it takes for everyone individually but from what I have read (and experienced) 3 months is barely getting started. Even now, 2. 5 years later, we have struggles and I expect that - no matter what - he is never ever to tell me that it is time to be over it. Ever. It could be 10 years and if there is a trigger and I ask for help from him then I expect help without judgment.

 

In my opinion, having an affair is like giving your spouse mental herpes. Thank goodness I avoided any physical fall out like that, but mentally I now have a chronic affliction that I have managed for 2.5 years but has not been cured. That's what you give someone when you cheat - mental herpes.

 

That being said, I also don't want to see him hurt and I try to only reach out to him when I really need him. Thankfully, after all this time, it doesn't interrupt our life like it used to. But at the 3 months mark....I still needed him to tell me MOST DAYS how sorry he was and help me.

 

Some WS mistakenly think that a wholesale apology will do: "I'm so sorry for the betrayal of having an affair." Here's the truth in my eyes..I deserved an apology for EVERY lie and EVERY hurt because each one of those things was a separate thing that hurt. Is should be "I'm sorry for lying to you about my trip to Jersey when I was with her" "I'm sorry for not being there when you had surgery." "I'm sorry for confusing you on this day or that day." "I'm sorry that so and so island is a trigger." "I'm sorry for all the time that this affair recovery has stolen from you and us." "I'm sorry that an oil change is a trigger." Etc etc. My husband never hesitated and apologized sincerely for each and every trigger and act. He still does if I bring something up to him which, thankfully, is rare. An affair slices you in half and it takes a lot of stitches (apologies) to heal. No wholesale apologies will do when the hurt comes in all those details that now make sense. Until the trigger happens, you don't even know what you need the apology for but when it comes into the mind it hurts and it needs its own apology. I don't think that is unreasonable.

 

All that being said, my feelings of forgiveness for him naturally came in proportion to his efforts to help me heal. I'm still on my path to forgiveness towards her. I'm struggling with it but I put the words in my phone and I refer to it and practice. I go back and forth between catching a glimpse of true forgiveness and then feeling hurt, sad, regretful and angry. But then I feel forgiveness again. I hope that the periods of forgiveness will lengthen. "LoveBitesButSoDoI" wrote a nice apology from an OW in the comment and I think that will help me in my visualizations.

 

Good Luck to you, Queen of Sheba. You deserve every bit of healing that you need. Affairs are emotionally expensive - the energy he has to put into helping you heal is the cost for the benefit he got out of it. He can't legitimately complain about the emotional sticker shock of your recovery because he purchased it without asking the price ahead of time. (Sorry - I'm big on analogies).

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pathtopeace

Thank you LoveBitesButSoDoI for your words and for reaching out. I think they will help me in my visualizations of forgiveness of the OW. You gave me some insight into what she might be feeling and it helps. I wish you healing and hope you find peace.

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HopingAgain

Thank you for sharing this with us! We are 6 months out from our Dday and I often wonder about handling triggers. I love that your husband apologizes for each trigger experience, that has to go a long way towards healing. Mine is doing a better job of recognizing triggers and apologizing and trying to help ease my mind when it happens.

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Forgiveness is a process as well as an active choice. it happens when you can both let go of the past pain and actively choose to forgive, often over and over and over again.

 

like you, it did become easier to choose to forgive him because he was working so hard to regain my trust. She was an altogether different matter, especially after I finally spoke to her about 2.5 years after DDay and shockingly discovered she hates me.

 

With that being said, I do pray she finds peace within and stops making one terrible relationship choice after another; that she examines the FOO reasons that keep bringing her to those poor choices; and that she someday accepts accountability for her actions and stops blaming the world --and Daddy--for what goes wrong in her life.

 

I also pray she NEVER does to another woman what she found so easy to do to me. The next BS may NOT be as kind or forgiving as I have been.

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I also pray she NEVER does to another woman what she found so easy to do to me. The next BS may NOT be as kind or forgiving as I have been.

 

This^^^

 

I will never forgive the xOW.

 

I had reached a place of somewhat indifference with regards to her until last year when she decided to contact my H again.

 

I was like, "haven't you involved yourself enough in our lives? I have never done anything to you but yet you try to step over me?"

 

Yeah, no forgiveness there.

 

I didn't confront her because I didn't want to go down in that snake pit where she lives. However, I had to have several people talk me down.

 

I'm not religious anymore but I was taught back in the day that forgiveness is for the repentant. I thought she was repentant until she resumed contact but obviously she is not.

 

I hope she does not involve herself in another marriage like she did mine. Yes, my H opened that door but she did not need to walk through it. Somehow though, I don't think she would mind walking through that door again.

 

I hope she gets what is coming to her.

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Queen of Sheba
For what it's worth, Queen of Sheba, I was still a puddle after 3 months. It takes the time it takes for everyone individually but from what I have read (and experienced) 3 months is barely getting started. Even now, 2. 5 years later, we have struggles and I expect that - no matter what - he is never ever to tell me that it is time to be over it. Ever. It could be 10 years and if there is a trigger and I ask for help from him then I expect help without judgment.

 

In my opinion, having an affair is like giving your spouse mental herpes. Thank goodness I avoided any physical fall out like that, but mentally I now have a chronic affliction that I have managed for 2.5 years but has not been cured. That's what you give someone when you cheat - mental herpes.

 

Its a good analogy. he didn't think about getting and giving any sexually disease, far too selfish to use a condom, believed she couldn't have children, yet believed nothing else she said:eek: believed she had been with other men but still didn't use a condom:eek: so certainly wasn't going to think of any emotional herpes!!

 

That being said, I also don't want to see him hurt and I try to only reach out to him when I really need him. Thankfully, after all this time, it doesn't interrupt our life like it used to. But at the 3 months mark....I still needed him to tell me MOST DAYS how sorry he was and help me.

Well I'm not getting that still. So he's still to "get it".

 

 

Some WS mistakenly think that a wholesale apology will do: "I'm so sorry for the betrayal of having an affair." Here's the truth in my eyes..I deserved an apology for EVERY lie and EVERY hurt because each one of those things was a separate thing that hurt. Is should be "I'm sorry for lying to you about my trip to Jersey when I was with her" "I'm sorry for not being there when you had surgery." "I'm sorry for confusing you on this day or that day." "I'm sorry that so and so island is a trigger." "I'm sorry for all the time that this affair recovery has stolen from you and us." "I'm sorry that an oil change is a trigger." Etc etc. My husband never hesitated and apologized sincerely for each and every trigger and act. He still does if I bring something up to him which, thankfully, is rare. An affair slices you in half and it takes a lot of stitches (apologies) to heal. No wholesale apologies will do when the hurt comes in all those details that now make sense. Until the trigger happens, you don't even know what you need the apology for but when it comes into the mind it hurts and it needs its own apology. I don't think that is unreasonable.

 

Absolutely. Still to get there and yetmy WS wants to deal with this so quickly. He doesn't realise that the better he deals with it the quicker it will be!

 

All that being said, my feelings of forgiveness for him naturally came in proportion to his efforts to help me heal.

That makes sense. Probably why I have forgiven so little so far.

 

 

I'm still on my path to forgiveness towards her. I'm struggling with it but I put the words in my phone and I refer to it and practice. I go back and forth between catching a glimpse of true forgiveness and then feeling hurt, sad, regretful and angry. But then I feel forgiveness again. I hope that the periods of forgiveness will lengthen. "LoveBitesButSoDoI" wrote a nice apology from an OW in the comment and I think that will help me in my visualizations.

I'm sorry you have to deal with this forgiveness. As I said before for me I was able to do this. Very odd for someone who finds forgiveness difficult. If she started up again though then there would be trouble and revenge!

 

 

 

Good Luck to you, Queen of Sheba. You deserve every bit of healing that you need. Affairs are emotionally expensive - the energy he has to put into helping you heal is the cost for the benefit he got out of it. He can't legitimately complain about the emotional sticker shock of your recovery because he purchased it without asking the price ahead of time. (Sorry - I'm big on analogies).

I like using analogies. They are good ones. I like using them. It is difficult to forgive a shed full of hurt when you are being asked for a pint of forgiveness.

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Betterthanthis13

I can tell you how to NOT manage triggers- stay up all night on a wednesday reading hundreds of old emails and texts from the week following DDay, look at dirty pics you saved between him and some girl that you got off his phone, and read the texts between him and some chick that you took screenshots of.

 

That's how you go trigger-happy! :sick:

 

I do not recommend.

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Betterthanthis13
I feel sorry for the OW. She has a great husband and beautiful children. She has boundary problems, she has been in 2 EA's that I know of one with her new boss and one with one of her husband's coworkers. She has low self esteem and needs the attention.

 

Her husband is clueless. I guess I feel bad for him really.:laugh: Because she will always "cheat". It's a game to her, she wants to "win"...but yet, not leave her husband just screw up other people's marriages.

 

I'm thinking it's ugly duckling syndrome....she wasn't very attractive growing up and she's just now "average"...the fake boobs helped:laugh: so she gets more attention now. Sad really.

 

Have you thought of contacting him somehow?

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Betterthanthis13
Her husband is clueless. I guess I feel bad for him really.:laugh: Because she will always "cheat". It's a game to her, she wants to "win"...but yet, not leave her husband just screw up other people's marriages.

 

I'm thinking it's ugly duckling syndrome....she wasn't very attractive growing up and she's just now "average"...the fake boobs helped:laugh: so she gets more attention now. Sad really.

 

I could have written this about our OW as well- right down to the fake boobs-its a pattern I think- the few women I know that cheat have the same issue-its odd and sad to put so much value on looks or lack thereof and still be hung up on not being the popular girl in high school-

 

Note to self- dont get fake boobs. :)

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pathtopeace
Forgiveness is a process as well as an active choice. it happens when you can both let go of the past pain and actively choose to forgive, often over and over and over again.

 

Spark1111, you are so right. I am still on my daily attempts to forgive. It really ebbs and flows. I just keep doing it over and over. I think it is helping. Even the attempts to forgive the OW are feeling better than the anger I was holding on to. Because my husband continues to make things as right as he can, my forgiveness of him is almost a non-issue. I did have some anger to let go but it is small and fleeting now. I've written letters of forgiveness to the OW in my journal now and it is giving me some relief. I'm just going to keep trying and actively choosing to forgive as long as it takes. Until recently, I couldn't even fathom it. I think it comes naturally in tandem with healing and I doubt it is something we BSs can be pushed towards until and unless we come to it on our own.

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pathtopeace
I can tell you how to NOT manage triggers- stay up all night on a wednesday reading hundreds of old emails and texts from the week following DDay, look at dirty pics you saved between him and some girl that you got off his phone, and read the texts between him and some chick that you took screenshots of.

 

That's how you go trigger-happy! :sick:

 

I do not recommend.

 

 

BetterThanThis13,

 

THANK YOU for posting this. It was this kind of mania that drove me to craft this forgiveness plan of mine. I have done things like that so many times. I am a rational, normal woman. Why I engaged - and continue to fight the urge to engage - in that kind of trigger happy lunacy is beyond puzzling. I am so sorry that you are suffering like I have. I finally only recently deleted all their emails that I obsessively read over and over. That helped me a lot. I always felt worse after looking at the proof of the affair yet couldn't stop myself from doing it until I literally deleted everything. Recently, I found a photo from one of their trips together that I had missed when I was throwing things out (i.e. burning them in the fireplace in a rage). After 2.5 years, I found myself sitting there with hands shaking, full of tears and rage, with heart pounding a million miles an hour. The next day, I was worn out and devastated again as I dragged myself to work. My husband was just tortured watching me go over something that he did 3 years ago. It was just all so sad. So I found the articles and started drafting letters of forgiveness and reading them daily off of my phone. My heart aches for all of you going through this.

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I have nothing to forgive OW for. If anyone she could be apologising to her H - but I dont think they are together anymore although she is pregnant.

I guess I'd quite like to get an apology simply because I don't like bad blood with anyone. But her life sounds like one big mess and I don't want to cause her any more hassle. So indifference is what I am working on.

 

Having said that I was lucky I guess. She kept out of my way. I have only seen her once since dday, by accident, at my eldest childrens' school. She went bright red and almost ran out of the room. She only contacted me once, a few months after dday when she approached H and he told her to leave him alone. She texted me a few nasty lines after that because I guess she was hurting. I didn't reply and that was that.

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