I found this online awhile back and wondered if anyone else ever experienced this. I have been troubled and "on the fence" for a couple of years, I've been through counciling and am presently in an "in-house seperation" with my wife doing a 180 on me. This pretty much describes my feelings in regards to my wife and where I have been mentally;
You can call it what you want - infidelity, extramarital affair, being unfaithful, getting some on the side - but it all ends the same. For the unsuspecting spouse its more pain than anyone who hasn't been through it can imagine. For the spouse who is cheating it is the humiliation at getting caught or finally confessing and the mountains of guilt that go along with that.
For those couples who endure and struggle through the pain to save their marriage it can be a new and stronger marriage when they've pushed past the hurt and anger. Their marriage may be stronger than when they first married. But for many hurt spouses, the emotional rollercoaster doesn't end in a few months or even two or three years; seven to ten years later the confusion of emotions can still surface and affect the life of the scarred spouse.
Although an affair could have occurred more than say, eight years ago, a mass of confusion for some people still surface. The hurt spouse may wonder why s/he stayed in the marriage. Who did s/he stay for? The kids? The marriage? Financial reasons? They may constantly question their feelings for the spouse even if it was possible to completely forgive what was done in the past. The forgiving spouse may completely trust the husband or wife who was unfaithful, but may feel dead inside toward their spouse on occasion. The hurt may be so deep that the feelings they have for the unfaithful spouse will rise and fall to the point of feeling nothing at all.
This creates a new guilt - not for the unfaithful spouse, but for the forgiving spouse. And it is because of that one word - forgiving. If you have forgiven your spouse who had the affair and it has been so many years in the past; and your spouse is now the perfect husband or wife, but you feel nothing for him or her...what do you do? The scars created by the depth of the deceit have killed off what feelings you had. You pray with all of your heart that God will bring back the feelings you once had for this person. Your spouse is a good husband or wife and wonderful parent to your children. But...you can't let it go.
You may enjoy doing the family things - camping, hiking, and swimming. But you feel horrible and lost when it comes to being intimate with your spouse. In the beginning of the healing process sex was frequent and wonderful because you were trying to rebuild and felt compelled to fill the void that may have occurred during the affair. You wanted to prove to your once unfaithful spouse that you could be spontaneous and sexy.
But as the years have passed and your spouse has gained your trust and become a full-time family man or woman, s/he says that s/he loves you more than ever and s/he calls home constantly to check in, you feel more distant than you've ever felt. A touch by your spouse may make you shy away. The thought of intimacy may make you feel anxious. How do you get past this? You are supposed to be the wonder couple; you're supposed to be the couple who can survive anything because you survived an affair. Or did you?
Don't be surprised by these late feelings, especially if the lies from the affair were beyond the usual "I have to work late" type. My husband told me he loved me, kissed me good bye, and a few hours later called me to tell me he had met someone else nearly six months earlier and wanted to leave me for her. My world was thrown into a tail spin that I couldn't control. When I convinced him to stay and that our marriage was worth saving I started asking questions about the younger woman. There are many days I wish I hadn't because I found out he lied to me so many times that every new lie cut my heart deeper and deeper. I felt like I was going completely crazy and I couldn't believe that I had fallen for it all. For nearly six months my husband was not mine. He had a secret life that I knew nothing about where he was playing house with someone else. My heart was and is so badly hurt that even when I go for months not thinking about the affair my feelings for my husband wax and wane.
The guilt is something else, too. You may feel guilty because you worked so hard to keep the marriage together and it really seemed like everything was fine for a number of years - that you had both gotten past the affair and were enjoying your life together. But now you're questioning whether you even want to be with your spouse. The hurt is back and it feels like it has wiped out all emotion for your spouse. You may want nothing more than to leave, but then you have the guilt of leaving a now innocent spouse and I haven't even mentioned what a divorce would do to the kids. I mean, you forgave him or her, right?
Get counseling for yourself now. Don't make a decision based on your current emotions. You need a third party who is unbiased to intervene and to guide you through this new wave of confusion. Your best friends are wonderful to gripe to, but they are sympathetic and will quickly tell you to start a new life for yourself. This may not be the best advice. Talk to a psychologist or marriage counselor, someone uninvolved who can listen to your new found guilt and resurfaced pain. You made it through once before and thought enough of your marriage to want to save it. Don't give up just yet. You may find that spark again.
I think I've finally given up. After rug sweeping and blame shifting for years this all finally came to the surface. The last couple of years have been so damaging to our relationship that even if we make an effort, this will always be there and I know it will always be the big elephant in the corner that we both see but don't want to talk about...It's actually quite sad.
Any thoughts?
You can call it what you want - infidelity, extramarital affair, being unfaithful, getting some on the side - but it all ends the same. For the unsuspecting spouse its more pain than anyone who hasn't been through it can imagine. For the spouse who is cheating it is the humiliation at getting caught or finally confessing and the mountains of guilt that go along with that.
For those couples who endure and struggle through the pain to save their marriage it can be a new and stronger marriage when they've pushed past the hurt and anger. Their marriage may be stronger than when they first married. But for many hurt spouses, the emotional rollercoaster doesn't end in a few months or even two or three years; seven to ten years later the confusion of emotions can still surface and affect the life of the scarred spouse.
Although an affair could have occurred more than say, eight years ago, a mass of confusion for some people still surface. The hurt spouse may wonder why s/he stayed in the marriage. Who did s/he stay for? The kids? The marriage? Financial reasons? They may constantly question their feelings for the spouse even if it was possible to completely forgive what was done in the past. The forgiving spouse may completely trust the husband or wife who was unfaithful, but may feel dead inside toward their spouse on occasion. The hurt may be so deep that the feelings they have for the unfaithful spouse will rise and fall to the point of feeling nothing at all.
This creates a new guilt - not for the unfaithful spouse, but for the forgiving spouse. And it is because of that one word - forgiving. If you have forgiven your spouse who had the affair and it has been so many years in the past; and your spouse is now the perfect husband or wife, but you feel nothing for him or her...what do you do? The scars created by the depth of the deceit have killed off what feelings you had. You pray with all of your heart that God will bring back the feelings you once had for this person. Your spouse is a good husband or wife and wonderful parent to your children. But...you can't let it go.
You may enjoy doing the family things - camping, hiking, and swimming. But you feel horrible and lost when it comes to being intimate with your spouse. In the beginning of the healing process sex was frequent and wonderful because you were trying to rebuild and felt compelled to fill the void that may have occurred during the affair. You wanted to prove to your once unfaithful spouse that you could be spontaneous and sexy.
But as the years have passed and your spouse has gained your trust and become a full-time family man or woman, s/he says that s/he loves you more than ever and s/he calls home constantly to check in, you feel more distant than you've ever felt. A touch by your spouse may make you shy away. The thought of intimacy may make you feel anxious. How do you get past this? You are supposed to be the wonder couple; you're supposed to be the couple who can survive anything because you survived an affair. Or did you?
Don't be surprised by these late feelings, especially if the lies from the affair were beyond the usual "I have to work late" type. My husband told me he loved me, kissed me good bye, and a few hours later called me to tell me he had met someone else nearly six months earlier and wanted to leave me for her. My world was thrown into a tail spin that I couldn't control. When I convinced him to stay and that our marriage was worth saving I started asking questions about the younger woman. There are many days I wish I hadn't because I found out he lied to me so many times that every new lie cut my heart deeper and deeper. I felt like I was going completely crazy and I couldn't believe that I had fallen for it all. For nearly six months my husband was not mine. He had a secret life that I knew nothing about where he was playing house with someone else. My heart was and is so badly hurt that even when I go for months not thinking about the affair my feelings for my husband wax and wane.
The guilt is something else, too. You may feel guilty because you worked so hard to keep the marriage together and it really seemed like everything was fine for a number of years - that you had both gotten past the affair and were enjoying your life together. But now you're questioning whether you even want to be with your spouse. The hurt is back and it feels like it has wiped out all emotion for your spouse. You may want nothing more than to leave, but then you have the guilt of leaving a now innocent spouse and I haven't even mentioned what a divorce would do to the kids. I mean, you forgave him or her, right?
Get counseling for yourself now. Don't make a decision based on your current emotions. You need a third party who is unbiased to intervene and to guide you through this new wave of confusion. Your best friends are wonderful to gripe to, but they are sympathetic and will quickly tell you to start a new life for yourself. This may not be the best advice. Talk to a psychologist or marriage counselor, someone uninvolved who can listen to your new found guilt and resurfaced pain. You made it through once before and thought enough of your marriage to want to save it. Don't give up just yet. You may find that spark again.
I think I've finally given up. After rug sweeping and blame shifting for years this all finally came to the surface. The last couple of years have been so damaging to our relationship that even if we make an effort, this will always be there and I know it will always be the big elephant in the corner that we both see but don't want to talk about...It's actually quite sad.
Any thoughts?
