Long rant

[fbhjr]

I do appreciate the concern. Really I do.
But I think some of you are making assumptions on bad data.
My wife and I had stopped communicating quite some time ago. I can’t even say when.
We were talking at each other, but not communicating.
So, unless you are one of the people I have talked with about my feelings, your information is incomplete.
My wife has told me how she viewed my words and actions. I can’t fault her for coming to the conclusions she did. But, that doesn’t mean they are the right conclusions.
My conclusions about her were wrong as well.

There are things that if they were happening, I would agree I needed therapy.
I’m not driving by her boyfriend’s house with my swords out. Yes, I know where he lives. I know that from getting a big phone bill and saying “who did she spend an hour and a half talking to?” I know where he works the same way. 1300 minutes of calls made me look that up.
I’ve had at least one offer of someone who was willing to pay a “visit” with me. Or, to pay a “visit” for me while I was publicly elsewhere.
These offers were turned down without question. (The strange part is the offers were from someone I hardly know. How often do they offer that? That person might need some help.)
I could tell his wife about it. I could get him in trouble with his job for 10 hours of calls to my wife on company time.
I have not done either.
I have not take up drinking again.
I have not gone off somewhere to pick up another woman to prove anything.
I’m not thinking of doing anything to myself or others.

Am I sad?
Yes. Absolutely. A 24 year old relationship has disintegrated around me.
I love my wife. I’m sad she loves someone else.
I’m sad I let things get out of control.
I’m sad I assumed she knew how much she meant to me and didn’t remind her.
I’m sad I only spoke the bad because I thought she knew the good.
I’m sad she came to think the bad was all there was.

Am I lonely?
Yes. Absolutely.
It’s been 17 years since I lived alone. It’s been 14 years since my wife and I started living together married.
I’m in that same apartment. There is no place I can look and not be reminded that I’m there alone.
Do I envy that she is staying with friends? That she goes to a house where there are people who are happy to see her, talk with her and support her.
Yes. I do envy that.
I go back to an empty apartment to sit there by myself.
I’ve asked her if she wants to trade. She said no.
But, I’m also happy she has that. I’m happy she has a place to stay. And of all the people she could have stayed with, I think she made the best choice out there.
Does that make the silence I get when I come home better?
No. Not really.
But, I have lived alone before. I have faced the silence before. I can take it.
Sleep with the radio on. Keep the TV on even if I’m not really watching.
Write. A lot.

Am I angry?
Sometimes. It comes in flashes. But, I don’t cling to it. It comes, I feel it, it goes.

Do I doubt myself?
Oh yeah. I let the best thing in my life fall apart due to inattention.
How can I not doubt that?
Everything we had together she was willing to give up because the pain was so great.
How can I hope to win her back if everything I have wasn’t enough for her to stay?
What do I have left to offer if it all didn’t measure up already?
But, I have a pretty good group of friends. And, there are a few of them who started with “you’re going to doubt yourself, but don’t forget you are a person of worth no matter what it feels like at the moment”.
So, I hold onto that. Several people I respect think I’m a person of worth.
It might not be enough for my wife. And, that worries me and makes me sad.
But, it’s enough for me. Not all I’d like, but enough.

The things that really wind me up are external. And, no personal therapist can help with that. Group can.
My #1 biggest worry is my wife’s feelings towards her boyfriend.
No, I don’t like her loving him.
No, I don’t like that she’s fooled around with him.
But, that’s not the core of my problems. There are 2 cores to it.
1) Her hiding and lying about it made it far worse than the actual event. I don’t like what happened, but in the scheme of things it isn’t that much. Six months elapsed before I found out what went on. Six months she was still with me. Six months I could have been trying to repair things while she was still with me, but I didn’t know how bad it was. She’s fallen into a habit of not sharing her life with me. Yes, there is bad, and it hurts to hear it. But, not hearing it didn’t stop the damage. If (big if) we are going to continue together, I have to hear more. Hurtful or not I can’t make changes if I don’t know the problem. Yes, I should have known. Yes, I should have noticed more. I didn’t. Some times I need to be shown.
2) My wife is no longer sure adultery is wrong. That bothers me on a fundamental level. I’m not talking about her cheating on me. I’m talking about her cheating with a man who is married to someone else. She hasn’t done more than one “swept up in the moment” thing with him. But, she isn’t sure if she’ll do more. She isn’t sure if she will stop if the moment comes again. One thing we have always shared is a sense of right and wrong. It worries me that my wife is so lost that she is no longer sure about this one. She wants it so much that she isn’t sure it’s wrong. She describes their first encounter as something that got out of control. But, if she does it again, it’s a choice. A choice to steal someone else’s husband. A choice to go to a man who isn’t hers. And, it bother’s me she isn’t sure that’s wrong.

So, those are my two big things. I don’t see how my going to therapy is going to change them. I do see how us going to couple’s therapy could.
Again, I’m happy to hear a pitch on why I’m wrong.
But, I need reasons. I need logic behind it.
I remain an engineer. “You should” doesn’t cut it.

Comments

[madminyon.livejournal.com]

Hello:

To sum up my previous post - because humans are notoriously bad at defining where their responsibility ends and someone elses begins (or vise-versa, but you are in the former category I believe)when they are in so much pain.

Are there some things you could work on that are your responsibility? Yes. But if you identify areas you think you are responsible for and are not, it is counter-productive. You can talk to friends, but you will always think their oppinion is biased to your favor. You cannot make that same argument with a therapist.

I have a lot of respect for you, and I think what you are going through sucks. We are all here if you need us. You have our support if and when you need it.

[darlong.livejournal.com]

I hope today is a better day for you.
It occurs to me that you may be operating on a faulty premise.

"But, that’s not the core of my problems. There are 2 cores to it.
1) Her hiding and lying about it made it far worse than the actual event. I don’t like what happened, but in the scheme of things it isn’t that much. Six months elapsed before I found out what went on. Six months she was still with me. Six months I could have been trying to repair things while she was still with me, but I didn’t know how bad it was.
2) My wife is no longer sure adultery is wrong. That bothers me on a fundamental level. I’m not talking about her cheating on me. I’m talking about her cheating with a man who is married to someone else. "

I understand that these two things certainly have created a lot of pain for you. But I think this is a time you need to focus on yourself as opposed to anyone else. You can not control what someone else does. As painful as it is, there is nothing you can do or say that will give you that comfort zone of knowing for sure. YOu are not responsible for the actions of someone else. But you are responsible for your reactions.

But I really think that therapy to address your pain, how to cope with it, and more importantly, how to forgive and heal it properly, how to deal with all of the emotional crap the situation has brought, has value when you have suffered a grave wound/loss.

Your pain and anguish shows in every word. I would not be a friend if I did not advocate you get some kind of help with that. However, I also will refrain from harping on it...you know my thinking and it truly comes from a place of wanting the hurting to stop.

(An aside, I recall in the weeks following the death of my son everyone telling me this. I kept going back to my default position...How will that change anything? It isn't going to bring him back. Nothing can be fixed unless that happens so what's the point? Eventually I got to a therapist expecting to hear how I need to get on with life etc. Instead I vented and cried and basically fell apart in the office. But in doing that I found I could think about the situation the rest of the week. I only did a handful of sessions. But I got through enough stuff that we made a coping plan and dealt with what needed to be done. I would have never thought it would help as much as it did.)

Be well and safe this weekend!

[fbhjr.livejournal.com]

I do appreciate the advice. And, understand I have vented and cried on my own. I'm doing my best not to repress things although I undersand my sharing my feeling with my wife isn't always helping. But, what I really feel is so different from what she tells me she thinks I feel, that I really need to tell her the truth. I understand it confuses her, but I also think a lot of that is because it isn't what she thought. But, I digress.

I'm not saying that therapy wouldn't help me.

I'm saying my insurance only pays for so much therapy. I want to use that on joint.
I want to try and save my life with my wife. Not as it was, because it was bad even if I didn't know it at the time.
But, because she is the most important person to me in the world. And, I want her to stay in my life.

And to do that, we're both going to have to change. We're both going to have to change patterns. We're both going to have to change habits. We're both going to have to change how we talk to each other. We're both going to have to change how we live our lives together.
So, I think we both need the help.
That's where I want to concentrate, at least at the start.