SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I’m sliding into a different type of grieving, not of a loss but of a gain. My go too, as I am now, when my emotions are running high or amuck, is to sit quietly in the dark and allow them their due. Then, I attempt to process what the emotion I’m experiencing is, what caused it, is it legit, is it fair, is it necessary, what do I do with it and then write about it.

One emotion I rarely experience is anger, and I am not angry now, but I was 6 months ago, and my in the dark emotional processing method wasn’t assisting me as it typically does. Not that the method was poor. No, it was my fault, for I didn’t care about what was legit, fair, necessary, or even what I needed to do going forward. I was just pissed and even more pissed for being pissed and not caring about being pissed. I selfishly wanted what I wanted and that was to be angry. Intuitively, I knew all along I was wrong, so I came looking for you guys and the help has been nothing short of astonishing.

However, that "collective help" has opened a new door, one that I’m excited about, but to pass fully through, so I may permanently close a door behind me, is requiring I heavy-footed trod through a different type of grief work– the removing of each asterisk. I know, I know, I’m weird, but please let me explain.

In one of my early posts I shared why I selected asterisk as my name. I did so, because I was aware that at the end of each sentence pertaining to many loving, caring, reassuring things my wife would say, post D-day, I’d accept it, but always with an asterisk after the period. For example:
I love you.*
I’m a different person.*
I’ll never do that again.*
I’m happy in our new marriage.*

My wife would be completing the sentence with a period, symbolically placing the events into the past something to grow from. However, I would extend each mistrusted line with an asterisk keeping the past current, something to be stuck in. There are so many more asterisk’s ending lines but I’m sure you get my point. The asterisk did not mean I didn’t believe her, only that all those things had been said throughout the first 20 pre-D-day years of our now 52-year marriage so even though I grew to believe her, the asterisks remained like a black tattoo. I just did not trust my ability to know what was real or unreal. In other words, I have been letting my past shape my thoughts in such a way that I distrusted my abilities to know what any future truth might look like. I believe the asterisk was a barrier of stuck-ness intended to keep me from reenter – fairytale land.

What is extremely frustrating is that over the years it became obvious that my wife did in fact love me and meant the other things she would say. My wife had proven herself, and I think I had as well, the problem was that the asterisk had become a fixture, more like a habit than a safeguard. And the problem with fixtures, after a while, one no longer sees them even though they are in plain view. Kind of like a light switch or receptacle on the walls. There are hundreds of them in plain view, but we overlook them until we seek them out. And even then, as we flick the switch, do we really see them? For the most part, nope, we simply use them without sight or deep thought.

Anyway, like usual, I’m being long breathed. So, I’ll finish with this. There is a conflicting mixture of relief and grief as I go about my job of removing each asterisk. I’ll admit, some asterisks are being like me, stubborn as a mule facing an unplowed field.

Asterisk

When people ask me how long I've been married now I say 41 years with an asterisk. I get it.

Asterisk,

You write beautifully.

I'm working on this part of my brain. The part that adds the mental note after his proclamations of love. I'm 99.9% he really means it (I've learned I can never be certain anymore), but now that I've gotten a peek behind the curtain, I feel the need to protect myself. The fairy tale thing ended, and I need to pinch myself every now and then so that I don't slide back into that naive trusting young girl.

It's really sad how infidelity ruins everything.

You have eloquently articulated my recent struggles… Thank you. Praying for all of us facing these deep issues. 🙏

"Forgiveness is giving up all hope of ever having a better past."
-Lily Tomlin

I'm quite certain that removing those asterisks is as painful as it will be healing.

Asterisk -

When I first read the thread title, I thought you were removing yourself from the forum.

Working on removing some other asterisks then — sounds good!

I think you’re being somewhat unfair to your anger. As I have said, your anger was well earned.

We humans are gifted and/or cursed with a full range of emotions, I wouldn’t sell any of them short and never try to bury any of them.

Feel it all in order to process it all.

Based on what you have described so far, you have carried the burden.

You did all the heavy lifting yourself, to keep your family first, to keep your family intact — and carried this burden for decades.

That’s brutal and all uphill for the strongest of any of us.

Recognize some of that strength, and also that maybe it should be all on you to heal up the rest of the way.

My healing was done in a different order, but I can say I am grateful for the help I got from my wife, especially with her help rebuilding the M. I still think you could ask her to help you work on a couple of the asterisks you need help with — not to call her out on old deeds, just to help build today into a better day.

I’m not an angry person now, but I was for a while. I hated that part of me too. However, I really had to vent and rage some — to feel better — in order to find my peace.

I also had some asterisks on my life — until I realized there are no asterisks — it is all one big imperfect picture.

Life is change, life is inherently unfair, I’ve messed up a bunch, my wife has messed up a bunch, and we’re still learning, and living and loving.

And, in those moments when I get hit with powerful reflections, as you are now, I appreciate that my brain is asking me to heal up some more or at least is checking up on me.

I hope feeling the feels and writing this stuff out helps you like it helped me.

You are weird. So am I. I think most people are, but we are all doing the best we can with what we got.

Unhinged has quoted a movie line, it helps that I loved the movie, but I found it to be very comforting on my way to peace.

It is a line from the film Tombstone, when Doc Holliday is on his literal death bed, next to his best pal Wyatt Earp. Wyatt is hoping things will get back to "normal" life and that his friend will get up out of the bed.

Doc replies, "There is no normal life, Wyatt, there’s just life. Now get on with it."

For me, I find that is my focus, the getting on with it.

Bad stuff happened. Nothing turned out the way I thought or the social constructs have let me down — now what?

I get to choose my focus.

I get to choose feeling blessed to have survived and thrived over horrible things I didn’t anticipate.

I get be grateful my little family is together and we will all gather for Thanksgiving a couple weeks.

I feel the whole range of emotions, I just know I get to choose where I spend my time and energy.

I always thought this symbol ( * ) was called " star ".

I just googled " asterisk " and found out is was this symbol ( * ).

Btw, im glad you are processing your feelings.

Infidelity can f*ck with the BS'S mind like nothing f*cken else !

Sh*t

********

Thank you everyone for your support and for sharing parts of your own story. Of course, I, like everyone else here, wish you, I mean all of you, didn’t have this in common with me but through your sharing and advice offered, there is a feeling of belonging and being cared for.

One more crucial thing to add. When I wrote down a few of my many asterisks laden sentences I failed to mention the most damaging and painful asterisk of them all. And this Asterisk is the 1st that needs to be removed from my thoughts for I know it is no longer true. Yes, it may have been true during my wife’s affair decisions and actions, but it is not true now, of that fact I am confident and so I should live it, not long for it.

As my wife’s discloser began to fracture my self-worth, especially of what I had thought I was, her valued husband and lover. Instead, I came to see "myself" as I believed my wife saw me - a bothersome asterisk in her life. To me, I felt like I had become nothing more than a sub note written in shrinking, fading print, on the margins of her life. I’m not saying that I was all those things, but I "felt" I was, and therefore I have been operating on that assumption. I will admit, my wife never said any of this it was me who wrote that script. I am beginning to see it was an untrue self-description that I was allowing, maybe even encouraging, by ruminating which was serving only to convince me of my valuelessness.

Which brings me to what several of you here have been encouraging me (Some with books to read and YouTube lectures to listen to, while others with a needed 2 x 4) to do is to refocus. To become current in my intentions, to let the past live in the past. And then to honestly ask myself, is what my relationship with my wife like now verses what I reimagine them being like, back at the time of the disclosure.

Sounds easy enough, but by-god it is a bugger to accomplish. It simply astonishes me how quickly I start to set up mental roadblocks wanting to keep my mind invested in the past. Probably, though painful as the past is, the years I chose to stay in were at least familiar and familiarly feels safer than the unknown. Also, frankly, it was lazy of me to stay stuck and expecting my wife to fix it and me.

Asterisk

It's not easy, but the key change is to see yourself as, in Eric Berne's words, 'OK' - which IMO comes down to lovable, loving, and capable. Anyone who doesn't see you that way, with one exception, needs to be distanced.

The one exception, of course, is oneself. The more you see yourself as lovable, loving, and capable, the better.

My W did not see me as an asterisk during her A. Really. I still had to deal with the possibility, though. The self-doubt is normal, IMO. It has to be put aside, again IMO. The way to do it is - still more opinion - to trade attacking self-talk for nurturing self-talk, and a good IC can help with that.

Self-talk is crucial. It's the difference between good and bad mental health. It's never easy, though. I found it oh so difficult to maintain positive self-talk in the months after d-day. But if one does enough work, one can develop and keep maintaining positive self-talk despite the slings and arrows of daily life.

As for you, Asterisk, I think everyone who has responded and probably everyone who has read your posts see you as OK. I think you're not quite there. Remember this: you're wrong on this. We're right. I think this applies to everyone who has written about their self esteem on SI - and to every reader who has thought about having poor self-esteem.

In general, one knows oneself better than other people do. In this one respect, OKness, though, one's friends see oneself more accurately than one can see themself.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:48 PM, Sunday, November 9th]

Sounds easy enough, but by-god it is a bugger to accomplish.

Yes it is.

I hope I don't make it sound easy, because it did take me a while (five years) to get my swagger back.

To know my value and feel it.

That day was the day I knew I would be fine solo or working on my M.

That was the path back. To understand that infidelity is BOTH the most personal affront of all time, and has nothing at all to do with who I am.

I. Am. Not. My wife's shitty choices.

My wife's childhood, her issues, her esteem, made her vulnerable to the advances of someone outside the M.

Me valuing me again has made me a better person, better husband.

My wife finding her value again, has made her a better person, better wife.

Thank you, Sisson, and Oldwounds,

For sharing yourselves and your observations of me and your desire in assisting me in a much needed rethink.