SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I think I do understand betrayal trauma.

We’re in a tricky spot, I think, because of the trauma that I’ve experienced for much of my childhood. I had a parent— someone who was supposed to care for me and be safe and want the best for me— emotionally abuse me, twist my words, push me towards outbursts and then punish me for them, never let me feel like I was "good enough," manipulate me and my other parent and our family therapist and everyone else who could have interceded on my behalf… A lot of messed up shit.

Now that I’m an adult, I’m still in hyper-vigilance mode: I expect that everyone I meet might possibly want to hurt me in the same ways. I often interpret being misunderstood as other people intentionally misrepresenting what I’m saying in order to steer the conversation to their benefit. I get triggered when I’m not believed for any reason, or when people tell me what my feelings and motivation are as if they know me better than I do… and that’s my brain trying to protect me from further trauma.

Naturally that’s not gelling well at all, to say the least, with what BH’s brain is doing to try to protect him from further betrayal from me. He loved and trusted me, and in doing so, made himself vulnerable. I violated that trust, and now nothing I’m saying has credibility. He hears the words that I say when I explain myself, my feelings, and the situation before/during/after the A. But his brain has put this filter in place that paints everything in the most negative light possible, sometimes to the point of twisting them to have the exact opposite meaning. This is the basis for his untrue beliefs. In effect, they prevents him from returning to being close with me, and from being vulnerable to betrayal again. If he already believes the worst— that I’m using him for lifestyle benefits and secretly want to be with someone else, that I’m going to leave at the first chance if I find someone "better," that if we should even slightly miscommunicate in the future, then I’m likely to betray him again— then he won’t be as hurt if they do happen.

And I understand why that’s going on, the same way I understand why my brain is doing something similar. I understand that often times our feelings don’t make sense, and that we can’t always logick ourselves or other people out of them… But isn’t that kind of what therapy is? Recognizing the thought patterns that are keeping us in that hyper vigilant, "protective" state that doesn’t actually serve us, especially if the goal is to rebuild that trust and closeness, and interrupting them. Replacing them with something that, yes, may make us vulnerable to hurt again… but that allows us to move towards actually feeling safe and better and "normal" again.

I’m embarrassed of this, but I was getting really frustrated with BH last night. I was rehashing that even while the A was going on, I still wanted the things I was getting from the AP from BH. That I still loved him dearly and wanted to be with him, but that going back to loneliness and silence and feeling sexually burdensome instead of desired was terrifying to me, and so I behaved selfishly and continued the affair…I was trying to explain to him that he was twisting things and seeing them through that negative filter, and wouldn’t it feel so much better to just believe what it was I was saying? That our M is not totally fucked up and as hopeless as he’s making it seem?

But he’s in denial that he’s even doing that, so of course he can’t choose to interrupt the thought process that’s keeping him feeling hurt, devastated, sad, angry betrayed… all of those negative feelings that his brain is holding onto so desperately in attempt to protect him. He thinks I’m getting frustrate with him expressing those feelings, rather than the fact he won’t recognize or challenge the thought process that’s perpetuating them, which was also frustrating…It was very much a clusterfuck of a conversation. I am not proud of my emotional reactions at all.

I knoooow I need to give it time. That I need to be patient with him, and let him get to a point where he feels safe enough to trust me and take down those belief-barriers. But like I said, it’s really hard with my own triggers because my trauma brain is saying "he’s twisting what you’re saying on purpose to make you look even worse. He doesn’t want to reconcile and he’s going to abandon you, the same way your mother did when this was happening to you as a child… You’ll spend years with him and never make any progress only for you to end up alone and broken." I need to break that thought pattern myself in order to be properly supportive. I’m praying my IC can help with that.

At the end of the conversation, we focused on his belief that he deserves poor treatment and betrayal from his loved ones. I told him it wasn’t true. I asked him to think about what life would be like, and how he would behave differently, if he believed he deserved to be treated well, with love and kindness and respect. He said he would put down boundaries and stick by them, instead of doing the pick me dance for people that hurt him. We agreed that that would be more protective than believing he deserved it... I’m proud of him for even answering the question and challenging that belief, even just briefly. He asked me what I thought of him and I got to tell him all the amazing, wonderful, lovely qualities I see in him, and he tried to believe me. It gave me some hope.

[This message edited by DayByDay96 at 10:05 PM, Thursday, September 18th]

That our M is not totally fucked up and as hopeless as he’s making it seem?

That’s your perspective, not his. You're minimizing Infidelity.

I am fully aware of how awful infidelity is and I’m not minimizing it in the least. But our marriage isn’t over, nor is it a bad or hopeless one.

We communicate well, we share responsibilities well, we parent… well, decently, together. (Our kid is a tough one for sure, but I wouldn’t want to raise her with anyone else.)

I’m not going anywhere; I never was.
This marriage to him is where I want to be, because I love him to death, not because I need someone to fund my lifestyle. (I certainly wouldn’t be chatting up some dude who makes 35k a year if I was planning on leaving, either. It just doesn’t make sense to think that.)

To believe otherwise is to tell himself lies, like I said, in order to keep his distance. But I think we can come back together eventually.

You are minimizing your infidelity. You are telling him that he should just believe that what you are saying is true. What reason does he have to believe you? You lied and cheated. You likely lied right to his face many times to hide and keep the affair going. Yet you want him to believe that you loved him the whole time while you were lying and cheating? That you never meant to leave him, you wanted to stay with him even though you were lying and cheating? Read what you write, it sounds ridiculous and unbelievable. You don’t love him. You got caught and want to convince yourself you aren’t a bad person. You don’t want your life and family blown up because of your selfishness but that doesn’t mean you love him. I feel bad for him, he is in a lot of pain right now and you are just making it worse rather than trying to make it better for him. The way you want to sweep your infidelity under the rug and minimize if he actually does reconcile with you, he committing himself to a life of being married to someone he can’t trust and who will likely cheat again the next time she gets bored. I don’t mean to be harsh but you aren’t a safe partner and lack of accountability and constant justifying shows you won’t do the work to become a safe partner for him.

Just responding to the initial post. It's going to take as long as it takes. How long does it take to recover from being knifed in the gut? I don't know. It might take one person a few days, it might take someone months, and it might take someone else years, depending on how much damage was done to them. The BS experiences the damage as they do, you can't hurry it, you can't do anything - once the affair is revealed, what happens is really out of your hands. You can apologize and try to show you love them, for what that's worth, you can try to convince them you're trustworthy, you can try to abide by the rules they put in place.....you can do all of these things and more and it still takes as long as it takes. You did the damage, you're not able to set the recovery time. Even after the BS appears to have healed, there can still be set backs and triggers. This is the damage that is done to someone from adultery. It takes as long as it takes and only the BS can decide what that is. If you get sick of waiting, you might want to leave, I can understand that. Maybe you two should set some time limit to how long the recon process should last - a year perhaps? 2 years? How much time are you willing to wait with things as they are?

Any hurrying you do will be seen as....why don't you just get over it?....and it's not gonna work, so if you don't have the patience, I'd say put a time limit on it for yourself and consider how much you actually want to stay married to BS. Not everyone - BS or WS is cut out for recon.

[This message edited by BondJaneBond at 2:12 AM, Friday, September 19th]

DayByDay96 - you're pushing it. You're trying to push him into spackling because this recon is too uncomfortable for YOU and you just....want him to get over it. You tell him all this stuff about how much you love him, blah, blah, but that's not what it feels like after an affair and frankly....he may not really want to stay in this marriage anyway. Because when something like this happens, a BS may simply not want to continue. You do it mechanically one foot after the other, but is his heart in it? I don't know. You're trying to bully him into spackling and that doesn't work. To me, it seems like you don't really care about the pain you caused him, you care about the discomfort you're going through now.

Recovering from an affair takes as long as it takes as long as it takes. It can't be hurried, rushed, changed, forced, bullied, cajoled, you can't love someone into it, you can't convince them.....it's like a stab wound to the heart - FROM YOU. The person he trusted most. He has to not only recover from the shock that you would do something like this, and believe me, there is no shock like this. CANCER is not as bad as adultery and I KNOW THIS. You don't know how much you've hurt him and he's not going to open up to you because you don't give him the space too. THIS IS GOING TO TAKE A LONG TIME. Either you want to wait it out, doing and saying the right things, or you don't and you should just stop considering recon. He's not your pet dog.

[This message edited by BondJaneBond at 2:18 AM, Friday, September 19th]

(I certainly wouldn’t be chatting up some dude who makes 35k a year if I was planning on leaving, either. It just doesn’t make sense to think that.)

You really have a long way to go if you think this is an appropriate thing to say in your situation. Again, the age difference alone has to be weighing on him regardless of your A. This kind of painfully insensitive comment could cost you your marriage. Rather, it's the clear lack of empathy behind this comment that will do the job.
And, yes, I expect you'll say it was a joke. It's not funny. It's hurtful and risks derailing everything.