Growthtrac Community

[km]

I've worked hard to cultivate the sense of humor.

Frequently, if you can't laugh, you have to cry (or get dangerously burning mad). I was raised like a lot of other boys my age, no crying allowed (and too much anger is bad for you).

[Empty Shell of a Man]

2 years since this has happened and pain lingers, though nightmares are rare. Bad dreams are less rare but I continue to slowly heal. I am told that I smile more now but nothing like my old self. It is scarry how much my personality changed since I first wrote this. PTSD like symptoms continue.

I hope so eons reads this before embarking on an affair

[resecured]

ESoM,

Good to hear from you! You're right, you do change. Question is, are you a better you? From the sound of it, you are on the better side of things. Aren't you amazed at how you have survived? I think everyday about the person that I am now. Nothing will ever be the same and maybe that's a good thing. I do know that my husband misses certain things though. My offhanded way of just climbing on his lap to snuggle. My outbursts of laughter. I use to talk about any and everything when he would come home from work. Now, most of the time I am silent. Not angry, just inward. I'm still learning about this marriage of mine. I thought I knew everything about him. There are times when I still see him as a stranger. Like you, I am getting better. The best type of healing is the slow kind. If we try to rush it, we are not dealing with it properly. Like with any deep wound, it takes time.

Glad you are on the positive side of it all.

-RJ-

[Empty Shell of a Man]

In terms of this subject, I am different, but I don't think better; at least right now.

I have always had a very strong sense of humor and what my wife reports is that I have gone a long time without smiling and am just beginning now to smile a bit more. What was so sad to hear was from my 18 year old daughter. She has no idea what happened and asked my wife if I were upset or displeased with her. When asked why she would think that she said, "because my dad never smiles anymore. It feels like he is in constant disapproval".

This really spoke to me.

I find it so hard to trust as I have such unanswered questions. My wife insists that had she never been put on that med, this never would have happened. She has not changed her account and said other than the one hug, there was no physical contact. She said that she partakes of the Lord's supper without fearing that she does so while still lying about what happened. She said that she could not partake if she was lying about what took place.

This is how it feels: when we married, it felt like she owned me, and I owned her, and that we gave ourselves to each other, in Christ. Now, I just still cannot get back that feeling...it is as if she is holding back a part of herself.

Our romantic life is nothing like it once was and she finally admitted that the playfulness she once had has gone out of her, as she feels disgusted and "dirty" for what she has done. This admission may prove to be a real breakthrough. It took a lot for her to admit this to herself, and to me.

I had never trusted someone so deeply, with everything that I am, only to be more hurt than in any other thing in life.

Some days I wish I had not loved at all. Some days I think that if I had to do it all over again, I would run away before the hurt; other times I think I would still go through with it.

I know this is all foolish "under the sun" thinking, as we all know that God is perfect and whatever He allows is for our ultimate good. I am thinking only "under the sun" and as a man, who does not know the end from the beginning....just talking out of my hurt.

If even one person reads this BEFORE betraying his or her spouse, and this thread stops them, I will be glad.

[Empty Shell of a Man]

RJ,

your post haunts me.

You still see him like a stranger!

I am in the same boat.

Sometimes I hold her at night feeling safe and warm, and then at just some strange moment, I think she is a stranger to me.

If anyone could possibly believe me: when this happened, our marriage was WONDERFUL. This is why nothing makes sense.

the doctor put her on this med, and she began to feel nothing. But, she did not complain about it, and I thought she was just going through a rough time with some memories, and was there if she wanted to talk, but she did not feel like talking.

She said that the only explanation is that on the med, she was sabotaging her own happiness. The man she was meeting with was a great deal like her disapproving father. He is unmarried, mid 30's, and doesn't even date much. Why? He is not unfortunate looking and holds a good job. It is because he finds fault in everyone; just like her dad did while she was growing up. She felt that it was a choice:

leave her husband and Christ, and the good life, and go with what she knows: condemnation and eventual break up and rejection and back to loneliness....

or stay the course.

She said that she came clean because she did not want to sabotage the happiness that God gave her.



It is all well and good, but it would almost be better if I had been doing something wrong, so I could repent and fix it. Zip. Nothing. She has not, in two years, changed her account that I have done nothing wrong and doesn't want anything changed.

so very strange to be left in this position....wondering every day if I will again be stunned and blindsided.

[rdsmith3]

ESoaM

In our fallen world, God still wants us to enjoy life

Ecclesiastes 3:11-13

He has made everything beautiful in its time. Also, he has put eternity into man's heart, yet so that he cannot find out what God has done from the beginning to the end. I perceived that there is nothing better for them than to be joyful and to do good as long as they live; also that everyone should eat and drink and take pleasure in all his toil—this is God's gift to man.

Ask the Holy Spirit to fill you with joy and peace, as in Romans 15:13

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.

[SAM]

Great scripture, RD! What a beautiful reminder.

ESOM, have you considered talking with your doctor about depression? Depression robbed my husband of joy for so very long, but once we realized what it was, and he started on medication - his crazy sense of humor returned.

So, based on what your daughter said, you now are faced with a choice. What steps will you take to find joy in life again?

Wondering every day if I will again be stunned and blindsided.

Worry seems to be a better description, that is eating away at you. No amount of worrying is going to help.

"Delight yourself in the Lord and he will give you the desires of your heart" (Psalm 37:4 NIV).

Priscilla Shirer writes in her Bible study He Speaks to Me, "Delighting ourselves in God rolls out the red carpet for God to march right in and plant His good, acceptable, and perfect desires in our hearts so that we can get busy praying them and getting some answers." 1.

It seems your desire is to experience what you once had with your wife. Don't be afraid to ask the Lord for His desires since His desires will be better than your own and you will find peace and contentment as you submit to them. You can pray by asking God to fill you with an understanding of His desires for your marriage. You can also ask him to remove the thoughts of wondering (worrying) if will you be stunned and blindsided again.

Our God is so much bigger and capable than we give him credit for.

[veggiemelt]

Empty Shell,

I have followed your story for a while, it seems heartbreaking. I do not remember all of the details, but I went back today and read the first few of your posts. I have always thought in reading your posts that there is something more beneath the surface that haunts or distresses you inside. Something that has little or nothing to do with your wife. As I was skimming some of your early posts, this caught my eye.

if you take an infant female and molest her. Just once. Not "injure" her physically at all. Just once. Let's say it happened in the month of February.

What does this statement mean? What prompted you to say it?

You have spoken often of your wife and how she has been hurt and how she continues to struggle with behaviors that cause you great pain. But I have to wonder if the pain inside of you that she seems to trigger is possibly something deeper in you. You do seem to love her, but it appears that you possibly love her more then you do yourself. Your love for her seems to sustain you. It is like you can't function if she does not love you and yet you cannot accept her love either, it is as if you thrive on the idea of loving her, but you can't accept for her to love you back. It appears to be almost infatuation, love at a distance that can't be touched or felt because you cannot accept reality in it. My question is, is she the one who is untouchable, or is it really your heart that cannot be touched.

At the end of your first post you asked if anyone thought that she had been physical with this other man, you appeared to really need to know the truth in that. I do not remember if you ever found the truth you were looking for in that. Is that still eating away at you? Or did you find resolve in it?

You have poured you heart out on this forum. The emotional scars in your words radiate that pain with great intensity and yet even with all that you have so freely exposed, there seems to be a huge hole beneath all of it, a missing part that brings it all together. And so I ask you, what is it that you are holding inside, where is the source of this pain, what have you never said, maybe even to yourself. I get the feeling it is something that you cannot bear to say or face even in yourself, and yet releasing that deepest secret in your heart could be exactly what sets you free. God forgives us, even of our greatest and most offensive sins, but we are not released from them until we can forgive ourselves.

Whatever it is, find a way to let it go, to forgive yourself and to live free from its pain. In that, I believe you may find true resolve with your wife and an ability to receive her love in a way that sets her free as well. Go to a place where you feel safe and expose your sins to God and pray for him to help you let them go. And then go to someone that you trust and say it out loud to another human so that your conscience may be cleansed as well. Whatever sins we have committed as not in fact who we are as people, God has allowed us to be renewed and cleansed in him, we do not have to remain stained by our past transgressions, he has given us the gift of a cleansed soul so that we can live free from our transgressions and serve Him in this life by what we learn from our mistakes. I pray that you will find peace that gives you that ability to be free from your pain.

[rdsmith3]

I think veggiemelt is very perceptive in what she said -- there is a sense in which there is more to your hurt than just what your wife did. That is not meant to minimize in any way the pain you felt from what she did, but there seems to be more to it than that.

[Empty Shell of a Man]

There is something else

Since her confession 21 months ago, our romantic life has gone steadily downhill
I have asked many times and have gotten nowhere. It eroded what little confidence I had left after her emotional affair

She now claims to know why. She said she is not playful or passionate because she has so much shame fromhurting me. I don't know if it is true. So she hurts me now because of shame from hurting me in the past? I still wonder if the affair was physical and tonite she said , "We didn't have sex"

I told her it was the first time she ever used the word "we" when speaking of her and him. She became utterly silent and turned away from me in bed.

I am left wondering.

I hurt.

[rdsmith3]

You can choose to wonder away the rest of your married life, thereby ruining any chance for reconciliation and future happiness.

You can choose to hurt the rest of your married life, thereby withholding from your wife the mercy that your God so freely gives to you for your transgressions.

You can choose to live in pain and unforgiveness, or you can choose to heal and forgive, with the intense help of the Holy Spirit.

Perhaps you find pain and unforgiveness to be more familiar, and somehow more reassuring in a strange way, but it is not what God wants you to do. God has forgiven you for whatever you have done in your life. Complete healing and reconciliation are freely available to you, through Jesus Christ. He wants you to go and do likewise.

Philippians 3:13b-14

But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

[lynn]

Dear ESOM

She now claims to know why. She said she is not playful or passionate because she has so much shame from hurting me. I don't know if it is true. So she hurts me now because of shame from hurting me in the past? I still wonder if the affair was physical and tonite she said , "We didn't have sex"[/quote]


When I read your post this above part hit me between the eyes. I used to wear the same shoes that your wife is wearing. More than 4 years ago I was unfaithfull to my husband. I struggled for a very very long time to get back to the point that I felt worthy of being passionate and playful with my husband. I felt like "used goods" and undeserving of his love and affection. I was consumed by guilt. I was so ashamed of what I have done to him and my family and I allowed myself to listern to satan's lies "that why should my husband really forgive me after what I've done." My actions caused so much pain and heartache and a lot distance between us. Gracefully we found the bridge called Jesus that has and still is restoring our lives and our marriage. It is still hard at times, because satan does not want our marriage to succeed, he wants us to be apart, but just the knowledge of that fact helps us today to Thank God that if satan is attacking our marriage we are still on the right track. The closer we move to God the harder satan will try.

ESOM you wrote that she has said to you that her affair is not your fault, but due to her actions (meds). It sounds to me that she is just taking full responsibility for her actions and not looking at you for excuses to right her wrong. Our pastor told me just after our D-day that if I truely want our marriage to work I have to take accountability of my own sin, because when I stand before God he will hold me accountable for it. There will be NO room for blame shifting.

I wish I could have a talk to your wife and tell her that what she is going through is normal and that only she can break the cycle of guilt and shame, by choosing to learn to forgive that girl in the mirror. By accepting God's promises that her sin has been removed from her as far as the east is from the west and that He no longer even thinks of it. This promise I have to repeat to myself dailly some days. We will never be able to really understand the pain that we have put you through, but one thing I can vouch for is that the hardest thing I ever have had to do is see my husband cry like a baby and knowing that I was responsible for it. It is very very hard not to hate yourself.

[SAM]

Has you wife seen a counselor?

The hardest thing she will ever have to do is, forgive herself. If she can find a way to do this, things will be much better. If she keeps hearing the voice of shame in her head, it's not from God. He lets it go, never to be brought up again. God says, "It's over, done with, covered with Christ's blood."

[Empty Shell of a Man]

Thanks, Lynn. Great response. You're on the right track in life.

Sam, she has not seen a counselor. She won't.

No matter how it sounds, I know this to be true: She can't see one here.

We are in a small town and a state without much population. We both work with the professionals in this field and she would have to travel much too far in order to see a counselor and not have it circulate.

circulate it would.

It makes things very difficult.

I now approach the 2 year anniversary of the worst time of my life; when I made the original post, over 100 responses ago...

I am still haunted, but continue to improve. Momentary thoughts are now battled with more efficiency. Her repentance has never waivered.

Sometimes the hurt rises in my stomach, sometimes it is anger; but I do not say anything to her. It's not fair for her to have to revisit this everytime I hurt. I cannot imagine being slapped in the face with my sins over and over. I can't cooperate with the accuser to bring her down...I won't.

I still have not told anyone but this group. Kinda strange, isn't it?

[km]

ESOM - Have you looked into a 'remote' counseling arrangement?

I did some counseling several years ago - it was over the phone and the counselor was 1000 miles away. It isn't, perhaps, completely as effective as in-person work would be, but it helped me a lot.