SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hikingout asked me: I think maybe the box to start with is what made you accept less than what you should have had?

Xh’s behavior doesn’t excuse mine. I know that. This post might sound like blaming, it’s not. For me, it’s my heavy reminder to not give everything i have away. I never want to experience that isolation and loneliness ever again. I got so overwhelmed by marriage, career, kids, bills, you name it, I carried it all. i moved into survival mode and stayed there for a very, very long time. Surviving isn’t living, surviving isn’t thinking, surviving is putting things on autopilot. I burying the pain so far down it has a different zip-code.

I found this letter when i moved out, and kept it - it helped me rebuild. I will share a paragraph.

"I thought for a long time this weekend about out last conversation and I need to say this and I need you to hear it. First, I think we need outside help, I know you don’t believe in it, but "this" what we do isn’t working. I have faith in you, I love you with everything I am, but I have learned I cannot lean on you. Im falling apart, i can’t, just can’t. The "I can do it all" is a crock of sh*t, is a cover, I do it because there is no other choice, and the cost to me is too high. I can’t continue to look after everything in the house, pay bills, work full time, take care of the kids and your sisters kids without any help. It’s too much.

XH talked a lot about change, I even gave him a list of tangible things he could do, each time his actions showed otherwise. In response I did the I can do it all. Yes, but at what cost. I became a master of hyper-functioning and an empty shell just trying to keep it all together and the thought of leaving was just another check box on an already overloaded plate.

I will hold onto this letter and keep it as reminder.

I am thankful every day that I am no longer living in survival mode.

This exercise is doing the opposite of compartmentalization.

I understand you want to start to look at those locked boxes and this is as good as any point to start and clean them all up.

You will likely have a much lighter feel once you get rid of those.

The letter is giving some insight about your emotional state when you wrote it, it does focus on the moment lived and your behaviors but some seeps through.

Have you tried going back and relive the emotions you were feeling when you wrote this to your ex husband?

You didn’t say in what context you wrote, if there was the affair already going on back then or if it was before, but I think you may benefit just by starting to make a simple list of the emotions you remember and name each one.

Then see what was more intense and what was distinct, which ones were messy and merged together etc.

Those are threads leading into your deepest most intimate self, their unanswered calls are what usually generate the chaos that is faced with coping mechanisms and can generate dysfunctional ones who lead to self sabotage (not just, but including also infidelity and affairs).

I understand more than betraying your marriage you betrayed yourself by becoming a mistress, the other woman so to say, that’s the impression I got from your few posts.

If the hunch is right you might have less to work about you hurting your ex husband and more about self sabotage patterns (that still preclude you from a fulfilling relationship with and as a safe partner).

I answered because there’s no stop sign and I wonder if this can help you with looking upstairs and get rid of those boxes that seem to weight on your life still today.

I can identify with the surviving feeling ablnd how it can cause us to disassociate, look for the dopamine hits somewhere to feel something other than just numb. I fully understand how that can be.

When I asked that question, I was thinking about how you have seems to always accept less than what you deserved in life. This is a good beginning summary to this—- you accepted a lot in your marriage and abandoned yourself in the process. I can relate to how that happens.

For me, I felt that to be loved I had to show my worth. It resulted in a lot of perfectionism and people pleasing. This started young and was taught to me by my parents. My mom was very emotionally immature and I learned how to keep her wrath off of me with perfectionism. My dad, while jovial and a good provider didn’t know how to connect with me emotionally and I would do things to people please him to see if I could find some praise. I think he loved me and was proud of me but he just wasn’t expressive, he really isn’t the type to say I love you or any of that stuff.

And I had a hard time fitting in growing up. I am an exuberant personality, and curious about people, and I was sometimes obnoxious or shocking to get attention, it was always the wrong kind.

When I met my husband, I was a young g and recently divorced woman who felt like a total loser. I had married my high school sweetheart but it was an unhappy marriage that felt so dead end. Here I was a 23 year old woman with a bad track record, and I felt lost. My mother didn’t talk to me for a year because I chose to get divorced and my ex husband lived with my parents because he couldn’t afford to live on his own. Not exactly the best scenario to introduce to potential mates.

I tried to be very cool and did a lot of things to "catch" my husband. When I landed him I was over the moon because he was exactly what I had hoped to find.
Over the years we built a life that looked very good but felt bad in the inside because I was quietly carrying a weight that just got heavier.

Anyway, that’s a lot of where I was and I described it so I could tell you what I learned about accepting less. Not that you will have the same story but to show you the digging didn’t find this terrible person. It found a person who learned to take up space and be clear on what I want and why and to not let survival turn into a sleep walk.

I never felt I deserved more than I had—I felt I had to create it all and I worked hard at it. I never tried to solve the problem effectively because I didn’t have the skills. I would hold it in and blow up, I didn’t feel like I could push it far because I was always afraid to lose it.

The problem with affairs is they give you a false narrative to buy into to focus on. It feels happy, while underneath we decay under the instability of the unavailable relationship. It’s the opposite of the numbness, but it’s not true happiness either. It destroys our sense of self and worthiness because we are never really being chosen in any of the scenarios.

Learning why we did it and turning it around makes us learn to chose ourselves. And when we finally do that, we create a person who is always chosen no matter what the external world is doing.

I imagine you are having a lot of low feelings right now. But by continuing to chose no contact you are showing yourself you are finally choosing you. Keep doing it, what is healthy can feel very bad at first, and eventually it will make the space for the things that truly make you happy. Lean into that self discovery. Spend time in nature. Try to eat and sleep well, create small things you can look forward to. There is time to build a life you truly enjoy and many years ahead to enjoy it. Try new things, dream new dreams. This probably feels impossible right now but remind yourself you are finally choosing you. And think about who you were as a child. Hood that child in your heart. Tell her you will protect her, and you will love her. Let her come out to play. That child has a lot of clues for all the potential and passions you might have or develop. Make an intentional relationship with her.

Keep writing. It’s cathartic and helpful for self discovery even if some of it is put in a journal instead of here.

BackfromtheStorm: This was from before the A when i wasn’t stuffing my feelings down into oblivion just to survive.

Hikingout: Thank you for your post. I appreciate you taking the time to share. I have thought about what you said and would agree I need to to work on these.

Abandoning self: I don’t even recognize when I am abandoning or allowing a boundary to be crossed, my reaction so intrenched i don’t even know i am doing it. Really need to work on this.

Self esteem: Fear of not fitting in & not worth the effort. I know these feelings very well. It started when I was young trying to make friends and feeling we (FOO) were "less than" because friends had nicer toys, girls wore pretty things (i wore my brothers hand me downs) and the list goes on. I was regularly made fun of and not allowed to play with them because i didn’t have the goods. Except xAP, he always showed up.

Growing up, I would approach the world in one of two opposing ways, bold you cant hurt me or very quietly with please like me. Usually the latter & wait for a clue & see I could join, which rarely happened.

Your false narrative comment made me stop and think. While the next statement is true, it is an incomplete narrative."I knew xAP long before the A, were are friends, there was no point in hiding my fears, or he his, the masks had been taken down long before I met xH". Lots and lots of murky twisted labelling it as just friends so i didn’t have to face the ugly truth.

I think it’s time I asked for help and look into therapy. I liked what you said, its a goal i would like to achieve "learn how to take up space and be clear on what I want and why and to not let survival turn into a sleep walk."

[This message edited by EndingsLTA at 4:45 AM, Friday, July 24th]