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Hi All,

I had a weird (and ultimately distressing) day last week.

I met with a new therapist in the morning and I was pleased with the session (although it was quite intense).

This therapist specialises in DBR (deep brain reorientation). As I mentioned before, I have been working on myself restlessly in the past 6 months. I made some good breakthroughs while also learning to better regulate, etc. So far it has been a firm exercise of "rationality over emotions". E.g. I learnt to sit with the pain I have caused, even when a part inside of me just wants to get defensive (I am in no way perfect, but I have improved).

DBR should help to get also my "instincts" / "emotions" up to date with what I learnt so far "rationally" (for the sake of brevity I won’t provide further examples, but happy to expand if this point is not clear).

All in all, I felt reassured after the session.

Absolutely unrelated to the above, I received some messages in the evening. They were from an old acquaintance. Nothing ever happened with this person, and I haven’t seen the person in ages. The messages were friendly, not inappropriate (although random and totally unsolicited, as I have nothing to say to this person!).

And I failed. I told myself that with this "new me" there should not be space for these random messages. I should have blocked the person ages ago (please note I have been avoiding any unnecessary interactions since DDay as much as possible - voluntarily).

So I blocked the person, and then in a split second I decided to delete the conversation. I did not consciously do it to "hide" it. But I slipped in the old mindset "this is nothing, I don’t want to be bothered by this person, I will just block and cancel". I should have shared it with my BS (he saw the notifications but no messages, so it was a massive trigger).

In these past months, wherever I received something that could potentially be "dodgy", I told my BS immediately, even when I knew I was going to raise a storm.

But that evening… I don’t know if it happened because I felt this false sense of security after IC, or because we had had a decent day and I didn’t want something random to spoil it for us. I slipped in an old habit. It felt like I was back in square one.

I can’t lower my guard yet, and it’s with these "small" things that I slip (I have to go now, but I may expand further later).

This post is just for sharing, but any insight or comment is welcome as always

[This message edited by LonelyGuilty at 11:40 AM, Tuesday, September 22nd]

Okay lonely, no stop sign so I assume you may welcome feedback from the other side.

Let me just say first that what you said that you can now sit with the pain you caused without running away seems a very big deal.
You are owning it, and that’s what I feel is probably the most important turning point for a person to truly and honestly change.

Now the slippery slope.

Of course we don’t have to pretend what that guy was doing by messaging a woman at night.

It ain’t casual or innocent at all. He was testing the waters to check for openings.
You generally don’t go so bluntly on the first approach as "hey I booked an hotel room, wanna join?", he is keeping it casual and "friendly" to allow you plausible deniability and eventually respond him with an opening to follow up.

He is just playing his cards checking "if".

There are very few reasons why you text a woman acquaintance in the night and you have no secondary goals. It’s creating a connection opening a space for intimacy. Just to check.

You said he is an acquaintance, mind if I ask why does he have your number in the first place? Is he someone you interact for life reasons and need to be reachable or did he get your contact through third parties?

Now, you cutting him off is definitely the right call.
And I understand the frustration in noticing that you kept this situation hidden.

You are now learning openness, honesty and respect, but something pushed you to resort again to the old secrecy.
(I suspect because you do feel and know that his intentions aren’t "casual and friendly").

I cutting him off, is a good call.
Did you tell your partner about it? Explaining what you felt and also how you felt by reacting with deleting the texts before informing him?

I know it is hard, and while your self questioning is definitively worth exploring, it is also important to see if you can be transparent even with this occurrence, or you go back to "keeping secrets".

I am not going to lie here, if it was me in your husband, it would probably hurt initially because the wounds are fresh, but on the other hand I don’t see here the usual malice, I see a woman trying to change and facing a deja vu from her past that infuriates her.

But because she finally started caring.

So is not all bad.

Hi BtfS,

Thanks for your honest reply.

The person reached out via social media.
And you are right that he was probably testing waters.

I should have blocked the contact ages ago, but because I never flirted or acted inappropriately, I just let it there. This is obviously due to my own poor boundaries - since DDay I am trying to work on that as well. Hence, yesterday my instinct was to block the contact straight away.

I admit I did not handle it well. I should have mentioned and shown the messages to my BS, before deleting.

I was planning to let him know anyway, but I very stupidity forgot, so it was my BS who confronted me first (all this happened in the span of 40mins - 1h). When he asked the questions I was transparent and honest. Although I realised immediately how wrong I had been in deleting the messages.

I am writing about this because I genuinely did not have "malice" but I still handled everything using my old patterns.

I guess I wanted to feel "normal". Unwanted attention —> delete and block.

No big deal.

Which is a normal reaction for someone in normal circumstances (maybe).

While I, I should have blocked but shared everything with my BS straight away.

I am so careful and then I do this.

I am not writing in a self-pity way. I am upset with myself and I am sorry for the extra pain I have caused. The thing in itself is silly. How I handled it, it shows I still have so much to do (even when I think I am on the right track)

I-can see, you changed the way you write into a more assertive and aware energy.

I like it because I fell you are starting to let go of the self commiseration and you are taking more control of your center.

One note that is unrelated but is usually unspoken and is important in my wiev: the role of social media.

They are not all tinder, but they are all tinder.

Unless it’s for business purposes or (but honestly more rarely) to keep in touch with distant friends or family, they are all a slippery slope into ego validation of feeling desired and appreciated.

If you want to stay in touch with people there are many ways to do it, without needing to put out your show reel for the world to see.

Even if your intended purpose was initially that innocent, it is designed to attract and feed exactly that loop of validation and exposure that leads to infidelity.

It’s a sexual marketplace wether we like to admit it or not.

Nothing terrible (however shallow) when you are single. Poison if you are in a relationship.

That’s a thought I have to share. I see many slipping on the social media bait, and I can’t believe they didn’t know it deep down, that’s a slippery slope.

Closed the off topic.

I can say I get and can picture the situation.

Your man is on hyper vigilance and this is evidence his nerve system isn’t yet capable to relax.

He is on the lookout for anything he observes about you and what surrounds you.

This is normal and while I imagine is harsh to confront from the wayward side, I think it is at the same time a glimmer of hope:

He is still working on metabolizing if you are potentially becoming a safe partner.

This means you aren’t cut off his life, he is torn between wanting to leave and wanting to love. The trauma is just doing what the trauma does.

One very helpful thing from my perspective knowing this chaos:

Bring it up to him, like you brought it up here.

Your emotions, from the surprise, rejection, your reactive behavior and the anger guilt you felt when you realized you reacted by deletion before caring about avoiding secrecy.

I know that each time you bring up to a betrayed partner any topic that may be perceived as surrounding infidelity, is a shitstorm of pain. Because the bs hurts and because you hurt too.

But is like medicating the very wound that still didn’t fully heal, and is amazingly helpful that the WS is the one bringing it up and trying to squeeze the pus out, clean and apply a fresh bandage.

The same way our system is on hyper vigilance for infidelity threats, it is also hyper attuned to see gestures that break that pattern.

Because we expect you to not change, to run and hide and escape from our pain, even if not because you are plotting to do it again, we expect you will keep abandoning us in the solitude of suffering as you abandoned us into betrayal.

Breaking that pattern will hurt, but oh well. I might be wrong but I don’t think I am.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 2:15 PM, Tuesday, September 22nd]

I think you're being a little too hard on yourself. You didn't respond, blocked him and deleted the messages. Pretty normal human behavior.

Of course, while surviving infidelity and trying to reconcile, "normal" doesn't apply. Adjusting to this "new normal" isn't easy and takes time, mostly because there's nothing normal about it.

Bear in mind, too, that most likely your BH is hypervigalent and hypersensitive and hypereverythingelse. That's normal for a BS early on, which means normal behavior doesn't apply.

Dizzy, yet?

I'd imagine it was a trigger for him. I doubt that the situation would have triggered anything at all in a normal marriage. In fact, it's almost safe to say that a spouse might have appreciated a lack of response, blocked and deleted.

This early on your BH is going to experience all sorts of triggers, rational and irrational. While it's certainly a positive sign that you want to avoid anything that might trigger him, walking on egg shells isn't going to work. Triggers are almost impossible to avoid.

At some point, hopefully sooner rather than later, your husband is going to have to learn how to deal with his triggers. Sometimes they truly are irrational. Either way, learning to work through them, learning how to disarm them, is critical to his recovery and healing. It's a skill that has to be developed.

None of this is easy, of course. It's just a part of the process. Kicking yourself in the ass isn't going to help.