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How (if ever) do you get over "mind movies"?
How if ever do you make love to your WS?
How if ever do you kiss, hug or just touch, your WS again......
It's been 14 years and BH still struggling with above.
He keeps on saying it will never be special again 😭

Good morning.

Not a BS but I have a question for you. Let me preface this by saying I’m not trying to be snarky. You’re now 14 years out and it sounds as if nothing has changed. So my question is, why do you stay? While you are responsible for the implosion of your marriage, you cannot help your BH heal. If he is still this angry so many years out, perhaps the A was a dealbreaker for him. I’m certainly no suggesting he doesn’t have a right to feel hurt but it’s still up to him to deal with it in a healthy way.

If nothing changes, do you still want to be in the same situation 5-10-15 years down the road?

How (if ever) do you get over "mind movies"?

How if ever do you make love to your WS?

How if ever do you kiss, hug or just touch, your WS again......

It's been 14 years and BH still struggling with above.

He keeps on saying it will never be special again

My Q is: why does your BH stay?

I chose to stay in part because I believed we would restore and enhance our physical connection. I thought the movies would be temporary. I thpught I would accept my W's sexual responses and initiations as proof that she desired me and no one else.

What has your H done to heal? How has he dealt with his pain? Does he want to change? What work is he willing to put into changing?

My heart goes out to him. and I wonder if he's able to imagine something better for himself - like a good relationship with you, something a lot better than FWB, but with a lot of *TMI*.

If he is still this angry so many years out, perhaps the A was a dealbreaker for him. I’m certainly no suggesting he doesn’t have a right to feel hurt but it’s still up to him to deal with it in a healthy way.

If nothing changes, do you still want to be in the same situation 5-10-15 years down the road?

I agree with this. It’s been 14 years. The affair was obviously a deal breaker for him at least in the terms of him seeing you as a worthy partner.

I could pretty much answer your questions the same way your BS has.

Mind movies- never truly got over them, although they did subside a little

Making love- we had sex, but didn’t really make love. A far cry from our sexual relationship prior to her affair.

Kissing hugging- barely. Sad because I couldn’t keep my hands off her before. Loved just touching her even in passing. She loved holding my hand as we walked. She still tried after but all I could do is think about when I could let her hand go

Special- never felt that about her again.

I’m not trying to be hugely negative, but as FF said he and you are staying for the wrong reasons. At this point it is unlikely he is going to have an epiphany and decides to forgive and renter the marriage in a meaningful way. I was him and came to that conclusion after 5 years of torturing myself and her. My EX felt the same as you. Suffered from the pottery barn syndrome where you break it, you own it. But sometimes the best thing is to part ways as amicable as possible. For many of us no matter how much the WS wants the marriage, an affair is just a dealbreaker

I would ask for therapy to see if this can be worked out or not. I think it will not change on its own as an epiphany, but there could be under some guidance of a therapist a possible reframing of a new marriage or new beginning. Otherwise, I am not sure it’s fair to either of you to remain in a marriage in which the intimacy can not grow or deepen.

I would try to advocate for therapy because I see that as your only viable option of steering this in a new direction or reaching closure on the matter.

How (if ever) do you get over "mind movies"?
How if ever do you make love to your WS?
How if ever do you kiss, hug or just touch, your WS again......
It's been 14 years and BH still struggling with above.
He keeps on saying it will never be special again 😭

the BS "Has to heal their self." - been said here and everywhere 1000s of times

If he is still "hung up" on your questions -

Either he just doesn't want to start a divorce (lots of possible reasons there)
or he does want to stay but is still muffed in the head. Push him to counseling.

comments - movies never go away - just don't trigger as often or as easily or have a weaker affect at time passes
- BS has to teach themself to put mind on "job at hand" and not let mind wander off
- BS has to "do the work" on self awareness of the Here and Now - not what happened in the past.

All can be overcome by a BS who WANTS to stay in a good marriage.

So, which does he want? Good? or just "survive" till the grim reaper is at the door?

Side trip: My spouse "did her thing" decades ago - and I still have thinking spells (like when reading here!) but - I realize she is still the person (well, basically) who I married long ago. The Crap she did (mentally, physically) has either been healed, sanitized, repaired, filed away in the special corner wayword put the dastardly escapade memories and do not repeat and do not reminisce about their "fun."

one more thing - she has two children by first husband and several paramours in between me and her - so the "we were each others first" has no meaning. Also, now that she has matured - realizes "it's all history not worth thinking about." Me about the same.

"Time heals"

Not sure i can be of much help, but I'll relate some of my thoughts anyway.

Next month will mark the 41st anniversary of my catching my financée (now wife) preparing for a date with someone else. I showed up unexpectedly at her apartment. We weren't married at the time but had been engaged almost two years. This wasn't my first experience with her cheating. By my count, she has thrown me away four times, twice for the same AP. On this occasion, after she threw me away to date her AP, we did stay together, she told me she quit seeing the POSAP, and we did about a year and a half of false reconciliation... until I caught him in her apartment one morning after she had gone to work. Of course she then threw me away again and spent the next two years with the POS.

We have been married now for almost 35 years. I believe she was in a narcissistic relationship as it exhibited many of the stages. I can't know if the AP would actually be diagnosed as NPD, but there were many traits. The first trait being that he convinced her to date him even knowing she was engaged. Once the relationship ran its course, she reached back out to me and we did reconcile and two years after that, we got married.

But everything was mostly rug swept, and we had many years of marriage where none of this ever came up. Then about ten years ago, after I and others made the decision to close the bulk of our business, I decided to make my marriage better, and I did. But with the good feelings, the bad feelings from her betrayal years earlier came back. I have tried over the years to discuss the old days and get answers to long lingering questions. But she doesn't like talking about it.

I have come to two conclusions about this. First, when I've tried to discuss it with her, she just eventually gets all pissed off and upset that we're still talking about it. But since we basically rug swept it all those years, I never was able to heal properly. I have mostly quit bringing it up because I see her frustration with it as defending him and what she did. That just pushes me away and makes me less likely to want to be close to her.

The second conclusion I have come to is that she is only with me because she couldn't make him care about her. If he had continued the love bombing and other early aspects of a narcissistic relationship, I'm sure she would have been content to continue to be with him. But he apparenly quit caring about her and left her alone quite a bit. It took about a year and a half with him, and without me, before this happened. But in my mind, she only came back to me because I was her plan B... I was still available.

I'm not saying this parallels your relationship. But I'm throwing those two conclusions I came to out there for you to think about. Could your husband believe he is your plan B? Or do you show defensiveness when he tries to discuss things with you? It doesn't matter what you think the answers to these questions are, or what the actual reality is. What matters is what he is thinking.

This could be food for thought that you need to discuss with him. If it doesn't apply, like they say here.. Take what you need, leave the rest..

BS here. I was never going to be able to let him touch me again and chose divorce after the shock, and Dday 2, wore off. However, my BFF stayed. The way she describes it, she feels that she will never again be able to go back to the way it was. She has sex, but its just that. There are no more tender touches or snuggling and she is fine with that. He is not. She has made it very clear that THIS is the best he will ever get from her, take it or leave it. Kind of like he chopped off her legs and now expects her to run a marathon with him. Not going to happen.
I think you and your spouse need to have a very honest conversation about expectations and acceptance. Then, decide if you both can live with that.

I want to approach this in a different way. I am a BS, by the way.

Does your husband have something he looks forward to in the near and far future? Something he is hoping to achieve that will occupy his thinking?

The reason I ask is that I have been 'retired' now for 29 years. I was 'downsized' into an early retirement before I became 60 years old. I could not refuse the financial package offered to me. I now have hobbies, etc. that occupy some of my thinking and I read a lot. However, I have nothing to look forward to now as I did when I worked for a living. In the lull of the moments during the day I find myself looking back over my life... especially to those moments when I had wished I had made a different decision than the decision I made. A lot of "should of", "would of" moments. Too many of those moments during the day.

I love the Stoicism philosophy of life. The early Stoics realized that a person can only control what is within their power to control and to let go of things beyond their control. Hippo made some great comments when he wrote:

comments - movies never go away - just don't trigger as often or as easily or have a weaker affect at time passes
- BS has to teach themself to put mind on "job at hand" and not let mind wander off
- BS has to "do the work" on self awareness of the Here and Now - not what happened in the past.

All can be overcome by a BS who WANTS to stay in a good marriage.

So, which does he want? Good? or just "survive" till the grim reaper is at the door?

If he has something to occupy his mind about something good that might happen in the future then that leaves little to no time to ruminate about the past. Mind movies will happen regardless. It has been almost 66 years since I was betrayed, but the thought will come into my mind every now and then. Thank goodness I was stationed overseas when my fiance betrayed me, so my mind movies aren't as vivid as most BS's.

Hmmm honestly for me (and my situation may have been different) I never got to a point where sex was special with XWS again. I was trying to work on self, and doing IC and gaining tons of ground in my recovery but my XWS was not and so that was largely part of why I could not get there with XWS or ultimately stay in that marriage.

I think that if my XWS had done their work, truly owned their behavior and held themselves accountable and allowed for me to have safety in my emotions and in sharing and if she had also learned to care…maybe I could have gotten there with her. Maybe. I never will truly know though.

I remember seeing sex with her as a very disconnected thing after infidelity. It was the only way I could do it and even then I couldn’t genuinely keep that up as it caused me to feel using and disgusting with self so I stopped all together.

Perhaps your BS still needs more healing in IC? Perhaps you may also need to heal to become a safe emotional space as well? I’m not sure where you both are in your recovery but that’s what I would assume is needed from both sides to mend the relationship and the intimacy and connection,

Ragab,

How (if ever) do you get over "mind movies"? The death of the ‘special’ you mention below will appear and reappear the rest of your lives.

How if ever do you make love to your WS? Sometimes easy, sometimes hard, sometimes I don’t.

How if ever do you kiss, hug or just touch, your WS again...... I don’t think, I just do and it works. See above, also.

It's been 14 years and BH still struggling with above. He and you, will deal with this forever.

He keeps on saying it will never be special again: Never is correct. That ‘special’ died at your hands. It can be different, maybe better in its own way, maybe even its own kind of special.

I am a BH. I will be direct. Not mean. This is me trying to help.

You demanded a certain ‘special’ thing, you wanted a husband to treat you and your marriage such a way. He probably wanted the same thing. You both said 'I do'.

But his ‘special person’ killed that ‘special’ thing with malice and intent. Now his special prize is/was another mans toy.

His life is less for this. His history is less for this.

So now you want a ‘special thing’. The special thing that was before, you both probably do.

Have you laid the foundation for a new special thing, full disclosure? Timelines, all the things preached here and elsewhere. Taken full and complete responsibility for killing the ‘special’ thing?

If so, GREAT! You missed up, you owned it! And sister, you really missed up. But that was then and this is now.

Make sure your BH knows all he needs to know. IC, MC, can help, but truth, respect, honesty rebuilds trust. That must be first.

Hopefully, the killer of ‘special’ died years ago so to speak. Maybe that person no longer exists. Maybe the person now (you) detest the killer of special (the old person, you)

If you done the above effort to help repair your mistake, maybe he can compare the past 14 years to one mistake YOU made and deeply regret.

Maybe share with your BH and yourself the below.

BluerthanBlue, poster, General :
Seeing WS as two people (on this site)

You have the 2 versions of your wife reversed.
The perfect soul mate is the one that cheated on you and treated you cruelly.
The "damaged goods" is the woman that is now loving, kind, and engaged in the marriage.

I find this, as a BH helpful. The poster is comparing pre affair ‘special person’ wife to current hopefully ‘special person’ wife.

No stop sign.

Well Ragab, I did my best to go read your past posts. This is what I have gleaned (please correct me if I am wrong)

1. Still no timeline after 14 years

2. You said you cheated because you wanted the attention and validation

3. You told your BH at the time of DDay that you "don't see him like that" and that you wanted to be with OM.

4. STILL NO TIMELINE.

The huge huge problem that you are facing is that it is extremely hard for your BH to wrap his mind on how both 2. and 3. (what I wrote above) can both be true. In fact to me they seem to directly contradict each other. I don't know if you have yet wrapped your mind around just how destructive your words on DDay were, in telling your BH that you aren't sexually attracted to him and that you wanted OM. And there may indeed be just no getting past that for your BH. HOWEVER, seeing as you still have no timeline written (and from reading your other posts) It doesn't seem clear that you couldn't have done better in answering his questions--despite that you have tried to answer many times already. Why SHOULD he believe that he is your first choice.

Have you dug deeper into your "why's" for cheating. I mean, you wanted validation, but what made you feel ENTITLED to go outside the marriage as you did. This is related to your finally writing the timeline.

[This message edited by WontBeFooledAgai at 9:34 PM, Thursday, January 11th]

I want to second the comment above about the TIMELINE.

Not having done that at this point is brutal. You've likely protected yourself right out of a marriage.

I had a lot of things I thought might be helpful to share, but then I saw the post about not giving your bh a timeline?

If you want things to be special and sex to be better, tell your bh that. Then ask him what he needs from you. Don’t expect him to rugsweep. It doesn’t work.

Hi there. First of all - this is a bold question. And good for you to have the courage to ask.

I can only give my perspective. A bit of background first - I'm the BS and my WH had a LTA - one that was discovered in 2107, that went underground and was re-discovered in 2018 (when I finally told OBS). Years after that in 2021 we had to have an attorney draft a Cease & Desist because she kept creating fake profiles trying to reach out.

How (if ever) do you get over "mind movies"?

The first few years they were brutal. Crippling so. I would literally f*** them right out of my mind. HB hit me hard, so I did this regularly. I made sure it was gOOd for me. Then I'd silently cry myself to sleep.

How if ever do you make love to your WS?

For the longest time, it was just f***ing. And it was for me.

How if ever do you kiss, hug or just touch, your WS again......

It took a long time. Now, I would always hiss/hug/touch. But it wasn't about a physical connection. It was about me [for lack of a better term] pissing around my territory. He was mine [at least until I figured out what I wanted to do] and that signal was going to be sent come Hell or high water. Primitively territorial. While these days I initiate hugging, etc. at times it rips me to shreds inside to know someone else did this to him and thought it meant something. For years.

It's been 14 years and BH still struggling with above.
He keeps on saying it will never be special again 😭

Here's the cruel reality. It won't. Not with the innocence of it all anyway. That beyond the shadow of a doubt special. That blind faith special. It will always be scarred. And that sucks. And still gets to me after all these years. That loss of special is - through the lens of time - one of the biggest kicks in the pants of all this.

And while that may be hard to read - it doesn't mean all is lost. While that definition of "special" no longer is a reality - it doesn't mean your life, your relationship, your being a couple can't be good again. You can rebuild. Just understand - and this is a tough pill to swallow - you won't be rebuilding the same thing. You are building a new design from the ground up.

Getting here took a Hell of a lot of IC and hard work - I resented both. Part of me still does. Because this shouldn't have happened to me. Throw in a LTAP the attorney called a "bunny boiler" and it been a metric shit ton of awful.

Now, I'm reading through these comments. If your BS doesn't have the truth - the whole truth - and nothing but the truth from you - after 14 years - you are just compounding the pain daily. Here's a Chaos-ism: TRUTH HURTS - LIES DEVESTATE - THE UNKNOWN IS TORTURE.

Torture is right. He's had 14 years of it.

BH here. It's been 15+ years after DDay, full R, two kids etc. but I'm here now because recently I ran into a rando who was a doppelganger of the POSOM. I know it's not him because he moved to his home country in the Middle East and vanished off the face of the earth. But shaken I was! Haven't been able to be intimate with my WW since. I initially deflected when she asked me but told her eventually. Now she is shaken but supportive. We have 2 DDs pre-teen and teen, so my WW already has a full plate but after she comforted me I know she went down to her home office and sobbed for a while.

I thought I was past it and can't even recall the last time I saw the mind movies, but it's been on continuous play for days now. I do have a therapist and am working on mitigation techniques but I now feel that this is something I just need to accept and handle.

You will see that it has been a long time since I last posted as I did some work. I did the timeline.
Because of prior rug sweeping, he still do not believe me. I actually think it is worse, because I gave all the information I can remember but because it was so long, there are detail / info I can not remember. Also info I gave before that I did not think of now. I really really know I messed up not only with the A but also how I handle everything afterwards.

Also what I am currently facing is why I did not give him all the information before, also why I did not volunteered the information from the beginning etc.
This result in that we are stuck. We are in a loop where we start communicating and end up with a fight, and next day wash rinse and repeat.
He keeps on asking me to heal him, because I am the reason he is broken. He just refer back to then EVERY TIME his response to everything is "why didn't you do it then"

To correct other info above, I never told my husband that I wanted the OP. On D day when I told him, I resigned from my work with immediate effect (as he was a co worker) and never saw him again. In my opinion (wrongfully) I was under the impression that this is proof enough that I want my husband - note that the op was not married and if I wanted him, I could have gone to him.
I know I messed up BIG TIME (understatement) with 1st the affair and then the not coming clean, up to end of 2022 when I found this forum but in ALL that time, I causes so much damaged and resultant damaged that I just do not know how to move on. (refer to above stuck)

Three thoughts from former betrayed wife:

1. When you ask him what he would need to feel like the most special, prized, important, meaningful person in your life ever, does he have an answer? Give him time to come up with that.

2. Have you considered a trial separation? He might need space to breathe. Frankly, he might be wanting to have a trial relationship with someone else for a while too. He kind of deserves it. Staying in the marriage has to be a 100% choice, not a default boobyprize.

3. You all should sit down and discuss whether divorce is the best choice. I find it much, much easier to love my ex-husband than it was to love my post-cheating husband. It was impossibly hard to build positive memories with the person who did nothing but protect himself after the affair. I didn’t want him in my life for his physical presence. I wanted him in my life for his shared soul. He wasn’t up for sharing that, made making love hard, made being loving hard. I could finally put down my armor and quit waiting to get stabbed and kicked again once I stopped hoping to get my emotional needs met by him.