I'm having a really hard time right now and I don't know who to ask for help. My husband and I aren't getting along right now and I know it's my fault. My H had an affair from 07/03 till 07/04. It's been 15 months and I feel stuck. Lately, I have been treating him like crap and I mean really I've been mean, nasty, and pushing him away like crazy. I am so full of anger and hate and I don't know how to get rid of it. He does all the right things but my thing seems to be. If I act all loving, and we start connecting and getting along then I'm telling him that the affair was fine with me. I feel like I'm saying that to the world by staying with him. That I don't care that he had an A, doesn't bother me a bit, see us we are just so happy! Yeah right! I can't get out of this cycle. I start to let my guard down and we get along for a while then bam, I'm a total nut case all over again! I feel like I'm going insane. How do I being loving towards him and still have the affair NOT be okay with me??

This message has been edited. Last edited by: MarshaR,

Welcome aboard ! I don't have alot of time and right now me giving advice on compassion/healing and recovery isn't the thing for me to be doing however there are some really great minds here.

I understand what you mean about acting happy is a perception that you were ok with what happened but believe me that doesn't have to be the case.

Go to the compassion power board. Read all the notes. Awed has a really good thread here to. You are acting from your Core Hurts and those need to be addressed.

One thing I will tell ya is we don't do disprespect here, so can ya please go back and edit your post.... Believe it or not the more you act with respect for everyone involved in the situation the easier it is to heal.

I can tell you and I mean this with all honesty and conviction. Somedays I thank god there was an A. I don't know if my H and I would have made the changes we did. My dday was over 3 years ago... OW was a friend.... your marriage can recover but learn from my mistake heal YOU too...

Well I hate to jet but I have to get to the gym and then meet my family for lunch....


Le

Hi MarshaR. Thanks for coming by, and thanks for asking such really good questions.

You're faced with one of the hardest choices any person ever makes. I really mean that. It's incredibly tough.

You have to choose between these two things:

- Anger and hatred
- Healing

Seems like an easy choice, doesn't it? But you've been there and I've been there too and I -know- it's not easy. It's one of the most frustrating, crazy-making, terrifying, difficult things you'll ever do.

It sounds like -- and I know I did -- that part of the fear is making it seem like what happened was "okay."

And that's where compassion comes in. It's a hard right turn, compassion is. Complete 90 degree course change from where you're going right now.

I can say, if I'm compassionate, "I care for your well-being. I love you, and value you as a person. And this thing that you did harmed me and our family, and there are consequences for that action."

Fifteen months later, you're not in that place. You're in resentment and blame and punishment and fury and rage and righteous indignation and ... and a whole lot of other things.

Under that there's a layer of really awfully painful stuff. We call 'em core hurts.

Guilty, unworthy, devalued, disrespected, powerless, inadequate, unlovable.

Sound familiar? I'm guessing they do.

Those core hurts are telling you that there is something you need to do to heal. The hurts are just like physical pain, which tells you to put down the hot tea kettle already, 'cause you're burning your hand! (I did that earlier today; ow.)

Core hurts are healthy. They tell you to fix something.

They get all tangled up when you start expecting someone else to fix it for you. In this case, your husband.

Your post tells me that you already know this part. You said your husband is doing everything he should -- and yet you're still stuck in the pain and anger. That's because he can't heal what needs healing.

What needs healing is in a quiet still spot inside you that only you can get to. Ain't nobody else on the planet who can.

I'd suggest that you do a bunch of reading. The first place I would start is with Penny's heart meditation, and then read the compassion power stuff, and then start practicing it every single day.

The Dalai Lama has another way that he advises people to practice compassion. He says to take in with each breath all the pain and anger and rage and hate of the people around you.

And to breathe out with each breath one thing in its place. Compassion.

That probably sounds crazy and that's okay. He says it better than I do. If you want to read more, go find his book Forgiveness. It's a really useful read. Another excellent book about this kind of thing is Anger: Wisdom to Cool the Flames by Thich Nhat Hanh.

It's hard internal work that you'll be doing, and I know that everyone here supports your effort to do the work.

Hi MarshaR, welcome

SYMC is a wonderful place to help us find our way to healing, whatever that takes for us. I see that JustJ has posted to you---isn't she great?

This is a very caring and compassionate place and I'm glad that you found it in your time of need.

Take care

Hi MarshaR - it is such a pity that you find yourself on this site but know you will find so many people who are in your position right now (I am post-DDay 10 months), or ones who have been through it and are able to give advice and help with a restrospective view.

One thing to remember is that although we can all sympathise and understand what is happening to you - each individual has a different experience and therefore a different reaction to what has happened to us. But I am sure that you will find so much of help on this site. I know I did.

The biggest surprise for me has been the actual physical pain I have felt in the face of what I believe to be the ultimate betrayal by my H. The humiliation and loss of belief in myself as a worthy person was horrendous and even now I feel I am only stepping on the lower rungs to recovery.

I too have the anger that you feel - if I am nice to you then I am condoning the A - and to friends outside it must look like everything is rosy now we are staying together. Little do they know the torment I still suffer with memories of the A. One friend actually told me that I was "making a meal of things after 10 months"!!! I have been helped enormously by my counsellor, who is gradually helping me to come to terms with what happened and understand my reactions and subsequent behaviour.

I do so hope you find peace of mind and tranquility inside yourself - I believe that only when you have come to love and like yourself again, will you be able to go forward and hopefully find a good future with your H. Take care of you.

Thank you so much Just J, I really appreciate your post to me. Eternal Joy, I wish I was in counseling! We did for a couple months and then ran out of money, so I'm on my own now. I just don't understand why I hurt so bad still. I thought for sure by now I would be so much better but I still carry so much hurt, anger and hatred. I will read the things you have suggested. If anyone wants to take me under their wing and help me through this I would love it. Maybe you can help me understand some of this stuff. Thank you!

Hi -

This is about the best place I know of to safely explore and grow. The weekends are slowish. It is not as fast paced as some sites but I'd say it is about the best for keeping compasion and integgrity front and center.

Have you read the articles at the links on the top of the page?

Hang in there. You can change the world by changing yourself.

ATB,
SeekingBetter

Hey Marsha,

How are you doing. I have to agree with J, the compassion power stuff is awesome. It really makes you think and it is hard work. I still really stink at the HEALS stuff 12 times a day to focus on something FOR ME is still hard but I am trying. I still have some of the blanks empty on my HEALS worksheet, there are just some parts of my life I can't quiet see yet but with work it'll come.

I am here if ya need to talk. I had so much anger for OW. I would get physically ill when I saw here and probably punished my H way more than I would like to admit.

Hang in there....

Le

The OW doesn't make me angry at all. In fact, if I ever ran into her I'd make sure I was sweet and would come right up and talk with her just to show her how much she doesn't matter in my life LOL! I made my H move 2 hours away so we never run into her. I am just starting to read the HEALS stuff from Penny's posts. I put Penny's heart meditation on CD but haven't listened to it yet. I know I have such a long way to go. I just hope I can make it. So much anger to deal with. All I want to do is push him away and blame him for all my hurt and anger. It's all his fault, that is what my mind is telling me anyway. If it wasn't for the A, life would be great, but would it? I don't think we were very happy before the A. My goal is to be happy and feel very connected with my H, just seems like an impossible goal right now

[QUOTEAll I want to do is push him away and blame him for all my hurt and anger. It's all his fault, that is what my mind is telling me anyway. If it wasn't for the A, life would be great, but would it?[/QUOTE]

That's understandable but as you'll read as long as your holding resentment and blame it's hard to go forward. You need to dig deeper than that really get to your CH and then try to find your CV. J is a great one to have on that journey... there are many others here too...

quote:

I don't think we were very happy before the A.

It was a real eye opener for me. The longer and deeper I dug into our relationship the more I could see that we hadn't been happy for a long time.

quote:

My goal is to be happy and feel very connected with my H, just seems like an impossible goal right now

I hope you find that connection. The HEALS is a great place to start, I wish we would have known about it when I found out about my H A. I think our recovery would have been stronger if I would have worked to heal me first instead of our marriage first and me later....

Le

Here's the thing about anger. And hope. And fear. And joy. And all the other emotions.

They change.

You don't feel any of them ALL the time. Even when you feel like you're spending every day feeling the intense emotions of your life, there are still moments when you're just... chewing your Cheerios. Or staring at the rain. Or whatever.

Trust me. I know. I've had days filled with the most intense emotions of every kind in the last three years. I sometimes wonder if my emote-o-meter has burned out.

So the goal here is to work with yourself.

When you're in the middle of agony, then be aware of your agony. Focus your attention on it. Allow yourself to really feel it for long enough to identify what it's telling you.

And when you're feeling compassionate or hopeful or happy, find ways to encourage those feelings, to enjoy yourself more, to make those parts of your day last just a few seconds longer. Look at flowers and sing along with songs. It's really truly all right to feel those good things again.

And back to all those really painful emotions. I want to talk about those a bit more. When you feel one of those things, usually it's pushing you to "DO SOMETHING RIGHT NOW."

Often that thing it's pushing you to do is not what's best for you. (Huh. HoFS and Penny, c'mere and read the last two paragraphs. Now compare to what I wrote on the interview thread. Another similarity.)

Instead, you've got to find the underlying transformative energy that reminds you of who you truly are.

Let me give a stark example.

My ex decided, for reasons that are still something of a mystery to me, that she was going to treat me as not-quite-our-daughter's-parent.

This lead to denials of access (that means her saying, "No, you can't see the baby."), all kinds of unpleasant legal activity, and some pretty horrific harm to me.

For roughly two years, she was able to push the "you're not a parent" button and send me screaming over the edge. Not a pretty sight, really.

One night in March, she tried it again. Our daughter's naming ceremony (a Jewish tradition) was coming up, and my ex had decided that our daughter would be named Yafit Riva, daughter of Miriam. Miriam is my ex's Hebrew name. Note that my name does not appear in this whole thing.

For about two hours, the "you're not a parent" button was pushed and I was pretty off-kilter. Not totally; I'd kinda gotten used to things like this by then.

But then.... transformation.

My daughter's favorite book at the time was You Are My I Love You, by Maryann Cusimano Love. It is a truly beautiful book describing the kind of day of that my daughter and I often have in the summer. Playing, laughing, sleeping, eating, joyful. It begins this way:

I am your parent;
you are my child.
I am your quiet place;
you are my wild.

Those words, and the images in the book, and the rest of the words of the book, rang and rang and rang in my head that night.

And suddenly, I got it. I understood why this book rang so true for me, why my daughter loved it so much, why we read it over and over and over again, so often that I now have it memorized.

It's just simply TRUE.

More true, on a deeper and more real level, than any accusation or rant or court action that my ex could possibly take.

It's true not because my ex believes or disbelieves it, but because I live it. Because my daughter lives it.


It may be very difficult to understand how to get there from where you are. Transformations are the hardest thing in the world. Your intellect can help you along, but your intuition is the place that has to "get" it.

In your case, all the anger and hurt and rage and pain and horrific yuckiness isn't pushing you to DO SOMETHING RIGHT NOW in the outer world, though it may surely feel like it.

It's pushing you to find the deeper, more resonant, more wonderful truth that you already know inside yourself. The one that's being challenged and refined and sharpened by outer reality. When you get there, the clear sound of your world shifting into its right place will be completely audible to you.

The exercises that we're pointing out for you will, I hope, help you achieve that transformatino. It happens at the most amazing times. In moments of stillness and peace, in moments of raging fury, in moments of contemplation, and sometimes between two steps as you walk along the street.

Boom.

Suddenly you understand something that's been bothering you for ages.



The very first step is this:

It is NOT all your husband's fault.

All the pain and agony and rage and all that stuff? It's not about anything other than you being pushed to grow and learn and transform. Your husband is a wonderful catalyst, sorta the way a volcanic eruption is a great catalyst to rebuild your vacation home. (You can kill him for it later; right now you have hard work to do.)

The reason letting go of blame is hard is... well, there are two reasons. The first one is that we want it to be someone's fault so that they can bloody well fix the mess they made.

Yes, I can hear the cheers for that now, and I agree that -everyone- ought to have the opportunity to fix their messes.

But the other reason that it's hard to let go of blame is because then we suddenly become afraid that it's our fault and WE have to fix it!

Eeek!

Well. It's not our fault. And yet, we do have the responsibility to heal from it. Just like when I ran myself over with the Buick when I was four (I was a talented child...), even though it hurt like heck, there was no one else on the planet who was going to regenerate those squished cells in my leg.

I had to do it myself.

I don't know if any of this will help you, MarshaR. I sometimes think the Zen masters had it right and we should be talking about the sound of one hand clapping. (I'll give you a hint on that one... the answer is associated with one of my official titles.)

So. Hmmm. Okay, right angle question:

You said your mind is telling you that life would be great if it weren't for the affair.

Have you ever thought that if the affair hadn't happened, maybe one of those times your husband was with the OW and you were losing your mind, you and he would have had a wonderful evening, romantic with candles and everything, and accidentally caught the house on fire and burned the place to the ground?

You don't -know- what that alternate future might be. You think it would be perfect because this one is so painful, but you don't know that. An infinite number of other awful things could have happened.

I choose to believe that this one happened so that your soul can sprout wings.

Wow Just J. Your insight really moved me. Maybe there is some reason for all the insanity that so many of us are presently experiencing. No, we don't know what the alternate future might have been. Still, it HAD to be better than this!

J ... You rock!!!!!!!!!!!! I hope you know how much your insight means to all of us trying to find ourselves.... and sort out this mess.

{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{{HUGS}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}}
Le

You're both very welcome! I actually went back and looked at the post and thought, "Wow, where'd that come from?" I really believe that sometimes the inspiration has nothing to do with the person who ends up speaking the words.

MarshaR, I think that you might want to revise that thought to, "It's GOING to be better than this!"

Because alternate realities make for good TV shows or books, but they're not so good for living the life that's in front of you. If you want that amazingly wonderful image of your bestest possible life.... then look inside and understand that the major thing that holds you back is your own anger and resentment and hurt.

Weird, but true. I eventually learned to be peaceful even when people were ranting at me. Example? My ex has fits about Christmas. She's very worried about the effects of Santa on a Jewish child. My parents celebrate Christmas -- not as a Christian holiday, but with all the rituals that we associate with a northern European winter holiday. Santa is a spirit of giving (anonymous) that we choose to include in that festival.

So each year, about this time, my ex's stress-o-meter goes way up and she starts ranting about Santa.

I could (and have in the past) get very upset about that. And sometimes there are hints of it. But in the end? I've learned that even when people are telling me that Santa is absolutely horrible and there's no way she should ever be exposed to him (in American culture? Have they been out to the mall lately? ), I can be at peace and be happy. Because I choose to be -- and because I can play Christmas carols in my head, no matter what happens in the outer world. Even if Santa gets taken away at some point, that peace and tranquility will remain.

How I'm going to explain to my sister that Santa isn't coming that year is a much more difficult question, of course. *sigh*

Marsha - the meditation J suggests is recorded on podcast so you can listen instead of read. Much better - this is almost entirely experiential as opposed to intellectual work, so you have to do it instead of think it.

I bumped the podcast thread for you.

P

So, what exactly are the exercises you mention doing? What is the resentment exercise? How in the world do I let go of my anger, resentment, hurt? I want to but every time I lay it down it hunts me down until it finds me again . How is all this done? How do I find my CH's and CV's? What is the first step, I'll start very small! I read through to about week 3 of the compasionatepower series. I also have the powerful self book too. I very much understand that I have to heal myself and I have been looking to my H to do that for me. I have been waiting for him to make me feel better. I can see why that hasn't worked out. Seems like a long scary road!

MarshaR, it's a long road, absolutely. And yes, sometimes it's scary. The thing is, though, that there's the soul-equivalent of hot chocolate and graham crackers all along the way. You just have to know how to look for them.

I'd start with your core values. The meditation that you put on the CD is designed to get you in touch with them. Each of the activities that Penny has you do is keyed to one of the houses of compassion. You'll find that the more time you spend reconnecting with those things, the better you'll feel.

As a very simple example, go somewhere that has parking meters sometime in the next day or so. Walk along and watch for one that's expired, and then drop a quarter in that one. Do that all the way down the street and back. It's great fun. Why? Because it's a random act of kindness, which falls into a special category of "compassionate acts."

Start trying to live as close to those things as you can -- reconnect with family and friends and community. Have a chat with God -- she's probably up for a cup of tea; she usually is.

Listen to the most beautiful music you know of. Have a look at photographs or art work that brighten your day. You know the ones -- the picture of your two boys covered in chocolate, or the picture of a sunset that you took when you were 15.

Anything like that is the heart of the exercises that will clear our resentment. As you begin to practice HEALS, you'll learn to tie those feelings to the initial rush of annoyance/resentment/anger/whatever; that will re-train your neuronal pathways to lead you to the correct place of value, from which you can make ethical decisions and begin to lead a much happier life.

(Dear heavens, do I sound like an infomercial??? I suddenly think I might. Ick!! I'm so sorry, if I do.)

After you've done the meditation and have read through the HEALS practice stuff and have done it a couple of times through on minor stuff, come back and tell us what you found, ok?

Alright, though I have no idea what the "HEALS Practice Stuff" is yet. But I have the CD so I can start with that. Thank you!

J,
Is this the thread with the exercise?

http://saveyourmarriagecentral.infopop.cc/eve/forum...1069941/m/2841030651

Believe it or not I am just as confused about the exercise as Marsha is...

Le

I was wondering if someone can give me an idea about the six steps in the HEALS process that we are supposed to do 12X's a day. Maybe you can give me a hypothetical story for all the six steps and go through exactly what you were thinking, feeling, and then what you did for 5 and 6. I just want to make sure I understand this. Do you find it hard to come up with 12 different things each day for 6 weeks? Thanks!