Good Morning everyone,
Well I did not get drunk yesterday and fall into a drunken sleep. Yea me!!

I did not go to visit my grandmother I rather chose to stay at home, due to feeling drained emotionally and physically. I did not want the stress of being in a car for eight hours.

My day started at 0100 when I left work early to come home and relax. I was upset from a texting conversation we had earlier in the evening. In the conversation, Tracie told me that she did not want to go with me to VA, that she felt overwhelmed with getting the house together for a sitter, packing and just visiting my family. Let just say I was not very happy, however I was ok with her decision. As I went to end the texting, you could see that Tracie wanted to continue to text so I did.

Tracie suggested that we taken a day trip today. We tossed a few ideas around but with it being bitterly cold here we chose to stay home. From this point I asked, Tracie if she still planned to get off work early. She replied, no. “I told her to have a good day of work, which she replied, Gee Thanks. I paused for a moment and texted her back, Why don’t we get dressed up and do lunch and a movie. She told me, not thanks. I asked why, she said she did not feel like dressing up or going to a movie. She was very short with me, I told her she hurt the lil feeling I had left. Tracie went to bed shortly after and I started to think I was being pushy again, I left it alone.

On the drive home I came up with all the point which I posted today. As I pulled up into the drive I good (relaxed). Came in and accidently woke Tracie up! I got myself ready for bed and decided to use the laptop when I opened it there were three windows open. The windows were SYMC, mom’s cafe, and Face book, I had planned on posting and going to bed. I open the SYMC window and saw Tracie’s private post in the area I don’t have access to.

In the post, Tracie talked me pushing her away. She went into my weight gain and so on. She also stated that I want sex much more than normal and that she had no sexual interest in me and she just want to get away from me.

Well guys I think that went deeper than deep. I went to read more but I was hurting so I logoff and went on to another page. Tracie rolled over and looked to see what I was doing on the laptop and rolled back over. I was hurting deeply now so I just rolled over took a few deep breaths. Tracie asked me what was wrong and I told her nothing and went to sleep. While try to go to sleep I started thing about the other night when she looked at me strange in bed.
I got up, helped in getting them off, and start my day. Tracie contacted me to figure out what my plans were for going out of town. I had told had told her that I would take the girls and we would go without her. I told her the girls did not want to go with out her, Tracie agree to now go to VA.
Tracie got home about noon and helped me to get thing together for the trip. On our way to pick up a rental I changed my mind since both of us were emotional and physically tried. We cancel the rental and head to the movie were we saw Not Easily Broken.

Here is some information about the movie:

After years of disagreeing on what true happiness, success, and love really are, Dave and Clarice Johnson have finally reached a breaking point in their marriage. When Clarice is hurt in a car accident, the obvious truth that more than just her injuries need immediate attention is exposed. Their odds of making it worsen as Clarice begins to see a physical therapist, and Dave develops a friendship with Julie and her teenage son Bryson. The acceptance and comfort he finds in them stirs his longing for a family and a passionate partner. As temptation tugs at Dave and Clarice pulls farther away, they must confront whether their vows are or are NOT EASILY BROKEN.

This movie was some what of a mirror image of our marriage, right now. The movie had both of us on an emotional rollercoaster. Instead of relaxing after the movie, I was emotionally spent. As we ran around to take care of business before picking up the girls, Tracie was trying to comfort me by rubbing my head and neck. I loved every min of it, for a moment it felt like my wife was back.

We arrived at the mall and started to talk for a moment and she told me that she was here and would work at our marriage but she was still confused on her feeling for him. She continued to say that she did not love him because she did not know him but she had feeling. I respected that because it came from her mouth and it felt real.

For the remainder of the evening she rubber me and I told her that she was starting “something”. After dinner with the girls Tracie began to complain about feeling bad (sore in the shoulder and legs). On the way how it got worst. Once home we start a move and cuddle up on the couch and spend some time together. It was nice I enjoyed it .I made an advance and she looked at me and stated we are not have sex tonight. I did not mind that but it went back to the post I read and it bothered me.
I told her I had read the post and she told me she had figured that. We stopped talking because we had agreed that we would not talk about problems in bed.

I want to be with her but I don’t want to be with her at the expense of my marriage or my self esteem. On one side I felt like she was playing with my emotions and not being real with me and on the other I was like it was still was I good night and I must be thankful for what I can get.

I am hoping that this post does not cause a problem today!

quote:

Originally posted by Just J_SYMC:
So.... what's so scary about having to do your own emotional support?

I feel that I do my own emotional support! I have enjoyed the feeling of coming home talking to my wife about everything. I have found myself talking to her about everyaspect of my person. I felt safe with her now I want her to walk in front of me.

MMMM I will look at this more later.... u got me thinking

Today, I was using Tracie's laptop and I went on her Facebook and found aemail sent to the OM on Christmas Day. They were talking about the love they have for each other and how he was cherished by her. I told her I found it and we talked about it but it reopen the wound. I can't let this mess the day up! We have some fun things to do today! I will be ok i am a strong man fighting for my marriage. Self soothing right!I hope that I can make it today. Pray for me!

Many warm Hugs and positive thoughts coming your way Will

Remember to keep you expectations realistic
for yourself
for Tracie
for the marriage
for the family

and breath

more hugs
Hypatia

quote:

Remember to keep you expectations realistic

I would add, keep your expectations about right now. The rest of my life, the rest of my marriage - those are huge and none us really know what that will look like for us.

Personally I can't even imagine right now what life will be like without kids or having grandkids or being retired.

But right now I can drink up my day's small moments, accept the work I have to do (and MAYBE enjoy that too ), and peak my interest with fascinating things and people.

quote:

Today, I was using Tracie's laptop and I went on her Facebook and found aemail sent to the OM on Christmas Day.

The finding-out-new-things-later was extremely painful for me. It certainly felt like setting back the clock but somehow worse.

quote:

Originally posted by will1899:
Regina,

I am thankful for you advice. I was reviewing yesterday and as I looked at the Help thread i did not like the box you put me in. I understand you better now. I am happy that you cleared the air. Thank you once again for you post.

Will,

I try very hard not to put people in boxes. However, if I am convinced to a certainly level about something, it probably sounds a lot like it. As I don't know the situation first-hand, I do not try to pretend I know different, but may respond strongly to a piece of information that hints at something larger.

I thought an analogy might be helpful for you when considering all of our advice, mine included, which will make someone else' perceptions of your situation meaningless, but that may allow to gain full benefit of the shear mass of information coming at you.

Do you think it would help if you looked at everyone's thoughts as passages of a maze?

Imagine a maze that has many different valid courses to lead you out, but when you get to the end of your run, the outcome is different from if you had made a different turn, instead? If you consider that we are all hoping for the same outcome for ourselves, you might even see that different choices can lead to the same outcome.

So, your approach to this hypothetical maze, is that when you get to a fork in the path, you choose which 'advice' seems the most apt to you. That completely takes my own experiences out of the picture, because you decide if it makes sense to follow or not. If it does, it will lead you to more choices, and if it doesn't different ones.

The choice is yours, though. Maybe then, it won't matter what anyone else's advice is, only the ideas behind them, and if you don't like it, you can just ignore it, rather than wasting energy on figuring out if the whole of their experience mirrors your own situation or not.

Just some thoughts...

Regina

She told me over the weekend that she was ready to commit back to our marriage. I should be happy but I am very happy right know!

I is very hard for me sit her and what my wife beat herself up over this. While watching her beat herself up I am also deal with my problems.

I am so happy that she has committed back to the marriage but I still see that I have to get over the hurt. I find myself replaying the events of the past month trying to find out what statement were made in the fog and what statement were real about our relationship.

I also see that I have this deep need to know why this happen. Is it really that she needed to know about a past love /relationship or is there something that was lacking in our relationship.

Now I can really understand what you guys are talking about when you say healing. I see that both of us have a great deal of healing to do I know that I took a blow to my self esteem and self worth. As I look at myself I see that I will have to build trust with someone who has taken my trust for granted. I also see that I will have to deal with the feeling that my Christmas holidays were taken from me due to this affair. I am still in the process of working on me to ensure that our marriage can make it.


I still have a need to confront the OM. I don’t know why but I feel that he saw a weakness in my wife or knew of a weakness in my wife and took advantage of it. I hold both of the responsible of the events that took place.

I would suspect that you would have the need to confront him.. it might not be as productive as you think though. I would say though a letter from both you and Tracie confirming that you both are requesting NC from him permanently isn't out of bounds certainly. If that hasn't been done yet.. that is one of the first things I would do together with Tracie.

Your healing is going to be different than Tracie's at times so be aware of that. I think its great that she committed to you and the marriage.

Maybe Penny or some of us here can suggest some books for you to start reading to help you on your journey? Does that sound like something you'd be interested in?

Loui

quote:

MMMM I will look at this more later.... u got me thinking

... So. Whatcha thinking?

quote:

Originally posted by Just J_SYMC:

quote:

MMMM I will look at this more later.... u got me thinking

... So. Whatcha thinking?

Scary thing is a never looked at the way I handle my emotions. I do know that self soothing does not really work. I need to find something other than talking to myself, saying I am a good person cuz I know that!!!

Looking for somethig that i can use as a soothing action for me. It use to be cooking and eating but i added a 100lbs to my butt! I will look at my like to find something.

This morning I had dream after dream after dream about the past month. I got up with tears running down my face and feeling alone.

I know my family is in the process of recovering from the events of the past month. I see Tracie going above and beyond to try to comfort me and reassure me that we can fix our marriage. I have trust and faith that we can recover our marriage.

As I deal with my emotions I want to deal with the emotions I have toward the OM. I have hate in my heart towards him but I don't know him. This is a problem for me how can I hate someone i don know...I don't want the hate that I have for him in my heart but I am scared that I will not be able to let the hate I have for him go. I don't want to walk around with hate in my heart.

GOD please forgive me for the way I feel towards this person....but I can't confront him to deal with the feeling I have towards him...
LORD have Mercy on my soul for the way I feel toward this person!

Guy I need any help or support that you can direct me to deal with this feeling. I have never been here before I hope with the help of my wife and friends i can get over the feeling i have towards the OM!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: will1899,

quote:

Originally posted by LouiEJ*SYMC:
I would suspect that you would have the need to confront him.. it might not be as productive as you think though. I would say though a letter from both you and Tracie confirming that you both are requesting NC from him permanently isn't out of bounds certainly. If that hasn't been done yet.. that is one of the first things I would do together with Tracie.

Your healing is going to be different than Tracie's at times so be aware of that. I think its great that she committed to you and the marriage.

Maybe Penny or some of us here can suggest some books for you to start reading to help you on your journey? Does that sound like something you'd be interested in?

Loui

Sounds good beacuse I am in a bad way!

quote:

Scary thing is a never looked at the way I handle my emotions. I do know that self soothing does not really work. I need to find something other than talking to myself, saying I am a good person cuz I know that!!!

So -- what did you find out about your emotions? What's more powerful than telling yourself you're a good person?

quote:

Looking for somethig that i can use as a soothing action for me. It use to be cooking and eating but i added a 100lbs to my butt! I will look at my like to find something.

Heh. HoFs and I like to cook, too. And you're right that it doesn't work so well as a self-soothing activity by itself. (Though Lord knows I've tried!) So what more do you need to hold yourself up?

I will be ok, time heals all wounds.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: will1899,

This morning was hard for me I came home after being up all night working and had to deal with a sleepy 6 year old. I also have to do while walking on eggshells not to ****** off my wife and my other child.

I helped my wife get my 6 year old (justice) dress and at a point the Justice melted down. Let just say the morning went from sugar to **** very quickly. I am happy to say that it was not as bad as it could have been but it was bad.

Tracie left ****** and I went to bed. I woke up about 10 this morning due to the dogs. I checked my cell because normally Tracie has called, no calls or text. I go back to bed and I tossing and truning unitl 1300. I get up and still not calls. I start to wrry because normally she would have texted by than. My mind start to race about what she is doing or if she is calling the Om again. So I text her and she call me right back. She tell me that she is having an bad day and it started with justice this morning and went on to school with her students. She went on the tell me that shw wanted to escape it all and leave.

The other week we were talkng about A. and she used the term escape from it all. With her not calling or texting all morning I started to wonder if she had contacted him again. She told about her felling and I asked her if she had caontacted him and she say no. She told me that she was talking to me about it.... It is hard to believe someone when there is no trust!

When she was talking I keyed in on something. i remember how my wife has always had problems with being a mother and wife. I started thinking about all this and found myself in a bad way so I went out for a drive and walked around the store for a bit to cool down. I found it my new soothing method shopping....lol!

Tracie and I start texting and I asked about what i was thinking and she comfirmed it. I started to get upset because she reminds me of my father. He would get tried of the fsmily and walk out from time to time for up to a year. I don't want to live this ways i don't want an affair every so often due to my wife feeling overwhelmed....

I am worried and don't know what to do to help my family.... It is also funny that i can feel when things are wrong now. I guess last month I did not want to see what was going on around me today i see everthing.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: will1899,

You know, Will, I have read a lot of what you write and the main thing that comes thru to me is that you are focusing so much on Tracie's A that you have no energy or time left to work on you, let alone your marriage.

Loui suggested a time limit, a structured approach to asking the questions you have a need to ask. But to focus all your energy on the why's (when Tracie may well not know why), and trying to analyze and dig is really counter-productive, IMHO.

Have you really given Loui's suggestion a try?

Also...you really need to take your focus off the OM. I know it is very difficult and he probably seems like the enemy (I thought that about the OW), but truth be known, they really are not our enemies, Will. The issue we have as spouses is with our spouse, and not with the OP. The OP, many times, is a complete stranger, with whom we have no history nor any future. No good will come of a meeting or any type of contact. It sounds to me that this is your anger talking...anger, fear, uncertainty and insecurity.

Instead of imagining what Tracie might be doing, how about imagining what a great marriage with her would look like? How about imagining the steps you need to take to make yourself someone she wants to be with. Quite honestly, if I were in similar shoes and I was constantly exposed to questions, comments, discussion about my affair, I would not be crazy about spending time with my spouse. This kind of constant pressure on her is not a great way to build. I do understand your need to know. But please, can you just do it in the confines of a specific appointment time each day and not throughout the day?

Try? Please?

You know, during the first several months after I found out about the affair I was haunted by questions, images and what-ifs.

I don't know that it was particularly helpful but I do believe that reaction is rather typical.

Just want to validate those feelings Will.

My situation may have been different in that I was rather insane (and I say that with the utmost self-affection ). I was madly in love with him one minute and then terrified the next.

What a strange and bizarre ride that was.

I think it is excellent advice to put a time limit on the questions. I know some people have written them down. We got to a point where I would email them to him and then he could have some space to answer them. Sometimes I would type the questions, save them, then review the next day and eliminate the ones that were just rants, didn't make sense or didn't need to be asked anymore.

And something I think is very fun and important - save time to just enjoy each other, have fun, reconnect.

quote:

Originally posted by SharonSYMC:
You know, Will, I have read a lot of what you write and the main thing that comes thru to me is that you are focusing so much on Tracie's A that you have no energy or time left to work on you, let alone your marriage.

Loui suggested a time limit, a structured approach to asking the questions you have a need to ask. But to focus all your energy on the why's (when Tracie may well not know why), and trying to analyze and dig is really counter-productive, IMHO.

Have you really given Loui's suggestion a try?

Also...you really need to take your focus off the OM. I know it is very difficult and he probably seems like the enemy (I thought that about the OW), but truth be known, they really are not our enemies, Will. The issue we have as spouses is with our spouse, and not with the OP. The OP, many times, is a complete stranger, with whom we have no history nor any future. No good will come of a meeting or any type of contact. It sounds to me that this is your anger talking...anger, fear, uncertainty and insecurity.

Instead of imagining what Tracie might be doing, how about imagining what a great marriage with her would look like? How about imagining the steps you need to take to make yourself someone she wants to be with. Quite honestly, if I were in similar shoes and I was constantly exposed to questions, comments, discussion about my affair, I would not be crazy about spending time with my spouse. This kind of constant pressure on her is not a great way to build. I do understand your need to know. But please, can you just do it in the confines of a specific appointment time each day and not throughout the day?

Try? Please?

I don't want to talk about the affair all the time! Talking about the a problem or problems helps me to cope!

I need a great deal of reassureance right now,this week has been hard for me... I want to talk to Tracie about it but trying to stop talking about it. Last month this time my wife was with him. I was okay on Monday but yesterday and today has been so hard for me.I don't want her to feel that i am smothering her but thease past 2 days have really been hard!

I want our marriage to work. I am not putting the OM in my marriage, I am trying to kick him out !

Each day gets better I just need her to work with me day by day. Some day are better than others!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: will1899,

will,

You are welcome to join us for our Guy's Night Out conference call next Wednesday at about 9 pm ET. Let me know if you need more information.

HoFS

quote:

Originally posted by HoFS_SYMC:
will,

You are welcome to join us for our Guy's Night Out conference call next Wednesday at about 9 pm ET. Let me know if you need more information.

HoFS

Working next Wednesday night from 6P-6A!