Grieving

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-17-2009
Grieving
12
Thu, 11-19-2009 - 9:03am

I am just wondering how many of you feel that you need to grieve and morn the loss of xap before you can seem to move on with your marriage?


I am having real trouble feeling anything towards my husband because I am still upset over ending my affair.


It is now day 20 NC and still thinking about xap all the time. I hate it! I want these stupid thoughts to go away.


Thanks for listening again.

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iVillage Member
Registered: 11-09-2009
Thu, 11-19-2009 - 10:42am

I'm on day 10 NC, and yes, I have felt the same way. I even posted on here somewhere about how I was going to HAVE to take some time to get over A before I could even begin to tackle my M.


I did talk to H about what has been going on with me (bedsides the A...what we discussed was more what I see led me to get in the A in the first place), and I cried and told him I wanted to "check back into" the M. He feels everything is fine from his angle. We stayed up late that night talking....he brought home a dozen roses the next day when he got home from work. Yeah...that made me feel like the BIGGEST piece of SH**.


I've read a LOT here, journaled, gone for long runs/walks and tried to keep BUSY. My A was short, but I'm starting to see a light at the end of the grief tunnel. I keep reminding myself I was in love with someone who really doesn't exist :) I fell in love w/ his good qualities, but in the end I have the BAD ones staring me in the face.


Hang in there and plow through. In time....

iVillage Member
Registered: 09-25-2006
Thu, 11-19-2009 - 10:53am

It is the "fog".

Onward and upward.
iVillage Member
Registered: 08-18-2008
Thu, 11-19-2009 - 11:21am

Hi ASMM,


I read your other post and I’d like to also extend a welcome to EAS.


I think that grieving is normal when we lose someone we believed we had a connection with.


I believe what makes grieving the death of the A and loss of xAP so difficult is because there is never really any closure.

Whether you think you can or you think you can't you are probably right. A parrot can repeat what it has learned but the mark of true intelligence is applying what is learned.

iVillage Member
Registered: 02-28-2009
Thu, 11-19-2009 - 5:18pm

Always,


I think it is important to grieve or mourn for the loss of any relationship. I know I have grieved and still do but it is more the

 

iVillage Member
Registered: 04-20-2009
Thu, 11-19-2009 - 7:06pm

I would like to suggest that the board rename you O-E1 Kenobi!

You just wrote the most perfect and eloquent, insightful and helpful response to a question that I'd not even asked yet. How the heck do you _do _ that!?

May the force be with you.

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-18-2008
Thu, 11-19-2009 - 8:51pm

Ahhh shucks…thanks Dee,


You’re being very kind. I’ve read many of your posts and you are far more eloquent and articulate than me.


I owe a lot to a very wise/insightful/patient/inspirational/encouraging/empowering T.

Whether you think you can or you think you can't you are probably right. A parrot can repeat what it has learned but the mark of true intelligence is applying what is learned.

iVillage Member
Registered: 07-27-2009
Thu, 11-19-2009 - 10:31pm

This is really to all.

My affair ended over 18 months ago. I had a D day after the actual end. The details of either don't really matter. It is different for all of us, yet the same.

When it first ended, I was overcome with grief. I cried all the time, felt like my heart had been ripped out. The AP tried to contact me to make himself feel better, as he had been the one to end it. I finally told him to stop.

After that, my husband figured it out and there was a very long, intense period of grief coupled with the terror of knowing I had done something so awfully destructive to my marriage. We barely spoke civilly for months. Just when things seemed OK, it would all come up for him and the blame, recriminations, accusations would start all over. No blaming him for that, I was the one who betrayed and lied.

To this day, I question what that person had that I wanted. I think that it was never him, it was what he represented. I never really knew him, he just knew the right words to get what he needed. Did I like him? Was he fun? Of course he was. He didn't have to live with me every day either!

Which brings me to crux of it. When you are in an affair, you aren't in love. All you are doing is using someone to get something, the same way they are using you. Once you get past that fog thing, you hopefully get that. The idea that I was capable of using someone was startling for me. But that is what I did. Maybe you should think on that, instead of excusing your demands and needs on "love".

Anyway, it gets better. An affair is a dead end, it is the biggest black hole anyone can go in.

Every day you are away from it, the better your life will be.

iVillage Member
Registered: 11-17-2009
Fri, 11-20-2009 - 9:03am

Hi Kristin,


Thank you for your post and your helpful words, also, congrats on 8 weeks NC!!!! I am now at day 21 - the longest I have ever gone without any contact with xap. It is comforting to know that I am not alone in the way I have been feeling and that there are many others out there going through the same. I am so greatful to have found this website as it has helped me to see that my affair was NO different to all the other ones out there, even though I truly thought mine was special - HA!


I find it interesting to think that the grieving could possibly be for the loss of my marriage and not the loss of AP. I had just posted yesterday on my facebook how much I was missing me and if anybody knew where I went, to let me know. So is that true - we are only grieving the loss of who we were before and not who we were involved with and had become?


B

iVillage Member
Registered: 10-21-2006
Fri, 11-20-2009 - 9:25am

Excellent post and one for the Healing Library. It's been a long time since someone other than a vet has stepped up and wrote what you did, which is

Iddy

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iVillage Member
Registered: 07-27-2009
Fri, 11-20-2009 - 11:16am

Hi Iddy-

Love your quote from Jung. Very very true!

I remember how it felt to be dumped just as much as I remember the day I realized how I truly acted. I feel for the new ones here, the pain is very real even though it comes from a trumped up version of reality.

I very much believe that we don't mourn the relationship loss as much as the loss of that dream that there is some "perfect" person out there. An easy thing to turn to when your real relationship isn't going well. I find it curious that the men in these affairs don't seem to have any of the angst that the women do. I now believe that they don't have the emotional investment , that they know full well that the relationship is something that is just a pain killer. No matter what they say. I know for a fact that some of them are very happy with their wives, and just want some variety in their sex lives. Many have multiple affairs when the mood strikes. When I think of the importance I assigned myself in this persons life, it makes me ill. It took accepting that I was really meaningless to him for me to move on in my mind. That was when I realized that I had used him as well, to make myself feel better, and I was angry that he took my "drug" away.

It's a road that each of us has to travel when the affair is over. It is hopefully a road that takes you to a place where you accept your own role in things, and find lasting change and peace inside. It has for me, and I can only hope that my marriage recovers from what I so foolishly did.

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