Tough Love
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Tough Love
| Sat, 09-04-2010 - 11:00am |
There have been several posts made in reference to how you would still be in your affairs if it hadn't ended the way it did. We all understand that feelings do not diminish just because a relationship is over, but this was AN AFFAIR people. They are selfish and destructive, and no matter how pretty you wrap these

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Hello my friends,
I haven't posted in a while, but I do still come and read on a regular basis.
This is an interesting post to me because although I understand "tough love" and I have taken my fair share of it in the past, I have a hard time dishing it out. That's why a lot of times I don't post replies because I don't want to come across as "too understanding".
When the newbies come in and say that they'd still be in the A if "x" hadn't happened... I can understand that. Right or wrong, that's actually how my own A ended. Well, it was a combination of X, Y, and Z in my case.
My head knew that it was over, but my heart continued to fight as it was breaking in to a million pieces. It was a long, painful battle that lasted for weeks. The fog was THICK. Thankfully, I had the wise and wonderful women on this board to hold my hand and lead me through it. They reminded me that I was not alone. They were all going through it or had already gone through it. They helped me realize that I would get through the fog.
My words of wisdom to those who are still hurting? I know. I know the pain. I know the back and forth. I know that battle between the head and the heart. It sucks. There is only one way out. Trust me. If there was any other way beside NC, I would tell you. But there's not. We are not teenagers. We have bad broken hearts before in the past. We got over them. Life goes on, even when we feel we won't survive.
Posting here (for me anyway) was a place to tell somebody, anybody what I was going through. When I had no one else to talk to, no one who could listen and just "feel me". I needed a shoulder. I needed hugs. Did I need tough love? Probably not. But those who gave it to me were simply doing what they could, giving me what they had to offer, in hopes it would get me one day further in my journey. And I am so grateful for every bit of support I got.
Thank you my friends for helping me to get where I am today. 20 weeks NC. It's nice to be out of the fog. Sure, there are times I think about xAP ... he was a part of my life for four years! But I'm able to handle it a lot better now than I ever thought I could, thanks to you Iddy, TU, Jane, E1, Clarity, and everyone else on here who helped me to see that I was living in fantasy world... and helped me get back to real life.
Love and Hugs,
Angel
--------Tough Love-------
I say keep it coming. If it had not been for Messenger, Clarity, ShouldKnownBetter and all the others dishing it out to me, who knows where I would be today. Probably still in the A game and struggling with how to get out, all the while praying there wasn't a D-day.
To the poster who made the comment about how we can take all the pain and suffering from AP's and go back from more, yet we can't take it here on EAS, spot on !! Recognizing the tough love as something good for us, well, it might take a few knocks to the head to get the point home! But I think many times the posters do in a small way get it, they just don't acknowledge it yet. But at least they are here. To all the Vets and others that post, a huge thank you. You may never know who you help, tough or kind love, just keep it coming. Thanks all.
I want to thank you all for chiming in with your opinions re. Tough Love but ironically, I wrote it as a request, not as a discussion. IMO, Tough Love *IS* needed on this board and I plan on dishing it out when it is necessary. Of course this is a support board, but one that calls for some guidelines too. This is not a place to romanticize your affair or talk about how you'd still be in it if things hadn't gone south. Like I said, it's okay to feel those things in the beginning (which is understandable), but it's best for enders who are further along not to have to read this stuff, KWIM?
To those of you (Luvin, E1, and a few others) who have stepped back from posting as much because your Tough Love posts were considered harsh, (I was even scolded for that once), all I have to say is, "Keep them coming." If a poster has trouble reading the truth, then they can take a back seat and just read here until the fog clears some more. Let me also say that this board is nothing like the way is used to be when I first got here. Tough Love was the flavor of the day, and every one got a good dose of it from the CL and the Vets. They slapped the truth into me, and with each knock upside the head, my vision became clearer and my lying junkie mind started thinking straight again.
All newbies need to understand that affairs distort reality and the longer you are in one, the more distorted one's thinking becomes. You are buying into (and dishing out) lies and manipulations that any outsider could identify in a second. You become a different person because this is the only way you can live with what you are doing. You are inadvertently destroying your inner core without knowing it. I have to agree with TU in that an affair can cause similar psychological damage associated with what is known as the Stockholm Syndrome. Here is a definition:
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The only difference is that we are not hostages/victims because we volunteered for this mental/emotional abuse. Allowing someone to control our thoughts and actions to the point of adulation is what produces the wall of fog we speak of. While in this fog we were adjusting our thinking to fit the crime we willingly chose to participate in. We became thieves in the night, stealing love and affection at the expense of hurting innocent people. There was an excellent thread a few years ago about affairs being abusive relationships, and I would resurrect it in a heartbeat if I had the time to search for it.
Anyway, I think you all get my point. The bottom line is that "Tough Love" from those who have BTDT, who were able to crawl out of the gutter and now walk in the daylight with their heads held high, is for your own benefit whether you are ready to hear it or not. We are trying to help save you from yourself, so take it or leave it. I guarantee you will come back for more because in time it will start making sense to you. As your twisted thinking begins straightening out (and NC will do this for you), you'll regain parts of yourself that were lost in the darkness of your affair. This is why the aftermath is such a critical period in your healing and cannot be taken lightly. You will go through periods of loathing yourself, of feeling intense discomfort, of having moments of rage, etc. They are all part of the healing process, and there is no escape from it's vengeance. Like slaying a dragon you will be fighting for your life, but the good news is you'll be triumphant as long as you carry the tools/weapons that you will gather from listening and learning from those who have come before you.
Hugs to all,
~Iddy~
Iddy -
<<<>>>
I think Tough Love deserves it's own abbreviation in our list - TL :)
I've spent the morning reading a lot of old posts since the board is quiet right now (as is my house since the kids are still sleeping!) I have to say again, that I don't know where I would be without all of you right now. We all know that ending an A is like ending any addiction or bad habit. You have to have the resolve to do it. I don't know how open I would have been to "TL" a few years ago. It took me a long time to get to the point where I was ready to end it.
Iddy, you said there was a thread on affairs being abusive relationships. That is so right. And I know in my experience that I did feel like a hostage. I felt I didn't have choices. Through my own doing, I let myself be controlled. I am still dealing with the control I feel XAP has on my life.
I'm still a newbie, but for those of you just starting on your journey, listen and be open to what the wise people here tell you.
Bodhi
I actually dislike the term 'tough love'; I think it sounds pejorative, when it's not. i prefer to think of what most describe as tough love as a Dose of Reality. I've read this board daily for 10 months and I've seen my share of posters get miffed when the mirror as been held up for them. "some people change when the see the light, some just feel the heat." read that little nugget on facebook today.
When I came here, I was in such pain all I wanted was some clue how to get out of it. Sure, I wanted to be hugged and comforted, but I sure as heck didn't want to have my f'd up perspective mirrored back to me - I KNEW that I needed to turn it over to someone more experienced and grounded if I ever was to get fixed. I knew I was broken and I wasn't just here to get over a boyfriend; I was here to get over mySELF. I think the guidelines set by Iddy are solid; mollycoddling enders perpetuates their pain and there is a balance between sympathy and encouraging a correct perspective -- also, coming to the board to wallow excessively is NOT good for the poster OR the reader. Telling a wallower to stop it is encouraging them to do what is best for them; it's not just about the peace of the other enders. "But I _hurt_, it hurts!" needs to be put on the back-burner of priorities and on the fore should be, "tell me what I'm doing wrong so that I can stop this self-inflicted pain."
I read on another board the other day a woman wrote, "I am not going to EAS with this because they were mean to me." I read the responses she got on that other board, and thought about HER frame of mind, and I literally cried. I cried like I would cry seeing a cancer patient turning down treatment in favor of continuing to smoke. ykwim? Oph! now I'm all verklempt again! It's just so sad that we can't save everybody... but, we CAN save many.
Dee
Dee,
Thank you for this post. I became emotional reading it. You are able to make your point so accessible. I love your point about tough love, as I was literally thinking about it this morning. It reminded me of a comment a judge made recently on So you think you can dance? One of the woman auditioning said that she was doing "emotional hip hop" and the judge called her out on this, saying basically, there is no such separate hip hop genre - hip hop by its very nature IS emotional.
So the point being - is that Love and support have many different presentations. Sometimes love comes in the form of a reality check.
Sometimes, it is just a nod of the head in agreement, and a "Now get up and get going again!".
Love
"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it."
— Maya Angelou
Hi folks :)
Just dropping by today to find this thread.
hey guys,
i am really glad there is a post about this. i've been so busy these past few days but i wanted to share my thoughts. to echo clarity's post, first thing i thought when i read this was, "oh no, is that me?" but not because i'm worried im the meany, i'm more worried i'm the whiny newbie who cant hack tough love. i remember once iddy posted something that got me so pissed that i posted a retaliation. iddy, if i'm the "once" poster you're referring to, i'm really sorry, i dont mean to seem ungrateful for your advice!
i think that when people first come to EAS, we are in a VERY vulnerable state and we just want to be held and told that it is okay. now that can be done in a way that also gently encourages change and growth. As an end-er, i didn't need convincing that A's are bad, or that A-love is not "real love" or that being in an A involves living a lie. I needed convincing that no contact was the only way; i kept thinking there must be some way to maintain something. i now realize thats untrue; 95% of the time i've talked to AP since my first attempt at ending were unpleasant and a waste of my time.
Part of what makes me sting when I get "tough love" is simply a matter of personality. i am rebellious and anti-authoritative and bordering on narcisstic. i dont like the idea that there is "the truth" about affairs and one "right" way to do things. i feel like i have a lot of insight, but i felt like i had trouble fitting in on the board at first because i didn't immediately embrace the EAS philosophies.
i dont know if others' here are like me; what i see a lot of amongst the newbies is just that they are all so wounded and they honestly cant handle what a lot of people have to say. at that point, you need empathy and validation, but you also need to be re-directed. "Yes, we get it. yes, we've been there. yes, its a process. now, how can we get you looking at things differently". i try to structure my posts that way, but i also dont have months of NC under my belt to give me any kind of authority to speak about it.
i think us newbies who get sensitive certainly dont mean to seem ungrateful or resistant to your suggestions or feedback. some of us, like me, just have attitude problems ;) but eventually come around, and some of us are just so broken and damaged that they cannot cope with anything. but the human spirit is surprisingly enduring, and we can crawl out of any hole we dig ourselves in to with some time and effort. EAS is an excellent guide and community, and i've been raelly grateful to it and all of you.
so, thanks, and i apologize on behalf of myself and other newbies if we balk at your tough love. we're trying in our own ways!
EXi,
We share similar locations. I am finishing my PhD, and my research is located within alternative paradigms that embrace tentative and situated ways of knowing. I too fought the 'absoluteness' of NC, being a relativist who recognizes the social construction of all that is said to be "true". I also buck tradition and authority - from birthing at home, to homeschooling.
But what I did learn, also like you, is that NC and strong doses of reality saved me the needless heartache and endless frustration of engaging with a man who couldn't even remotely comprehend that our affair had come to an end, and that I was moving on. Engaging with him in any way, shape or form after our affair was considered by him as an invitation to behave as though we were still "involved". NC allowed me to clear the fog, protect myself and stop the self-destructive path I was on.
TU.
LC/NC since April 14, 2010
"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it."
— Maya Angelou
"I can be changed by what happens to me. But I refuse to be reduced by it."
— Maya Angelou
Thanks for this post Iddy. You are dead on. When I lurked on this board over a year ago trying to end my A, I would ignore the posts that coddled the new posters. I had made excuses for my fogged out/bad behavior for too long and I needed someone to tell me how crazy I was acting. I never posted because I was so withdrawn and stuck in my own misery, but I only read posts which showed tough love. WithClarity's and E1's posts were my favorite. They told you the truth. We can stay in these messed up relationships so long because we make ourselves believe what "normal" ppl would look at and say WTH is she thinking. I remember once when I did something so humilating with my XAP that I wouldn't even write it on this board but made of a crazy excuse for why I had did it. I now look at that thing and I thank God that I am out of that mess and pray to God that I will never do anything like that again. I read some of the new fogged out members on EAS who write about how they miss their XAP and he was their soul mate, blah, blah and I say a silent prayer for them. There is a post on this board now where one person wrote that XAP made her stop believing in trust. To guage trust on something as deceitful as an A just doesn't make sense but in their fog they can't see that.
We are some very smart women. I have my PhD. It goes to show you even smart ppl make dumb decisions.
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