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BH and I had another long-awaited MC session a few days ago. Because we had tried again the night before to talk through the sticking point we were having and that ended with me fleeing the bedroom and spending a sleepless night on the couch because I was SO triggered by the argument that ensued… I came to the session with a PowerPoint presentation. It was very important to me to be able to lay out my thoughts in an organized manner, and I thought some diagrams and illustrations would help. (I know, I know. That’s some next level crazy bish type behavior. I am a crazy bish.)

While BH admitted to me afterwards that he completely tuned me out while I was "presenting," it felt really good to have the therapist validate most of what I was saying. There is a distinct difference between thoughts/beliefs and feelings, and I was able to describe accurately that (and where their overlap comes in. Praise Venn diagrams!). BH was sharing beliefs about my feelings, not his own feelings. BH is formulating short-term-self-protective beliefs that puts distance between us, which isn’t conducive to reconciling. Recognizing that thought pattern and interrupting it is what one does in CBT. The MC told him that it may be very difficult right now, but that’s part of "choosing" to try to trust me again while we’re rebuilding the relationship, and she recommended he explore other methods of therapy (like CBT) with his IC. (They opted not to do this at his last IC session.)

Overall it seemed like BH was still completely resistant to hearing me out, but I think enough of the presentation seeped into his subconscious that he rephrased some of my points and posited them as if they were his idea. I was pleased with this, of course, and let him think that they were. Progress is progress. I’ll take it!

Sort of unfortunately but also fortunately at the same time… We are no longer seeing that MC because she had very limited availability and also always seemed to be walking on a treadmill during our sessions, which was very distracting. We are starting with a new one tomorrow, so hopefully that one seems a bit more… committed to the gig, I guess. It’s very important to me that BH feels comfortable and satisfied with our MC.

I had my first session with my new IC today, and she seems much better informed re: the effects of infidelity on one’s psyche. And while she still tried to make some excuses for me (maybe in an effort to make me feel better about what I did?) I think I can gently discourage her from doing that. I don’t really want to feel "better" about what I did; I think there’s some preventative element there with preserving at least some of the shame surrounding my infidelity… It has been more helpful to think that I am no longer the same person who could do such a thing as cheat on and lie to the love of my life. I am re-constructing myself as a new, more honest person who is working through her trauma— though it for sure hasn’t been easy so far, and this will be an extensive project.

I think that’s about all I can do for BH for now, and he has his own healing to do. As he (re)phrased it, he is "promising to be the person I need him to be, as long as I promise to be the person he needs me to be."

We saw the new MC yesterday. He was an older gentleman who was, at times, a little hard to understand… I wasn’t sure of him, but I said I’d give him a chance at least. BH said that’s the first time in counseling he felt understood, though he worried I would feel attacked. I didn’t.

The MC said this obviously is a pattern, where, maybe I feel abandoned by BH, like he’s pulling away from me, and that is the trigger that lets me put my guard down against infidelity. I had t thought of it that way before. I think that’s helpful… I’m pretty sure I could never, ever do this again, but extra awareness of the circumstances that make it more likely to happen sure couldn’t hurt.

I have read a number of your threads but haven't commented yet. 2x4 incoming, but it's not meant to personally attack you. It comes from hard-earned experience navigating the shitshow that I too created with my own horrible choices.

I'm a fWH (55). My BW (51) and I are now 6 years past D-Day and I am eternally grateful she has given me the undeserved gift of R. I have also been with my IC going on 7 years this November. You can read a bit about me on my profile and some of my recent posts.

Now that I've introduced myself to you...

A Power Point? You actually subjected your BH to a Power Point in MC? A Power Point (if I'm understanding what you wrote correctly) designed to tell him all the things he's just not getting about R???

My goodness. How he didn't walk out of there, I don't know. My BW would've strangled me with the projector cord before I had a chance to plug it in. While I'm sure it felt wonderful for your former MC to validate all your points, do you think your BH may have felt ganged up on? Attacked in a place that was supposed to be safe for both partners, which is why he shut down during your PP?

A few months after D-Day, my BW suggested we go to MC. She did the research and found one for us. I tried to discourage it on the advice of my IC, but she insisted we go and so we went.

We lasted 2 sessions. She told me, "I should've listened to you. Maybe we can try again at some point when you've unfucked your own head a bit more and I'm not so traumatized by your shit!"

I'm glad you started with an IC for yourself. My advice is to stick with it for a long while (both you and your BH) and drop MC for the foreseeable future.

It has been said here many times by very wise people that MC is an absolute mistake until both the WS and the BS have healed themselves. We didn't try MC again until January of 2023. Three-and-a-half years after D-Day before we were both ready to make it work.

I was extremely lucky to find a good IC from jump street, somebody who called me out on all my crap excuses and got me to start looking in the mirror and truly finding WHY I was capable of betraying the spouse I had sworn before God to love, protect, and cherish while forsaking all others.

Having no one to talk to isn't a why. It's an excuse. Being a conflict-avoidant people-pleaser is a why. Ask me how I know.

I'm glad to see you posting again. Please keep doing it because it helps a lot of other people besides yourself. I wish you and your BH all the best going forward.

A Power Point? You actually subjected your BH to a Power Point in MC? A Power Point (if I'm understanding what you wrote correctly) designed to tell him all the things he's just not getting about R???

Again, the PP was to help organize my thoughts and explain them in a way that was easy to understand… Much better than going in circles over and over.

He was constructing false narratives and beliefs about my feelings, and then getting upset over the thought of them and my reaction to that. If he wants to do that, that’s fine. He’s his own person. But it was confirmed by the MC that it’s not helping us if our end goal is reconciliation, so I’m not going to lie next to him, night after night, reiterating what my *actual* feelings are in a futile attempt to comfort him if he’s just not willing to try to believe me. There’s no point in it, and I don’t feel bad at all for not wanting to subject myself to it, especially when it literally triggers me so badly that I want to rope. I’m grateful for any chance at reconciliation… but that ain’t a chance at reconciliation. That’s a dead end.

Fortunately it seems we have moved past that, and have returned to more productive conversations. I’d make a thousand PPs if that’s what it takes to communicate clearly and keep us making progress.

do you think your BH may have felt ganged up on?

Probably. But sometimes in MC one spouse is going to have a valid point that the other may not want to accept. That’s what the neutral third party is supposed to be for: providing additional perspective where it’s needed. She certainly gave him lots of opportunities to chime in with his thoughts and feelings on the matter, which we were willing to consider equally as much as mine were considered. At some point one just has to be open-minded and mature enough to receive the counseling. We’re all on the same side here, trying to solve the same issues; it’s not 2v1 or 1v1v1.

It has been said here many times by very wise people that MC is an absolute mistake until both the WS and the BS have healed themselves.

MC has been helpful to us even while we work on ourselves in IC. We both felt that going three weeks between appointments was really challenging for us, and we’re looking forward to weekly sessions with the new MC going forward.

Having no one to talk to isn't a why. It's an excuse. Being a conflict-avoidant people-pleaser is a why.

I am not making "excuses." I am reporting and examining the facts and circumstances that

contributed

to my choice to commit infidelity. It is quite literally the truth that I have zero adults to talk to outside of my husband, and that is a problem I need to solve because a) he should not be the one solely responsible for meeting ALL of my social needs, and b) having other people to talk to is the only way I’m going to uncross my wires and disconnect platonic conversations from intimacy. I am neither conflict avoidant nor a people pleaser, and I did try many times, before and during the affair, to communicate to my husband that I needed him to talk with me more… In the future, I will simply be more direct and persistent with that communication (More PowerPoints even, if necessary!). The new MC has suggested to BH that he might need to listen more closely as well, and that we should have nightly check-ins with each other when possible.

Before I fully came clean about my infidelity, I lied a lot. To my BS and to me. I hid behind my justifications and my self belief. For years IC and MC did not work because I was still not being honest with anyone. I resented being questioned and incredibly I hated being called a liar. It was only when I worked with a half decent IC and found some great friends from here and from another forum did I begin to make changes to help me. For me at least, MC did not work. Especially when our first MC promoted my thoughts and feelings above BS and even at times defended my behaviour. That is another story though.

One thing I have learnt is not only to accept BS truth but to believe it. No matter how far off the mark she was when we were talking, that was her reality. I had to learn to accept that reality and not fight against it. I held onto things that really did not matter so that I was right and to prove she was wrong. I had to accept that with feelings, with thoughts (intrusive or otherwise) and with expressing these, it was not a case of being right or wrong. In both my time line and my self reflection I spent so long looking for truths that met my needs and my feelings. I failed to see what my BS needed, I did not listen to her concerns and ignored her feelings. There were of course times when I knew she was right about a feeling and I helped with this as much as I could. But this was rare, I spent more time hearing a worry, hearing a thought or a concern and then working on disproving them. Finding evidence to show that a worry was wrong. Even telling her she was being irrational. This of course upset her. I would then get angry.

I'm sure every wayward has been told that we put more effort into our affair than we did our relationship. Hey, it's true. Even with all the effort I have made into self reflection, recovery, empathy, honesty etc etc after the affairs I am still not doing enough to show BS that I did not put more effort into the other women. This used to enrage me. I've worked so had on me and making myself a better person. However, I still put other before us. Nothing will ever take that away. Telling my BS how many hours of work I've put in or hours with an IC will not take away from the fact that I put effort into other women ahead of my BS. I had/have to accept that is a reality.

These differences in beliefs and thoughts cannot be argued over. I could pull a spreadsheet together to detail hours spend on self improvement over self destruction or show bank statements on how much I've spent on IC over the last few years. What will this prove? It would probably prove I'm still being defensive and trying to be the one who is right. it's not right v wrong. It's about trying to understand the other, living in my BS reality. Even if (and it does) every fibre of my being is saying you're wrong, I need to focus my empathy towards her and seeing her reality as my reality. Being "right" does not matter, it can't matter. Not because I'm placating or giving up or "having an easy life" or anything like that. It just does not matter any more. What I now need to do is express this to BS, let her know I am living in her world. For one big reason. Her world is my world. If we differ in opinion or thought it is not important. In our world we need to live as one and, in time, we will work on understanding out own truths and aligning them. Until that happens her reality is my reality and any worries or thoughts she has are a shared worry.

I may have made this discovery too late, I may have damaged things too much. I need to remember this every day and be present every day.

If putting thoughts on a PP works for you, continue doing it. If it helps you. I journal a lot, I flow thoughts through my journal. I would not share my journal with BS though. Too many thoughts in there are spur of the moment raw emotion that need to be reflected on before discussion. I can understand why BS did not react well to a PP presentation. However for self reflection and maybe IC work, it might work...for you.

Please keep posting

So… there is general reality: actuality, what is objectively true, that which cannot be dispelled by data or logic, etc…

And there is the way that each of us perceives reality, which varies from individual.

If the topic of discussion is my thoughts and feelings, there is no objective way to prove statements about them to be true or false; however, I am going to be the subject matter expert, just as anybody else is the SME of their own internal goings-on. Person A can believe or disbelieve what Person B says when their thoughts/feelings are.. but quite simply, Person B is the one with access to the most first-hand data; therefore, Person B is the most informed authority on the matter. Person A is not.

Let me do an example with numbers. Let the number 10 represent the objective reality about my thoughts/feelings. Perhaps I perceive the reality to be a 9 or an 11, but I’m still going to be more accurate about them than anyone else, because no one else is directly observing my inner world… If I explain to my husband that my thoughts/feelings are a 9 or an 11, and he says to me, "I don’t believe you. It seems more like you feel/think a -9 or a -11," Then that’s simply an inaccurate perception of reality. (The opposite of reality, to be precise.) Or, maybe he says that he believes my thoughts/feelings are a 3. Either way, that’s still much further from the truth of the matter of what I think/how I feel than what I’m telling him it is.

And yes, I understand in the wake of lying, infidelity, and betrayal, it’s not unusual for a BS to disbelieve their WS. I don’t think it’s unreasonable for him to be worried that I might be saying a thought/feeling is a 9/11 when it might really be a 3 if a 9/11 makes me look better and less likely to be divorced by him… BUT the fact of the matter is, we’re attempting to recover and reconcile, and I have promised to be honest and transparent, and he has essentially promised to at least try to believe me. There is no chance to rebuild trust without… some amount of trusting.

It’s also difficult when the things he does believe about the way I think/feel make for a MUCH more difficult starting point for recovery, rather than if he just believed me when I’m telling him the truth of my thoughts and feeling.

That’s all a little bit different from things that are happening outside of individuals minds, which two people are observing and percievint first-hand. Those things, you definitely are supposed to hear each other out on.

ETA: Since the last time we discussed this issue with each other (maybe a week or two ago?) he has pivoted to saying "I'm finding that hard to accept" rather than saying "I don't believe you" or telling me what he thinks I think/feel instead. We are exploring deeper reason why he has a hard time believing certain things, beyond just "You lied before."

[This message edited by DayByDay96 at 12:49 AM, Monday, October 6th]

I hesitate to respond on this because I do not want to be antagonistic, but without sandpaper things can never get smooth you know?

I feel that your need to convince him, to litigate, to make sure you are being understood is generally going to be unproductive to his recovery.

This time should be spent moreso in complete reverse of what it is you are doing. You build trust by demonstrating change, self reflection, and not trying to get straight to the reconciliation.

This time is about recovery, until some level of recovery happens, a focus on reconciliation can feel to a devastated BS like having all their thoughts and feelings being completely run over.

You are taking an approach that I took, and it was very detrimental in our journey. There needs to be more of a feeling of individual soul searching. As I got deeper in my recovery what I found out was the reason that my husband had so many issues accepting what I am telling him is because when I really did the introspective work and started to change I found some of my explanations and declarations to actually be bullshit.

It takes a while to really see yourself in these things, and I don’t think I will convince you with this, because I don’t think I could see it at this stage either, but your posts describe steamrolling and convincing and it takes all their air and space he needs just to recover and feel his feelings. Those feelings are threatening to you in some ways, but in reality feeling them, lingering in them, that’s how they process away. Not a PowerPoint on why you believe he should believe you because you are done lying now.

And honestly, yes I do believe one can draw a line in the sand and say I am going to be honest and serve that commitment. I certainly did that too, but give yourself some room to really reflect and find the roots of who you are so you dig out what isn’t serving you.

Reconciliation starts with realizing you don’t have all the answers, nor does he, and forming a different environment for a time in which what you do want him to believe or feel is not so much in the forefront, and instead fostering a " let’s be sad about this together." I am broken, you are broken, let’s support each other until we can get back up off the floor. Once you do that, then you can make a much better progress towards healing a relationship. Two unhealed people can’t do that. Once the individual healing has happened, you will be surprised how much easier creating a new relationship that both of you can be excited about.

I wanted to get an A in reconciliation straight out of the gate, and it overran a process that needed to be much slower for him. We almost divorced before I could see it. Take a humble approach of okay, I am obviously needing to grow here, growth doesn’t happen overnight, and I need to really slow down here and start examine and being mindful of myself and behaviors.

I am not saying any of this to criticize you. I only contribute to this site to try and help people get where they want or need to go.

Eventually I could see I couldn’t stand the uncertainty of the situation. I just wanted it fixed. It just doesn’t work like that. I think his language about having trouble accepting it, that’s good if it’s helping you not feel defensive and letting him explain the thoughts and feelings about it. But when it comes to him, he needs room to go on these tangents and see that you are willing to be solid as he storms. It’s part of building the trust back, moreso than trying to convince him to believe you.

I hope you will really try and take that in and get curious about it. I found out much later that my own fears of abandonment were really impeding the progress. What works much better is letting go of the outcome and truly embracing that change takes time, backing that with a commitment to making this who mess be a an opportunity to learn and grow.

Your PowerPoint is highly demonstrative of how you are trying litigate logically something that is at this point viscerally emotional. His head may be able to follow you but his heart is needing to grieve and be held gently. There was a ws who used to be here that I learned so much from and she would tell you to proceed with courage and valor in all her sign offs. I hope you will.

For me, it was not a simple matter of knowing myself. I really didn't. 5 years ago I knew I was a 9 or 11 ( I was not). 3 years ago I knew I was a 9 or 11, I was not. 1 year ago I knew I was a 9 or 11, I was not. I knew what my thoughts and feelings were and I chose to ignore some of them or with a low emotional intelligence, misinterpret or fail to understand others. I've no doubt what so ever that others knew me better than I knew myself. I was not open to this and needed to come to the realisation that true self evaluation is difficult. Coming to this conclusion was aided by believing my BSs reality.

The point I was trying to make is that I was wrong to fight my BSs reality. Firstly because my reality was so wrong, secondly because it would put my BS on the defensive, thirdly because by fighting it shows a wayward mentality and most importantly by not fighting it and living it with BS I was showing empathy and compassion. In trying to see her side of things it helped me see my thoughts and feelings in a new light. Things became clearer.

I was not in a place where I could (or wanted to) see or understand my thoughts and feelings, even if I knew I was.

By experiencing and learning about myself I realise more and more how wrong I was to see myself as a 9 or 11. I'm still short of that marker sat here today. I need to continue to learn and also make my actions reflect my words.

Taking this approach (with others) is helping me. It may not work for you. There are things I've read on here that would not or did not work for me. Unfortunately there is no easy road to self evaluation and improvement.

You have stated that you understand you BH doubting you. Use that...Him doubting your feelings is in my opinion the same as him doubting your integrity and honesty. WS and BS I've communicated with over the years tell me that they (the BS) live in constant doubt about everything. Fighting against that, even legitimately, can cause harm.

No right or wrong, no me v you, no I know better than you know is/was one of the hardest things I have to keep remembering.

If my BS were to create a PP then the Venn diagram would be one circle. That circle "You fucked other women" no overlapping, just one big red circle. She had the "truth" that I would be faithful, I was not. I shattered her and her beliefs in me and in the world in general. I broke her and her faith in everything including herself. Her world is destroyed. That is the reality of my actions. That is the reality of wayward actions. Only in reminding myself of this every days do I stand a chance of R. EVERY DAY. I turned my BS into a liar because she has not told the world about me and my actions. Every day she lies by facing the world living with the truth of my choices. There is only one truth, one reality, I destroyed a beautiful and amazing person. That's why I need to live in her reality. Her reality is a fucked up world of my creating.

Hikingout,

I have been doing a lot of internal work. I’m getting deeper into the real reasons why. There has been IC, MC, group therapy sessions and classes attended, research and journaling done, healthier coping mechanisms employed, conscious behavioral changes made… I’m sharing the entire process with BH. I do my best to comfort him and sit with him in all his grief and pain over what I did. I am doing my best to help him work through his own negative beliefs about himself that are also hurting him from within, including feelings of inadequacy and of being unloveable, which we have in common…

However, I still don’t think I can comfort him if he’s grieving about an imaginary wife who’s only with him for financial reasons and secretly wants to be somewhere else, with someone else, who had an affair because she doesn’t actually love or respect him. I am not that person, and that’s not the truth of the matter. That’s nowhere close to the reason why I strayed or how I felt then or now. I am not at the point in my own journey of healing from my childhood trauma where I can handle someone telling me to my face that they believe untrue things about me, which make me look like a person with horrible, shallow motives and ill intentions (how could he love a person like that?) I know the extent of the immoral actions I have taken, and I accept full responsibility for them, but I’m not willing to accept falsely attributed malevolency. I’m not at the point where I can engage in that kind of conversation and not employ every bit of logical reasoning I can summon, however inappropriate for the situation, as a means of defense… it kills me to see him in pain, but it’s so much worse to see him in additional, unnecessary pain from false beliefs about me. It’s an extra knife to the heart.

There’s still a broken inner child in me who so desperately needs to be understood, to not be made to feel crazy or bad or be told that I’m lying, to not be pressured into admitting to something I didn’t do and then being punished for it regardless, to not have conversations derailed by endless loops, interruptions, backtracking and meta explanations, as her parent did to her back then. It hurts too much for me to be able to have these conversations without it devolving into tears, shouting, physically running away, etc. It’s not productive in the least; it’s probably just more damaging. I am doing what I have to in order to avoid all of that for the time being while I work through my own trauma. I have asked BH for patience with me in the meantime.

I understand what you are saying. I understand that rarely is cheating about what the bs is or isn’t, nor does it mean we never loved them in the first place.

I would just encourage you to keep showing rather than trying to convince. I do not think I have ever seen that be effective. It seems to me that a lot of men I have encountered on this site often default to believe they are and always have been the wallet rather that the desire or true love. And for a long time I would share with them, the reasons for the cheating are deeper than that. But people feel how they feel, it just takes some time to repair that.

Keep doing the digging and work. You can only control your side of the street. Though I deeply identify with the feelings of needing to be understood. It can and often does happen, but not through logic. It just takes some time to heal. I am not saying don’t express these things, but don’t litigate them either. When a bs experiences infidelity, there is this other part of them that takes over, it’s not logical. Just like when we cheat there is no logic, you are being led more by primitive, unexamined issues and feelings. We provoke chaos in the bs that also has to be sorted through. And for some period of time the bs triggers us with out need soft validation, to be sen and understood, to not be the villain in their mind or painted in a way we do not like. And for them, they do not feel any security eithe, they are digging through history for what they have missed, they are plucking out things that they decide proves they should not have ever trusted, and they in many ways have parts of them that are protecting them from the perceived threat.

Becoming vulnerable enough to believe they are loved will simply not happen within a matter of months. All you can do is show humility, contrition, and rather than litigate how they feel, listen to them. Ask questions without judgment or without the intention to set the story straight in those moments. Save that for your share backs of what you are learning in separate discussions. Instead the response is truly sitting there and identifying with where they are and apologizing. " I am so sorry ai have put you in that position…made you feel that way" "thank you for giving me a chance to show you that I can change and make amends, I will work hard to grow from this"

Don’t try and fix, be there just for him to let it out. To answer questions. Understand his response is natural and would be his response likely in any infidelity situation. A lot of it is self protection.

However, if you can stay with him through that and not make his feelings feel like a problem for not understanding you, safety can and will be rebuilt. I think you are trying I am just trying to give you some ideas on how to help him heal better. He needs to feel emotionally safe as he is trying to process all these conflicting feelings. Allowing that to be and focusing on loving him and what he needs while putting away your immediate need to correct him, this will show him rather than tell him of your love.