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I hear you Inkhulk, but I do not think this is the same sort of situation. I was here when they were and talked to flawed quite a bit. I agree with cantbeme that she reached remorse and empathy. Honestly most ws at first practice new skills awkwardly so it was hard to understand for a while if that’s what your wife was doing. Eventually, it became clear she was weaponizing rather than practicing and I don’t think that’s happening here.

Clearly I don’t have the history on this one. All I can say is that his description I quoted is one of those that it feels like someone is looking in your window and seeing your life. Regardless of the timeframe, I find it disturbing that someone would become defensive and combative over the pain they caused being expressed. And trying to cover it with a sort of legitimization of calling it "being authentic"…

One of the more counterintuitive pieces of Gottman advice is that unresolvable issues should be discussed, even if they can’t be resolved. I think many would think that it would be better to just grin and bear it after it becomes clear that you are at a deadlock, but their research says that the ability to express yourself is more important. This is just an example of that principle. Sure it’s unresolvable. There is no fix, no "unfucking". But the freedom to express needs to be there for the relationship to be healthy.

InkHulk - She is defensive, but not combative. I do agree with your statement of "It turns empathy into a form of self-abandonment for someone who thinks this way. It’s wildly self-centered. Probably the result of a lot of therapy."

I think I created a thread once upon a time asking "is there such thing as too much therapy?" because I felt at the time that my wife was over-therapied and had turned into this "therapy bot" in our conversations, like I might as well have been talking to an AI trained on therapy buzzwords and phrases. She still talks like this in these moments were I vent my pain, and it really pushes me away.

We have a huge disconnect in the way that we respond in highly emotional moments - she shuts down, freezes, speaks in a "rehearsed" kind of way or not at all, whereas what I want is to lean in to the emotions, be raw, be honest, talk a lot. I also think and speak quickly and when she is feeling emotional, she does not process quickly and I get frustrated.

Every conversation we have now is calm, I don't yell anymore or call her names or anything like that, but she still has the same "freeze" kind of reaction, no matter how calm I am. It's like it's hard coded in her DNA and it makes R very difficult as a result.

HikingOut - It's good (well actually awful, but you know what I mean) to hear from you. I think you helped my wife quite a bit back in those days. I appreciate your perspective and I agree with much of what you wrote. I feel stuck in a cycle that goes something like this, for years now:

1. Enjoy life, feel loved, be happy
2. Get triggered, get upset, feel alone and/or disappointed in my wife's response to my discussing it
3. Ruminate on the injustice of it all, fantasize about an alternate life where I found out what she did immediately and left, feel certain I will never really forgive her for what she did
4. Emotions subside after a few days, and I think about how much I like my life as it is, and how I really don't want to be divorced
5. Enjoy life, feel loved, be happy...

The issue is that Steps 2-4 consistently still come up at least a few times per year.

It's like this epic struggle between my heart and my head. My head says "Leave, it's the natural consequence of cheating, you can be happy with someone else or even alone, and even if you aren't as happy it is worth to do the right thing, your conscience will thank you for it."

Then my heart says "But you still love her, and you have built a great life together, and you love family trips and family moments and family everything, it would be insane to ruin that over what she did 15+ years ago."

And I never know which side is right, or actually the problem is they are both right and I feel so stuck and confused and unsure of what to do, and I am not someone who is used to feeling unsure of themselves. I enjoy and excel at thinking through problems, but no amount of thinking can solve this problem.

I do know that I would be better off picking a path and fully committing one way or the other, but all I can say is that it's just easier said than done.

And I never know which side is right, or actually the problem is they are both right and I feel so stuck and confused and unsure of what to do, and I am not someone who is used to feeling unsure of themselves.

My divorce just finalized. My wife never found anything resembling remorse, and I got enough clarity from her continued bullshit to get out. As I reflect on my current situation, I’ve had to go from a life where she was the one I loved the most to her now being so toxic and disgust inducing that I find it a net positive trade to lose half the time with my kids and half of my wealth just to get her the fuck away from me. It is such a long long way to go internally, it’s so understandable that people get stuck.

I will say that I do think getting my ex-wife out of my heart has spared me from the triggers and spirals you describe. I think about the affair sometimes, but it doesn’t really have power over me because she doesn’t. I’m not telling you what to do either way, but it is my experience that D is at least a cure for that. But it is a terrible calculus to figure out. I’m sorry.

I think it is normal to feel that way and if we are down to a few times a year, that’s a dramatic improvement over where you last were, this was a weekly cycle back then. It’s completely common for someone five years out to still have occasional triggers that they spiral from. Healing is not linear. It’s a cycle like you say where the good times get longer and the bad times get shorter and fewer between. That sounds like there has been a lot of progress.

I remember flawed having the issue that she felt she needed to be careful not to escalate certain things. It’s always been difficult for her to talk to you when you are angry and that is normal for her. It’s normal for me as well. I can’t think when the other person is like that because it activates something in me from when I was a child, and I too will freeze to this day. I have tried everything. The only thing that works is to have the boundary that I need a calmer conversation. I will talk about anything anyone else wants but sometimes I have to sort through the answers or else I will throw forward bullshit. So the freeze you describe is really where we have to collect our thoughts and make sure what we are responding with has been sorted out.

For me that comes from having an angry mother who would pelt me with insults and questions. I recently had a boss like that and I had to quit because I couldn’t do my work properly - and I am a very experienced highly skilled person. I simply would melt down and respond pretty stupidly to her. But she was so much like my mom and so aggressive that I could not function. And lord knows I have spent a long hard time healing, I think there is only a point that we can get to no matter how much we want to be different.

I am not 100 percent if that is what you are describing, but she used to ask me what to do because she wanted to be able to respond faster. I never had any good advice because I too have tried everything and I just do not work like that. However, given some room I will be deeply introspective and I do deeply care about the feelings of others. However, the other person is responsible for managing their own emotions as well.

It doesn’t mean you have to hold anything in and I never got from her even in our private conversations that she was wanted you to hold it in. She always did seem to care about your feelings. She and I spoke privately many times and that never changed when others weren’t looking.

Sounds like you have gotten calmer since back then, which shows you have grown and evolved as well. I wonder if it’s not that she has become a therapy bot, rather she has learned to have boundaries over engagement. This is a valid thing for her to do for her mental health. She can’t change it any more than you can change how passionate you are. And underneath that there are two attachment styles that drive these things that trigger each other. You both are unlikely to change these things but there are ways to learn to work with them of everyone’s boundaries and needs are respected.

I remember getting and update from her a few years back that sounded positive and full of hope. So I tend to believe that this polarization has evolved, and it aligns with what you are saying that you no longer yell and do some of the bigger reactions, which I think is positive for you- you couldn’t have possibly felt good after those episodes. They didn’t get you any closer to where you wanted to go.

Everything you are saying is valid. In reconciling the marriage there are simply parts of the healing she is not going to be able to help you with because these are decisions that you have to make and align to. It’s natural you can’t go to the place of vulnerability and stay there because you are not there yet.

However, I think if you want to get there you will need to learn to try focus more on the good in those darker moments. There isn’t erasing what happened. She hasn’t gotten away with anything. She has now been faithful for close to a couple of decades. You say the two of you for the most part have an enjoyable relationship, great sex, easy lifestyle. I too would find that hard to leave as it’s not always the easiest thing to find.

She has done therapy in order to have new boundaries that allow her to be more authentic and honest, and maybe you do not like that version of her but I think you could adjust to believing authentic and honest is a healthy thing to be. You know where she stands now when she used to not even be able to choose a restaurant. To me, these are very good signs she doesn’t want to go back to being who she was. It means she is actively choosing the life she has and to advocate for her own happiness. That’s the markings of someone who can be a much safer partner.

Acceptance is a decision, and I think the lack of that decision has less to do with the reality that you want to stay married and more to do with the fact that discovering the cheating has touched and reverberated other trauma and insecurities that are from the past and combining with this one.

I think maybe try going back to therapy or even doing some EMDR. However, if this is happening a few times a year, I think you have healed so much more than you think you have. Acceptance doesn’t happen all at once for any of us.

[This message edited by hikingout at 4:55 PM, Saturday, June 28th]

But the freedom to express needs to be there for the relationship to be healthy.

I do not disagree with you and am aware of that piece of Gottman. It doesn’t mean that when things are highly charged that it’s not okay to take a step back and reengage at a calmer time. We all respond to conflict differently and some of us need to approach things more logically.

It’s not abusive to need your partner to take time to manage their emotions so that the conversation is more productive. I personally can’t talk to an angry person, but I find that practice to be a sane one because you are not going to get anywhere with that. Everything you say is going to be wrong or challenged. I am not responsible for managing my husbands emotions nor is he responsible to manage mine. We are only going to reach a resolution when he can help me understand how he feels. Generally that’s not in the midst of emotional flooding.

Perhaps CBM and flawed can come up with better ways that he feels supported in those moments but the expectation is not to try and resolve them. He should sit and feel them and maybe ask her to hold him. When he feels clearer and calmer then they can have a productive conversation.

Emotional safety for both partners is the key. And it’s not cold for her to hold the boundary so she experiences emotional safety. It’s not wrong for CBM to need comfort and assurance for his emotional safety. So I would just recommend finding something that works for both of you with acceptance neither of you can help who you are in your core.

[This message edited by hikingout at 5:11 PM, Saturday, June 28th]

Every conversation we have now is calm, I don't yell anymore or call her names or anything like that, but she still has the same "freeze" kind of reaction, no matter how calm I am. It's like it's hard coded in her DNA and it makes R very difficult as a result.

Again, I recognize this. When the advise is "take time to cool off", it assumes that the problem was that emotions were heightened and it also implies that the betrayed is the one amping up the emotion. But when you have done everything in your power to keep your emotions in check from the beginning (which I think is in itself unhealthy) and your partner STILL stonewalls you and doesn’t proactively come back to you, this is not what healthy relationships look like. This is not healthy boundary holding to my ears. This is avoidance in full bloom, with therapy as cover. It sounds really problematic to me, FWIW.

This depends upon what you consider to be the pattern and the issue.

If it's CantBeMe123 feeling insecure, getting discouraged even though reconciliation is going great, and approaching his WS in an angry or unproductive manner while she's fully remorseful, then maybe he does need to concentrate on IC and/or MC and have patience.

There's a difference between the post from this year and last year. I don't know the background either, but I did google the user names and browse old posts.

CantBeMe123, if you feel there is a continued pattern of Flawed making low-quality friends who drink too much and continuing to have boundaries that don't proactively protect your marriage and your family, then that sounds like continued behavior from her past affairs and flirtations. That's not insecurity, it's a difference in values.

If I understand your timeline, you and Flawed are in your early 40s, and your children are under 10 years old. I'm speaking as someone who's now happily reconciled after 9 yrs, and is 60+ years old with a son in his early 20s.

Let's say in 5 or 10 years, your son or daughter comes to you and tells you they were talking to Flawed's BFF boyfriend, and he offered a summer internship at his practice. Or they were at the pool talking to Flawed's friends and their niece/nephew who's in town and were invited out on their boat next weekend. If you don't enthusiastically think it's fine, I don't think you should be socializing with this people and inviting them in your home. If Flawed thinks that's putting her in a box, well I guess you have some decisions to make. I wasn't perfect in sorting out these things with my son, but in hindsight it's clear where I failed and wish I could do it differently.