Dear Aquarianmoon/Reader:

Aquarianmoon, February2014: “Married 2 years, together 5. Young child together. We’re young, and love each other so very, very much. My heart and soul belong nowhere else… I’m more stable than I’ve been in my entire life… But I fear my past will come back to haunt me. Obsessively, sometimes… I grew up separated, with severe emotional issues, and in a severely mentally abusive household. Oh, the games… Lack of love, or any real emotion except hostility, anger, terror… My own horrid upbringing never occurred, according to them, and I’ve created and imagined all hardships as a child. Makes it difficult to discern truth from fiction… I cheated multiple times on my HB…  I do remember from the infidelities, such as if we were lying in bed together with our heads, forehead-to-forehead, like we often do, and a horrible memory of my mistakes comes flipping through… The guilt won’t leave, but I’ve gotten myself to a point where I am beginning to forgive myself… That is no excuse, but I was mentally/physically drowned during all of these mistakes… my HB works far away, for half of the year… How do I stop these impulsive self-harm actions and thoughts?” –

-I am not clear if the cheating on your husband was still going on back in Feb 2014 when your husband was working far away. You wrote that you were beginning to forgive yourself, so I assume- but am not sure- that you believed at the time that the cheating was indeed in the past. My suggestions regardless are: (1) Stop the behaviors that you are ashamed of, they have to be in the past, if you are to move beyond them. Identify and list the places and situations that led to the cheating incidents, and make sure that you avoid those people and situations whenever your husband is not physically present with you,

(2) Build a daily routine for yourself that is independent of your husband’s participation, so that you carry on the same routine whether he is present or working far away. Make the mothering of your child center stage in your daily routine. Include exercise, yoga and guided meditations perhaps and ground yourself in your routine, doing the same things at the same time, every day,

(3) Attend quality psychotherapy so to process further your severely mentally abusive and horrid childhood, and the games you mentioned, so that you are adequately and confidently able to discern truth from fiction when it comes to your childhood, your parents and yourself, (4) Avoid the company of each and every person who plays games and who promotes said fiction.

anita