Hi,
My husband cheated on me 7 years after our love marriage while I was away for my delivery. Things had always been just perfect for me all these years , lots of love , trust and respect despite so many obstacles and I was on top of the world. I never even expected that such a thing would ever even happen with me. Totally shattered after I came to know about this infedility when I was back home with a 4 month old little baby angel. It all turned out be the result of some bad intuitions I had been experiencing just before I went back home. It has been a hell for me to stay with him since then and is almost over an year now . He also had to confess helplessly and made several promises not to repeat this. Can’t understand whether to blindly trust him or not like before. I never trusted him after that horrible encounter and am facing a lot of pain,stress and anxiety due to all this. Just as I think that everything is back to normal considering all his apologies and faith building words and actions, things go wayward and it all ends up in a miserable fight and makes it really hard for me to forgive him and be happy myself. Things are better though , I feel I am just not like before and had to force myself to undergo a lot of personality changes as result of all this.The relationship between us has turned really sour and I feel it has become irreparable. . Please advice on leading a healthy life with a healthy mind because divorce is just impossible. I also feel really bad for making him guilty of his act time and again. I feel I have lost control on my mind after this incidence and finding it very difficult to get back on my track of managing home, Kid and also a hectic work. I have off late started avoiding him as much as possible which has never happened in the last 14 years of our total relationship. becomes really hard to stay with all this in mind and still get along with the normal chores. I feel I have been strong enough to deal with all this without any emotional support all this while. But break down at times even without my knowledge. I am losing myself from within.

Dear Violet96:

Thanks for sharing with us. It sounds to me that you are facing a lot of issues right now and it is causing you a lot of distress. I think you are not being selfish at all. You are just looking out for what’s best for you.

I’d say focus on taking care of yourself first and then through doing that, you’ll know how to take care of your boyfriend. You being there to listen is already a HUGE undertaking. Misery loves company…so if you were to making things better, start with you first. Take some time for yourself and think about what brings you peace & joy? Once you have a solid grounding of your own self, then you can listen with an open heart. It is hard to comfort someone else when we are not happy ourselves. Try to use “I” instead of “you” e.g. “I feel like something’s not right. Can we talk about it?” or “I feel like things aren’t the same. How can we make it better together?”

Also, I believe a lot of men don’t talk about their emotions openly. Try to just be there and feel their energy out. Sometimes quietness can help solve the problem & they’ll figure it out themselves after the fact.

Take care!
Jennifer

* Jennifer, I had to comment on how endearing (to me) it is that you combined your experience as an accountant to calculate probabilities here. You are using your past career in your future career as a counselor! Good job, says I!
anita

Thanks all for you valuable replies. I am highly overwhelmed and will definitely do a workaround to find all the happiness I deserve.
The healing process is the toughest and longest though.Making a lot of efforts to make things positive by indulging in a lot of activities that I like to do. The toughest phase is actually over. But still the remnants cause a lot of pain and finding a way to flush it all out and get back to the fairy world that I lived in once upon a time. Nevertheless lacking out on the emotional support front and finding it really hard to become less suspicious of him though I know deep in my heart that he wouldn’t hurt me ever again. Confronting him is the biggest issue I am facing because of all this and I am also hurting him unintentionally and unknowingly by making him feel guilty about all this for almost every conversation we have and it all ends up in a terrible fight. Just as I begin to think I forget all this , bad time and thoughts just encroach my feelings and I end up in doubting and questioning him with the same old stuffs. Please help me in getting rid of such horrible feelings and lead my life in an efficient way.

Dear Pria,

Just going back to Anita’s point…the present situation sometimes triggers unhappy thoughts from the past. Perhaps you were abandoned or someone you trusted did not keep their promise in your childhood…and it is triggering events from very long time ago (childhood)…then the current past (husband) and the present (your interaction with your husband now). We need to shine light on this in order to fully heal ourselves in the present.

I found keeping a journal very handy. When I was getting over previous relationships where I felt betrayed…I would write all my thoughts and feelings down. Then slowly, you can look back and see what are the triggers.

Just to share, I personally had attachment issues from my childhood that affected all my romantic relationships. When someone didn’t keep their promise, it would take me months to get over it. It started when I was young, my parents were too busy working all the time. My grandma took care of me when I was 2 years old…she was also taking care of my 3 and 8 year old cousins. But within a couple of months…because she could not handle having 3 grandkids at the same time…and me being the “newest addition” was kicked out of the house. I had to board with a nanny and didn’t see my parents for 5 days a week from when I was 2 to 5 years old. I felt betrayed and abandoned by my family. It has affected every one of my romantic relationship until now. It is only recently that I was able to tie my present attachment issues to my past. It is crazy how the past can dictate our current daily lives.

If you are struggling too…I suggest seeking a good therapist…uncover what’s under the wraps…get to the bottom of the issues.

Take good care. Keep us posted.
Jennifer

Dear Pria:

You wrote that you believed your husband to be “the perfect man .. that god has sent”= problem, because he is not perfect in any way. How do I know? Because we are talking about a human being and none is perfect, not by themselves and not in relationship to another. We only IMAGINE a person is perfect. A child imagines her parents are perfect because of her (or his) need to feel safe, protected. As children grow up, if mentally well and equipped, they change the way they see the parents, no longer perfect but “good enough” (if they were good enough, in an ideal situation).

Seeing your husband as perfect is a result of lack of maturing enough. And if the husband thinks the wife sees him as perfect, it may feel nice for a while, but there is pressure in it. He knows, in that case, that he is not perfect and is afraid of you finding out. Give him the space to be … appropriately imperfect, so he is relaxed to be himself.

anita