SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Hikingout asked me: I think maybe the box to start with is what made you accept less than what you should have had?

Xh’s behavior doesn’t excuse mine. I know that. This post might sound like blaming, it’s not. For me, it’s my heavy reminder to not give everything i have away. I never want to experience that isolation and loneliness ever again. I got so overwhelmed by marriage, career, kids, bills, you name it, I carried it all. i moved into survival mode and stayed there for a very, very long time. Surviving isn’t living, surviving isn’t thinking, surviving is putting things on autopilot. I burying the pain so far down it has a different zip-code.

I found this letter when i moved out, and kept it - it helped me rebuild. I will share a paragraph.

"I thought for a long time this weekend about out last conversation and I need to say this and I need you to hear it. First, I think we need outside help, I know you don’t believe in it, but "this" what we do isn’t working. I have faith in you, I love you with everything I am, but I have learned I cannot lean on you. Im falling apart, i can’t, just can’t. The "I can do it all" is a crock of sh*t, is a cover, I do it because there is no other choice, and the cost to me is too high. I can’t continue to look after everything in the house, pay bills, work full time, take care of the kids and your sisters kids without any help. It’s too much.

XH talked a lot about change, I even gave him a list of tangible things he could do, each time his actions showed otherwise. In response I did the I can do it all. Yes, but at what cost. I became a master of hyper-functioning and an empty shell just trying to keep it all together and the thought of leaving was just another check box on an already overloaded plate.

I will hold onto this letter and keep it as reminder.

I am thankful every day that I am no longer living in survival mode.

This exercise is doing the opposite of compartmentalization.

I understand you want to start to look at those locked boxes and this is as good as any point to start and clean them all up.

You will likely have a much lighter feel once you get rid of those.

The letter is giving some insight about your emotional state when you wrote it, it does focus on the moment lived and your behaviors but some seeps through.

Have you tried going back and relive the emotions you were feeling when you wrote this to your ex husband?

You didn’t say in what context you wrote, if there was the affair already going on back then or if it was before, but I think you may benefit just by starting to make a simple list of the emotions you remember and name each one.

Then see what was more intense and what was distinct, which ones were messy and merged together etc.

Those are threads leading into your deepest most intimate self, their unanswered calls are what usually generate the chaos that is faced with coping mechanisms and can generate dysfunctional ones who lead to self sabotage (not just, but including also infidelity and affairs).

I understand more than betraying your marriage you betrayed yourself by becoming a mistress, the other woman so to say, that’s the impression I got from your few posts.

If the hunch is right you might have less to work about you hurting your ex husband and more about self sabotage patterns (that still preclude you from a fulfilling relationship with and as a safe partner).

I answered because there’s no stop sign and I wonder if this can help you with looking upstairs and get rid of those boxes that seem to weight on your life still today.