I have been lurking here for a while and have officially jumped into the fray. I have seen some phenomenal advice and stories of success and change on this site. I hope to become one of the positive results. A bit of background:
My wife and I have been married for just over 2 years now and after the first year of marriage I made a huge mistake in lying to her about meeting up with another woman. There was no physical affair but I have realized that I crossed into the EA line the second I tried to hide the encounter from my wife. We had a lot of fallout from it for obvious reasons and said we were going to move past it. A few months later it became clear that it was not something we were really reconciling. We were seeing a counselor at our church but it seemed that every argument we had wound up going back to that night. I had given my wife all of my passwords and unlimited access to my devices as well as completely severed all contact with the other woman. But it was still something that became a destination for any disagreement. After a few months I think I copped out and the sexless relationship started getting to me (absolutely not an excuse)….I started watching porn. My wife suspected something and one day some weeks later it was beating on my conscience too hard and I came clean about everything. She moved out and wound up coming back some weeks later and we continued going to counseling.
When we started counseling my wife said it would take her a few months to trust me and know that I wasn't just going to start talking to another girl or have some other "relapse"…its been a year and she still doesn't know of think she will ever be able to let me in emotionally. I am still attending IC and when I ask her what I can do to help her and try to express remorse she tells me that there is nothing that I can do and I just need to be patient. She says she has forgiven me but whenever we have a disagreement and she flies off the handles and I ask her why she is snapping on me she tells me that its my fault for what I did and that I ruined who she was and she will no longer be the soft spoken and kind person she was because of the pain that I caused her. I tell her that I understand, and that I get why she feels the way that she does. Some days it is a challenge, other days I feel I have a pretty good grip on it. Lately however my wife has been getting extremely angry with me. Cursing me out and it seems that every disagreement comes back to my wrongdoings in the relationship. It has gotten to the point that she tells me there is no period of our relationship when she has felt she could trust me and that every memory she has with me has been tainted so there is nothing that she can hold on to. Her parents marriage ended because of an ongoing PA so I know that some of this goes much farther into the past. I am having a very hard time with this period of our marriage because I have found myself taking a lot of verbal abuse and it feels as though my wife has completely walled herself off from me. There was a point when I felt divorce was the only option because she was telling me she could never trust me again, but I don't know how I could ever be okay with ending things because I am still very much in love with her and want us to work.
This evening I talked to her and she again voiced her feeling that she would never be able to trust me again. But she for the first time said that she felt it was inhumane for us to spend the next 20 years miserable with each other because of the past. She wants things to work, but she says she can't let it go. Our counselor has told me and my wife that the only way we can move forward is for her to forgive me and not make the past a device for her to hold the power, but thats exactly what it feels like she is doing. I know what I did was wrong, my wife knows that i know it was wrong. She has told me numerous times that she knows i am sorry, but she also told me that she doesn't know there isn't something better out there for her….is this "normal" for a relationship moving from infidelity? Is this just the healing process running its course?
My wife and I have been married for just over 2 years now and after the first year of marriage I made a huge mistake in lying to her about meeting up with another woman. There was no physical affair but I have realized that I crossed into the EA line the second I tried to hide the encounter from my wife. We had a lot of fallout from it for obvious reasons and said we were going to move past it. A few months later it became clear that it was not something we were really reconciling. We were seeing a counselor at our church but it seemed that every argument we had wound up going back to that night. I had given my wife all of my passwords and unlimited access to my devices as well as completely severed all contact with the other woman. But it was still something that became a destination for any disagreement. After a few months I think I copped out and the sexless relationship started getting to me (absolutely not an excuse)….I started watching porn. My wife suspected something and one day some weeks later it was beating on my conscience too hard and I came clean about everything. She moved out and wound up coming back some weeks later and we continued going to counseling.
When we started counseling my wife said it would take her a few months to trust me and know that I wasn't just going to start talking to another girl or have some other "relapse"…its been a year and she still doesn't know of think she will ever be able to let me in emotionally. I am still attending IC and when I ask her what I can do to help her and try to express remorse she tells me that there is nothing that I can do and I just need to be patient. She says she has forgiven me but whenever we have a disagreement and she flies off the handles and I ask her why she is snapping on me she tells me that its my fault for what I did and that I ruined who she was and she will no longer be the soft spoken and kind person she was because of the pain that I caused her. I tell her that I understand, and that I get why she feels the way that she does. Some days it is a challenge, other days I feel I have a pretty good grip on it. Lately however my wife has been getting extremely angry with me. Cursing me out and it seems that every disagreement comes back to my wrongdoings in the relationship. It has gotten to the point that she tells me there is no period of our relationship when she has felt she could trust me and that every memory she has with me has been tainted so there is nothing that she can hold on to. Her parents marriage ended because of an ongoing PA so I know that some of this goes much farther into the past. I am having a very hard time with this period of our marriage because I have found myself taking a lot of verbal abuse and it feels as though my wife has completely walled herself off from me. There was a point when I felt divorce was the only option because she was telling me she could never trust me again, but I don't know how I could ever be okay with ending things because I am still very much in love with her and want us to work.
This evening I talked to her and she again voiced her feeling that she would never be able to trust me again. But she for the first time said that she felt it was inhumane for us to spend the next 20 years miserable with each other because of the past. She wants things to work, but she says she can't let it go. Our counselor has told me and my wife that the only way we can move forward is for her to forgive me and not make the past a device for her to hold the power, but thats exactly what it feels like she is doing. I know what I did was wrong, my wife knows that i know it was wrong. She has told me numerous times that she knows i am sorry, but she also told me that she doesn't know there isn't something better out there for her….is this "normal" for a relationship moving from infidelity? Is this just the healing process running its course?
Put the internet to work for you.
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