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positivevibes
204 Posts |
 Posted - 10/19/2008 : 18:53:24
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I've been doing a lot of digging into my past, by myself recently.
A few days ago, I realized something very significant. Seven years ago, I accidently found out that my husband had been more-or-less unfaithful. It's a long story. He said that the meeting he had with this woman wasn't sexual and it was the fulfillment of a fetish (a harmless sexual fetish which I knew about and had even participated in with him on occassion). He said he was just experimenting. Ironically, before I found out about this tryst, I couldn't engage in this fetish with him much anymore because....my back was hurting!
The fact is, he snuck around and lied to me (said he had a business meeting that day), and would never have told me about it if I hadn't accidently found out. He met the woman through Craig's List (not sure if he placed the ad or just answered hers). He claims that nothing sexual happened, but I know for a fact that this fetish is a sexual fetish. So even if he didn't have sex with the woman, he saw her for a sexual reason, IMO. And IMO, that is cheating on me.
To make a long story short....I was of course devistated. We'd been married 15 years at the time, and had two small kids. It was a really good loving marriage, so I didn't understand where this was coming from or why.
Anyway, he was extremely angry and defensive about his behavior. I never felt that he properly apologized to me or that he was truly remorseful about his behavior. He yelled, "I'm sorry, OK, what else do you want? I'll never do that again because I don't need the complication in my life." That's not much of an apology, is it? I was so stunned that I didn't realize at the time what I needed him to say. But now I know...and he has never said it. I have never felt that he properly apologized or tried to make it up to me.
As a matter of fact, until the other day I didn't even understand how deeply he'd hurt me. When I started thinking about it, I sobbed for 3 days straight (in private). I finally just had to get ahold of myself so I could function.
I guess you could catagorize this as finding a hidden or repressed trauma. But I'm not sure what to do next about it. I've thought about telling him how deeply he hurt me 7 years ago, and suggest that perhaps we should go to marriage counseling. But I have to find the right time to do it, which isn't easy. I know that when I bring this up, he will get really angry with me. I'm also afraid that bringing it up to him might somehow ruin our marriage. This "thing" that happened is like a sore that never properly healed. It may look OK on the surface, but deep inside it's still festering (for me, that is).
Incidentally, my back pain has played a significant role in putting stress on our marriage in the ensuing 7 years. I now wonder if my back pain was a way of telling me that I HAD to deal with this.
Sarno says that sometimes you don't need to change yourself or resolve your problems, only realize what the problem is. But in this case...I'm not sure.
When I dug deeper into myself, I realized that sometimes when I've been angry at him or have behaved in a certain way, it was a passive aggressive way of me getting back at him for what had happened.
I have not felt the same about him, or totally trusted him since that incident. I used to view him as my emotional sanctuary, but after that happened, I felt emotionally abandoned and it hurt extremely badly.
So I would appreciate some opinions. Affirm my own feelings, then try to forgive and forget? Talk to him about it? Get marriage counseling? What do you think? |
Edited by - positivevibes on 10/19/2008 18:55:14 |
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Littlebird
USA
391 Posts |
Posted - 10/20/2008 : 00:18:01
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Hi PV,
Feelings of being abandoned emotionally and cheated on in an emotional sense, even if not in a physical sense, can be really painful, and the fear of having your relationship damaged if you bring up your feelings must be hard to deal with too. It's taken some real courage on your part to face something so painful from the past.
I think that if I was in your situation, I might try to get some individual counseling to help me sort out and clarify my feelings and the options for dealing with them before approaching the hubby about it.
One thing I'd try to figure out would be the source of hubby's anger and defensiveness--whether he truly feels he was not out of line, maybe even feels he was justified somehow because of the way your back pain had affected you, or whether he feels angry and defensive about the incident because he's ashamed that it happened but can't admit that. If he does feel ashamed, what might be the reasons he can't admit it. These are the kinds of questions a counselor might be able to help you sort through, possibly providing more insight into the whole event, why it occurred and where you want to go with your realization that this is a significant issue for you.
Sometimes these things can turn out to be a positive turning point in a relationship, if they help a couple open back up to each other. I think that even though there may be a lot of areas in life where we don't need to make changes to recover, ongoing relationships that are causing resentment or emotional pain may need to be addressed in order for us to make the progress we want with our TMS. Just my opinion.
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mizlorinj
USA
490 Posts |
Posted - 10/20/2008 : 09:14:29
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Wow PV. Sorry to hear this but it's cool you were able to make this connection!
You need to decide if you want to confront him. Personally I would, but that's me. It would need to be when I'm not angry (talk to myself ahead of time) to avoid it erupting into an argument. My message would be: "I need to tell you this hurt me very deeply".
Perhaps marital therapy would help as well.
Emotional cheating IS cheating IMO. And bring into that lying, which for me is a real no-no!!
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positivevibes
204 Posts |
Posted - 10/20/2008 : 14:14:52
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I saw my therapist today...she's not a TMS therapist and up to now I hadn't really been making much progress with her. That's because we've been talking about my pain, but not about what was causing my pain emotionally.
So today I mustered up the courage to bring up this situation, and I'm so glad that I did. It was scary but in the end it felt terrific to "let it out" with her. She said that I need to process and feel the feelings for some more time, and when I feel that I'm a certain point, I can make a less emotional decision about whether I'll confront him. There's a lot underneath all of this.
I was struggling with whether to even discuss this with my therapist, but the fact is, for the past 7 years, it has kept bubbling back up to the top of my psyche and I have kept pushing it away for various reasons. I realized that my back pain will probably not go away until I face these painful feelings. My therapist said that I don't necessarily need to confront my husband -- I could work through it with her, at least for the time being.
I am so grateful for Dr. Sarno and his theories, and for some of the TMS podcasts and other material I've dealt with recently, because it convinced me that I DO need to face this awful painful situation and figure this thing out.
It's also amazing that today I have less back pain than I've had in many weeks. My body actually feels almost "comfortable" today, and I haven't had that feeling in a long time.
I'm not sure where the road I'm on will lead. I don't want my marriage to end, and I'm sure my husband doesn't either. I don't think that things can ever be the way they were before the infidelity incident. But with time and more therapy, I think I can find a comfortable place be, emotionally. In addition to being hurt, I feel extremely angry at him for ruining the wonderful trusting foundation I so cherished -- and needed -- in our marriage.
I want to share with you a really interesting dream I had this morning, right before I woke up. I've been pretty darned depressed lately. In this dream, I was in my house, and it was dark for some reason. My cell phone rang. I picked it up, but couldn't see who was calling (the phone wouldn't light up -- so I immediately knew that I was dreaming). I said, "Hello?" into the phone. And all I heard was the Bee Gees song Staying Alive. I chuckled and said "Oh, that's a good one! I get it, I get it," and hung up.
The other day I was reading on CNN.com that the rhythm of that song is perfect for giving someone CPR. My subconscious was telling me to pay attention to my heart...it may be broken, but with some work it can be fixed. |
Edited by - positivevibes on 10/20/2008 14:16:55 |
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Realizing repressed pain or trauma -- what next?
