L
Liberanosamalo
Guest
The stuff you tell yourself has more power to hurt you and prevent healing than the stuff other people tell you.
You’ve been telling yourself you are humiliated and you were lied to and deceived and he let you be friends with someone for a few years after cheating and you can’t trust him.
No, sweetie. Change the stuff you’re telling yourself.
This is what it sounds like you should be telling yourself:
I am not humiliated. His sin 15 years ago was not about me. I was a good wife and mother. HE was stupid. HE sinned. HE deceived. I knew deep down. But I chose to go ahead and behave with dignity and keep my family together and raise my children in a stable environment and shovel my doubts way deep down. I have lived with doubt for years. I survived. I am strong.
Now I know for sure. I am grateful to him for telling me. Because he just validated my “cheat meter.” I was right all along. He lied and denied and told me I was crazy. But the truth always comes out and he had to admit in a backhanded way that I was smart and I knew something was going on. I will never again doubt that feeling. Now I know when I am being deceived. If it ever happens again I will never question that feeling or let someone talk me out of my deepest instincts. He did me a favor.
That “friend” who slept with my husband is pitiful. What a shallow pretense of a life she led, being two-faced with people she was betraying. She’s had to look at herself in the mirror for 15 years. It was probably hard for her. What was going on in her miserable life that she had to raid her friend’s marriage for “love” and support? Someday her children will find out and what will they think of her. Glad I’m not in her shoes.
My good ol’ husband had to unburden himself after 15 years. But I demanded it. If I didn’t want to know, I shouldn’t have asked. But I did. And at least he was finally honest with me. It must really have been eating away at him, living a farce. Feeling loved for being someone he wasn’t. Knowing he told me I was crazy for perceiving the truth. So he finally came clean. He hasn’t repeated it. Whatever his issue was 15 years ago, time and life have changed him. He can be rehabilitated, if he didn’t make a point of doing this more often, there is hope. I can trust him again, because most importantly I can trust myself. I know my instincts are good, and I know if he ever tried it again, I would not be deceived again. I can pray for him and move on. I can look God in the face. I can forgive him. I don’t need to throw it in his face. Because when I do that for him, it saves him from having to do it himself. I become his emotional nuclear reactor for him and it takes all the guilt away when I suffer for his sin. So I won’t cry about it. I’ll leave that job to him. HE has to face God and his children. I am free of that guilt. It isn’t mine, and I’m not going to take it on.
See? You need to play a different record in your own head to get over this. Or the next 15 years will be worse than the last 15. That woman didn’t destroy your marriage. But you can if you choose to. Now YOU have a choice. To love your repentant husband unconditionally like God does, and move on from here. And build a marriage that is stronger for having mended in the broken place like a broken bone, or you can let it fester and crack open an old half-healed wound.
You don’t have to tell yourself it feels like it happened yesterday. It really doesn’t. 15 years have gone by where they didn’t have an affair and continue it. It IS old news. You KNEW it deep down but let yourself ignore it and be talked out of what you knew. Your real anger is toward yourself. Now tell yourself “I did what I had to do to keep my home and family together.” You conducted yourself with dignity. Keep up the good work, girl!
Why can’t he remember details? Well, he’s a man. And he doesn’t remember stuff that wasn’t that important to him. Why did he want to be friends after that? Because men sometimes think they can go back to “being friends.” Every lady out there knows that is a crock. But men think differently.
I’d throw out the videotape. I’m sure you have others of your children. You don’t need that toxic emotional waste dump in your home. Set yourself free. Throw it away.
Whatever image he tried to preserve and whatever denial he was in that he continued the farce of his lover and the families pretending nothing was going on is typical of a cheating man. (See: John Edwards) It’s about his ability to try to keep a facade going, not about you. When the old feelings come along, dont’ think about it and rehash it. Just say a prayer for him and for her soul and her children’s souls. They have that mother to guide them morally in life??
And when he starts being sarcastic, just quietly say the same thing to him each time as you leave the room: No one has the right to talk to me like that. Not even you.
Say it calmly and quietly. Eventually all you have to do is say “No one…” and he’ll know what’s coming and will stop.
Continued:
You’ve been telling yourself you are humiliated and you were lied to and deceived and he let you be friends with someone for a few years after cheating and you can’t trust him.
No, sweetie. Change the stuff you’re telling yourself.
This is what it sounds like you should be telling yourself:
I am not humiliated. His sin 15 years ago was not about me. I was a good wife and mother. HE was stupid. HE sinned. HE deceived. I knew deep down. But I chose to go ahead and behave with dignity and keep my family together and raise my children in a stable environment and shovel my doubts way deep down. I have lived with doubt for years. I survived. I am strong.
Now I know for sure. I am grateful to him for telling me. Because he just validated my “cheat meter.” I was right all along. He lied and denied and told me I was crazy. But the truth always comes out and he had to admit in a backhanded way that I was smart and I knew something was going on. I will never again doubt that feeling. Now I know when I am being deceived. If it ever happens again I will never question that feeling or let someone talk me out of my deepest instincts. He did me a favor.
That “friend” who slept with my husband is pitiful. What a shallow pretense of a life she led, being two-faced with people she was betraying. She’s had to look at herself in the mirror for 15 years. It was probably hard for her. What was going on in her miserable life that she had to raid her friend’s marriage for “love” and support? Someday her children will find out and what will they think of her. Glad I’m not in her shoes.
My good ol’ husband had to unburden himself after 15 years. But I demanded it. If I didn’t want to know, I shouldn’t have asked. But I did. And at least he was finally honest with me. It must really have been eating away at him, living a farce. Feeling loved for being someone he wasn’t. Knowing he told me I was crazy for perceiving the truth. So he finally came clean. He hasn’t repeated it. Whatever his issue was 15 years ago, time and life have changed him. He can be rehabilitated, if he didn’t make a point of doing this more often, there is hope. I can trust him again, because most importantly I can trust myself. I know my instincts are good, and I know if he ever tried it again, I would not be deceived again. I can pray for him and move on. I can look God in the face. I can forgive him. I don’t need to throw it in his face. Because when I do that for him, it saves him from having to do it himself. I become his emotional nuclear reactor for him and it takes all the guilt away when I suffer for his sin. So I won’t cry about it. I’ll leave that job to him. HE has to face God and his children. I am free of that guilt. It isn’t mine, and I’m not going to take it on.
See? You need to play a different record in your own head to get over this. Or the next 15 years will be worse than the last 15. That woman didn’t destroy your marriage. But you can if you choose to. Now YOU have a choice. To love your repentant husband unconditionally like God does, and move on from here. And build a marriage that is stronger for having mended in the broken place like a broken bone, or you can let it fester and crack open an old half-healed wound.
You don’t have to tell yourself it feels like it happened yesterday. It really doesn’t. 15 years have gone by where they didn’t have an affair and continue it. It IS old news. You KNEW it deep down but let yourself ignore it and be talked out of what you knew. Your real anger is toward yourself. Now tell yourself “I did what I had to do to keep my home and family together.” You conducted yourself with dignity. Keep up the good work, girl!
Why can’t he remember details? Well, he’s a man. And he doesn’t remember stuff that wasn’t that important to him. Why did he want to be friends after that? Because men sometimes think they can go back to “being friends.” Every lady out there knows that is a crock. But men think differently.
I’d throw out the videotape. I’m sure you have others of your children. You don’t need that toxic emotional waste dump in your home. Set yourself free. Throw it away.
Whatever image he tried to preserve and whatever denial he was in that he continued the farce of his lover and the families pretending nothing was going on is typical of a cheating man. (See: John Edwards) It’s about his ability to try to keep a facade going, not about you. When the old feelings come along, dont’ think about it and rehash it. Just say a prayer for him and for her soul and her children’s souls. They have that mother to guide them morally in life??
And when he starts being sarcastic, just quietly say the same thing to him each time as you leave the room: No one has the right to talk to me like that. Not even you.
Say it calmly and quietly. Eventually all you have to do is say “No one…” and he’ll know what’s coming and will stop.
Continued:
