And, oh, how I know that feeling. Sleeves rolled up. "This time, things are going to be different!" Get ready for the new me – assertive but not aggressive, firm but not unreasonable. I will move mountains. Or, at the very least, get people to put their dirty dishes in the dishwasher rather than leave them on the counter. Right? Can I get an "Amen"?
Except that, so often, it doesn't exactly go like that. A situation arises in which my newly declared rules can be enacted – I will state clearly what I need, I will enforce my boundaries, I will not let him twist my words – and it all goes to hell. I can hardly remember what the rules are, let alone how to enforce them. I get sucked into some discussion that may or may not have anything to do with what I originally set out to discuss. I find myself on the defensive. I find myself muddled. I find myself sounding whiny and screechy instead of firm and reasonable.
And then I beat myself up for being so bad at this.
It took awhile (I'm a slow learner) but I realized that what I was envisioning – a calm conversation in which everyone agreed with me – was not going to happen. At least, not without a lot more practice. Instead, I (almost) always encountered pushback. Or, as I've written before on this site, countermoves.
Countermoves are inevitable. They're part of the dance we've been doing for much of our lives but especially when we rewrite the rules. If you haven't been dealing with countermoves, it's likely because you've been just going along, being the good girl, not making demands, putting your wants/needs last or completely aside.
Rewriting the rules – ie. setting boundaries and following the badass survival guide – is going to create pushback/countermoves.
What I've discxovered, that changes the whole dynamic, is to expect it. And not waver when it shows up.
What's pushback, you ask? Well, it's someone asking "what's your problem?" or "why are you in such a bad mood?" when you point out a lack of consideration or lack of respect. It's a response of "are you seriously asking me to xyz?" or "that's just not realistic" when you ask for something.
The result?
A whole lot of us will back down, and question ourselves. "Am I being unreasonable/ridiculous/demanding/whatever?" says the little voice in our head.
The countermoves have worked.
They can take many forms. Anger, perhaps. Sulking. The silent treatment. Eye-rolling. Exasperation.
But all have one goal: To get us to erase our boundaries. To get us to go back to being acquiescent. To prioritize their comfort over our own.
That's the bottom line, isn't it? When we insist that our needs not only matter but take priority right now (not always but RIGHT FUCKING NOW), we're rocking the boat. It can feel terrifying.
But the overarching message of the badass survival guide was this: You must be prepared to put yourself first right now if you're going to heal from this. Or as She Who Must Not Be Named put it, "He can either keep up and stay or fall behind and leave."
Notice the lack of wavering. There's nothing equivocal about that. He put her/you in this position and you're just swimming like hell for the shore. He can either keep and stay or fall behind and leave. But you are not going to stop swimming. Not now. Not ever.
He'll beg you to believe him when he gives you some bullshit excuse about why he's late. He'll insist that you're being difficult or unreasonable when you demand he quit the company where he works with her, or ask for a transfer. He'll call you "crazy" when you tell him you need to sell the house where she lives around the corner, or slept in your bed.
But if what you're doing is creating the conditions for your healing, or creating the conditions for your marriage to survive, then that's what you're doing. And he can either keep up or fall behind.
Either way...you're headed to shore.
I can’t tell you how much I love this post. Elle and my fellow sisters THANK YOU for being there to help me survive the last 2 years. Without your loving encouragement, your gentle pushes and this safe place I honestly don’t know where I might be. The days have been long and dark so many times.
ReplyDeleteI think back over the last 2 years and I think how many times I’ve put my big girl parties on only to have him quiet my voice. Or how many times I’ve quieted myself because it was uncomfortable setting new boundaries.
Elle you kept telling me - Therapy, Therapy, Therapy. I heard you but kept hitting brick walls and then when I’d finally get the courage the Therapy was actually as traumatizing as the betrayal. But I’m proud to say I canned a therapist last week and met with a new one today. I’m simply amazed at the difference. It’s almost like the heavens parted and a ray of sunshine shone on my spirit today.
I’m swimming full steam ahead. He can either choose to swim with me or stay stuck. My big girl panties are firmly secured (LOL ... probably because they are so tight from too much comfort eating lately) ... it’s Kimberly time!
If you’re like me and dragging your feet - or maybe you’ve been burned - please keep trying. This new therapist is going to cost a pretty penny. But I’ll make my own coffee and take my lunch ... it’s a small price to pay for my sanity.
I'm amazed by how many times I still have to summon this resolve even 3 years out from dday. Turns out I'm really good at bending myself to "help" others and still really working on keeping my own shape when I need to. Every time I have to assert my own needs, it feels like I'm putting my whole marriage on the line (which, in a way, is exactly what I'm doing inside my head). My family is not tortured over my needs, and they're usually fine with me having and protecting them (including my H). It's just me that questions myself. Really small stuff like having to say, "I don't want to go to the movies tonight. I'm tired and just want to go to bed early." Sends me into an internal dialogue about whether or not I'm too boring to be married too, etc. I have to get to the place where I say to myself that if my wanting to skip a movie is a deal breaker for him and he needs to leave, so be it. (Which is ridiculous. Obviously if we're on that much thin ice, he needs to start packing). Everyone around me almost always responds with, "ok. Cool. No problem." And has no idea I struggled over stating my needs. Old habits die hard, but must die even if it scares me. The alternative, going with someone else's flow all the time, gets me to that aweful vulnerable position where I am telling people to mistreat me with my actions. No more of that. I create my own internal countermoves way more often than other people do!
ReplyDeleteI cannot "amen" this hard enough. These last 17 months since DD have been one long exercise in learning that nothing else matters if I can't decide where my boundaries are and draw them in indelible ink. The latest involved my mother in law, who would like nothing more than to be a third wheel in my marriage. Had to tell my H that while I can't control him, I can't be in a marriage with him should his mother decide to move to our city, as she has hinted she might like to do. Nope, nope and hell nope. He muttered and fussed but sure enough, was able to shut that thought down. Imagine that. And this never would have happened before, because I just would have simmered and swallowed my rage. This is so against the grain for me, but so absolutely important for me to learn.
ReplyDeleteGaslighting and countermoves became such a part of our relationship. After dday and our commitment to work together I had the naive expectation we were starting out on even ground. I underestimated how we were so set in our roles and behaviors with each other. Once dday 2 hit five months later it hit me I had to watch out for myself. And I had to be firm and not bend on what I needed and wanted for myself and our marriage. It took me a while and lots of practice to figure out how this could work for me. I honestly think figuring all of this was harder than dealing with the betrayal. I realized even when removing the betrayal we ended up with bad communication and bad patterns of behavior. Or at least as far as I was concerned. My husband felt like as long as he was not cheating all was good. It took a long time and we still work at this 4 1/2 years later. I work really hard to create positive self talk and to take time to listen to my inner voice to figure out what I need and want.
ReplyDeleteEveryday I try so hard to move forward...to make sense of his affair. These days I have more good days than bad. And then, it happens. I inadvertently come across a random piece of evidence of his affair. In this case a copy I made of one of two e-mails that he didn’t do a great job of deleting. This particular e-mail was from the beginning of the affair, its contents seem so contradictory to what he says the affair was. He says he can’t “remember” what he meant, or why he said it. How convenient. This man can remember every other life event (no matter how small) in vivid detail, but can’t recall events in a 3 1/2 year affair with some whore? It would seem to me that this HUGE life event would be forever burned in his mind, he sure couldn’t stop thinking about it while it was going on! But I ask for clarity, validation of something and he can’t “remember”?? WTF? I will say since D-day (18 months ago) he has done everything right, divulged all requested details and circumstances, has been part of the upstanding citizens brigade and now is the person he should have been all along. I believe his story, but when something like this comes along, the “WHY ARE YOU LYING TO ME?” Demon shows it’s head and now everything since day 1 is pulled into question. How could such a huge life event make him draw such a blank? He’s afraid if he tells me, I’ll leave? He doesn’t want to admit it to himself? He himself believes the story he concocted? Or (seriously) he can’t remember? Is it just a leap of faith for me to believe him? Why does he remember some things and not others?
ReplyDeleteOne other request for advise, how long do you hold on to the paper evidence linked to the affair (all my notes I’ve written, copies of phone logs, copies of two damned e-mails, etc). I have it tucked away in a file cabinet. I don’t look at it and I don’t want to look at it, but can’t bring myself to dispose of it...just in case. I feel insane.
LCH,
DeleteWhat does this paper represent to you? Proof that he cheated? A reason for you to walk away? Evidence that you're not crazy? From the sounds of it, it's just making you feel crazy. You know he cheated. At 18 months – and after transforming himself into a model reformed husband – I would argue the details no longer matter. It's possible he genuinely doesn't remember. It's possible he doesn't want to tell you because it will compound your pain. It's possible he was lying to her. It's possible he was lying to himself. But, I ask again, what difference does it make at this point in time? He cheated. He betrayed you. And that's really all you need to know at this point.
It might sound like I'm contradicting my "you get to know whatever you want to know" mantra. And I suppose I am. But here's why: A key part of us being in charge of what information we're told is to wrest back our power, to feel some sort of control, and to determine whether or not we're interested in staying in the marriage. Also -- and this is crucial -- to ensure that our partners aren't still involved or hiding details from us that indicate they're not truly committed to rebuilding a marriage.
It sounds as though your husband is clear that he wants his marriage and that he wants you. It sounds as though he recognizes just how painful his choice to cheat was. It sounds, from what you wrote, that he has done what we hope every formerly unfaithful husband does -- have a reckoning and take steps to make amends.
I suspect that what's happening is that you're afraid to let your guard down again. I wonder if, having been burned so badly, you're frightened of it happening again. By holding onto proof of his affair, it's a reminder to not get too relaxed, to not quite trust him, to ensure that you're guard is up.
I get it. Eighteen months isn't actually so long, when it comes to healing from something as traumatic as cheating. But I think that you're hurting yourself. I think your insistence on holding onto this, like it's some sort of talisman to ward off further pain, is actually keeping you stuck in pain.
I understand the fear of throwing everything out. Like it erases the horrible thing he did. It doesn't. That will never be erased. And he has to live with it. Every single minute for the rest of his life, he has to live with knowing that he betrayed the woman he loves, the woman who trusted him NOT to betray her. He can't erase that.
But you can eliminate these reminders because they're not actually keeping you any safer. They're not warding off cheating. They're like cement holding you in place.
Start by putting everything in a box and then putting that box somewhere you won't see it unless you go looking for it. Then make yourself NOT go looking for it for...some period of time. Like 21 days. I suspect that, if you stay focused on your own healing (radical self-care, self-compassion, rest, exercise, etc.), you'll begin to forget your box of pain. After, say three months, maybe it's time to burn it.
Just a thought...
LCH, so much of what you say resonates with me. I was plagued by questioning motivations and details. My H gave the answers, and it always led to more. We would eventually get to a question he "didn't remember." My dday was years after most of these encounters, but I'm still sure some of the questions were just too hard for him to answer for one reason or another. So I'd come back, from a different angle, trying to "catch" the truth out of him. After a long time I became convinced that I had about as much of the real truth as I needed. Interestingly, questions kept coming to my mind after I decided to inact a strict 24 hour rule (I had to sit with a question for 24 hours before asking. During that time I had to mull over my motivation for wanting to know and check how that information would help me). Those questions that did not pass the 24 hour test are still with me, but I stopped coming up with any new questions. This is how I got to the place elle describes. What good would it be to know the answer at this point? None. So those few unanswered detail-oriented questions act like the cork in the bottle for me. I still sometimes wonder about them, but my decision to leave them unanswered ended my torture.
DeleteAs for the evidence, I still have my notes document, but I no longer look at it. It's like elle said... I'm hanging on so as to make me feel like I've got a firm grip on the truth since dday was proof that I didn't. It's like the security blanket I carried WAY too long into 1st grade. I am at the point where I realize I don't need it, but I still want it. In my own time I will let it go I assume. Finding out the truth then does not protect me from the truth in the future. Hanging on for the long term to that "certainty" of my document is just another way of kidding myself. It's the present where my energy belongs, and I have no guarantees about my future. At the time, though, that evidence was an important way to come to terms with the truth as it was unfolding. 18 months is still pretty fresh. I'm over 3 years out and still hanging on to it if that helps.
I still have lots of evidence in a file. 4 years of craigs list posts. Emails to other Women. This is over 4 yrs after D day. The man I am a wife to (I don't call him a husband because a husband is suppose to watch your back, protect your heart) he didn't. From what I have read he is a model husband no one could expect more. But he cheated in the past so what he is doing now does not mean that much. I keep this stuff in case I need to prove to my kids what a complete F'up he is. They would Never believe if they were just told. No one would. He is good at his game. I haven't looked at it for a year or more but I might need it. I never want my kids to know if they don't have to. I worry about us dying in an accident and our kids finding that garbage when going through our stuff. The stupid stress he has caused is crazy. These guys are such little boys. I am still amazed.
DeleteHi Ann. Thanks for your kind words. We are (or have been) on the same mindset. I have the same 24 hour rule as you, trying to “catch” the truth our of him...looking for that “AH-HA!” Moment. On good days, I can usually talk myself down, make sense of the situation, but on bad days, I spiral out of control it seems and come crashing back to “how could you!”. Everything that both you and Elle say makes sense, I get it, but sometimes it just isn’t that clear and then questions flood back to me. I guess I know in the end, we will stay married and our marriage is better than it used to be, so why can’t I just fast forward to that now and get it over with? He had a 3.5 year affair with an acquaintance, neither one really liked each other, but they liked what each other did for them. In this case they were both hateful assholes who fueled each other’s fire. The whole world was wrong but them. I did 99 things right and she did one thing right and that was the bait, I guess. Maybe if it was a love affair I could understand it better? The whole thing makes no sense and the fact that he could change as quickly as turning off a light switch (when I caught him) brings up the question, “if it was THAT easy, why didn’t you do it a long time ago? Are you REALLY who you say you are now, or just some pathetic asshole who has no one left and is using a smoke screen to lure me back?” Sorry to ramble on, but it’s just exasperating as I’m sure you’re aware. I just can’t seem to accept that he is a good person now and will do what is best for me; for us. I just hold on to those papers I guess as a security blanket as you say. In case I need proof of it later, if needed (even though he admits everything...wow I just re-read that. It’s crazy talk...)
ReplyDelete