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The first D-Day anniversary is coming up, and I feel worse than I have in a long time. For a while, I really thought we had a genuine shot at reconciliation. And then the next moment, I’m thinking about separating.

My WH has *so* many issues to work through - none of his relationships have ever really worked out, whether with partners, his daughter, or anyone else. I know he’s putting in serious effort with his therapist to unpack his childhood stuff. But sometimes I feel like I’m sitting in a tiny nutshell in the middle of a huge ocean. He’s trying, his remorse is real, he’s doing everything he can to make me feel safe. And still, I’m completely drained.

Life keeps throwing things at us (that’s just how it is, nothing you can do about it), but they keep leading to conversations that take *so* much out of me. I’m trying to keep it together, keep doing well at work, keep my life going. But last night I had a full-on breakdown and couldn’t stop crying. It felt just like right after D-Day.

I’ve been in therapy myself since then, and it’s helping. But I’m worried because I feel like I can’t handle anything anymore - I’m really fragile, exhausted, and just have no energy left. I used to be a very energetic, outgoing person. Now I feel like a complete wreck.

Has anyone else been through this?

Oh ... 1 or 2 of us have.... And by '1 or 2', I mean 'almost all of us'.

Recognizing the roller coaster is a sign of health. I wanted R all along, and my W started doing the work before d-day and never stopped, and I still was on the same roller coaster you describe when I was a year out. Being betrayed hurst so much! And one year is just too short a time to know for a fact that R will work, so it's virtually impossible to avoid the fear that one made the wrong choice.

Almost all of us get the clarity we need to get off the roller coaster. It took me 2 years, but that's just one datapoint. YMMV.

Also, some of us are wrecks in the runup to the 1st antiversary (2nd and 3rd, too, for me). That may be intensifying feelings and energy drains for you. In my case, the antiversary itself gave me a lot of relief. I actually felt good for part of 12/22/2011.

So, you're in a very difficult period right now, but your life will almost definitely improve - greatly. It'll just take more time and effort than you want to expend.

Thanks for your comforting words, sisoon!

I feel like time takes on a whole different dimension after something like that. It honestly feels like I’ve been stuck in all these emotions forever, and it’s getting harder to handle with each passing day. When am I finally gonna hit rock bottom…? *sigh*

It seems to me that most, if not all, of us go through something very similar to what you're describing. I certainly did.

The best advice I would offer is the same advice I was offered many years ago.

Step-back and detach from your WS. Watch and observe what he does with the opportunity you've given to him. Forget about your marriage and reconciliation for a while. Focus on you, your recovery and healing.

I've definitely ridden that rollercoaster, 7m46s. As I approached each DDay "anti-versary", I would start to review the previous year's events, my emotional states along the way, and my WX's behavior and status. It is indeed exhausting, and I was absolutely a wreck at both the end of year 1 and year 2. The only reason I wasn't a wreck last year (year 3) is because I had filed for divorce, and that brought a lot of relief.

The pendulum between stay and go swings a lot, and it's all very normal. Work towards understanding what you want and what you're willing to accept from your marriage. Once you can clearly establish those parameters for yourself, you'll feel more secure in making a decision. As my therapist correctly said to me many times, when you know, you'll know. Until then, the limbo that is R is definitely not a fun place to be. You have my sympathies!

I’m so sorry you are struggling under the weight of all of this stuff called life. I remember the first anniversary of dday1. I was dreading it.

Honestly the days leading up to it were worse than the actual Dday anniversary. And I noticed that pattern for a few years.

Unfortunately dday1 was a major holiday so there were years we were out celebrating and it somewhat took my mind off of it.

What I found worked for me for years was to escape. If I had a chance to leave the house I did. Even if for a few hours — it just helped me regroup and refresh. I met friends for coffee or strolled around town window shopping etc. Basically just detaching from it all.

Please know it does get better. The first 3 years of Reconciliation were very hard for me. The first year I used to wake up every day and doubt myself and my decision to R and my first thoughts were usually "I can’t do this. I need to D him".

Look for the small "wins" as I used to call them. You share a laugh together. Or the Cheater does something to show "they get it". It’s what helped me get through.

It’s dreadful and is going to be like that for a while because what was broken truly deeply mattered to you.

One or two.

I say all who don’t have dissociative or sociopathic tendencies do tend to feel like that.

For a while, you will feel it it’s different intensity depending where you are at today.

I felt that as long as I lived it would have tortured me.

This year?

I laughed. Not because it’s funny, because it doesn’t matter anymore, lost all its power.

The wound was there, the scar still is. The betrayal and the people who betrayed me just lost any grip on my life.

With dark humor I can joke about it, I could even tease her if I thought she needed a reminder (but she was miserable and trying so no point in being ass) or just mentioning it to remind clearly that while today may count, the past did happened and matters for where we are today, not in her fantasy of forgiveness, that is never coming, but in the path of becoming a better person who would have lived a life that would have lead to a different place, the one she fantasizes about and that she can’t reach because she destroyed it.

Why? Because if she wants to ever get there all traces of that person have to die, she should burn it to ash and return as new as the legendary phoenix.

Will she ever get there? No clue, that’s all on here, don’t care. I neither stop her nor push her.

All that matters to me is I am there, even if the spot at my side is vacant I don’t feel incomplete, alone, sad.

It’s always going to be a bitter memory, but like a passing cloud, not the abyss darkness I lived in for so long.

Even if someday she does manage to join there, or there will be another woman, or nobody at all, it’s all going to work out.

It’s me not afraid to fall again not someone else sustaining my weakness.

Took me 18 years of mistakes, almost half my life, but I got there when I stopped denying and control, I accepted. Everything, not just passively.

You will get there faster or slower is on you. This day will be a meter to gauge your healing.

Because is your life and you are all that matter, not who hurt you or how they hurt you.

To belong in it they need to deserve it, you only decide who fits your standards.

[This message edited by BackfromtheStorm at 11:17 AM, Friday, April 17th]

Unhinged,

Step-back and detach from your WS. Watch and observe what he does with the opportunity you've given to him. Forget about your marriage and reconciliation for a while. Focus on you, your recovery and healing.

Honestly, that’s really what I feel like I need: some quiet, some space, and a chance to focus on myself. But then how am I supposed to actually see how he shows up or have any new experiences with him if I’m keeping my distance?

My therapist says we also need shared positive moments, even if it’s just something small, like laughing together about something. Her line is, "connection creates closeness."

I just find it really hard to balance those two things.

NoThanks,

Work towards understanding what you want and what you're willing to accept from your marriage. Once you can clearly establish those parameters for yourself, you'll feel more secure in making a decision.

That really hits a sore spot for me. For example, I tell him that honesty is essential for me. And he says he can’t really be honest about his feelings, because he doesn’t feel validated by me when he does - which is partly true, since I sometimes find his self-pity, like around the social isolation that is result of his infidelity, pretty hard to take.

[This message edited by 7m46s at 2:57 PM, Friday, April 17th]

The1stWife,

What you are saying is pretty much how I feel.

The first 3 years of Reconciliation were very hard for me. The first year I used to wake up every day and doubt myself and my decision to R and my first thoughts were usually "I can’t do this. I need to D him".

Just my thinking...

Look for the small "wins" as I used to call them. You share a laugh together. Or the Cheater does something to show "they get it". It’s what helped me get through.

That's why I am still trying to balance my need for peace and distance with time together to make this possible.

BackFromTheStorm,

It feels to me like you’re already quite a bit further down the road - and maybe a little resigned or disillusioned. Is that fair to say?

I’m almost 60, and I just don’t want to sacrifice more good years. So I really wish I could at least see some kind of trend - no matter which direction it’s going in. But right now the swings are so extreme and there’s so much outside noise that I honestly have no idea where this is headed.

Sometimes it even feels like something in me has broken - not only with regard to my marriage. I’ve never needed this much quiet, never felt this fragile or this confused. And it unsettles me to read that this could easily go on like this for another year or two…

And he says he can’t really be honest about his feelings, because he doesn’t feel validated by me when he does - which is partly true....

How is that he needs validation for his own feelings from someone else? If he's in IC, I suggest requiring him to learn to validate his own feelings. By that I mean: deal with that crap or you'll leave. This is really serious, IMO. If he's not in IC, my reco is to make IC a requirement for R.

...since I sometimes find his self-pity, like around the social isolation that is result of his infidelity, pretty hard to take.

Only sometimes? I had no interest in hearing my W's self-pity. If she wanted to express it, I told her to call her therapist. I'd listen to my W talk about being scared, hopeless, sad, but I was totally unwilling to bear any burden of stuff like self-pity. Can you set a boundary about that?

My bet is that a lot of what your WS thinks are 'feelings' are really 'thoughts'. IMO, feelings are always some variation of mad, sad, glad, scared, wanting/desiring, loving, ashamed.... If it's not a direct description of movement in one's body, it's thinking, not feeling.

I don't mean to be dismissive, exactly. Rather, it looks like your H is trying to transfer some of his burden onto your back snaps me back to when my W did it.

[This message edited by SI Staff at 4:29 PM, Friday, April 17th]

It feels to me like you’re already quite a bit further down the road - and maybe a little resigned or disillusioned. Is that fair to say?

I’m almost 60, and I just don’t want to sacrifice more good years. So I really wish I could at least see some kind of trend - no matter which direction it’s going in. But right now the swings are so extreme and there’s so much outside noise that I honestly have no idea where this is headed.

Sometimes it even feels like something in me has broken - not only with regard to my marriage. I’ve never needed this much quiet, never felt this fragile or this confused. And it unsettles me to read that this could easily go on like this for another year or two…

You could say that, but not in the way of healing as it is usually done in the healthy way as I am just learning in this forum.

I broke, completely and irrevocably broke. It was not a givin up but it was a surrender, a peaceful one that reset it all to "just be".

It’s still healing as I simply let that person behind, I did not rebuild my ego and identity I’ve built for my entire life, is like back to square one when you were a child. You and your natural boundaries, not the idea how "I should be " just the art of not givin a damn coming natural (to the fears insecurities etc, not about life and what matters, I care even more now because I feel free and light, is just here and now)

You are almost 60 and I’m not, so the next schema likely to popping into your mind is "it can’t apply to me".

Well I don’t think so. Age is the number of heartbeats we had in our life, who knows how many we for left?

So I am sure you want the next one to beat with fulfillment not with regrets.
You are not 20 but you are likely not going for that (unless you do, then I still say, go for it, follow your guts, is fine). You have a world and the blessing of life and until the end you are still you. And out of billions there are millions at the very least who can appreciate that, if you love yourself like you deserve you will see.

Only your mind can truly limit you, from living.

Sounds bullshit, I would’ve said that just a year ago.
Give it a try and see, you can’t get worse than the unhappiness you already feel, maybe you will be surprised.