WOW.. this is so HELPFUL..
I tried to picture it, I tried to understand, I tried to feel compassionate for my WS.
But I had been looking at it all wrong, basicially I got focused on my own feelings of rage, uncertainty, shock, agitation, fear, pain, depression and confusion. And it was the mixture of feelings, the sense of confusion and limbo. That I have and still at times do feel left me to think that his reflection on our marriage,or issues, his infidelity was trivial in comparison to my own.. you have helped me to begin to understand what I was so desperatly wanting to.
You hit a big issue I really was trying to grasp and that when you stated "I felt like there was no way I'd ever be forgiven or "be able to fix this" it was such a gigantic mess" my husband has stated this to me before. He felt as thou he would be " walking on egg shells for the rest of his life and that I would never really forgive him or beleive him when he says he truely only ever loved me that he never loved her" that I will hold it against him forever and he was afraid that I will never be able to truely love or respect him again. And this is on thing he was afraid of and this is one of the main reason he was on the fence about trying to save our marriage at the start. I feel that somtimes, still he feels this, he somtimes will say it, not hatefully, but with a look of agony in his eyes. So after reading all of you guys post and really helping ME to come to some understanding, it seems that the WS has the in some aspects, real fears,mixture of feelings, the sense of confusion and limbo, and the mistrust as BS, BUT DIFFRENT.
It is -if I am comprehending correctly- and I think I am, the thouts and feeling are diffent between the WS and the BS, it is about the A and our struggles and our symptom of other problems in the marriage, and we both want the same outcome with a renewed and strengthened marriage. But we both have our own things to conquer and overcome..
This is helping me a WHOLE lot and I am so THANKFUL and APPRECIATIVE that you all will take your time a share your own feeling, thouts and emotions you have and are having to go thru, It puts alot of things I was trying to comperhend into percpective, In order for me to find the strength and let go of my own hang-ups I really had this need to try to understand my husband, the fog, and his struggles his fears and his confussion as well, I know my own, but I couldnt fathom his or understand for that matter because I am the BS, I have not been on the side of the Ws, so I had no idea the truth of there own stuggles.
Oh, he has tried to tell me, but I think that a BS gets so deep into there own emotions that we think, what the heck, how does he feel that way there is no way.. And for a spouse, we never knew that person, we only know of the person they were before the Affair, and like it changed us, it has in a sense changed the Ws to.. We dont see that, we dont understand it, maybe to some level we just dont want to, we want to hold on the the "way they were before" or image of our spouse the morals, the values, the feelings. The thouts about how we preceived them and veiwed them before they broke our trust, the boundaries that was set at the moment you said I do that you felt you need in your marriage in order to stay in the marriage an unspoken love of trust-commentment I guess I would say.
It seemed like there were some essentials I thout was a given, like blaming the third party, why dont they hate them despies them, why dont he despise his-self, why does he not deserve heartache, how can he really be that down, he wanted to work on our marriage, why does the "fog" get to be an excuse. Is this "fog" even real, I know the stuff I am going thru is real, but there is no way he can feel as much heartache as me, there is no way he can even come close to my sense of loss..he made a promise to me many years ago, does that not even play into the equation here.. Its ME ME ME ME ME ME ME.... (see my point) I got to thinking about it, and decided that me not understand the true things he is going won't change anything unless I make the effort like he to understand....
For the most part, my H isn't all that good at sharing things that are most important to them or the hurt or what he precieves a weakness. He probably isn't the rare exception to this rule. But I have seen him try to take down his wall, I didnt understand.
It's one thing to let him know that I am hurt by this (we both need undertand the actions and fears I needed to understand the "fog" from the WS veiw in order for me to understand and to work as hard as I can to keep the anger out of my voice and to comprehend his emotions. ). It's something else entirely to pour more poison into the process than is already there.
I perceived it the way I wanted to.. And you all are helping me Tremedously.. THANK YOU SO MUCH...