Can I do this?

Its been a little over two months and I am still swirling the drain most days not the entire day but good portions. There is that nagging feeling that moving forward just allows all parties involved in cheating to “get away with it”. I know that this is not a rational thought, and Savingshards, pointed me to a wonderful post from a WH. It outlined his growth, his guilt, in general his feelings about the horrific trauma he has caused his wife. I know my H feels similarly. While it did help to read that posters musings, and my H is working away at repairing and growing, I still have those moments…sometimes days where I internally scream “I CAN’T DO THIS!!!!!”

When I look at my H, often my thoughts are of how many times I was duped with no regard  (I feel angry AND stupid at the same time) or images with him smiling, sexting, talking on the phone or charming the others. On really bad days I have the lovely task of removing thoughts of him having sex with them. Why do we do this? Why do we have this infernal loop in our brains of things we just wish we could not see? I know, I know, we are supposed to mentally or openly instruct ourselves to say “STOP”. A fave of mine is actually beating Holly with a stop sign on a rather large stick.

I think about confronting her, and telling her the myriad of horrible thoughts I have about her. I have a very active revenge fantasy life….she got away with it…sorta. He dumped her so badly, and I guess she had to lick her wounds but I never got to deal with her, and three years after the fact, whats the point. I have her number and her email address in my phone under PIG for what I don’t know. I guess some sort of sick insurance policy. I hope to delete it one day, and be done with her completely. I doubt she has given me any thoughts for quite some time. I hate that he revealed private details of our life to all of them, about our difficulties. Since he dumped her four months before we started talking again, she has no idea we are back together. I wish she knew that and it made her feel shitty. I hate that he painted me as a horrible wife. So much HATE…on so many levels. I hate that I am having the thoughts and emotions of a high school bully, it’s so not me.

I did contact number 4 via Facebook in one of my angrier moments. Given who I am, it was a message more about self-esteem, her worth on this planet, and not allowing herself to be disrespected and used which I pointed out she had been. There was a bit about the sisterhood of women in there too but overall, none of the vitriol I am feeling. I got a short, your 100% right, and an “I’m sorry” and she was off the hook, just like that. I have never been a revenge monger, always trying to see the other side of everyone, but now when my emotional chips are really down, I am failing. I hate these women, and I have never really hated anyone. Some days I hate my H. Some of his loveliest texts elicit an out loud “OH FUCK OFF”  from me and a two-hour wait for a text back, all out of spite. I wish bad things would happen to all of them, that they would be mistreated or cheated on…I want them to feel the shitty suck fest I am in. Its babyish on my part..this I know…

I am not sure how long these images will persist. In therapy, Dr. H, noting I was “stuck” said that these ruminating thoughts of the tarts will last approx. a year….A FUCKING YEAR?????? So if any of you have ideas on how to change the channel I would love to hear from you.

I want to hear “I’m sorry” from my H everyday, however short of instructing him to do that (which would negate the whole benefit) it does not happen often. He is willing to talk to me or text me when I am feeling upset or angry. He participates actively in therapy and is working on opening the tightly locked box on his emotions, although it is a SLOW process. I keep telling myself to give it time, no rash decisions based just on emotions, and reading, reading, reading, reading…my eyes may fall out if I read one more self-help book.

We are trying to break our established life patterns, trying to do new things together, I am going to learn to speak Italian so watch out for more bilingual posts in the future. Planning on a warm vacation for the first time ever, rather than heading to our cottage in the winter. All good things. I guess in these things there may be some hope. If I change the channel of my life, perhaps the channel of my brain will follow.