[lost_in_the_sauce]

and thats how i feel. so lost. i feel like i dont know who i am or who i want to be. i dont know what i like or dislike. It is almost like i am meeting myself for the first time and we have nothing in common. how is that suppose to make you feel? No one tells you how trauma is going to change you and no one knows how that change will occur. I hoped it would make me stronger, and in ways it has, but its hindered me more than anything. I have no hope, no sense of self, no emotion. I just exist. solely exist. i contribute to the economy and that is it. nothing else matters. my studies dont matter, my work doesn't matter, or at least it doesn't feel like it does. I sit at the park and watch all the various people walk by. I sometimes wonder what they are thinking and what hard times they have been through. We all have been through something, right? it might not measure up to the person on the left or right of you, but for you it is real. It is a real pain that has creeped or perhaps ran full force into your life. it is now living with you like an ungrateful roommate and what are you suppose to do about it.

i didnt always feel this way. i was once so happy that others told me they could see my wide smile from a mile away. I would hear that I was always a pleasure to talk to and my advice was often sought after. I used to laugh until i cried and i would sing like no one was watching, but then it happened. my life changed forever. the truth came out about my spouses hidden affair and i would never be the same. *my smile slowly sunk from its normal position, and now faces the floor. my advice isn't asked for and more often when people see me coming they turn around to ignore me all together. How did it get like this. I was innocent in all this. i was the good spouse. I was honest, faithful, loving, kind, respectful, ect. How was I a victim to this sort of psychological trauma? How is it so easy for others to judge me and my life over something i had no say it. I was living and now i am existing. I was full and now i am empty. I was used as a pawn in someone else's emotionless games.*

Why don't more people talk about this. Why am I made to feel like I don't belong. Why do I even stay. I thought that once therapy was a constant thing that things would become better, but they are becoming far worse. I feel like i am being pushed away from my spouse, and perhaps I should ride the waves out, maybe there is something out there better than this. but maybe there isn't. How is that I still don't have the courage to leave when I don't even want to stay. How is it possible to love and trust after such betrayal? Others have come back from this, but others never even looked back to fix it. Some people are so happy after they fixed a broken marriage, but others leave it to the judge to make the decisions. How can two people once so in love, let it come down to this? Cheating, lying, fighting, crying....I don't understand. How can you do something so bad like have an affair and instantly be remorseful enough to want to fix the marriage.

Part of me wishes I never knew, they say ignorance is bliss, but is it really. Would I really want to live my life not knowing what he did? If I didn't know, would I be able to feel the deceit in the marriage? I don't know, but I know I am lost. I know that I wake up everyday wanting it to be different, but how. Where do you start. It isn't so easy where you can just wake up and be found, is it? What am I missing? How do I come back?

I am so lost, someone find me.*

[Crypts_Of_The_Mind]

Originally Posted by lost_in_the_sauce

and thats how i feel. so lost. i feel like i dont know who i am or who i want to be. i dont know what i like or dislike. It is almost like i am meeting myself for the first time and we have nothing in common. how is that suppose to make you feel? No one tells you how trauma is going to change you and no one knows how that change will occur. I hoped it would make me stronger, and in ways it has, but its hindered me more than anything. I have no hope, no sense of self, no emotion. I just exist. solely exist. i contribute to the economy and that is it. nothing else matters. my studies dont matter, my work doesn't matter, or at least it doesn't feel like it does. I sit at the park and watch all the various people walk by. I sometimes wonder what they are thinking and what hard times they have been through. We all have been through something, right? it might not measure up to the person on the left or right of you, but for you it is real. It is a real pain that has creeped or perhaps ran full force into your life. it is now living with you like an ungrateful roommate and what are you suppose to do about it.

i didnt always feel this way. i was once so happy that others told me they could see my wide smile from a mile away. I would hear that I was always a pleasure to talk to and my advice was often sought after. I used to laugh until i cried and i would sing like no one was watching, but then it happened. my life changed forever. the truth came out about my spouses hidden affair and i would never be the same. *my smile slowly sunk from its normal position, and now faces the floor. my advice isn't asked for and more often when people see me coming they turn around to ignore me all together. How did it get like this. I was innocent in all this. i was the good spouse. I was honest, faithful, loving, kind, respectful, ect. How was I a victim to this sort of psychological trauma? How is it so easy for others to judge me and my life over something i had no say it. I was living and now i am existing. I was full and now i am empty. I was used as a pawn in someone else's emotionless games.*

Why don't more people talk about this. Why am I made to feel like I don't belong. Why do I even stay. I thought that once therapy was a constant thing that things would become better, but they are becoming far worse. I feel like i am being pushed away from my spouse, and perhaps I should ride the waves out, maybe there is something out there better than this. but maybe there isn't. How is that I still don't have the courage to leave when I don't even want to stay. How is it possible to love and trust after such betrayal? Others have come back from this, but others never even looked back to fix it. Some people are so happy after they fixed a broken marriage, but others leave it to the judge to make the decisions. How can two people once so in love, let it come down to this? Cheating, lying, fighting, crying....I don't understand. How can you do something so bad like have an affair and instantly be remorseful enough to want to fix the marriage.

Part of me wishes I never knew, they say ignorance is bliss, but is it really. Would I really want to live my life not knowing what he did? If I didn't know, would I be able to feel the deceit in the marriage? I don't know, but I know I am lost. I know that I wake up everyday wanting it to be different, but how. Where do you start. It isn't so easy where you can just wake up and be found, is it? What am I missing? How do I come back?

I am so lost, someone find me.*

Okay, first let me say, it breaks my heart to hear your pain - you write so eloquently I can feel it as if it were my own.

Next, I am going to say somsthing very honest and straightforward that may be hard to hear: So - I am one who has both been cheated on in some relationships and cheated in others. I can tell you from experience on both ends, there is generally a reason other than "lust" the person cheats. I cheated on two different people - one was a man I was dating. I kept telling him a guy who was living with us (we lived together) kept hitting on me, touching me, etc, and wouldn't stop even when I told him to - my boyfriend laughed n told me not to worry about it, even when I told him it bothered me (I have been raped in past) and my boyfriend worked graveyard shifts - one night this guy started kissing on me and I just didnt stop him. Another was my husband (at the time), he was being emotionally and psychologically abusive to me in major ways - I started looking for ways out of the relationship by starting up internet affairs. One of the guys who cheated on me, did so bc we weren't spending enough time together (even though we lived together we worked different hours so it seemed we were either working or sleeping and never saw one another). My suggestion is to search your heart. Figure out if you even still have love for him. Trust can be rebuilt. Love cannot. If you do, talk to him. Find out why he cheated - try not to be defensive (every part of you will scream out in defense) and try to talk it through. Make sure he knows he needs to talk to you when things are bothering him. That you will always have time to listen. But that you need to be able to trust him. Then tell him what you need to start to be able to trust again. It will probably be really strict at first, and that's ok and understandable - but as he shows you can trust him, relax some of those boundaries again n give him a little more freedom as you go - until he has earned your full trust again.

That's if you want to fix it.

If you don't that's ok and understandable as well. But then you need to make sure you look after yourself really well because you are going to feel you somehow failed even though it was him that broke the relationship down. You will need to remind yourself - it's ok to hurt, and to cry - just don't let it tear you down. You are more than your pain. Much more. You have not become less than you were before your pain, you simply put on a different face people aren't used to seeing. You have control of you. You can't control how others respond to you. You need to do what is healthy for you. You decide how to act. You decide what to believe. You decide what to think. And all those things help determine the emotions you feel.

So figure out what you feel for him
If you feel love
Figure out if you want to talk to him or not
Then
Figure out what you believe happened

Go from there

Don't let others get in the way. This is between him and you - but it's mostly about you. Let it remain that way.

❤

[Sunflower123]

I am so terribly sorry you are in such pain. Your idea of seeing a therapist was a good one. If the one you are currently seeing is making things worse then find another one who can help you with the depth of pain that you are feeling and help you process enough to know where to go from her. Again, I have so much compassion for you. Your pain breaks my heart. Thinking of you....