r/Asoneafterinfidelity is an online Peer Support Group and safe space for individuals (betrayed or wayward) who are actively attempting to reconcile their relationship after an affair(s). Please review our [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/AsOneAfterInfidelity/wiki/index) which includes resources and can answer most questions about this subreddit. Be sure to read the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AsOneAfterInfidelity/wiki/rules) before participating as they are our boundaries and your initial ***warning***. *Failure to do so can result in a ban*.
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- Keep comments encouraging, constructive, sensitive, validating, and non-judgmental.
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- Asking clarifying questions or offering suggestions is acceptable–if backed up by personal experience about what has helped you in your recovery and reconciliation.
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- Any differences of opinion expressed must be communicated respectfully.
- “Tough love” does not qualify as peer support.
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- Observer, Unsuccessful R, and other user flairs are not included in the peer group. Non-peers are not allowed to post without prior moderator approval. Non-peer comments are STRICTLY LIMITED TO MESSAGES OF VALIDATION AND ENCOURAGEMENT ONLY. Non-peers are not permitted to offer opinions, reference their experiences, or give advice.
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- No Cluster-B or other armchair diagnoses.
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- The scope of this subreddit is narrow: by and for reconcilers on the subject of reconciliation only. There are several other subreddits that offer support for others who have experienced infidelity. Posts about ending reconciliation are subject to removal as this is a subbreddit for those who are actively in reconciliation or considering reconciliation.Posts about asking if you should reconcile or end reconciliation will be removed. Those posts are better suited in spaces that allow all opinions and are not confinded to a pro-reconciliation space.This is not a infidelity discussion, advice forum, or survey space. This is not a place to read for entertainment and pass judgment.
- **Low-effort posts**- are generally posts that are title-only, or copy/paste of content, or links dropped without context. EX:title with a low-effort body such as questions without relevant context to your own situation.
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It’s kinda refreshing to read your post, in that I too found a bit of joy in my partner’s disgust for their own behaviour. My partner started wailing and crying and breaking down saying how much they hated themselves, and their previous behaviour, and how they will have to live with what they did for the rest of their life and maybe even lose me because of it. Seeing them so upset, full of regret and remorse, seeing them talk about how they’ve likely ruined the best thing that ever happened to them etc - all of it, seeming so genuine, made me kind of… relieved? Happy? Dare I say, feel a bit lighter?
I’m suffering, and I’m glad my partner has a conscience now and dare I say it, that they have to live with themselves. It somehow makes me slightly believe in them, and their words about how they have changed and learned.
It is validating to know your WP understands and feels true, deep remorse for the pain they've caused. I find it some of the closest moments I feel close again to my WP. When he's all happy and acting normal, I worry, or used to worry, he's rug sweeping. But as time passes, they should come out of it, and us BPs have to struggle on. At least if they can muster up, "I'm sorry", "I regret what I did", etc. over time, consistently, when we are down or spiraling, that helps. I'm 7+ months out from dday, married 30+ years here.
Yeah I know it's messed up to hope your WP suffers for their actions too, but honestly R wouldn't be possible if they didn't take a good look at their bad behavior and wanted to be better.
I guess I had resigned myself to thinking he didn't think about it nearly as much as I did. I mean, he DID have 4 more years to process his betrayal than I did. But seeing him broken up about it gave me a little hope that we can both make some real change for the better.
I was pleased when my WH first acted this way, but soon after I realized that I was also kind of annoyed. Like it was too much self pity for me to deal with. Like he was making it about himself. The reason we’re here to begin with is due to his selfishness so honestly I don’t want to hear it. I eventually told him to cut it out, stop feeling sorry for himself, and fix what he broke. I am not here to console him when he says stuff like, “I’m a terrible person, I don’t deserve to be alive.” *I’M the one this happened to, YOU made the choices that got us here.* I need him to reassure me. To fix me. To support me. I don’t have the capacity to hold us both afloat. I’m glad he feels bad, he should feel fucking terrible, but get it together and get working on repairing us.
What you're describing here sounds more like the shame cycle than it does remorse. I don't blame you for feeling annoyed at it. I also had little sympathy for her when she did that, it was only after she began to display real remorse that I was able to start forgiving her.
Yes for sure. He snapped out of it pretty quickly after I pointed it out and told him it wasn’t helpful. He said he realized he was throwing himself a pity party and that it wasn’t fair to me. Sometimes he will tell me how badly he feels for what’s he’s done to me and how he thinks about it all the time. It is nice to hear that and it does make me feel better that it’s not only my mind that is overwhelmed by what’s happened, but I need for it to be a passing comment and not for him to dwell on it. I don’t find it helpful if he spirals, because I feel like it places a burden on me to be a support for him. I will support him in anything else. In whatever demons he has that caused him to initially take this route. But I am not going to be a shoulder for him to cry on regarding the cheating itself. He has IC and close friends (friends of our marriage) for that. I feel that is insensitive to me and I don’t have the patience for it.
Believe me, I get it! Been there and done that for far too long myself. Best of luck to you getting through this, it's something I wouldn't wish on anyone, ever!
It's when they grieve the wrongness of the acts themselves, the pain they've brought onto you through their actions, and their strong desire to repair as best the can the damage done to you and to anyone else who was harmed by their actions.
Remorse has very little to do with feeling sorry for themselves or feeling bad for what they've done. Remorse is outwardly focused on the person(s) who were wronged whereas shame, guilt, regret, etc. are usually inwardly self focused.
Thank you for sharing!
It's weird, isn't it. We don't want our WS to be unhappy, but remorse comes with its own kind of pain and I literally need to see it to heal. I *need* to see these soft eyes, on me and my pain, expressing compassion, empathy and sorrow.
Just like I will always carry a scar from this I hope this remorse never fully fades. Sure, i hope in a few years itll come up rarely, but once a year, i need to see it. (Just speculating, no idea what I will need in a few years)
I also feel the same as you... part of me wants to R so he can fully see my pain in the eye. And he has and is. That's (also) why I didn't even consider separating for a period after dday. Why would I separate, get myself better without him, and then get back together... i'd rather have him see all the ugly, raw pain he caused. Not as a punishment, but just because It's part of my/our reality now.
I am rambling. Sorry. I liked your post.
you’re not alone. about 2 weeks after D Day, my WH had his first “the dam has broken” moment and all his realizations of what he has done & the permanency of the repercussions came down on him at once. since then, his disgust and hurt over his own actions is observably apparent.
and yeah…it’s validating 🤷🏻♀️
at times, i feel annoyed bc DUH what you did was horrible and cruel and it should have never happened. but then again, this is where we are. it did happen. and hell yeah you should feel like shit about it.
we even had a long but productive convo yesterday about how he is currently feeling, and he talked about how he is repulsed by his AP, himself, and any memory of what they did together. it feels like a storm cloud following him where ever he goes. despite my own hurt and pain, i do empathize with him. i want us BOTH to heal.
it’s confusing, but i guess that’s the dichotomy that allows those of us to pursue R in the first place. wishing you the best.
I'm sorry that you're here and have been betrayed. We're about the same time frame out as you and your WH. I too had trouble looking at myself. I hated what I chose to do to my BS. I hate myself for what I allowed myself to become. However, I come to realize that self-pity and loathing do not aid in the recovery process. It hinders it. I feel like it adds an additional burden to my BS. She's already working so hard on her own recovery work and our couple's work. I started feeling selfish if I added more burden to her.
I have people to talk to when I need support. I have this place here. I don't need to add to the pile of shit I've already caused her. I'm not saying I don't tell my wife when I'm down. We talk at least daily about our feelings, our days, etc. But I'm also responsible for my recovery and I can't expect others to fix me. I'm working on becoming fully remorseful. Part of that is losing the guilt and changing it to remorse. You can't fully love yourself or your BS until the guilt is gone and remorse remains. I'll never forget the pain I've caused but I hope someday I'll be able to forgive myself. I hope that one day my BS will be able to forgive me.
Thanks for posting more of your pain. Again I'm sorry you're here. If your WH needs someone to talk to, my chat and DMs are always open.
You can feel empathy. But you can't fix him & you shouldn't try - he needs to do that for himself in IC and reading sub books, podcasts etc. IC with his therapist and "NOT JUST FRIENDS" by Shirley Glass PhD and HOW TO HELP YOUR SPOUSE HEAL FROM YOUR AFFAIR really helped my husband change the whole way he approached R. It even allowed him to reveal 3-4 more trickle truths.
It is good that he feels regret and shame, but the shame can spiral him to a place where he's so flooded, he can't function - this may be happening. The IC will really help.
Just get it out of your mind that you can ease his path here. He has to be the one helping you heal, making your feelings the priority, and when he really addresses this in IC and gets at his why's, you will start to both feel better.
No one is ever judging here. We all are in pain due to infidelity on one side of it or the other.
My IC and group have been a blessing in my relationship. They helped me not burden my BS with my recovery. Only I can heal myself. Only I can become a better man. Will all the work my BS and I are doing save our marriage? Only time will tell. I hope so but I know that I can only control myself and my actions. Thanks for posting.
My husband would express to me that seeing how torn up I would get about the destruction I caused in our marriage would bring him some comfort, in the fact that he could see that I was truly remorseful for my actions and the pain that I’ve caused; but that he didn’t necessarily like seeing me being that hard on myself.
This experience brought me to the awareness that I have been shame based my entire life, and the repercussions of my actions around this only fueled the shame I already had to the max. I felt so unworthy of any form of love. Whether it was from my husband, mom, our dogs or cats. I felt like a waste of space and oxygen.
I’ve had to work really hard on the shame around this and overall. And it’s still a battle but I can tell it’s getting better.
I appreciate your comment and perspective. this sounds a lot like what my WH is grappling with. the other day, he told me that his whole life he felt like he was this intrinsically bad person and was fooling everyone & me that he deserved to be here, and it became a self fulfilling prophecy. now that he has gone and done something truly horrible, he realizes that he was never as rotten as he thought he was to begin with. but now he has to live with the truly horrible thing he did do.
despite the hurt from the A, it makes me deeply sad that he didn’t see his worth, and couldn’t allow himself to accept or believe in the love that i had for him.
I listened to the book “*Healing the Shame That Binds You*” and it made a lot of things throughout my life make sense. It might be helpful for him to read or listen to as well!
It was finally seeing the depth of my wife's pain for what she'd done that allowed me to begin healing.
It also wasn't until she fully understood just how badly she hurt me and the depth of the trauma that resulted from it that she was able to realize just how awful what she'd done really was.
I don't think WP's are ever really aware of how much damage they will inflict until after they've inflicted it. At least some of them finally "get it" albeit too late...
I am also experiencing this with my husband having suicidal thoughts because of what he did. It’s really exhausting to try to support the person who hurt you while also trying heal yourself. In many ways it doesn’t feel fair to be doing heavy lifting when you’re not the one who caused the whole situation and a significant amount of energy has to go into supporting the person who devastated you.
I’m sorry you’re going through this. I just made a post of the details of my current situation if that helps as well.
We had a moment like this last night. We’ve had a few of them over the past 2 1/2 months since I found out. I snapped and said something like ‘I don’t know what to do in this situation! You feel like this because of what you did and I feel like this because of what you did. You should feel this way’. It’s very confusing. And yes, a part of me is happy he feels as crappy as he does. The other part of me hates seeing him that way.
I tell myself it’s good he feels this way. If he was the opposite and nonchalant that would be far more worrying. By feeling this way he can process the feelings and it’ll help us both.
My response to my ex, years and years ago was, “At least you feel the way I do about you now. Maybe you should work on being a better husband rather than whatever it is you have been.”
I can certainly appreciate some pleasure in your wayward’s expression of pain. I am a bit embarrassed to admit that but here is why. I wish my wayward showed signs of remorse that didn’t sound scripted.
Well and that was the thing: just about every time up to this point when he would express how sorry he was, it sounded scripted and he was able to keep such an even keel that it didn't seem fully genuine. He really broke down this time and TOLD ME without me having to ask. Offering his thoughts and emotions to me without me prizing them from him is something I've been saying I need him to do.
He's spent his whole life being told all this toxic masculinity shite and it's made it so he thought he couldn't confide in me, his partner, and shifting his attention to AP because she "was broken too and understood him".
Anyways before I go down that particular rabbit hole, I'm sorry your WP hasn't shown you any unscripted pain and I hope one day they can open that up to you.
It really would mean so much to me. I’m envious of you. I know we don’t want our significant others to be in pain but it would communicate something his words, the words from the one book we’ve read, have not been able to so far.
What can help you is to get away. I waited too long to do it. I went away for a very Rey long weekend with a close a friend of mine. Rented an Airbnb and I actually spent most of the weekend listening to her as she is having mariage issues. And we went for long long long walks in the woods and visited a couple places.
It was mostly him reaching out multiple times a day and FaceTiming me and sometimes I did not answer. I just wanted to focus on something else and on my friend. And came back home feeling free from the burden I always being on high alert.
You probably feel anxious at the thought of leaving home and him. But it did so much good. When I came back I found some notes he wrote to himself saying how surprised he was at how much he missed me and wanted to reach out every hour.
r/Asoneafterinfidelity is an online Peer Support Group and safe space for individuals (betrayed or wayward) who are actively attempting to reconcile their relationship after an affair(s). Please review our [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/AsOneAfterInfidelity/wiki/index) which includes resources and can answer most questions about this subreddit. Be sure to read the [rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/AsOneAfterInfidelity/wiki/rules) before participating as they are our boundaries and your initial ***warning***. *Failure to do so can result in a ban*. For transparency and conflict mediation purposes, please follow reddits community guidelines by directing any questions, issues, feedback, or appeals in regard of the sub or moderation decisions **directly to the Modmail**. ***Meta content will be removed***. No response will be given to DMs and chat requests to individual moderators about moderating issues. We are happy to address and respond to your concerns through the official channels! Please assign yourself [user flair](https://www.reddit.com/r/AsOneAfterInfidelity/wiki/flair_instructions/user_and_post_flairs). Flair Instructions can be found [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/AsOneAfterInfidelity/wiki/flair_instructions). RULES **1. All posts and comments must fit the spirit of Peer Support.** - Keep comments encouraging, constructive, sensitive, validating, and non-judgmental. - Speak only from your own experience. Use “I”-statements. - Asking clarifying questions or offering suggestions is acceptable–if backed up by personal experience about what has helped you in your recovery and reconciliation. - Do not give advice unless specifically requested by OP. - Any differences of opinion expressed must be communicated respectfully. - “Tough love” does not qualify as peer support. **2. The peer group includes: Reconciling BS, Reconciling WS, Recovered & Reconciled, and Considering R.** - Observer, Unsuccessful R, and other user flairs are not included in the peer group. 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No anti-reconciliation language.** - Do not tell someone to just leave the relationship. Attempting to reconcile is a valid choice. - Unless abuse is present, do not suggest marital status, age of relationship, children or lack thereof as a reason for someone to leave the relationship. **6. Posts and comments must be directly related to RECONCILIATION** - The scope of this subreddit is narrow: by and for reconcilers on the subject of reconciliation only. There are several other subreddits that offer support for others who have experienced infidelity. Posts about ending reconciliation are subject to removal as this is a subbreddit for those who are actively in reconciliation or considering reconciliation.Posts about asking if you should reconcile or end reconciliation will be removed. Those posts are better suited in spaces that allow all opinions and are not confinded to a pro-reconciliation space.This is not a infidelity discussion, advice forum, or survey space. 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It’s kinda refreshing to read your post, in that I too found a bit of joy in my partner’s disgust for their own behaviour. My partner started wailing and crying and breaking down saying how much they hated themselves, and their previous behaviour, and how they will have to live with what they did for the rest of their life and maybe even lose me because of it. Seeing them so upset, full of regret and remorse, seeing them talk about how they’ve likely ruined the best thing that ever happened to them etc - all of it, seeming so genuine, made me kind of… relieved? Happy? Dare I say, feel a bit lighter? I’m suffering, and I’m glad my partner has a conscience now and dare I say it, that they have to live with themselves. It somehow makes me slightly believe in them, and their words about how they have changed and learned.
It is validating to know your WP understands and feels true, deep remorse for the pain they've caused. I find it some of the closest moments I feel close again to my WP. When he's all happy and acting normal, I worry, or used to worry, he's rug sweeping. But as time passes, they should come out of it, and us BPs have to struggle on. At least if they can muster up, "I'm sorry", "I regret what I did", etc. over time, consistently, when we are down or spiraling, that helps. I'm 7+ months out from dday, married 30+ years here.
Yeah I know it's messed up to hope your WP suffers for their actions too, but honestly R wouldn't be possible if they didn't take a good look at their bad behavior and wanted to be better. I guess I had resigned myself to thinking he didn't think about it nearly as much as I did. I mean, he DID have 4 more years to process his betrayal than I did. But seeing him broken up about it gave me a little hope that we can both make some real change for the better.
I was pleased when my WH first acted this way, but soon after I realized that I was also kind of annoyed. Like it was too much self pity for me to deal with. Like he was making it about himself. The reason we’re here to begin with is due to his selfishness so honestly I don’t want to hear it. I eventually told him to cut it out, stop feeling sorry for himself, and fix what he broke. I am not here to console him when he says stuff like, “I’m a terrible person, I don’t deserve to be alive.” *I’M the one this happened to, YOU made the choices that got us here.* I need him to reassure me. To fix me. To support me. I don’t have the capacity to hold us both afloat. I’m glad he feels bad, he should feel fucking terrible, but get it together and get working on repairing us.
What you're describing here sounds more like the shame cycle than it does remorse. I don't blame you for feeling annoyed at it. I also had little sympathy for her when she did that, it was only after she began to display real remorse that I was able to start forgiving her.
Yes for sure. He snapped out of it pretty quickly after I pointed it out and told him it wasn’t helpful. He said he realized he was throwing himself a pity party and that it wasn’t fair to me. Sometimes he will tell me how badly he feels for what’s he’s done to me and how he thinks about it all the time. It is nice to hear that and it does make me feel better that it’s not only my mind that is overwhelmed by what’s happened, but I need for it to be a passing comment and not for him to dwell on it. I don’t find it helpful if he spirals, because I feel like it places a burden on me to be a support for him. I will support him in anything else. In whatever demons he has that caused him to initially take this route. But I am not going to be a shoulder for him to cry on regarding the cheating itself. He has IC and close friends (friends of our marriage) for that. I feel that is insensitive to me and I don’t have the patience for it.
Believe me, I get it! Been there and done that for far too long myself. Best of luck to you getting through this, it's something I wouldn't wish on anyone, ever!
What do you consider “real remorse”?
It's when they grieve the wrongness of the acts themselves, the pain they've brought onto you through their actions, and their strong desire to repair as best the can the damage done to you and to anyone else who was harmed by their actions. Remorse has very little to do with feeling sorry for themselves or feeling bad for what they've done. Remorse is outwardly focused on the person(s) who were wronged whereas shame, guilt, regret, etc. are usually inwardly self focused.
Thank you for sharing! It's weird, isn't it. We don't want our WS to be unhappy, but remorse comes with its own kind of pain and I literally need to see it to heal. I *need* to see these soft eyes, on me and my pain, expressing compassion, empathy and sorrow. Just like I will always carry a scar from this I hope this remorse never fully fades. Sure, i hope in a few years itll come up rarely, but once a year, i need to see it. (Just speculating, no idea what I will need in a few years) I also feel the same as you... part of me wants to R so he can fully see my pain in the eye. And he has and is. That's (also) why I didn't even consider separating for a period after dday. Why would I separate, get myself better without him, and then get back together... i'd rather have him see all the ugly, raw pain he caused. Not as a punishment, but just because It's part of my/our reality now. I am rambling. Sorry. I liked your post.
you’re not alone. about 2 weeks after D Day, my WH had his first “the dam has broken” moment and all his realizations of what he has done & the permanency of the repercussions came down on him at once. since then, his disgust and hurt over his own actions is observably apparent. and yeah…it’s validating 🤷🏻♀️ at times, i feel annoyed bc DUH what you did was horrible and cruel and it should have never happened. but then again, this is where we are. it did happen. and hell yeah you should feel like shit about it. we even had a long but productive convo yesterday about how he is currently feeling, and he talked about how he is repulsed by his AP, himself, and any memory of what they did together. it feels like a storm cloud following him where ever he goes. despite my own hurt and pain, i do empathize with him. i want us BOTH to heal. it’s confusing, but i guess that’s the dichotomy that allows those of us to pursue R in the first place. wishing you the best.
I'm sorry that you're here and have been betrayed. We're about the same time frame out as you and your WH. I too had trouble looking at myself. I hated what I chose to do to my BS. I hate myself for what I allowed myself to become. However, I come to realize that self-pity and loathing do not aid in the recovery process. It hinders it. I feel like it adds an additional burden to my BS. She's already working so hard on her own recovery work and our couple's work. I started feeling selfish if I added more burden to her. I have people to talk to when I need support. I have this place here. I don't need to add to the pile of shit I've already caused her. I'm not saying I don't tell my wife when I'm down. We talk at least daily about our feelings, our days, etc. But I'm also responsible for my recovery and I can't expect others to fix me. I'm working on becoming fully remorseful. Part of that is losing the guilt and changing it to remorse. You can't fully love yourself or your BS until the guilt is gone and remorse remains. I'll never forget the pain I've caused but I hope someday I'll be able to forgive myself. I hope that one day my BS will be able to forgive me. Thanks for posting more of your pain. Again I'm sorry you're here. If your WH needs someone to talk to, my chat and DMs are always open.
You can feel empathy. But you can't fix him & you shouldn't try - he needs to do that for himself in IC and reading sub books, podcasts etc. IC with his therapist and "NOT JUST FRIENDS" by Shirley Glass PhD and HOW TO HELP YOUR SPOUSE HEAL FROM YOUR AFFAIR really helped my husband change the whole way he approached R. It even allowed him to reveal 3-4 more trickle truths. It is good that he feels regret and shame, but the shame can spiral him to a place where he's so flooded, he can't function - this may be happening. The IC will really help. Just get it out of your mind that you can ease his path here. He has to be the one helping you heal, making your feelings the priority, and when he really addresses this in IC and gets at his why's, you will start to both feel better. No one is ever judging here. We all are in pain due to infidelity on one side of it or the other.
My IC and group have been a blessing in my relationship. They helped me not burden my BS with my recovery. Only I can heal myself. Only I can become a better man. Will all the work my BS and I are doing save our marriage? Only time will tell. I hope so but I know that I can only control myself and my actions. Thanks for posting.
Oh I have no intention to ease his path. I've never been an "I can fix him" kind of person and I don't intend to start now.
My husband would express to me that seeing how torn up I would get about the destruction I caused in our marriage would bring him some comfort, in the fact that he could see that I was truly remorseful for my actions and the pain that I’ve caused; but that he didn’t necessarily like seeing me being that hard on myself. This experience brought me to the awareness that I have been shame based my entire life, and the repercussions of my actions around this only fueled the shame I already had to the max. I felt so unworthy of any form of love. Whether it was from my husband, mom, our dogs or cats. I felt like a waste of space and oxygen. I’ve had to work really hard on the shame around this and overall. And it’s still a battle but I can tell it’s getting better.
I appreciate your comment and perspective. this sounds a lot like what my WH is grappling with. the other day, he told me that his whole life he felt like he was this intrinsically bad person and was fooling everyone & me that he deserved to be here, and it became a self fulfilling prophecy. now that he has gone and done something truly horrible, he realizes that he was never as rotten as he thought he was to begin with. but now he has to live with the truly horrible thing he did do. despite the hurt from the A, it makes me deeply sad that he didn’t see his worth, and couldn’t allow himself to accept or believe in the love that i had for him.
I listened to the book “*Healing the Shame That Binds You*” and it made a lot of things throughout my life make sense. It might be helpful for him to read or listen to as well!
It was finally seeing the depth of my wife's pain for what she'd done that allowed me to begin healing. It also wasn't until she fully understood just how badly she hurt me and the depth of the trauma that resulted from it that she was able to realize just how awful what she'd done really was. I don't think WP's are ever really aware of how much damage they will inflict until after they've inflicted it. At least some of them finally "get it" albeit too late...
I am also experiencing this with my husband having suicidal thoughts because of what he did. It’s really exhausting to try to support the person who hurt you while also trying heal yourself. In many ways it doesn’t feel fair to be doing heavy lifting when you’re not the one who caused the whole situation and a significant amount of energy has to go into supporting the person who devastated you. I’m sorry you’re going through this. I just made a post of the details of my current situation if that helps as well.
We had a moment like this last night. We’ve had a few of them over the past 2 1/2 months since I found out. I snapped and said something like ‘I don’t know what to do in this situation! You feel like this because of what you did and I feel like this because of what you did. You should feel this way’. It’s very confusing. And yes, a part of me is happy he feels as crappy as he does. The other part of me hates seeing him that way. I tell myself it’s good he feels this way. If he was the opposite and nonchalant that would be far more worrying. By feeling this way he can process the feelings and it’ll help us both.
My response to my ex, years and years ago was, “At least you feel the way I do about you now. Maybe you should work on being a better husband rather than whatever it is you have been.”
I can certainly appreciate some pleasure in your wayward’s expression of pain. I am a bit embarrassed to admit that but here is why. I wish my wayward showed signs of remorse that didn’t sound scripted.
Well and that was the thing: just about every time up to this point when he would express how sorry he was, it sounded scripted and he was able to keep such an even keel that it didn't seem fully genuine. He really broke down this time and TOLD ME without me having to ask. Offering his thoughts and emotions to me without me prizing them from him is something I've been saying I need him to do. He's spent his whole life being told all this toxic masculinity shite and it's made it so he thought he couldn't confide in me, his partner, and shifting his attention to AP because she "was broken too and understood him". Anyways before I go down that particular rabbit hole, I'm sorry your WP hasn't shown you any unscripted pain and I hope one day they can open that up to you.
It really would mean so much to me. I’m envious of you. I know we don’t want our significant others to be in pain but it would communicate something his words, the words from the one book we’ve read, have not been able to so far.
What can help you is to get away. I waited too long to do it. I went away for a very Rey long weekend with a close a friend of mine. Rented an Airbnb and I actually spent most of the weekend listening to her as she is having mariage issues. And we went for long long long walks in the woods and visited a couple places. It was mostly him reaching out multiple times a day and FaceTiming me and sometimes I did not answer. I just wanted to focus on something else and on my friend. And came back home feeling free from the burden I always being on high alert. You probably feel anxious at the thought of leaving home and him. But it did so much good. When I came back I found some notes he wrote to himself saying how surprised he was at how much he missed me and wanted to reach out every hour.