Wife Cheated. Need Help Please!

The_Dude

I would highly recommend using the MAP book and the Primer to objectively inventory your weak areas and work on those first and furiously.   Be a little careful about swallowing everything the counselor says. Some are good, a lot are terrible. The absolute best medicine for your pain is to turn the relationship around so she's hanging on you.  And she's the one worrying about losing you. 

You won the war now. Go win the peace. Don't do it just enough to get by. Push it to the limit. And be magnanimous, she surrendered.  From everything I read that you posted, I think you'll be ok there.  You sound like a fair man. 

One thing I would highly recommend us to take advantage of the short window you have right now when everything is fluid.  If there are patterns you want to break out of, now is the time.  For me, I completely changed my approach to sex.  We were pretty vanilla and I had a hard time just going for it.  Had sown long frustrations that I hadn't resolved because I was too worried about her reaction.  During the phase you're in I just said wtf and went for it.  Turned out she was very receptive to most of it.  She was a little inhibited too. No negative emotions around sex, just had never pushed past comfortable. 

Turn on the lights if you want to, look her in the eye, talk dirty, a little rougher stuff (nothing extreme), watch some porn together, tell her what you want her to do, play with her ass if you want to, whatever, talk about your fantasies, hers. Etc. 

there was a lot of non sexual stuff that got reset too.  Now's the time.  The window closes a little over time.

On the hazards to avoid side, try to avoid sharing all the pain, grief and anger.  You can't avoid it entirely, but it can be counterproductive if you keep putting it out there.  I had a very hard time with that, sometimes still do.  But I do know that very little good comes from it.  If you have repeating nightmares and they start dragging you down in your daily life, think about trying Xanax.  I don't use it very often anymore and never regularly, but when I know I'm crashing into a really dark place I'll take a very minimal dose to sleep well. The next day things are much better.  Or if I wake up at 2am and know I won't sleep again, I'll use 1/2 of one and not lose the whole night. 

MrNiceGuy

@‌ The_Dude

As always, I appreciate your insight. I've been looking at my weak points and doing my best to improve in those areas. I think taking control and making decisions has been my weakest point. I grew up with a single mom and 3 sisters so I learned from them to compromise on almost all things; I was always outnumbered! That's not necessarily a bad trait to have because I feel like I can negotiate with people and hear them out, but it's also a bad trait because it gets you backed into corners at times because you're looked at as a "Nice Guy" that people can walk all over. Since all of this has happened, my best friend has told me that he's worried that I will get back to that place. He told me that he saw me as someone who had given up and hated life. In some regards he was right. I assured him that I won't get back to that place and to not take my kindness for weakness. I view myself as an easy going person, but I've realized that some people view that as a weakness and think that my wife walks all over me. That couldn't be farther from the truth! She has encouraged me for years to go out and hang out with my friends, to go on weekend trips camping, to do many many things. She's wanted to take me places and I've told her no. I've held myself back for various reasons, mostly because I just don't feel like doing them. I have to work on not feeling guilty when I do things for myself and to enjoy life.

My therapist/counselor is helping me to deal with the day-to-day struggles I have and is helping me work through this tragedy by making me go back and deal with tragedies in my childhood. I don't know if anyone has heard of EMDR but it's pretty amazing. The therapist thinks I have some PTSD from an event from childhood that hasn't allowed me to fully open up to anyone since then. The EMDR has really helped me in ways I can't begin to explain and I'm able to talk about things that I've never been able to before. 

I also understand about the sex thing. We've never had a dull sex life, but in recent years, it's been very infrequent (once a month maybe). I didn't do a good job in initiating and she didn't initiate at all. Sex is probably the best it has ever been right now for several reasons. Mostly, I think we feel connected emotionally on levels we haven't been in years, if ever. I think we both had inhibitions about certain sexual things and we have thrown those out the window. We are taking time for each other now and not worrying about "burdening" the other one. 

I may talk to someone about the Xanax. I do have a prescription-grade Melatonin that is amazing, but it only lasts about 6 hours and then I'm wide awake again.

Thanks again for everything!

PoundingTheRock

Just want to second @The_Dude‌ in that you need to push the envelope for change right now, not just in the bedroom, but in all aspects.

The absolute hardest thing for me is ridding myself of the worry about my wife's reaction to things.  Some days are good, some are bad.  

The positive here is that you don't have to worry about her feelings regarding you getting what you need as a man and husband and father.  What's the worst thing she could do if she doesn't like the new you? 

Exactly.

Just my .02, have not been in your situation, but I know for a fact that @The_Dude‌ has great advice coming from a place of unfortunate experience.