My journal

When Legends Rise

She's scared. She's worried she's not enough. She's frightened the next fight will be the last. Her mind can't stop thinking that the good man she knows is inside me is just steps from the cliff.

Fear not.

My lows are low and I need to work on this. Although my heart hurts and shadowed at times the flame for her is unwavering.

I wallow in self pity. I play victim. This is wrong of me. I'm working on figuring out why I do this because it needs to stop.

I need to be present during the pushing and pulling of her betrayal trauma.
I need to be careful but accepting when she's pulling.
I need to not take it personally when she's pushing.
I need to show her that I am safe and steady, ready to accept her with love and empathy.
I need to live a honest and wholesome life so I have no guilt or shame to distract me from fulfilling my responsibilities to her.

All of these things I will be working on, hoping to gain back her trust and find the way back to her heart.

These emotions I'm struggling with right now are consuming. What has been my distraction from emotions for 15ish years can no longer be a part of my life and its uncomfortable and painful at times.

I must do something about it. I can't just stand here and bleed.

I can be a legend rising through the ashes my betrayal has caused.

Because god knows my wife has been one.


64 days no PM. 14th day of monk mode.

Thank you @EyesWideOpen for reaching out. Reminds me this community can be a support system for me.

Same to you @Qnb42078 and @hope4healing. Haven't had a chance to check out flatlining but if it's related to having to deal with emotions I used to be able to numb with PMO then YES im flatlining hard.

Wife pissed? Work stressful? Kids pushing my buttons? Jerk off and forget about it silly.

Not any more.

Doing my best to push through it.

 

Howdy! Thank you, the emotions and thought have been running rampant lately.

I did! I really wish I had your writing skills. The way your able to translate your thoughts into words so eloquently is inspiring. It really shows how serious and dedicated you are to your wife and family. There are many things I can relate to. In fact your one of the inspirations for the beginning of my last journal entry.

I do and she is! Without her there is no doubt I'd still be out there causing chaos in mine and others life's.

We are blessed! Some journals I have to stop reading because if it feels like I'm down to my knees in it then they must have no hope. Hopefully that's not the case though.

Hmmmmm.... Good question. There's some things im pretty shameful of but I think I love myself. Maybe I should give this question some more thought.

Uhhhggg! This is always in the back of my mind. Im scared of this happening after our 30 day hardmode. I don't know that I can take more than 30 days. Heck I'm on day 14 and I don't know if I can take 30!

Like I said before, you've really done an amazing job of looking deep within yourself and putting it all out there. Vulnerability and self reflection can be amazing life tools that I desperately need to work on. In some sense you should be very proud of yourself but my cautious side is afraid to throw that out there as I know heads have a tendency to inflate sometimes and I wouldn't want to be a stepping stone on that path for anyone.

Your journey is inspiring and you seem like a really genuine person. Thank you for this. I mean, who knows who you really are behind that keyboard but the image you portray in your journal gives me strength as there is much I can relate to and learn from.


AHHHHH gotta go to sleep!

 

This is what my mind does when I'm trying to sleep...

private function handleEmotion(EmotionType emotion) {
const ResponseType response = ResponseType.LoveAndEmpathy;
const bool willKill = false;

if (willKill) return Response.Run;

return response;
}

If only it were this easy.

 

Day 91 no PM.

So its been awhile. Almost a month.There have been many up and downs since I last wrote.

The Ups

• 30 day hard-mode is over! It didn't end as planned but its over which is such a huge relief now that I get to sleep in the same bed as my wife among other amazing things.
• I'm still seeing my counselor every week. It is still going really well. We are talking about things like the John Gottman's 4 horseman, the addiction cycle, my person values and many other things. Many of our discussions have been eye opening and/or confirmatory of some of my own thoughts that I struggle with. This isn't to say that I am implementing everything correctly or fully but I am at least making good progress which is encouraging.
• I'm still working through my workbook recommended by my counselor. It's got some really good information in it so I'm enjoying it.
  
• Kids started back to school for I've got more time to catch up on recovery or work.
• My wife is an amazing person. Though she may struggle at times (deservedly so) I see how hard she works her own recovery. I love this about her. Her strength motivates me. I had some time to catch up on some things today and ended up stumbling on a clip from a couple guys I respect that I really liked. It doesn’t all directly apply to my situation but there is some really good info in it. You only have to watch a couple minutes up to the advertisement but I won’t fault ya for tuning in longer.

The Downs

• It's been a struggle to stay away from work lately. We have been going through a lot of growing pains at work (a good thing) which is causing the need for change. This is a new situation for me now that I manage a team of people. This means I am responsible for defining, implementing and enforcing a lot of the new changes we are making to our teams processes. This has been taking a TON of my time lately and on top of that, my normal workload hasn't decreased as much as the new workload has increased. As of the last 2-3 weeks I have been spending a lot of time working rather than using it for recovery work like I used to. This is somewhat depressing as I feel like I’m falling behind in recover but catching up with work. I think it probably bothers my wife as well. It’s just so hard being the sole provider and feeling like your work performance is lagging behind. Hopefully the changes we are currently working on implementing will pay off and streamline some things that have been a burden. This should allow the voice in the back of my head to stop yelling at me when I’m not working and allow me to focus more on recovery again.
• I’m bad at making my wife feel special. This is on me. I need to get better at this. A lot of the times when I’m trying to think of something to do for her I struggle to come up with idea’s. When I do come up with idea’s either I convince myself that its not a good idea (I feel like I’m probably wrong about this hind-site) or I’m horrible about implementing them in a timely manner. I need to start keeping a list of things that I notice my wife says she wants or likes so I can hit the ground running instead of letting my mind screw things up. If anyone else has a better idea let me know.

I’m sure I am leaving out a lot on both sides of the good and the bad but I’d rather get this out there now rather than setting it aside to finish later. I’ve done that too many times and came back to it feeling it no longer applied as much and scrapped it.

Until next time...