I’ve fallen behind on this thread. I like to reply to almost all responses to honor the effort and time you all put into investing in my life, but I’m probably not going to be able to do that for the last few days. But know I’ve read them and thought about them and appreciate them.
I’m going to do something different here: I’m going to copy a key exchange between us from Monday that I’d like you all to know to understand where we are at. I just don’t believe this is as simple as "she chooses not to", but for the first time you all can see her words directly and see what you think. This is long but the content is really meaningful to me right now.
InkHulk
I’m going to describe what I experienced on Thursday night and try to communicate how I felt about it.
These questions matter to me in a number of ways. They help me feel re-empowered after my agency was stolen. They promise to shed light into a dark place in my life, a darkness that did in fact produce danger and pain. And they remove a cancer from Us, because if I know one thing for sure in all this, I can’t just forgive and forget. We need the surgery, it has to come out, otherwise it’s fatal. There are likely more reasons why questions are important to me, but these suffice for now.
So for as important as this is to me, the process has been highly delayed. That has created a building tension in me. To run into more walls, more delays is agonizing. You saying in therapy that you were far more active in initiating the affair than I ever thought also very much heightened the stakes for me on Thursday.
But the single biggest thing that happened on Thursday was you using the word "deceptive". I don’t understand what is happening with you in that situation. From my perspective, your situation is like that of a murderer who confessed and is offered a full pardon, all they have to do is show remorse and tell where the body is. But when given the chance they seem to just keep talking about how they don’t like the stern lawyers and guards and the holding cell is cold. I’m asking for where the bodies are buried and you keep provoking me in those moments by making the moment about yourself and your discomfort.
What happens to you in those times? In MC’s office you finished it saying "I feel betrayed" (I heard, I don’t think MC did). You finish the next day with "I feel deceived". You put all kinds of rules and conditions on it. What I want to see from you is a model of humility, answering fully, answering the deeper questions I don’t even know to ask, and with a soft demeanor that honors the difficulty of the experience for me. Because the difficulty of the offender in a given situation is trumped by their victim. I believe that in general, not just for myself. I will act like that in your hurts. I expect that of myself and everyone else.
So I’m asking: what happens to you in those situations, or just what happened to you on Thursday, and Wed in therapy? When I look at you, I perceive the look of a trapped animal. It seems like we have all these rules and delays that are set up for your protection and benefit. Why do you need them? MC used the word "re-traumatize" in session, but I’ve never heard of someone being "re-traumatized" by truthfully recounting their own actions and motives.
In all this I’m looking for signs that you are going to take up the role of caring for my stated needs and desires. You know you are working on speaking up for yourself and not people pleasing, and I support that. But a healthy person still meets the needs of their spouse, and a betrayed spouse has extra needs. And even with the people pleasing, my needs weren’t getting met, how much more once you were siphoning off love out of the relationship. I’m starved and broke. You starved and broke me. And I know you aren’t healthy. I know I’ve hurt you, that you’ve injured yourself with this self destructive behavior, and that you came in hurt. But I need some minimums from you as we both try to mutually heal. And you being humble and transparent in this disclosure process is a non-negotiable to me. I’ve given you time, I’ve accepted rules and protections. And then Wed and Thurs happened, with you using language (betrayed, deceived) that I perceive as you taking a victim role. And that is a deal breaker for me. Full pardon offer revoked.
So to move forward, somehow we need to address what is happening in those moments. I truly need humility and transparency and something is happening in you that blocks it. Please don’t tell me to not judge your emotions, that will not help this situation.
This is long. I’ve tried here to describe my thoughts. My feelings are roiling like the flood water under the dam right now, brown and foamy, beyond counting, hard to believe a person could survive a trip thru that. This needs to be addressed, I won’t make it another month with this going on. I love you and my heart is so broken.
Mrs Ink Hulk’s reply
Thank you for expressing what you are experiencing and needing. I see you being patient and kind and understanding in making concessions for me to give you the details to your satisfaction. I hear how important it is for you to look the at the ugliness of my sins against you and understand that as fully as possible. I also hear you sharing how hard it is to discover new things or understand things differently than the narrative you have come to believe.
I believe this is harder for me than even I understand. I want to give you answers to these questions. This has gone on a long time and I feel we are both struggling with that. I believe that you need these answers and I am humbling myself to give them to you.
I have used the word purgatory. I have confessed and answered many questions. The weight of the number of questions still left and believing that more will be added is heavy. It feels to me like I confessed, I showed you the body and now I am needing to detail every thought I had before during and after the murder as well as the details of what I did. And I want to do that. I believe you when you say you need that. I also don’t know that I will receive a full pardon even if I follow through. You have made that clear and I give you that, I don’t expect you to know how you will feel about me.
I have been trying to understand what is going on with me, I want to answer your questions, I believe you need them and have the right to have the answers, yet I clearly get easily dis regulated. I think it’s helpful to think about the times I hurt myself. How absolutely crazy it made me.
The phrase for that kind of crazy in me is toxic shame. I believe it comes from childhood trauma. The same place my people pleasing comes from. It’s the other side of the coin. I’ve done something shameful. I did not please you. What I have done is devastatingly shameful. It is something I never wanted to do, have judged other people for, and it’s ugly, gross, selfish, sinful. It feels unforgivable to me, I have to work to remind myself of Christ’s complete atonement. I’m sorry, I feel I am rambling.
I have identified the toxic shame I feel as coming from an emotional flashback. An emotional flashback as far as I understand it is feeling something that triggers a hijacking of my amygdala and floods me with the overwhelming feelings of my childhood trauma (largely emotional). I sometimes feel fear, shame weak, helpless, scared, hopeless and despairing of life. Being seen feels excruciatingly vulnerable. Everything feels overwhelming and confusing. My emotions override my rational brain.
These are new learnings. I am committed to growing and managing/thriving/putting to bed my emotional flashbacks. I believe it will take time and I have already experienced some really great wins.
The challenge is that I need to address the most shameful things in my life and I need to do it now, without time to perfect tools that would help manage my emotional flashbacks.
I am so sorry for the way I have hurt you in these interactions. I do not want to hurt you.
I have asked for very generous/strict boundaries to try to help me move through this.
I care about you and have deep empathy for you. You’ve said you felt I lacked empathy for you. Sometimes, my empathy is so much and my hate for myself for hurting you so much is so great that it comes out in a shame shit storm. I understand how hurtful that is to you. It feels like my other option is to disassociate and just give you answers. It’s the two ditches. I want to be able to sit infront of you and see the hurt on your face and hear your anger and hurt and stay present and empathetic. I really struggle, I really fail at that right now
I think it’s really hard for you to hear the hurtful answers to the questions and not feel anger and lash out. I feel like what we are doing is a crazy cycle.
I would welcome the chance to send you answers this week. To try to change the cycle. To try to push through some questions. I also want to honor that you are working and this might not be the time for that.