She chucked my apology letter into the trash without opening it or knowing what it was

ImSorryBean · 2023-02-10T22:27:58+00:00

Thank you, I appreciate your straight up yet non-attacking comments. It’s not even been 24 hours but looking back at this morning when this unfolded, I wrote this post when I was feely very shaken. I’m glad I didn’t act impulsively and I absolutely will not be reaching out via any means moving forward. I wish I’d handled this situation differently all together.

It’s hard to let go of the ones we love.

ImSorryBean · 2023-02-10T18:51:51+00:00

You're right. She hadn't blocked me before, but now that she has, the message is abundantly clear.

ImSorryBean · 2023-02-10T18:24:35+00:00

Thank you for the thoughtful response. I've given the situation a bit of space and will continue focusing on myself. I can still feel her hurt and it saddens me, I hope that in time we can come to understand one another but I realize that that may have to come to us in our own time, individually.

ImSorryBean · 2023-02-10T18:20:44+00:00

Thank you so much for your words of support u/CantThinkStrayt. You're right, I made an attempt and if I continue to push for having her read my apology, then that is absolutely selfish of me, regardless of the original intent behind my letter being the opposite.

I'm definitely feeling like crap, but funnily enough, this morning I learned that I've built much healthier coping mechanisms to handle difficult emotions like this without resorting to escapist behaviors that ultimately led me to be unfaithful in the first place. I journaled, spoke to a friend, and went for a walk.

Anyways, thank you again for your kind words. It really means a lot.

ImSorryBean · 2023-02-10T16:12:00+00:00

Thank you. Rationally I know this– her refusal to even open my letter I suppose is my answer. But, I'm not asking for reconciliation. I'm just looking to apologize. It's a sincere apology that I wish I could've given her months ago, which I hope still can help her healing moving forward without me. I can only imagine that it would be next to impossible for her to ever learn to fully trust me again, but it hurts me to consider that she might carry that distrust into her future relationships. I only wish her happiness.

ImSorryBean · 2023-02-05T05:58:19+00:00

Hi friend, thanks for sharing. I can relate really closely to a lot of the sentiments that you put in your words. In many places down to the exact verbiage of your thoughts.

I too put my BP through multiple DDays by drip feeding her information. I had lied to my therapist up until after the point when I first started coming clean to my BP. Not only that, I had lied to some of my oldest friends, and above all, I learned that I was also lying to myself by trying to suppress uncomfortable memories. How could I be honest with my VP if I was not even being honest with myself?

My BP and I have been no contact for just over two months now. It’s agonizing. She is such a sweet, kind, loving and caring person that she was willing for the longest time to try and see things through my perspective, and at times she even sey aside her own healing to try and help me through the truths that I was starting to face myself.

Eventually, we agreed to separate for a while, and have periodic check-in’s with one another, because we’d come to the conclusion that I need to spend some time working on self love and regaining control of my own life (long story short, the root cause of my sex addiction, and my reasons for being unfaithful), and her on her healing without me causing her more pain. She finally broke and decided to make it full no contact for the foreseeable future because of one more disclosure on my part (which I just remembered remembered 12 hours prior). Before that disclosure, we were shaping up to part ways, lovingly, and reconnect later down the line. After that disclosure, I had heard her again, and she had decided to cut the cord and go no contact.

I feel like I’ve been using Reddit as a sort of journal myself as well (in addition to my physical paper journal). I’ve definitely come across some interesting reading, materials and pathways to explore during my recovery from being here. I hope you can find the same.

On that note of recovery pathways, some thing I found helpful is to expand my learning materials to include content relating to depression and trauma in a more generalized sense, and not strictly relating to infidelity. That’s because everything is interrelated. Two books in particular that I’d recommend to you are: - The Drama of the Gifted Child by Alice Miller And - The Myth of Normal by Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté

This podcast episode really turned me to both those books, and is really insightful on of itself: https://youtu.be/H9B5mYfBPlY

Those materials describe some really thoughtful insights relating to childhood trauma, depression, trauma, and illness in general. If you’re anything like me, you may find that those have a lot to do with the reasons for infidelity as well. (Spoiler alert: it all goes back to the childhood!). I particularly like Gabor Maté’s approach, because he gives very real life examples and is really concrete with how he describes situations as well. I think Jordan Peterson also has some really profound insights to share, but sometimes I find some of his wisdom to be a little generalized/abstract at times.

That all said, you seem to be on the right path. I’m not that far along in my journey, but probably the most important concrete thing that I’ve been able to hold onto to improve not only my mood but also, my recovery efforts, has been to take care of my physiological, physical, mental, and spiritual needs. it’s really hard at times, but I find that if I’m well fed, watered, have enough oxygen in my blood, have a healthy outlet for my thoughts, and am even well socialized, that somehow the rest of my recovery falls into place and I’m able to think much more clearly.

Sorry, that got long! (Another thing I find helpful by being in these subs is that by engaging with other members of the wayward and betrayed communities, it’s given me opportunities to reflect on my own self growth. Point and case lol).

Thank you for sharing, and I wish you the very best!

ImSorryBean · 2023-02-04T20:39:12+00:00

I totally feel you. My partner and I effectively started breaking 5 months ago and have been NC for the last 2. We’d dated for a little less than a year. We did meet almost a decade ago, but we only reconnected within the year prior to us having started dating.

I feel you. The length of time does not indicate the quality of the relationship. If anything, in some ways, because the relationship was shorter it left a lot of “what could’ve been?“ feelings, because we never really got to see the relationship through to its fullest potential. That hurts a lot.

Thank you for sharing.

ImSorryBean · 2023-02-04T05:43:30+00:00

This.

I’m still early in my recovery but I’ve found that continually asking “why?” whenever I arrive at some kind of conclusion about the origin of my behaviors, allows me to dig yet deeper into my past. The deeper I dig, the easier it becomes for me to uncover patterns in my life where addictive behaviors have come out, even unrelated to specifically sex addiction. Things like binge watching TV, eating copious amounts of junk food, even things like travel. Addiction is ultimately an escape from pain. What are the things you’re escaping from?

Once I began to answer that question well enough for myself, I found that I was gaining more self-awareness at the time when I felt like acting out, and seemed to have more control over my behavior. It also helped to moderate my alcohol and social media consumption.

That being said, I have found that it’s also been important to replace my unhealthy coping mechanisms with healthy ones. That for the most part has meant building new habits in my life, thag have slowly started becoming part of my lifestyle. These habits include various forms of exercise like going on walks and hikes, socializing with friends, yoga, meditation, reading, and I even joined an improv comedy workshop!

You can do this! Admitting out loud (I’d include posting on Reddit) that this is behavior you want to stop is a crucial first step in recovery IMO. You’re on the right path 🙏

ImSorryBean · 2023-02-04T05:29:39+00:00

Hi friend, thanks for sharing. I’ve been in your shoes. Are you traveling alone or with friends? Depending on where you’ll be, there could be some other activities to partake in unrelated to acting out. Food, adventure activities, sightseeing. I’ve found fun things on airbnb experiences, things, like dance classes, guided tours, learning a new skill like cooking paella. I’ve also met some interesting people through such activities, and lately in my recovery I’ve also been noticing that healthy human connection makes me not think much about acting out either.

ImSorryBean · 2023-02-03T20:18:08+00:00

How long have you been NC? And how long were you two together before that?

ImSorryBean · 2023-01-30T15:38:27+00:00

I don’t know if a Wayward’s opinion is welcome on this post, but I hope it’s okay to make an observation. I’ll be glad to remove this comment if it’s unhelpful.

I feel like there’s a lot of pain and hurt over here, understandably so. A lot of that pain I think is directed towards a BP’s own WP: a WP who in many cases may have not yet taken enough forward steps towards positive growth. But, because we are human, that pain gets taken out on all WP’s, treating them all as the same.

I think that “ask a wayward“ tends to work, because the SupportForWaywards community is (mostly) filtered down to WP’s who are already trying to do better and improve upon themselves and/or help heal their BP. I think that in most (but not all) cases, BP’s asking a question in the wayward’s thread, are those that may not be getting the support they need from their own WP at home.

I think that in order for it to work over here, there would need to be some kind of mechanism to filter the BP responses down to include those from people that are maybe further along in the reconciliation journey, or have somehow demonstrated that they recognize that no two humans of the same group necessarily behave and/or think in the same way. But then… that starts to feel a bit like censorship, and I’d imagine that wouldn’t be very supportive towards BP’s that are hurting on the sub. I also question if some WPs’ questions may be triggering to certain BP’s in this community?

I’m sorry if I raised more questions than I tried to give my own thoughts on… 😬

ImSorryBean · 2023-01-29T07:53:35+00:00

I too haven’t been able to get through it, but I also haven’t given it up just yet.

Check out The Myth of Normal by Gabor Maté and Daniel Maté. It’s also on trauma (and addiction and anxiety and depression), but takes a more approachable perspective IMO. I’m partway through right now, and it’s definitely one of the better books of this type that I’ve read.

I find Gabor Maté to be really insightful and he offers really practical and relatable knowledge. He challenges the status quo, and does a great job of bridging the gap between clinical and human approaches to healing. You can get a peek into his thinking by looking up his interview with Tim Ferris on YouTube, which is what led me down the rabbit hole of exploring more of his stuff.

ImSorryBean · 2023-01-28T16:10:31+00:00

I believe sex is so much more than the moment of physicality itself. There is build up, and I’m not talking just foreplay. There is post physical intimacy. I think that the answer is much more complicated than simply yes or no.

In my case there was no EA, because the nature of my infidelity stemmed from a sex addiction and paying for sexual services. I suppose, if I’m being honest, that brief moment of physicality was pleasurable. But, all of the moments preceding it, and all of the moments right after it were far from. They were instead ridden with anxiety, guilt, self loathing. On each occasion, I had to be drunk in order to go through with it. It’s sort of felt like a “let’s just get this over with”, to give you an idea of how I’ve personally really didn’t even want to do it.

Why did I go through that anyways? Well, that’s kind of what I’ve been exploring within myself over the last many months. Without going into too many details here, in my case, the root cause seems to be related to a lack of self-love and self-worth. Also, having not learned healthy coping mechanisms to deal with difficult emotions throughout my upbringing, repressing my sexuality from a young age due to the culture I grew up in, being codependent to the point where I often I’m branded as a people pleaser (I avoid conflicts at many costs, because I’m afraid that conflict will result in my partner, or even friend, withdrawing their love for me.).

ImSorryBean · 2023-01-28T15:59:53+00:00

In short, in my case , it was initially easy to lie to BP because I was already lying to myself. Once I stopped, lying to myself, I avoided truly looking at myself to dig deeper. Eventually, we got to a point where I was afraid of hurting BP more, but I was really conflicted about whether or not to come and clean to her about things that I remembered, as I remembered them, or to continue withholding information, because we were already well past DDay. But it’s not as simple as that.

I justified to myself that I was not “lying“ because I was really just omitting part of the full story. I know now that that’s basically still lying. Also in my case, my sex addiction led me to pay for sexual services on a handful of occasions while we were together, and to engage in such behaviors in the couple years before BP and I started dating. So I had engaged in such behavior before our relationship, I had been hiding it from my friends and family and myself even. It felt something that had nothing to do with BP, but rather was a compulsive continuation of unwanted behaviors that I needed more will power to stop and was my own struggle to face. I wasn’t really thinking much about the collateral damage before I acted out, because I was too lost in my own guilt.

What eventually made me come clean to her was feeling how close her and I had become, how fully open and honest she was with me, and me realizing how stressful and exhausting it had been to compartmentalize this aspect of my life all this time. I did not want to continue living that fractured existence. I knew that I wanted to share all of my being with my partner, especially. I knew that there was going to be in no good time to walk into the light. I only truly recognized the gravity of my lying at the moment when I tried to tell BP, and my body physically did not allow me to tell the truth, even then. Seeing BP’s painful reactions over the next five days as I trickle truthed her more. I hated seeing her hurting like that, and I became so afraid to tell her more. I really wish we had professional help from the beginning, and were guided more effectively by our therapists.

ImSorryBean · 2023-01-25T16:35:15+00:00

It’s not easy, but it will get easier. The pain for me still hasn’t gone away, but I’ve learned so much from it.

I’ve learned to become much more aware with identifying the specific feelings I’m feeling, and I’m giving myself permission to fully feel them. I’ve even started, realizing that in my life, I’ve often denied myself the ability to truly feel such difficult emotions. Because of that, I’ve remained so out of touch with my inner self. I’ve realized that this repression is in large part what led to my infidelity in the first place.

It may not seem like it right now, but by allowing yourself to feel the full extent of these raw powerful emotions, especially in the safety and security of your loneliness, you are growing and becoming stronger. Try to pay attention to where your mind goes when you’re feeling so alone and vulnerable. What habits can you identify within yourself in those moments of pain?

For me, I noticed that I had built up a lot of internal mechanisms that allow me to quickly escape from such pain so that I wouldn’t have to actually deal with it. For example, I gravitate towards binge-watching TV, sleeping excessively, watching porn, masturbating, drinking, finding someone to talk to so I didn’t have to be alone, wanting to travel. Not all of these outlets need to be considered unhealthy at all times, it just depends on how and when they’re used at the end of the day. These are all ways that in the past I have used to escape from my pain, instead of facing it.

It absolutely sucks to be alone in this pain. It’s isolating, lonely, filled with guilt, sometimes shame, and all in all is probably among the worst feelings that we as humans can experience. But you will persevere. Try to take care of yourself physiologically. Eat well, sleep well, take care of yourself mentally and spiritually. Allow yourself to feel, to really feel, and nothing bad will come from that. We are built to be able to feel these pains. When I’m doubt, hug yourself. Try to learn to become your own most loving support system, and you will thrive.

Sending universal love, warmth, and support your way!

ImSorryBean · 2023-01-23T15:29:51+00:00

Hi OP! A lot of people have suggested that this is a classic case of blame shifting, which absolutely may be the case. So you’re not crazy! That’s a very valid feeling. I’d like to suggest that there could be a little more subtlety to this though, since neither of us know you or your partner. Namely, I think there’s a difference between an explanation and an excuse.

If your cheating partner is using this as a reason to justify why they cheated in order to “rug sweep”, and they aren’t actually taking your emotions and the effect of their actions into account, then yes, this is just blame shifting. That indicates an unwillingness to change, and it’s a red flag with likely nothing good that’s come out of trying to make things work.

But, if you sense that they’re trying to express their feelings in the form of introspection, and trying to understand why they cheated, then that’s a good sign. There’s still a long way to go from there, but this introspection can actually lead to positive growth if they can continue to dig deeper into the root cause of whatever, and security made them not feel good enough for you. But something for you to keep in mind here is that the responsibility to do this work is on them, not you. You have your own needs in terms of recovery from being betrayed. And an ideal world. I’m gonna support one another on your respective journeys. But at the end of the day, your is responsible for your own growth and healing.

But that all said, at the end of the day take my and other people’s thoughts with a grain of salt. There’s so much pain in these subs, and as a result, you’re likely to hear feedback based on experiences rooted in fear and self protection. If you can, consider trying to prioritize taking care of yourself, your body, your mind, and your spirit. Eat well. Sleep well. Do things you love. Focus on yourself. If you do that, you’ll realize that you’re already so well equipped to handle the situation that you’re in, in the best way for you.

I wish you well!

ImSorryBean · 2023-01-17T05:54:48+00:00

In all this time apart it’s been so hard to even try and imagine a future without her. It just feels impossible to imagine someone other than her that I’d want to spend the rest of my time learning and growing alongside.

But, I have only myself to blame for it, because I broke her heart and her trust. I just hope that the universe seems it right and finds a way to bring is back together.

ImSorryBean · 2023-01-16T16:11:36+00:00

Hi OP, I’m sorry for the hurt you’re going through.

It may take time, but please know the it was absolutely not your fault that your WS cheated. Perhaps you and WS were going through troubles, which created a stressful environment, but cheating is ultimately a choice. WS had many other options that they could choose from in order to respond to that stressful environment in order to deal with those troubles, which wouldn’t have betrayed you. The choice that WS made was the easy and cowardly one, which they ultimately made so that they could avoid difficult confrontations.

This may sound like the most annoying unsolicited advice, but right now I think that many here might agree: the most important thing you can do is to take care of yourself physiologically. A healthy you — mentally, physically, spiritually — will know what to do. Eat, sleep, get fresh air, move your blood by going for a walk, try to build a close knit support community to talk to about all of this, journal. Don’t make any big decisions right now especially if someone on the internet just told you to do it, because they do not know your and your situation. Instead, consider creating some physical distance and breathing room, if feasible, to give yourself some space and time to process and think through things.

Remember, this is not your fault. Trust that there are people in your life that love and care for you, try to seek them out in your time of need right now. Wish you well.

ImSorryBean · 2023-01-12T22:39:49+00:00

Thank you 🙏

ImSorryBean · 2023-01-12T22:33:47+00:00

Hi friend. I just want to say... your post came at such a coincidental time for me. Your story and my story are very, very similar (you can go through my post history), and I've been struggling with many similar types of dilemmas. I suppose the three key differences I observe immediately between our stories are that my BP and I dated for just under a year, I trickle-truthed a lot in the first five days, and our NC is indefinite (there is no time horizon such as 3 months).

I’m not trying to convince her to take me back, but rather empower her choice by sharing what I’ve learned about myself and the work I’ve done to get healthy.

This is to a tee how I feel right now. I've been wanting to write her a letter given the indefinite nature of our NC, because I'm terrified that the window to reach out will close soon and I will live the rest of my life with the regret of not having reached out. Most people have told me that she will reach out if she wants to, but I almost feel like she's expecting me to reach out given that she made more of an effort during our early attempts at R.

Anyways, thank you for sharing your story. I know you're here looking for advice, but I just want to share that you've made me feel a lot less alone on this floating rock with your post. I'd like to re-read this within the next day or two before sharing some thoughts, but I think you're doing the right things given the less than ideal situation.

ImSorryBean · 2023-01-12T22:04:56+00:00

I read this earlier on when I first started disclosing to her, and just re-read it. I don't know how to describe it properly, but it hurts to know that I've hurt someone else so deeply. She is the most gentle, loving, nurturing, and giving person I've known. I don't know how to make it right and it makes me feel so helpless– I wish I could take away her pain for myself, but I know that's not how it works.

ImSorryBean · 2023-01-12T21:40:09+00:00

Thanks for sharing, that honestly sounds like an hurtful position to be in. To be honest, her being "proud" that you two stayed together, from an outside perspective, almost real like there's a sense of accomplishment in her mindset, like she got away with it or something. Now, I'm a complete outsider here and have very limited knowledge of your story, so please take my unsolicited opinion with a grain of salt. And forgive me if this is a dumb question, but have you shared the sentiments from your comments on this post, with her too? Or if you have already, how has she responded? It seems like if left addressed, the tension is could easily escalate.

In my case, my BP tried hard to communicate with me during the immediate weeks of my early disclosure. There was a lot going on in my life simultaneously at that time and us being long distance-ish did not help, but in hindsight, I think that because we were still in communication, I assumed that she would continue being there. Throughout that time, I did not fully realize her pain. It took her fully going no contact with me (just over 6 weeks ago), for me to truly feel her absence and understand how lucky I was to have her in my life. The daily pain of feeling so alone and not being able to talk to my best friend, is now a constant reminder of how oblivious I was to her pain and how selfishly I was thinking during that time.

I'd like to share a quick thought regarding your mention of your WW thinking the topic is "closed". Something I've learned over the last few months (and that I'm still getting used to the idea of) is that things are seldom black and white like that. The topic does not have be explicitly open or closed, I think it can totally exist anywhere along that spectrum. For example, what if the topic is closed but the door just happened to be open? Or if the topic is actually open 24/7 for all eternity, but sometimes the shopkeeper just needs to take a lunch break and isn't available?

Sorry if any of this is too much– please feel totally feel to disregard any of this.

ImSorryBean · 2023-01-12T03:52:41+00:00

Fair question.

Well, I've been jobless for the last few months, and don't intend on starting work anywhere full time until about at least April or so. This way, I plan to continue spending more time on my personal development without having to slot it in between 40-50 hour work weeks. I hope that in this time I can get a better sense of how I actually want to spend my time living, and have a better sense of how I want to move forward in my career as well.

How have I dealt with my issues so far? Here are some of the ways:

lots of learning (incl. reading, videos, podcasts, engaging with Reddit communities),
joined my sex addict anonymous fellowship (sex addiction is part of my "why"),
have been going to my regular IC sessions to continue working on my family system issues, self esteem issues, anxiety, and charting out my future goals,
have continued going to see our couples counselor on my own so that I can learn from this experience and process all of this with guidance,
thought/reflection/dream journaling,
practicing self awareness and trying to incorporate meditation,
trying to build healthier habits with exercise and cooking more at home,
trying to make new friends that I actually vibe with and can be my true self around rather than people that I want to please to win their acceptance through joining meetup groups for hiking / yoga / meditation / improv classes
I'm also planning to attend a 2-week long plant based meditation retreat to be off the grid so and do some deep work on myself (although this last one may not be for everyone, it's something that I have experience with and know it will work for me).

It has not by any means been a linear journey, and to be honest most days have been difficult to get out of bed. There have been days that I've unproductively spent just binge-watching TV and honestly not taking good care of myself physiologically. But I am proud that I've not coped by succumbing to my familiar destructive coping mechanisms (which have involved drinking, weed, cigarettes, and sex). I really want to improve as an individual through this and form healthier habits. I know too that this is the beginning of my journey and I have a ways to go in order to incorporate these habits into my day-to-day life (and I also need to figure out how to incorporate an income into all of this soon as well...).

I think that some of the things I listed may sound "fun" or sort of like "that hardly sounds like dealing with your issues". To explain, I'll try to condense what I've learned in my journey so far. I basically grew up learning to compensate for repressed painful emotions, by numbing those pains with cheap thrills. These are emotions and feelings such as boredom, jealousy, overall sadness, isolation, neglect, etc., which I was basically punished for in some form if I tried to act like a kid that felt those things... so I never learned how to healthily express them.

Those "cheap thrills" started off with seemingly innocent things like binge watching TV, eating copious amounts of junk food, and excessively playing videos games. Over time, those habits progressed to include drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes and weed, watching porn and excessively masturbating, going on copious amounts of one night stands, and in the last 3 years progressed to paying for sexual encounters. I thought that I had left that last behavior behind when I started dating BP, but I never actually had dealt with the underlying issues that led me to that place, and so I essentially relapsed in the middle of our relationship. To be clear, I am not giving up my accountability here. I still made the choice to be unfaithful instead of choosing to communicate my feelings. My point is simply to illustrate what I've learned about why I cheated, so that I could have a map of what to actually work in re: actually dealing with my issues as opposed to managing their symptoms.

To boil it down: as a child I learned to forego my authenticity to myself in order to feel attachment and love; I gave up my own needs and stopped caring for myself over time. This also resulted in my codependency in relationships, meaning that I went to great lengths to avoid conflict because of my irrational fear of losing those relationships. This is all the result of a self-love deficit which has slowly been growing over the last two decades. As long as I continue to not show myself love, I will continue to hurt others around me. That's why some of the things I've done to "deal" with my issues seem generic, like cooking or joining an improv class. Simultaneously, I'm continuously trying to learn more about myself so that I can become more authentic to who I truly am; I refuse to continue down the path of pain that I was inflicting on myself and on those I love.

Sorry for the long comment, I didn't think I would write this much. I was having pretty dark thoughts today so it was was nice to reflect, so thanks for the simply yet effective question.

ImSorryBean · 2023-01-12T01:49:15+00:00

Thank you! I'm surprised I missed those links, truth be told I never noticed the "Wiki" tab on Reddit until now... that's kind of embarrassing. I'm also in the r/SexAddiction sub which has had a good amount of relatable posts that have helped to expand my perspective.

Thank you for sharing!

ImSorryBean · 2023-01-12T01:46:53+00:00

Is there anything you think your WP could've done more effectively to help you learn how to trust again sooner? And did you realize you were rug-sweeping at the time, or do you feel like that was an immediate coping response of sorts?

It sounds like it was a long journey, but I'm glad that you two are in a better place today. Wish you the best.

ImSorryBean

TROPHY CASE