Torchbearers and Withdrawal

I have had withdrawl feeling off and on, some good days some bad, but it's like my life or heart is on hold and Im niot open to other relationships, so therefor Ive been missing out on life in the meantime- Just saw a good bumper sticker today, "Dont cheat yourself out of your future by dwelling on your past" - this might just be the theme of my life.. I almost have a "in my mind realtioship" with him for years, of hoping, and then every so often he calls to string me along... long story I alreayd told ,but anyway thansk for this post above

Elle, what are you doing for your recovery? Are you going to any 12 step meetings? therapy? or reading a lot of books about recovery? We have to have a support system through this process.

You are going to be all over the place as far as your emotional swings go, and you need a support system to help you through this process.

When we are recovering, it does not just magically make our thoughts and feelings about our poa's disappear, but we learn to sit with our pain, and we work through our pain, and we adjust to this new life. We just have to keep doing the next best thing for ourselves without acting out on our emotions.

We have to use logic (adult thinking), not emotions (childlike thinking), and all of this takes time to become aware of, who is driving the bus, our inner child, or the adult. Once you can identify this you can stop the child from acting out.

Set yourself some small goals, and start to work towards these goals, one day at a time.

This is the worst part. I dont see how passing the torch to jesus or a phantom lover is possible.


From Susan . . . This is not for everybody, but it is what I did. In AA I became spiritual. Then I went to church and came to love Jesus. My feelings were a mystery to me, but I went with the flow. I was in love with a figment of my imagination or as my sponsor said a "dead saint." No affront intended. Later, I out grew this and had a more platonic relationship with Christ. I transferred my feelings once again to a real human being. Most people believe they fall in and out of love. I believe I just transfer the feelings I had for my father to the next person in line.

I feel just like lostgirl73 now that I'm suddenly separated from my wife of 17 years and alone in the house as of yesterday. I've been unable to STOP trying to figure everything out, fix her, fix me, and all I've done is cause pain. think that because you have strong, confusing feelings, and need validity after a break up, it means you are normal. Only if we can allow the pain to recede into the past and patiently work to change our unhelpful habits, we'll start to love ourselves more and let go of trying to change or fix...or save someone else. Our need to save, is such a grandiose act of pseudo-selfless love, it's guaranteed to make us feel used and taken for granted. The need to see ourselves as selfless love-heroes is extremely selfish because it's mostly driven, not by compassion for our partner, but more by our need to be needed. Why choose someone who "needs fixing?" Why not love someone just the way they are? Surely it's because we haven't loved ourselves the way we are.

Fear of being alone isn't selfless at all. I'm certain that if we don't choose another person to fix, and understand that fear isn't who we are, but a habituated pattern, being alone isn't anything to fear. In fact, after about 5 years, it isn't painful at all. My first wife left me after three years of marriage. How could I think I could fix her or love her if I couldn't fix or love myself? Fast forward 24 years; my wife of 17 years was so miserable with me she jumped at the chance to have multiple affairs this year. Sure, she has her own relationship addictions, and I'm devastated by the betrayal. Worse, I'm unable to accept that she's carrying a torch for one of them and can't really be true to me. She certainly cannot fully love and honor me as her husband. She loves me, but not enough to let go of him. I see myself wanting to experience no more pain and fantasizing about her "suddenly realizing that she's madly in love with me and we live happily ever after." For three months now, I keep trying to fix her obsessively, and I've been going all out trying to be her prince charming one day, then getting angry and horrible when she doesn't respond the way I want. I moved her out of the house yesterday, because I cannot endure another week of being both her security blanket and her doormat. It's a last ditch effort to fix her, by giving up on fixing her. It's a chance to stop this obsessive thinking, and spill my bile here on the forum instead of ranting at her on the phone for hours. Being alone is the way to change our habits, answer to ourselves instead of our PoA, and get a whole new perspective that won't be emotionally damaging to us or to those we love. I am forcing my ... to get back to yoga today, stop thinking about her, and work on goals that I haven't been able to focus on since finding out about the affair(s) and the strong possibility that my soulmate just cannot continue to love me anymore--she transferred her love to a married guy.

Let's not go headlong into another relationship until we can fix our relationship with ourselves. Is there some kind of a love-addict rehab, weeklong camp for people like me who feel they are on the edge of a mental cave-in that is never going to hit bottom? This hurts so bad realizing that for years that I can't even be a good Dad because I'm always trying to fix my kids. It's good to know we came by these faulty notions of love honestly, inheriting them from generations of rather unhappily married ancestors. Even my daughter wanted to move back in with me, just so I won't be alone and she can "take care of" me. She's only 13. I told her it meant the world to me that she said it, but that I can't allow her to sacrifice a better education, an opportunity to have three great moms while she's a teenager. I told her I'm always a phone call and a short drive away, and that I need to be alone for awhile to "get even with myself." I cracked myself up with that one, and she gave me a sweet courtesy laugh. Oh ... I need to stop hanging out in these forums because I just end up crying my eyes out and obsessing non-stop. I haven't slept very much for three months. Sleep deprivation definitely makes you susceptible to anxiety attacks and meltdowns.

Yesterday was our first day apart. I called my kids to tell them I loved them and I ended up on the phone with my wife for two hours. For the first 5 or 10 minutes we were both sobbing uncontrollably so that we could hardly talk. Our love seemed to huge and reassuring to me then. But two hours later we were arguing about the justification for moving her out. I shouldn't feel so horrible about standing up against the ongoing emotional abuse of her unwillingness to maintain NC (no contact) with her PoA(persons of addiction), but I do. It feels like failure and I don't permit myself to ever fail or give up on anything. That might be a problem...

Thanks for listening. I have to go and become one of the adults around here--before my kids do. I have no desire to be with anyone else but my wife but not when both of us are suffering and arguing so much we can't get enough sleep or accomplish anything else. That's not even survival. I wish she could take the time to understand her addiction but she can't stay away from HIM. She loves him madly, and I think he's a lying vampire, because she has subjected her own needs to his, in fact she has no needs but HIM and loses herself completely in his eyes. She's never seen him forgetting to take out the trash before the truck comes. She believes she lost her own identity sacrificing years of aspirations to being a wife and a mother. She feels like she's FOUND HERSELF in the amazing flames of illicit sex and covert romance, but CANNOT see that she's throwing her entire identity, and me, and our family's happiness on that fire in an effort to make it burn brighter. When he ends the affair, inevitably, and she comes back to reality, I fear for how she will treat herself. But I can't save her, and she isn't going to fall in love with me again. Besides, I have to get my own oxygen mask on first.

Hi dg,

Yes you are in a tough spot and you cannot change your wife's behavior.

Only when she hits rock bottom (or he breaks up with her), will she see the err or her ways. So she will either want to change and work on your marriage, or jump into another affair because the high feels so good. The lows are pretty strong too.

Have you tried CoDA meetings or Al-Anon? Any type of support for being in a relationship with someone with an addiction is helpful.

Make sure you protect yourself. You know you could lose any rights to visitation and custody for moving out without a parenting plan in place? Seek an attorney ASAP and protect yourself. If you live in the US, women can get the house, kids, spousal support, etc. Don't let your anguish over this cause you to lose everything.

I have seen men with cheating wives end up in a studio apartment and grasping with lawyers to get visitation every other weekend, while she gets the house, kids, alimony, etc. Protect yourself first, and then also take care of YOU in terms of support with therapist, 12 step programs, anything.

I am a torchbearer and I carry obsessive love addiction for people I have been in love with for a very long time, easily years. Most recently, I had a boyfriend for 1.5 years about 4 years ago. I was so in love with him, it was very intense and I thought he was the "love of my life." When that relationship ended, I could not bear it, I was in severe emotional distress and would do anything to stay in contact with him, stay "friends." emails, trying to meet with him. Eventually he could not take it anymore and he said, lets stay out of touch for 3 months, then we will meet and have lunch.

I was remarkably able to abstain from contact with him for 3 months, but that was only because I had something to focus on, meeting for lunch in 3 months. We met for lunch in three months, the next day he sent me an email saying we could never see each other again and he was deeply committed to his new girlfriend. I was so devastated the next morning I went to his house to talk to him. Just to talk to him. I waited for him crying for about 8 hours.

The next week he had me arrested for stalking. I spent a night sleeping in a prison, and I had already forgiven him in my mind, I convinced myself if you love someone you need to accept their bad qualities. Now I had a order of protection and risk of going to jail if I contacted him. Then I proceeded to get emotionally attached to my lawyer in the court case, and become obsessed with him. But I never lost the feelings of love/addiction to the previous boyfriend. He crosses my mind almost every day 4 years later. Just this past summer, I was thinking about him so much I broke the order of protection and send him an email. This was the beginning of the crisis moment that brought me to this program. Ironically, he responded saying he did not want to communicate with me but he really hoped I would go to a support group for love addiction since I was clearly suffering. I stayed somewhat friends/involved with the lawyer for about one year. Then he detached from me as well. I could not let him go either and stayed in touch with him via sending emails and letters for a full two years after he detached from me and asked me not to contact him anymore. At my rock bottom, I recognized I needed to get a new kind of help for my problem, or it would either land me in more legal problems or jail, or I would die of the extreme despair I was enduring that was getting more and more severe.

It has been over 6 months since my POA broke up with me. The thoughts and obsessions are just as strong today as the day he broke up with me. I can't seem to move on. It's affecting my daily life, my mood, everything. I've even been living in San Francisco for a a few months to try and get him off my mind and it hasn't work. I just wish I could stop having flashbacks of our relationship and dreams about him with a new person. He's blocked me from any way of contacting him which is humiliating enough and I STILL have this hope that he will want me again one day. I feel insane and hopeless. Even suicidal at some points just to be able to get a break once and for all from this obsession. I know I would never do it but the thought seems nice. If anyone has any suggestions as to how to get him off of my mind aside from searching for someone new to put my obsession into I would really appreciate it.