Blame

            So yesterdays post was a bit much. I was really in a bad place yesterday. While typing the post I was in my office and had to close the door because I ended up crying off and on for almost 2 hours. There’s more going on than just the issues with Summer. Back when I was on my week away and talking to my friend from high school, I had made plans to visit her after duck season closed. Well duck season closed 2 weeks ago, and I was supposed to leave on Mon. morning to visit her and come home next Sat.

                Well thanks to fucking RONA the trip is canceled. Her boyfriend recently had lung surgery so they are taking extra precautions until they can both receive the vaccine. I get it. I truly do. It just tears me apart. I had been looking forward to this trip since I first found out about the cheating. Now it’s been taken away from me. Along with my trust in my wife and my self-respect. It’s been ripped away.

                I feel like I have nothing left to look forward to. Yes, Summer and I have a trip planned to go to Flagstaff next month for our anniversary, but it’s a last-minute rushed trip. We drive 14+ hours down there on Fri. Attempt to go to the Grand Canyon on Sat. Spend Sun. just walking around Flagstaff, then another 14+ hour drive home on Mon. so we both can be at work on Tue.  If anyone knows of something to do in Flagstaff during these stupid RONA times, please leave a comment.

                Then there’s the big family trip we have planned in Sept. My parents, sister and her wife, some of my mom’s brothers and their wives, and some relatives from Pa. and Nv. Are all going to Oahu for 7 days. I’m just afraid to look forward to that trip because just like Summer it will break my heart and try to destroy me more.

               

                So back to yesterday. After work I had my group therapy session (I’m in a relationship crisis group every Wed. for 90 minutes), where I was told by a few people that I am trying to take on to much, am being to hard on myself and I need to stop blaming myself for Summer screwing Mr. D, and fucking douchebag. I have explained to them why I take full responsibility for Summer cheating on me in 2005. If you have read this blog all the way to the beginning, you too know why I take full responsibility for her cheating on me.

                It was explained to me by a woman whose husband has the same issues with anger that I did back in the beginning, that it would be my responsibility if Summer left me and divorced me back in 2005. But she didn’t. Instead she got into another mans bed. That is on her not me. She made the poor decision to cheat when she could have left. The lady in the group said that I am taking on way too much responsibility for Summer’s actions and decisions.

                A guy in the group said the same thing. It is admirable that I have taken responsibility for my actions and have taken the steps to correct them and to not go back to that way of acting even in the darkest times, but I need to stop blaming myself for what she does. He said that I need to start learning how to forgive myself and let myself feel the emotions and acknowledge that it is perfectly acceptable to feel this way. He said that it is OK for a man to cry. I have a hard time with that though. Every time I start I get mad at myself and try to force myself to stop because I feel weak and out of control. I feel that I need to be strong and in control all the time.

                It was recommended that I read a book called Self Compassion.  I bought the book and the companion workbook today on Amazon.

                The leader of the group suggested that I try to focus on letting myself feel the feelings I am having and stop blaming myself for other people’s actions. That’s the hard part. I feel like everything that is happening to me now is because decisions that I made a long time ago. Or actions that I took. I’m not talking about just in the time I have been married either. I’m talking things that I did when I was a kid like about 10 or 11.

                I held it in for years that it was my fault in 2004 or so when my sister was arrested. I blamed myself because I thought that I was the first person to give her crank (meth). It wasn’t until a camping trip back in Aug. that I found out she had done it before me, and she thought that even if I did give it to her the first time as a teenager, it wouldn’t be my fault she was arrested as an adult. It was her decision to keep using crank and to move on to even worse drugs when she was finally arrested.

                I blamed myself for my parents not getting a divorce when I was 13 because I told my mom that if they got a divorce, they would never see me again. I just have so much guilt from things that happened as a kid. The truly fucked up thing is that these things were not an issue for me until I found out about this affair. Or who knows? They have been an issue all these years but were not at the forefront. They were just buried down deep.

                What I am learning in my research on affairs is that the trauma felt by the betrayed person releases buried traumas from childhood and brings them to the surface. Well I’m finding that to really being the case here. A lot of it goes back to a post I wrote many years ago about my sister and I being molested by my cousin. I don’t remember how to link older posts into new post or I would do that in this case. Let’s give this a try: deeper insight into me and also here: Part II lastly here: lastly 

              

 

So that is where I am right now. Or more correctly last week. I wrote the above last Thu. but wasn’t ready to post. I had more to add and now I don’t remember where I was going with it. I’ll just end it there and post it as is. Hopefully soon I’ll get back to what happened when I came home back in Oct.