Hysterical Bonding- A Phase ?

[PhoenixRise]

It need not be! If anything, look at the extremely busy time of raising children out of their infancy as the phase here... and now you can go back to the norm of lots of sex, a close bond, & making each other first!

 

 

This is a great way to look at things.

 

 

Notsure, I saw in your other thread that you and your wife recently stopped your middle child from sleeping in your bed. Can I ask if this child or your other children have always shared a bed with you and your w?

[Athena]

That was a good thing that you told the truth to your wife.

 

That will sure bring closeness and it seems she has forgiven you.

 

Good luck with this.

 

Yes I agree. Notsure -- the Affair is what pushed you even further away from your wife, but the disclosure is what is bringing you close together again.

 

See how it works? When you want to stay in the M, you have to tell about the A, so that there are no obstacles to intimacy (the A being the major one).

[NOTSURE7]

Exactly! It need not be a phase... it can be the norm, for you.

 

thats waht i am getting at, everyone calls it a phase but i see it more as a way to re introduce yourselves to eachother.

[NOTSURE7]

This is a great way to look at things.

 

 

Notsure, I saw in your other thread that you and your wife recently stopped your middle child from sleeping in your bed. Can I ask if this child or your other children have always shared a bed with you and your w?

 

for the most part yes, we have always had a child in our bed or the threat of a child running into our bed,me and the w would basically be on each side of the bed and someone in the middle.

[NOTSURE7]

Yes I agree. Notsure -- the Affair is what pushed you even further away from your wife, but the disclosure is what is bringing you close together again.

 

See how it works? When you want to stay in the M, you have to tell about the A, so that there are no obstacles to intimacy (the A being the major one).

 

i do agree athena, i dont beleive she has forgiven me though. but we are working hard to become close again.

 

i begin ic tonight...

[Athena]

for the most part yes, we have always had a child in our bed or the threat of a child running into our bed,me and the w would basically be on each side of the bed and someone in the middle.

 

Just keep a fold-out three piece mattress under your bed, which can be pulled out and, with a pillow and a blanket, the child will be okay sleeping on the floor alongside your bed (not where you might stand on them!) on the odd night they need comfort...now that they are getting big, they don't need to be right in your bed. Also, if you make it slightly uncomfortable (the mattress on the floor instead of parent's bed) it acts to discourage them coming in unless they are scared, had a nightmare, or whatever... keeps the visits down lol.

[Athena]

i do agree athena, i dont beleive she has forgiven me though. but we are working hard to become close again.

 

i begin ic tonight...

 

No, not yet, of course not -- it's way too early for you to prove your actions match your words/promises... but forgiveness will come with Time and Consistency on your part.

 

As for IC -- usually the first session is a Getting to Know you session... don't expect any huge eye-opening insights, lol... that too, will take time... be patient and work/chip away at it diligently.

[NOTSURE7]

Just keep a fold-out three piece mattress under your bed, which can be pulled out and, with a pillow and a blanket, the child will be okay sleeping on the floor alongside your bed (not where you might stand on them!) on the odd night they need comfort...now that they are getting big, they don't need to be right in your bed. Also, if you make it slightly uncomfortable (the mattress on the floor instead of parent's bed) it acts to discourage them coming in unless they are scared, had a nightmare, or whatever... keeps the visits down lol.

 

my w actually has told my kids they now need to sleep in there own beds,one thing i will say is my w is realizing alot since i have opened up to her, again the things that were wrong are no excuse but its nice to see her recognizing a few things and making changes for us.

[NOTSURE7]

No, not yet, of course not -- it's way too early for you to prove your actions match your words/promises... but forgiveness will come with Time and Consistency on your part.

 

As for IC -- usually the first session is a Getting to Know you session... don't expect any huge eye-opening insights, lol... that too, will take time... be patient and work/chip away at it diligently.

 

i know but i have to start somewhere...mc next week

[PhoenixRise]

for the most part yes, we have always had a child in our bed or the threat of a child running into our bed,me and the w would basically be on each side of the bed and someone in the middle.

 

 

I would think this is one of the reasons you and your wife were so disconnected in the first place. Sometimes parents forget they have their own relationship to nurture outside of raising children. Glad to see you guys are changing this with getting your children out of your bedroom and going on date nights etc.

[NOTSURE7]

I would think this is one of the reasons you and your wife were so disconnected in the first place. Sometimes parents forget they have their own relationship to nurture outside of raising children. Glad to see you guys are changing this with getting your children out of your bedroom and going on date nights etc.

 

looking back on it, i agree, i think this was a huge reason for the disconnect, not that its an excuse to do what i did but as we talk more and more we realize how many things drove us to not be a couple and not be me and the w.my w is also realizing it and says she cant beleive how she missed it but it happens easily and i beleive alot of the disconnect was from losing eachother.

[Athena]

looking back on it, i agree, i think this was a huge reason for the disconnect, not that its an excuse to do what i did but as we talk more and more we realize how many things drove us to not be a couple and not be me and the w.my w is also realizing it and says she cant beleive how she missed it but it happens easily and i beleive alot of the disconnect was from losing eachother.

 

Sounds like you two are really reaping the benefits of talking to each other openly and honestly.

I feel so 'proud' of you NS... funny that... I feel that you had reached the end of your rope, that you realized you messed things up further with the deceit and the hiding of your true self from your W (instead of allowing you to cope, instead of feeling 'gleeful' that you were pulling the wool over your W's eyes)... I feel very hopeful for you.

 

Do you feel differently NOW (today) about your decision to having Told your W about the A's?

I know you struggled with the rightness/wrongness over that decision over the past week because of the fall out and the pain. Is it too early still for you to figure out whether YOU would advise other WS to Tell their spouses about the A's?

[Athena]

I also think that you are no longer an Imposter living in your wife's world, looking out from sad eyes... yes... your eyes may still be sad, but you are making the world Real for yourself, and are beginning to stake claims and dictate how things go... you will reap the benefits.

I think you will find great joy and happiness with time.

 

What made you change?

 

What was it that pushed you over the edge?

 

To take that bold step to do things differently? To take that Risk. To face Change right up close... why and howcome did you do it now? Help me understand.

[PhoenixRise]

looking back on it, i agree, i think this was a huge reason for the disconnect, not that its an excuse to do what i did but as we talk more and more we realize how many things drove us to not be a couple and not be me and the w.my w is also realizing it and says she cant beleive how she missed it but it happens easily and i beleive alot of the disconnect was from losing eachother.

 

 

 

Yep. You get so wrapped up in takeing care of the kids because they are so helpless and you figure your spouse as an adult doesn't "need" you as much. I have got to say I feel really hopeful for you and your wife. For a admitted conflict avoider, you seem to be taking this challenge of rebuilding your marriage head on.

[NOTSURE7]

Sounds like you two are really reaping the benefits of talking to each other openly and honestly.

I feel so 'proud' of you NS... funny that... I feel that you had reached the end of your rope, that you realized you messed things up further with the deceit and the hiding of your true self from your W (instead of allowing you to cope, instead of feeling 'gleeful' that you were pulling the wool over your W's eyes)... I feel very hopeful for you.

 

Do you feel differently NOW (today) about your decision to having Told your W about the A's?

I know you struggled with the rightness/wrongness over that decision over the past week because of the fall out and the pain. Is it too early still for you to figure out whether YOU would advise other WS to Tell their spouses about the A's?

 

today i do feel differently because revealing it to her has allowed me to be open and honest were as if i just ended things with the ow nothing would have changed in my m..i really feel things are changing, i am not afraid to speak my mind and to say what i am feeling,i am not avoiding conflict yet taking it head on.

 

its still too early to advise because the pain is still overwhelming and the devastation i caused is beyond hard to watch but i will say if you as the ws want a full clean bill of health this is the only way,i would also advise that when you reveal that you do not grovel and just tell you bs what they want to hear to sweep it all under the rug and make it better,i have been steadfast in telling her the things that i think went wrong and even she said after a conversation yesterday that she sees and hears that all i really wanted was us,that was big for her to realize,she is seeing that we completely lost us, she even just called and is planning a vacation with the kids and said that she got rates on putting them in camp for a day so we also could have time together.so through it all she is realizing alot of what went wrong too..so now i will head to ic to fix myself as we contimue to work on us.

 

s

[NOTSURE7]

I also think that you are no longer an Imposter living in your wife's world, looking out from sad eyes... yes... your eyes may still be sad, but you are making the world Real for yourself, and are beginning to stake claims and dictate how things go... you will reap the benefits.

I think you will find great joy and happiness with time.

 

What made you change?

 

What was it that pushed you over the edge?

 

To take that bold step to do things differently? To take that Risk. To face Change right up close... why and howcome did you do it now? Help me understand.

 

you are right, i am not an imposter anymore, in fact i have been brutally honest,she asked me yesterday were you planning to leave me when you told me about the A and i simply answered yes i was at the beggining of the conversation that was my intention but that as we talkied i realized i didnt want that at all, i knew my answer it would bring tears and sadness but i didnt avoid it and she needed that honesty from me, in the past i would have said no way i didnt mean that blah blah blah...

 

i beleive what made me change was i was tired of the deceit and the thinking whats next,i wasnt afraid of being caught and this had nothing to do with that thinking, this was truly about breaking a cycle one way or the other, and finding hapiness within myself no matter how it would have come.

 

what pushed me over the edge was when i took a look at my life and my w's life and realized i was just like my father and she like my mother i didnt want that.i learned about my dad when i was in my 20's and my whole existence was rocked to the core,so here i was repeating his behaviors to a tee and it needed to end and it was no longer fair to my w, i didnt want her to be 65 like my mom and not having a clue what true love was like, so either i was going to make the changes needed or i was going to ride off into my own lonely world and let someone else make her happy, but i beleive i am the man for the job and with alot of time and work it can and will be done.

[NOTSURE7]

Yep. You get so wrapped up in takeing care of the kids because they are so helpless and you figure your spouse as an adult doesn't "need" you as much. I have got to say I feel really hopeful for you and your wife. For a admitted conflict avoider, you seem to be taking this challenge of rebuilding your marriage head on.

 

yes and we did a great job and still do of taking care of our 3 kids,we also did a great job of taking care of eachother but that was with me proividing and her keeping a home but in there we lost eachother big time..i am guilty of not communicating and instead taking the easy way out, i built up alot of resentment for things that she didnt even know bothered me because i was so intent on avoiding conflict and being the good soldier, so i created my own outlets and as you know it lead to only trouble.

 

i have tackled it head on, i have not avoided one thing, she asks questions, i answer them,i even ask her what she is thinking, never have we mentioned divorce,never have we thought about seperation.i am not going to say its easy,its devastating but as i made a decision to have the A and then end the A and to reveal to my w who i am, i also have made a decision to make this M not only work but make it stronger and create my own happiness within the M.

[Athena]

 

what pushed me over the edge was when i took a look at my life and my w's life and realized i was just like my father and she like my mother i didnt want that.

 

Did this insight come to you as you were posting on the boards here and reading poster's perspective on you... is that what helped you to understand? Or were you Already seeing with that insight before you came to these boards?

 

Was starting your own thread helpful to you? How would you rate it on a scale from 1-- 10 as in helpful to you?(0 being nothing, 1 a little, 10 = you don't think you could've done this well, without it)

 

Give your feedback on the usefulness of this 'online group therapy' lol

[NOTSURE7]

Did this insight come to you as you were posting on the boards here and reading poster's perspective on you... is that what helped you to understand? Or were you Already seeing with that insight before you came to these boards?

 

Was starting your own thread helpful to you? How would you rate it on a scale from 1-- 10 as in helpful to you?(0 being nothing, 1 a little, 10 = you don't think you could've done this well, without it)

 

Give your feedback on the usefulness of this 'online group therapy' lol

 

i was already beggining to do all of this on my own, all the emotions were there, i realized something had to give,wehn i posted i read everyones perspective on me and it was helpful.

 

i beleive if someone has nobody to talk too then these boards are very useful but at the end of the day the responsibility lies with the person to make there own decsions but it helps to see others perspectives and experiences.

 

i would give it a solid 9 for helping and continuing to help me...hopefully someday soon i will be here with valuable help for other in my situation.

[Athena]

 

i would give it a solid 9 for helping and continuing to help me...hopefully someday soon i will be here with valuable help for other in my situation.

 

I am sure you will be here with valuable help for others in your situation!

 

BTW I think the timing of your decision to come clean & seek help (even coming here on to the boards) was brought on somehow, by the fall out of your sister's marriage falling apart due to infidelity... would you agree?

[silktricks]

personally i dont see it just being a phase and i beleive it will contimue as the norm, i am not saying making love every night will contimue but i beleive the intimacy we are now establishing will not just fade away as some "phase"...

 

For us it was not just a "phase", in that we are much more intimate. Our sex life was always good, and though we don't have the intense sex as often as we did immediately after D-Day, so do still have it - often. We have a much deeper understanding of each other, and a greater sensitivity to each others needs:love: .

 

But - as with anything - without conscious effort to keep things good - life can put barricades up on the happiness road. Keep up the communication and be sure to be romantic. When she falls into anger (and she will) don't think it's all over.

[aeh]

NS7, I feel like you are kind of a counterpart as to what I am going through as I am the BS in this situation and I began reading the forum about the same time as you were posting...and we are just a week or so ahead of you and have gone through the hysterical bonding thing. I, too, think it can establish a new "standard" in our relationship, hopefully. My H and I have realized much the same things as you and your W have realized. We have two very busy young teenagers and we have completely given our life over to them. But I think we lost sight of "us" as a couple as well, and all discussions came to be about the kids or something concerning them...about the day to day of them, the minutia of running a household, raising a family, being involved in the community or at the kids school, sports teams, etc. We THOUGHT that was dealing with us, but really we were just spectators in a sense. And the funny thing is that for the most part, I would have always considered it a really good marriage and very open and close, never argue, etc. But we had gotten out of date night, I had definitely slacked off on the sex, but my H and I, strangely have both stated we feel like we are just dating again, nervous (butterflies) when going out with each other, and an overwhelming desire for being intimate. So I do think it has helped. Yes, even though I am angry, we are still having sex daily. That's because my emotions are like a rollercoaster and changes from hour to hour at times. I think demystifying their relationship has helped me some though to diffuse some of the anger and I was asking today what she did better than me, what could I learn from in respect to certain acts and his response was that honestly I was way better than her in everything...and that they only did a miniscule subset of what he and I have done. That has brought my anger down a lot for some reason. But I am regarding this as a whole new phase in our relationship....our kids aren't fully grown but they are teenagers now and I think he and I putting our relationship as a top priority again and realizing what we have done wrong and what we have done right can bring a whole new aspect to our relationship. I have seen a few things about people saying that their husband's A was "the best thing that ever happened to them" and such and while I don't think I can utter those words (even if it turns out to be true) because of the immense pain and anger it has brought, I do hope that there is something good that will come out of all this pain in the end.

[Snowflower]

For us it was not just a "phase", in that we are much more intimate. Our sex life was always good, and though we don't have the intense sex as often as we did immediately after D-Day, so do still have it - often. We have a much deeper understanding of each other, and a greater sensitivity to each others needs:love: .

 

But - as with anything - without conscious effort to keep things good - life can put barricades up on the happiness road. Keep up the communication and be sure to be romantic. When she falls into anger (and she will) don't think it's all over.

 

Nice post, silktricks.

 

I agree with what sk wrote above. My husband and I also went through that "phase" and we are now at a similar place to what sk describes. I kind of gag at the term 'hysterical bonding' though. To me, it just sounds frantic and kind of reactionary. I like the term 'emotional bonding' better.

 

NS7, from what you have posted, it sounds like you and your wife were never all that emotionally bonded throughout your entire marriage. I remember you said you felt like you had married the wrong person in one of your earliest posts. Then you had kids, became even more disconnected, etc. Now, it seems like you are really, finally emotionally bonding with your wife. This is so wonderful!

 

Actually, my own experience is a little bit similar to yours. My husband and I have since realized that we were never that closely bonded emotionally in the 18 years we were married. We got married young, had kids right away, didn't know each other all that well. It was a recipe for disaster...I'm surprised that we made it 18 years! Last year, after a rough couple of years in both our lives, my husband had a brief affair. It is different from your situation because it was a brief, one time thing for him. But, it is similar because his affair, like yours appears to be, was the catalyst for huge, positive changes in our relationship.

 

Like other posters have said here who have also successfully recovered their marriages, you can reach a richer level of intimacy, understanding and sensitivity now than you ever did (or even could have) before. A crisis like an affair forces you and your wife to really look at yourselves and your marriage and this is where the true intimacy begins. I know this was the case for my husband and me-we each had to 'lose' our marriage and feel its loss (or the potential of it anyway) for us to start to build something better.

 

This is why I always say my husband and I are building our relationship as opposed to repairing or rebuilding it. This seems similar to what is happening for you and your wife, NS7. If it is successful, it will be one of the most beautiful things you will have ever accomplished besides, perhaps, having children.

[Athena]

my w actually has told my kids they now need to sleep in there own beds,

 

On your other thread you said your eldest asked your W why she was crying, but she sidestepped it... I suggested you talk to him/& the other kids to give them age-appropriate information (not at all about the A), you said thanks for the advice, but later I saw in a post of yours in responding to another poster who advocated saying Nothing to the kids, that you agreed.

 

Did you tell the kids anything at all about a 'problem' being solved and it having nothing to do with the kids, but you adults were working on it? I ask this, because in addition to all the stress, crying, and your son asking what's wrong but being ignored, NOW the kids have been told by their (crying) mother NOT to come into their parent's bed at night! Are you sure they will not take this as a personal rejection, and 'proof' of their having done something wrong, or being 'bad' and 'unlovable' in their parents eyes -- especially if you chose to continue to say nothing to them as a way of explaining their mother's sadness having nothing to do with something they did?

[Dexter Morgan]

my W and i have had sex for 12 days straight now,it has been intense,excting and intimate.she seems to crave it even more than me,so i know this is the hysterical bonding phase.

 

 

watch out, she may be overcompensating.....she may want you so bad because she probably feels the need to feel needed and feel desirable because of what you did.

 

she also may be "craving" it more to prove to herself, and for some reason, to you that she is woman enough to keep you away from some other hussbag.

 

but this may come to a halt later when she starts thinking more clearly and she is no longer in some phase of desperation and pain. She may realize she is busting her butt to win back a cheater when it is you that needs to bust yours instead.

 

if this is the case, I think you have yet to really see her anger.