Hi Karmann. I'm interested in you having someone who is more of a life coach. I wonder whether because the focus for this sort of help is very much on the future, it's a bit too soon for you to do that? For me, I found I couldn't really focus on the future until I'd understood and made sense of the past. That said, I've got a pretty open mind and would be interested to see whether this sort of therapy is a better approach for you.
So much of what you say resonates with me. I completely empathise with your feelings about the OW. Like you, my feelings took me by surprise in their ferocity and I don't think I've ever actually hated anyone and actively wished them harm before - but I still absolutely wish the OW harm. Because I don't think she ever told her H about the affair it always seemed to me that she emerged from the experience pretty unscathed and that really offends my sense of justice.
I think I would have felt differently towards her if she had been a basically nice person whom in other circumstances, I might have befriended. Strangely enough, when it was clear that she was devastated that my H ended it with her, I actually felt a bit sorry for her. My H showed me some (very long) E mails she had sent though and her real character and values shone through in what she wrote. I also saw texts and listened to the angry answerphone messages she left for my H after he ended the relationship.
I thought she was a bit pathetic, hugely narcissistic and self-absorbed - but I don't think I really hated her until she started writing foul things about me and our 11 year old DD on various social networking sites. At that point, I wanted to rip her head off - and that feeling has more or less remained!I think that hatred was particularly fuelled by the notion that someone was attacking my child, whereas I really don't think I'd have felt as bad if she had just attacked me - and I would always have understood her need to vent at my H.
The truth is, we are worlds apart in terms of character and values and we would never have been friends. She has never made female friends, has spent her whole working life making spurious complaints, was unfaithful to her H three times in the space of a year, writes spiteful anonymous letters, is racist - in summary, just the sort of person I'd avoid. I've met people who've known her over the years - and even though none of them know her significance to me, they have described her as vindictive, self-obsessed, psychotic and a nightmare. The kindest thing anyone's ever said to me about her is that she is "damaged".
When I get these murderous thoughts about her, I try to see this in terms of a long game. A person like this is never going to be truly happy - and I really do believe in karma. I wouldn't want her life at all and I have so much more going for me. I do however believe that the day I hear that karma has really caught up with her, I will feel a sense of closure and that justice has been restored. I live in hope!
I try to foresee a time when I will feel nothing about her - a sort of neutrality. But I reason that this will probably be a few years down the line - I am nowhere near that just yet.
Yes also, to the feelings of lethargy and demotivation. This was not instant for me - I seemed to hit that particular wall about 10 months after discovery. I found I could cope with work (I run my own business) and other "essential" things with the DCs, but this was reactive stuff in the main, when I had hitherto been such a driven, proactive person. I had absolutely no motivation to garner new business, arrange social events, have a sort-out at home. I just found the trauma so all-consuming that virtually everything else in life seemed trivial.
My other problem was that the affair came on top of two years of a variety of things in life that had gone wrong. You know how sometimes you get those phases in life when everything you touch seems to go wrong? We'd had 2 years of that. The summer of the affair was the worst of my life - loads of things were going wrong, from the minor to the major and throughout it all, I was coping with a distant and angry H. I cannot remember getting a single piece of good news for the longest time.
Then came the affair discovery and I think with any crisis, we all go into fight or flight mode. The fight mode that I adopted was actually pretty energising and since my H and I were communicating at a far superior level to before - and also going through what I've since seen described as "hysterical bonding" in terms of our physical relationship, that energy sustained me for a while. Then came the "wall" which with hindsight, was probably depression of sorts. I don't think this is unusual either, from what I've read.
Karmann, your H might believe that it won't help raking over the past, but for me it was a must. He really does need to understand the "why" of his affair and so do you. I genuinely don't think anyone can properly move on with their lives until there is a shared understanding about the trauma. It isn't enough for you to understand him, he needs to understand him. If you want to share a life with him and affair-proof your future marriage, this is essential work.
I don't know if you read a post I put on recently which was a cut and paste of my husband's own writing about his affair. That might help you to see the journey your H should make. In the early days, my H had lots of unchallenged beliefs about his affair and his character. He also wanted to draw a line under it and move on, but he soon realised through his own counselling that it doesn't work that way.
He is now profoundly grateful that he faced up to things about himself and his character that he had been avoiding and in denial about for years. He is a very different person to the one who was abjectly sorry on discovery, but completely unsighted about himself. In that sense, I can look back now and view the catalyst of the affair as an agent of tremendously positive change.
I can also see how I'm going through a bit of a personal journey myself about the things in life that motivate me and bring me joy. You might find you do the same. I am questioning a lot of the things I have done out of habit or necessity - from friendships, where we live - right through to my chosen career.
I've discovered for example, that I love to write and have a tremendous motivation to share all these insights that have been so painfully gained, with others. One of the things I'm considering at the moment is to write a book, or even a series of articles. That's exciting and terrifying at the same time - to change direction after all this time, but it's starting to feel right for me.
I suppose that ultimately, I want this horrible life experience to count for something - you might feel the same. In the early days I saw this as a challenge to overcome and my need was to "get back to normal" (hence my username!) but I tend to view it now as a journey that was sent for a reason.