wierd behaviour

[alyson]

Ive been doing some wierd things since I found out about Neils porn use and MB. Like i dyed my hair some random burgundy colour, like I wanted to be someone else. Also we have been intimate a couple of times? How can I do this when I feel betrayed and repulsed? I genuinely wanted to and do Not understand it at all. I thought i never wanted to be sexual with him again. It wasn't a consious thought to make myself an alternative to Mb, but is that why i did it? Its like im saying ' look im much better that MB' Im very confused, swinging from repulsion to invitation. HELP. Am I a wierdo?

[mo4wo1]

No, dear. You're not weird.

After my H began his disclosure over 2 years ago, I did some firsts. For the first time since I was 16, I got my hair cut & styled. Plus, I think I became one of Lane Bryant's best customers here in town. I also stopped paying bills on time out of sheer "I don't give a (expletive)!" and started cooking & cleaning less & less.

Also, H & I have never stopped being "together" We've actually increased our frequency from once a few weeks to nearly daily.

And, we all moved away from the house to an apartment for one year only to come back this year.

I hate the debt, I want my hair cut again but am afraid, I'm still struggling to get back to "cleaning like I used to" and I am much better with the bills (almost back to where I want to be) and I am so grateful my H & I want each other still & more than ever.

You do the best you can. And hopefully, you won't do anything really damaging that you can't get back from.

It's "Normal", sweet.


(((hugs)))

You're going through the grieving process. That's something you can read up on to help you.

[tryintogetthru]

Yea, I totally wondered the same thing....I am 3 months into the process here, and my sex life is better than ever. Sometimes I think for me it's one of the only times I feel alive anymore. I feel so, blah, so dead, most of the time, like life is just going by me, and when we are intimate I don't feel that way. I did wonder a few days ago, if he was trying to replace the mb and sex he was missing with me, but I don't know, it seems to happen and we're both into it....sometimes I even initiate. It's weird, isn't it. I spend the rest of my time confused and angry and really really sad and depressed, but then I want him in bed? It's a really messed up problem, this SA.....

[iambetrayed]

Hair cutting , new lip gloss wearing, intimacy instigating SO checking in

Ladies, I think we are questioning ourselves because of a loss of the identity that we thought we had. The new hair and clothes are a function of that. And if it makes us feel better, I think its a good thing. I love my new haircut. I think it makes me look younger. Not porn girl younger, for sure, but it makes me feel happier about myself. I am just sorry that I wasn't taking the time for myself before - that my cute hair and lip gloss had gotten so far down on my list. Well no more, sisters! I am all about making myself feel better about myself. I am realizing that it is OK to be me and not some pornified 18 year old. I am a 39 year old PTA mom with a huge heart and really bouncy hair and shiny lips and I am determined to be happy with myself. My waist is too big, my boobs are too small, and I am getting wrinkles near my eyes and guess what - I DON'T CARE! I am having fun accepting myself.

And the intimacy - well, ever since d-day I knew I was strange. We have been doing it way more since then than we were before. The first few times we did it I think I was trying to see if I could feel for him what I always had. Then I think I was saying goodbye. But now ... it is true intimacy for us. Very connecting. Of course h is not p/mb anymore. And also I was fortunate because he did a really good job of separating me from the p.

But I really don't think you are doing anything weird, alyson. Its all a reaction - a search for identity and comfort and safety. And peace. We are looking for peace, I think.

[kianna]

I used to have long blonde hair, but that seems to be my H's forte for P, so I now have shoulder length dark brown hair I never liked it long anyway because it would get stuck in my collar. I originally thought I would just go back to the natural brown, that was until I saw all the gray lol.

[LookingUp]

I think that's pretty normal. After I started the first two inhouse separations, would go "service" my husband sexually but refuse to let him touch me or see me without my flannel granny gowns covering from neck to wrist to ankle; would even lock myself in the bathroom when I showered... then I'd occasionally flash him. I don't know why I did it. I quit wearing make-up. I let him take photos of me in lingerie. I put on 70 pounds. I was trying to find my identity because I could no longer feel my identity was as a wife of a man who loved me unconditionally and honored me as special and unique.

I did some journaling from excerpts of the book "Women, Sex and Addiction" from Charlotte Davis Kasl. She talks about women who are SA or women who choose SA/PA partners. I learned a lot about my inner workings through reading her book. That knowledge gave me power to change and start seeing my sexuality the way God saw it. Prior to this, I'd tried to adher to God's moral code about sex; but hadn't thought much about how God or the Bible viewed feminine sexuality. Here's my journaling: lightwave.proboards48.com/index.cgi?board=Partners&action=display&thread=1143451179

LookingUp

[neil]

thanks everyone, im not a wierdo!

[alyson]

Woops, didnt know neil was still logged on, that last post was me!

[ellen38]

I too have been confused and the only way that I can understand it, is to treat his problem with p and mb as something completely separate from the intimacy of sex.
PA has nothing to do with sex, although it uses it as its medium. That is why we can love sex but hate porn. One is about love, the other hate. At the end of the day, we may still love our H enough to enjoy being intimate.
ellen

[Healing Rain]

Well said Ellen.

~Rain~

[zerotolerance]

Ditto, me too. Done it all. Crazy, Crazy, stuff. I still struggle with it sometimes. We're so conditioned into our own cesspools of crazy doo, and so NOT prepared for what we discover about our men and the world around us. This is DEVASTATING stuff. They call it crazy making for a reason - BECAUSE IT MAKES PPL GO CRAZY, and then we do stupid stuff. They call it crazy lying for a reason - because it makes ppl go crazy, AND BECAUSE IT'S CRAZY TO LIE LIKE THAT! Abused people do crazy things, because we aren't in our right mind, because we're going crazy from abuse. Emotional abuse is the WORST in causing this type crap. We're all thinking that because we didn't get beat up, and our h said a few nice words, then it's not that bad. We aren't being abused, blah, blah. (ie stockholm sydrome). Meanwhile, it stacks up, and stacks up, and stacks up, and we find ourselves crazy to stop it.

And this freaking culture don't help one bit spewing the doo, being spewed at us, creating these problems. I try to please me, to do what I like. I like my hair long and blonde. But I don't like feeling like I have to do a dang thing to my hair, or my face, or my body, one way or the other. Our hair is NOT IMPORTANT! Some girls' Bu# is NOT IMPORTANT. Not a single b00b on earth is IMPORTANT. Yet here we are all sucked into this cesspools obsessing over our body parts, BECAUSE THEY OBSESS over other peoples body parts. And because we are objectified and we objectify ourselves. It's all wrong!

I've been working on my body image dysmorphia, trying not to care, trying to love me, trying to take off any masks, and masking elements that I don't want to have to be a slave to anymore. I make myself go out without makeup on, and stuff like that. So anyway, I've been busy lately, and I haven't colored my hair. But I don't care, I'm trying not to care, and over some time now I've confided all this in a guy friend. He knows my struggle with it. I've even been thinking about going gray, or all natural maybe, and I told him so. Really though, I already have the color, and I plan to touch it up, I just haven't done it. So anyway, I have about 2 inches of darker root showing, and little gray. He wanted me to meet him at walmart to do some shopping, so I did. And in deodorant row he loudly says, "I see your gray", wtf??? I saw his buldging belly, and HIS GRAY, and HIS skinny Arse too and WHATEVER!!!! At the time, I took it as a joke, a little kidding, it didn't seem to bother me. I razzed him back about seeing his gray too. But then I freaking nightmare. One of those where it's like we are naked, only mine was my hair wasn't colored OMG! And every since then I've been having triggered thoughts everytime I pass the mirror. "better fix that gray", "you're looking old", blah blah blah. HATE IT, and I'm blaming him for putting that thought back in me AGAIN, after I worked so hard to get out from all the other times. ARGH!!! lol!

But just like they are responsible for themselves, so are we for ourselves. We have to learn to examine every thought we have, and every motivation we have, before taking action on it, until we get ourselves firing right again automatically. Before we so much as pick up the mascara we need to ask ourselves WHY! What do we hope to gain? how will it help? WHO CARES? and if they do, are they people we want in our lives. If they are that shallow, they aren't any benefit to us. We are more than our make up masks. We are more than our b00bs, and butts, and body weight. When we give in to this insanity, we become a part of the problem. It's one think to freshen up, and please ourselves, but it is quite another trying to please society, and objectifying ppl. I'm not a cartoon and I don't want to be one! We learn that it doesn't matter one bit what we do, or don't do, or look like, or not. This is not about us, its about them, but it is affecting us. So we have to take responsibilty for us, and for the ways we play into it. We have to strive to eradicate this stupidity from our own hearts and minds, because that's how we re-integrate our own souls. It's okay to have a tempting thought, we're designed for that! It's when we act on them that we cross the line. We have to examine our motives, and determine if what we are thinking of doing is loving, or unloving, to us or others. And we have choose only the LOVING chooses, and only when we are only motivated by love, not anger, not rage, not hate, not selfishness, not objectification, nor p lies, nor lying men/ppl, etc...

Don't try to fit into some box for them. We have to get out of these STUPID BOXES (lie compartments) and step into who we really are, beautiful, loving, giving, generous, nuturing, women. NO MATTER what they do. Because right is right, and wrong is wrong, and I don't care how many words they redefine, it doesn't change wrong to right. And no amount of wrongs has ever, nor will ever, make a single RIGHT!

[alyson]

AMEN!