TTF community forums - The Click Factor

There has been a lot of justified anguish on the part of the partners, wives and girlfriends, current and past, about their Husbands or boyfriends seeming oblivion to the unimaginable heartache and emotional pain their acting out causes.

Normally the SO is crying out for answers to the behavior and looking for a way to make the pain stop.

Of course every story, when it comes to the murky “root cause analysis”, has its own twists and turns. Even a brief perusal of the PA’s journals will show this.

I have said in my own experience, the morning I shattered Mrs. Daniel’s heart (for the second time may I add {it hurts to write this}), I went to work that day and at lunch I was a slobbering mass of tears in the cab of my truck. Completely Broken could’ve been my user name.

It just clicked.

I got it.

I was broken.

I don’t believe I had any special privilege. Any PA here who has kicked the habit and compulsion will say they had a similar experience.

It is a matter of doing an honest survey of the damage that has been done. And it is truly a draw-dropping, mind-bending, knee-shriveling kind of experience.

A hyperspace from fantasy land back to reality with your stomach somewhere in between the two.

It is a moment of perfect clarity where you see what I call the “True Cost” of the addiction -the fact that everything has been made collateral on this habit.]

So how can “we” get all of the PAs out in the landscape of the world to wake up from their nap at the switch?

We all agree that the SO (wife or GF) cannot “make” the PA wake up in his own mind to the issues. Ultimately the PA owns and is responsible for his own behavior and must suffer the consequences, however light or heavy they may be. The problems are his alone.

There is a natural tendency, some probably more than others, for the SO to try to control, force, push, blackmail, or otherwise jam the PA’s brain when he seems to not be coming around. This effort is understandable, especially in the early part of the gut-wrenching revelations.

But again, the PA alone cannot be controlled or corralled in a lasting, meaningful, “real-change” sort of way.

As has been pointed out many times, one of the best tools the SO can use to try to “wake up” husband or BF is to write a letter to them explaining how the PA makes them feel. To express the heartache outside of the tears and the trauma that usually come with a face-to-face on the issue. This point has been made by FoolishMind and Vorlan and others many times here.

I thank God that in His good timing He brought the Click Factor home to roost.

The prayer now is for all of the other PAs to have that CLICK in their mind.

Perhaps another post on what to do next?

(editorial: I have felt compelled to write this thought down. Please understand that I do not count myself an expert at all; I just hope to help the TTF PAs and SOs alike in their attempt to understand, heal, and move forward)

Sincerely,

Daniel