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Have you read How To Keep House While Drowning? (It's short, chapters are 1-3 pages each.) It really helped me reframe my thinking and guilt spiral when it came to "failing" at cleaning, self-care, etc. It's for people struggling with depression, ADHD, and any other issues that make functioning difficult.
https://www.amazon.com/Keep-House-While-Drowning-compassionate-ebook/dp/B08MD9T8XD
Usually when your SO cheats on you, it's a normal reaction to feel like you must have done something wrong to push them into it. People want to blame themselves so they feel like they have some control over the situation. If it's his fault, he can fix it. If it's your fault then he just has to hope you won't cheat on him again. Also, when a man gets cheated on he feels emasculated. Add in that you cheated with a woman and he's going to feel doubly worthless as a man so once again, it's going to lead to him feeling like he's just not good enough and it's his fault.
This is the situation you've created and the trauma you've inflicted on your boyfriend. So you can't go feeling all shocked that he's apologizing to you. You've most likely given the man PTSD and while you have a bit of guilt you could probably move on from this relationship in a short time but it will take YEARS for his self esteem to recover.
You should start doing some reading on how to try to work on your things in a healing manner. How to Help Your Spouse Heal from Your Affair
if you didn't like AA you might look at SMART recovery as an alternative that has a different take on how to work through recovery and be more engaged with yourself and motivated towards your goals as a way to move beyond alcohol. Their handbook has lots of great exercises for this and really helped me:
You can still get the Smart Recovery Handbook for Kindle on Amazon for about $8. I ordered it and did a lot or reading on my own.
I don’t know if you have a tiktok (bear with me I know!) but a user there that goes by domesticblisters has a whole series on harm reduction in care tasks that I really appreciate. She also has a book “How to Keep House While Drowning” that helped me when I was in the thick of some pretty severe baby blues. Sometimes it’s enough just to make it though a rough patch.
F**ck Anxiety was a great read and it's fun to say the title.
Great work recognizing that you're struggling, and coming up with the idea that a professional who deals with this every day will give you some useful perspective.
No-one asked for my opinion, but I genuinely believe 95% of the people on this sub who are truly addicted (myself included) are addicted mainly because we have learned (on a deep neurological level) to use porn as a tool to escape from difficult emotions like anxiety.
If you want some light reading before your first session, or just something to occupy your brain right now, I really recommend
Hardcore Self Help: F**k Anxiety (free on Kindle Unlimited)
The Upward Spiral - Using Neuroscience to Reverse the Course of Depression
Super inspired by your post, great job.
The SMART Recovery Handbook is very helpful. Articles and Essays offers some short helpful information on addiction recovery. I found addiction recovery books on the Amazon website, those can downloaded instantly to a Kindle app on any device.
Have you tried writing down the reasons you don't want to repeat the cycle? What is important to you that you risk by drinking in this pattern? Writing things down can make a difference as far as remembering them later.
There's a bunch of good exercises in the smart recovery handbook. Made a difference for me:
or kindle (I got this one and used kindle app screenshots from my phone to print worksheets):
To second this: OP, I think SMART is as close as you're going to get to therapy without spending a bunch of $$. You can go to their online meetings for emotional support but I think what would make a bigger difference is to get the handbook and do the exercises.
- https://shop.smartrecovery.org/product/books/smart-recovery-handbook-3rd-edition/
- https://www.amazon.com/SMART-Recovery-Handbook-none-ebook/dp/B00LTDKS2W/
If you can't afford even that, let me know. I'm also finding meditation to be a big help but that requires a bit more of a lifestyle change to get started. I've been liking "The Mind Illuminated" as a guide. For that one, the physical book has some nice pictures that don't translate well to kindle so I'd recommend that.
This is a good book: https://www.amazon.com/Lying-Sam-Harris-ebook/dp/B00G1SRB6Q
I don't like liars / lying either. We can always respond to people without lying even if it is to say "I'm not comfortable with this discussion" or "I'd rather not say"
I recommend you make an all out effort to help her heal, whether or not it saves your marriage.
Let her know you are sorry she still feels pain and want will move heaven and earth to help. That you hope you can save your marriage, but that your help not contingent on your staying together.
You can demonstrate commitment by reading How to Help your Spouse heal from an affair:
Go through the points in the book with her and see how each applies to her situation.
Ask her where she is hurting and what you can do to help.
Finding her an individual counselor will help, if nothing else to identify her hurts and needs and how to address them.
From the accounts I've read, successful reconciliations involve the cheater moving heaven and earth to help the betrayed heal and make amends. Failed reconciliations often involve incomplete healing, rugsweeping, or a sense the cheater "got away with it" or "got what they wanted out of the affair" without consequences.
Helping might also involve specialized counselling. From the comments below mentioning mind movies, that may take a specialist in Betrayal Trauma or PTSD.
How to Keep House While Drowning is what helped me the most. I had issues with tying cleaning to morality and worthiness, as well as cleaning for others and not for myself.
Adding to others' advice...
I recommend a book How to Keep House While You're Drowning: 31 days of compassionate help
If you have KindleUnlimited it's available for free right now. And if you have Alexa, you can get her to read to you.
In kindness, you can do it, OP. You can work your way out of this. You already know that you're capable of being organized. Baby steps.
I don’t know to fix it but I’m in a similar boat. I live alone. Did a programming boot camp to change careers to make a liveable real wage. Falling apart with applying to jobs.
I’m pretty depressed in a flashback hole.
I have an emotionally draining marketing job where I’m on the phone and have to talk about myself specifically. But I need the paltry income. It’s hard to just vacuum and dishes and laundry and fight against my depression brain.
Haven’t read the whole thing yet but someone else here recommended this book and it seems to be just what I need: https://www.amazon.com/Keep-House-While-Drowning-compassionate-ebook/dp/B08MD9T8XD/ref=nodl_
Also, I know it’s an easy thing to recommend but hard to make happen but get into trauma informed therapy if you’re not. Remote or in person.
First, I’d recommend this book. It’s very short (55 pages) and chapter 30 is called “who deserves a maid” it’s extremely helpful. The entire book has changed how I do everything in my home.
I haven’t hired a cleaning service yet as I’m sorting through all my junk still before I do but I’ve spoke with my dad who has a service come every 2 weeks to clean and he said as long as you don’t have junk everywhere they’re amazing. If you have junk everywhere they leave it and clean around it and it won’t feel like they did much. Mostly they do dishes, laundry( he pays extra for laundry) bed sheet service, clean the bathroom and vacuum, sweep and dust. Which is super tempting for me but I have seriously problem with junk being everywhere so I’ll either need to hire a private cleaner and teach them where all my crap goes or stop being lazy and clean it up.
He said he never cleans before they come just makes sure all his stuff is stuffed in a closet or is actually put away. The first few times were terrifying and he purposefully wasn’t home because he didn’t want to watch them or see they’re reaction to his mess. Now he’s totally fine with it and feels better that it’s getting done. Good luck! I hope you figure everything out.
I bought a book at Amazon that really helped me, "How to Keep House While Drowning", the author has a web page called Struggle Care and apparently has some popular TikTok videos although that's not my jam.
The book isn't long, or expensive, but her words really helped me reframe the tasks. She reframes chores as 'Care Tasks' that are morally neutral and is just really wonderfully sympathetic to the struggle.
>If you are completing care tasks from a motivation of shame, you are probably also relaxing in shame too--because care tasks never end, and you view rest as a reward for good boys and gils. So if you ever actually let yourself sit down and rest, you're feeling shame and thinking, "I don't deserve to do this. There is more to do".
>
>This is an incredibly painful way to live. It affects your entire life: your mental health, your relationships, your friendships, your work or schooling, your physical health. But it doesn't have to be this way. In fact, I have very good news for you.
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>Care tasks are morally neutral. Being good or bad at them has nothing to do with being a good person, parent, man, woman, spouse, friend. Literally nothing. You are not a failure because you can't keep up with laundry. Laundry is morally neutral.
She also has a phrase that 'Anything worth doing is worth half-assing', and man, that helped me so much.
u/a-million-dreams
1) You are not a fool. You trusted her and she betrayed that trust. That makes her a cheater, not you a fool.
2) Tell her you love the person she pretended to be. The person who swore to love and honor you. The person who swore to be only with you and no other man. Tell her that you do not even know who she really is, a woman who would betray not only her husband but the father of her child, she also betrayed your child by sacrificing the marriage for her selfish wants.
3) IF there is to be successful reconciliation it will require that SHE do the work. The marriage did not fail, she failed the marriage and it is on her to rebuild it. DSaive is 100% correct. You may also consider having her read https://www.amazon.com/Help-Your-Spouse-Heal-Affair-ebook/dp/B004ZG6UF4/
4) You as a couple do not need marriage counseling. MC would have been appropriate when she was considering cheating but it is too late for that. She needs individual counseling.
u/__mary__
I don't doubt your sincerity and you are no doubt struggling with trying to find something, anything, to do. May I suggest you
1) Look for some couples counselors/therapists to have them lined up if and when he is ready.
2) Read this book to get some ideas on what to do if/when he is ready to return and talk. https://www.amazon.com/Help-Your-Spouse-Heal-Affair-ebook/dp/B004ZG6UF4
Read Sam’s book.
In Lying, best-selling author and neuroscientist Sam Harris argues that we can radically simplify our lives and improve society by merely telling the truth in situations where others often lie. He focuses on "white" liesthose lies we tell for the purpose of sparing people discomfortfor these are the lies that most often tempt us. And they tend to be the only lies that good people tell while imagining that they are being good in the process.
You can't make yourself not be angry; emotions aren't you, there a thing that happens to you, when your body dumps a bunch of a particular set of chemicals into your brain. You can control how you react to them, though. Read up on some basic mindfulness exercises. This is a good simple one to start with. Maybe read up on the practice of Stoicism. This is a good introductory book that's free on Kindle. Cognitive behavioral therapy has a lot in common with Stoicism; it's good for helping you learn how to manage negative emotional responses that aren't serious enough to warrant therapy. I started getting into it when the whole Covid outbreak started off and I was feeling a lot of anxiety; it helped a LOT.
It was recommended by another redditor, I found it on Amazon
About moving, that is up to you two. It is rare you can both walk away now.
On the cheating, it wont heal in a few weeks. I suggest you get him this book. Easy read. And you discuss each chapter.
https://www.amazon.com/Help-Your-Spouse-Heal-Affair-ebook/dp/B004ZG6UF4
I'd say start with Mystery Method videos, and Annihilation by Style, aka Neil Strauss. You could also read Double Your Dating by David Deangelo, or my book for daygame, I Hope It's Sunny Out.
Most newer stuff focuses on inner game because in reality, all game comes down to confidence, self-esteem, and belief, with a dash of technique. All your techniques are useless if you have panic attacks just thinking of approaching. But approaching is the only way to develop game, outer and inner.
Another good product for newbs is Foundations by RSD. Maybe The Natural by Richard Laruina.
Those are a bit dated but will give you some training wheels until you realize the truth of game.
Is there really such a thing as a good lie, or white lie? What might radical honesty look like?
Lying, by Sam Harris is a good book on this topic.
Another suggestion is to look at what situations are you having trouble with. Are you getting killed by crossups? Having trouble executing anti-airs for your character? Are using your characters tools correctly depending on the situation and etc, etc. You also have to think about the mind game part of it. Are you making the correct guesses? Are you forcing the other player to make mistakes?
Like many said, use the Gief's Gym guide and also, Gootecks book which is free on Amazon as well, should give you all the tools you need to improve your game.
Fighting games are inherently competitive. I don't understand why someone would buy a fighting game for the single player. There are much more interesting single player games.
The execution in this game is silly easy. You should not be expecting results if you can only play for 30 minutes every few days. If you could play that little and not get destroyed it would denigrate the integrity of the game.
If you could spend 30 minutes playing every few days and add in 30 minutes to an hour each week of watching youtube videos or reading guides I think you would see improvement.
I would suggest reading Simplifying Streetfighter, by gooteks, if you can spare $5: https://www.amazon.com/Simplifying-Street-Fighter-Players-Preparing-ebook/dp/B015KLJCJI
It would give you a very effective crash course on fighting games. I would also take a look at Bafael's BnB guides: https://www.reddit.com/r/StreetFighter/comments/465d20/bafaels_bread_and_butter_combos_for_13_characters/
You can get better at this game by playing 30 minutes every few days, but it will take a long time. If you add in some extra curricular stuff your playtime will be much more productive (and will be more fun). Good luck.
Therapy might be a bit too far. I think reading a good book on the subject of death from an atheistic perspective helps tremendously: https://www.amazon.com/Comforting-Thoughts-About-Death-Nothing-ebook/dp/B00QVLEQRU
A fear of death is normal and natural — it's hardwired in us all through natural selection. Species that do not fear death don't tend to stick around very long I imagine, so it can be thought of as a selection pressure. It's primal.
It's important to keep this in mind: you'll only ever experience what it's like to be alive. You'll never experience "being dead" — there's no eternal darkness or void or whatever it is your imagination has led you to believe.
Life might be thought of as a party — a party has to end at some point. But do you know what would really suck? Spending the entire party worrying about it coming to an end. So, forget about it — it's out of your control and it's really nothing to be scared about. If you're still feeling irrational fear after reading our replies, I recommend reading a book by Greta Christina: https://www.amazon.com/Comforting-Thoughts-About-Death-Nothing-ebook/dp/B00QVLEQRU