Dealing with the lows…

I’m feeling so low today. Today should have been a good day, I went with my family to see a public fireworks display for bonfire night (UK), but before we went, feeling low and having negative thoughts and feelings, I asked my wife to tell me one thing she liked about me. Instead of telling me one thing, she berated me about all of things she had done and endured this weekend that I think as a loving partner we should do for each other. She didn’t tell me anything that she liked about me, instead at the end, she told me “Right now, there’s nothing I like about you”.

We went to the display, seconds before getting out of the car, I saw WhatsApp open on her phone (in her hand), with a message from a number (not a name, why would she be messaging someone that isn’t in her phone book?)… the last message “You too 🥰” to which she’d reacted to the message with a ❤️ she quickly swiped it off and I didn’t see anymore.

Back story, she’d been cheating on me, I found messages on her *** messenger, but in the messages they’d moved the conversation to WhatsApp, and she had deleted his number previously so I’ve never been able to see what she’s messaging him on WhatsApp.

Everything in my head was struggling to come up with any explanation other than, they’re messaging again.

I walked the 40 minutes to display with tears slowly rolling down my face as I walked, holding little boys hand. Nobody noticed, nobody cared, and I couldn’t hold them in.

Throughout the night, I managed to find that she had been messaging our niece to wish our nephew a happy birthday. They hadn’t spoken in over a year and didn’t have her number. I do have her number and verified it was who she said it was, but if she hadn’t been secretive and I had seen more of the messages, I wouldn’t have gotten so low.

Fast forwards a few hours, we’re in bed. I get no intimacy, no touch from her anyway, and the dog jumps on the bed. The dog that she always says to leave her alone, he smells etc. I’m the dog person, he’s my dog. She starts hugging and cuddling with the dog… waaayyyy more contact than she would do with me, and I’m back to this low again.

I know that both of these are jealousy, and that they’re probably hitting me when I’m already feeling down, but my big question is how do you/I manage these feelings. Control them instead of them controlling me? I’ve never had this problem until I found out about her cheating, and other than dealing with grief of losing my parents I’ve never been depressed until finding out about it either. I tried reaching out to my GP for help, they did nothing. I’d hoped that they could give me something to just take the edge off so that I could start healing. It’s so hard to show someone affection and love when you feel so down about them.

Is there a technique that you use to manage this? I always remember training on dealing with anxiety for public speaking and a technique to bring adrenaline down was to occupy your consciousness with 2 things, your brain can’t subconsciously cope with a third, and the tool was to focus on a feather that you’re holding in front of your face and to blow on it to make it wave steadily. The tool in that instance really does work and takes away the nerves. So I guess I’m wondering if there are any words of wisdom, tips or tools that can help to just take my mind away from that place when I’m feeling like this until I’m ready to process it.

thanks in advance if there are any such tips