Hello everyone...

Today has been kind of cool for me and I thought I would share...

Today is my 43rd birthday this time 3 years ago my life was a nightmare of epic proportions.

Dday occured days before my 40th birthday, weeks before my 20th anniversary and of course smack in the middle of the holidays.

At that time I couldn't even imagine that life, birthday's, holdidays or even a single day could ever be painfree and normal..ever again.

WELL I am happy to report that it can!!!

Today, I opened my beautiful birthday card from my H and had a tiny trigger that he has always given me beautiful cards/notes with really loving messages..pre A and post A...in past years this would have been a painful trigger.

Today it just made me smile and realize how far we've come. I then just enjoyed reading the card and basking in his love for me.

Even though he's always made me feel loved and beautiful..these days I feel a new instensity to that love from him, he makes me feel very beautiful, he makes me feel safe and most importantly I am HAPPY and life is a GOOD normal!

I know I sound like a broken record but BS's stay strong, don't settle for less then 100% effort from your WS and if you do life can be awesome for the both of you!

A special thanks to all those posters (I know some of you are still here 3 year later) who helped us through those first months.

FT,

Good to hear from and thanks for the positive pep talk. These newbies need to hear that there is light at the other end..... <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/wink.gif" alt="" />

Can you share what kind of closure (if any) or what was done to reduce the triggers?

thanks,
L.

For me the triggers became less painful and frequent the safer I felt and the more time that had passed.

It's funny many of the old timers told me that in a successful recovery I'd one day feel as if that period was just a bad memory...just like any other of life's tragedies.

For the most part I think that is true.

The other thing that helped with my triggers back when they were really painful is when my H would hold me and reassure me...if he got defensive it was really hard for me to calm down. So take note WS's out there...no matter how hard it is if your BS is having a trigger don't try to minimize it, don't tell them to get over it, don't try to argue them out of it...just hold them tell them you are sorry, tell them that you'll never hurt them again, tell them they are safe, that you aren't that person anymore and that you love them and are there for them.

Now for the most part triggers are few and far apart and thank goodness rarely bring on more then a twinge for me. Sometimes they are so fleeting I don't need any reassurance. Sometimes my H will sense something and will just hug me. I rarely need to talk about them anymore...yeah...very good since I once obsessed over the A.

I think the bottom line in my last stage of recovery was letting go of the A...that was the very hardest thing for me.

For some reason I felt as long as I kept it semi fresh with my FWH it would remind him of what happened and would help keep me safe.

Taking that leap was hard but critical..now we rarely talk about the A and when we do it's usually from a conversational perspective based on something that we saw or heard (movie, song, something posted here, etc). We are actually able to talk about A's in a detached manner..wow is that progress or what?!!

So newbies...take heart...it really can get better, if you hang in there and work hard together!

You have given me hope. Thank-you.