You tell me how and i will.

Go back and edit your first post on this thread. I am pretty sure you can change the title that way. Thanks

Sounds like a man who is understanding the pain he caused, not only to you and his family, but to himself. This is GOOD progress; he's still got a ways to go, just as you do.

You experienced trauma, SC. Severe trauma. I've seen you compare your sitch to others' many times, saying something about how you had it easier, so you should feel lucky. You didn't have it easier, SC, you had it different.

Even if you left your H today, the remnants of the trauma lay with you, and you would have to grieve and heal. TRUST ME.

Oh my goodness you have the tears flowing with this post darn it

I AGREE, Still.

You are in the process of HEALING.

I'm 4 years out here in RECOVERY..seems like it took FOREVER to get to the place where WE are NOW.

And I now GET what you were saying about the SF issue after your hysterectomy.

Sorry for my DENSENESS earlier today.

SC

I think you've come a long way since you first started posting. That is a positive. Take a step back and look at your progress. It's real.

What you are going through is very normal. I know that I have been there. I've said the "yeah right" thing many times. And I thought...is this it? Is this the state of being that I fought so hard for? It didn't seem enough and I went into a rut. And that's when I decided to stop trying to recover and let life just happen. I stopped obsessing about ENs and LBs. I just lived.


I still practiced everything I had learned here, but I stopped waiting for that glorious morning when I would wake up and I would be magically healed. I don't think it comes like that. There's definitely a corner that's turned but it can sneak up on you.

Give your weary self a rest. Relax and see what happens.

Thanks for that and i can see it too i just wish it were more, which leads me to this...


I really do need to work on this!!!

You are WORKING on it and that's GREAT!!

Hi 'crazy !

Mel is absolutely correct. You must give yourself permission to grieve. This is a phase that most BS squish because it feels bad and unproductive, but you must run what you lost through your fingers and mourn it until you know exactly what that is.

I do believe that some BS get beyond betrayal far better than others, and I don't know why that is. I have held different opinions regarding the reasons for that over the years but I now just admit there's no rhyme or reason to it.

I see people who value what they have built through recovery enough to help them stop dwelling on past hurts. They are blessed IMO.

Also BigKahuna ( a mate) tells me that EVERY marriage can be a loving recovered marriage if both spouses fully adhere to the MB plan. I don't have those ingredients so I can't comment, but HE does and he and Mrs Kahuna are very happy so that infers he is right !

I know that as I approach 4 years past d-day my life is generally happy, my wife loves me and my kids have an excellent stable, loving home. People are far worse off than I am.

But some days all that blessing just feels like so much turd polish. Those days grow less frequent though.

No clever answers from me, just empathy and an offer of hope that if your spouse fully hops on board the MB bus with you there are living examples that show your marriage can be incredibly happy despite adultery !

all blessings

SC I'm so glad to you see posting this thread. You are getting wonderful advice....peace to you my friend.

I know you are all correct in what you are saying, it has gotten better since D-day, some days are better than others and my H is trying really hard to make amends for the pain he caused.

And BP said it correctly when he said that the grieving part seems so unproductive but if that is what i must do then so be it, onward and upward

I was thinking last night that my H's illness played a very big part in our recovery, it could have been a good thing and it could have been a bad thing.

He had only been back home for two weeks when he got sick and he was so sick that "I" put the A on the back burner because he needed to work on getting well. He was in the hospital or at home for 4 and 1/2 months. During that time we discussed our MARRIAGE alot and the things we needed to work on to have a better marriage but we did not discuss the A itself. So we became VERY close during that period.

Then when my H was going back to work (OW was a co-worker and still worked there) and here we are already almost 6 months past D-day and 4 and 1/2 months past NC it started all over again in my mind anyway so i started flipping out. Not only did i want all the details i of course wanted NC. My H didn't understand this at first and i think it was because we had really not talked about the A. He did finally understand and the OW was true to her form and would not leave my H alone so he turned her in to HR and she left the company.

This i think hurt our recovery in a way. By the time my H went back to work we had grown so close again and our MARRIAGE was doing so great because we were working on meeting each other's EN so much that our love banks were overflowing (you would think a GREAT think right?). Well i "think" what ended up happening was my H had by then already knew what a mistake eevry thing was and was totally DONE with the A so he thought it would be fine to just return to working with OW and it would be no big deal. He was kind of indifferent to the whole A itself so it was like i had just been hit by the A.

If you have read through this whole thing i do not really have a question i guess i am just rambling and wondering if the bassackwardness of our recovery was a good thing or a bad thing?

I THINK IT WAS A GOOD THING!!

I think your H was able to go through WITHDRAWAL and fall in love with you again!!

I think that you have every reason to feel confident about the success of your marriage!!

It will take TIME for you to HEAL personally but your H's illness was actually a BLESSING, IMO, if you believe in that. I DO!!

It is good that you are here talking to people who have been through it before you make any firm and lasting decisions about your marriage. I have thought the same thing at times. I am a detail person mostly, but do have enough big picture in there to stay with my FWW. It can be extremely difficult, though. The movies that run through your head, especially in the night, can be really rough. On the occasions that the WS is in a bad mood and is surly, it brings back memories of what it was like during the A.

Things are not going to be easy, but people keep telling me to give it time. That is what I am going to do, especially with very small children. It is easier for us to reconcile because I didn't have to expose, so we don't have to deal with the family issues. If it ever occurred again, I would expose in a heartbeat and leave with the children. The A didn't end immediately in my FWW's situation, but it did taper off dramatically and then soon break. Their relationship wasn't good anyway. Everyone's situation is different, but the process is still very similar. If we don't give time for recovery if they have definitely ended the A, are remorseful, and are trying, we really aren't being totally fair. Maybe that's just my opinion, but I am praying things will work out. I have the same hope for you. Good luck.

You know, SC, when I talked to Jennifer Harley, she mentioned getting away with PWC, away from 'normal' life, take a vacation, or an extended weekend alone. She said it could help us to regroup and start to combine our efforts, to bond. We did go on vacation together, but we had our son with us, and spent very little time alone (and not because we COULDN'T).

What I'm getting at is that you two did get to spend lots of time together, talking, laughing, just being together; meanwhile, your FWH was going thru withdrawal, and you were there for him, reaffirming how much of a great wife you were. For him, he MAY have been completely indifferent by the time he went back to work.

The one thing that threw in that monkey wrench was the lack of EXTRAORDINARY PRECAUTIONS, by not returning to that job as long as OW was there. That hurt YOU, and probably drained your LB.

OW's gone now, and you are grieving and healing. You were probably in the 'honeymoom' phase for quite a long time, right after your WH came home, which IS good, but the harsh reality came barrelling down on you when your FWH returned to work.

You know SL you are proabably right. We were in the "honeymoon" phase for the whole time he was home. And i really believe that he was indifferent by the time he went back to work i really do. But boy oh boy did reality hit ME like a TON OF BRICKS when it came barreling down when he went back to work.

Now just trying to remove the d@mn bricks is the next step

Good luck to you, SC.

Thanks Krazy. I want to wish you good luck as well. You and i have seemd to agree on a lot of things on these boards and we both also UNFORTUNATELY still have a lot of anger to deal with.

I really can not even begin to imagine how hard it has been for you, like many people have said before i only IMAGINE what happened you had to see it. I know the pain from BETRAYAL is horrible.

I hope that you too can recover your marriage and make it better than it was before and that BOTH of us can get past our anger. I am sure that our anger hurts us more than it helps us, just figuring out how to let it go is REALLY TOUGH.

These boards have helped but i do sometimes just have to steer clear of threads that really trip my trigger or else i get on a roll like we did the other day on wade's thread. I am getting better at that for sure.

I hope that everyone on here who says just take time is right because it definitely is no fun at all.

The closest thing I've seen to my d-day is the first 5 minutes of "Minority Report", minus the murder of course.

I wish medical science would allow me to erase that event from my memory permanently. Maybe someday!