I gotcha. It is not going to happen naturally until you get back into the habit of doing the actions that led to those feelings. Those feelings don't come by accident, they come by DESIGN. They come from ACTIONS, not the other way around. So you are going to have to go through the motions until the feelings come back. Feelings follow actions, feelings follow actions.

Yes it is a struggle to overcome. It is more of a struggle to have a bad marriage and get divorced. So get to work!!

Sit down tonight with her and SCHEDULE out 20+ hours of undivided attention time. Have her line up babysitters and make those plans, Mitt. Actually schedule this out even though you don't FEEL like it. It is much harder to put this aside when you have the time scheduled.

You have been through a horrible shock, Mitt, and the solution is to walk the walk until your feelings come back. They will come back. You just have to do the work.

You never had to do a lot of things b4 and you still don't if you want to give up........ and yes you have it just look at your post a little closer and really read what you are saying to us. we all have a hard time at times.
I personally dont know your wife, but I have been in her shoes before, exactly the same sich w/o an oc. You should be able to tell true remorse from her. If she is really trying then personally i would take her and go through the motions. Her sadness and depression is because of what she has done... she hurts too and will maybe always hold her head a little lower..... I feel like it now 3.5 years later, dont know what i was thinking.. cant believe it was me...but it was.
cant blame it on anyone but me.

I never came close in my life to meeting anyone is unique as my wife

It is possible she is back just extremely wounded just like you.

Work a plan like ML said
I hate this term but fake it until you make it.

It will come!

Something you said earlier struck me as exactly as I feel. UA is a central component to rebuilding a marriage that got destroyed by adultery. I fully understand Dr. H's science behind it and it definitely makes a ton of sense.

One of the things my wife threw at me as part of our problem was we didnt spend enough time together alone. Id go down to the den to watch TV and she upstairs to the bedroom to watch TV. And, many other things we just didnt do.

Just last night we were in the same pattern, I downstairs, she upstairs until I remembered that this was one of many things drove into the arms of another guy. And I went to the bedroom. Not to initiate SF or expect her to suggest it, just to be together. Sure, Ive been a little down lately, but me laying there was so forced and so unpleasant for me that an anxiety attack popped up from nowhere.

Replacing unmitigated love for the anger and hatred I still have in me continues to be my biggest challenge.

I have to commend those who have been able to champion their hatred of their cheating spouse. It takes an absolute special individual just like Jin wrote yesterday to move past a spouse's affair. You have to be able to neuter your feelings and create something that wasnt there.

So, Mitt, as most of us in betrayed positions think our story is worse than anyone else's, you, sir, have a doozy of situation.

I use a pretty childish concept quite often when I hit a low point and the blood is simmering looking to start a converstaion that will take us in the wrong direction. I like to think of myself like a superhero. (I have mentioned this before.)

A superhero possesses great power which he can use for good or bad. I choose to be a good SH. Using my power that can destroy a family to, instead, refocus my attention, my focus on something pleasant. (I got this technique from another poster on my thread.) I take a moment to think of something from many, many years ago that made me laugh hysterically and just the mere thought makes me laugh today. I now have half a dozen of these moments to recall.

Remember what is going on is predominantly in our heads. You did say your Mrs. is on board and remorseful, so what is troubling you (us) is in our beans. Maybe a simple mental trick like above can help. Who knows?

Lastly, I have taken lately to writing my thoughts into a notebook. Yes, the folks here are great and have been critical to my progress, but sometimes jotting down a thought in to my notebook really helps. I will never show my wife this notebook, its for me alone. I have my list of 100+ questions about the her affair I still have in my head written in there. She'll never be asked these questions. Actually, just writing them kind of lowered my need to know the answers.

Our roads are bumpy, some more than others, but all are fraught with the anguish. You are not alone. Good luck.

Mitt, I want you to know that your feelings are very much like mine just after my husbands' affair. We are in a fully recovered, passionate marriage today. Your feelings are very typical.

On the other hand, you might not be able to recover. But that is a foregone conclusion and a self fulfilling prophecy if you don't do the things necessary to restore the love in your marriage. If you keep doing what you are doing, you will not recover. You have to have a PLAN and you have to stick with it.

If you cannot get over your resentment in a couple of years, I would agree you should give up. But you should give up NOW if you aren't going to do anything, but this will not change if you don't.

I get what you're saying about UA time and how important it is and we do spend a lot of time together we go to the movies twice a week and spend one hour every day alone to talk. The problem is we've been doing this for close to 2 months and I feel the same as I did the first day and that is bitter. I don't want to feel this way and I know that what's best for everyone is for me and my wife to Recover our marriage but whenever I think about the affair I get so demoralized and then it just goes downhill from there and this happens on a daily basis.

MikeStillSmiling I also find it helps to write my feelings down and I do that here for the most part my wife does not know I post here and I do not plan on ever telling her and I find coming here posting my thoughts or just reading other people's posts helps a lot. also I think you are right when you say that the people who can move past the hate they feel for their spouses affair is nothing short of amazing. I was amazed when I read your thread that you were even able to attempt recovery of your marriage I know I would not be will to forgive my wife if she did to me what yours did to you.

What part of my story do you find unforgivable?

The fact that she brought OM around you and your children almost on a weekly basis for dinners and let him pretend to be your friend all the while having a sexual and emotional relationship with OM. the fact that even after she fell out of love with OM she continued the affair and as you said basically prostituted herself to him. But most of all is the fact that it went on for six years that amazes me the fact that you are able to forgive her for deceiving you for that long amazes me and makes me wish I had your strength of character.


P.S I hope I did not offend you in any way it was not my intent i only wished to convey how much I admire you for being able to forgive your wife. yours is one of the first stories I read on this site and it just blew me away you are a scholar and a gentleman sir and I wish you the best of luck.

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Really the problem with our recovery has been me I'm the one who is distant doesn't want to spend UA time together who doesn't want to talk or spend any time together really. She will try to talk to me about my day or how I'm feeling and honestly I wish she would just leave me alone. And when I get like this it upsets her greatly and that just leads to fighting and by fighting I mean me yelling at her and her crying. I just don't know what to do she is trying so hard and yet I have the hardest time putting in the littlest bit of effort and this frustrates her and then her frustration leads to guilt and sadness and her frustration and sadness leads me to anger and the anger just makes me want to distance myself even more from her.

The underlined sections of your post point to a problem, and that is how you deal with the betrayal, and the time needed by the BS, are not determined by the WS. Most WS would like nothing better than to gloss over everything, rush through the unpleasant parts, and get back to the way life was before they were caught. They get frustrated when they think things like "why can't he/she just hurry up and get over it?"

The efforts you described OldMittens are just EPs put into place for YOUR peace of mind, these are really minimal efforts, kind of like ground floor requirements for you to stay in the marriage and not leave. Getting upset because you are having a trigger or want a little time alone is not making an effort to be a better spouse to you. What has your wife really done to recover your marriage except get angry when it doesn't proceed like she wants it to?

Your wife owes it to you to tell your daughter the truth about who is at fault, if she was really inetersted in making things right she wouldn't need to be told this.

I see that you have made your decision about the child so I won't mention it again.

Please. Offend me? Not even close.

Yes all that really sucked. And I can name a dozen more things she did on top of those things. But, yes those are the biggies.

Keep this mind and I HAVE to believe it, each of those and all the rest hurt her worse. Her children know what she did and Id hate to have to live forever with that. Her husband is a depressed shell of his former self. There is a pall over this house and its of her creation. And so on.

But, enough of the negative, Old Mitt, life is short. Our wives put us in the situation but nothing says we have to stay in this situation. We can choose to move forward and do what is necessary to rebuild our lives. We'll have momentary lulls and excruiating pain for a couple of years and then, some say, things should get better.

Leaving the marriage and crushing my 2 kids is not an option and not something either my wife nor I want. Right now they are worth the pain and embarassment my wife gave us. And I do believe my wife is working hard to show me she's worth it.

(By the way, scholar and gentlemen is extremely strong. Forgiving in light of great hurt is my best quality.)

I think the first part of your post is right I think she very much wishes that I would just hurry up and get over it but I disagree with you that she's only put in minimal effort. She is the one who puts in the most effort she's always trying to find a way to include herself in the things I like to do. she follows the idea of POJA And always tries to be understanding when I'm upset. it's just I get upset so often it starts to get to her and I can't blame her and then that leads to a fight. And as for telling our children I was the one who decided not to tell them She has said on numerous occasions that if I feel the need to tell them than I should and that if we get divorced she thinks it's best that they know why.

scholar and gentlemen is something my grandfather used to call people it's just a habit I picked up wasn't meant to be Literal.

Mitt, you talk about your marriage BEFORE, but I want to point out it was that marriage that led to this affair. You don't want that back. You have to achieve something MUCH BETTER if you going to make it.

And you are not going to make it if you don't work really hard to turn this around. Your marriage will STAY like this. You will STAY bitter and resentful. You have to replace that bitterness and resentment with a great, happy marriage or this will be your future.

Marital recovery does not happen by magic fairy dust. It happens through hard work. If you don't do the work, welcome to your future.

I think I should clear something up we do not talk about the affair very often it's just I think about it a lot and that leads me to be bitter and angry all the time I've tried to stop thinking about it but I just can't seem to. And also one hour a day of talking and going to the movies are not all we ever do together it's just they're the only things that are consistent the rest of Our UA time is spent doing Things that are fun but not memorable so I didn't bother to put them in my post sorry for the confusion but we usually get 18-22 hours together ie Having lunch together going for walks when I get off work Going on holidays together things like that.

Thank you for the clarification. It will be a long time before you stop thinking about it. I am very sorry.


I don't understand what you mean. You talk about what? Can you finish that sentence?


What is your schedule for this week and what are the plans? How many hours do you have scheduled?

we don't really talk about anything specific it's mostly just about what we did that day and how were feeling and sometimes it's just small talk I've had a hard time coming up with things to say to my wife since this whole affair.as far as a schedule we haven't actually sat down and drawn up one in the literal sense but we make sure we have at least one hour conversation every day We have date nights every weekend sometimes we will go to the movies other times it will be dinner we have gone dancing a couple times in the past few weeks and have been talking about taking a class. Every day my wife comes to my work and has lunch with me and we have a book club that we have been members of for almost 6 years now so I feel that we are getting as much UA time as is practically possible.

Out of respect to the forum owner, I'll not mention where I lifted this from.


Now, I want you to pay attention to what I emphasized in your post, and what is emphasized in that list.

Talking about your feelings with each other is a goal in UA time - it is Intimate Conversation. You might also look again, and see where vulnerability (the beginnings of Intimate Conversation) starts.

This presents you with two pieces of information - where your interaction with your wife should begin, and where under Extraordinary Precautions, all her conversation with the opposite sex should STOP.