I have read here a time or two about PTSD, and I was wondering if something along these lines is why I am still so haunted by the Affair.

I was reading an article on affairs, and it said:


I certainly fit in the category of most unsuspecting, because I had complete faith and trust in my wife. Also, I was deeply in love with her, and never saw it coming. To make it worse, I didn�t understand anything about the dynamics of an affair, and spent six months in a false recovery, because I trusted that my wife would end things. Because of this, when I discovered what was going on (D-day), it was like I was hit by a train. I have never felt so much pain, and I still shake when I think about that day.

So, with that being said, I am just wondering how to cope with this. It is not just a switch I can turn off, and I never discuss the affair with my wife anymore. Not only that, but I have never felt closer and more in love with her, which is what makes it hard to still be struggling with these thoughts, and not being able to tell her.

I know that I am supposed to avoid triggers, but that seems impossible, because there are about five million things that can set off the thoughts. When you spend six months in false recovery, everything that happened in your life over those six months reminds you.

Anyways, I am mostly just trying to process my thoughts, and would love to hear from others who have struggled, or are still struggling with this type of thing.

RR18,

Do you feel your W/WW ever really opened up and told you the full truth about OM?

God Bless
Gamma

Yes, after a lot of deep discussions, I finally came to a point back in July of 2014, that I felt like all my questions had been answered.

I try and avoid discusions with her about the affair at all costs, but last week we were going over some MB material, in the 5 steps to romantic love workbook, and it said something about an "Affair", to which she said "I don't like using the word affair, because what I did was not an affair". Comments like this kind of set me back, because it is like she doesn't want to own up to what happened. I said it is okay to call it an affair, because that is what is was. She will say "In your mind it was an affair, but in my mind he was just a friend"

She will say things like this even after admitting that it was an affair in the past. Maybe this shouldn't bother me so much. I try to just brush it off, because I don't want to LB..

The above does not add up with this:

How many hours UA are you getting? Doing what?

Problem starting new threads can not get the background information. I do not the extent of what your WW did.

If my wife was to say I did not have an affair. The OM was just a friend. I would say that married women do not bang OM and not call that an affair. The recovery brakes would lock the marriage wheels right up and the recovery work would stop right there.

Sorry if I don't make sense. Which part doesnt add up? Basically, most of the MB material refers to affairs, whether it mentions affair proofing your marriage, or whatever. Point is, whenever we come across the word affair, she gets defensive, and she will say "What happened with me was not an affair". She prefers to call it an inappropriate relationship. The reason I said this sets me back, is I feel like she still thinks there was nothing wrong with what she did.

Some days I feel like we have come so far, and then on others, I feel like we have gotten nowhere. That is why I mentioned the PTSD. It would sure help things, if I didn't have constant flashbacks and feelings. I just feel hopeless sometimes.

TheRoad,
Sorry to not preface this better. The basic quick version of my story, is my wife had an 8 month EA with her boss. Here is the link if you want more details.

http://forum.marriagebuilders.com/u...in=170649&Number=2808663#Post2808663


Bottom line, after all that we have been through, she still does not feel like she had an "Affair". She says her interperatation of an "Affair" is having sex. She admits is was wrong to hide her friendship from me, but that because she never had sex with him, that it was not an affair.

If you truly feel that you have gotten all of your qyestions answered, then furthering the topic of an Affair is completely off the table.

Call it a Baloney Sandwich in your mind and redirect your own thoughts. Discussing whether ir not what her relationship definition was will not yield ANY positive results.

I recall Dr. Harley stating that Women are less likely to show remorse and be fully apologetic for their outside relationship.

Do you feel that you can avoid entertaining any further debates about whether or not she defines her relationship as an Affair?

It will spell doom for you marital recovery if you can not let go of this debate.

LTL

Please answer this.

QFT.

Getting the definitions right is not going to save your marriage. It doesn't matter if she calls it an affair or not. What matters is if she now has extraordinary precautions in place to prevent it from ever happening again. You don't need to set her thinking straight on this.

What doesn't add up is that you say you never talk about her affair anymore, then you turn around and debate her on it. That's talking about the affair.

So she prefers to call it an inappropriate relationship. She may never call it an affair. Your marriage can still recover. It WON'T recover if you continue to debate her and expect her to "own up" to what she did.

She may never feel remorse. She may never feel empathy. You can still have a recovered, blissful, romantic marriage. But only if you don't debate her.

Does she have EPs in place so it will never happen again? Are you getting UA? Does she enjoy the UA? Those are the things you need to focus on.

RR18,

You wrote, She says her interpretation of an "Affair" is having sex.

So what does she call completely losing interest in ones spouse because she is completely in love with someone else, and feeling absolutely nothing emotionally for her husband? How can she not call that an emotional affair?

Has your sex life returned to normal or better than the pre-affair state?

God Bless
Gamma

It doesn't matter what she calls it, Gamma.
Focus on her actions, RR, not her words. Does she still work at the same place? Does she have EPs? How many hours of UA are you getting?

Nowhere does MB state anything about your sex life needing to improve post-affair. It is your *marriage* that needs to be better in recovery. SF is just one piece. Typically, if you fix everything else, then SF just follows right along.

Roughrock, I also suffer from PTSD due to my husband's affair. I had asked Dr Harley about EMDR therapy as it has been shown to help with negative memories and reactions. The show was on December 4 if someone can link it or if you are able to listen to the radio archives.

I honestly don't remember what Dr Harley said about PTSD but I do remember that he didn't know what EMDR therapy is. It could be an option, though.

Dr. Harley clearly states that the WW spouse does not need to show remorse. I know that as a B spouse you long for that remorse. One wishes the WW spouse would acknowledge all of our pain, but there is no way for them to understand.

If you think you do suffer PTSD, you might need ADs. The best one is UA time, Prisca asked you how many hours you are getting, can you respond?

So my recomendation first is forget and do not discuss the "definition" of an affair, forget the word if it is causing you a problem.
Second, up your UA time, really work hard on that one.
Also try some ADs they should make a difference.

Thank you for your reply. I would say we are getting around 20 hours of UA time. I have been working about 60 hours a week, but we still manage to find an hour or two every night, and then Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, are big chunks. Fridays and Saturdays we will go on a date one night, and the other night will be what we call shopping dates. We have been doing just about everything together, from working out, to cooking. Our SF has never been better.



95% of the time we are doing amazing. We just run into little hiccups now and again. After reading some of the above posts, I can see where I am falling short. I never bring up the affair, but when we come across it in some of our MB material, she is the one that will bring it up. I now see that if she does say "I didn't have an affair", that I just need to say. Honey, right now we are just working on building a strong marriage that will be "Affair proof", on both sides.

RR, I think you've just been triggered by debating with your wife about the affair. That will bring up all the resentment and trauma the affair caused you, every single time.

Do not have a discussion with her about whether or not it was an affair anymore. "Honey, right now we are just working on building a strong marriage that will be "Affair proof", on both sides" is a great response, then just leave it at that. Don't discuss it further. Focus on the present and what she is doing in the present to build a good marriage with you.

Are there any other triggers left that you need to get rid of? Does OM live nearby? Does she still work with him?

I would agree, that I am triggered through some of these sessions. Last night, we were working out together, and she starts to tell me that she got in a texting argument with one of the neighbor lady's relating with our daughters. She then tells me that she deleted all the texts, because she didn't want me to judge her for some of the things that were said. I told her that I would not give her a hard time about what was said, but I said when you delete texts, it makes me feel really bad. Plus this situation triggered me, because of all the texts she used to delete during the EA. She said sorry, and that she didn't think it would bother me. I ended up being distant the rest of the night, and she was mad at me for that.



I will try and turn any conversation like this into positive talk about the present, and our future together. I need to get better at this.



I have a million triggers, but the most painful ones are taken care of. The OM no longer works there, and I have no idea where he works now.

A few months back, I looked up the OM's address on Spokeo, and came up with a plan to drive by his house while my wife was with me, to see if she mentioned anything, or acted funny when we drove by. I did this, because she claimed that she had no idea where he lived. He lives about 50 miles south of us, but we happened to be in that city taking care of business, and I told her I was taking a detour to check something out. She was just enjoying herself, and was in a good mood. So I ended up pulling right in from of his house, just paying close attention to her reaction. She passed the test, because I could tell she had no idea where we were, or who's house it was. The rest of the evening was enjoyable, and she never suspected a thing. I needed to do this for my own piece of mind. The fact that she told me she didn't know where he lived meant nothing to me.