First of all, let me say that after multiple affairs (2 on each side), our marriage is healed and BETTER than it ever was before the affairs. Real Recovery is not a myth...it can happen. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />
Your post brought back some memories of my H's first affair....it pushed our lives into a downward spiral that took years to recover from. The reason it took so long was that we never dealt with his affair. I was so young and devastated that I just carried my pain alone and tried my best to heal - alone. My H just wanted it to go away and he was sweet for a while, but things quickly went back to the way they were before. Not good. We simply didn't deal with our issues or our pain. I went crazy and ended up having a revenge ONS (which I told H about before hand <img border="0" title="" alt="[Eek!]" src="images/icons/shocked.gif" /> ), then 6 month EA/PA. When I ended my A, I found out H was having another affair of his own with a cop co-worker. We were good, upstanding, God-fearing, church-going people (and still appeared to be on the surface) but it was amazing what we'd become. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />
Well....long story short - not! - we FINALLY got our junk together about 18 months ago. We basically had to go back and deal with all the pain/resentment/questions we'd buried for all those years.
We BOTH learned how to properly communicate. We also mutually and willingly set up very specific, very strict boundaries for our behavior regarding the opposite sex. We are completely open books, and it feels great. Boundaries are actually very liberating, if that makes any sense. Real recovery didn't happen for us until we were both willing to put 100% into it (well, his is about 90%, but that's a MAJOR improvement! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" /> ) We basically started over after 17+ years of marriage, and we're incredibly happy now.
I agree with the others, please try to impress upon your H how beneficial joint counceling would be for you...ask him to do it for YOU, if not for himself. Best of luck to you.
Lori
<small>[ January 10, 2003, 02:33 PM: Message edited by: at peace ]</small>