I have been in recovery since August. My wife claims that she loves me and only me, but she readily admits that she does not love me like she once did. In the past month she has tried very, very hard to make things work between us, as have I, but I still can't get the visions of her with another man out of my head. She claims that she no longer loves the OM, that all she has is a feeling of caring for him, she claims that she has had no contact with him since being discovered, but I can't help but wonder does she still think of him when we make love, she says she doesn't, but what woman would make this admission. These thoughts that I continue to have make me very depressed, which in turn discourages her in her attempt to regain the love that had been lost over the years........what can I do to get past these thoughts and continue on working on re-building my marriage?

Are you in counseling? I know if you have read the all our post we talk a lot about counseling not only together but seaparate. It helps you get throught all things you are feeling. Good luck.<P>------------------<BR>di<P>

Your wife has been honest about some of the issues. As hard as it is you need to start trusting her more. If you love her and want to work on your marriage, then she needs to feel like her hard work is paying off. Otherwise why should she try if it isn't making a difference. My H still swears that they never actually had sex, but it came very close. The affair stopped in May, I haven't found a way to ever feel ok about the images of him and Ow together. All I can tell you is that she loves you and wants to be with you. If she was thinking about the OM when being with you, she wouldn't be with you. She has seen what the pasture is like on the other side of the fence and wants to be with you. Hope this helps a little.

Been There/Done That.<P>Still There/Still Doing That.<P>I haven't been very good at it either. I'm hesitant to give you advice becuase some of the people here had to practically beat me over the head with it over and over again and I still had trouble.<P>Your not alone. It is normal, and it isn't a sign of futility. That is best comfort I can give you.<P>I have found just recently, though that when I concentrate on our friendship rather than our marriage (and thus the problems in our marriage) and concentrate on stopping the lovebusting by talking to each other about it, I felt better and thus he felt better.<P>This good advice actually came from Brownphd.<P>OOPS - the advice came from Medic238 and his "New Apprach" post.<P><p>[This message has been edited by Essyboo (edited December 07, 1999).]

FA, i understand your problem. i am going through the same thing and god, it hurts...my husband still sees OW everyday at work. I am lost, i don't know what to do, wants to love him, but am scared to do it. He says he loves me, thats why he stayed home. He wants my love, and trust, but doesn't seem to do anything about it...maybe its too soon, just found out everything in the last month, he's been seeing her for 4 months and dropped all this on me on our 7 year anniversary.....so still trying to figure all this out, does anyone has any ideas? please let me know....

Whats so bad about being best friends in a martial relationship? My H says that it isn't good to have that, but wants passion; well we have passion, but he also says that he feels comfortable with me, like i'm his best friend, i would think that is good to have in a relationship!!!! we've been married for 7 years, so whats so bad about that???? makes me feel good.....help!!

Being best friends is excellent. My H and I were friends for 3 years while I dated his best friend. Friendship was the basis of our relationship, love came latter.<P>I am very comfortable with my H. I'm not talking about trust, I'm talking about not being shy. We have the same warped sense of humor. There is a little more discomfort between us now because our security we feel in each other is gone, but when we just have fun together it comes back and is very moving. <P>Here is some advice that helped us. Try to keep distracted for a while with just being together and having fun. Spend a day Christmas Shopping, go to the movies. Go play something together. Just be friends. Don't talk about your marriage. Don't make any demands on each other, just play. Sit down and play Boggle or Yachtze. <P>Last night was a good night for us. My daughter and I made cookies (oh the mess). My H helped with dinner. My H and I had gone to lunch together and did a lot of laughing and good natured kidding. We were happy and playful with each other, the kids ate good and laughed a lot. They played together without fighting, (they still made a mess and did a horrible job folding their nightly load of laundry ). They went to bed easily and got off to school without a lot hassle this morning.<P>That is what we need to concentrate on. The ability to live together in harmony. The ability to balance each other out and compliment each other's personality. The ability to feel comfortable and safe in our own home.<P>I didn't once forget about his affair. I never was completely with the pain. I even fought the images, but I worked very hard to ignore them. It was exhausting, but fulfilling. My efforts did not go unnoticed either, I think my H could see that I was working hard at it, but didn't seem to let it bother him.<P>I have to constantly work to push out the thoughts, but if you don't fill that space with the good from here and now, then the thoughts will just come back or possibly even worse thoughts will fill its space.<P>It is obvious I am not having one of my depression lows today. I am up and confident. My Evil Twin is asleep. That is where I failed the most. I haven't sought medical help with my depresseion and mood swings and hopefully that will change.

F A,<P>With the caveat that I am very new to this site and also to offering consolation and/or advice to anyone other than my wife and children, please accept these thoughts offered from my heart. Generally I post to Emotional Needs, Negotiating in Marriage, Poems and Resolving Conflicts but reading your post and those that followed opened a floodgate of feelings.<P>I believe that not all questions have a palatable answer; at least not one that will finally lay an objectional or, what we may find repulsive, activity to rest. I think that there are many things that are thrust upon us that we didn't want, expect or could even imagine could happen. Take, for instance, the POW who was tortured unmercifully and after returning to the safety of a loving home finds that he still relives the daily brutality that he faced while held captive. The horrible scenes are so burned into his being that they continue even when he falls asleep. How does one put them to rest? Probably never, especially if he has lost the normal functioning of some part of his body and this serves as a daily reminder. We, as thinking human beings, have the ability to be eternal optimists; to ferret out from the worst of happenings a hidden blessing; to see the silver lining around the darkest cloud. We can take comfort in being able to retreat into a world where we can speak openly to our Maker and allow peaceful easy feelings to flow over us rejecting what we may be perceiving as vile and corrupting. We can fill our hearts with the loving support from those on this site that have experienced what you are facing and who will freely offer their thoughts and provide a certain amount of solace for your wounds. Use them to the fullest. The kind thoughts will so fill your heart that there may be little room left for hurt.<P>Mistakes are made and for those we must be held responsibile. If we recognize the error of our ways, are repentant, ask forgiveness from those we've hurt and take proper actions to see that it doesn't continue then doesn't it follow that, as the one wronged, we must enthusiastically enter into the forgiving mode and set about restoring the beautiful parts of our life. Certainly a part of that forgiveness must include our strength to see beyond the hurtful acts perpetrated against us and that we may unintentionally have been a party to it's cause. I know the stinging pain that must be burning your insides now. Just know that you do have the God given strength to rise above the pain. Man's mind is a wonderful tool when it is given proper direction.

I had thought about starting a new thread, but really didn't know how to put my thoughts into words. After reading thru this thread, I realized that I belong responding to this thread. <P>Essyboo-<BR>I can really relate to that "evil twin" thing you were talking about. That's exactly how I feel. About being distracted...I totally agree, which leads me to why I felt I had to post here today. Unfortunately, I have 1 1/2 commute each way to work. Prime environment for the wheels in my head to start turning and for me to go over every single aspect of this nightmare (no admission from H, not even to a friendship) and try to find some truth, or nontruth to his story. To make matters worse, he was out of town last night, so I had all night to dwell, dwell, dwell. Since I have had all this time to think negative thoughts, I don't feel very positive today (the evil twin). I can't keep my mind from shifting from slightly believing him to "how could I be so stupid to believe him". The shifting makes me sick, I'm on such shaky ground that even when I'm not the evil twin, just a "not so positive" post here turns me into the evil twin. Since I have no admission, I don't even really know what I'm REALLY dealing with..., is it an emotional affair (which if I believe his version, it's what it would kind of be even though he adamantly denies having any sort of feelings for her other than feeling it's fun to be around her((ego boost I guess), an emotional affair that maybe turned physical maybe once (as of late) or a physical affair with all the trimmings that has been going on for over a year (that's when I first became aware of this person and the effect she had on my H). So whenever I think I am starting to be able to deal with, OK, he had this emotional attachment with this W that never led to anything physical (only b/c she would have been the one to stop it, he did admit in a moment of rage that he wanted to sleep with her, but she didn't give him the time of day, TRUE?, who knows..(the not giving him the time of day part)), the evil twin steps in and says, EA? God you're stupid, of course it was more than that, a whole lot more!! Then my mind starts going over everything I do know and fit it into this other scenario that the evil twin has provided, and unfortunately it fits in rather well. I am in SUCH LIMBO that I can't handle it.<P>Just while I was in the middle of this reply, he called me (he's driving home) and told me he was thinking of me and that he loved me...could someone be so warped to act that way and not mean it? Sometimes the evil twin even makes me question the fact of whether he really loves me and is in the marriage b/c of me and not b/c of the kids, the home, the lifestyle, etc... which I know mean a whole lot to him.<P>We have also gone through the "I love you but am not IN love with you" thing that I have read over and over on this post.<P>My question is (of many) how can I go from "This is nothing, he really loves me, he was just weak, our life together is MUCH more important that whatever could have happened between them, the kids deserve to have a complete family and whatever happened is NOT more important than that and therefore I should just look forward and let this whole mess go" -- to IN A SPLIT SECOND--"This is the worst thing that has happened to me, our 8 years together have been a mockery, this is going to change me and our life together FOREVER, this is going to scar me and us FOREVER regardless of the rebuilding we do, if he has done it to me once (or twice, who knows) he will just get better at it and do it again, she must have meant something to him in order to lead him to hurt so badly TWICE (you have to read my first post here with my story)"?<P>Unfortunately, the negative thoughts surpass the positive and are MUCH stronger. I know I have not been of any good to you as for advice, but at least you know that I can REALLY relate and maybe more mentally unstable than you, and need help just the same.<BR>

My councellor says that these swings are actually chemical in nature, brought on by our body being bombarded by this new form of stimulus that we weren't conditioned to handle. That is why so many of us end up on antidepressants. My mood swings immediately become physical. I lose my appetite (the little I have had for the past 18 months). I will almost always end up with a stomach ache. My eyesight even gets worse and I have trouble focussing. I get "scatterbrained". I lose things, break things, burn dinner. My kids can be talking directly to me and I don't see them or hear them. It is extremely scarey.<P>About your commute - my H drives over an hour to work, not in traffic, but away from town where other cars can't even distract him. He doesn't have to concentrate as much on driving, because the roads are long and straight. He has thought about getting novels on tape and listening to them. I am also looking into getting him the Bible on tape. (although right now he isn't very interested in that). Carpooling has helped him too. It gives him someone to talk to. His OW works at the same site as he does, and I fear he drives to work and begins to dwell on her. That could be devestating to our recovery.<P>I love to daydream. I used to create my own little storyline in my mind and continue it from day to day. That sometimes helps me and sometimes kills me depending on how good I can control the storyline.<P>

Thank you for all of your responses, I greatly appreciate them. As I read them I couldn't help but think of something else that has been posted here often......how the sex with the OP was always better. My wife states that it was better because it was new and because she and the OM didn't have to deal with any of the day to day problems that life throws at us, it was only good times, no matter how limited that time was, there were never any issues or problems between them. She says that is one of the things that she is working on, seperating the bedroom from the rest of the world. It bothers me tremendously to know that as long as we live, we will have to deal with all of the unpleasantries of life and because of that, no matter how well we re-build our marriage and make it better than before, there will always be issues or problems and therefore, no matter what we do intimately, it will never compare to what she had or did with the OM and that hurts tremendously. Are there any female betrayers out there who were given the opportunity to rebuild their marriages who now feel that having sex with their husbands is more satisfying or intense as it was with their OM?, and if so, how long did this take and what did your husband have to do to take you to that mental and emotional level?