Can someone help as far as rebuilding the love after the affair. I feel as if I have become numb over this. I am so ashamed by how I feel. I never thought I would have no feeling for my husband but that is how I have felt lately. The feeling is like having nothing inside, that you are just saying I Love You to help you get through. We have been married for 30 years but I feel as though I don't know this person anymore and I am frightened by the nothingness that I am feeling. I try to convince myself everyday that I still love him and I am sure that I do but I have lost some of that loving feeling, (to quote the righteous brothers), I don't know what to do. I try to pray to God to be patient and work at finding those feelings again. Are there people out there that have gone through these feelings during the recovery time, please help me I am at a loss for what I am feeling or not feeling. I want to feel like I did before but have a better relationship because of his affair. Am I crazy. This is a wonderful place to be, to share feelings and hurts, sadness and pain with people who know how I feel.

Hello Peaceful and welcome to MB. Yes, there are a whole lot of good people here who will help and answer all they can! I am glad you found this site.<P>I have been through what you are feeling. I suspect part of the numbness is the bodys way of coping with such painful and upsetting news. But your feelings are very very normal!<P>I spent about 10 weeks in the numb stage. When I exited from that I was immediately in the madder than hell stage. I was mad at many things-but most of all I was mad that I was going through this garbage.<P>I am just about 14 months into knowing my H and a person I thought was a very good friend had been having an affair from 6-97 through 3-99. Talk about hurt and lack of emotions <P>The bottom line of all this is that it takes TIME. I used to hate that word. I didn't have time and I didn't want it to take time. But after the past months I have found that time is a great healer. The problem tends to get old after a long time and the body grows weary of trying to search for answers it may never get.<P>My H and I are together and have been throughout this ordeal. I do love him but as of today I still have not found forgiveness for my H or the OW. I have tried...................in fact I begged God to help me out. I guess it just isn't TIME yet <P>I do think that the hurt of this will remain with me for a very long time to come. I feel my marriage is blemished. I feel that I was used and used again by a person who's friendship I enjoyed very much. And above all this I just can not for the life of me fathom how anyone can play that devils game for so long while looking the innocent party in the face.<P>Hang in there-you didn't say how long you have known but I suspect you will grow in the next several months to regain many feelings.<P>I too remember thinking "who is this person I am married to that I thought was so wonderful". He is wonderful in many many ways. He screwed up and he has learned his lesson. Maybe one day we will be pleased that this even happened.<P>Best of luck to you!!!<P>------------------<BR>*heartache*<BR>"Loyalty Is A Two Way Street"<BR>

Heartache, thank you for your response. Your story sounds familiar to mine. My H's affair was with a neighbor and friend of mine and even after they started having the affair we would spend weekends together, have dinners on Friday nights and they both knew what was going on. My H would continually ask me to invite her to our house and would encourage my friendship. I feel like such a fool, what I thought was friendship and be-friending someone whose husband was away for a year they were using me to be together. I found out on Thanksgiving night, found them holding and kissing each other among other things. It really is a long story with a lot of things that happened but I am doing better each day. I just with I could see the passion in him that I saw when she was around, I was so dumb, just thought he was happy about us. Thank you so much for your help, this has been the hardest thing I have ever done in my life. I have survived Breast Cancer and I didn't feel as bad about that as I do about what has happened to us. I thank God everyday for giving me the strength to go on with this because I have found that my strength is what keeps me going. Thanks again.

HI there,<P> How long have you been in recovery? Is the OW still a neighbor? We moved 6hrs. away and this whole year in recovery was rocky. Found out my H was still in contact with OW. <P>BUT, just like Harley says ,if all contact is cut the withdrawl will end. My H SUDDENLY changed his tune with me, became loving ,thoughtful, patient and then MY feelings changed for the better. During the year I felt like you did, numb...( I think it's a defense to prevent further hurt).<P> Have you read any of the Harley info on recovery? In my case , it all happened as he said......LU

Hi Lu, Thanks for the response. Her husband was military and they have moved away to Belgium so she is out of the picture. I truly believe that my husband does love me, he just got infatuated with a younger woman showing him some attention. He is 53, she was 33, very flattering. I told her something in confidence about our relationship and she relayed back to my husband and put some more spin on the story than was there. I could not believe that another person that you thought was your friend would go to your husband and tell him what was said. I think that my husband was a challenge to her. She had been seperated from her husband for a few years before they got back together again, not sure why but it was long before we met them. Her husband never found out and I will never tell him because of the hurt and sadness that I have felt over the last seven/eight months. I just thought that my husband stopped loving me during the affair, (which he tells me did not involve intercourse) just heavy petting, etc. not sure I can say that here. He said that he never stopped loving me that it was just something forbidden and he got caught up in the infatuation. I want so much to forgive him. He believed everything she said to the point that on our 30th wedding anniversary he didn't even by me anything, and dinner was terrible, he didn't speak to me hardly at all and as soon as we went home he went straight to bed. He did not even ask if what she said was true. He was going on a business trip on my birthday and I asked if I could go and he said that he didn't think wives could attend. The reason was is because he wanted to call her that night (my birthday), spent $30.00 on a phone call to her which was probably about an hour and a half and 10 minutes with me. I know dwelling on this is stupid but these small things hurt and there is more but not as bad as some of the other things that other people are going through. Thank you all for your support and your help. We went to a psychologist and she told me everything was my fault, it was awful.

Good Morning Peaceful-<P>I wanted to add a bit to my story. The more I read from you the more alike our stories sound.<P>I was also very embarrassed and felt so very stupid that I did not have a clue that my H and my friend were having an affair. That was and still is one of the most worriesome parts of this whole situation. If I failed to see it one time I could very well miss the signs if ever they were there again. I do not expect it to happen again but a person never knows. I will be the first to say that at one time or another in each of our lives we are going to be in a vulnerable position to be in the same shoes as the ones the betrayers wore. It seems to be a much too common occurence.<P>I don't think my friend used me in the way you describe being used. But I do know she told my H that I do not appreciate him and that just made me madder than hell. I have loved my H more than anything since the day I met him. Sure we were both living in our own worlds to some extent but she knew the reason for that. Both of us were working all we could to save up to buy our own house. It hurt me to have him gone all the time and I also felt guilty that he was the working one so I took on any work I could to help out. We saw little of each other as he also works shift work.<P>They began the more intimate part of their affair on my 40th birthday. Now that did hurt!! <P>Also-we went, as families, from WA to CA for a vacation to Disneyland, by car 3 months after their fling began. We also did the dinners and the camping and all that fun stuff. But I will state that instead of wanting to invite her over and all my H began to act as though he no longer like the OWH. <P>Here I was trying to figure out how I could remain friends with her if my H didn't like her H and .................. They were people who liked to get together often and do things. I so enjoyed our friendship that I was constantly stressed-and still clueless-as to how I could continue as we had been. What a joke.<P>Her H also felt that my H used him to get closer to the OW. I know that they never talked the "girl talk" we did and I do not believe my H used the OWH at all. The OW used her H and he doesn't even realize it. When we moved she told me he would be there to help us. My H wasn't happy to hear that and I remember getting frustrated and saying "what do you want me to tell her". My H did not answer me so I told her that we had too much help and for her H to spend time with the family. Well-she insisted so he came and helped. This was all while I still knew nothing.<P>Anyhow-there aren't any answers to why this happens. There are no real answers to how long one will suffer from all this.<P>I would love nothing more than to be able to forgive all that has happened and forgive all who participated. It is hell to be trapped in this place where the hurting won't completely disappear and the triggers are all too often. But so far it hasn't been my time to forgive yet. I think it will happen but when I do not know.<P>I do not hate the OW as I did for a long time. I truly miss her more than I wish I to. But she was a fun gal that had a lot of the same interests as I have and I thought we were great pals. It hurts to think that someone I felt so connected to could do what she did. The same with my H. I will never understand the way they carried on for so long and yet looked me in the face and looked her H in the face. I am not sure I could have pulled that off. And it is scary to put myself in a comfort zone where maybe-who knows-one day I could get hurt again.<P>But life goes on. And I will hurt some time down the road for one reason or another. Maybe there is much to be learned from the experience I have gotten from this.<P>Peaceful-do what makes YOU happy. You are the important one right now.<P>HUGS..........<P>------------------<BR>*heartache*<BR>"Loyalty Is A Two Way Street"<BR>

peaceful and heartache,<P>No, there is no time limit on how long the pain will last, but I do think it depends a lot on what we are doing with the time.<P>I am eight months from d-day and while I still have some triggers, it is more like a dull ache every now and then. A long way from the consuming pain I once felt.<P>You asked how the love returns. The answer is to foce yourself not to dwell on the past (keep letting go) and create a new marraige based on Harley's principles.<P>Rather than dealing with the pain directly, the Harleys teach that as you work on the recovery plan, it will take care of itself. I was extremely sceptical, but it worked for me (with many ups and downs along the way).<P>I think there are two reasons it works, and it is really mostly up to us as the betrayed how long we prolong the pain.<P>You have to distract yourself every time you start to dwell on the past, it will not help you, you make yourself a victim all over again. It was really hard to do, but it gets easier with practice.<P>The other big thing is the change in the marriage. Realizing that it was very wrong of him, but there were some unmet needs that left him vulnerable. Doesn't excuse him, just an attempt to explain. This was very true in my case, and we both set about to rebuild our marriage based on Harley principles from "Surviving an Affair".<P>It took him awhile, and it seemed unfair that on top of the pain, I was making 90+% of the effort of trying to meet his needs at first. But he suddenly started trying as LU said. We are building the marriage from scratch, but I'm focused on the present, not the past.<p>[This message has been edited by schizzo (edited July 21, 2000).]

Dear Peaceful: First of all, welcome. Second, I would agree with another poster, it does take time for the true love to come back. You have 30 years with this fella and even though you might think that you don't know him anymore, you still know more about him than anyone. He made a mistake. Now it is his turn to earn your trust and love back. I know this because I am going through what he is going through. The only thing that I hid from my spouse is my emotional needs. After 20+ years of trying to relay to him(not saying that this was your case)what we were missing, I gave up. <BR>I am the same person, we just need to sit down and talk about who we are, what we like, our wants, our dislikes. It's like learning each other all over again. My spouse has told me the same things you are feeling. Yes it hurts me, but I made a commitment to stay with him because I still love him. I always have. I just made mistakes. I will stay for the long haul and maybe with time, he will truly love me again.<BR>So hang in there if you still feel some love for him. 30 years is a long time to just throw away. We all make mistakes, some worse than others, but we can heal. Much luck to you.

Peaceful,<P>Having only found out full disclosure of my wife's cheating just in the last six months I can empathize with you. It is rough. My counselor told me that it is just like going through the grieving process of death. That is how I have felt. My marriage covenant died, my hope died, my optimism died, the purity of my family died, my ministry died. It is horrible. I am sure for every person it takes differing amounts of time. My wife's counselor told me a few things that were very helpful for me:<BR>1. I can deal with all of this in my own time and way for however I need to<BR>2. I am under zero obligation to ever love my wife, touch my wife, or any other aspect of my marriage like I once did.<BR>Life doesn't seem worth it many days but then I look at my two kids and they give me the strength to go on. I don't know if I will ever be able to fully get over all of this but I can only take it each day and give it my best shot. Hang in there, we are all for you<P>Jeremy