If any of you have read my posts and for those of you who haven't, I'm 38, H 36 had 8 month A with
18 yr. old girl last year. Two to three months into A, H began trying to break off the relationship. (I know this to be true because of letters I later found from OW). OW basically blackmailed him into staying with her, constantly threatening to reveal all to me if he ended it. He finally did (break it off) and she did (reveal all). Since that time (almost a year now) he's been nothing less than wonderful to me. Recovery is going pretty well except for the fact that OW has basically stalked, harrassed us ever since(driving past our house, hang up calls, 10 or 15 times a day, all hours of the day and night). She's been arrested once already for telephone harrassment and currently has another warrant pending for same thing. Anyway, except for that, things are beginning to settle down and get back to normal. Trouble is, "normal" scares me to death. All this time we've been dealing with recovery and harrassment from OW I've felt like we were united - you know, us against her. In addition, we've been working so hard at recovery, making sure everything was just perfect and all "lovey-dovey" between us. It's been the worst and yet the best times in our entire 13 years together. (Can you relate to that?) Now that things are settling down and getting back to "normal" (sorta), I'm scared to death. Scared that with "normal" comes complacency and mediocrity. That really, really frightens me. H swears he's learned his lesson the hard way and will never, ever do this to me again, loves me more than anything, has realized he can't be without me, yada, yada, yada. I've basically told him I love him with all my heart but will NEVER stand for this type of thing again, EVER. Anyway, just wondered if any of you ever struggle with or have struggled with the "normal" thing and how you deal with it? I'd appreciate any of your comments.

Well ... normal as opposed to crazy sounds pretty good. Normal as in boring doesn't sound so good.

So, make life normal, and yet, different than it was before the A.

Keep a small journal next to the bed ... you take turns writing notes to each other .... Ask questions like:

"What is the most treasured memory you have of our marriage? These are mine."

Keep passing the journal back and forth. When one of you has something written for the other one to see ... place it on the other's pillow.

Establish a date nite .... and schedule time just to be together romantically.

That sort of thing worked for us. There will still be painful memories ... but you'll begin to build new joyful memories at the same time, and eventually, the joyful will outweigh the painful.

Pepper <img border="0" title="" alt="[Cool]" src="images/icons/cool.gif" />

Just a comment...

Your marriage must not go 'back to normal.' You know this instinctively.

You two have the chance to build a totally new, wonderful marriage. You don't want the old one, which led to affairs.

If you have not already, get His Needs Her Needs - Building an Affair-Proof Marriage by Willard Harley. You can order it from this site, or get it in a bookstore.

Read it. Love it. Live it!!

ST

Hey guys,
Thanks for your responses and your suggestions. H & I had a long discussion about this last night. I think that I'm afraid to let go, afraid to trust ourselves and our relationship and let the real healing take place for fear that the horror of the A will be forgotten and complacency will creep back in. Sometimes I feel as though subconsciouly I'm intentionally holding us back from healing! I LOVE what we have now and I'm scared to death of losing it. H says he is totally committed to this relationship now and will do whatever it takes to keep that from happening but it's hard for me to put my complete trust in him again. Not nessecarily trust that he won't have another A but trust that we can hold on to the closeness we have found together, closeness that was so lost for such a long time and that is so very important to me. I should have known that talking to him about it would make me feel better. Sometimes I agonize over things for two or three days but he always senses something is wrong and eventually pulls it out of me. Don't know why I do this instead of just opening up because he always knows the right words to say to make me feel better <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> . He said the same thing you said Pepper, that our "normal" now won't be the same as "normal" before the A. Thanks again guys for your help and will work on putting your suggestions into practice. Please keep us in your prayers.

Sad Tiger,
Your name leads me to believe you're from Louisiana, perhaps an LSU fan???