Queen, I wish there were something I could say to make you feel better. Unfortunately, if there were something I could say, I would be saying it to myself. I am a year out from D-Day and have done the recovery/NC dance with WH over 20 times now (I lost track on the actual total at 18). I encourage you to read my previous posts to see what a true cake eater looks like.

Brit's Brat/42
WH-43 (44 in July)
DS-18 months old
Status: <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" />

Queen

Checking in to see how you are doing today - not heard from you. Loads of good advice here for you. How are you?

Lisa

Checking in to see how you are doing.

I'm hoping that due to the lack of activity on the old PC that you are working hard since H came home...

Hope I'm right.

hi StillhereMaking it,

Unbelievable that you were checking out the same time I logged on.

I am not doing fine at all. My WH really crashed my world 2nd time round when I thought I could believe him. I thought I was in recovery and gave myself 100%. On top of it I beat myslef up for being so pathetic in not trying to believe him.

It just seems like I cannot get over it. I am so tired and so sad all the time. It takes nothing for me to burst into tears.

Now my WH is home and he says that he REALLY is here. That it is us and he wants to share his life with me. He cannot understand how anything could have changed because nothing changed for him.

I told him of the hurt. That he once again let me down, but this time it was worse, because I was fighting with myself to move on and then he proves me right.

I think he is really sincere, but he cannot understand me. He is just "relieved" that he knows what he wants.

I was so afraid of myself the past 2 days. I thought I was going to have a nervous breakdown. I think I might be falling in to depression and our marriage cannot take another depression. The first one (7 years ago was so hard)

carrying on where I left off yesterday because I had to go...

When I met my H 8 yrs ago, within a year I had a severe depression, where I actually had to stay at the hospital for a while. It took me 2-3 years to really feel I got over it.

That depression was an outcome of many things. A childhood in a family, where my mother and father fought like cats and dogs. A dad that was a womaniser, gambler, violent..never to be relied upon. And then when I met the first man in my life, whom I was with for 7 years, and was planning to marry (I was very happy with him), he left me for another woman, his secretary, just when we had our first child together. My oldest son was then only 3 months old, I was 22 yrs old, very insecure about parenting etc...

My ex actually married the OW and has 2 kids with her.

So when I met my present H (my son was 2 yrs old), I had alot of dissappointments, frustration, sadness, pain - all bottled up. I moved to my H country, gave up my friends, family, career to be with him. And had been happy for the choice I made. That is when the depression hit big time.

Now looking back, and talking to my H, he said that my depression was one of the major dissappointments he had in our relationship. Of course he now understands that I am a stronger, more balanced person because of getting through it. But it was not what he expected. He was hoping to get to know this great, strong woman he met. He was in love with. And it turns out she breaks down, trying to bring him down with her. Those times were not very happy, when they should have been.

Now I feel like I cannot allow myself to go there. Our relationship (and I) cannot handle another depression that will last the next 2-3 years. Not that it will necessarily take that long, its just more the idea of us going into yet again from one crisis to another.

Our life has been nothing but crisises and even I can´t take it anymore. There needs to be something positive that pulls us up just once in a while.

My H says he is here 100%. I want to believe him but can´t. Not yet.

I am in a state of "no mans land". I am not Plan a:ing, Plan b:ing, recovery, depressed. I am not allowing myself to move backwards or forwards. I am stuck.

I have told my H that I still love him and therefore allow him to hug me and allow myself to feel close to him in every physical way. Allowing myself and him this closeness postpones the time I have for myself to think, because I feel like I am getting "carried away" back into the relationship without setting up any rules.

But I love him....

Any comments. Have to go again

Ark said something that really made me think;

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Do not protect HIM from the emotions of his own actions and choosings....this is what concerns me...that you are starting to believe it is your job for recovery to protect him from his actions...
</font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">I was brought up in this broken family as said b4, and I was my mothers friend every since I was 5 yrs old. She used to cry on my shoulder, telling me how terrible my father was and I used to comfort her and try to help her.

It ended up with that in my very early teens, I was actually around 12-13yrs, it was me giving her advice on what to do, trying to protect her from making the wrong decisions. I felt that I actually helped her make a lot of her life decisions and when she took them into reality, she was not any happier. So i felt guilty all of the time, trying hard to make it better again.

I was never allowed to be a child. She was never a mother for me. I have been through all of these issues in counselling years ago, but ARK´s comment brought a lot of those issues up again.

I thought I had got past all of that and now I realize I am doing it all over again. That behaviour is blueprinted into my way of being. I try to take responsibility of others and their actions. I forget about myself completely.

It worries me.

I also feel powerless over the way I let things slip back to how I´m used to dealing with things.

I told my H I would give him another chance. I also want to. But I feel sick, sick, sick, over not knowing how to create boundaries, how to be stronger in negotiating what is acceptable, what is not.

How would I know, when ALL my life my own boundaries have been always crossed It´s become a way of life, and it makes me feel safe and secure. My childhood "safety and security" has been built up around this scenario.

If I felt paralyzed b4, none of you can imagine how paralyzed I feel now. I don´t know what to do next.

-queen-

Here I am again, killing time <img border="0" title="" alt="[Frown]" src="images/icons/frown.gif" />

I can´t concentrate at work at ALL. Can´t pull myself together. Just been reading alot of posts, answered a few and just when I am about to send they get lost in bl&%#¤" cyberspace.

SO frustrating.

I can´t help thinking that this is fake recovery from my H´s behalf, thus making it hard to give myself wholely into our marriage again, without holding anything back.

I just do not believe him. At all. I do not trust him. At all. And on the other hand I feel like I am letting him on.

Please any comments on how to deal with this fear of being stabbed in the back again?

Should I still be Plan A:ing to get him more and more involved in me & us? Or should I be making plans on how to move forward...with the hard, sweaty work of trying to build our realtionship a new? Notice, I keep on saying I, because he REALLY fails to recognise what he has done to me. He really fails to want to do the hard work.

Instead he is concentrating on good stuff, like making food for me, buying flowers, champagne, going on a trip again for three days this weekend (its our anniversary). All the fun stuff has never been hard for him to do. He´s always bought flowers, made nice food, shown alot of "material" attention, so for me its nothing really new.

I´m looking for deeper conversation. Real eye to eye contact, empathy and understanding.

Is this all too much to ask?

-queen-

Queen

It is very easy to create boundaries in your situation. You write a list of what you need your H to do to prove to you that he means what he says.

The first is NC with OW - you write a letter together, or you write it yourself, he signs it, you send it. You ask for his mobile phone bills/passwords for his e-mail accounts, whatever it was that he was doing communicating with her in secret. You fill out the ENQs together and see what he has been lacking in providing for you. If he is really willing to try and get you back, it's about time he starts meeting your needs rather than you just Plan A-ing with no return.

What else do you want him to do. Write it all down and then you talk to him about it. And you tell him, he has no more chances. If she contacts him, he ignores it and contacts you immediately, he does not get in touch with her, otherwise that will be it.

Now on top of that, what are you doing for yourself? You tell H that you want to go out and enjoy yourself with him, but also, if you need him to look after the kids because you want to go and get your nails done or a facial or whatever, that's what you need and want to start to re-piece yourself back together.

There are no ifs or buts. This is not the time to start conceeding anything with your H. He has had his chances, this is the final one. Write it down to remind yourself. But, if you don't tell him what you expect and need, he will try and do things which may not be what you need.

You DO NOT trust him blindly - you behave cautiously and take it forward by using baby steps. The ball is firmly in your H's court. If he truly means it, he will do whatever it takes to show you that he is worthy of your love.

Now Queen, it's lunchtime, go and write that list of "Must Dos".

Thinking of you.
Lisa

Amen on the N/C letter or correspondence and the access to emails/phone bills/credit card statements, whatever you need.

After d-day it took a week for FWH to send N/C letter, but it was thorough and thought out (but it was he!! that week waiting for him to decide). Then he gave me all email passwords (their main form of correspondence) and cancelled his cell phone. I put a key logger on the computer too so I can see every key that is hit. He knows about it.

I used to check his email twice a day, then after a few weeks, started checking only once a day. Now only check about once a week. Every time I checked I felt more confident that things had ended.

What do you do about a coworker? Go with them when they say they are going to lunch together. Go with them on trips. If they have to work together, then be there every time.

He should let you know every contact he has with her. And begin to move toward not having to be in contact at all.

Let him know how much you're hurting. Let him know about the triggers that will happen for you. There are some restaurants I can't go to yet because he took her there. Let him know as things come up. Let him know how long it will take you to get over this...1 year, 4 years, 10?
And that you may never FULLY recover.

After d-day, and finding this site, I realized i needed to stop the LBs for good. I guess I was in a Plan A, but I knew I had to keep it up for life. I had to fulfill more of his ENs, not just for the short term, but forever. I had to change for good. And in my changing he had no choice but to change also (he couldn't be the same person while I had changed the way I was around him). He could have changed for good or bad, but he had done enough reading on the site that he has picked up on my ENs too.

Plan A? Kind of, but I'm trying to make it stick.

Recovery? I think so, we revisit our R every few days or so. During the first few weeks we were talking every night. Then after about a month we only nedd to talk seriously about 2-3xweek. But we have changed the way we treat each other. We have had VERY few arguments. We are treating each other with respect. And I feel a little funny saying this on the board, but I'm kind of glad the A happened, it opened my eyes.

Every story on here is different, and it is still fresh (almost 3 months), but when it started I didn't know where I'd be now, and I don't know where I'll be a year from now...

I hope for you...time...time to take everything in. Don't try to work on everything at once, you have the rest of your lives. If everything was perfect tomorrow how boring the rest of your years together would be...