It has been a little over a year since my husband had sex with another woman. I have heard that for women the intimacy bothers more..but from where I'm standing sex is intimacy, and anyone trying to sell me different has some serious tap dancing to do. Are you ever more vulnerable and exposed than during sex? Is there ever a time when you have less control over your faculties and responses? His sex with her bothers me. It all bothers me. Noodle is not in a good place tonight. I seem to have the sex with OW channell in simultanious broadcast with the rest of my day, especially when he is having sex with me. I went through a period of time when I tinkered with the idea of seeing her..but realized the futility. I would be seeing her through my eyes, I want to see her through his. However much regret he has over what he has done..he also has memories of pleasure and excitement. I only have shock despair and loss. Not trading up. I'm due in about six weeks, and am almost completely without joy about the arrival of my third child. I couldn't even come up with names. I haven't bought a single thing. Haven't made a place for the baby. I'm not excited. It makes me sad to admit that my child is just one more thing for me to deal with. It makes me ashamed to feel this way. I'm already apologising to my baby and he isn't even born yet. I dread the recovery..the sleepless hours..the extra energy. I grieve that my pregnancy was met with an internal "OH S$$T!" I almost [almost..not quite willing to clean up] threw the positive test across the room. See, two days before I had caught him in a deception. Now he seems less foggy...but my joy is still gone. I feel like all I have to offer this baby is an empty plate. I dread the pain, the labor, the weight loss shuffle. I dread having to rely on my husband during labor. I don't want to be so helpless, vulnerable and unattractive. Sweating, crying, puking, bleeding. Yummy. Intimate. Bleh. Then after..tired, extra stretchy. I'll toss my stomach over my shoulder and tie my boobs in a knot..shuffle down the hall in my sweatpants secure in the knowledge that after eight years of my life I am worth less than a cheap thrill. So glad I'm bending my efforts toward making sure his needs are met so that I can manipulate him into wanting to come and live in reality with me..as long as I can sweeten the deal for him by being completely in control and aware of myself and himself and everyone within a six block radius of where I am standing in case they might have a need. When he had sex with her he was more intimate with her in that moment than he was with me. She took my intimacy and he gave it. Thieves. I think that's what makes betrayal unique..it's a crime against someone in which the offended party has to pay the consequences. There is no way to separate sex from intimacy. If you have sex with a prostitute..you have made yourself intimate with her. Think I'm wrong? Try bumping into her with your wife. If you aren't sweating bullets it's because you have worn out your soul and are an empty shell. If he had been intimate with me and merely having sex with her..he would have spontaneously combusted. There is no way he could have anticipated what it would do to me..cared..and done it anyway. In that moment I ceased to exist for him. Nice to know I am a flame so easily extinguished. Throw me a bone and tell me how sorry you are..now that you noticed me again. Tell me how bad you feel..yep, no need to notice me, I'll just..sit..and, ummm..try to think about how I'm supposed to carry this around with me until I die. I am having a night where I feel like the end of one tunnel is just the entrance to another. Fight fight fight for your marriage. Try, struggle. When you are finished pushing this car up a hill I have a piano you could carry around for awhile. It amazes me that my WS seems to genuinely feel that leaving fantasyland even *counts* as effort in our marriage. I guess that is the perspective of an addict. I'm no longer engaged actively in things that will destroy me, and you, and our children..throw me a parade, it was a sacrifice. Are they just inherantly selfish? Is some part of them missing? No superego to be found? Just waffle between ego and id? So you may be wonderring just what he has done to incur my derision...nothing. Nope, been very kind, sensitive, helpfull..ok, also largely absent..but not voluntarily. I get this way when I'm not holding my breath. When I have time and energy to look in my account and the negative balance and wonder how he is ever going to bring it up to even 0.00, forget about a nice fat healthy let's go do something snazzy balance. That's the mistake..keep me panicking about just what to do to help you, and me, and us, and *stuff* and I might not notice. Or be here to counter my negative thoughts with your kind words. Bring me a root beer float. Don't leave me laying alone in bed to remember how I lay alone in bed..and you lay with someone else. There was a time when I was secure, and in my security I would have said, and did say that if someone wants to cheat..nothing to be done, let them go their way and find out the folly of it. Now I would tie them to a chair to prevent it. I'd beg, naked, on my face, in front of other people to avoid paying this consequence. I would beg for him to leave me and not betray me. Kill me, but don't make me limp away from this. He was so sorry. So humble. So certain....so what. It was over for me. My innocence was gone, he just hit delete and I went up in smoke. I read the sad words of men and women fighting for restoration with someone who is rejecting them, and not even sorry about it. We make ourselves feel better and call it fog. It isn't wrong. What happens when they want to come home though? After the relief and after honeymoon part..when you try to use the limb you had to sacrifice to buy mercy for them. When they don't realize that it took such a sacrifice. Then what?

Maybe the 2 of U need to do something together to help you get closure. Something symbolic.

L.

noodle, you and I are very much on the same wave length. I asked my FWH to listen while I read out your post to him. I started to cry while I was reading it (I'm 19 months post recovery). You describe how it is brilliantly. I am so sorry that you have to find more of yourself, somewhere inside of youself, to look after yet another human being with needs. I have become really selfish since I was betrayed. I too, have no energy for others. My beautiful mother died of breast cancer 7 months after d-day and I cried for one day and the next I was back to crying for me.

I used to be such a wonderful daughter and now my 82 yo father keeps calling me and I'm not there. I talk with him, but the old me is gone. The old me used to talk to my parents for an hour and any little event in my day, I would turn into a comedy routine. Now I have nothing to give. I'm all dried up. My father says I've changed. I can't believe how selfish I've become, but I feel I've got nothing to give - I'm like a robot. Part of me doesn't care that I'm so unkind to him, because he cheated on my mother before I was born. She was so good over it and never mentioned it to him. But I'm a different personality and I think that cheaters are total bast*ards! They know what they are doing and they decide that their feelings mean more than anything else or anyone else.

Yes I have the sorry H thing going too. But it does feel like I'm carrying a piano around. You describe it all sooo well. Some of what you wrote is truly inspirational. For me, you touched a very raw nerve and my eyes are still red as I had a heart felt cry over what you wrote.

I hope that nature takes over for when the little'n comes along. When this happened to my mother, the baby that followed was the most beautiful child and he's a really talented artist and muscian. He was the best looking of her four children. He truly was a gift. May it be the same for you. May your child restore your belief in humanity.

If I don't write again in this thread, it's because our computer is playing up. Think it will be going in for work. I wish I could tell you just how much what you said meant to me. I related to all of it. I'm 51 btw, and previous to my H's A, I believed I was an attractive, middle aged, very happily married wife - for 30 yrs. OW was 26, asian and desperately poor - or why else would she be interested in a plain, balding, grey headed 50 yo man? You have a post pregnancy body to look forward to? Try fighting age and menopause - when the opposition is half your age? It's nice to know that giving your love and devotion to one man for 30 yrs is rewarded by a hidious betrayal!

I hope the others are more positive than I am. I just want to cry along with you...... <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" />

Your post is so heartfelt and written just perfectly, that we can all learn from it. I will be sending this post to my WH. I feel for you Noodle. I was pregnant with my second child while WH was having an affiar with a fit and trim mexican woman. How could I compete? I was fat and pregnant. He continued the A until after my second was born, up until May, when DDay happened. He even took our newborn on a date with her. They will never know how badly it hurts us. You are so right about the piano. I've got no time for anyone else and place all of my concentration on my marriage. I don't have really any relationship with anyone else anymore. I can't stand to chat on the phone with anyone, because all I want to do is concentrate on me and my H. I even feel jealousy when my H spends time with the kids, because I want all of his attention. I'm turning into a bad mother.

Nope, they will never know the sacrifices that we make for our love for them. I will never be the same and have totally changed as a person.

Note: your little baby will need you and will help fill up that hole in your heart. My baby, well, after I got over the anger of WH taking him on his date, I just hold him and squeeze his little innocent body and feel the warmth and love, and he just lets me cry down on his downy head. His little pink cheaks accept my kisses and its almost like he was a gift from God to help me in my times of need. When my oldest sees me crying, he comes over, not asking questions, and just hugs me as hard as he can, as long as I need it, until my tears dry up.

So, its hard to concentrate on anything but marriage and family, because thats what is most important to you. Every day, we'll get up, pick up our piano and do what needs to be done and hope for rewards of happiness. That's my dream.

Noodle,

I have not logged in here for maybe one whole year...but your post changed that. Thank you for putting words to the grief and sadness that surrounds making babies, cheating husbands, and vulnerability. I lived pretty much the exact same thing as you did...and have a very very sore back from years of piano-carrying.

I too sent the post to H.

I wish I had some magical words for you about how you will emerge from this misery...like a butterfly...but I don't. You will have a wonderful baby (my 3rd is a beautiful gift that I treasure), you will lose all the weight, you will become the highly proficient mother of 3, you will get your mojo back...all those things will happen...But getting your marriage back is another question entirely.

I am thinking of you today. Thanks for the post.

E

Noodle, I am anyname's husband. Your post is the most eloquent stream of consciousness that we have read. No-one could read it and not be deeply moved.

There is neither pleasure nor excitement in the memories of intimacy with OW - just sorrow, self-loathing, aching guilt and overwhelming shame. In fact I am repelled by using the word 'intimacy', as that is something exclusively for a loved one - it doesn't belong with the wanton betrayal that is infidelity.

I, too, rarely log in anymore, but your post hits home. You are so eloquent; it makes no sense that some WSs can't see betyond themselves, especially those with an intelligent spouse like you. I feel stuck and miserable sometimes, too. I hope this valley will end soon for you and for your baby.

My H is perplexed that since he's 'not doing it anymore', I am not ecstatic. Since he's 'not doing it anymore' we don't need to work on anything, I should just be fine. Not the road to increased intimacy, as you well know.

Time does help some. The major A was two years ago, and we have enjoyed some things lately. It gets a little easier, but I know we probably won't really recover without some effort. In my dark moments, I am waiting for him to stray again. In the good times, I am afraid wishful thinking takes over. I feel so foolish when I start to trust and he lies again. I'm nearly bald with big scars on my body and I take medication that makes me gain weight, so I identify with your feelings about your body right now.

Writing about it, talking about it, and time. Those are the things that have saved me. I hope you are feeling better soon.

Noodle

What a beautiful post, and so so sad. I'm in tears, too. I too was pregnant when Fogman started his A. He still continues... Our baby D was born at the lowest point in my entire life. He was so awful in the hospital, it was absolutely horrible. She is the sweetest most beautiful angel in the world. I trust in God that He gave her to us for a reason. That reason has not revealed itself in full yet.

This labor and delivery will be easy, noodle. Your body will take care of itself. I hope you will have support in addition to your H. I used doulas, and they were so very wonderful (plus they are my dearest friends).

Part of my sadness is selfish... If WE ever get back together, I don't know if I will have the strength to trust him. I'm just speculating of course, but I just don't see it. I hear you talking of fears so long after the fact. I can't see Fogman lovingly supporting me checking up on him. I'm in self-preservation mode this week, so please forgive my selfish ranting. Plan A has sucked me dry.

It's also been along time since I have posted. I am truly touched by your words. You were able to put into words the hell we live with in our heads (thoughts). Sometimes when things are good I become sooo heartbroken (How could this have happened to us. With MB we know know how)...I have no other words other than you are not alone. I too have difficult times. BUT, I WILL WIN!(My thoughts of WBF's initimacy with OW sadden me deeply-But she really never had HIM. She got bits and pieces of a wonderful person) I/WE WILL OVERCOME THIS NIGHTMARE. We know we will fall
into the category of a couple whose relationship
(so to be marriage) became stronger after the storm.......Be strong.

Thank you all for tolerating my little cross section of grief and anger. I embrace the MB concepts and have found them both helpfull and reliable. The one area that they can offer no solace is helping the BS to honestly face and deal with their loss. I'm glad that I didn't have the opportunity to LB [just a nicer way of saying "verbally abuse"] but am having trouble finding an outlet. My feelings stand between us, they are by nature love busters and they are self focussed...they are also real and valid. I don't hide my feelings from my husband, I am just unable to express the depth and gravity. I can't bridge the gulf between his mind and mine. In my kinder moments I acknowledge that in order to be where he is now at he had to completely revamp his entire thought process. What is obvious to me was in fact not obvious to him, not at the time. I also acknowledge that while it is true that I have been split into two versions of myself, so has he. No one feels that more keenly than I do. I have trouble even reconciling the two as one. How can the man who sat up all night telling me stories because I couldn't sleep late in my first pregnancy be the same who began to see our children as inconvenient and less important than the low life slimeball friends whose presence he can not now tolerate? It is like a viscious dogfight inside of me. The urge to destroy the threat of the rouge dog and the warmth and loyalty I have for the father/husband/lover/friend that I have spent the whole of my adult life with. There are no answers, no conclusions and no end in sight. I have no such divisions in regard to the other woman. Whatever she is to others in her life..maybe a good friend, maybe a young person who made an ignorant mistake..to me, she is a destroyer and I could put a knife in her gut and twist it with no qualms whatsoever. Something my husband doesn't understand is the heat and passion and jealously that her ghost can stir. I have more passion for her than he does. I hate her with the fire of a thousand suns, and whatever penalty her lifestyle exacts from her..will never be enough to satisfy my thirst. So none of that the best revenge is a good life etc..etc.. I don't feel any less rage for my husband..he just has the benefit of contrast. I think that is why we so focus on the OW/OM. That fury needs a focal point..but oh what a delicate balance or we lose our way and are consumed with bitterness.

I want to thank everyone for their thoughtfull replies. I was so taken by suprise that not only were people not angry that I cluttered up their posting space, they felt that what I had to say was relevant and meaningfull. Thank you.

I pray that the FWW/OW who are posting here on MB read your eloquent words ....

Those FWW/OW who post ad nauseum about missing the feelings MM gave them ....

I have tried to convey to these FWW/OW that this MM is another woman's husband....

They stole something precious from another woman....

They often ignore the cruel reality of the damage and destruction they helped create for a sister-woman.

They need to read your words.... and understand the consequences of their choices reach beyond the tip of their own noses.

You will heal.... I did. I once felt exactly like you do now.

Pep

up

I'm a BS and a FWW and I agree with every thing you're saying. It breaks my heart to think what I have done to my husband and my children. I also hope that other wayward spouses read this. It is hugely eye opening.

Michele

I am here crying with you, noodle. Unfortunately, your username sent me into a panic. That was FWS' nickname for OW. Ugh, they even had nicknames for each other.

I've been feeling blue for the past couple of weeks, because this is when the A began last year. Tomorrow would be the anniversary of their first 'date'. I'm not wracked with the images the them together. I was actually wondering if I wasn't going to experience the anniversary of d-day like so many other BS'.

But I do know it's affecting me. It's been very hard for me to connect with FWS this week. We know something is not quite right and we talked a little about it this morning.

Sometimes I wonder if BS' and WS' should reconcile at all, but then I remember I'm only one year out. I began this journey with faith and trust and that is all I have to cling to.

Most of the time, I can put our situation in the realm of normalcy (is that why I stay here on MB?). This happens every day with different types of people in all walks of life.

But every once and awhile I think, "BUT HE F***ED HER!" and I have the same questions you do.

FWW here. i read this post. i agree, it is a very good thing for me to have read. makes me extremely sick to my stomach though. i was not an OW, OM was single, at least i don't have that huge weight on my shoulders too. the thought of the pain I have caused my BH is unbearable as it is. will he really ever recover??? do you think you will? how can i ever feel good about being his wife again? after hurting him so deeply.

Finally Learning..I would like to chew on it for awhile before I attempt to answer your Q's..it might help if you tell me what your definition of recovery is. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

Noodle,
You're one tough cookie. As much as this thread touched so many of us, I know that you battled with it while you wrote it all out.

I applaud your courage to let that all come out. It takes a very strong woman to boldly lay her vulnerability on the line the way you just did.

I too would read this to FWH, but I don't honestly think he could take it. We aren't in a place of recovery yet that the guilt doesn't rake his soul. But I will save it, for when the time is right.

I'll be looking our for your posts in the future.

Dear Noodle, I feel for you, what with this emotional trauma you are feeling so close to the birth of your baby.

I read back on your beginning posts and your husband had a one night stand and told you about it the next day.

Many of us here have forgiven months and months of adultery! For me in my situation, a one night stand would have been WONDERFUL because my husband would NOT have been in love with her!

I was like you, for the first few months and carried that piano around but finally I decided that I want to be happy again...I don't want the burden of carrying the piano of his unfaithuflness for the rest of my life.

So, do you know what I did?
I forgave him...Totally forgave him.
And do you know why?
Because he was truly sorry and repentant.

And the heavy load is gone...It will be a year in August and we both have joy again.
Probably the ONLY WAY to really heal is to forgive and go on with your life the best you can.

Sweet Noodle, love those little children and your Husband with all that is in you.

My daughter has 3 chilcren, ages 8 wks. to 5 years and last week her husband was killed in an automobile accident...(We are all still in shock and heart-broken..he was 35 years old and she is left a widow at age 30)
I know she would trade you your problems...a CHANCE at re-building your happy home and marriage, in a heart-beat!

It seems from what you have written that it is actually in your power, Noodle!

I guess I am telling you this as a reminder that death is unpredictable; it can happen in a flash.

I wish you all the grace and mercy, your loving heart can give.
Love, Julie <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

<small>[ July 23, 2004, 07:33 PM: Message edited by: Blessed TIME ]</small>

Like FL, I was not the OW. He was single. However, I don't think that minimizes the pain in any way. I caused unbelievable pain for my husband. I can never undo that, but I will spend the rest of my life making up for it and never allowing it to happen again.

Michele

Noodle

You made me cry again... cut it out already! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />

I'm waffling today. I'm allowed to do that too. Pass the syrup please.