Cindy,
You have been getting some good advice and I am very glad to see that you have become honest with your H. Permit me to offer you even MORE advice. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Wink]" src="images/icons/wink.gif" />
First, realize that your affair as strongly affected how you have reacted to your H and your family, guilt has a way of distorting many things.
Second, realize that you WILL go through withdrawal from OM, and the single most important person in helping you get through this is your H. Talk to him about your feelings. Call him when you start to think about OM and talk to your H. Start to replace OM in your life with your H.
Third, make it your goal to help your H. I have been here for over 6 years now and the couples that recover the best and the fastest are the ones where the WS brings up the A and talks about it. Asks the BS how they are feeling and talks about it. Finally, it is where the WS helps the BS address their loss of self-esteem, their loss of self-respect, their fears, and the loss of their best friend.
You see you may feel many things about yourself, but realize that your H very likely feels even worse about himself. Get him to talk about how he feels, how he felt, what he fears, what he wants.
You will see him go through the usual healing steps and that includes some anger at about 4-6 months. But as you help him you will find him listening to you and you will find him asking YOU questions, and you will find that he will want to know how to make you happy as well. As you give, so shall you receive and in marriages this is very true.
You have made a good start. There have been many posters on this board WS and BS who have stated that after the marriage was rebuilt that while the A was the WORST thing to even happen to them, the process of rebuilding has made the marriage FAR better than it ever was before.
I think you can find yourself in that situation.
God Bless,
JL
