Good morning everyone! I hope everyone is doing well today.

Win - how are you doing today? Fill us in with your thoughts. Are you still keeping NC?

Owl, thanks for the encouragement booster for us ladies here. What you describe with you and your wife...I can see with my H and me. We do spend alot of nights as you described. I just can't figure out why I still have this "need" to know the OM is still out there??? Last night my H had to work very late until 10:00 and I absolutely hated that! I really need him at home with me and near me. A year ago that was not the case. I wanted him out of the house as much as possible so I could have space.

Just curious Owl, did you ever show your wife that letter you wrote while she was in the motel room? Or do you just keep it for yourself as a reminder of how things have changed so much for the better?

Cards - how have you been all week? Are you still communicating in the evenings with your H?

Well, I "almost" looked into the site yesterday. I got home from work and jumped on the computer for a minute. The headlines in the news for the past few days were from the area where the OM works and lives near, so it set off a trigger for me. For a moment, I opened up that site and scanned the topics, but then I closed it very quickly without "looking" any further than that. I'm glad I stopped myself!

Tomorrow my H and are going to that Marriage Seminar at our church that I mentioned a few weeks ago. We are both very excited about it. It will be an all day event from 9-4. Then we decided to celebrate our 19th anniversary on Sunday night (our anniv. is next Tues.) since we have no other time. We are just going to go out to dinner together to spend some time alone. This next week will be so busy with our daughter's graduation.

Happy Friday! <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Sounds awesome 2BN! Hope this weekend goes wonderfully for the both of you!!

No, I never showed that letter to my wife. It was FAR to harsh...as I'd mentioned, I was venting, and this was all during the time when she'd moved out of the house into the motel room. And I've really not looked at it much since...just had it sitting back in a directory I don't use much.

I think that the reason you've still got that huge desire to see how the OM is doing is because you've still not totally removed him from your life. You've only recently gotten rid of the emails and pics, and you're still struggling with closing out the final bits of things that allowed you to 'see' him in some ways. Since that's all been so recent, you're still in withdrawl...maybe not the serious hardcore withdrawl that you felt at the very end of the A, but still a form of it.

Time, and willpower, are your keys to getting past this. Those, coupled with devoting yourself back to your husband will be how you can best deal with all of this.

This weekend will be a huge step in the right direction.

Cards, Win, Sys...hope ya'll are doing well!

I think you are right here, Owl. I kept so many little pieces of the OM for so long and this is the final piece that I could hang on to if I wanted to. The final letting go is still all so fresh. I could seriously look for him on that site for months and months, but what would I gain? Nothing. Last night, I was going over the entire 'last phone conversation' with the OM in my head. I don't know why? I had to make myself stop! This is where I have to have willpower. When I think of the OM or want to look at that site, I need to stop and re-focus somehow.

My H and I both are psyched for tomorrow. I guess we can look at this as part of our anniversary gift to each other!

I don't have a letter per say, but at one point soon after d-day I went from feeling really sad to being very angry with my W, so I started a small notebook with random thoughts in it -I guess I wanted to collect my thoughts for future reference. Anyway, I wrote down a lot of angry thoughts and some pretty viscious ideas I had about what I thought the next steps were.

I think it did me some good to vent to myself instead of her (at the time I hadn't found this place or the other board). I still have that notebook here at work in a drawer. I haven't looked at it since I wrote it, don't really intend too, but I didn't get rid of it. As much as you all cling to some meomory of the OM, it's almost like I don't want to forget the rage I felt -a reminder of what happened.As if I needed it :P

I also wrote a letter to the OM that I never sent. Basically it was a "you are scum, how dare you do this to my family, I don't know how you sleep at night, decent people don't do this, blah, blah, blah -again venting, but I haven't deleted that either yet.

We all have our artifacts I guess. In my case it might be argued that I can't let go of the anger. Maybe that's a bad thing for me too. I think part of me wants to be able to show those to my wife someday that she might better understand the pain I was/am in. Then again, maybe it's just an emotional baseball bat I 'm keeping around in case I need it again (this is very destructive thinking and not how I feel -just speculating).

Anyway, tonight we have a sitter coming and we're going out for sushi together. Should be a good night. We have a lot of good memories going out for sushi -and a reminder of our trip to Japan. We may be progressing slowly, but it's nice to feel like pals again. I am still pained by the distance between us in terms of emotional and physical intimacy (which I crave), but we're improving every day and I do have hope for the future, just anxious for some kind of breakthrough in that area. Right now the hard thing for us is to find the right time to talk. I hate to bring down an otherwise good evening -certainly not on our date night. It seems that when we do talk it's pretty spontaneous -just don't like looking for an opening when there is something on my mind -nothing is THAT pressing, but there is so much I want to talk about. My W doesn't like the idea of a set time -she fears she'll start to get too worked up knowing that it's imminent. Any ideas?

Hi Sys - I think that it's good that you journalized your anger and thoughts. I was just re-reading parts the book Torn Asunder last night. There is a section in there that talks about journalizing your thoughts so you can look back where you were to how you have progressed. The book also talked about anger over the A is a necessary thing for the BS. It's a very necessary part of the recovery. I also did read that it's important for the WS to understand and feel the pain that we created for the BS.

Sounds like you 2 are moving forward and tonight will be special for you 2. I definately wouldn't bring up any of the topics you want to discuss tonight. Keep it a fun night!

Suggestions....that's difficult when your W doesn't want a set time to discuss these things, but it seems necessary. One of the things our MC had us do (and we've stopped this now) was to allow each of us 5 minutes of non-interrupted talk each day. The point was to get communications going and for the other person to practice listening without responding. The key was that only one of you had a turn for the day. You one day, and your spouse the next day and the spouse not talking should look into the eyes of the spouse talking and acknowledge what he/she is saying, but refrain from any comments at all that day regarding what was said. It really did help us when we had alot on our minds to share without fear of comments from the other.

Not sure if this will help - but maybe it could.

The cave is easy to find it is just a B**** to get out of it.


Cards

I think that many want to have a "blank slate" again and that isn't going to happen. As we get further from the "train wreck" it gets smaller. The "site" can be cleaned up and the wreckage hauled away but we will always know that it happened "there." The challenge is to move away from that truama and heal
H

Pepper

I am so happy to be absolved...I thought I was going to have to preface each of my posts with the words "Unclean".
H

Bwhaaaaaaaaa

Did you wash today?

Pep <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Well, my wife and I used our reading sessions at nite to talk about things after we really began to recover...but that only lasted about a month or so. After that, we basically just talked about anything that we needed to talk about when it came up...to her credit, she's normally been willing to talk about anything if I need it. And the need has grown less and less. She understands that she's further down the road of healing from all of this than I am, so she tries to be understanding if something comes up. Not that it does that much anymore really. Even with the 'anniversaries' this week, it's only come up one night for a few minutes...there really just isn't that much to talk about anymore.

Sys-

I would suggest that you and your wife set up some kind of plan for discussing things if you REALLY have the need to work through stuff...and put some good rules in place so that you could hopefully alleviate some of your wife's apprehension about talking about things. It took my wife some time to learn that I wasn't going to bite her head off if she said something that hurt me...as long as she was being honest, I was willing to LISTEN to whatever she had to say.

Enjoy your sushi run tonite. We've got nothing planned...staying home tonite and going to watch the Elvis Presley special that's going to be on...as a girl, she was TOTALLY infatuated with him! LOL

Sys - As Owl stated above, your W needs to feel comfortable with communicating. This is why I suggested the method the MC gave my H and I. Gives you or your W a chance to express without worrying about getting your head bit off. It will just get you started with communicating and REALLY listening to each other. My H and I came to really enjoy having our 5 minutes of time each to get out what was needed.

Hello,
Yes I'm still hanging in there. I didn't go to his site yesterday, I almost signed on and I stopped myself. I just keep telling myself that its over and that he's moved on, that he doesn't want me or really want to talk to me. It's painful but its helping I guess. I still think about him all the time, everyday and there's many triggers especially this time of year, and music I listen to. Though I'm not listennig to the especially painful reminders. He gave me tons of songs, I'll just have to put away for a while. I dont know why but I still think about all the things he said to me and his voice, and how funny he was about stuff. But I'm trying to think about different stuff today, plans I have coming up with friends.

H and I are in MC, I guess it's going ok. We are just finding out how much of a relationship we DIDN'T have. My H has never needed much emotional intmiacy and now hes seeing what I was missing. This is why its so hard to give it up with OM (thou we haven't been emotionally intimate since January), but any little scrap I have is hard to let go of. I don't know where this will lead H and I and if it can really be saved. I'm sorry, but i've been faking it for so many years, I just can't do it anymore. I need something real. And it may not be with H or OM.

I'll need help with my willpower today! My sis/law isn't online today so I have no one to talk to. My mind will wander easily!

-win

I believe my wife is OK with talking any time now. We discussed as much -it's more the idea that talking will be painful and coming to the realization that no time is a good time to feel that way. I think we both feel better after talking, so in the end it's a good thing. We need to get in the habit more. We've had really good talks of late, no anger ,no arguing, just Q&A, mostly about where we are and where we want to be. As I said, the hard part is finding the best time to do it. We really need to wait until the kids are in bed (8ish) and then hope that we don't bum out the rest of the evening. I guess it's trying to balance the positive effect we've seen spending our evenings together enjoying each other's company against the positive effect of digging in the dirt emotionally and realizing that it will probably not be fun. This is a good topic for the MC as well -we go back next week. I think he will be glad to hear that we seem to be at the point where we can talk about some hard things.

Win-

Remember that everything you do (or not do) is a CHOICE. If you want to make a change in your life for the better, you first have to CHOOSE to do so. Things won't just get better on their own. Like pretty much any good thing, this is going to take WORK on your part to get through.

I hesitate to say this, but this is something that I've seen as a recurrent theme throughout all of your posts, and I thought that it should be brought up.

If you look at how you mention how you feel about the A and this rough time after it, you always immediately go into what your H did to make you so unhappy. My wife started to do the same thing when we FIRST went to MC...and the MC pointed out to her in no uncertain terms that while there were undoubtedly issues in the M that made her unhappy and contributed to her thinking, SHE was the one who CHOSE to have the affair. Of course, that didn't go over well. And she really didn't appreciate it when the counselor wouldn't let her sit there and try to pass of the blame of the A onto me...which, at least to me, is a lot of what I see in your posts here.

You really do need to stop and take ownership of the A. It was YOUR choice to do so, unless I'm sadly mistaken. Yes, I can absolutely believe that your marriage was not all roses prior to the A, but the way you tend to link these two things together seems to me an attempt to justify your actions in your mind. And it seems to me that you're spending all of your energy on blaming everything that's wrong in your M on your H...it's time to take some ownership for some of that as well.

My M was on the rocks due to actions on BOTH of our parts. I did NOT force my W to get involved in this EA...on the contrary, when I started to suspect what was going on, I tried everything I could to improve things...but it was too late. I have taken ownership on the things that were wrong in my M before that I contributed to...and so has my wife.

Rather than sit there and be angry about how things WERE, why don't you BOTH start working on changing things NOW?

Again, NOTHING WILL CHANGE UNLESS YOU FIRST CHOSE TO MAKE A CHANGE.

pithy accurate advice ... a gem of wisdom you are oh-wise-OWL

Pep <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />

Hi Win - good to see you here today! Good for you with staying away from the site yesterday. It's tough, but take it one day at a time and I believe it will get easier for you and for me. My fingers want to click on that forum site today, but I am resisting big time!

Win, it would be good to put away all of your little reminders of the OM (songs, etc.) for now. Try to focus on something else non-related to the OM. I have to fight off thoughts and conversations with the OM too. If I go there, I just tell myself to stop and think of something else. Keep writing here Win when you start to wander off in your thoughts!

Sys - It really sounds as if you 2 are having some good talks. It's hard to talk about the tough stuff and maybe your MC can help with directing you 2 there.

Question for you guys (or ladies). Ok our anniversary is coming up next Tuesday. For me it's really special this year (should be every year...but), but my H says well last year he didn't know any different. He said that this anniversary is more "special" in meaning to me than really to him. Ok that sort of made me sad. He didn't mean it in a mean way, but just made me sad to think of. Well, to my point...we never had really gotten each other anything gift wise over the years. Just out to dinner or going away. I really just want to get him some type of gift representing my love for him...but he is not a real gift person and I just don't know what to get or if I should? Any suggestions?

New wedding bands?

Those bracelets that you get with each other's names on it?

Something that signifies the 'new start' your relationship with him now has, and that shows him just how much you love him and are glad that you were able to work things out with him.

Some good ideas Owl. He's not one to wear any type of jewelry with those bracelets. I'm not sure he would want a new wedding band either. Hmm...This is tough! I do want something that signifies the 'new start', but it's tough for me to figure out something he would like.

Sys,

I agree with 2B about your W feeling comfortable talking. For me its very hard to talk to H about my feelings for OM. n some ways, I feel like its private (simmer down people I know it shouldn't be, just a FEELING), and its just kind of weird. And sometimes I'm just so tired of dwelling on our problems I just want to vedge out and not think about it.

He's always wanted to rush me thru this. Withdrawl is a lot to deal with by itself and its hard. There's 2 relationships the WS have to deal with. It gets overwhelming sometimes.

-win

Win-

I can appreciate how hard it is for you to talk with your H about your feelings for OM. My wife felt exactly the same way...I couldn't do anything to comfort her when she was going through her withdrawl, because she felt like anything she accepted from me was a betrayal to HIM. I hated hearing it, but could understand that this was how she felt.

So don't talk to him about OM. Talk to him about OTHER things. Talk with him about what you need in a R...or just talk to him about the things that you would/could share with a FRIEND. See, that's part of the issue...not only is your M damaged by all of this, but so is your friendship. Working on one can help re-build the other...trust me, I've learned that from experience.

Owl,

Yes you are right, I am responsible for the A. Though in my situation H was involved in the A as I was calling guys to flirt with and then jump on H. HOwever, I didn't tell him I was falling in love with OM, this is true. Nor did I stop it when I realized my feelings were getting too strong. I'm not blame free in this M, I don't think either partner ever is.

But I do believe the A developed because of what was lacking in my M. And I did try repeatedly with my H to tell him that I wanted more from him, that something was missing. He didn't listen, he admits this. Our MC says that unconsciously I guess I finally did get his attention with the A. Though I was just happy to have OM at the time, and didn't think too much about it.

Yes I want change in my life, which is why I want NC with OM. Not for anyone else but myself. THEN when I can see clearing I can deal with what to do next. We have to start our relationship all over, but I can't move forward with all the past resentment, and I can't just "get over it" and move on. Our MC says it needs to be dealt with. We both need to understand what happened and start the relationship over again. NOt just move on.