A short history. My XW and I have been back together since last June. She filed the divorce in 2003 and I gave up fighting it. During the recovery process I learned of an affair that she had beginning in 1998. Regardless of the time frame my hurt is real and began in July. It has been painstakingly slow to learn about everything. Essentially it went from a couple of “out of town hook ups during work” (her words) to a full blown EA with a couple of booty calls initiated and planned by her. Some of the plans were elaborate (I’m out of town, he flies his plane to an airport 75 miles away from our home, she picks shim up and spends night in hotel returning him to his plane the next AM). It took 4 months for her to tell me who and where and only because our counselor told us it was the thing to do. I had a lot of general questions. She was not totally honest and it was just the facts. Now of course her answers led to more questions and I got specific about events. She was not totally honest and I now understand she was protecting herself.

Now she is a quite attractive and tall (5’ 10”) , thin and athletic woman. She is quite hung up on the fact that the women I dated were quite opposite of her. Very short (5’1” and under) and petite (100 +/- pounds). Now we were separated and divorced for over a year. The fact that we dated others really is not an issue (well for me anyways). During the divorce “time” as I call it I went “dark” on her. It was killing me. Obviously I did everything I could NOT to think of her while with these other women.

Here’s one of the problems now. I have always had “weight issues” My weight during our 20 years together ranged from 185 pounds to 250. During the stress of the divorce and after I got down to 168 and now am at 185. However, it is still a struggle to maintain that. She has recently decided that she wants to lose weight. She knows how I am about it. I’m quite sensitive about it, how people treat you. The nastiness of our society with over weight people. I’m quite sensitive about it. She communicated to me that the girls at work were doing the weigh in thing (where they weigh in publicly) and she was insulted she was not invited like she was the last time. And WHAM..trigger. I got quiet. She noticed. She asked me and I stammered around what bothered me. She started talking about how disgusting she had felt then, that I was “mean about it” then (to be honest I always thought she was hot) so she did something about it.

I knew what bothered me. In 1998 she had finished losing her weight. She began working out in a social setting. She pierced her belly button. She changed her hair color. She started an affair. And that I did not pay attention to the signs. That hind sight was 20-20.

I sent her an e-mail afterwards and told her the above. And she got really upset. In my e-mail I told her that was why I got upset, it was a trigger. It went right to “You’ll never let it go, you’ll never forgive me.” “I can’t do anything right” Of course I also told her in the e-mail that I was not judging her and I am living in the present which is better than it ever was but that I felt she should know what my issue was. She said she could not take the “land mines” in my head any more it was killing her.

That statement reminded me that she had hit a land mine just a few weeks ago and she can’t “see them”.

My question is do these land mines always come up? I try and tell her that “the subject” is not a reflection of where I am. I am in the process of moving back in with her and my boys, my house is on the market. She has an engagement ring. I still have a lot of “stupid questions” I know I can’t ask (because I read HINY post about asking), that time is up and in reality they’re irrelevant. I have resolved with myself that those acts I will never get over, I’ll get through them. I still think about it every damn day but keep it to myself. It has only been 2 months since I found out the “total truth” and I knew it would happen. This month is horrible for me. It was on Memorial Day weekend that she pulled the airport deal on me and I never knew it so it’s the first memorial day weekend for me. I will with draw into myself for sure. Any suggestions on how I (we) deal with this??