Personally it sounds like there is a lot of hurt and no warm fuzzy better M's!

romantic
my husband isn't home so i haven't yet had the chance to have a warm, fuzzy, better marraige

i'm sorry your's isn't

i do hope you find happiness

hi eav-
You are right - we didnt ask for this and I wonder how much more of this burden we have to bear.
I have read the other threads and yes they say that reality should be setting in at the loveshack - i still have that tiny grain of hope that he will wake up and say I dont want this anymore I want my wife back and will do everything I need to do.

Where did you find the information on 11% of marriages are better?

Does any one know what that 11% is doing different? Some days my marriage is better, than there are days when its worse, many of the bad days are more through my feelings of betrayal than what is happening.

Jerry,
I went thru my first D-Day 10 yrs ago. For me it changed me in the sense that I learned to be more independent & to think of myself in ways that I never did before as I was busy being wife & mother. Because of my WH I lost trust so that made me comtemplate in the back of my mind, what I would do If I had to live my life alone. How to survive if necessary.
The A never really left my mind completely, just sat there on the back burner. After several years I started to think less & less of it, while I never never thought he would do it again, occassionaly something would bring back some of the hurtful tragic memories.
For this reason, it never was the same for me as before the A. At first he did lots of things for my love tank that he had never done before the A...but it seemed like after a while the old habits came back, and our M became routine again.

The A also tuned my radar to be more aware of his actions. I guess that is how I caught him this second time around rather then him dropping the bomb on me or my finding out later.

While I pray that most M don't go thru a 2nd A, mine helped me to be a little more prepared for this 2nd & last time.

I am out now, and someone relieved at the moment that I am stronger than I was the first time around but sad that it got to this point.

Good luck to you!


BS 43 (me)
WH 45
M - 24 yrs
2 beautiful grown children
D-days 1/95 6/2005

Sarge wrote:







In the first months after my WW left, I searched with great enthusiasm for signs of hope for my M to recover. I found some.

But despite my optimism, committment, dedication, desperation (!), I knew something. I did not sense my feelings for my W diminishing. My nose was pressed up against the tree, and I couldn't see the needles turning brown. But semi-consciously I knew that every day, what we had together died a little more.

Knowing my wife's character, I knew that even if she returned, it would be very hard for her to ever see herself as my peer. I'd always be more virtuous. Her inferiority complex would be chronic.

In my imagination of the recovery I hoped for, I saw that I could forgive her. I knew that with a successful recovery I'd eventually reach a point where throwing her affair in her face wouldn't even occur to me.

But I was fairly sure she wouldn't know how to forgive herself.

Now, in a very real way, she has sought her level and settled there. I don't take any pride in saying this. I wish it weren't true.

For this reason, I think that the return of a WS to her affair after a false recovery is the harbinger of worse things to come.

But hope is always a good thing.

I still have some, but it's not the hope that I used to have. I hope for my XWW's redemption, but I can't say how she'd achieve it.

GC

i agree with you completely!

my husband said he could never forgive himself.

and he went back to her and the life of lies and hurt that he thinks is all he now deserves

Thanks to all who responded.
I think Orchid hit the nail on the head early on. How can you feel healed or recovered if your WS didn't dig in and do all the work right along with you?
I tried to rationalize that her method of recovery was simply vastly different that what I perceived, and had read so much about in the 12 books I read. I couldn't interest her in any of them.
At our last MC session, I told counseller that I now abandon my plan and am now open to wife's plan of recovery. C thought that was a good start. So, where did it lead to?
My wife immediately declared, "I did not have an affair!"
When asked of her plan, she replied, "Well, I'm here aren't I?"
So you see, I pretty much have done all of the leg work in trying to recover US. She has changed her behavior and is now much closer to me and our marriage than she was at the time.
I still feel plagued every day; there isn't a day that goes by when my heart doesn't grieve tremendously over what happened. ONS, PA, I don't know and it seems I never really will with any conviction because of my FWW's attitude of "shield at all cost."
Perhaps, I've been told the whole truth, but, how will I ever know when she admits she would not have told me if it wasn't for the physical proof(an STD).
Just rambling, I guess. I feel 100% better than 3 years ago, but not completely healed. Does anyone ever heal 100%?
Perhaps what I feel is normal, and the best it's ever going to be again. I hate to think so, but it's possible.
All Blessings,
Jerry

<img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" /> LOL GC ... I just noticed this !!

Hahahahaaaaa

Yeah thanks SARGE <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/cool.gif" alt="" />
You were right on tarkget too!
Jerry

Man I'm glad that I didn't know this right after d-day. It was hope that it would be better that kept me in it.

I was unwilling to settle for a marriage that was only as good as the one we had.

JMHO, if there is no hope of making the marriage better than before, there's no reason to stay in it.

When you lose that hope, it might just be time...

Low

Does that mean your in the high 11%

Low

I reckon so...but that doesn't make that number any more encouraging.