Mamafish,

OK, the last contact will be 9 months on Valentines day. So, I am still in the first year of recovery.

I was not on Ads until my baby was 14 months old. I should’ve gone on them as soon as I stopped breastfeeding. I think some mothers who are having a particularly difficult time should stop breastfeeding early, switch to formula, and then go on Ads. Everyone kept telling me how healthy I was, how strong mentally I was. But my depression decline was so gradual that I just kept sliding.

My recovery with my husband is slow. He forgot how to be a husband in a lot of ways and we are both learning how to do that again. I gauge progress by comparing where we were 6 months ago to where we are now. We are not having sex right now. We had very little sex during the affair and our sex life has been damaged. But we are repairing our intimacy and building our intimacy and our physical life is growing.

I know a lot of men and women easily share that sex has always been great for them in their marriage and was even better after the A. This is why I believe that you should track progress, because it is too easy to compare you marraige unfairly. We hug and kiss and flirt 10x more than we did 8 months ago when the A “really” ended. I had 3 d-days.

Retroville was key to helping both of us believe that we have something worth while saving. We are practicing a lot of their advice and it was very helpful to see examples of marriages that have struggled and survived. We thought, if their marriage could survive maybe ours can. And, there was a little bit of “we’re not as bad off as they are.” Of course, we didn’t run up to that couple and tell them we thought their situation was worse than ours.

I sometimes think about the OW. How did I get past that? ADs help. It can be very easy to put myself down and indulge in self pity. I use her to feel bad about myself. She is a very pretty young woman who is extremely selfish and has low self-esteem. She did not believe she was responsible for the A. It was love. Blah, blah, blah. I have to let her go. Our marriage is not about her.

How did I get past that? I think the key to getting past it is realizing that what is most special about the affair is how it’s now turned WH and I together recommit to the common goal of building the best family and marriage possible. What is most special of the affair is it is fertilizing our future.

Please, don’t worry about “shoulds”, as there are a lot of them. Helping yourself and fighting for your marriage is completely appropriate at this time in your life and it’s a great thing you are doing for your babies. “Should be spending our time focusing on our babies,” is a statement that is just waiting to pile on guilt. Cause when you are crying your eyes out thinking poor me, poor me, you can easily make yourself feel like a crappy mother for putting yourself first. What a bad cycle that is endless.

I think the number one thing that helped me with my recovery is finding people that I could talk through and work through my pain and support my marriage. I confided in people that who believed in my marriage. Avoid confiding to other men. I confided to my FIL, but he was the only man I really talked to about this in detail. If there is a man who has that white knight syndrome, they will come running to help the poor defenseless abandoned pregnant lady who was done wrong.

My WH used the fact that I was pregnant to explain his lack of desire for me. He told himself that to justify his actions.

It was hard for me to understand and identify fog babble with all of the hormones. Plus, I didn’t have the confidence to know I confused because I was dealing with lies. Restoring your confidence in yourself takes time and practice.

Hi Loy,

First of all, thank you for your response. I appreciate your taking the time to reply.

I think I am managing OK without the ADs, although if I were not nursing, I would definitely go on them. I don't think that I need to stop nursing to go on ADs. I have breastfed my other 2 children and I have had no nursing problems. I am doing much better than I was the first 2 mos after DDay although I have some dark days.

My H and I's marriage pre-A basically reads right out of Dr. Harleys books--child-focused parents who spent no time with each other. My H and I worked opposite shifts (me day, him graveshift/weekends) and were rarely at home together. Sex was very seldom, due to me being tired and resentful that he was not home, not affectionate, not communicating with me. Basically he felt rejected by me, and his OW was a much younger (he's 40, she's 26) coworker who had been flirting with him for months (unbeknownst to me of course). She came on to him and he responded out of anger at me. As I have been reading about the White Knight syndrome lately, I think that this is part of it also. She is very messed up emotionally and as I wrote above, has a son she doesn't care for. H said that they made an agreement that it would just be a PA, that he was not leaving his family for her. She fell in love with him and the A continued for months, until after our baby was born. He says that he tried to break it off with her a few times when she made demands on him, but she would make him feel guilty. I think that she was looking for a father for her son, and thought he could rescue her. He says it was an ego boost and he thought "Hey I've still got it" when she seemed interested in him. He said he never loved her.

I try not to think about her but I can't help it. He says that I am giving her way too much power in my head and I agree, but it is very hard to push the thoughts away. At the beginning of the A, we were not having much sex, and then he said that some women at work told him that pregnant women sometimes don't feel like having sex, so he wasn't going to push on that. I should have said, who were you talking to about your sex life? but instead I took it as a rejection of me because I was getting bigger. Of course now I know this was the OW telling him this so he would not have sex with me. Although we did have sex during the A, it was not frequently.

I totally agree with your last statement about identifying the fog babble. My H was able to use that to his advantage. I think that one of the hardest things for me to deal with is how he treated me throughout the A. He either ignored me by not coming home, or criticized me, to make himself feel better about being with her/justifying his actions. He is very remorseful now and regrets ever getting involved. He 's committed to our marriage and family. We are just starting on our recovery path now, and he wants to keep moving on, but I want to go through the details with him and ask him alot of questions. I think that the A was a blessing in disguise in some ways, because I could not have continued the way we were going. At least now I feel that there is some hope. Pre-A, we were like strangers. Now, we are communicating more, but I feel that we have a long way to go.

This board has also helped me tremendously. I have confided in two very good (female) friends who live out of state. They are both supportive of both of us, as they have known us both for years. I find that it is more helpful to me to post because people here have been through it, while my friends have not. Both of these friends also told me that it was better that I did not know about the A until after my daughter was born, due to the stress level, etc. I tend to agree, but it hurts that when I think back on my pregnancy, I think about OW throughout the whole thing.

You are right about getting rid of the 'shoulds'. One of my big problems is focusing on everyone else's needs except my own. I realize now that I need to work on myself in order to be a good wife, mother, and friend to myself. Focusing on my kids did force me to work on myself when I first found out. I did not get to pity myself (too much). I need to restore my self esteem and confidence in myself. I realize now that I should have trusted my instincts and confronted him, instead of accepting his lies. I even stopped asking because I knew that he would tell me a lie that would confuse me, and I had no evidence to back up my instincts. So at least now I know that my instincts were right. My instincts are also telling me, now, that he was more emotionally involved than he wants to admit to. I said in my previous post, how she got pregnant and had an abortion. This really really eats away at me. I am thankful that she did not have the baby though because I do not think I would have been able to handle that situation. I have mixed feelings about that.

I know that there is a long road ahead, and I try to take it one day at a time. I am glad that you and your H are meeting your 1 year mark. That is quite a milestone. It gives me alot of hope for my future. Sometimes, a part of me says that we can do this, we will succeed. Then another part of me says, how can I want to be with this man when he treated me like this, and left me when I needed him so badly?

Oh, I know that feeling so well.

I deserve better, I deserve this and that. And then I whip out my score card and look for ways that my life is unfair.

Your feelings are going to be all over the place. The one thing this has taught me is that I am not my feelings. I am my actions. It means a lot that your H has given up the affair. You are more important to him than the affair.

You are both embarased and ashamed, perhaps of different things. The more you can find ways to understand each other, and find compassion for each other, the better off you will become.

It is OK for you to feel whatever it is you need to feel. Feelings change and sometimes quickly. I was so uncomfortable with not being able to fix this by myself. I wanted to push this entire process through.

You might swing back and forth about if you should stay or go internally, but your steps are moving you forward right now. Your WH's steps are moving forward right now.

For the first time in a long time you are on the same path together and you are both weary and scared. If you can simply hold hands at a time like this, where there is so much pain, God is working through the both of you.

Hi Loy,

"For the first time in a long time you are on the same path together and you are both weary and scared. If you can simply hold hands at a time like this, where there is so much pain, God is working through the both of you." (Sorry,
I have not figured out how to do the Quotes the right way).


You are right,and we are both scared and weary. But God is definitely working through us too. My H has told me how sorry he is, and that all he can do now is to prove it, that his actions speak louder than words. I know this is true, and I know that I am not leaving him because of his A, and I know that he is not leaving. I try to see this as a blessing in disguise because it has forced us to work on the M and make it become what we both need. We do not want to go back to what it was before, obviously.

The hardest thing for me to do is to let it go. I know that we can get through it now that we are working together for our M and our family.

I will have to go back and read through Retroville to see the advice there, as you said that helped you. But one thing that I think will help me to move forward, is to ask him questions/details of the affair, to get all my questions answered. Many of my questions were answered, but I have more, many many more. Some boring, some re: sex, some about where was he on this particular day, etc. I think that when I know that there is nothing "big" left for me to know, that there are no secrets that I will find out later, I will be able to heal a little more. I will not forget, but I hope that I will not be dwelling on the past as much as I do now. Right now, I think of the OW way too much. I do not speak about it to H but I want to sit down with him and get it all out in the open once and for all.

For example, My OW's name is Nicole. I clearly remember him asking me if I liked this name when we were thinking of names for our daughter. I said that I did but that it didn't "go" with the other names that we had already picked out (Janie Hannah xxxxx--we were looking for a third name). He agreed and that was it. Then at some time later (could have been days, wks, mos), he called me and said that he thought of the name==Janie Hannah Marie. Well I liked how it sounded, and said where did you come up w/ Marie? (no one in our families are named Marie) and he said he just heard it and liked it. Well, this past weekend, I could not sleep and somehow, it came to me, that Nicole's middle initial was M (it is), and that her middle name is Marie. Call it an instinct, but this is what I felt, a sinking feeling in my stomach. I have not asked him, but I have this bad feeling that this is true. I know that her middle initial is M because after DDay, I found a checkbook deposit slip in his car trunk with her name and address on it. I do not know how to approach this with him, but this is the kind of thing that I am talking about. I don't need any more bombs to be dropped on me. He never wanted me to find out about the A at all. I know that he would not tell me now that he gave our daughter her middle name. He would think that I would never find out. I feel that there are still things that he is hiding from me, hoping that I will not discover, and he knows it will hurt me to know these things so he does not tell me. I need him to know that the lies hurt more than the truth. I have cried alot over this name thing without him even knowing about it. What do you think, should I just tell him that I need him to answer these questions to move on? (We have gone to an MC who thinks that the details will not help me. We are going back on Thurs night and I am ready to tell them both that I need to have my qts answered, and even bring up the Marie thing and ask him in the session if I have to).

Did your H answer your questions and did it seem to help you? Or did you prefer not to know the details? Some people do and some don't. What do you think?

You want to ask him questions/details of the affair, to get all your questions answered.

Write a list of all of your questions. Think long and hard and get all of your questions down on paper over the next couple of days. Do not ask him the questions yet, just complie them.

I personally found that to be a very helpful exercize. You don't have to do this but it helped me.

Pretend that you will only have one opportunity to sit down with your WH to ask him questions about the affair. What are all the questions you can think of. Do not ask him anything yet. Let me know when you've done this or if your even interested in this exercize.

Maybe you've already done it?

Hey Loy,

Sorry I am just getting to read your post now. I am only online at work, and had to search for our thread...

Yes, I have been working on a list for a few weeks now. I read it, add to it, reword it, etc? If you did this, you know what I mean...It started out neatly typed and numbered, and is now a big mess with notes jotted in the margins and all over! A few MB posters suggested giving my H the list when we sat down so that he could see the questions in advance.

So, I will rewrite it and make it neater, and try to put it in some type of order. I haven't even looked at it in about a week.

We had sat down for about an hour over a month ago right before a MC appt. He answered many questions. All we had time for at that time. He said that he didn't want to hurt my feelings when he answered them. I have not asked him any of my questions since then, even though I have been tempted many many times. We have talked about my moving forward and I want to go to him and tell him that I really need to go over the details w/ him so that I am able to move forward.

Will check back for your reply...

just bumping this up for a response from Loy...this forum has been busy today.

Loy, I made my list of questions and put them in order...

Rack your brain for anymore questions. Is that it? Is that all you really want to know? This is your last chance to find out whatever you want to know about the affair.

Yes, I think this is it. I came up with a few more, but I think I'm done now...

What are your questions looking for? What is valuable to you about them?

Review the questions and try and pin point your goalfor them...

Which questions will help your recovery? Do the quetsions expose how the secret was kept?

Hmmm, now you really have me thinking, Loy...

This is going to take some serious thought. I think that some of the questions are just typical nosy questions--what does she look like, etc? Some are more along the lines of what did they do together (not just sex questions although some of them are in there), how did he justify the A in his mind, etc. Many of them are about the duration of the A and what his plans were--he has said that they made an agreement that it would just be a PA, and she fell in love w/ him and he did not love her. I have questions about that, and about the pregnancy/abortion, what did he tell her about me, etc.

Some are more for recovery--what would he like to see in our M that he had in the A, how did he feel about himself during the A, what are his hopes for the future of our M. How was he feeling about the M that led to his decision to have the A.

It's hard to say, I will get my list out and try to break it up as you suggest. Some of the qts are pretty straightforward and some are pretty open-ended about feelings, etc.

The questions don't really get at how the secret was kept. I know that he lied on a consistent basis, and the fact that we had separate lives is how the secret was allowed to continue for so long. I now know that every thing he told me (where he was going, etc) was a lie made up so that he could be with her. I was too trusting, and in denial when I had suspicions. I will trust my instincts in the future.

I think my goal for the questions is that I want to know everything about the A so that there is nothing that I will find out at a later date that will blindside me. Then my mind won't be going into directions and imagining things that may not be true.

I will work on this a bit today and get back to you later. I am at work so it will be a little while.

Thanks for your guidance!

Hi Loy,

Well I reviewed the list and tried to come up with goals for them as you suggested. There are a few:

-To understand my role in contributing to the conditions in the marriage that led to the A (not meeting ENs, what he felt was missing in the marriage, etc), so that I can work on these things.

-To understand his view of marriage and commitment, pre-A, during the A, and now, and determine if he is truly committed to me.

-To satisfy my need to know what happened between them and what kind of life he was leading while he was not with me, which was most of the time.

I guess what I really need is to know what happened this past year when I was thinking he was doing other things, and now I find out that everything was a complete lie. It's going to be tough this year, because the A started last January, right about this time. I want to know this so that I don't have to wonder about it anymore. I want to know how he justified this betrayal in his mind. I want to know if he is truly committed to me now, if he is only saying that is was just for sex so he won't hurt my feelings. Most of all, I want the truth. I can handle it. I don't want to be at this point a year from now, and find out a bombshell that he has been hiding. I want to get it all out so there are no secrets between us at all. If he felt like he was in love with her at the time, so be it. I want to know it NOW so I can deal with it NOW. Not when I feel that we are in recovery.

Let's start with your third goal.



What do you already know happened?

Create a timeline and fill it in as best you can of what you know. It will help you begin to reframe last year. For my husband, this was also an easy way to share with me details. I wanted to know important things. Of course, it turns out men and women sometimes measure importance in other ways. In this timeline you can also track what you noticed about your relationship.

Many affair books recommend a timeline of your marraige, tracking out good times and bad times.

A part of the hearlessness of the affair is that I think it is shockingly callous that my husband called OW several times on my birthday. He doesn't remember some of those specific things because he called he everyday.

After the timeline, you might want to see what questions you still need to ask.

Think about your last boyfriend before you married your husband. How many things about that relationship do you remember? Do you know what you did for that guy's birthday? Do you remember how long it took you to get over him?

Hey Loy,

Okay, the timeline is a good idea. When I first found out, I took out my calendar and daytimer and tried to pinpoint things because my memory is not that great as to specific dates. I can identify with you on your H calling OW on your birthday. Shockingly callous, indeed, I can give you a bunch of those, and I'm sure you have more too. My H called OW from the hospital after I had our baby==she was the third call he made--my mother, his mother, than OW. What is this, if you say it is only for sex?

This is what I'm getting at too. I want to know where he was on certain dates that have meaning to me (birthdays, holidays, etc). The MC we went to didn't think it would help me when I mentioned this. That was about a month ago, and we haven't gone since due to the holidays. We were supposed to go tonight but are rescheduling it. Next time we go, I'm going to tell him that I think it will help me.

I'm not sure that I understand where you are going with the last boyfriend. I started seeing my H right after we broke up for good. I guess you could say that me and H had a bit of an EA that started out as me and my boyfriend were going through alot of upheaval. This is partly why I am interested in how this started with her (flirting, etc). So, it did not take me long to get over him at all.

This might sound weird, but one thing that really helped me was understanding that I did not have a husband during the A. My husband was gone and my WH had a girlfriend.

We already know that the worst has happened. He put himself before you and your family. It's not a matter of when and how much he did, that is just how he lived his life for a while. He lived his life like that until he could no longer do it.

That life was not more important than you and your family, cause he gave it up.

So what do you want to know about that life? That he desired another woman a lot? That he allowed himself to touch and be touched by someone else? That he shared what was important to him with her? These are all typical parts of a relationship. We know what dating is like. That is what he did.

He had a girlfriend and all that goes with that but with the bonus of the adultery thingy.

My husband's perspective on the A changed dramatically in the last 5 months, and I think that will be a trend that will continue as we grow closer together.

With your questions, resist the urge to "teach" him. Make it more about you filling in the missing pieces of your life.

Hey Loy,

I think you hit the nail(s) on the head. I am fighting back the tears as I read what you said, because it is so true. I used to tell him that I didn't have a husband during the A. He didn't seem to care. He denied having a double life too.

Yes, he had a girlfriend, but he was also living with her when he was not with me. I want to know all about the life that he had with her....every question you just said about the typical parts of a relationship...I want to know what was a typical weekend with her. I know how he was with me when we were dating, was it the same?

That life, that relationship WAS more important than his family for a long time. That is what I find it so hard to understand. I will try not to teach him because I truly am trying to fill in the missing parts of my life. He said I never meant to hurt you, was never leaving you, you were never meant to find out...I don't understand how he could think this was OK.

He finds it very painful to talk about and thinks I'm trying to make him feel guilty. I am rewarding his honesty with honesty and no LBs. Even when he told me she had gotten pregnant, I reacted calmly because I knew he had not told me everything.


Gotta go now. Will write more in the am.

Every time he smiled at her, laughed with her, spent time with her, he took something away from you. Do you want to know how much he took from you? Are you going to measure it?

Did he know he was giving something prescious away? How do you measure what has been lost?

Or do you want to know why he came back?

Or maybe it's both....

Peter denied Jesus three times before the [censored] crowed, asked and recieved forgiveness and then went on to become the first pope. Peter betrayed God, so of course humans can betray each other.

But what happens when we come home?

As you review your calender, bits and pieces will start to fill in. It's amazing how much on your own you can formulate a timeline of what happened. Ask your husband to add to it. That is one request that can (perhaps) eliminate a lot of the questions on your list.

Good luck. One day at a time.

Hi Loy,

I'm back now (at work for the day--no computer at home). I thought alot about this timeline last night and what you had written. And now as I read your last post, I see that there is no way to measure what he took away from me and from our relationship. I understand that I cannot possibly know everything about their relationship, but, yes, I do want to know if he understood what he was giving away. I don't think he did at the time, but I hope that he does now. In his mind, he never left me. I tell him that he did leave me as soon as he started up with her, but he thinks that because I didn't know, and that he didn't legally separate/divorce me, that he didn't leave me.

I have taken responsibility for the things that I did and did not do in the marriage that contributed to this. After reading the Harley books, I understand the reasons, causes, etc on an intellectual level. I see that he was going through a midlife crisis. I don't understand it on an emotional level.

When you did your timeline, how did you do it? Did you take a calendar and fill in what you did and what you thought he did? I'm wondering if I should fill it in with where he said that he was, and let him correct it. He has said that he was not ALWAYS with her when he was not home. Especially towards the end, when she was making demands on him. She would get mad at him so he would go out w/ his friends, at least this is what he has told me.

I'm just having trouble getting started with this...I'm not sure how much I will be able to do on specific dates, but what I'm more interested in, other than the special days, is in how the relationship progressed, when they went through breakups, how they got back together, etc. Maybe this will eliminate some questions, I'm not sure...

How did you begin to trust your H again? My H has been trying to regain my trust and has told me we will never have separate lives again, but it has been difficult. We started going to church as a family after this, which we had never done. This has helped us alot to bring us together. The first time we went, the sermon was about forgiveness and really hit home. He said that he has seen alot of positive changes in me since DDay (I have been working on myself, and as you said above, the worst has happened, so obviously what I was doing before was not working. I have learned from my mistakes). I have seen some changes, as he too has to learn to become a husband again. It just seems that he wants me to get over it by now, and does not understand why I can't.

Thanks,I will check back later.

The only way I have begun to learn how to trust is through verification. Trust but verify.

It helps a lot if I keep my cool and fight not jumping to conclusions but wait until I have all of the facts.



He has had a lot longer to deal with this issue. How long did the affair last with you knowing nothing about it? Then how long did he struggle to end it? Plus, he knows what he wants you to forgive, you're still trying to understand the details.

It makes sense that he wants you to be over it already, but you need time. You can encourage him to be supportive of you by telling him all of the things he does you appreciate. It is very caring when someone does somthing because it is important to you, even if they don't understand you.

You cannot move fast through this. Recovery is like quicksand, the more frantic you move the quicker you sink. Be still and take care of yourself.

There is no rushing this.

Loy,

Thanks for your words of encouragement. I understand that it will take time, and I understand why he wants to rush it. We are working on the MB questionnaires, and have completed them, but have not reviewed our ENs yet. I would like to do that this weekend. We are taking it kind of slow--a little bit at a time.

You are right, I do need to tell him that I appreciate the things that he is doing, and the changes that he is making. I am not taking them for granted any longer, but I can show my appreciation more than I have been doing.

Now, since I will be off line for the weekend (only here until 5pm today), once I make up my timeline, what is the next step? To have him fill it in? As I said before, I'm having a hard time starting on it. I do have some old calendars so I thought I would fill in the blocks that way. I know that he will not know specific dates, he doesn't use a calendar. Should I ask him any questions after he fills it in?