My husband & I have been together 7 years, married for almost three. He is an Army Reservist, and has been deployed overseas twice since we have been together. The first time was only for 6 months, we had no problems. The second time was for 15, and he had an affair with a female soldier. He started the affair about 5 months after he was gone, he said it was after she continue to puruse him for several months, tempting him, and he finally gave in. He says he did not do it for any reason but for sex. He told me he felt awful after it would happen, and he would distance himself from this person and be disgusted with himself, but a month later she would come back. He had sex with her 5 or 6 times in about 9 months. He said there was no emotion involved on his end, it was only sex. He confessed this to me after I begged him to be honest with me after his return just before Christmas, as I knew something was wrong and he was acting "guilty". Now that it's out in th open, he is begging for my forgiveness willing to do anything to proove to me he did it due to the circumstances of being gone for so long, and would never have ever done it if he were home. He swears he loves me with all his heart, that he never meant to hurt me & thought I would never find out & that he could swallow the guilt, but when he got home he was so overwhelmed that he needed to tell me. He swears he has & never had any feelings for this person, that it was just sex. He promises me if I give him another chance, this will NEVER happen again, and that I will not regret it & that we will come out stronger in the end. We have started counseling together & seperately, his idea.

I do not know what to do. My husband & I literally had the perfect marriage before he left. We love each other, we never were interested in other people, spent all our time together, our lives were perfect. The military took him away & he made a selfish decision & it has ruined our marriage. Is it ruined forever? I don't know what to do. I cannot sleep, I cannot eat, I cannot function. I cannot get the image of him having sex with her out of my head. I am sick over this.

Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

I posted here for support. 32 views & nobody has anything to say to help me?

I love you.

post in "General Questions II"

I did post it there, but it was removed.

Tina,

Sorry, But I didn't see this earlier.

From your post, it sure looks like your FWH is remorseful and wants to do everything within his power to rebuild your marriage.

First, Let me tell you that you can make it thru this with your marriage intact. It will not be easy, but you are already heading in the right direction by going to counseling and coming here.

I know that right now it is hard to believe that you will ever feel better. The pain of this kind of betrayal by the one who promised to love and care for you for life, is beyond description.

In the beginning, I was overwhelmed by it. As difficult as it is to say to you at this point, the truth is that the pain will recede a bit over time.

I am at d-day plus 27 months and it is now bearable. I truly believe that I will never forget what happened and it will always hurt.

The visuals are all too normal and they will come and go. The road ahead to recovery is long and hard and there are many ups and downs. That is why they refer to the recovery process as a rollercoaster.

You are in a very good place here with many BS and WS posting about their own situations and more importantly their feelings. It might be helpful for your FWH to also post here or at least read the posts of other BS's from time to time. It may help him to realize the depth of your pain and also keep him from being discouraged that your progress toward recovery is not moving abnormally slowly.

We are here for you. It does help to remember that you are not in this alone and all to many of us know exactly how you are feeling.

Who

Tina,

One more thing. Don't be too discouraged about the initial number of responses. Sometimes it is hard, for we BS in particular, to go back and remember those early days, the memory of the pain is kind of refreshed and reinvigorated.

Who

Tina,

Hope you two can work things out. The good news is it's not an ongoing EA. They are the most difficult to overcome.

Thank you all. Finding this site is truly helpful to me. I understand not wanting to go back & remember the initial pain. I can understand that all too well.

I am glad to know there is hope. I am glad to know I am not alone. Thank you all. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

I don't have any advise for you, as I'm in almost the exact same situation. H had sex with a girl at work one time and there is nothing emotional going on at all. He was overcome with guilt and heartache and he told me on his own - I never suspected. We both have some faults but overall I thought we were pretty close to perfect! It's pretty hard to handle.

My heart goes out to you!

I can tell you that my H and I are working things out. We both want a strong, happy and healthy marriage and we are both willing to work very hard to restore our relationship.

Eryn

Hi Eryn. Thanks for your response, and letting me know I am not alone. I'm glad you & your H are working things out, we are doing the same. HOpefully we will both have stronger marriages in the end. <img src="/ubbt/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Tina,

As horrible as this situation is you do have some good things going for you.

First your H is home safe and sound. The OW is completely out of the picture so you are not worried about contact. Your H did confess, he showed guilt so he does know this was wrong. And you are both in counselling.

This sounds like a recipe for success here.

You don`t say how old you or your H are but by looking at the amount of time you have been married I would think you are both young. Men sometimes take longer to mature. And sometimes they have to make huge mistakes in order to learn life`s lessons. Such was the case with my own H. He had to actually cheat in order to figure out it was a very bad idea. Some people are like this you know and it would seem that your own H is like this because of his guilt, his confession and willingness to seek counselling. I don`t think he is a lost cause, I think he may have just temporarily lost his way.

But what do you want? Think about this. Some people just cannot get past an A. They will never get over it because they don`t want to. It is a choice you know.

What do you want for the future? Would you like to ten years from now be happily married to this same H? Would you like for this all to be a bad but distant memory? This can happen if you want it to. But you have to work for it. You have to be patient. You must have faith.

You are new to this and I remember when I was new to this too. I knew what I wanted but I had no clue how to get there. I was afraid that my H`s A`s would taint my marriage, taint my life forever. I did not think I could forgive it and stop thinking about all the gory details.

But I have. It`s been 5 1/2 years now. I remember it but I don`t obsess about it now. Our day to day life does not revolve around the A`s. It`s back to a normal marriage now. H learned what he needed to learn and so did I.

When I first came to MB and heard this could happen from the oldtimers I could not believe it. But I remained open to the idea and did not divorce my H. Now I look back on it as a dreadful period in our lives but a period that is now long past.

From what you have posted I do not think your marriage is ruined forever. It will change but there is a good chance that it has changed for the better.

And the images will begin to fade. The intense feelngs will subside. You will not feel like this forever. It will take at least 2 to 3 years to get back to feeling completely normal but you will. In the months ahead you will have periods of feeling normal and as time goes by you will feel better for longer and longer stretches of time until you and the marriage feel normal all of the time.

What you and your H need to do is to work on the MB plan. I assume you have gone through the site so now you have to get to work. This may turn out to be a blessing in disguise because now you have tools to make a long happy marriage for yourselves.

Thank you for your message, Daisy. It's so good to hear from someone who has been in my shoes, and has come out on the other end still happy.

My H is 30, I am 32. I do believe that by having this A, that he has realized the severity of what he has done, how he has hurt me, and that he knows it was the biggest mistake of his entire life. I do believe that things in your marriage that sometimes tear your heart out, are the very things that eventually make your marriage stronger.

What do I want? I VERY MUCH want to live with this man for the rest of my life, knowing that he would never hurt me like this again because he loves me dearly. He is being extremely patient with my mood swings right now, and doing anything & everything to make me feel comfortable that he loves me very much, and that he wants to make this work. I know that he means that. I truly believe when he tells me how sorry he, and how ashamed of his actions he is, that is being honest. I truly believe there were no emotions involved in this A, which helps a lot because I know my H doesn't want any contact with the OW.

I do feel that we will come out on the other end of this stronger than before. It will not be easy, like you said, but that total pain is already starting to fade & we are moving toward making progress into our new life, instead of being sad all the time.

Thanks so much for your response, it really gives me hope.