Hi all,
I was just wondering if any other BSs are having the same difficulty as me in healing.

H & I were college sweethearts, been together 16 years, married for 12. During our 2nd year of M he came home from a business trip and said he met someone (EA later turned to PA). As you know, that info was devestating enough. I ended up with severe PTSD that has taken me years to recover from. After being seperated for 3 months he decided he loved me and left OW to come crawling back to me. I took him back, went to MC for a year and things have been great since then. MC really taught us why we got in the position of being vunerable to an A and we've worked VERY hard to make sure we don't get there again. In retrospect I can see that we weren't communicating, spending time together, working opposite hours, etc and generally neglecting each other. So when OW showed him attention of course he ate it up even though it went against his morals. I can see all that now, but at the time I was TOTALLY blindsided by his revelation. I was going about my life completely thinking he loved me, we were happy, we were planning on having kids in a few years, and everything was great. Then in one sentence all that was taken away from me. Every memory and everything I believed turned out to be a lie. To top it off he told me he loved the OW, didn't love me anymore, didn't know if he every really loved me, and never wanted to get married but did it because we had been dating for years and it was expected of him. (He later said he said all those "lies" because I wouldn't give up on him and he wanted me to so that he could be with OW guilt-free).

While we've spent the past 8 years recovering our M I never dealt with my trauma from the A and recently started IC. My therapist has started EMDR therapy on me which is suppose to help process the trauma so my brain doesn't think the A is still happening. After several sessions of this she said it should have been having positive results by now and that she thought I was subconsciously holding onto the pain as a defense mechanism so that if this ever happens again (God forbid) I won't be as hurt. That's true. Although I work very hard at my M I do keep myself a little emotionally distant so that if he ever surprises me again and wants to leave I can just say "see ya". I'm so afraid of becoming totally vunerable again. I've finally realized it's not the fear of him having another A. It's my fear that I don't know what's real and what's not. Does he REALLY love me? Is our M REALLY strong? Am I REALLY making him happy? Does he REALLY want a future with me? Was I REALLY his first choice or did he just come back to me because OW turned out to be a b*tch (his words)? What happens if the next woman that comes along is NOT a b*tch? Is our M strong enough to keep him from being vunerable? (Or me for that matter)?

Anyways, I was just wondering if any other BSs that were completely surprised by their WS have trouble with the "what is real, what is not" issue? Does that make sense?

hoping,

i just read your other posts... absolutely no dis-respect meant... do you think the fact that you are hiding a secret from your DH is part of the problem???

You know I had trouble with this for a long time, and in all honesty...if it happens again, I have a plan. Plan Max.

We all naturally protect ourselves.

but to destroy ourselves protecting ourselves???


is it worth it?

Max

hoping, I agree with FL that it could be your secret that is actually causing the void in your M and the hole in you. I was the WS first in my M. For about 9 years, 7 years after I ended my A, my H did not know about the A. I did not confess. I had to keep the walls up to protect me from slipping up and telling my H. When I came here I saw that honesty was the only way to go BUT I was still too weak and cowardly to tell my H the truth. In the meantime, someone else did the telling for me. It was very difficult but I can tell you that my personal recovery did not begin until the truth was out. I did not realize how that lie was eating away at me and keeping me from true intimacy in my marriage until the beans were spilled.

Talk to your IC, but I think you need to come clean with your H.

bumping back up.. Thinking of you hoping, how are you doing?