We are approaching the one year mark since DDay. So many things were happening in our lives during the time of his affair. Business problems, financial issues, etc. I can see why he wanted to be distracted with his newly found 'soulmate/bestfriend'.

When he told me of his affair I knew without hesitation that I would forgive and that we would survive this thing. I trusted, believed, adored him and didn't want to lose him. As the months moved forward we tried to make progress, and did it seemed. Without making this a tremendously long post I will just say that he was and has been less than honest with me, so each time we make progress and I find out that he was also deceiving me on some level during the same time frame, my soul is shattered once again.

Our marriage, I found out last year, from his perspective was one that he had to convince himself to go through with. Talk about devastating news. We were both young and at least one of us (me obviously) was in love. 22 years later after I walked through fire for him and with him during our marriage, he finds someone else who makes him happy and who he pursues with such passion. He never pursued me like that.

So here I am trying to rebuild my self-esteem and wondering if I'm just wasting my time with a man who can never love me the way he loved her. Most days I'm OK with what is happening between us, but there are moments when I feel like I'll always be living in her shadow, the woman he couldn't have but desperately wanted to spend the rest of his life with. I wonder if I should just cut my losses and move on and let him pursue a life with OW, so he can find out that what he thought he had with her is and was just a fantasy. When a relationship is exposed to the real world it tends to lose it's luster.

I got a note from OW's husband in February of this year which read: "When will your husband stop pursuing my wife?" And in a following letter he said that his "wife is his ideal woman and the complete package". Apparently my husband thought so, too.

So do you see why I feel like I can't and will never measure up? I feel like I will always be living in her shadow.

Sometimes I think I could be "the complete package" for someone who would appreciate me, who would be grateful to have me.

My heart is hurting really bad today. This is also the same month that my husband and my daughter took a "Daddy/Daughter Day" at an amusement park, the day before our daughter's birthday party. Little did I know at the time that he was meeting OW and her daughter there to spend the day together.

Too much pain for this broken heart today. Thanks for letting me unload it.

You need to work this out between you and your husband IN THERAPY

be honest

tell H

"I am not doing well. I need help. I need YOU to help me. Come to therapy with me."

Try it

Pep

Thank you, Pep, for the reminder. Since the loss of our business last year we have been financially strapped, thus we have no funds for counseling. I'm going to look into it again and find a way to make it happen.

My husband doesn't see the pain he's put me through, and perhaps he never will. Maybe a therapist will help us deal with it and move on.

Thanks.

LHF,

Is HE saying this to you, or is this how YOU feel?

There is a big difference there.

Sometimes, I feel like my FWH felt like he should have been somewhere else, with someone else. That just isn't true. He doesn't feel that way. But because my heart is broken, I convince myself that it is true.

If he still feels this way, then I would wonder if he is still having contact of some sort with the OW. Maybe you should check that out. If it is true that his feelings have not subsided over the year, then I would really wonder if NC is in place. You should see some reduction in his desire for her and some recognition on his part of how much pain you are in.

One of the ways I "helped my husband understand" what I was going through was to give him some statistics on recovery of marriages. One of the statistics that really brought it home for him was this one:

Over 80 percent of women who feel, after 6 months of trying, that they are alone in trying to recover from an affair that their husband had, LEAVE THE MARRIAGE.

If your husband wants to recover, then he will understand that actions speak loudly.

Have you two done the EN questionnaires? Have you been actively involved in using the Harley principals of 15 hours a week together? There are a lot of things you can do that are free, that you can actively do.

Another resource that is pretty cheap is the book "Relationship Recovery" by Dr Phil McGraw. While many people are reluctant to follow him, the book - especially the workbook, is actually very good. If you do the exercises, and then do the plan and conversations/questions together at the end of the book, you would be really surprised at what you would find out.

Just some ideas to try to help.

Hang in there. And don't blame yourself so much. The wh*re was NOT better than you are. She was different. That's all.

LHF,
You've made it to the one-year mark. That's an accomplishment. But with that momentous date comes lots of triggers, lots of memories, lots of pain. We just had our one-year DDay anniversary on March 13 and our 13th anniversary was April 2. Wow. Talk about mixed emotions. I told him that I didn't know what the anniversary marked--one year of faithfulness or 13 years of marriage. He said that it's 13 years of marriage and faithfulness minus the short period of time that he was really stupid and made some awful choices.

I recently started reading the book After the Affair by Janis Abrahms Spring. This has to be one of the best I have read on surviving an affair. She explains the experiences that have molded us into who we are and goes into how these experiences have caused us to respond in certain ways. She is careful to say that the affair is fully the BS's responsibility/choice. One section is "tracing the timelines: seeing how critical life events at the time of the affair may have knocked you off balance". It helped me to realize that my H's A's resulted because we were moving out of state and he realized that he was afraid because he was giving up all that he had known for all of his life. He stayed behind to work on the house to get it ready to sell. While I was settling in 1000 miles away, he was there working on the house (intermittently) and having affairs with two women. While I won't go into all the details of my situation, could it be that the financial stressors resulted in your H's weakness as well? It doesn't excuse the infidelity, by any means, however, it may put things in perspective.

As far as your self-esteem issues, I understand completely how you feel. On DDay I asked him what was so different about sex with her and I shouldn't have. What he told me is forever in my memory and I do so wish it wasn't. Now that time has passed and he is "out of the fog of the affair", he realizes that the choices he made, the lies that he told and the excuses he made almost resulted in losing me and our marriage.

We are currently in recovery and rebuilding. We are learning to trust again. We are learning to communicate. My H is the ultimate conflict avoider, but the A has helped me to realize this and now that time has helped to heal some of the wounds, I am able to confront him on this awful habit. No longer do I just "let things die" because he gets an attitude and doesn't want to talk about it. We aren't in a position to seek out counseling either, so we are working on this together. And I am reading this book. (Much more helpful to me than SAA.) I, too, fight the insecurities of "not measuring up". In fact, I obsessed with OW so much that I kept investigating to see if I could find a picture of her. I found her on myspace, and she was rather unattractive and out of shape. She just got married. (Guess she got tired of waiting for my husband to leave me for her.)

Once the fog lifts and the sun shines directly above, there are no shadows....just glorious sunshine straight overhead so that there are no shadows. Please know that you are not alone. There are so many who experience the same pain every day. I will pray for you and hope that you find peace as you travel down this rocky road known as recovery. It has only been by God's grace that I have held it together and made it this far. God makes his presence evident in the least expected places and situations...the sunrise...the sunset....the beauty in a child's smile...a friend's email or phone call. You are strong. You are blessed. You can make it through this. Believe in yourself and take care.

SS

PS .... you sound depressed .... have you spoken to a physician about this?

Pep

I agree wholeheartedly with Pep (as I am prone to do!) that you need to tell him how you feel. I also would recommend seeing a physician or counselor for IC at a minimum.

Your post is very touching and heartfelt, my heart goes out to you. Sometimes things DO have to occur naturally, as you forwarded with "he has to see that it isn't all it's cracked up to be". Time can heal some, but a plan will heal more. Get one of those for you!

You wrote enough for me to think you are a wonderful wife to him. Don't feel down about his choices, he owns them - not you. It's his failure, not yours. Work on you & know that it will not go unnoticed by him. Get strong, identify your boundaries for your M, and be honest with him & yourself.

You won't regret it, either way.

Best wishes and prayers for you,

J

if you ever want to talk, feel free to private message me. I don't know that I have a solution for you, but the same exact thing happened/is happening to me and I can definitely relate.

He told me that he was guilted into marrying me by my mother, after being together 7 years...that he wasn't ready...he found his "soulmate" in her....he'll 'always' love her...bla bla bla.

doesn't help us recover much huh?... I know just how you feel. hang in there.

Thank you to everyone who responded. It has been most helpful to know there are kind people out there who know what I'm feeling. This website and the many books I have read are what have kept me alive through this year. It's encouraging to know that I'm not alone and that what I'm feeling is normal given this most awful situation.

Jayban, thank you for your kind words. Yes, I have been a good wife to my husband. Many people have told me through the years that he's lucky to have such a loving, devoted wife. So as you can imagine his affair shocked me beyond words.

I have found a counselling service in town that works on a sliding scale....thank God! We're finally going to be working through this with a third party who is hopefully insightful and will help us to develop a closer relationship.

WhatAboutNow......for some reason on this website the option to private message you won't work for me. I've attempted to do so without success. I would like to talk with you, someone who understands what I'm going through. Please feel free to PM me.

Happy Easter to everyone, and thank you again to all the kind hearts out there.

ok,I tried to PM you also, and it won't work....so...my email is [email]dstanley15@verizon.net.[/email]