Withdrawal started on Tuesday, as BigK said. You started all over.

Thanks BigK and ML.
Assuming she maintains NC, and I know that is a big assume.
How long does it normally take for any feelings to start to return?
This is tearing me apart

Brae:

BK and Owl are speaking to what will be happening going forward.

Remember the timelines, and remember that your W and your M did not get here overnight. So do not expect it to get fixed overnight...

Construct a plan, With assistance from the good posters already on your thread, and your W will be back.

Spark?

Heck, the FLAMES will be there!

LG

Thanks for everyones comments.
I always was impatient, but seriously this is really hurting me. If NC is maintained then are we taking weeks, months or years.

How long it takes before things start coming back is really dependent on a lot of things. How long the affair went on, how intense was it. The state of the marriage before the affair started, if it was bad, the intensity and duration of the bad times vs. the intensity and duration of the good.

Right now, your wife probably won't believe it was ever good. WS's commonly 're-write history' in their own minds about the marriage. My wife did...at first, right after d-day it was "I've not been happy for YEARS!". As the time went on, it went down to "I've not been happy for the last couple of years", and finally down to "I've not been happy for the last year"...which I knew to be the truth.

Right now, stick to plan A. Be there for her, make the changes you need to make for yourself to become a better man and better husband, and keep fighting to ensure that NC remains in place. Look for opportunities to show her the changes you've made without being clingy or whiney...that's very unattractive.

Make sense?

Good advice! And also make sure you LOOK attractive. Get some nice, new clothes, [that MATCH! and no Walmart clothes] a decent haircut, [no barbers, please] and some new cologne. Pay close attention to personal grooming like daily showers, clean teeth, good smelling breath.

WEEKS is probably more like it. But as Owl pointed out, there are lots of variables.

WS told me last night she is finding it really hard to maintain NC. I think this is her way of telling me she has or is planning to meet him again. She says she thinks she wants live with him. Gave her some cold hard truths such as telling her she could go live with him if she wanted but DD was staying with me.
She said she could not leave DD behind and so she would stay and try and keep to NC.
Any help would be appreciated, I am trying to stick to plan A but feel I am losing her.
I know it is still early days, still under 4 weeks since D-ay 1 and only 8 days since I found out she had broken NC.

Actually, it sounds to me like you're setting a proper boundary here. She CAN choose to go, she CAN choose to violate NC...but if she does, YOU won't accept that in your life and marriage and will take appropriate action to deal with it.

Tell her you can understand how hard NC is for her right now...but you KNOW that it will get easier with time. She won't believe it right now, but it IS true. It DOES. If she's rational, explain the addiction aspects of the affair...and just like an addiction, it can be overcome with time and effort.

Keep the plan A up...CARROT AND STICK. Work hard on that carrot...show her you love her, care for her, etc...show her you know she's hurting and you want to help her deal with it. Show her that you're the more attractive choice here. And keep your boundaries with NC in place. Violation of NC results in renewed exposure and active measures on your part to protect your marriage.

Seriously...keep this balance up for a while, and it CAN win your wife back. It did mine...and I didn't have anyone teaching/helping me with this...I fumbled through it on my own.

You CAN do this...keep that in mind friend!

OWL. Thanks for the re-assurance. It just feels at the moment like she is slipping away from me.

I am trying to meet my wifes EN's, but conversation with her is almost impossible at the moment, no matter how hard I try I just can't get any real response from her. I am trying to avoid talking about the A as much as possible and trying to talk to her about other things but the conversation is so strained.
Any advice on how I can start wooing her again!!!??

braeworth, I honestly think you are going to have to expose this affair before it gets out of control. She is either still in contact or is planning on it, I assure you. Most likely the former because she is not withdrawing. You have complicated things for her by telling her you would not make it easy to leave, but that has not stopped her, only forced her to go further underground.

You are not going to see any real response from her until this affair is killed and she gets through withdrawal. The only way to effect that is to kill the affair. Exposure can inflict a huge blow to the affair, if not kill it off.

ML. Thanks for your comments, I think this time she is maintaining NC. She is very low again. The thought of not been with DD really hit home, she is a fantastic mother.
My main concern at the moment is that, while I know she is in the fog and now in withdrawal, her story has not really changed, in that she says she will give it a few months to see if we can make this work for DD. All along though, she keeps saying she feels empty towards me and thinks she wants to go her own way and make her own decisions and her own mistakes. I have adopted Plan A and am working really hard but I am so worried that her mind is already made up.

Well, my first thought was that if her mind was already made up, she would have been gone days/weeks ago and this conversation would have been proven moot already.

My second thought was that even IF her mind was already made up, that still doesn't mean that she can't change her mind. Read my story sometime...my wife was moved out of the house, living in a motel room for 4 days while waiting for her flight to go meet OM and live with him. I went to see her early the morning of the day she was supposed to fly. End result...she didn't fly. We're 3 years into recovery.

She says her mind 'wasn't made up'. But it was...I know my wife better than anyone, and it wouldn't have gotten to where it was if that wasn't the case. BUT...she still didn't fly. Later on, she 'hadn't decided' on what she was going to do...but my unwitting 'plan A' convinced her otherwise.

You can do the same...it sounds to me like you're doing the right things, you just need to hold the hope that things CAN get better. They CAN...I'm there now.

Thanks Owl.
The sad thing is that we still and always have got on so well we just sort of took each other for granted.

Been there and done that, my friend. You, like me, probably like a ton of us, would have NEVER believed that your marriage could have gotten to this state. Next thing you know, here you are.

Our MC was AWESOME...and he pointed out something that my wife and I hadn't thought of...and I'd bet that you wouldn't have thought of either. Marriages take MAINTENANCE...work to keep healthy.

Here's a good side-read for you sometime. Find a book "20 (Surprisingly Simple) Rules and Tools for a Great Marriage" by Dr Steve Stephens. Our MC recommended it...and it gives a GREAT idea on some of that maintenance that can be done...and you can start applying a lot of it now, even while she's in withdrawl.

Combine that with what you learn from "His Needs, Her Needs"...you've got a good basis on which to rebuild your marriage from.

Thanks I'll take a look at that

Or, she realises that, while staying together isn't want she really wants, leaving will only make life even more difficult for her.

She told me this morning that she still finds me attractive but feels numb towards me. This really is so difficult for me, I am trying to hold it together and not let her see my crying.
She keeps telling me she will give it a few months and see how things are going but she feels so sad at the moment that she cannot carry on forever like this.
She tells me that she feels as though she has missed out on things and wants to branch out on her own.
She says if she can re-find the passion for me then she will stay but at the momnet she thinks she would rather move on.
I just hope her feelings for me start to return soon becuase this is killing both of us

Brae,

Have you listened to ANYTHING anyone has said to you?

Why are you expecting anything like this when she continues in contact (as recent as last week) and hence is still attached to OM?????

After NC is established, figure on her STILL feeling like this for 8 weeks.

What about exposure?

And don't cry in front of her - I guarantee she won't find that attractive.