You remind me of me in your situation at the time. My husband was the same - he wanted to move fast because he wanted a better relationship. He acts now like it never happened. But there are times that come up where I'm reminded. He wore a shirt the other day and I told him it was the same shirt he wore when he went out last summer. He took it off and kissed me. Your wife will come back to you and your relationship will be better than ever - trust me. My husband wanted me to find out about his EA. He wanted a change and I did too. Unfortunaley it took the EA to make it happen. We both sabotaged our relationship. Now that we understand each other's needs, have fallen in love again, our recovery has been great.

It is typical of WS to want to put this behind them. Do not confuse this with recovering. The BS must drive the recovery bus. If you allow the WS to set the terms for R you will find yourself with unresolved issues of anger and resentment in the future. He who caused the offense must make restitution. Many BS on these forums have lamented months and even years later that they set the bar too low for R or that they let their WS set the bar.

As difficult as it may seem right now and as tempting as it is to not want to rock the boat of this "honeymoon" period of R, it is much harder to pull off the scabs and treat the real wound later. Ackowledgement of the hurt is a deal breaker IMHO.

GA, from your other posts, you seem to still harbor alot of resentment. How long since your D-day?

God's Blessings,

Say

Everyone seems to know the Dday - for me it seemed over a week's time early last August. I do get resentful that's why I've been here a lot lately. But it seems like I'm not the only one. How to get over resentment seems to be a big one for BSs. I beat myself up daily with guilt for feeling resentful because my WH has been great and will do anything to make sure I feel secure in the relationship.

She has aknowledged the hurt and apologized many time for it. The resentment fades daily but it seems to take forever.

I've read here that resentment usually kicks in six months after A. Here it is a year later for me and it still comes up sometimes. I think being here at this site has helped lessen the resentment. I think because of what happened memories are implanted in the brain and as much as you fight it the memories come back and resentment kicks in. I just keep telling myself I cannot undo the past and I have to focus on the now and future. Also it probably will always bother me that I would not have made a choice to have an A but my husband did. In this case maybe it's about valueing the person and the relationship. When I think about the choices he made I felt worthless and I would would have not done this to him. If I look at our relationship now he did a 180 degree and I'm thankful - I've never felt so valued and loved by him. You will get to this point with your wife.

GA,
Thanks for the support and insight. I just want to lead a faily "normal" life again. We have 2 DS 14 & 10. They just get tired of all of this stuff. They know the whole story. I wish I had there ability to forget. The 14 y.o said "M what you did was wrong and you should not have done it. D it is in the past and you can't change it. You love each other so why not forgive her and just move on?"

I guess you can really learn a lot from your kids.

You have great kids to be so aware. You could try writing a forgiveness letter to your wife. Actually I should do the same. The letter is intended to release you from anger that bonds you to the experience (Dr. Phil's Life Strategy chapter on forgiveness). I'll let you know how I feel afterwards!

This stuck out in my mind. The normal life you had before will not be the normal life again. After my H and I did the EN we discovered our top three needs were totally ignored in our marriage and we had to seriously improve the way we communicate. Do you know why your W went to someone else? What was the need that she was missing and are you working on that now? Just curious as to what progress you're making. It took us about eight months of work on our relationship to really start feeling secure in our relationship.

G

I know that the normal before will not be the normal now or in the future. There has to be something better than what we have ben going through though. We are working hard on the issues. We took the EN questinaire and found that communication was in need of serious work. We are doing much better. Our conflict resolution is horrible. We are working on that but it is a slow tedious process. Both strong willed I guess. We just need to learn to comprimise and negotiate. Not have everything my way or hers. I think now that the hurt is beginning to subside it will be easier for me. I know she has some hurt because I haven't always been the most pleasant person since D-Day. Several LB's here and there. I have corrected that problem so hopefully everything can move forward.

I wasn't pleasant either and I wanted to divorce him. We went to MC and we used this site. It was through MC where I changed my mind about divorce. The MC took my tearful phone calls from me and supported me. I think that helped me deal with what was going on. You both sound like you had the same problems as my husband and I. The MC gave us a daily exercise we had to do (for communication and listening.) One of us would pick a topic and had to list three feelings about the topic. We had to stay away from using the word "You." The feelings had to be about "I". After your done, your spouse has to repeat what you said. It was intersting to see how my husband perceived what I said. Poor conflict resolution spilled out into how we handled conflicts with our kids. In MC we learned that we had to work together and come up with decisions we agreed on. You select the conflict, determine the worst that can happen, list several resolutions and determine the solution together. And we had to agree not to make decisions about the kids without consulting each first. There's a really good article on this site about negotiating. We're still a work in progress but we are much better at communicating, handling conflict resolution and being affection (something else we needed to improve upon).

Been working with the same basic concepts on conflict resolution. It is very interesting to hear how my W percieves what I said. Often not even close. We do extremely well on affection and everything else. Communication needs work but is coming along. I just want to quit arguing.

Are you arguing about the "why" of her EA? Or are the arguments about other aspects of your marriage?

Mostly the why. I know I will never understand. I am just stubborn about it I guess. That one is on me. I'm getting better. Her job is a source of stress for me also. She is way overworked and comes home tired alot. I've discussed this with her and she understands but we all have to have a job.

While we all may have to have a job, that does not mean we need to have a job that prevents us from giving our best to our family. Truly, if she cannot find a way to manage her job...perhaps it is time to start looking elsewhere.

How sure are you that this affair never became physical?

Very. I have checked with friends, family, co-workers, even her boss. I am sure it never did becomes physical.

The part of the "why" that the two of you need to figure out is the part that will ensure that she does not do it again. That is where the Marriage Builders principals come in: Radical Honesty, Policy of Joint Agreement, Identifying and meeting Emotional Needs, eliminating private behavior, setting boundaries, etc,etc. It sounds like you are well on your way to working on all of those aspects of recovery.

The thing that I still had a hard time with was the fact that HE DID THIS TO ME. All of the work that we did relating to Marriage Building did not eliminate the fact that HE DID THIS TO ME. I would ask him questions and talk to him in some way I think hoping or wanting to find that HE DID NOT DO THIS TO ME, or the answer to why HE DID THIS TO ME. Sure, I found some answers. But the real answer I wanted was not available--the answer that said:

'oh, no, nothing like that really happened, how could something like THAT happen to US, no it did not happen.'

You know that answer that you are looking for?....You won't find that answer....Because it did happen. Sounds like you caught it in its early stage and she got a grip on herself.

Are you setting limits on the time that you spend grilling her to find out why she did it to you and to try to find out that she did not really do this to you after all ? Seriously, it is good to set a time frame for these questions and provide some limit to that time frame. Keep date night if possible for fun and re-connecting to each other. If you are like me, it was hard to do that, but the two of you will be better off if you can enjoy each other on some nights with no affair-talk.

Had not set limits on talking about it until 3 weeks ago. Our date nights, the subject rarely if ever comes up. We know why we became distant and did not communicate. We are working on those issues and they are coming along nicely.

I have never heard the "why" answer put like you did. You are 100% correct. I remember thinking she would not do this to me. Not the woman I married. Guess that proves were all just human doesn't it?

Yes, we are all human.