will take your advise on getting tested....... ug.

2b you are alot stronger than you know. I know that my anger comes through pretty strong in this post. I did like you. I didnt kick him out sooner, I live with the hindsight of wondering if I got super aggressive right from the start that maybe I wouldnt have some of the memories that are the cause of all this grief. At times I really despise myself because of the lack of strength that I showed in not stepping up to the plate at the first and saying enough RIGHT NOW.

Believing his lies even after he was shown to show no problem in continueing on with his evil.

That said. Perhaps it went exactly as it should have. She is gone, I am here, and so is he. The family remains mostly intact. I still believe in redemption, I just dont know how to get it in this situation.

My biggest problem is that I am not an indurance person. This has gone on for longer than I have the ability to deal with. It has to stop somehow. I need to feel like when I walk out the door and see the beauty of the things around me that there isnt a cloud of doom in the sky. I dont want to see the scars anymore, and I consider them very ugly, with no way in my own mind of seeing them as some sort of learning experience, or a way for growth, or allowing me a closer relationship with God.

God and I are on barely speaking terms. I do pray, for guidance, for strentgth, but in the end I find myself exceptionally bitter that he didnt throw me a lifeline when it was so despartly needed. Free will is one thing, allowing a slaughter to occur without some divine intervention still strikes me as unbelievably cruel. And it was and is a slaughter.

I think his affair fog has lifted, it is mine that remains, it blocks out the sun.

I want to have my own relationship with the ow to end. I want nc with her. I know that sounds strange. We havent heard from her for a year. I think about her all the time. I am obsessed with the memory of her, and I hate her more than any other thing in this planet. I recognize that this is totally self destructive. I want her to go away, I want the memory of her to go where she belongs, in the trash. She is totally not worth the air she breathes much less any of my time, but she still remains in my head. I want her out. Just like the harleys say, nc has to be maintained before recovery can be acheived. He has honored the nc, but I cant seem to as long as I obsess about what she could have done or not done, or be that I am not that caused her to go to him.

It could easily be said, why dont you hate dh then? Because I did and still do love him, even if he didnt love me. That complicates things a bit. I know that others will not believe me when I say that I have forgiven him, but that still does not make anything better. I dont have to hate him, he does enough of that himself. I see it in his eyes. And it is much more easy to avoid the whole mess than to see what must look back at him in the mirror. So he avoids, meeting needs, asking for needs, or anything other than him trying to be a good man, even after his dramatic fall.

He recognizes that he suffers from a near fatal miss, of his own choosing, and free will that almost cost him everything. I doubt he feels worthy of anything anymore and I dont have much to give dealing with my own demons. I try to be supportive, but my own emotional bank is empty.

We are both in a fog bank now, mine of unrelenting memories, and his of unrelenting guilt. We cant save each other because we are both lost, clinging together, but rarely actually finding each other in the gloom.

people have said the same thing about me, Hurt,....that i am stronger than i think i am. after all i guess, look what i've gone through!!! look what you're going through! it's horrendous and ugly and showing up on my face unfortunately. :-( i've prided myself for looking good and young all these years and in a matter of a year's time i sometimes feel i look my age or older! ug. don't know what my husband thinks i look like....and i ask, does it matter, ....well, to me it does. that's why we have to take care of ourselves...

i, too, wonder if we had been more stable financially and i had stepped up to the plate in the beginning.....would we be this deep right now.....possibly not. we'll never know cause we're on this road....not that one...

be happy that she is gone! i'm certainly happy on my end! but will we ever be free from the worry that they might do something out of spite... i pray for no contact! the one thing that is said over and over on this site is that the longer the time of NC is....the greater than chances for survival..... or something to that effect. so i am grateful for every single day that goes by that i don't have to worry anymore that she will contact him. my H is taking steps to help prevent that in all areas to which i am thankful as well.

i don't blame God for not throwing me a lifeline to save my marriage before the A happened.....but i do blame my H for not being man enough to talk to me straight up and tell me what was bothering him. if God 'fixed' everything before it happened, we would have no reason for a free will to make choices...we wouldn't have choices then because God would take it away from us by fixing everything. he wants us to love him by choice.......not because he created us to do that without choosing to... so, you and i have stood by our men all these years and have been able to make the choice not to venture off in a different direction with someone else. our H's on the other hand weren't as strong as we have been. i hope some day my H will tell me that he is glad that i 'chose' to stick it out with him on this ugly road.

i can tell you this website has helped. i know i keep saying that, but it truly has. and you are right when you say, 'she is gone, you are here, he is here. and your family remains mostly intact.' that is a blessing....yes, i said a blessing that you can hold on to. it could all be over and each of you picking up the broken pieces of your marriage trying to cope alone (instead of together!), children's hearts being ripped and torn beyond comprehension trying to deal with a broken family. start looking for the 'positives' in yourself, your kids, and yes, in your man! it's easier to see all the negative but we must force ourselves to latch on to the glimmers of hope, whatever they are, no matter how small or big they might be.

look for the positives. keep your head up!

Hurt,

KEEP POSTING HERE! you will be helped! when i started posting it was recommended that my H start posting too. i left it completely up to him if he wanted to or not.....i was pleased he did.

i so remember the 'fog'....although i never really looked at my hauntings as a 'fog' persay.... my H is so guilt ridden, but getting better just since posting here. those posting to him are helping him work through things.

we don't read each other's posts but i'll admit...i'm tempted to. i think it's cause he's sharing everything with the world (or at least on this site), and not with me. i hope in time we'll both be to a place that we can share so open and honestly that it won't hinder us....not to say something would never hurt to say or have to hear. i just want total honesty in our relationship. i can't go through this again.

i, too, have never really hated my H, and have forgiven him, but i sure have been in and out of hating the OW.....they both did this but now that she's 'gone' (and don't get me wrong....i am SO HAPPY FOR THAT!), but i'm left with a H in a fog and withdrawal because of her!!! he has truly gotten better and his mood swings aren't as great or often. my H, too, hates what he has become and is willing to work at becoming a better husband and father for his kids.

i would encourage you to ask your H to post....or at least share the website with him and allow him to read and glean what he can....maybe something will click for him too....

I have learned more than i have ever wanted to know about A's, but i am grateful to have this site to learn from and to have the support from people i don't even know. there's just a real feeling of caring in this place.....

i hate to say 'give it some time' but unfortunately (as i've had to learn too), it's gonna take time....

In some ways I wish that b*tch would make contact again. It would give me an excuse to unload this horrendous anger and pain on her.

If I could, I would tell her how much ill will I have towards her. How I wish that everything that she touches fails. How the world would be a much better place without her and hope that she does the right thing by just dying.

And how these feelings destroy me, a person that never has felt this much hatred. A person who believed that by the grace of God and our human nature that we could transcend our base instincts and truely become like our maker in our ability to be more than just an animal.

How her and my dh's betrayal of me and the divine nature of us all puts into question my belief in a higher power, a greater good, to be truly human in the face of adversity and to show compassion and empathy for strangers.

Instead, they both made the choice to harm everyone around them for a rush of illicet sex and secrecy. Free will is great but with it comes great responsibility, one that you both did not apparently take as seriously as I do.

The fall from grace of knowing that if I say "I am harmed, I am being destroyed, please stop" was largely ignored by both you, my husband, and God.

Because of you I will never see myself in the same way again. A person with endless compassion and empathy. A person that would never knowingly hurt another, a person who was imperfect but only because I was made that way. I have been replaced by an angry stranger, that I do not like and do not trust because of my previous mistake of trusting everyone. I hate that I look at myself as being foolish for trusting someone that perhaps in a fairy tale should have been trusted but in reality was happy to make me miserable for his own ends.

well i don't know what to say except that i hear your anger.... this is a safe place to do your venting...i have done it myself as well.

hopefully it will relieve some of that anger you are holding inside..... talk out loud as you type, it will be like you are actually speaking it to her - - or maybe yelling... lol (sorry for the humor) just don't punch your screen.