I hate that I too have this cynical definition of marriage at this point .


Ouch that hurts!

Yup...

But even if we do fully recover, she will never understand that.

I hope for your sake that she does.

I know that in order for my H to fully recover I need to get that he was unhappy prior to A. I need to get that in order to see how his needs were not being met and how that affected him and the choices that he made. I need to get that he was sad prior to the A and I was not bringing happiness to his life like I can and should.
The same way he needs to get how much this whole matter of the A had broken my heart. He is my one true love and it is painful for me to get over this heartache. I think that me being attacked by this depression (horrible as it is) is a clear visible indicator of how much this hurts.

When we both understand each others pain and learn the mistakes we made that led to it, we can perhaps prevent ourselves from causing each other pain in the future. May be that is the point of full recovery.

Wannamoveforward,

Having just read your entire thread, I am blown away by your last post. You have nailed exactly what the issue is, once the dust of D-Day has settled.

I think it is the hardest part of recovery (once you stop reeling in agony from the initial trauma, anyway), and I suspect it takes a long time to work through.

I think that the reason it is so hard, and the reason it takes so long (at least for me) is that it involves developing a deep sense of empathy. Hard to empathize with somebody's pain when it's what THEY did that is causing the worst pain YOU'VE ever felt in your life. Only a long period of loving and being loved and feeling truly safe with each other can permit such empathy. Still working on that.

But that's just my take.

As far are the anniversary thing, I can really relate to your feelings about it. I discovered FWH's A 5 days before our anniversary, although I hadn't yet told him I knew. I sent him a dozen red roses at the office, as an expression of care. Do you know what he did with them? TOOK THEM TO OW's HOUSE AND GAVE THEM TO HER!!! That memory causes a real problem for me at anniversary time, but less this year than last.

So, the passing of time is a factor too, when you realize he chose YOU in the end. Now the flowers he gave her mean so much less than the fact that he dumped her and truly committed fully to ME. Who knows where SHE is, and who CARES? It feels GOOD to be able to say that, and to know it.

You are still so early in recovery to be seeing these things. Be patient with yourself. I think you're doing great.

Right Here Waiting

Thanks so much for the positive encouragemnt. I guess step one is "getting it", Step 2 is "implementing it".
I am still definately at Step one and I have to practice patience and work at step 2. Like you said its hard thru the pain to remember that the other person here needs support and recovery too.

Today is a much better day, yesterday I could not get out of bed to make dinner for the kids or do homework or anything. I let myself wallow, called H and said please come home at a reasonable hour and deal with kids. He did. Made them dinner made me somthing too, ( pretty bad food LOL I must say) and it really helped me when I was really really low.
Today I forced my self to be in normal routine and its been much better.
Made a date with my GF for breakfast tomorrow am. She is a really wise soul that always helps me see things the way they are. I am looking forward to spending a morning doing something that makes me happy.
I feel like I am doing all I can to help put me in the right track of dealing with the roadblocks as they come.
I was hoping that the roller coaster would be over by now but thats not the case. The ups and downs are not as close together as post D day but the intesity of the highs and lows is still surprisingly severe.
I cant wait to be off this ride and back on steady ground.

I am conflicted about you saying that I am early in recovery. On one hand it feels like oh my gosh its been so much time and this is only the begining yet, Darn. On the other hand my mind goes Thank god this is not near the end cause that means there is much room for improvement and it gives me hope that it can be A LOT BETTER.

I remember when a day felt like a month and a week felt like a year. All part of the initial trauma. That WILL pass, and time will soon be "normal" again. One of my best moments was when I realized that a day felt like a day again. Give it a couple more months. And you will feel SO much better when that happens, even if you're still Plan A-ing your butt off.


"Made a date with my GF for breakfast tomorrow am. She is a really wise soul that always helps me see things the way they are. I am looking forward to spending a morning doing something that makes me happy."

Bravo!!!! LIFE GOES ON, even when you're a mess. Give yourself a break from time to time. "All Affair/All The Time" is VERY taxing, as you've already discovered. Take care of you in little ways like this to prevent burnout.

Roller coaster will not come to a stop for some time to come, but you will find that it doesn't whip around quite so wildly after a while. And the ups and downs won't happen so often. I remember in the early weeks, my FWH and I would have a meltdown about every 4 days. That's all I could manage without the pain and emotions spilling over into LBs. Then, after a while, I noticed it was 10 days, then a couple of weeks. NOW, we go MONTHS without any unpleasantness at all! I never would've thought it possible, but the emotions DO simmer down when both of you start meeting ENs, avoiding LBs and spending those 15 hours a week of pleasant time together.

Really. Hang on. It's a marathon, not a sprint -- as they like to say here.

Right Here Waiting