I hope you won't let hubby drive you away from the support here. By the way, he can post here too.

I'm like you, except didn't recover my marriage. My ex had an OW who was 20 years younger than I. The affair ended less than 2 weeks after we divorced.

I think that my H believed that my bad week came as a result of getting involved with MB this week. He now realizes that MB may be what saved my sanity and has apparently started me off to a better week today.

Hi GY,

Sorry you are here. I am also similar in age and length of M except I'm on the D train now.

I don't get much time to post lately, but I try to read threads while I feed the baby (grandson). Long story. You can read my thread if you get time.

Anyway, I am pulling for you and your H....

The tears, moodiness and triggers are all normal.

I had an entire list of triggers that were upsetting. Triggers seemed to come with no warning. But I found that once I worked through them one or two times, they did not seem to be near as bothersome. It was also helpful for H to know which things were bothering me so he could avoid them or just give me a hug at the right time.

I too found this forum very helpful. It is up to you to decide what you need for recovery and your H should be supporting you in that.


And it may be that you may need to hear the same things over and over. I think my H was getting tired of expressing his remorse, but he kept doing it. Like you, I felt bad about him feeling bad. But it was all part of him "getting himself back" because he really was "lost" for many months.


FYI, not to alarm you, but just have an awareness.... Lots of BS get really resentful and angry at around the 6 month post D-day. It seems to be another normal part of the process.

Something else that happened to me that is somewhat similar in our situtions was that when the A was ongoing, I was just starting my retirement. I too had had a demanding, satisfying job. Once retired and having found out about the A, I had some real problems with "self", especially confidence and even decision making about the simplist things. It is all "stuff" to be worked through.

I don't know if this is at all helpful or not. I don't want to frighten you. But you seem like someone who can distinguish which things seem to fit for you and which things don't. I think your M has a great chance of recovery.

AM

Thanks for the heads-up about the six-month mark. We're trying to plan a trip for sometime that month--hope that will give me a change of perspective and something to look forward to. I had a great Sunday and today has begun really well. I spend some time every day--at H's request and my desire--at his work. We also initiated a new come-home-early policy for him. At least two days a week and three if possible, he comes home at 3:00 PM rather than after the normal 5:00 PM store closure. Both he and I look forward to those days. The more we are together, the less time I have to let my wander to the "dark time" as we have come to call it.

Whenever you think of a nugget that will prepare me for a dip in my future recovery, please continue to share. I promise I won't use it as an excuse to spiral downward; I'll try to forestall the pitfalls.

golden years,

I am glad if anything in my story has made you and your H feel better about what lies ahead if you remain on the path you've taken. It's why I HAD to post to you.

During our first year of recovery, I was all over the place emotionally. Don't think there's any other way around it. We did the MB weekend (the sort of thing my H had HATED). Afterward, he moved at his own pace--which felt excruciatingly slow to me and kept me on edge. Your H seems to have "gotten" it more quickly. That can only be GOOD!

You're spending a lot of time with each other and that's great. If you haven't already, get the books His Needs Her Needs and Love Busters. Examine your needs, both of you. List them out and share them. Then set about meeting them in the ways you tell each other will make you feel loved and cherished.

You are BOTH good people, and you can be better partners than you've ever been before. MB offers a PLAN to get there, as quickly as is humanly possible.

We're with you!

Right Here Waiting

Believer,
As I re-read your post from Sunday, I realized that I had not commented on the similarity of the OW in our H's lives. This OW is actually 32 years younger than he and I are. She is younger than our children. She was young and made herself VERY available. It's hard to believe that my husband became involved with someone as classless as she. As a matter of fact, I asked him what he thought people would think if they knew about his A with her. He said he would never have been able to show his face again because she is so different than both he and I are. I hear myself saying this as I type, but then I am brought low again by the fact that this went on for almost three years!

Golden Years

BS 63
WH 63
Married 42 years
1st D-Day EA 11/29/08
2nd D-Da PA 12/12/08

golden,

There's another truism on these boards:

Waywards always "affair down."

They choose affair partners not based on qualities that would make them a good life partner, but on who happens to be available to meet whatever emotional need(s) are driving them at the time. For a mid-life man, that need is often admiration. So, for a while, he thinks she is wonderful, when often she's just an opportunistic low life. He gets hooked on the way he feels about himself when he's around her.

The OW is sooo impressed with his worldly "savvy" and evidence of his financial success and strokes his hurting ego.

Pretty heady stuff for a man who'd felt washed up.

But these OW are never "better people" than the betrayed spouse. How COULD they be, given what they're willing to do? They're often not even as attractive or intelligent as the spouse, BUT given the wayward's needy state of mind, they'll do.

Afterwards, the WS is horrified at his choice. My own FWH stated early into recovery, "I don't know what I was thinking...she was fat and ugly." (Both true, and she proved her internal ugliness as well, when she sent me nasty hate mail, which he termed "vicious." Fog lifts.)

When the BS realizes the miserable state her H had gotten into, and gets busy refocusing on him and recommitted to being the one who meets ALL his important emotional needs, he realizes why he chose her in the first place.

Let the falling in love again begin!

Again, your words are the balm I need.

I read on here somewhere that posting on the same thread is helpful to readers, so here goes...

Week 10 is now two months behind me, and I've felt good about the progress we have made in our recovery. Today, however, I'm confused about my inability to verbalize why I love my FWH. He has been totally dedicated to me since D-Day for PA. We spend all our after-work hours together. He calls me many times during the day, and I visit him at work at lunch time each day. We have put our house on this bad market and we have a contract on a new home--we're both excited about the future. Several weeks ago, DH sent me a beautiful list of reasons and times he is reminded of how much he loves me. Since then he has added to the list several times. The items on the list touch me each time I read them. I tell him I love him at different times each day, but I have been unable to be specific as to why. A couple of days ago, when I was reading the emailed list in his presence, he asked if I could tell him just one similar thing. I could not. Five months ago I could have filled page after page with such specifics, but now all those things seem tainted. I love him. I can't spend the rest of my life without him. Is it normal to be this confused about why I love him?

Ah, Goldenyears, I'm glad I came looking for you tonight. You bring up something I've been thinking about for quite a while now.

Not sure this is what you want to hear, but nearly three years past D-day, I have a hard time listing the actual reasons I love my FWH.

Am I happy and grateful that he dumped OW and chose me? Yes.
Has he been a better husband than ever before? Yes.
Am I happy with the changes I've made in myself? Yes.
Do I believe he truly regrets his A and won't do it again? Yes.
Do I finally feel "safe" with him again? Yes.
Have I finally forgiven him? Yes.

So what's the rub?

In an attempt to figure this out, I've tried running through the list of all the attributes I admire and applying them to him. Hit the wall every time, probably because he hurt me so badly with their exact opposites, in so many ways... and yet I am aware that I DO love him.

All I can come up with is that my problem isn't that I don't love him. I just haven't reached the place where I admire him. Two different things, no? Might we have an "admiration bank" as well as a "love bank?"

I mean, I thank him, express appreciation when he meets an EN, or works through a difficult conversation with me, or just does something sweet. I care about him very much. But as for admiring him in a global sense, I still struggle with that. Maybe it's different when you've been betrayed after so many, many years of marriage, four decades of believing that you KNEW your husband, trusted him so completely, only to have him smash your heart, your confidence, your faith, and everything you believed in, just when you're entering "old age."

It took so much out of me. It's a very real loss. I can rejoice over a rebuilt marriage, but the sadness lingers. What's done cannot be undone, no matter what comes after.

Maybe all this means that I (and we) are not yet fully recovered, I dunno. I am not unhappy, I am just very different inside from how I was before. Having to make such a huge adjustment to a different, much harsher reality at 60 is incredibly difficult. (I imagine our younger counterparts could make the same case for their own situations, and I wouldn't argue...I'm just looking at why it might be this way for ME.)

It isn't resentment that fuels this. Maybe it's fear, or just the after-effects of very deep trauma. I don't think we all react in the exact same way, no pat formulas.

Maybe that inability/refusal to admire is a way of keeping myself safe, deep down inside. It isn't a conscious decision to withhold anything on my part, just a wall I hit. I'm hopeful that as more time goes by, continuing the good stuff we've been building, that I will be free of whatever it is that's causing this. That the scar will fade some more.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Maybe we can work through it together. If anyone else can relate, I hope they'll chime in too.

Right Here Waiting

I was thinking exactly the same thing. I love my husband but don't admire him much anymore. Honesty, integrity, loyalty, faithfulness, trustworthiness, morality, the certainty about the future - all gone. Poof. Gone. Can I ever use these words when describing my FWS again? I hope so. But, not yet. He is trying. He is doing the right things now. The trauma is devastating though. The truth that I mattered so little to him -that he was willing and able to be so heartless toward me is a wound to my soul.

I believe it is because I feel the same way, and we've been in R for 2 years now.

It's funny that I read this today because I have been wrestling with this lately quite a lot.

What I have come up with is that there is a self-defense mechanism that will not ALLOW me to really focus on why I love him...because deep down I know I do, I just cannot figure out WHY, after all that has happened.

I also believe I am angry at myself...why would I love someone who has hurt me so badly? This is not a conscious thought, but one deep down and where the self-defense mechanism kicks in to protect me.

Maybe my sub-conscious thinks that if I only love him superficially, then he can only ever hurt me superficially again as well. [by superficially, I mean "not deeply" rather than "fake". Am I making any sense???]

<shrug> Dunno, but it's something that I have been thinking about some as well.

They are different but for me, admiration and respect precede love...I cannot be "in love" with someone I don't admire or respect, and I think this is my hang-up.

Even though our FWHs are doing all of the right things NOW, they have a LOT of "just compensation" to do in order to make up for the slaughtering of our hearts and souls.

And I think that just takes time...so we just keep plugging along, hoping that someday that level of admiration and respect comes back SO THAT we can feel like we are "in love" with them once again.

IMHO, that is.

Bingo, MF. Self-defense mechanism. Just below your fully conscious control, but enough to taunt you. Yep. That's it.

Interesting that several people have echoed our concern here, isn't it, goldenyears? And here I thought it was just me...

Thanks for jumping in folks. Doesn't change anything, but it does make me feel less abnormal.

Back to my old mantra: Patience and faith.

right...I just saw in your sig line where it says "Still can't believe it."

I feel the EXACT SAME WAY. It STILL hits me out of the blue sometimes that my H had an A and I get that kicked-in-the-stomach feeling and the PTSD kicks in.

Last night I had REALLY BAD DREAMS about all of this...I HATE it when that happens because I cannot control what I dream about and then I wake up up angry, agitated and irritable.

My H has apologized profusely but my head is all messed up today after those dreams...it feels like it just happened all over again.

ARGH.

Is there something in the air? Feel the same and had a nightmare about the A a couple nights ago. Not only was the A devastating and still living with the feeling of disbelief, but the trickle truth and details wear on me at times. I'm glad I got the truth and detail but some are more hurtful than others. It's still a little scary to let my defenses down after knowing what H did to me.

It's VERY scary to let our defenses down and that is why the self-defense mechanism kicks in, not ALLOWING us to truly be vulnerable.

And loving someone deeply makes you VERY vulnerable...probably why we can't feel that deep level of love.

Just thinking out loud here...because I can't totally figure this out either. It bothers me but not as much as I think it should...it's easier and safer to feel less "in love" than I once did...for I know I can't be hurt as badly this way.

It is kind of sad, however...I miss the feeling of innocently being in love with my husband without any fear thwarting those feelings.

It is sad. H tries to reassure me he will never cheat or hurt me like that again...that he will never have such little respect for himself and others. But you know what...I thought that of him before and look what happened. It's not that I don't believe what he is saying, but that feeling of "you already did" still nags at me.

Looking back at all the sh&t the BS has eaten during R doesn't help either. Maybe time is the key to rebuild the feeling of trust, safety, respect, etc. I know I'll never forget but can't wait until the memories fade.

My M was of the longer term variety too (35Yrs) and although my WH has chosen not to recover the M, for a long time I struggled with whether or not I would be able to do it. Could I put it behind me? My issue is the extent of the betrayal. I never in my life thought he could be capable of some of the things that he did. And when I spoke with OW, she knew things about him that I didn't know, and knew things about our life together that I thought was between the two of us. That's what hurt the most.

Anyway, I asked myself many times why I still loved the jerk, and the answer is because he is my family and has been for 35 years. All the qualities that I admired are gone though. I wouldn't be able to list any other reason right now as to why I love him.