after six years of fog from my WW It is nice to see that even with all that is going on, the both of you are here. I understand all that you are going through, the fog can be so thick with a ws.

The thing is my heart is on edge reading this post, as everytime you or Coho have a breakthrough, or a better understanding of each other I smile. I spent six years trying to get my M to the point you are at now. I have great faith in the two of you and pray for the best.

Nothing great comes easy, and nothing easy is great. Fight for what the two of you need in each other.

OK, so maybe I'm not crazy for wanting to save this. Thanks Lie2me. Encouraging words!

I had my 2nd session with Dr. Harley this morning. It was pretty good although my head is so outta whack with a sinus bug that I probably wasn’t as articulate as I'd have liked to be.

Funny, we're still kinda concentrating on Coho's steps and my place in working through them. Her first step was the No Contact Plan. Next one is the What, When, Where, How of the affair. The details. Oh boy. Pretty nervous about this one, as is Coho, I think. Funny thing is, there's not much she can say that's any worse than the imagination, so I'm sure I've thought of just about every possibility. When Coho asked me not to look at her thread, it turned out to be a blurb on the attraction of the affair - the visceral newness of falling for someone. Funny thing is, I had already accepted that from the start... I could imagine it for myself. Who doesn't want that? How can a marriage compete with that? So that didn't really get me too much considering. Frankly, I think I can handle this, although I know it's gonna hurt. I hope she's brave enough to be honest and answer questions directly. That's never been a shortcoming of hers (wink), but this is kinda different.

We talked about trying to keep working on 'closing the gaping wound' for me before we get going too far on the marriage stuff.

Had a thoroughly enjoyable evening with Coho. We watched Step Brothers which was pretty funny. She took very good care of me in my germy state and bravely laid on some wonderful kisses, despite my contagiousness.

I want to write a little about triggers. Right now my entire life is littered with them. I don't even think I could get rid of many of them if I tried because they're so interwoven into regular life. Here are a few:

- The affair took place pretty close to our house. It's not unusual to pass his apartment or a place they hung out. I never really say anything, but I think I should start making her aware? (advice?) I even drove behind him the other day.

- Music. The music that made me cry during this, the music that Coho listened to through this is totally tainted. Some songs I simply can't listen to.

- Perfume. She's been wearing a new scent for awhile and I totally associate it with this period of my life.

- Holidays. This all happened through the holiday season. Worst period of my life bar-none. If I could just wipe this fall and winter out of my mind, I'd be very happy. The upside is that it has gone by extremely quickly.

- Pink stockings. On a day together right before D-Day, she bought some thigh high stockings. Cute and sexy. I know she wore them with him several times. Totally ruined for me.

- Bars/drinking. I want to be able to share a responsible adult life with my wife. Unfortunately bars and drinking have been at the center of this mess and will take a long time to be less associated with it.

- Facebook. This is where I first saw the guy. I can go look at his page any day. He was on my wife's page all along and I didn't think a thing of it. Yeah, Facebook is pretty tainted. I also associate it with self-absorbed attention getting which I also associate with the affair.

Anyway, those are some big ones. Some I think I'll address with her, some I think I can move past eventually.

Oh yeah, during the movie last night there is a woman married to a complete jerk. She desperatly wants to be loved and jumps all over one of the dorky main characters. It was really over-the-top, funny, and just plain creepy by normal standards, but it was also really hard to watch given the state of my life. Any movie featuring an affair strikes me dumb for awhile.

Zen - first post to you.

One's whole perspective will change once bitten by adultery. Go to a restaurant and see a giggling in love couples holding hands and you wonder for just a second if they are married to each or married to someone else.

Check in a hotel and the couple ahead of you in the hallway are arm and arm and you take a second to wonder if they are married to each other or to someone else.

Before adultery - you would not have had a thought

Zen: Those triggers are awful little buggers aren't they? There's a certain restaurant chain I can't go to--not because they ever went there togther (it was an EA) but because she said it was her favorite place and even sent him a gift card once (which I sent back).

The entire state that she lives in is a trigger to me. And the music H mentions in his emails and chats to her--even though I loved some of it up until that point. Not part of my life anymore.

Gmail (their secret accounts)

S*cks, doesn't it?

I have a friend whose husband had a longer term A, then came clean and admitted it. She totally wigged out but he did everything by the book to recover the marriage and went into some intensive IC on his own. This year for Valentine's Day, she wanted to skip it because the OW mentioned something once about "their" day. Instead of just allowing that, her FWH picked her up from work the day before, took her to a hotel by the airport (because they like to watch planes take off and land), booked an overnight room. They had room service, a romantic evening and breakfast the next day and watched the planes from their balcony.

She's totally not triggering on Valentine's Day anymore. He managed to reclaim the day--even told her that's what he was trying to do.

So I guess triggers can be undone.

Just a quick update today... I'm working through the nastiest of head cold/flu things ever. Trying to put together a 30 page proposal for my work due on Tuesday and I can barely think!!!

Coho is taking very good care of me and weathering our bored and listless kids while she job hunts, does laundry, cooks and works on us. If you check out her thread, you can tell her that I think she's wonderful and I really feel like we're on the right track.

I know she's stressed about money and her job and I think she read my post about triggers which further stresses her out. I'm hoping she can remember to just lean on me and work with me when she's stressed. I have that bizarre feeling of invulnerability that I think some BS acquire after an affair. I've faced and accepted my worst fear: The breakup of my family. Nothing else scares me right now. We're going to have to be creative with money until Coho can find work. She's an absolute hotrod when it comes to finding work, but our job market is very very tight right now with almost 11% unemployment.

Anyway, she's having a rough day so cheer her up if you stop by her thread. I have no complaints about our progress right now.

"I have that bizarre feeling of invulnerability that I think some BS acquire after an affair. I've faced and accepted my worst fear: The breakup of my family. Nothing else scares me right now."

I have that. This is the best time to go out and do stuff that used to scare the **** out of you. I am LOVING it.

And she is doing great, lots of progress. Well done to you both. Keep it up

hey Zen,

hows the cold?

Coho made an incredible dinner last night and I think my sense of taste was functioning at about 25%. Very sad.

Today I'm feeling a lot better. I have quite the armada of remedies going in, so maybe they're actually helping?

Thanks for asking!

Coho just left for work after helping me with my work for a couple hours. When she gets back we're off for a date night to see a friend's band and whatever else we can find to do. I'm going to go run the kids into the ground at an indoor playground and get my mind off work. Woo!

Good to hear about the wellness.

Excellent to hear about date night. Have a blast, make lots of $LB

Thanks!

Had some time to get my mind off work for awhile today. Coho is at work... I find myself slipping back into that question of "why and how did this all happen?"

When we're getting along really well, it's easy to kind of put those thoughts out of my head with the sense of relief that maybe we're moving forward. But all the STUFF is just right there under the surface if I'm not careful. Still having those pangs of doubt. Wondering why this is different, wondering if there's still contact. Wondering what feelings she still has for him, what feelings she has for me.

I'm excited about date night. Despite it's very cruddy recent history, it will be a permanent part of the week from now on. We need to learn how to be husband and wife again after just being mommy and daddy for so much of our life.

"When we're getting along really well, it's easy to kind of put those thoughts out of my head with the sense of relief that maybe we're moving forward. But all the STUFF is just right there under the surface if I'm not careful. Still having those pangs of doubt. Wondering why this is different, wondering if there's still contact. Wondering what feelings she still has for him, what feelings she has for me."

This is normal, and only time and consistant actions from her will mute this. Sorry, no easy answer for Recovery

Thanks, Lil'. Really she's doing as well as can possibly be expected. I mean if there wasn't this thing between us, I'd say on the surface we're as caring and loving and attentive to each other as we've been for many many years. I do believe if this keeps up, this is the path to a renewed marriage for us. Like you say, time, time, TIME. Sigh. Heck, my anxiety level is at about 6% of what it was in January and February. I think I'll just try to remember how much better I feel now.

Tell me how you feel in August, then again in December.
It really does get better.
For me there are days of mild madness. I'll trigger or something will set off those insecurities. I have a plan that i follow then that helps me, and when it passes, life is good again.

The time thing sucks because it takes so freaking long LOL But it really is it and the longer I do this the more I understand that. Shame we cant get instant wisdom on the day Recovery starts.

Posting to others helps reinforce what you learn as well.

I'm nervous calling this recovery yet. We've had too many false starts. It certainly feels much different than the others at least.

Yes, it has been nice to be able to help people a little further back in their process or to at least provide some perspective. I'm also amazed my wife is here. Just now getting over how weird that was at first.

What is it about date night?

We had a pretty bad night. Nothing on the level of the horrid drunken disasters of the last several meltdowns, but this was pretty crappy all the same. I started off in kind of a bad mood. I had about 3 days in a row of just feeling kinda normal. Feeling like my wife loved me and we were just living and working together and enjoying each other.

She works at this sports bar on weekends you may remember. She was supposed to get off at 6:00 on her shift yesterday. They make pizza at this place so I texted Coho to ask her to bring home a pizza. Just after 6:00 she texted back asking what kind. I responded. Half an hour later she said, 'you got it.' Anyway, she finally got home at 7:40. It's at MOST a 15 minute drive to our house. During the last few months this was consistent. She would have her 'shift drink' before heading home from work. It usually took an hour or two. It was just one more demonstration during this whole thing of where her priorities were and it became a very sore point for me. This is not different than the guy who stops by the bar on the way home from work in my mind.

When she got home, I was grumpy and I told her why. She said they got busy and the pizza took longer to make. I asked if she'd had her 'shift drink'. She said she did, while the pizza was being made. I just couldn't shake the feeling I was being lied to. I was still sore that she got home 20 minutes before the kids' bedtime with their dinner.

So maybe she was being honest, but it was all so tied up in recent history, I was in a bad mood to start.

We headed out on the date night to see a friend's band play. Got there and Coho goes right into her gregarious social mode. It's nice seeing her have fun and get her mind off things. But there's this voice in my head saying, "All these people know about the affair, doesn't she want to apologize? Take them aside? Something? Is she just going to pretend it didn't happen with them? So my cruddy mood was not improving any. Add to this, in my over-sensitive mood, she's paying attention to everyone but me and I'm thinking, "Date night?" And I'm just losing my desire to be there at all. Somewhere in there Coho had 3 beers and a shot of whiskey. I swear it's the damn hard alcohol with her. My brother showed up, and she and my brother were having this long, very emotional conversation outside. I was thinking, "Wow, she is addressing this with him! That's great." I got to see my brother weep like a baby when I told him my wife was leaving me and he was telling me of the affair (the whistle blower told him, he told me). He's done nothing but sit there and watch me go through hell over and over and he still loves her and wants us to work out. I think he's one that is truly owed an apology.

They came back inside and I asked how Coho was, and she said she was mourning for the whistle blower, who lost her sister in a plane crash a few years ago, this was the anniversary. Apparently my brother lost a friend in a motorcycle accident the night before. Coho's father died while she was in high school. I think this was what the emotional conversation was about. So she's talking about hurting for this friend, but then she says she hates her. She hates her for being the whistle blower. Immediately my hackles went up. So then the fight begins. This person stood up for what she thought was right, and informed me of the affair. Coho thinks she did it to protect herself (?!?!) Coho thinks she has far worse secrets than Coho has, and this person is a hypocrite. To me, this just says that Coho doesn't own up yet. I don’t care if Hitler informed me of the affair… She says all the right things, but does she feel it? Several more things said, angry outbursts from Coho, defensiveness. It's reinforcing this nagging doubt I have about her motivation for being here.

On top of this, when I read her posts, most of the questions that I want to hear answered just get avoided or danced around. The stuff that truly gets to the heart of the matter? Has it been addressed? Has she addressed boundaries or EP even once? It is this classic sense that the BS has that the WS gets to just return to their life, no consequences, no changes, while the BS has endured the most horrific pain and humiliation and still wants the marriage. Maybe the BS is just the easier choice because the affair got too uncomfortable.

Now in this whole thing, she repeatedly said she's been trying and I'm not seeing it. I am seeing it. She's trying. One of the first things Dr. Harley told her she must do: She must make sure that I BELIEVE that she understands how deep the hurt is or me. To be blunt? I don't think she does. She just says it's because she doesn't express feelings like me. Well, if they aren't expressed, then I have no idea they're there, do I?

I'd like to be able to chalk this up to the fact that we're only two weeks into recovery #6. I'd like to think that she will continue to want this and continue to seek help and really internalize the very good advice she's getting. That's what I hope. I told I just want to know that I'm not wasting my time, that this won't happen again next time she's unhappy. To this she says I'm being irrational! Again, is this the alcohol? I would think this is the NUMBER ONE QUESTION in the BS mind. When she gets a little drunk, do I get to see what's really going on in her head?

I'm just not getting the answers I need, and I'm tired and I love her so much and I don't want to scare her off, but I'm tired of not saying what I feel out of fear. If she's scared off by this, then she doesn't want it badly enough. Question number one answered.

I hope some of you will repeat some of your more pointed questions, and I hope she'll start listening.

She’s going to read this post and it’s just going to make her more defensive and scared. I wish she’d read the post and just see what I need from it and act on it.

Hi Zen,

Just thought I'd send some warm thoughts. Wish I could do more. Her behaviour doesn't seem to tally with a repentant WW yet.

ST

Like I mentioned before, she needs to stop drinking...........