About a month and a half ago I found out that my DH of 12 years (together 14) had been having an affair with a woman that he worked with. It's a really weird situation as I almost stumbled onto the affair back in March when I discovered the phone records to which he swore to me were only calls of "friendship" because he needed someone to talk to and I was not there for him emotionally. I believed him because he never gave me a reason to doubt him. Back in March I asked if he wanted to go to marriage counseling and he told me he didn't think we needed it - that we "weren't that broken" and we could fix it on our own. Spring turned to summer and then to fall and I was diligently checking the phone bills and there were no more calls to or from her. I need to also note that because of the way I handled the situation in March, his lover/girlfriend lost her job. So that also led me to not worry so much as he was not seeing/talking to her everyday. In September, after we had an argument (a big one) he asked if I still wanted to go to marriage counseling because he thought that maybe we could benefit from it. I agreed that maybe we could learn something. So we started counseling in September. Everything was going well, we were making progress, until he started acting weird the first week of December. With my woman's intuition raised, I took the opportunity I had early one morning to snoop through his laptop bag and in it I found another cell phone. When I turned it on I found only 1 number in it - and I recognized it immediately from the cell phone records. I confronted him that morning and he admitted to an affair that had started about 2 months earlier with her. He said after she lost her job he had not heard from her until late September where he agreed to see her for lunch and one thing led to another and they ended up having sex. He told me it had only happened a few times and he was willing to end it. So he called her, on speaker, and told her it was over. I went with him that day to return the phone (I found out she had bought it for him) and to also return the key to her apartment that she had given him. We went to counseling that night and we were doing well working through everything. About a week later I was at work (I work retail) and a young girl came to my job and told me that she was a friend of my husbands lover, and that since my discovery of the affair, and my husbands promise to end it, they had seen each other 2 times more and had sex each of those times. This girl also told me that the affair ("relationship" as she called it) was not 2 months in length but 2 years. That my husband didn't have the phone for 2 months...but for 9 months (from the time I discovered the cell bills, she got the phone so he wouldn't get in trouble). I went home to confront my husband and after much prodding from him, he finally came clean with everything. Yes, it was 2 years, yes he had the phone 9 months...I also found out other things that he did with her - from his girlfriend as I had her phone number and was texting her and asking questions. She was willing to give me details and dates. She even had a scrapbook of their relationship. She agreed to meet me and I met her at a McDonalds where she made copies of the scrapbook pages for me and she also forwarded me some of the emails between him and her.

Now, my husband has sat down with me, and we have talked about many things...we both agreed that 2 years ago that we were both not giving 100% to the marriage, he felt unappreciated, inadequate, unloved...all he wanted from me was my love and desire for him, he wanted me to make him feel adequate and appreciated.I can understand how he felt that but I tried to explain to him that the feelings he had were so far from the truth. My husband has sworn to me that he is done with her, he now knows, thanks to our counselor, that his perceptions of my feelings were wrong. He is extremely remorseful and has been so very wonderful since I found out the entire truth.

My problem is that I cannot stop thinking about everything he's done. How do I get past all of it? How do I rebuild the trust that up until 2 months ago was rock solid? I am paranoid to be without him, afraid that she will email him, call him, stop by his job. I have so many safety check (GPS location service) on his phone so that I know where he is every hour of every work day. I have been so paranoid that he has been in contact with her. I was able to get confirmation of his faithfulness and honestly in regards to him not seeing her in the worst way. This past Monday, my husband received a text message that his ex-lover attempted to commit suicide and I think I am partly to blame for it. I had sent her an email the night before. Explaining to her a lot of things that I believe she had a misconception of, because of the lies my husband told her...my purpose of the email was not to hurt, but to inform...and to use it as a way to get a lot of things off my chest. So in her failed attempt (she needed her stomach pumped) I found out that my husband has been faithful for the past month and a half..he has not called, emailed, texted or tried to contact her in any way.

How do I get her out of my head? How do I get these hurtful images and thought of the things they did together out of my head? How do I rebuild my trust in my husband?

Any comments, questions or advice would be most welcome!

Time will eventually deal with that. You've been through a traumatic experience, and it will take time to recover from that.



Dear, that's your H's job - he needs to EARN your trust back. You can help by letting him know how he can do that, but it's HIS responsibility, not yours.

Wifemomfool,Time will heal nothing. However with the passage of time things will get better. Your H has got to answer any and all questions about the affair. After 14 yrs. I still have good and bad days. The good far out weight the bad. I truely believe a person does not 100% completely heal from an affair. Maybe 99.9% With the passage of time things will get better. You will have days that something will trigger thought about the affair. Dont let those days get you down. Please DO NOT blame yourself for anything that she/he did. It is not your fault.

I've gone down this road twice with my FWW. The first time she cheated on me, we weren't M'd at that point. I can safely say though that her cheating was completely absent from my thoughts by the time we actually got M'd (several years later).

So on my experience alone, I think recovery is 100% possible, depending on the circumstances of course.

I suspect that it will be many, many, many years before I get over her last A... because of the circumstances.

ManInMotion, you are probably right but it can take a long time. I just wish it was easy to forget 100%.

You are no more at fault for this woman trying to commit suicide than you are for your H deciding to have an A with this woman.

This woman made a choice to have an A with a married man. She and your H take 50% responsibility for the A.

As far as this woman goes......she reaps what she sows.

You're likely not going to forget, but the feelings associated with the memory will fade.

Man in Motion is correct-you won't forget but the feelings of hurt will so the thoughts of the A won't have the same power. I'm three yrs. from DDay and i have few 'painful' days. I still think of the A almost every day but usually my mind doesn't have the energy to produce the associated pain. That's a good thing! Finally, to not feel constant pain.