Its been almost six months now since I found out about my wifes one time sexual encounter with the other man. We have been working things out and all is going good. She has answered every question that I have asked her about the encounter. She was drunk at the time, and I know that she dosent love him and he did not satisfy her. We have been going to marriage counseling and every thing is going good in it. For some reason I can't get the images or the fact that my wife was with another man out of my head. It isn't all the time but enough that it still bothers me. I don't know if it is a insecurity problem or what. I haven't had any problems making love to her even right away after I found out, other then the thought comes up some times. It is about to drive me crazy. How long before these thought go away, or will they ever completly go away. I don't like bringing it up to her very often because it is like beating a dead horse. There is nothing more she can say or tell me. I just can't stand the thought of it.

6 months can be somewhat a trigger time for many BS's often you will experience a lot of anger about this around this time.

It will keep hurting till it doesn't - it usually takes at least 2 years to recover from this - many people say it takes longer.

One day at a time, one foot in front of the other.

Don't bring up what she did. Speak only about how you feel. You're right, it is like beating a dead horse. That's why you only speak about you're feeling. She will know why. Tell her that things like "right now I feel so empty, or I feel like I'm going to explode. If she ventures to ask why. All you need to do is look at her. And she will know why. Eventually those triggers will stop.

Tell me that your wife has stopped drinking completely. No alcohol whatsoever. If she drinks it will act as a trigger. This is one of the prices she must pay. No alcohol ever again.

At six months I could not bear the pain of the images and some times I made the huge mistake of dwellng on the images and allowing the pain of that to interfere with affection in ways that it did not in the begining. All I can say to that is that is it does get easier, they do start to fade a little and the triggers become less severe. At 1 year out they are still there and sometimes I wish I had not gotten all the info that I did because now its imprinted in my head. At the same time I also know that knowing EVREYTHING helps me contain my images and my mind does imagine things that did not exsist. When I trigger my DH does a nice job of supporting me and yet gently reminding me not to let my mind wander and create new thoughts and pictures that did not exsist. He also keeps sending me the subtle message that all that was in the past. When he is saying all of those things to me granted I do get a little annoyed but it really does help center me and bring me to the present and stop living in the past.
Remember (assuming that there is NC) that the time frame for the A is finite and in the past, what ever images are there are there, there are no new ones. Slowly but surely you are putting time ane new memories between then and now.
So make sure you are using your energy towards creating new and truer bonds between you and your S and that you are aware of everything that you need in order to recover and are verbalizing it. I found a lot of posts about Extraordinary protections,(check out some of TST's posts) read up on that and make sure that you have those in place. Having open and frank discussion about that has certianly helped me feel more secure and helped begin to re-introduce some basic trusct back into your relationshsip which in turn helps ofsett some of the triggers and fears.

Thanks for the replies. I talked with my wife Sunday after Church and told her that I was having a problem sometimes with the images again. She asked me if there was anything that I needed to know and she would do her best to answer them. I couldn't really think of anything specific and told her that it was just the whole thing in general. We talked for a while and she made me feel a lot better. I think that me just bringing it up to her was enough to help me. I guess I just wanted her to know I was hurting.

My wife doesn't drink but maybe 2-4 times a year. She was at a after work party that night and had to much to drink. She wanted me to come that night and I didn't feel like it. Now I wish I would have, then she would have never ended up in the back seat with the other man.

nxs:

This line:


Oh? Really?

Maybe not that night.

She got drunk, and she got in the backseat.

There is/was going to be, another night, soon.

There is ALOT of work for her still to do. Is she doing it?

LG

It will probably never go away as long as you are with her. This is the phenomenon I experienced. SHE is the trigger! It could be forever and if so, it is sad because you will be living in pure hell. DUDE

DUDE...this is a really lame thing to say to someone. Sometimes your posts are so off-base it isn't even funny. The next thing we know, you're going to be telling him to have his own RA in order to help "get over it". Sheesh.

nxs...LOTS of people get past this...the images may never completely go away but the PAIN you feel when they come will lessen over time.

I am very sorry to say that 6 months out isn't really that long (feels like forver, though, I know)...and BigK is right ~ at 6 months many BSs experience a surge of anger. That could be exaserbating the problem.

Hang in there and know that this WILL get better. I am sorry you are going through this...there are lots of people here in your same place so we do understand.

nxs,
I think you handled it correctly. There will be triggers that will bring thoughts into your mind. Talk it out with your WW. I have also found this to be the best thing in our R. I recently had a trigger and was miserable for the weekend. I ruined my weekend. I couldn't talk to my FWH so I emailed him. He came home we talked and I felt so much better because my FWH continued for days after to make me feel good. Your WW meeting your EN and getting rid of the lovebusters is what will minimize the triggers over time.

GG

You are right, unless I found out about her texting and talking on the phone before the next opportunity came up. It might of stopped the sexual part of it which bothers me the most. I know it's not my fault it's just another what if question. Our marriage was in bad condition and I was a lot to blame. I have learned not to take her for granted. Like I said we have been in counsleling and everything has been going good.

There are a lot of what if questions?

Nx,
Have you worked on EN and LB questionnaire's with your WW or are you just doing MC? We did MC and worked on resources here. We found out about this site afterwards.

Gg

Check this out...

Emotional Memory Management.

This is exactly what I wrote this for.

How do you stop the images? You stop accessing the files that contain them. You begin to think of something else instead.

It isn't really the images and details of your thoughts that cause a problem but the emotional content related to those thoughts. Those emotions follow the vision/image/details of the event by about 90 to 120 seconds. It happens in order every time that the details appear and a minute and a half later the emotions flood over us. Change what you are thinking (actively change your thoughts to something else that YOU choose to think about instead of random access to your memory banks) and the emotions and feelings can be modified, mitigated and eventually eliminated as you begin to identify memories that should be left alone.

I also will say that if you have a lot of images in your conscious thoughts that you might be dealing with a lack of real information. When we are missing details that our brain wants to process and deal with those details get supplied by our imagination, we make them up. And making up those kinds of details requires visualizing every detail in context over and over in order to assemble a bunch of things that fit what we already know.

This process feeds on itself in that as we access the files that contain the memory we want to include in this construct the emotions follow soon after and THAT emotional content causes a change in the way we feel and therefore modifies our thinking to match and soon we have visualized a worst case scenario rather than what really happened.

This usually takes place as we work at figuring out the pieces that we are missing. When we really know what happened we only have to deal with triggers that recall the details and are followed by the feelings. When we are missing a bunch of stuff we make up things to fill in the gaps (just try to sit and look at an uncompleted puzzle without working on it at least in your thoughts) and end up making up a lot of stuff that is worse than what really happened in most cases. It is a process that perpetuates itself because we create new though false memories that soon lead to more bad feelings which trigger yet another round of "what if" thinking followed by beginning the cycle all over again.

The hardest images to get rid of are the ones that never really happened...

Mark

Sorry to here that it is not working out for you. In my case my wife doesn't trigger me. It's other things like every time you turn on the freaking TV there is some kind of infidelity going on. I didn't pay much attention until it happened in my life. Best wishes!

Know I havnen't. I came to this site when I first found out and got kind of put off with someone that kept hounding me about my wife working with the other man, and how it wouldn't work. Beleive me its not what I want but, this is the real world and we have payments to make and so on. My wife doesn't love him and really can't stand him since the encounter. It is a long story but she was pretty much seduced by the other man when she was weak. I had purchased a online program that we both worked on until we got into counseling.

Mark1952

Thanks it looks like good reading. I was in counseling about 9 years ago and was tought to put up a mental stop sign. I forget to use it now, and let things roll on. It used to work good, and eventually they thoughts went away.

Unfortunately there are triggers that will bring back the images. I think over time they minimize and you become better at dealing with them. I'm in second year recovery and recently had a trigger that brought back images and it(I) ruined my weekend over it. My FWH was great and for days tried to make me feel better. It's good you tell your wife when things come up and hopefully she'll do the right thing to help you heal. How's the counseling going?

GG

gg615
The counseling is going real good. We are down to once every two weeks now. It has been about three weeks now since me and my wife have had any kind of fight, which is outstanding considering we was getting into a fight at least once a week. Seems like something has clicked with both of us, and we are at a new level of understanding. I know we both have our moments but we are able to work through them. There is still a long road ahead, but I am staying positive about it.

I have found a new way to deal with some of my triggers. I try to look at the way things were before and how I was treating my wife to understand why she did what she did. Not to justify it but make me see how it could happen.