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 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.

Such a long betrayal makes me wonder if the other 38 years were also fraught with lies and betrayal--I tend to believe that he was faithful during those years---but what if he wasn't???? See--it's a vicious cycle.

I relate to how you feel about being angry at yourself for forgiving your H. I often say that I must be a pathetic individual to allow myself to go on with someone who had so little love and regard for me. I say this and yet I love him and do not want to face life without him. Am I just an utter mess or what?

Gy,

You are not pathetic at all. I can tell you that it is far worse to split up a long term M, so be thankful that your H was willing to recover. Mine wasn't, and it has been a tragedy tearing apart 35 years. I've learned that there is a practical side to marriage as well.

Not only is there the companionship, the partnership etc. but there is the support for aging together. I'm now going into retirement totally alone and without the nest egg I thought I had. Not only am I not covered by WH's insurance (both health and life) anymore, but I have also lost the biggest asset which was our house. We had to sell in the worst market ever and lost almost all equity that we had. Everything else has been cut in half to split, then cut in half again because of the horrible economy. Add atty fees on top of that and debt accumulated on the A and you have a mess. Oh, and I forgot the tearing apart of a family.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. lol Just that there are other factors in deciding to recover. Factors that relate to surviving and protecting yourself in this world.

Golden,

I have had those very same questions--what about all those other years? What else do I not know? Hard, because my life has always been pretty much an open book to my husband. I'm not the secretive type. Learning how his secrecy covered up so much dishonesty, I find it hard to believe there was none in the 37 years leading up to his A.

I don't dwell on it like I did in the beginning. Just the same, something deep inside remains aware. Who's to say our self-protective defenses aren't a GOOD thing? Put into our psyche by a God who loves us, as a means of helping us protect ourselves, a biological, internal "security system"? If that is so, it's all right to just let it be. Good to know that we have a means of self-protection, no? On top of that, we have the power of an almighty God to lean on. Much better bet than putting all our faith in ANY other human being, as we've all found out.