>AGREE w/ him! DUDE

Agree, but kindly.

When my fwh says how foolish he was, it's usually with a good helping of hurt in him.

I'd be a graceless cad if I agreed with my usual snarkcasm.

Yeah, say it like this, "Yes, you were a complete ^&%&^ IDIOT and risked both our mental well-being, our children, your lucky you a$$ wasn't killed you POS!" Just smile when you say it so he understands its in a loving way coming from your heart that was just RIPPED OUT!! DUDE

Tread carefully with OWH. You can find yourselves in a position where you start commisserating (sp) about your respective marriages and before you know it, you are heading down a very slippery slope. Don't buy him the book; don't buy him anything. Encourage him to visit this website, join the forum maybe and start reading .But don't buy him anything.

Dude, our pain should not make us turn into THEM!

OH makes an important point. You and OWH are allies, but can no longer be friends. The waywards ended all that.
Also, please don't call your H a FWH. He hasn't earned THAT "F" yet.

Agreed, OWH and I aren't friends anymore, only allies in ending the A, that's all. We were very clear and on the same page that our families could no longer be friends and that includes the kids and us, not just the Waywards. Saddest about the kids. We didn't commiserate about our marriages, only the A, and how crazy and unrealistic it was. No slippery slope for me or, I think, him, but all I know is me. I appreciate the warning and I understand. Look, he's as disgusted by my H as I am by his W, so how could we be friends? I hope they work it out if he can be happy with her, but all I can think of about her is she's pathetic and despicable.

I already ordered OWH the book so I am dropping it off in his mailbox. You can think it's a bad idea but we'll have to agree to disagree -- it's not a gift from me, it's a tool that guides him to watch OW, recover his M, and most importantly for me, keep OW the hell away from my H.

I've been running on adrenaline all week. Tonight I feel like I was hit by a truck.

And btw my signature already says "WH, will be FWH" and in the post I said I shouldn't yet really call him FWH. So I know. But he's in between, or so he says, as in NC, no more A.

Dude, in my head right now I call him "the a**hole, but he's MY a**hole" -- saying that to his face would be a bit of a Love Buster... I'm being kind. Love bank deposits left and right, even if I often want to scream or weep.

QUESTION FOR ANY AND ALL: If NC is maintained and A is really over, when does BS start to actually feel better?? I feel strong, but I feel like sh*t.

I felt strong and decisive at the beginning. Then I felt really bad for several months. It got better little by little. Even now, I still think of the A for a few minutes daily, but not all day every day and not with the same bad feeling. Be prepared to be really angry at some point in time. For me, it was at about the 6 month point and lasted off and on for several months. Some of that was needless, I think, because I continued AOs as my H dished out the "trickle truth" for more than a year. It squashed the start of recovery for a long time.

AM

S&A, you are awesome! You are doing the exact correct thing by allying yourself with the OWH to ensure the affair is killed and stays killed. I like that you gave him the book, because it only increases the odds that he can save his marriage too.

You did a great job.

As far as feeling better, I am sorry to say you are looking at a couple of years. That is IF you have a plan of recovery in place. If not, then your marriage will limp along in a state of near death for the next 20 years. Many folks make the mistake of thinking that just ending the affair is enough. It is not. That is about like going to AA and just doing STEP ONE. The alcoholic just quits drinking but never fixes the problem that made him sick in the first place. Before long he is drinking again to escape his miserable life.

So please don't make the mistake of thinking that ending the affair = recovery. It is just the first step. Here is a good article about what it will take:

whole article here

S&A, Take it from one who knows... ending the affair is only the first part of the job. So much more needs to happen for true recovery to begin. I cannot advise you too much on this one, since recovery has not happened in my M.
Counseling with the Harleys did not help us because we're pretty stubborn, but if you're open-minded, it might be the solution for you.
You definitely need to keep up the hard work, or you will end up treading water, like me.

What are AO's?

Thx for your feedback. A few minutes a day of thinking about A would be a welcome change. Now it's almost constant... Or at least right there if I stop focusing on my kid, work, H, anything else...

shockandawe,

I thought about the A all day, every day for months. I thought about it so much that if I ever caught myself thinking about someothing else, it was a surprise. As I'll explain below, it took about 7 months to get out of this phase.

By d-day my H had ended the A (although there was sporadic e-mail contact) and had totally come out of the fog. The POSOW lives more than 4000 miles and an ocean away. H went completely transparent immediately. My H was totally committed to the M and filled with remorse and shame for what he'd done.

Despite being in what seemed like an ideal state to begin recovery, what kept me dwelling on his infidelities (one true EA/PA and a number of other attempts) was the fact that he had not been honest with me about everything. A few things he outright lied about, but mostly his refusal to talk about the A left so many gaps in my mind. Into those gaps I inserted my own version of what must have happened.

Due to his work schedule and the holidays, I gave up trying to get him to talk about the A a month or so after d-day. In fairness to him, he had already admitted the worst of what he had done, he didn't feel it necessary to talk about it in the level of detail that I needed. He was trying to spare himself the pain and the humiliation; it was not for my benefit.

Seven months after d-day I finally insisted that he open up. I was clearly stuck in recovery and needed help from him to move forward. Over the next week or so, he finally opened up and told me everything.

The funny thing was that now only did it "unstick" me in the recovery process, but very soon afterward I found myself thinking about the A less and less.

For him, being completely O&H about the A freed his soul from the incredible burden he'd been carrying. He felt "at peace" for the first time in years. He built upon that peace by going to IC. I must say, he has grown so much in the last 6 months.

Today I barely think about the A. If we ever talk about the A, it's because H brings it up. I rarely snoop. Our M feels "normal" again and our biggest challenge now is not to get complacent. Like everyone, we need to do M maintenance all the time so that we stay in that place of romantic marital intimacy. Now, thanks to MB, we have the tools to do it.

You're so new to this and are dealing with a foggy spouse. I suspect it's probably necessary and healthy to dwell on it the way you are. Your M isn't fully out of danger yet and your instincts are kicking in to protect you.

Hang in there!

Bea

AOs are angry outbursts.