Janda,

I realize it took courage to come to this site. Asking and listening is a great way to try to understand what your BH is going through. On this site other life events are compared to the emotions a BS is going through. It will be impossible to fully empathize with what he is feeling. I do admire that you are trying.

What he's trying to do is to reclaim what should have been his alone. I went through a spate of that myself after D-Day. There was hysterical bonding during SF, a tricky proposition two weeks after hip replacment surgery, but it can be done. That part was mine-all-mine, dammit!!! And it is again, as it should be.

She had gone to a very popular tourist spot for her birthday in 2008 -- with her friends, she'd said at the time -- with Pond Scum. We did our own trip last year about six months after D-Day, and she said the whole experience was sooooo much better and sooooo much more fun with me. So, that was mine-all-mine, too.

Quite frankly, it's a very effective method of moving past what happened. I say moving past, because you don't "get over it." You can't. You "get past it." It will always be there. You just have to get to the point where enough good things have happened in recompense that the bad pales in comparison and in importance. The most common time frame for that is two to five years. You're just getting started.

It's a marathon, not a sprint. Just keep working at it.

So true.

There will come a point in working this out with your H where the physical act of your A wont be as important to him as the fact that you are willing to do ANYTHING to help him heal. That is where your love for him should be evidence in reality that you are truly his.
It will help if you both go to a skilled counselor that you BOTH trust can be objective in the healing process.

I know what he is going thru. What most men desire is that thier wife be loyal and respect them and most women need to feel that they are the apple of thier husbands eye. That might sound arcaic and sexest but I am talking about the nature of the beast, not some idealistic politically correct belief that Men and Women are built the same. In Gods eyes niether one is most important than the other.


Keep goin cuz your on the right track

Excellent advice. Time is on your side if you keep at it.