Hello all, I am new to the forum and just found it while searching for some answers. As a little intro I will start out with all the standard Q's answered.

I am (A). I am 27 years old. August 12, 2010 will be my 10 year anniversary with my FWH. FWH is (T), 29 years old. We have three beautiful children, 2 boys 7,5, and a girl 3. who are the lights of our lives. My husband is a successful division head of an engineering firm and I own / operate my photography studio. We were the couple who had it all, defied all the odds, the ones that everyone thought were "perfect". I guess in my mind we were perfect. And then perfect was shattered. Our daughter was diagnosed in utero with a potentially fatal heart disease. She would most certainly need surgery directly after birth. November 16, 2007 my world fell apart. My world became 99% about making sure this baby girl that I had so desperately wanted and prayed for stayed ALIVE and well and I stopped at nothing to make it happen. Our daughter was born remarkably "healthy" to the naked eye. Then began the most amazing and worst three years of my life. It's hard to look back on your child's birth day as not only one of the best days of your life but as one of your worst.

Ky was born with a set of MAJOR organ failures and birth defects known as VACTERLS association. (Stands for V-Vertebrael, A- Anal Atresia, C-Cardiac, T-Tracheal, E-Esophogel, R-Renal/Radial, L-Limb/Orthopedic, S-Single Umbilical Artery)

Her future was uncertain and most of her first two years were spent making "life over limb" decisions. Since she was born on 7/13/06 she has has 15 surgeries including two open hearts and a neurosurgery, and spent more than a year's worth of days inpatient. We have seen more days from the inside of a hospital room than from outside it. And yes, I promise this story is about my DH and myself... but this is background to understand where we are coming from.

After two long years of 24 hour a day medical care for a child who needed medication every 2-4 hours, cathing, feeding tube, heart monitors, was in heart failure, kidney failure, urogenital failure, working 7 days a week on my business, and overextending myself to every charity who has ever asked of me... I crashed. My body crashed. My brain literally gave out. I needed help and I felt as if I were standing in the middle of a crowded room, screaming, yet no one heard me.

Finally my DH had a brilliant idea. A nanny. Enter (H). She was a friend of a friend and I had been cordial with her in the past. I was cautious to allow ANYONE into my home and especially to allow them to care for my medically fragile child. It was a big step for me. But I was loosing the battle of time and I knew that I could not do it all for long. The house, the boys, my body, my business, my relationships with anyone NOT paying me were all suffering.

I honestly might never have allowed her to help if it were not for the urging of my DH. So she started out a day or so a week... folding laundry... doing whatever. Then she accompanied me to appointments to help with the kids. Then she was at our home many days a week and we had not paid her a dime. I felt guilty but had little to give as the economy had taken it's toll on my business and we found ourselves overextended and with a child whose monthly medical bills were double our house payment.

We live in a college town. She lived out of town. We had a large home that had a separate entrance to a "suite" so I said "Why don't you just move in and that way you don't have to drive so far to school everyday? You are here all the time anyhow!" I thought for sure this girl was an angel. I had prayed so many nights that God would send someone to help us to help give us just a moment's peace each day.

My husband was dually relieved. We all became like a big happy family. She helped with everything! Helped cooked dinner, do laundry, cleaned the house if asked I her to. She was a "godsend". She was like the older child I never had. I could see myself as the "extra mom" at her wedding someday. She morphed into the 4th child role and I was comfortable and even a bit relieved to have her spunk and humor in the house.

For the first time in a long time, my husband laughed. I laughed. We enjoyed laughing and had forgotten how for a logn time. Then my husband took up running. Mostly at HER (H's) urging. She said I had the computer and all my girlfriends that HE needed an outlet. That was fine by me because the LAST thing I wanted to do at 10 pm, after working all day with a baby on my hip was to RUN. Not my idea of a good night's rest. So they ran together. And SO much more. It occurred to me many times over the course of the next three months that it should not take one 45 minutes to run 2 miles but I "trusted" my husband. There were so many things I "saw" and blindly ignored because it could NEVER be my husband. NEVER!

The running started in June 2008. My DH has since told me that their "affair" began in July 2008. The discovery day was 9/24/08. That was the day that my husband AND the nanny moved out... together. My husband told me that he "just didn't love me anymore". I still, at this point, had no idea that it was HER. UNTIL, as she was moving her last item out the door she stood at the bottom of my stairs and cried and said... "I am so sorry..." I politely told her it wasn't her fault and blah blah blah and then a wave washed over me and I felt fire in my bones as she said "I am so sorry you have no idea... I am so sorry for EVERYTHING..."

I went down the stairs without my feet even touching them and I said "You had better tell me what you know and tell me NOW because I have a feeling that my husband is not telling me the truth and YOU... YOU WILL TELL ME THE TRUTH!" I guess I can be intimidating when I want to because she was balling and spilled it all. I marched out the front door and paced up and down the street. I was screaming tears on the phone with my best friend as this girl had the nerve to stand in my front yard and "confess" her "love" for MY husband. It was quite the scene for our quiet neighborhood. Luckily my neighbor is a police officer and came over to help me get HER cleared out. He asked her to leave and until I ran into her at Target a few months ago I did not SEE her again after that.

My husband was gone from me and from our home until the end of October. During that time I tried to ask him to do counseling. He refused. I tried to ask him to do the book "The Love Dare" which he half halfheartedly started but all the time lying to me that he was not seeing the paramour. I asked him to just not see HER until we had worked out whatever was to be between us. I told him I could not believe that he would throw away 11 years, 3 kids, a home and a business for what? A 19 year old college student? I went to his parents and asked them to intervene and at least tell him that what he was doing was wrong. They refused. They said that it was their job to make sure he was HAPPY and if I didn't make him happy anymore they supported him in leaving me and our 3 kids. Finally, I read a book called "What to Do when he says 'I just don't love you any more'" and I sat my WH down and said. "I am putting you on notice that this behavior will no longer be tolerated. You will end this affair. There is no "or else". I will not stand for this treatment and disrespect toward me, my children and our home." That night I began to publicly shun him. His affair was made public and I refused to even communicate with him until he had cut all ties with the paramour. At the same time his uncle finally had a "talk" with him that his father should have a long time before then. He asked him to LOOK at what he was doing and he asked him "Can you explain this to your son... your 6 year old son... can you make it so that he can understand it? If not ...then this is WRONG".

After 48 hours of shunning, my husband went to stay with his uncle and that night ended the affair. I was not there when he ended it but he did it on the phone. Both his aunt and uncle were present. He found a church and a pastor to counsel him. And less than 24 hours later he came home.

During the time between the discovery and the "end" of the affair my daughter also was admitted to the hospital multiple times. Our family had grown very close to my daughter's main doctor. We have had dinner with his family. I have lunch with his wife and have been teaching her to use her camera. His girls make trips to play with our daughter when she is in the hospital. It's not a normal relationship but we also exist in a circle of common people outside the hospital through a few charities that our business is involved in.

My husband had assumed that this was because I myself was having an affair. He was suspicious of myself and the doc because we are extraordinarily close to him. During this major upset, my daughter also had some major systemic "crashes". I attributed these mostly to stress. Being as close to the doc as we are, he knew something was wrong. I couldn't hide it. So, he was one of the first to know. It was obviously, medically relevant for him to know what kind of upset would cause a 2 year old to need sedating and furthermore why the "dad" that had always been by our sides 24-7 was suddenly no longer there. The doc was a good friend to me but nothing more. The hospital was SAFE for myself and my daughter. It was our constant and being there was normal. So it was less about the doc and more about the constant for me. My husband had walked out and left this void of himself AND all of my help and I was instantly thrown into "single mom of 3" mode with a SICK child.

My husband was wrong. 100% wrong about his own affair and about my supposed one. This has been clarified by both myself and by the doctor himself. I was comfortable enough with the doc to also tell him that part. He handled it very ethically and I was relieved to be able to have someone back my story because this is a person whom my husband also respects tremendously. I could not even begin to think about an affair as long as my daughter was in pain and in the hospital.

When my husband broke off the affair, he told me he was not doing it for me. He was breaking it off to give us time to "dissolve" our marriage and then when the time was right, he would be with "her". But right now he was going to do what was "right". Shortly thereafter he came clean and said that he knew all along what he was doing was wrong but he could never find the strength to stop it. He said he assumed I would never be able to forgive him so he might as well make the best it. He was physically ill by the time this all ended. He had lost a drastic amount of weight and his blood pressure was off the charts. This affair was literally killing him. A few days after he ended it he admitted to me that he had had a crisis. That he had literally LOST his mind and that it would NEVER happen again.

Since he returned the last week of October 2008, things have been different. Not easy, but things seem a lot more natural. We definitely went through the "honeymoon" phase and that lasted about 3 months. Then we started to norm back into life. But for me... this has forever altered me. He continues to be the same, repentant person, and I try my hardest but about every couple of months or so this overwhelming sense of jealously and suspicion overwhelms me. I find myself checking his email and phone records. I have found weird numbers but as far as I know they have been wrong numbers and never HER number and never repeated.

But somehow I am still scared. I am scared to death that every time I hit that point of almost forgetting and totally trusting him again... I will wake up with a nightmare in a cold sweat with some horrible "scene" replaying in my head.

We have since sold the house that we lived in at that time. The affair happened in that house, in our bed, in our car... right with me asleep in the next room often times. The car is gone also. If I could have burned them both to the ground I would have! LOL But just GONE will suffice.

His affair had major monetary ramifications also. We sold the house 95% because we could no longer afford it but 5% because me, being trapped between those 4 walls, felt like being in a prison. Too many horrible memories.

Fall of 2010 will mark 2 years and so many things just set me into flashbacks in my mind that trigger overwhelming fear and tears. They happen at the oddest times. Mostly when I am alone. Mostly at night. When there is no noise in my head they creep in and threaten to steal my peace.

So my question is... I am still afraid and some nights I just don't sleep because every time I close my eyes I SEE things I don't want to see. I forced them to tell me all the "details" of the affair so that all sits in my head and at all the wrong times plays back like and old movie reel.

When did the "flashbacks" stop for you?
How did you get through them without have an AO?
I have been through counseling myself and it is a great help but there are things that my counselor cannot fix for me and I keep trying to decide to "fix" myself and I can't.
Will I ever forget?

What has triggered this new round of fear is that my husband has suddenly become very interested in getting a vasectomy. I had begged him for 2 years since Ky was born to get one but he never wanted to. Even since coming home after the A he was opposed. Now, all of the sudden, he wants one. He says it is because our 10 year anniversary trip is coming up and I want to believe him... I really do. But another part of me is so afraid that there is other reasons. Sigh...

Wow, that's really, really, long.
I'm a little lost, to much info. Can you post a basic time line with only the absolute most important facts?

In the mean time.
Has your Husband written OW a letter of NC?
Have you snooped to verify NC?

Also, if his parents said there job is to make WH happy, and if leaving you and your kids for OW makes him happy they support it. Then they are enemies of your marriage.

Enemies of your marriage should be eliminated from your life. Or at minimum, kept at arms length as an enemy should.

AGREE!!

They never go away 100%, but become rarer and rarer as time goes by.
Whats an AO?
No

Why does he need a vasectomy?
(I mean why not use other options?)

Welcome to MB!

I think on the one hand it is normal to still be struggling or having bad days two years into R but on the other hand, it is vital that your H is doing his part to help you recover.

Is he being 100% O&H and transparent, accounting for all of his time and whereabouts? I know one thing that stood out is you mentioned you still worry about OW calling him ~ have all your phone #s/emails been changed?

This along with other EPs(extraordinary precautions) are vital. Here is an excellent thread about EPs -->>
Extraordinary Precautions

Another thing, I firmly believe SNOOPING is extremely important to recovery. If you find nothing = it helps you feel more safe. I know you said you check the phone records, but have you installed a keylogger? VAR? Don't tell you H about this, but it may be a good thing for you to consider.

Lastly, how much time are you spending together WITHOUT your kids? 15-20 hrs UA time ALONE is critically important. Whenever my H and I have a week or two stint where we don't do this, I can feel how much it affects us and the way that I feel about the M. I believe Dr Harley has said he will not work with a couple who can't commit to the 15 hr minimum UA time.

Hang in there!

I missed this the first time through. I am NOT a professional but what you describe above is a symptom of PTSD. I am not sure if ADs would help, but have you considered seeing your dr?

I suffered this as a child and had the flashbacks and nightmares for many many years. For myself I can say not feeling protected exacerbated my PTSD so please look over that EP list and let us know if your H is willing to institute a protection plan for your M. *hugs*

Gack,

AO = angry outburst

Red,

I want to let you know a few things about me before I start giving you advice.

I work with special needs people - and the fact is, I have a long time history of working with the patients, and their families. Throughout my time in this field, the constant feedback has been that my greatest strength is that I have the ability to tell people the facts with compassion, dignity, love, and with the strength to help them get through what they will need to know - that there is one professional on "their side", always. Truth is, I have patients who still call me for advice that I haven't worked with for many, many years. They still trust and KNOW I will tell them the truth and help them with anything they need - and get them where they need to go. Always have, always will.

I am also a betrayed wife, several times over. BTDT.

Your story isn't unfamiliar to me. I've seen too many families who have broken under the stress of the overwhelming medical needs of children born with various complications. Your story speaks to me, because it literally blends my professional and private lives together into one. You share, also, the story of one of the mothers of a four-year old girl I have worked with - quite recently I might add.


Your feelings of being overwhelmed with caring for your daughter are normal. The desire to do everything you can is natural. You place her needs before that of all else in the world, because she needs so much. You look around yourself and realize that you, your husband, your other kids, everyone.....they have so much, so many gifts.....they have things which come so easily to them. The very ease with which we all eat, sit up, smile, walk, feed ourselves, learn to talk.......it all seems so blase that none of us consider these things as we do them every day.

Your daughter? These things are EARNED, through hard work, through effort and trials and over time. Your dedication to her life and health contribute literally hour by hour to those gains - gains that others don't ever really think about.

Yet, that very dedication to her costs you. It takes its toll on your health, your other relationships, your own well-being. At first your focus it only on her health, and others understand it, and others are all willing to sacrifice because they fully understand and KNOW what this helpless child needs.

But over time, you are left standing alone in your sacrifice. Others begin to judge you for it - as much as this hurts to hear, it is the truth. They stand back and say that you should learn to divide your time, let others help in the care of the ill child.

There is truth in this - because looking back, do you see times when you could have allowed your husband to share in the sacrifice, yet you might have pushed him back? Do you see times when you thought perhaps you were the only person who could do this "right"? I do not want to criticize you - I want to help you understand what happened, what does happen, in the stress and strain process of caring for these very high needs children. The fact that you brought in a nanny was GOOD. The nanny - herself - and your husband's behavior - was BAD.

At this point, your husband needs to be part of the team that steps in to relieve you. That part needs to be fixed, ASAP. Because the pattern here needs to be broken. It is a dangerous thing to continue - it is dangerous for you to be the only person to do all of the doctor visits, all of the caregiving, all of the checking on the child, all of it.... dangerous because your husband needs to be, and feel, an equal partner.

He must understand the sacrifice, the needs of the child, and he must be a part of that team - in order to support you and to completely and fully understand the complexities of her life.

He must also be a part of it, because people support what they are a part of.

Your other children must also be a part of the team. They need to be included in her care, as appropriate. They can participate in her therapy - as the therapists what they can DO, what activities the other children can participate in actively, so that they have a vested role in her development. This gives them ownership, love, fellowship, and overall development of compassion and understanding and self-esteem you will not BELIEVE!

I would also say that you have two grandparents who have a strange outlook on your world.

Send them a copy of SAA. Ask them to read it, and then ask them to do a counseling session with the Harleys with you. You need their support - your family needs grandparents who support the marriage, and they need to fixed their very skewed version of what a marriage is.

Finally, you and your husband need to spend time without your kids alone together. Your marriage is especially stressed, and your time without those stressors is vital to keeping your love alive. Ask a trusted friend or relative to babysit. If you are worried about the health of the child, you can actually ask the local Home Health agencies for a list of qualified and trained professionals who will watch medically infirm children. Or, call the local school district and talk to the instructional assistants in the special education department - many of them work on the side and will babysit medically fragile kids, or know people who do.

Or, you can call the Mental Health/Mental Retardation Department of Human Services agency in your state and ask how to get in touch with caseworkers in your area. Once you establish your child on a caseload (this is FREE), you can access many services for her. Including babysitting.


SB

redheadmommy,

What did your IC say? It sounds like you have Post Traumatic Stress Disorder because there was a serious threat to your Dd's life due to illness and compounded fear/anxiety when your WH and the Nanny ( a support person at a critical time in your life) betrayed you.

My IC that I see for PTSD (due to murder/untimely death of friends and a family member) recommended EMDR therapy.

Talk to your IC about it.

Also, trust your gut instinct with your husband. If something feels off, then it probably is.

Regarding the vasectomy:

My husband declined a V for years and years. I requested that he at least talk to me about it...nope. I wanted to stop taking the pill, he said nope.....it was about 6 years that we did this back and forth. I gave up on the idea, and resigned myself to having to take the pill until menopause.


Then one day he says he wants a V.


Out of the blue.

He wasn't cheating. He just decided that the idea was now "his" because I gave up talking about it.


Sheesh.

He said he realized that everything I said made sense. He had just been resistant because he was being a jerk.


Ya' think?