As a BS myself I know the feeling about not feeling attractive to your spouse after finding out they had an A. Immediately following D-Day and finding out about my DH having an A we went into hysterical bonding for months. I couldn't get enough of him and he was the same way. Of course we never had issues with SF in our M even before and during his A. About a year after D-Day I had to literally force myself with SF with him. Those images of him and her together blocked my brain and I began to look at him with disgust. I forced myself through those times but it was so hard. The feelings I was having about not wanting SF with my DH was very hard for me because for the almost two decades we have been together I have thought of him as the sexiest man alive and his touch was magical. I was so confused because I started also looking at other men with lust. Like you, I started talking to a man at work whom I found very attractive and although the conversations didn't turn sexual there were definitely times where we were letting each other know that we were attracted to each other. Like you I stopped all communication with the guy and became strictly business because I saw myself on a slippery slope. Once I started filling my FWH Love bank and spending UA with him and recreational activities with him I stopped thinking about OM and the low attraction to my DH disappeared. MB principles do work if practiced properly.

If you want your M to work you must take extraordinary precautions and follow MB concepts and make sure that you fake it till you make it. Rebuilding after infedelity is the hardest task I have undertaken and there have been so many times I have dreamed of starting over with someone new but I love my DH more than anything and when I think about growing old I know I want to do it with him. If you feel the same you have some hard work ahead of you. Rebuilding a broken M isn't for the weak.

nxs

It doesn't seem like anyone here has confirmed what you have been feeling but I will and do. The scars left do have an impact if merely that they haunt us with reminders of the damage done. It reminds me of a Nip Tuck episode plot line where they drug you and steal your kidney. You wake up in excruciating pain not knowing what happened but feeling part of you is gone yet you don't know how or why. In this case its an emotional part of you that has been torn out. It seems like it can never be replaced.

I also think about it like waves or cycles. Before the emotional trauma of her adultery, my low cycles had never been that far down. Now that I have spent time wallowing in a black, cold pit of adultery, its much easier to end up down there again like the path to that hole is without obstacles. Like a marble spinning around a funnel and gravity has no escape.

Since my FWW's adultery we rode the roller coaster of recovery back up through short lived hysterical bonding, to both being very happy about "surviving" and "making it" while watching our peers continue to lose their marriages, to daily routine setting in again that saps your creativity and spark. Could be middle age, could be dreams not coming true, the economy, etc.

But I also want to give you hope because as I examine the cause of feeling hopeless and depressed the more I find it directly related to the MBers Love Bank concept.

The causes of mine are very clear. My spouse has always said we are "too busy" for 15 hours of UA ) so we don�t meet my EN of quality time together. Add to that I don�t feel safe talking honestly about my broken heart. The other day I said to her �Since the adultery I feel like my heart is a million pieces being held together with band-aids.� Her callous response was something about me continuing to throw the adultery in her face and how I need to go to counseling to get over it. Just another kick in the un-healed stitches. Her DJ�s are incredible.

Add a couple of severe unwarranted AO�s from her and my balance is less than zero so the depression sets in. That starts the dominoes tumbling on sexual desire so there goes the top EN for me. And then a woman at work got too close to me and POW, I feel my heart soar just brushing her arm, yearning for more of her minor deposits, thinking of trivial reasons to call her outside of work and silently screaming inside how much I need someone to care for me... Which I guess my wife is too busy for.

Wow! over two years now since the affair. Can't say things are much better. Just still faking it until we hopefully make it.
My wife has been very depressed for almost a year now. My son left for the Army back in June and that seems to be all that is on her mind, and causing her depression. She is missing him and always looking forward to him coming home on leave. He was just here for Christmas and cut his stay short to drive back with a girlfreind he has met where he is going to school. I am so happy for him. His personality is a lot like my wifes and he has finally became his own person and does not rely on home and his mom for security.
This has hit my wife hard and is not helping with her depression.
Also my daughter is going to college now. She stays at home but has been very busy and involved in her personal life.
It is very hard to make any head way with her, as far as EN's, ect. when she is in this state.
All of this is really effecting me too. We go through the motions of telling each other good buy, I love you ect. every morning before work but there is nothing there. I feel like I am just saying these things. We have not been physically intimate for about 4-5 months, and even then it hasn't been good. I don't get any feelings of wanting to be close to her. And I know she has felt the same.
Our financial sitituation and other things are slowly getting better, but things are still not changing. I find my self wondering if this is ever going to work in the end.
Just really feeling lost here lately?