WOW! You actually remembered my suggestions from 07 May?

But I was up extra early to make sure she saw her rose on the breakfast table (same color rose from our wedding), and read her card, and I fed all the children before their bus, and made her a special breakfast.
Way, way cool!

Of course, improvising is allowed:

She requested some "private" time in the afternoon for connecting in an SF way -- and that was good stuff.

Way beyond cool, Stretch! Good to hear things are moving the way you want.

Remember: Eyes ALWAYS on the prize!

Awesome news stretch, just awesome.

NG -

Really appreciate your dedication to so many of the men here. Myself in particular. You go back into the thread and re-read our conversations. Stay in touch. Dive deep.

Your interest in us is better than most therapists. Thanks.

So, I am curious to know more about your story... not aware of your thread. I have pieced together that you are about 2 years past your wife's EA. That's all. And, you have a directness (hey, you are from NY, right?) that is refreshing and a exercising for a staid midwesterner.

Stretch,
First of all, thank you for the kind words.

[tj]
You are the second colleague here to inquire about my history. I'm not "hiding" it, but have had trouble putting it to paper (or whatever electronic composition is called). I have started the effort, and commit to posting it (probably on "In Recovery") on 24 June.
[/tj]

But this thread is about you - and at the moment, the thread is POSITIVE. Keep applying the Principles, and keep us advised. Maximise the "highs" and minimise the effect of the "lows".

E-A-O-T-P!

help me out. its maybe too early in the morning

Eyes Always On The Prize!

gotcha.

Man, I am tired. We need to spend some time now talking about what's fun and wonderful about our marriage.

Marriage requires work. But we've been working so damn hard that we need to appreciate then fun. Will my wife's fog be cleared enough to want to sit back and enjoy those kind of memories? For a while now she had just been "trying it on again." She was way far down the "off" ramp and its hard to get back on.

But its almost three weeks with the ring... and life is good. I can tell she is doing a lot of little things to commit herself to happiness.

When do we determine we are in Recovery? I don't feel there yet. Why not? I guess I want to process some more what happened and seek closure. The months of Plan A and dealing with foggy wayward give no opportunity for O&H processing of what happened.

I am wondering NG, because as I see it, you seem to have the ability to have a very complicated situation for a backstory, if you are just trying to head off at the pass all the conclusion jumping that many will make once you post, by proper composition and timeline.

If you have read my story(s) here, you can see I went through years of ups and downs, situations, and I don't really know what some people think about the story. It was long and also complicated and I don't feel stiil that I have done it justice. I don't believe I can truly ever tell the story right so everybody will understand, but then again why would I want them to understand some of the crap I did, put up with, allowed or felt anyways? I came here to listen to the simple solutions not make life more complicated and I am sure you know what I mean by that.

So if you just wanna vent stuff to get it off your chest, and want some new perspective even from others who were not there first hand in your life and don't know squat, please don't hold back because you want us to really understand, I promise you we really won't "get" it all anyways. We want to help with what we can now.

I respect your direct approach and would like to help you any way I could, if you think I could, and if not and I am out in the stratosphere, well you could just ignore whatever I say.

Lol This place is like having a bunch of therapists with different veiwpoints and most of them with the desire to help which is the best part. It is wise to have a multitude of counsellors no? Even if it is only in spirit, but uneducated in the details.

Looking forward to 6-24 sir

Yeah stretch stop and smell the flowers as much as possible on the way back. I have heard that from other recovered couples that they thank the stars as they go as much as possible. Even the smallest of things. Its part of the rebuilding, don't forget to rest.

Stretch - I'm stoked for you and your Mrs. It's nice to see a success story playing out.

In two years, I've never considered my whole story as a contiguous narrative, more like flashes of individual actions. As I now organize the pieces, there are some things that I'm uncomfortable with - not in revealing to the MB members (you guys don't know who I am) but to myself.

(Sorry, Stretch, for the ongoing tj. This is YOUR thread, and your recent progress is wonderful, and should be celebrated.)

"Revealing things to myself that I am uncomfortable with."

Yup. I get that.

Yeah, that kind of stood out to me also.

I am in bizarro world right now...

My wife spent 2010 writing her first romanace novel. By the end of the year I had read all of it, helped her edit and encouraged her. She found a real talent. But I was always so uneasy because it felt so autobiographical. SAHM with 4 kids gets upset with H after a trip to Hawaii. Goes to bars with two best friends and little brother and falls for a guitar guy...

So, needless to say, of course I found out on D-Day that the novel was filled with true stories.

Anyway, she has been reworking it. She got a lot of feedback that the H wasn't bad enough for the main character to go off and have an affair. She has been rewriting the first chapters to monstrify the H more.

So BIZARRO world time this morning! ...

She is having her critique group over, they are going over each others' manuscripts and I hear them talking and talking about these characters in the book and how he is wrong / he is right... she is wrong / she is right... where is the story going.... what do the two H&W characters feel. What's their goal? Motivation? Does this women want to find herself, reestablish intimacy, fall in love with H again. Its so real because its us. I am a fly in the wall in the other room.

Of course, these women don't know the true story. But its just so BIZARRO world for me right now.

At least I know now what was really going on in my life. And also, I am emotionally intact listening to all this. I could not have been 2 months ago! And my W is having a struggle to "de-personalize" her manuscript. Its therapy in some way. As she figures out what the character wants does it help her journey. However, the guitar guy love interest she has to write about in the story has got to be really a bad thing for her to be doing while working on withdrawal and recovery.

Writing that now, I have decided to address this tonight. It cannot be a good thing to write about this character in the book if it flashes her to the real OM. No matter the denials ("Oh... I wrote him differently" ... "My guitar man was different -- not like the fictional character in my book.")

Isn't this a crazy SAA story? A friend of mine called it the "longest confession... writing a book for a year"

Wow Stretch, kind of makes you wonder. Was she writing this book because of the A? Or did she have the A because she was writing this book? It would be difficult to listen to this.

Maybe if the ending has her back with her husband regretting what she has done. Otherwise, I don't see how it could be good for your recovery.

That's important information to share. Yes, in the end of the book they renew their vows... Happy Ever After.

The final chapter as it stands when they get to that H.E.A. place is a total mess IMO. Because she had no idea how to actually write a recovery! As it stands now, the chapter is basically, like, H is all wrong, he finally realizes it, she gets a nanny and a part time volunteer job and another trip to Hawaii. And she still thinks about how she loved guitar man. The ending rubs me the wrong way. But now I see it as fogbabble on the page.

But she wrote all this in a really confused, emotional state. Really, really had to rush the ending just to get it done. You are right! This is the important piece: In the end, the H&W renew their vows and H.E.A. She doesn't understand how to really get there right now because we are doing that experience now. And her fog just started to fade away within the past few weeks IMO.

It means a lot that she wrote the H&W renewing their vows in the end.

I wanted to write a tribute to my late WW also. I know if I did it right I could show the truth about her life, my life, in a James Michener style of separate incidents and a timeline over 50 years...

Most writers write what they know about, and my family has been my primary occupation for so long. I would need more time to separate myself from the situation I am left in and to have more objectivty so I could be fair to her, and leave a real chronilogical <sp> history behind for my children. Which I would be dedicating the book to so when I am gone maybe it would help them understand and help them get peace and protect them.

I wrote a ten page eulogy and did not deliver it with the fire and passion I planned on. Instead my voice was so broken with tears my DD came up on stage to comfort me. I forced myself through it though because I knew who the woman was inside the shell that passed away. Whats that saying? "Respresent"

But I know I will need some time, research, objectivity before I could write such a book, and it would be challanging to write it now without many painful memories clouding my perception. I only want to represent the truth about late WW to my children, and also about myself, and in that way give them the truth that will help them in thier own decisions in life. Maybe in ten years I will be ready.

A Romance novel you say stretch? Isn't that about love? It certainly is about feelings compared to the bigger picture of objective love.

I don't believe that you need to be an expert on Gods objective love in order to be "In love" or have "romantic love". That would be like having to know all the details about how a car is built and understanding past and future impacts of the automobile on society and people in order to drive a car correctly. But damn sure if you drive it wrong you will probably crash even if you know how to change the spark plugs.

So is she exploring romance like a guy would look at different car models because he was unsatisfied with performance? She has got a pit crew of fellow "romance mechanics" she can confer with also it sounds like. Sound like a guy going to the strip club comparing his overworked wife he has lost appreciation with to some fantasy chick, its important to remember what is real and women need to be cherished, just like husbands need to be respected. People ussually go for the flashy model or the fantasy car because they don't want to deal with whats under the hood. Outta sight, outta mind.

She must be going through some kind of identity crisis and maybe she is tring to script her life and rewrite history. I am hoping you two can turn this into something that will bring in an overwheming romance to your marriage eventually.

God Bless.

Stretch, do NOT blow this out of proportion versus what's really important to your life right now.

(Get the 2x4's ready ladies, you're gonna wanna use them.)

99.9% of all American women have this Meryl Streep(Bridges of Madison County) Kirsten Scott Thomas (Hell, take your pick!) fantasy of the PERFECT man (who really doesn't exist) mysteriously appearing and giving them the PERFECT romantic experience. (Hint to those ladies: Those guys are looking for women who look like MS and KST, not YOU!)

Yours is slightly more industrious and actually wrote down her wet-dreams! Who cares? All her deprived girlfriends are getting moist listening to her fantasies, giving suggestions to re-write them more specifically into THEIR fantasies. HARMLESS!

Would you rather she wrote this tripe down, and progressed with recovering her relationship with you, or kept dreaming of HIM and foregoing the repair job she's evidently stepping up to?

ONE MORE TIME - EAOTP!!!!!

This is a DJ, probably leading to a mutual AO, that need not happen!

Hey Stretch,

I'm on the fence on this one. But I tend to agree with NG on a lot of things and typically echo his comments with less-eloquent renditions of my own creation.

Unfortunately, our resident New Yorker has left me confused with just what EAOTP stands for...so I'll have to withhold final judgement until he can help me out with that

Thx.

EAOTP = "EYES ALWAYS ON THE PRIZE" of course. But maybe you knew that and just wonder what NG means in this context.

As for the book, i just wonder if writing that manuscript is dangerous as she will write about OM and trigger feelings that make withdrawal more difficult.

Women do have the romance novel fantasies. Its the biggest category in the book sales industry actually. So even the most romantically committed and faithful wives will indulge their fantasies. It hurts me when there is areal OM and EA. And she struggles to see the foolishness of the fantasy and what she almost did. It was escapism andcrunning from reality. But she and friends seemed to think they had it all clear and it made sense. So much fog.

The writing is also a big deal because she is searching for purpose and self worth beyond SAHM. But it sure is a tough choice of venture. Lots of rejection in writing. I do have some sense of vindication that she has received feedback multiple times along the lines of: "we dont get this main character. Why is she pursuing an affair? Her H doesnt seem so bad. We dont like what she is doing. We dont feel sorry for her. "

I leave it alone. Dont desire to rub her nose in that. Not sure where to take that vindicated feeling. I think she knows she was wrong and is not proud. The past few months of fog have been filled with defensiveness and justification. Its fading away somewhat.

Her critique partners giving that feedback have no idea they are actually judging the author and her autobiography.