The following is me just getting things up out of my chest and soul. Please allow me to let it out.

So many posters here have experienced the pain of infidelity. The hurt that turns to anger, and sometimes to a self-hatred that boarders on self-harm, the fear of the present, the future. The erasure of anything that was remembered as good and happy and wonderful. We remember falling in love. The first time we �noticed� our spouse, the warmth of their smile, the sound of the first laugh and the lingering joy of that first kiss. Let me tell you about infidelity from the eyes of a victim. You see, I am a two time loser in this circumstance. In fact, outside of marriage, I lost every girlfriend I ever had to someone else. At age 56, here is what I think about today�.
Suzi was 7 and she was recovering from chicken pox when I met her. She lived in the beach cottage across the street from the beach cottage my parents rented for three weeks in the summer of 1963. She could not leave her house and I played checkers with her as she sat inside a screened porch. I was just a little boy, small and extremely thin for my age but we became friends. A week later when she could leave the house I was able to go fishing off a dock with her in a week full of clouds and cool summer air that kept sweatshirts on. Each summer for the next four years we met and played together. She liked baseball and we played endlessly on the sandy beach. By sixth grade we would write to one another during the school year. That last summer I was still a little boy but Suzi had grown up with curves and an outgoing personality and suddenly the teen age boys were asking her to go water skiing and I remember the day I heard her tell one boy �he thought I was his girlfriend.� We never said hello ever again.
In high school on a different stretch of beach I was welcomed into a group of kids who lived by the salt water year round. Me, I was a �summer kid� but they accepted me and we hung around. One day when I was a freshman in high school I asked a girl who was a year older than I to go sailing. On a hot summer day we walked three and one-half miles to go for a day of sailing on a borrowed 12 foot sunfish. We sailed for hours and bought a hamburger for lunch miles away from where we started and then walked home. My �date� was so sunburned that she had to stay inside for four days! We talked on the phone for hours each night that summer and sailed many times. The night before I left to go �home� for school in the fall we held each other standing outside her home for two hours. The letters flew back and forth that winter and the next summer when I returned to the sea shore I worked six days a week in a supermarket. We sometimes walked to a soft ice cream store together in the evening and we played board games. Then, one night I could not get through on her phone. At about ten in the evening I walked a mile to her home. There she was in her driveway with a mutual friend, an older boy with a hot car and the realization that they were kissing in his car with the radio on was hard to swallow. I walked home and spent the balance of the summer working and on days off fishing or doing things with my family.
The next year I met a pretty girl at a high school dance at another school. I asked her to my prom and we had lots of fun. A year later I had my drivers license and we began to go bowling and playing miniature golf on dates. As she prepared for college in a different state (and I did the same), she decided to play the field and we went our separate ways. Only a week later I noticed a mutual friends car parked in front of her house. Such are the pains of growing up that I am sure many here can identify with.
I had fun in college. No girl friend the first two years but a few fun dates. I met a wonderful young woman the next year and we began dating once a week, usually to fraternity parties. I was growing close to her and she me or so I thought. But when I left for a week to do research on a college project I recall driving home all night only to be told the next morning by my roommate that my friend was seen getting high with a young man in a rival fraternity the night before. Though we dated a few more times, it was obvious that she wanted to be �just a friend.� The relationship ended as I graduated college. Out in the real world I moved on with life. I was happy but I missed having a girl friend. In the course of the next year I visited the girl I once had taken to my prom and we began to date. 18 months later when she graduated from college we married. We had three children over the next 11 years. Somewhere during year 12 she became involved with my (at the time) best friend. I did not know. As the frequency of SF dropped to zero over the course of a year I became curious. Eventually, a late night snoop in her pocketbook found pictures in her wallet of my best friend. I went into a deep depression, and when months later I found the courage to ask about it she told me she wanted a divorce, that she was in love and I was asked to leave the house. That was the only way she would consider staying married to me. I listened as she told me what a good lover my best friend was. I listened as she told me she liked to wear the underwear he bought her because �it brought them close when he was not there.� I listened while she told me �his wife never gives him anything � that this OM�s wife was on anti-depressants because her mother had died, and that he was going crazy in frustration when he found my wife who was SO GOOD IN BED. I listened while she told me he liked SF in his car. I listened to her cry that he was everything she ever wanted or needed and that if I were her friend I would understand. Eventually I started to crack. Sometimes she would ask me to �pretend� I was him and she would ask for SF from me while calling his name. I have no idea how I kept my job. I cried often at work. I paid 100% of the bills for the home, her car, her car phone and even took the kids while she went on a secret vacation with her lover. Still, she filed for divorce � my old best friend at this point ran back to his own wife and I had nothing. Feeling guilty for not being good enough I gave her everything including the house which was paid off. The divorce was final and I was broke having giving her (for the sake of the kids) everything.
Two years later I began tentatively to date. A few months later I found a lover. It felt good, it took my mind off things and I was not so lonely. This woman increasingly became agitated. In the middle of the night she would awaken me with her fists striking me. She used razor blades to cut herself. Having been told that she was divorced I learned to my horror that she was still married. At that time I followed her one afternoon only to watch her drive up to a man and throw her arms around him in a deep soul kiss. Shortly there-after I broke off the relationship only to have her climb into my garden apartment in the middle of the night with a hand gun � waking to find her sitting on my bed naked with the gun pointed to her head. I was so frightened that I urinated in my bed. I felt forced to stay in the relationship and two months later I moved 270 miles away in a new job. I was free.
Three years went by. I went through a period of loneliness, and then I tried dating. The first woman I dated seemed nice and fun. An unexpected date cancelation one evening led me to drive by her home. Sure enough there was a man there and I �headed for the hills� and never dated her again. These things happen. Dating has no guarantees and certainly many of us have been through it. I was hardened or so I thought.
At this point I had been divorced for seven years. I was a good Dad and my kids and I vacationed together, I was there for the basketball games, I coached soccer and baseball and I did many a school project with them. I was proud of who I was.
I was lonely�.
Then I met the woman who became my wife. She was recently divorced, outgoing and sweet and very, very naive. We worked together and about 18 months later, she asked me to her mother�s home for a July 4th picnic. I declined even though I thought she was wonderful.
A week later I asked her for a date and we married a year later.
It is no excuse, but long work hours in a different job and a 150 mile a day commute took a toll on us. The stress of my job and my life experience led me to begin to yell a lot at home. I felt I was being taken for granted and I was lonely. My wife repeatedly refused to go out on the weekend with me (we had a young child of her own and she had two boys from her first marriage). We became roommates.
I became resentful of being second, third, fourth or fifth fiddle. Almost on schedule I had an angry outburst about being ignored for the next five years. I worked hard long hours and I focused on the memories of the good times. When my parents died 20 days apart my wife (because of travel distance and �needing to take care of the kids�) did not even come to my mother�s funeral. I was adrift and simply trying to survive. Amazingly, even with my own hurts, I was still in love in my head. I was used to being not good enough with women. It started when I was eleven years old and never stopped.
I took my hurt out with my angry yelling. I think I swore once but mostly I just used volume and occasionally hurtful comments.
I began reading Dr. Harley and began to realize how much my angry outbursts were hurting my marriage. My wife was thoughtless and selfish at times. But she was also gentle and naive and easily hurt. Just yelling upset her for MONTHS. At first, I would think about the movie �My Cousin Vinny.� After all, that is how I grew up in a family like that and Mum and Dad always made up after they yelled at one another. But that is not how my wife reacted.
So when did I realize my wife was involved with other men? I don�t know but I thought about it after I buried my mother alone. I was probably right. But I was in survival mode and work was six days a week (still is) and I did what I could.
Then one day 25 months ago I came home to hear my wife say �I love you� on the phone and she said it with a tone and intonation that is not used for the kids, family or girl friends. My life as I knew it crashed.
I will spare some of the details. Eventually a tape recorder in her car revealed the truth. Months later I was told about one OM. He had died 40 days earlier. He was not the man on my tape recording. Even today that identity though known through other snooping has never been revealed to me by my wife.
I have watched myself end my angry outbursts, I nearly ended my own life in anger at myself for angry outbursts in the past (I blamed the cheating on myself). Of course it helped that my wife told me she had endured terrible verbal abuse. And I now know she rewrote the marital history to justify her behavior. I have struggled with the knowledge that never in my life have I been good enough for a girl or woman. Even today though the intense self hatred is gone I still sort of accept that I am just not good enough to have a woman be faithful to me. I don�t see it as �women� are the problem. I just see it that I am not enough. I have to accept that. I am fighting for my marriage. Fighting to raise one of my children �our eleven year old� free of divorce. And everyday I am reminded of the fact that I am not good enough. Its hard fellow MB�ers.
It is harder than my experiences as a young man in combat.
Here is what infidelity does�.
Rarely does this man care if he lives her dies. I have days when I simply want to take my wife�s hand and put it in the hands of some handsome, wonderful man that she will actually love. I day dream thinking that my eleven year old son might bond to another man (a step Dad) were I to die of a heart attack. I wonder dozens a time each day if my wife is still in an EA or PA with someone from the past, present or if she is wondering who will be next. Each day I pray for my wife and my family. My work days are filled with moments when I shake, worry and fear. I watch two of my three adult children from my first marriage embrace alcohol to cope with life and I know in my heart that the fact that I was not good enough for their mother is the cause.
I am growing stronger and most days can function at 100% there are many days when I function in a dull, lifeless fog. I wonder frequently if I will ever now happiness again.
I feel like a caged animal in a zoo.
At night I snuggle up to my wife, rub her back and her feet and do whatever I can to try and make myself at least good enough that she will stay in the marriage for the sake of our eleven year old. I no longer really know who I am. I am too busy trying to think of what I can do next to try and please / appease my wife. I feel depressed if I am not successful at pleasing her.
Every once in a while I hear an �I love you.�
But as each day goes on I am convinced that my life will never know happiness again.
Perhaps I will �win� my wife enough to keep her married. But I know in my heart that I will never be loved. My back hurts severely shortly after climb into bed every night (stress and fear). I have settled for table scraps because it is better for my son and to try and find something better at age 56 given my life experience is not very good odds.
The simple truth is, I am enslaved.
I have the fire in my belly not to give up.
What has infidelity done to me? It destroyed two of three children of my first marriage, it destroyed my career (yes I am still successful at work but I gave up my ideals to work in an environment that is counter to everything I really believe in), it has led my current wife to a quiet depression of her own and all I can do is go on.
But I am not alive. Infidelity may be recoverable but some of us probably aren�t. The faint hope of some miracle drives me on.
In reality, I am a broken man. I just refuse to quit.
This once happy man� he was murdered. He will never be back.
Today, I am burying him. Who I will be in the future, I cannot fully predict. But the carefree happy man who�s college friends called �Smiley� will never be again.
Infidelity does not just hurt someone. It kills their soul.
I hope as I come back a new person that I will not be uncaring. I hope as I come back that I will retain my good qualities. I think to myself why didn�t she just shoot me. That would have been kinder.
What does infidelity do? It destroys people from the inside out. It is the worst form of violence on the planet. And it is legal and common and�.
Leaves pain that cannot be imagined by the perpetrator lost in their thoughtlessness.


Hurting Turkey,
Me BS 56
She WW 50
Hers 18, 22
Mine 22, 28, 30
Ours DS 11
D-Day 1 - April 26 2009
D-Dapy 2 - October 15 2009
Exposed February 22, 2010
Me: Reforming Verbal Abuser
She: still won't divulg OM # 2 despite overwhelming evidence

Thanks for posting HT. I feel your pain as well. It makes you feel like your happiest days are over and they were just a farce anyway. Being alone is our destiny and we don't deserve a wife.

But I try to remember that I have had a lot of good times with both of my wives. That I have cried from being lonely before, and HE sent someone at the right time, His time, not mine. I still struggle with this every day tho, just like you.

Would the two of you be willing to take The Love Dare? A couple in our church was heading for divorce and they took it and it completely changed their marriage! They are like newlyweds now and they've been married for close to 30 years!

HT, I will pray for you tonight, I will pray you find happiness. I will also be praying for all the BS's. There should be serious laws in every state to deal with this. I know of nothing else that has destroyed me more than my WW's actions.

It is God's way of telling us he truly does create one flesh when we marry. Whatever the WS feels and perpetrates will also be felt by the BS. It has to be that way because you are one together.

God knows this pain that is why Adultery is discussed throughout time and with great emphasis on why it should never occur. It is God's out because of its utter annihilation of the soul. You soul has been annihilated by your WW. Her soul was annihilated by her. God understands how it destroys both souls because husband and wife are not two they are one united in marriage. That is why our children suffer as much as their parents because they are the product of our one union.

For me, my recovery is based on God. I cannot survive nor will I find any form of peace until I really use God to grant me that peace. My soul may have been annihilated by my WH, and only God can give me the tools to recover fully and completely.

HT you can look at yourself and grasp all that you chose to do in your life as good or bad. You can look at your son today and know you are building a man of character. Your son can see your pain, and he will always reflect this pain in the choices he makes as a husband. There is nothing wrong with your son understanding the pain you face and feel today. Why can's that be used as an experience to hopefully spare his marriage this same pain?

HT only you can build yourself up today because your one union has been severed. You cannot fully get the one union back until all honesty has been restored. God knows the difficulties you face, and he has given you truth. Your union isn't one today. Lies still keep it torn in two. You will never fully recovery your soul. Your only option if she doesn't get honest is to remain a broken man trapped in her sin or divorce. Recovery will never work unless your wife has radical honesty.

HT I worry this long running deceipt will destroy you. You are a man of character, wisdon, humilty, and honor. You have to look deep within yourself to find why you have those traits, and how they make you who you are today. Your son can see them, and he is counting on you to use them to raise him.

HT only you will know if your union can fully be healed and recovered. The decisions you make now can and should set an example for those little eyes that look up at you and see a man of great strength.

As low as you feel at the moment cannot compare to the eyes of the child who sees you as his savior. You are his father, you are his leader, you are his rock. Show him why you are all those great things because in time he will be the one leading his family using what you gave him. Are you going to give him the good, the bad, or the ugly of life?

HT I feel your pain, heartache, and the depth of your anguish. I as a BS know everything you have described. I decided I have to fight this infidelity will my guns fully drawn. I have an AK on my hip, and a Glock up my sleeve. I keep my H&K on my ankle, and my Sig on my chest. Most of all I have the full body armor of Christ, who I can do all things through.

That means I live a great life and I show my four babies why they will have a great life. Build yourself up HT, so you know whatever union you finish your life with will be made perfect because God has granted you that perfect union.

MB is the program that works Kaystcamper. I only support MB related type programs and I don't think that "lovedare" is part of the MB program. I go w/Dr. harley's approach!

I have heard of that myself. Unfortunately WW is still wayward right now. Maybe that will change, maybe it won't, but if it does then that would be something I would be interested in.

I would say that "The Love Dare" is encapsulated in a corner - a tiny piece - of MB.

It is a single aspect, a single approach "Plan A."

http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi8113_ab.html

(AFTER exposure).

I am speechless after reading the above responses. Maybe because I know I am not alone (I do know that but sometimes it helps to have that reaffirmed.
LostNtime, thank you.
Hilsmonmoretime, I sincerely appreciate your prayer.
kaycstamper... I need to read that book. I have read at least 20 (no exageration) by now - maybe there is something that I can tie in to Dr. H without creating a breach or maybe it will just help me understand better.
itistoughlove, you are an inspiration for me.
peachyisback, thank you for keeping the guidelines in the forefront of my mind.
I am just a little stronger today than I was yesterday, maybe a lot stronger.
Most importantly, I am still married.
Deception... yeah, that is the biggest worry. Then sometimes I think about years of me firing off High Volume Verbal Salvos (angry outbursts) almost like Old Faithful every three months.... and I wonder how until I read Dr. Harley how I lied to myself. And I did. I still wonder about it because I did. I can only assume that this is what waywards do (i.e. lie to themselves).
Hope my description of what infidelity did to me has some meaning to others here. We all want to feel like we live for something beneficial to others.

Blessings All,
Hurting Turkey,
Me BS 56
She WW 50
Hers 18, 22
Mine 22, 28, 30
Ours DS 11
D-Day 1 - April 26 2009
D-Dapy 2 - October 15 2009
Exposed February 22, 2010
Me: Reforming Verbal Abuser
She: still won't divulg OM # 2 despite overwhelming evidence

HT, your post brought tears to my eyes. I am so sorry for your pain.

I can only speak for one unfaithful wife, and that is me. But I can say without a doubt that my A had nothing to do with my H not being "good enough" or lacking in any way. Yes, your WW may be rewriting history to justify her A, but the truth is that you are more than good enough for her. For me, I know that my H is not "just" good enough, he is better than me. He was better at maintaining boundaries. He was better at honoring his wedding vows. He - and you - are more than "good enough" for any woman. My H voiced the same doubts about himself, the same insecurities, that somehow he wasn't enough.

Those doubts are false.

It was us, your wives, who weren't "good enough."

As for parenting, whether or not my M recovers from the damage I did, I will work to teach my daughters not to make the same mistakes I made as a wife. I think that is the best we can give our children.

On the Love Dare, H and I did it. It didn't work for us because we both did it while I was trickle-truthing H. It does dovetail nicely with Plan A. I enjoyed doing it and I did learn from it. I learned that I love to show my H that I love him. I love just doing things for him (although I still had a hard time suspending my expectations).

One of the biggest things I got from the LD was the debunking of the popular credo of "follow your heart." We should never, never follow our hearts; we should LEAD our hearts. Fits nicely with Dr. H's idea of not blindly doing what our emotions tell us to do.

One place the LD diverges from Dr. H, however, is the concept of love: the LD posits that the kind of love we should strive for between a husband and wife is unconditional love. Dr. H posits that love is not unconditional, and how that relates to the LB$.

Just my $.02. (((((HT)))))

wullfpack girl,
I would not wish to bring tears to your eyes. I too am only an expert at me. Or sometimes I think I am. I sincerely appreciate your comments. Maybe there is more for me to learn about me that I am not expert at.
One day soon I hope to post my observations about how the A hurt my wife.... Dr. H. says that both spouses get hurt. Your comments make me feel compassion for my wife and for you. That is the thing I fear of losing most in me. The ability to be understanding. For weeks at a time I can and have lost that but it has always come back. But sometimes I wonder if it is that sensitivity in me that makes it hurt so much. Anyway, thank you for giving me a different way to look at it.

Thanks to you all here at MB's

Blessings All,
Hurting Turkey,
Me BS 56
She WW 50
Hers 18, 22
Mine 22, 28, 30
Ours DS 11
D-Day 1 - April 26 2009
D-Dapy 2 - October 15 2009
Exposed February 22, 2010
Me: Reforming Verbal Abuser
She: still won't divulg OM # 2 despite overwhelming evidence

I understand. I remember being at that awful place where happiness seemed impossible, and if I were to find happiness, I would never trust it to be "real", or to last.
The way I expressed this was to write to my H:

"You have torn the wings off a butterfly.
She will never fly again."

Despite all my morose prose, I have recovered my happiness.

I recently wrote on the recovery forum.
The crux of my message is this:

RECOVERY IS NOT A DESTINATION
RECOVERY IS A DIRECTION

Keep moving .... in the right direction.

Pepperband, I copied your post, then shrunk it down and it is now in my wallet. Thank you.
I really am trying and more recently, I feel some pride.
Guess I need to re-read the Carrot & Stick thread so next order of business will be for me to follow your link.
Thank you. I hear your message of hope.

Hurting Turkey,
Me BS 56
She WW 50
Hers 18, 22
Mine 22, 28, 30
Ours DS 11
D-Day 1 - April 26 2009
D-Dapy 2 - October 15 2009
Exposed February 22, 2010
Me: Reforming Verbal Abuser
She: still won't divulge OM # 2 despite overwhelming evidence

I love this Pep! I've even changed my signature line. This is so true. Saying we're recovered... implies that we have reached our destination and stopped. Not at all. We strive towards recovery daily. Simple yet profound.

/TJ

Yes, this. Most of us end up in trouble when we based our decisions on our "feelings" (I do!).

HT, your post was poignant and raw and your pain was/is evident.

One thing I'd like you to consider though is that all of these experiences in your life, while hard and sharing a common theme, do not define you, then or today. Each one of those situations were NOT about you, they were about that young girl and the women who followed who made their own choices based on their stuff, not yours. I'm sorry they hurt you.

Easier said that done I know, but try and count each day a new blessing and opportunity to make things good and right in your life and the lives of those you touch. You have the rest of your life. Sure, your past will perhaps influence your present, but it doesn't have to rule it.

I know in my own marriage, if my husband and I chose to decide our future based on the terrible things we've done to each other over the years, we would have no future. This is why Dr. H's plans are so great. They don't focus a whole lot on our past mistakes but rather on today and tomorrow. What can you do today, right now, and even tomorrow to change things up?

Change your atmosphere and change your life.

Princessmeggy: thank you. I struggle for words because your comments have me truly thinking. I KNOW I am making things good and right in the lives of my family. I enjoy doing that. The slavery I feel comes mostly from feeling used. But I know my son appreciated me last eveninig. If I push my fear away I think my wife appreciated me last evening, and the evening before. (Or... she should have!).
Thank you for the coaching.

Blessings,
Hurting Turkey,
Me BS 56
She WW 50
Hers 18, 22
Mine 22, 28, 30
Ours DS 11
D-Day 1 - April 26 2009
D-Dapy 2 - October 15 2009
Exposed February 22, 2010
Me: Reforming Verbal Abuser
She: still won't divulge OM # 2 despite overwhelming evidence

In an MB marriage, this won't happen (well, it shouldn't). Why? Because our "Takers" and "Givers" are carefully monitored and our spouse's happiness (works both ways) becomes a priority.

There are no sacrifices leading to resentment. "Does what I am doing now make my spouse unhappy?" becomes a mantra. POJA becomes a way of life. This kind of marriage manages to nudge out selfish behavior and hurt feelings.

Easy? Not at first. It takes practice, forgiveness, picking yourself up when you fall, and then moving forward towards the goal... daily.

If your spouse is not willing to work towards having this kind of marriage, are you willing to live with that?

HT,

Have you thought about handing the post you made? Or telling her Honestly what you feel and think? She is not a mindreader. She is with you, she did not leave you. There is something there, but it cannot be fanned and brought into the light of day unless YOU are honest with her.

I am not chastizing you for how you have handled the bad things in your life, but I wonder if you would have felt a bit better if nothing had changed but that you would have expressed your disappointment and dismay at the folks that left you high and dry before.

I know you have stated that you had big issues with AO's, but rather than have anger wouldn't it be better to have honesty?

I think you would think and feel differently if you expressed how you have felt and why, even if nothing actually changes.

Please think about this. Harley pushes "radical honesty" for a reason. Spouses need/require information to make good decisions.

God Bless,

JL

"When you find yourself going through Hell... keep going."



HT, I feel you.

I know there is a part of me that has, in fact, been murdered. I will never get that part of myself back. I recognized what it was pretty quickly - it was the very last thread of child-like innocence that I had left, and that innocence was encapsulated in my love for my wife.

It's that belief in storybook love, and "meant to be" and all that other stuff that becomes... PURE DRIVEL once you have faced betrayal.


It's something that's almost palpable, you can sense it on those here who have lost it.

But, HT... it's just a PART of us. We are changed. We are battered, we are bruised, and injured... like you many of the betrayed right now are shattered and broken.

But, we can come back. We can get up. We can MOVE. FORWARD.


WE HAVE TO MOVE FORWARD.

For those who have not turned their attackers around, to lie there and bleed means their attacker, their betrayer, will continue to injure them, and just leave them bleeding in the gutter. And then they will blame the victim; "He just lay there... what would YOU have done?"

Recovery does not begin with 2 HT. Recovery begins with 1.

It begins with that 1 spouse who in a flash of desperation lifts the burning wreckage and frees the other spouse from the hell they are trapped in. It begins with that one spouse who begins marching through the flames, with a hand extended, refusing to burn any longer - I will not burn, and you can CHOOSE to come with me.


HT, recovery begins with YOU.

PrincessMeggy... "Am I willing to live in a marriage like that?" I may have to I guess. But perhaps not. In two days I will watch my brave wounded Marine son marry. In three days my 18 year old step son will graduate from high school. Plan B then becomes an option that I can carry out with the least impact on others excepting my wife. I will have to cross that bridge when I get there. If I have to just live in a shell of a marriage for the sake of my 11 year old, I may have to do that for him. If I go Plan B, it will only be because I am running towards the guns firing at me and not because I am running away. I am not afraid of that anymore. I am simply going to have to decide on what is the greater good. The risk in Plan B is greatest for my (our) 11 year old.

Just Learning. You have some wonderful advice that I will take. My wife and I are currently working with an IMAGO therapist that follows Dr. Harley. I will have to shorten the message somewhat but I promise I will take this post and describe my feelings with my wife in the safety of the therapists office. I expect the therapist to do his level best to keep her listening instead of defending / denying. It is a risk but one I intend to take. Must take. Since I have not brought up the OM issue in more than 6 months, it is a way of addressing the issue.
I think you gave me the push I needed to make that decision and I will go through with it this coming Tuesday evening.
HoldHerHand...
It took so long for me to just survive D-Days 1 & 2. Perhaps I am just a weak man. Although this is a second marriage for me, it is honestly the first time in my life I fell in love. I knew what love was (or think I did), but I never had had the emotional overwhelming in love until I met, befriended and then fell head over heals for my wife. And boy did I fall!. How can I describe it? I for years have searched for the word for that emotional experience. I guess this morning the word hit me... "Delicious."
So I guess the child-like innocense lost is exactly what you write about. That is my experience the past 25 months.
I am past survival now, and I am much stronger than I was.

Thank you all fellow /Gal MB'ers.
I see those who have thrived after being caught in the trap of infidelity... On both sides.
With great admiration,

Hurting Turkey,
Me BS 56
She WW 50
Hers 18, 22
Mine 22, 28, 30
Ours DS 11
D-Day 1 - April 26 2009
D-Dapy 2 - October 15 2009
Exposed February 22, 2010
Me: Reforming Verbal Abuser
She: still won't divulge OM # 2 despite overwhelming evidence