Jason, did you see what we said about the antidepressants? This is specifically why Dr Harley recommends them, it helps the BS calm down and make good decisions during such an overwhelming & emotional time.

It looks like someone has already notified the moderators about the post--here's hoping that it gets moved to "Surviving an Affair" so that his thread gets more traffic.

Jason,

So sorry for your pain. I know it is very overwhelming and hard to stop some of the thoughts that flood over you at times. Just realize that feelings change; they are not permanent. You WILL feel better.

Having said that, there is a fairly narrow path for feeling better! You are in the right place to do just that. And while it may feel desperate to write to a forum for help, you've been given a gift to find the MB program, so know that. Many times we turn to our real life friends and they sympathize, but don't really know how to help. Or...we turn to a pastor or other religious leader and their advice is worthless. Again - they don't really know how to deal with this stuff. Heck, most professionals don't do a great job either - as you have seen.

What I'm trying to say is, you are not alone in this: you are not the first one to get rotten professional or clerical advice!

You CAN find relief here...but yes...your actions are going to have to lead for awhile.

As for your wife's commitment to recovery, you will need to set a clear path for that. The books and MB program will give you all the parameters needed.

I third the motion for anti-depressants and/or anti-anxiety meds! Don't try to be a hero and do without them. A lot of us needed them short-term.

I guess I'm not really throwing anything new your way that hasn't yet been posted, just an additional measure of hope and support.

I appreciate it thank you. I don't know what was wrong with me yesterday. I felt desperate and all over the place. I kept getting this gut feeling where I knew we weren't doing right, and if we didn't do something we'd be through.

She's willing, and so I am, we kept feeling we didn't know what to do to keep going in the right direction. I started feeling really far away from her, and I've been losing desire for her.

I brought it to her attention, but I was worried it would feed her insecurities. She's deathly afraid of losing me. We reassured eachother. It's so tiresome dealing with all of this
day in and day out.

It'll be nice one day when I can get up in the morning and go through the whole day and just have a day. No affair thoughts, no hurt feelings. Just a day.

JJ,

I don't know what was wrong with me yesterday. I felt desperate and all over the place.

Just dealing with an ordinary affair which happened once in a hotel, using condoms, 500 miles away is difficult. What you are dealing with puts you in the top 5% of affair ugliness. Your WW violated profession ethics to lie with a psychopathic manipulative lunatic. As others have said please ask the moderators to move this thread to "surviving an affair".

God Bless
Gamma

How do I do that?

Hey, Moderators...can you please move this thread to Surviving and Affair?

I really need to talk this out with other people who understand. I thought I could do this all on my own, but I was wrong. I need help so desperately. I thought I had it under control by now, but I was wrong.

I guess I can go start a new thread.

To contact the moderators, click the "Notify" button on the bottom right of your post where it says Reply-Quote-Quick Reply-Notify-Email Post.

The "In Recovery" section doesn't get much traffic, so that's why you're not getting a lot of input. If you can keep to one thread, hopefully moved to Surviving an Affair, then it helps others follow your story rather than jumping from thread to thread.

Assuming that you (both?) felt better after talking it over with each other, stop bottling things in like that.

Have you considered the phone counseling? Since you guys are floundering a bit, having a coach would be helpful in making sure things are on the right track.

How is your UA (undivided attention) time? Figure it up and actually count how many hours the two of you spend together with no distractions--kids, tv, etc.--and let us know. Just guessing, but I'll bet it's pretty low.

One of the things you need to understand is that you suffered a massive emotional trauma which has been equated to rape in its intensity. It is that bad and sweeping it under the rug doesn�t make it any better.

So the advice you�ve received is terrible.

Is she still in contact with these men? Who has the affair been exposed to? What is she doing to win your trust back? What is her attitude towards winning you back?

Are you sure that all contact with these men has ended?

We�ve been in your shoes and understand your pain.

Jason,

You are NOT alone. Man, I feel your pain. Been there. I know the heartache you are experiencing. I understand too well where you are at. LISTEN to the folks on this site. Do exactly what they say. Know it WILL get better.

MB's is what IS saving my marriage RIGHT NOW after WW's 1.5yr EA/PA. We are in recovery but it was a ROCKY ROAD full of FR and the whole enchilada. Don't shortcut any steps and follow the MB program to the letter of the law.

Just wanted to bump your thread and let you know there are others out there who can totally relate. Hopefully you won't feel so alone.


You will get through this. Read up on Post Traumatic Syndrome Disorder. Scary close to what you most likely are experiencing. I had all the symptoms of PTSD. Don't downplay the seriousness of the mental/physical impact on you.

Knowlege is power. Best of luck brother. You can get through this. A happy marriage is possible. I would have never thought it possible before finding Dr. Harley.

Check that. Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.

Typed to fast!

I posted this to a new thread...so I deleted that and put it here. I didn't know my thread had been moved.

I began posting in the wrong thread...recovery. Yesterday, I had some sort of meltdown, and I was desperately looking for help when I found the forum.

I basically proceeded illustrate a meltdown, crazy-typing to whomever would read it. Its been nine months since I found out about my wife's affair. I'm 34 she's 24. We've been together 6yrs, 5yrs married with 4yo,2yo, and 1 yo daughters, and she's 6 months pregnant with my son.

I thought I'd be doing so much better by now. I see we have made a lot of progress. Reading the MB material and other posts, I see a lot of things I did right even in all of our raw pain. I see a lot of mistakes too, but that's life.

We've been getting a lot of bad advice from our former-therapist which stunted our recoveries. Example: Advising us not to remove triggers, telling us just don't let them control you...you are assigning meaning to them...look at them from a different perspective.

She made me feel as if I were being a weakling, because those things bothered me, and so we hung on to them and made our lives unduly harder than it had to be.

My wife had a very screwed up childhood (neglected, abused). We both didn't understand what boundaries were at all until this year (we were never taught by our families...dysfunctional)

I was working nightshift as a nurse, while she was in nursing school. I took care of everything, and she was pregnant in school.

She met a convicted felon/drug addict/predator-lunatic/murderer and they began a month long affair. My truck, the SUV I had bought her, our bed, you name it they had sex on it. The night before D-day she also slept with his friend once.

She slept with him in front of my kids in the SUV. He was in my house. He knew where I worked, and what hours, and what I looked like...seen my kids.

My entire life, security, and well-being was utterly raped.

My wife has been so remorseful...it's been scary. I was worried she'd kill herself. She told me she was depressed before the affair and wanted to kill herself then, and when she met this guy she said she saw he had access to things (drugs, guns) that could help her end it.

And that also she could forget about the pain with him. I have hundreds of images of her by now bawling and devastated telling me how sorry she was. Wishing she could take it all back.

On day 2 after D-day I had some sort of weird breakdown. I felt like I was going to throw-up and then I started wailing. My whole body went numb and tingly. I couldn't stop, and I felt like I was going to die. My wife almost called 911. I felt like I wasn't even me if that makes any sense.

After it subsided I was in slow motion. I could barely talk. I could barely walk. The only thing that felt "right" was seated, head-down, eyes closed. It lasted almost all day.

I have felt we'd been making progress, and then I felt like we'd come upon a roadblock. I feel like something has been holding us up from recovering. I've been feeling desperate, and distant from my wife. I've been losing sexual desire for her.

We have no support systems. No family, no nothing...we've been trying to do it on our own. Our therapist helped us get through the raw trauma at first (therapy 101) but when we started getting into the affair issues the therapist started doing major damage. It took us a while to figure it out as we were both still deeply wounded and also very trusting of the therapist.

I found MB on a desperate day, and through my haze as I was reading the different articles they all smacked me as bull****, but I kept numbly reading anyway. Because they weren't bull, the points started shining through my haze.

I started feeling hopeful, because it sounded like a lot of common sense good advice that I have been looking for.
I feel like I've been losing hope. It seems to me like I see things happening in our marriage that I can't ignore, things that will end us if not dealt with.

I've been telling my wife this over and over, but she says she's confused saying she thought she was doing everything right. I have just hit a brick wall. I don't know where else to go. I ordered His Needs/Her Needs and Five Steps to Romantic Love as a start. We both done reading on the "affair dynamic" and I understand what happened to her and how she was feeling to the nth degree. I know all of the gorey details of the affair as well.

I will answer any questions about our background or the affair to anyone who can help us. I feel lost and desperate, and I know I've written a book here already so I'll wrap it up. On a positive note, I did desire my wife last night and we were very affectionate with eachother last night and this morning.

Did you read my posts?

We want to help, but in order to get help you are going to have stop talking and start listening. I wrote out the solution to your problems. Did you read my posts?

Did you get the books I recommended? Surviving an Affair and Five Steps to Romantic Love..

The psycho (and main affair) is in prison until october 2012, the other guy was in jail, but is out on 5 yrs probation. I found his address on the jail website, and I resisted going over there.

It won't do any good to beat him up. I'm very fit, and no stranger to fighting in my younger days, so it would have been easy, but my dang brain won out.

She is super remorseful and willing to do anything to win me back, but she gets lazy and does things that kill my trust. Like she doesn't seem intense at making things right as I am.
She's the type that sees things getting better and goes, "Ah, okay, I can chill a little now." It was exposed to everyone.

Our families were poison before, but became so toxic toward both of us we had to say good-bye. My supervisor at my job violated my trust and told EVERYONE. And then all of my supervisor started gunning for me, and riding me like it was my fault or something! I had to quit, they were drumming stuff up to fire me. ???

WRONG BOOK.

Yes I did. I ordered some of the books.