My wife of 23 years had a 6 month affair, two years ago. I continue to struggle with vivid memories of the summer of 2010. I am over the shock and begining to get over the depression, but how do I put these memories and blues behind me?

Are you following the MB plan for recovery?

Where are you and your WW at in recovery?

How much UA time are you getting?

Also have you read this?
Managing Memories and Dealing with Triggers

We spend several hours together each day. I have a few good days or week and then something will trigger a memory. I feel like someone who has lost a limb. Happy to be alive, but then depressed that life will never be the same, again.

I have read many books about affairs and most recently how the brain works. The bottom lime is that I just cannot believe what happened. I feel no responsibility for my wifes poor choices. She has finally started to get it, but the memory of the events seem too much to comprehend at times.

I had a great job, the kids were getting awesome college educations, and she had to go and screw up our family! Two years of recovery.... really.

When we were dating a neighbor told me... You know she gets around. We went for a day trip to the river and after her actions in the river with three guys, I swore we would never date again. Now twenty years later and she was running around town acting like a tramp. How do you forget that your wife attended a golf outing for childhood cancer, just to hook up with this guy after the event? How do you forget that she lied to you time and time and time again.

How do you get back to normal and forget that she gave him oral sex while driving back from the golf outing?

How do you forget that your career has stalled, because you spent weeks not able to function properly and then you had to take a new job to stop traveling - because the anxiety was too much to handle.

Let us query you about how well you and your wife are following the program. Dr. Harley says that usually when someone tells him they are following the Marriage Builders program, but not recovering, he finds that they are not following the program exactly. When they adjust and correct the parts they aren't getting right, they recover.

What do you guys do each day during your several hours together?

Do the two of you still talk about the affair?

Drive back and forth to work each day (60 min), make dinner together, go for a walk (60 min), chat, work in the yard, home repair - decorating, botanical gardens, shakespear theater, dinner, beer garden...

Yes, we still talk about it on occassion. The way I feel is that the shock has worn off, which kept me going for months. Now the reality is setting in at times and it really stinks.

You will never recover as long as this is true.

How do you forget it and move forward?

I read some advice that suggested that you have to stop living in the past and future and enjoy the present, but everytime I drive down the highway there are memories of my ww's actions.

How do you get over the feeling that your limb was amputated?

Excellent radio clip on triggers. Tell us what you think.
Radio clip on Triggers

Why?
Is something triggering you?

One thing you have to do is live by the rules of recovery, no matter what your feelings tell you to do. If you do, your feelings will eventually catch up and match your actions.

Yes, there are several triggers on the main East/West highway where we live. Golf driving range that they visited. Office building where she used to work. The list goes on and on.

Isn't that hard, when you see your wife naked and wonder... what did the OG think / do when he saw her naked too?

I seem somewhat well adjusted and moving forward one day and then feel the weight of the world the next day. How could this have happended.

I find it very difficult to admire my wife. The feelings that she gave herself to someone else is hard to block out. The fact that she continued to lie to me about it even after I discovered the affair.

She moved out of the house two years ago, spent one hour on the telphone with him and then ran home with energy and wanted to make it all up to me. I let her back in the house only to find out that she continue to pursue the OG at work for weeks until I told the OMW.

How do you follow a recovery plan when you feel so much has been taken away from you?

My wife's most important EN is affection, but I find it very difficult to meet that EN and remember how she acted a few months ago. It seems that I spent months in a haze and I had to pull the rope to save our marriage. Can you say reluctant spouse.

Now the haze has cleared and I am upset with how my life has turned upside down. How do you stay focused on recovery when there is so much destruction everywhere you look?

Are you doing the online program or MB coaching? Steve Harley is really good with reluctant spouses.

What did you think about the clip on triggers?

Can you move?

Also have you read this?
Using Resentment as a Punishment

This is one of the many reasons why a BS needs to far away from where the affair took place. Time to sell your home.

You want your WW and family or money can't have it all. Choose.

Only oral I think your gut makes you feel that more has happened and this is a reason why you can't put it to rest. Did you have her take a polygraph to see if WW has been trickle truthing you?

I don't know what WW did on a date with you with three other guys all those years ago. But why did you marry her? After being told that she was easy. Then seeing she was easy.

I suspect that your WW may have been a serial cheater all these years but you just caught her now. Again time for a poly.

As long as you suspect not being told the full truth your mind will not be able to rest.

It hasn't been posted here that much any more but recovery takes 2 to 5 years. You have 3 more years of work.

You are going to have to eliminate these triggers from your life. You cannot recover from the trauma of infidelity when you are being constantly triggered to remember it.