My experience is similar. It's very much like the pain of losing a loved one. With time and care, the pain doesn't really reduce, but you get used to it. With avoiding triggers that cause you to think about the affair, you have days you simply don't think about it at all.

Then you'll have days you're an emotional wreck and end up asking the person who betrayed you to hold you while you cry. You don't need to bring up exactly why due to the rule about "not bringing up the affair after the facts are known" -- a simple "I'm very sad today about events in the past" -- but a good cry while your spouse holds you is healing. Particularly if, like my spouse, during the affair you'd cry alone in another room and your spouse would hear but do nothing to comfort you.

From what Scanty is posting, it sounds like she is practically immersed in triggers.

Scanty: Please do not try to deal with all of your problems at once. Break them down. This place can be invaluable in dealing with the affair problem. Your WH's affair sounds like a textbook affair, so get the textbook. It's called "Surviving an Affair". Read it, preferably with your husband, and implement the program given therein. I am a Christian too, as is my wife. So is Dr. H. What I can tell you is that this book and the MB program were *way* more helpful than anything my church or usual support network had to offer.

My husband told me about it the day after it ended. He said it ended by mutual agreement. They had had many discussions about how they should stop and finally decided to do it. I do believe it is truly over, yet am still checking up on him from time to time. I have told several people who are supporting me. I somehow managed to get him to confess it to my dad, while I told my mom, which he completely disagrees we should have done. I don't.

I believe we are both committed to making the relationship work. The trouble is, he thinks it will work by me just "getting over it", letting it go, loving him better and moving forward. He doesn't want to talk about anything. I'm done talking about the affair, but we obviously need to talk about what got us there, exactly how it is I'm supposed to love him better, etc. I have read The Five Love Languages, which I was trying to implement before I found out about the affair, but he was unresponsive at the time. He is reading it now. I think that is key to some of our problems.

The crazy thing is, right after I found out, I actually felt more love for him than I ever have, more attracted to him, wanted to be with him all the time, etc. I also had a lot of guilt that I drove him to it, even though I thought I had been doing well at loving him the way he needed. He didn't see it. I'm now kind of at the point where I'm frustrated that he really thinks I should just "get over it" and am resenting that. Today was another long day of depression.

I didn't see this answer.

Is OW married?

Also have you seen this?

To add to Glove's post.
No Contact Example Letters

Thank you for your detailed reply. He HAS written a no contact letter, using guided info I found online as to what to say and what not to say. I read it before he sent it and he sent it to both the woman and her husband.

I asked if she had given him anything, any gifts or anything. She had given him an extra running watch of hers when his died recently. I got an envelope out, wrote her address on it in my handwriting and we mailed it together. (He had to do a lot of investigating to figure out her address, cause he had already deleted her contact info.)

We had a good talk last night after my day of misery, which made his day a day of misery. I had sent him a list of 20 Mistakes Unfaithful Spouses make when in recovery. His comment about "just getting over it" was one of them, as well as explaining that a woman needs to talk about things in order to process and get over them. He said he completely "gets it", gets my pain, that it will take time, that I can't always control when I cry or have a day of depression, and that he doesn't really expect me to just get over it.

We talked about the need to "talk about things". I made it clear that I don't intend to talk about the affair, just our marriage, what lead to our problems, how we can make it better, etc. He informed me that while he understands what I'm saying, just talking about our marriage, in his mind, is talking about the affair. It reminds him of what he did, which means he doesn't like talking about any of it. But he also understands it is necessary. He just wanted me to understand his thought process and that he won't ever "want" to talk about it.

I feel we had a breakthrough in understanding each other last night.

I do believe the affair is truly over. I will always be on my guard, but he is taking steps to assure trust and accountability. From the very beginning he started doing check-ins on facebook at various places, so I'd always know that when he said he was going to the gym, he really was at the gym. I had no idea that's why he was all of a sudden checking in a lot more often than he used to. I do have his passwords and we've had a lot of conversations about that. He did change it in a few places, like facebook and Skype, right at the time he started seeing her, but when I asked for it he gave it to me without hesitation.

He has not been running with the running group. He's actually been too injured to run lately, but he doesn't intend to run with them again. I doubt she is either, but he is done with that.

He has not changed his email or phone number and I have hesitated to ask him to because they are both directly related to his business. He's had the same email that all his customers have for probably ten years. Same with his cell number. I have thought about this and will consider it more. I know that right after he broke it off with her, he did contact her via Skype (not cell or email or facebook). I found that out when I got his new password, four weeks after the fact and we had a heated conversation about it. I do believe that was their last contact. It partially involved his fear of her husband coming after him, which was a viable concern for both of us. I didn't excuse the fact that he contacted her, but I understand it to some degree. And he hasn't given me any reason to believe they have been in contact since. We have had a discussion about him telling me if she ever tries to contact him, if he bumps into her somewhere, if she is at a race he goes to, etc.

I have read Unfaithful: Hope and Healing After Infidelity by Gary & Mona Shriver and am currently reading Torn Asunder, by David Carder. Torn Asunder is recommended through my church counseling ministry, which I've actually had training in. I read my notes on infidelity and bought the book. A lot of what are in my notes come directly from the book and are very sound principals. I will look into Surviving an Affair, as well as MB books and info.

At this point, I feel like we are on the right track to recovery. I feel like we are more on the same page and doing this more "together" now. I now know I don't have to avoid "talking" about something when wild thoughts are going through my head like I did all day yesterday. I trust he has completely ended it (but will hold him accountable). We have talked about and agree on boundaries. We both understand what lead to the affair, both in relation to our marriage and in relation to the time I stupidly allowed him to spend alone with her. He is fully repentant. He consoles me when I cry and has even surprised me many times when I wondered if he even knew that I was crying and what triggered it. He apparently always knows and has been very good at being there for me.

We have spent quite a lot of time together since revelation. This morning he went on a bike ride with me, the first in a long time since my health problems began to keep me from riding the speeds I used to. He rode slow with me for an hour and then went to do a "real" workout on his bike. Cycling is something we used to share a lot more of and part of what created some distance when my health ruined my ability to train and race. So we are working on things we can do together. I went with him to a mountain bike race a few days ago . . . which he won.

We are working on loving each other with our love languages. Right now I feel I need ALL of the love languages, quality time, touch, words of affirmation, gifts and acts of service. Every one of them is significant to me as I especially long to feel the assurance of his love for me.

He is committed to me. I have no doubts.

Today is a good day. Taking one day at a time.

When I was falling asleep last night I had the scripture come to be about being transformed by the renewing of your mind. I kept repeating it to myself. I can be "transformed" by the renewing of my mind. I can be transformed from a person in misery and pain to a person of healing and joy. I choose to renew my mind. I choose to take my thoughts captive and move forward.

Thanks again for your post. I feel that writing this reply to it has been therapeutic, since I was able to positively report on virtually everything you mentioned. Thank you for the offer to offer support to him. I will think about mentioning it to him. He's not a "forums" kind of person like me, or a person who emails people he doesn't know about deep issues, so not sure on that one. However, my dad said he intends to have a talk with him soon, so he's not completely getting off the hook on talking about things. My dad used to be a pastor and actually married us.

Thanks again.

Hi Scanty, welcome to MArriage Builders. I am sorry for the reasons that brought you here but want to assure you that you are in the right place. A couple of things stand out to me that I wanted to comment on.

1. talking about the affair and/or your relationship. As you have probably discovered, talking about the affair is a big mistake. It keeps you both triggered and is an enemy of good conversation. It actually makes it harder for you to recover. It is good to talk about recovery tactics, but not good to discuss the affair or "relationship issues."

2. About the only program that has an effective plan for recovery after an affair is Marriage Builders. There is no other program that I am aware of that has THE PLAN for recovery. Love Languages does not, Torn Asunder does not and Hope and Healing does not. They are good books with some good information, but they don't have a plan for recovery. As someone who has recovered her marriage and has seen many, many others recover their marriage, I would strongly suggest you stick to the ONE PLAN that works effectively, and that is Marriage Builders.

Most marriages do not recover from affairs. They might stay married, but they usually end up in a crippled version of the pre-affair marriage and limp along in this state for the rest of their marriage.

Marriage Builders is not like that. It focuses on creating a marriage that is better AFTER than what it was before by restoring romantic love to the marriage. When the present is happy, the past is left in the past. That is what MB does.

There is a very, very strict path back to recovery and if you follow this program, it does work. So please put aside Love Languages and Torn Asunder and focus on Marriage Builders.

In my next post I will post an outline of what it will take to recover your marriage.

Five Love Languages does not have a plan to save your marriage and is a distraction at a time when your marriage is crumbling. It teaches couples to communicate better which is cute and winsome, but misses the point. Couples who are in love don't have any trouble "communicating." Harley focuses on creating romantic love in your marriage.

Please put down all the other cat and dog marriage books and focus on Dr Harley's plan. There is a very strict path to recovery and none of those books has it.

Is the OW married and if so, has her husband been notified by you of the affair?

When did the affair end?

ETA: I saw the answer to this today.

Have you personally spoken to her husband to ensure he knows all about the affair?

Scanty-

I am a BH and reading your story, I can empathize with exactly where you are at.

That being said, I am very worried for your situation. You ask if one can ever truly heal from A. Well, at 8mo�s into R using MB as our guiding light, R is very, very difficult. Some great days, some down days and everything in between.

My FWW and I are working the program to the best of our ability. If you don�t have Surviving an Affair, please order it today and follow every step.

You have asked the board to leave certain things alone and move on toward suggestions. The reason some questions are being asked to you is because MB is a step by step program to recovery. Any missed steps and the program does not work.

MB is not a cafeteria style plan. It is all or nothing. Period.

I know I am not the only one here that thinks you do not have all the details of the A. You may think you don�t want to know more and I am sure that is how you feel today. More information = more pain� right? But here is the thing�. the wound will never scab over and heal until all the infection is taken out.

Where am I going with this? I HIGHLY doubt you have all the pertinent details in which you need in order to take the first steps into actual R. I know you don�t think it was a PA. Maybe it wasn�t but maybe it was. You need to know.

This will not only eat you alive but your H as well. You both need start with a clean slate. You will have many, many barriers to overcome and lack of historical honesty is one that you can put behind you NOW.

Why would you even consider starting your new marriage with your H with secrets? You shouldn�t.

Those questions will fester in your mind for years to come if you don�t put your mind at ease. It is painful as hell, believe me I know but lingering questions that I know you have in your mind will never go away and you will never R.

I want to encourage you now to be stronger than you have ever had to be in your life and hit this thing head on. Listen to the vets on this board. It will give you the greatest opportunity to succeed.

Also, as GloveOil mentioned, some of us have experienced a FR.

It is much worse than the actual A itself. It was the last straw which nearly ended my marriage.

Please take the time to read the thread on the Recovery forum about false recoveries. There are stories there from those of us who experienced one (or more) and have shared things we would do differently now if we had a time machine.

Scanty, 20yrhistory is absolutely correct. I know it is so tempting to "trust" that you have all the facts, but when you don't [and I believe you don't] you will wonder for YEARS until the truth comes out. The wound will fester and grow. Even if it takes 30 years, you will be obsessed with getting the full truth.

In order for your marriage to recover and rebuild trust, your husband cannot have secrets with the OW to which you are not privy. And to an objective observer, the story does not add up. I don't think you have the full truth.

+1

Thanks guys. Excellent posts from both of you.