Do you have a plan to help you to stop obsessing about him?

No!!!!

Going dark has been hard. But I'm pretty good during day while working...but friends call we talk and analyze...etc. But I don't call him or email him or stalk him or otherwise contact him.

Not thinking about him is proving harder than going dark!!!!

I don't know who else will agree with me, but according to your timeline, this A only got discovered 2 months ago or so. If that's the case, I was still virtually a BASKET CASE two months in.

It was AT LEAST 3 or 4 months in before I could even remember to breathe. Or began to eat again. :-(

It takes awhile to adjust your mindset to a new normal....a normal which doesn't revolve around what to cook for H - oh, right.....or: gotta wash h's socks - oh, right....

See what I mean? It's an adjustment time. You'll get there, but you've got to begin to make a conscious effort every day to look in that direction - and not look back, or try to over-analyze something YOU could have done differently, etc. What's done is done, and this site is a veritable GOLD MINE of info to help you navigate through this. Until I discovered this site, I WAS a mess, and did not even leave my house! Literally. I'm a teacher, it was summer vaca, and I did not even leave my house. At the end of summer, one dear friend said, "You've got to move on with life now. Go to work. Get back to 'normal.'"

It wasn't the same, granted, but it did help to focus on other stuff. So I understand you're still fresh, and raw. But try to start focusing on other interests. And DO NOT LET YOUR FRIENDS turn every convo into - "so how's it going? Have you heard anything?" It's not productive.

Sadly...it's not always my friends who initiate the WH talk...it's me. I am raw...it is new and the clock is ticking such that I will be divorced before the "average" life span of an affair even lasts. I didn't find this site right away and even once I did my exposure wasn't nuclear and right away. So relative to the timeline...my plan B was late to the party.

I'm trying not think about him. I don't leave my house unless I absolutely have too and I've lost 37lbs since this Dday. On the upside I got a springboard into weight loss the hard way and i can't rmbr the last time I cried over this with the exception of last night...but prior to that I can't recall.

Have you spoken to your doctor about ADs? Dr. Harley recommends them during Plan A and Plan B.

I did. Was on them for less than 3weeks because I had a super awesome rash/scabs issue that still leaves me scarred from the itching. Super awesome physical reminder of all WH crapola.

Didn't your doctor try another brand/dose?

No...we decided to let my itching and scabs and nastiness leave my system before tryin a new one...if needed. It don't think I need it. I'm ok mentally...just still shocked and happy to sit home and do nothing.

After reading on emotional memory management, I learned "not thinking" of something is impossible. What you can do is make yourself think of something else the moment you catch yourself thinking of him. Your brain is not capable of accessing two memories at the same time.

What is a pleasant memory? Make a list to recall those pleasant memories and think of those when you want to think if WH. It will prevent the emotions that accompany bad memories from flooding you.

Also, schedule activities. Sitting at home doing nothing is not good, it causes your mind to think of WH. Have coffee with friends, go to a market place, plan something to do. It will be easier to distract yourself and it will make you feel better.

Plan B saves your sanity and shields you from more heartache. Whether or not reconciliation is in your future, plan B will be beneficial, because it is about your best interest. It will allow you to be in the best shape (health wise and mentally) possible considering the circumstances. And you need to be.

I'm trying!

We've had other Plan B'ers use the rubber band method. Have you tried that?

None of this matters!

WHen I was going through this, the sage advice was to drag out the D for as long as possible, in order to allow the A time to "die out."

Well, that didn't happen....we ended up divorced anyway! Didn't matter. After the A was over, H wanted to come back and reconcile.....even though we had been D'd for 2 years, and he had been gone for 3. See, the TIMELINE is less important than being in the right place, and being ready to move into whatever the next stage is.

I think you are focusing on the timeline, and thinking that "step 2" didn't happen by such and such a time, and "step 3" didn't happen by such and such a time, then we're done. Forever.

NOT!

Give God a little more credit, will ya! ;-)

God Bless,

Brain...no I haven't done the rubber band thing yet. I'll give it a try!

Older wiser I know in my brain you're right...heart still playing catch up.

Older are you remarried to your same WH?

I don't think you're doing her any favours, posting this message of hope, when her husband is still a violent, drug-abusing, adulterous (in BOTH previous marriages) alcoholic. He has been that his whole life, and only stopped for a few years during the time he met her. Now he has been violent towards her and has a restraining order, is again an adulterer and has stopped going to his substance abuse support group and so is probably abusing again.

We have told her over and over that it is not enough for the affair to end and him to want to go back. She needs to insist that he demonstrates a clean lifestyle for at least a year before she should ever consider reconciling.

Yet, here you are, telling her that God will give him back to her. She is being encouraged to believe that, as your husband went back to you, her husband will go back to her, once God decides it should be so.

I think that is dangerous advice, and gives her the motivation to keep being invested in this creep.

Your husband's adultery was the usual kind; an aberration enabled by opportunity and temptation. We could all do what he did, and regret it, as he did.

Her husband's adultery, drinking and drug taking are a lifestyle choice. Very few husbands on this forum have ever lived like him for as long as he has, and repaired their marriage. (I know of none.)

The affair is the LEAST of the problems in this situation. The problems in this marriage have been violence and addiction in addition to serial cheating.

I agree with Sugarcane that it is dangerous to give her false hope. Are you really trying to tell her that a marriage with a dangerous man is something she should hope for?

We all know that God will not force anyone to do anything against his will. Perhaps you should give God credit for getting her safely out of this dangerous situation? The Bible tells us not to take part in works of darkness for a very good reason: it can take us down with him!! Sometimes divorce is the definition of success.

Always, for your own sake, please focus on creating a happy life for yourself without your husband. STOP talking about him. Ask your friends to stop bringing him up. That is the best thing for your mental health. And who knows, maybe some day he will make a radical, miraculous change at his own will. But if he doesnt', you will have created a happy life as a single woman.

Yes.

Sugar and Melody,

I know what you are saying. I agree with all of it.

I am simply trying to help get her into a peaceful Plan B. Only once she is there, will she be able to think clearly and project herself into a future....with OR without her WH.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that her WH has lots of issues that must be dealt with, and it's better to be apart from such a person. But if she still feels love for him, she will reject outright any suggestion that she simply let him go.

I'm not going to comment regarding sugars comment. I'm not delusional about the amount of work my WH needs and what would need to happen to potentially make him future marriage material for me or anyone else for that matter. Thanks.

Found out who OW daughter and family is. Do I FB expose to them or let it go? I never had family info before when I did it. Now I do.