I now feel alone in the recovery process from an affair my wife started having 4 months ago, just 3 months after our wedding. I know I cannot get through recovery alone. I'm feeling somewhat empty, lost, abandoned, and isolated from the healing power I felt when we were working on it together.
Her affair involved a moderate emotional attachment and sex with a friend that she would get together with in between relationships prior to meeting me 4+ years ago. From the time we met each other up until d-day she led me to believe she had no further intrest in his "friendship" and had only ran into him a time or two. It proved to be incorrect when she confessed her infidelity on 2/28/03.
Shortly after d-day we realized and agreed that our marriage was something we wanted to save and began taking steps to recovery. We would talk openly, spend time together, "date", and used the resources on this website. I felt like were taking postive steps and thought she felt the same. About a week and a half into our recovery process the open conversations and window into the affair became an irritation to her. It might have been because I'm a "want to know the details" type person. I was never pushy or demanding about getting the information and only asked at times and places I thought she would be open and willing to talk.
It was then she expressed to me that she thought I should be past the effects of her affair to some degree and posted the following here on the discussion board:
I cheated on my husband and confessed. We want to try to get through it but he keeps backsliding. He will take me out to a nice lunch or dinner and immediataly after we are done eating and in the car he brings it up again. It is like going up in a hot air balloon and seeing the scenery and somebody fires a shot at your balloon. I just get to thinking that we are on the right path and BAM somebody covers the path with rubble. I understand that it is going to take some time for him but is it healthy for him to keep asking almost perverted questions? I would love NOTHING more than to just forget this ever happened, and I know he would like that too, but everytime I turn around it kicks me in my [censored] all over again.Can ANYONE PLEASE HELP!!!
She shared this post and it's responses with me which was very encouraging because I felt like she was participating again (YEAH!!). Each of the responses to her post said that it was normal for me to feel this way and offered MANY SUGGESTIONS for her to help in our recovery. However, she has not talked about or acted on any of them (this is where I start to feel alone). I have shared my feelings of "feeling alone" in this and that words with out actions to back them up leave me feeling this way.
We continue to date, I spend nights with her quite often, and we have family time with our children. We talk about everything except our recovery. She continues in our relationship like her affair never happened and it's after effects do not exist.
I am making an extreemly concerted effort to meet and exceed her most important emotional needs, work on the ones she rated me as "average" on, avoid any and all love busters and make huge love bank deposits. I do understand that she may see the way I'm feeling as a love buster and maybe that's where my big problem is?
I have ordered "Torn Assunder" (should be here any day) and just bought and began to read "Surviving An Affair". In the beginning stages of our recovery she talked of her intrest in this kind of help but now shows no signs of interest in reading about or discussing it.
Am I doing something wrong, missing the boat on something, or expecting too much from her?
