It is not even 9:30 in the morning and already I have cried my eyes out twice. I am miserable, lonely, depressed, and everything inbetween. I am pathetic and weak. After speaking with my H earlier, I am now angry too. I truly wanted to fix our marriage, but it is soooo frustrating when I am constantly being told all of our problems are my fault. He wants to go to counseling now because I need help...not him. Though, I have kept my word and there has been no contact with the OM, my H still insists I'm still "carrying on." He claims he has forgiven me completely, but not a day goes by he doesn't grill me on whether or not I heard from "him" yet. I think he does this because he knows it makes me upset.<P>Is it normal to experience such intense withdrawl from the OP after two months and there has been no contact and the only contact before was talking??? I am so exhausted from this. My question is targeted to the betrayers out there...is this normal or have I completely lost my mind?<P>Anyway, I am just venting. Everytime I talk to my husband I am overcome with frustration. He just will not listen...either I do things his way or as he likes to say, he will declare war. After 15 years how did we get here? The future looks so bleak at this point...I keep waiting for this darkness to lift.

I've heard that it can take a few weeks to several months depending on the people involved and how deep the feelings were. <P>Also, even though you have had no contact, I bet your H's constant reminders aren't doing much to help you forget.<P>Whatever reason he is using for going to counseling (I suspect he knows he has a problem and isn't willing to admit it, using you as the reason to go.), at least he is going. All of the issues that are causing problems between you will be brought out in the open during counseling. If you have a good counselor, he will eventually come to see his part in it and things will begin to get resolved.<P>Don't be discouraged. You haven't lost your mind.

LonelySoul<P>I can appreciate how difficult your situation is for you. I am not a betrayer in my own situation but one who has been betrayed. If you've never been in your H's position before, as a betrayeD spouse, then you can not understand his pain. What he is doing "to" you is totally normal, IMHO. <P>You are involved with your own feelings which are completely different than what he is going through. His world has been shattered where as your world is simply coming out of a fantasy and back to reality which is where it should have been all along. <P>Until you walk a mile in his shoes, try to really understand what he must be feeling inside if this is how he is behaving towards you. What he does may cause you to hurt but imagine how much more he is hurting within.<P>Admittedly, I too tell my H that all of our problems are his fault. And I believe they are. True, I may not be the perfect wife and I probably do love bust and not meet all of his needs...but all he ever had to do was talk to me about it and he didn't. Are you perhaps guilty of the same? This could be why your H says this to you.<P>As for his strict rules with you, it's probably more to protect himself than it is anything else. Again, from my own experience, I have done the same. He sounds very frightened by what you have done and what you may still do...though it is wonderful that you are on your way to recovery, as is my own H, it is still a very uncertain future that lay ahead of us all and who is to say that any of us will ever even see "recovery"...not trying to be pessimistic but it is a long hard road to get there and a lot of opportunity to give in and give up. Surely your H is aware of this and so he lays down the rules and puts up his wall of protection. As I've told my H, I'm much more afraid of being hurt again than I am of our marriage ending. I'd say your H is feeling the same.<P>About the counseling, who cares what gets you both in, so long as you are in! I just hope you make a plan with the counselor on what it is the two of you want to achieve. If you don't have a plan of action, you may be wasting your time and money and furthering the emotional hurt by doing so much and getting so little from it. I've been there and done that, so I know all too well. Make sure all three of you have a decided agenda. I'm sure the first of which will have been for you to choose what you want to do, which seems to be to remain in the marriage, followed by your need to withdraw from the OM...which is ongoing. And in the meantime, the counselor can meet with your H and discuss his pain and anger and help him get to a peaceful place with all of this so that by the time you are ready to rebuild your marriage, he will be in the right frame of mind to work alongside of you. But I would say that right now, the two of you have very separate tasks to deal with and though you can do things for eachother that will help the other to cope, it is too early, in my opinion, to start with criticisms about one another. <P>Your H's fear of you calling the OM are very real and though it is hard for you to accept this, I wish you could understand that it is even harder for him to accept what you have done to the marriage and to him. I'm sure he asks because he is too scared to not ask. I asked my H jsut again tonight if he has called the OW. Like you, he doesn't like for me to ask. But sometimes, sometimes every day, it's just too hard to not know what the answer is.<P>Lonelysoul, it sounds very much to me that your H loves you and has been deeply hurt by your actions. Please understand his pain. It may help you to cope with his behavior. You see, all along, you knew what you were doing and how it felt. But I'll bet he did not. Probably, just like with me, he got hit with it from out of the blue and caught up on reality over night! What took my own H over two years to develop was dumped on me in a two week period. That's beyond hard to deal with especially when I didn't know it was even coming and I still don't even know why it happened!<P>You've said your affair was just talking so that would put it in the same category as my H's. An EA. Dare I ask from your perspective, why is it so hard to give up an EA? My H is also struggling and I just don't get it. The OW in my situation has done nothing for him except sweet talk by phone and I just can't figure out how "fantasy" can over-ride reality, much less, be so hard to give up.<P>Maybe if you can figure out why this OM was such a joy in your life, you could use that info in such a way that you could have your H meet those needs himself.<P>I'm sorry if I sounded harsh at all in this reply. I just read your post and realized how much you sounded like my own H--he is so focused on his own perspective that he doesn't see what he has done to my world. And your post sounds much the same...you are so deep in your own struggles that you can't appreciate the damage you have caused elsewhere.<P>I wish you all the best and hope that my blunt thoughts have shed some light on your situation.

Is There Hope...thank you for your words of encouragement; I did not find them blunt at all. I know that painful withdrawl from an EA sounds goofy. But its there and its real and it hurts. I thank God that my own EA didn't evolve into more or I don't think I could have handled this. I don't know how or what or the intensity of your H EA and I am sorry you are hurting so badly. My H and I had lots of issues before the EA came about. I did go to him on several ocassions and try to talk to him about how unhappy I was...he wasn't interested then. There was a lot of emotional and verbal abuse, so for several years the marriage was slowly dying...I got to a point where I thought, well this is my fate and maybe things will get better. I became numb to my own misery, and stayed busy all the time. My EA was the result of me being completely emotionally needy. I am not making excuses; I realize now that I should have gotten out of the marriage if I was that happy, but I didn't. <P>How do people get so attached in an EA? Before I had mine, I would have agreed 100% with you. For me the OM became my friend. At first it was email, then it was phone calls everyday. Though, I never met this person face to face, he somehow became part of my life. We shared everything about ourselves. In my case, we never talked about our spouses, but talked about everthing else. I actually spent more time talking to him than I did my husband. He was doing all the things my own H should have been doing. I never really viewed it as a fantasy because I knew he was very real. My EA lasted five months and in that time I thought myself completely in love with the OM. I know the whole idea of being in love with someone you've never physically met is stranger than strange. You said your H was in an EA for 2 years? I can't answer for your H, but I know for me being involved with someone this way was much more intense than a physical relationship. I liked this person, my emotions were very much involved and I for one got too attached. When I the I love you's started, I felt tremendous guilt, but I didn't stop. I hated myself for what I was doing, yet I couldn't stop. It is not a healthy realtionship.<P>In my case, my H caught me opening up my email and found out. His behavior was worse than awful. He called the OM wife and told her. Both the OM and I decided to go into marriage counseling and the relationship has been over for two months. My H and I went to counseling and he walked out. I felt so much anger and resentment over what my H did that I truly blamed him for ruining my life. For some reason, my H seems okay with the EA now. He understands why I did it, he is hurt because he doesn't understand how I could think I loved someone I had never met, but he also knows that we have many other issues to work on. I have already filed for divorce, but I am willing to try if he stops with the emotional and verbal abuse...it has been damaging to me and our children. The OM made me look at myself as a worthwhile person and made me feel special. I am sure counseling could have done the same thing and it wouldn't have cost me so much emotionaly, but I didn't do that. I still question myself becuase I still have these feelings for the OM and I can't seem to get beyond them no matter how hard I try or tell myself that they are completely unfounded.<P>I hope this helps you understand your H EA a little bit more. There must have been something missing in the marriage for the EA to start. I don't think anyone sets out for this to happen. I do know that for the existing marriage to work, you have to cut the communication lines, or you are wasting your time and money. I hope your H has done that or his pain will just increase every time he makes contact.<P>I wish you luck <P>LS<P><BR>

LonelySoul,<P>This is very normal for you to go through this. I ended my affair in Jan. I still ahve thoughts. You will see my post "Withdrawal for the 2nd time" That is just an example. And believe me. It will take you back to square one. Keep praying that is what I had to do. It will help. <BR>I know your H is hurt. But, I also know that if your like i was. You have been hurt for years. I tried to talk to h as well. He never had time for me. Now he realizes that he pushed me away. And that he did contribute to the fact that the affair looked good. I was very much in love with the OM to. But you will get over it. It just takes time. <BR>Im here if you need me. RPSTYLE@AOL.COM<P>prayers with you<BR>Renee<BR>

Lonelysoul-<BR>Yes, this is all normal ----<BR>Please believe me when I say<BR>EVERYTHING WILL GET BETTER!!!!!<BR>I was told that too, and did not believe it, but it did happen! THINGS GET BETTER!<BR>It takes time, it takes work, but trust me, everything will work out. Hang in there!<P>Joy