OK I am feeling much better today. Gotta love these ups and downs...I swear these past months have been such the rollercoaster and I just never know what is going to trip me up. Yesterday it was talking to my girlfriend who is going to have a baby. Of course then there are the two girlfriends who had theirs earlier this month and the wedding I just came from and the one that my H is going to be in next month...it's just hard sometimes.<P>But to my question...my H has admitted he is screwed up, refuses individual counseling, but we go once a week to joint counseling. He says he is working on things, I have noticed he is slowly returning to himself. I have a couple of concerns (only a couple to discuss today ) We only talk about things once a week for an hour at the counselors. Otherwise we discuss work, our work industry (we are in the same industry) he is traveling a lot, and so am I we hardly see each other. He has become very stressed with work and he doesn't seem to want to talk to me about it, which is where we were last year. Am I being too paranoid...I just have this overwhelming feeling that something isn't right again. Is it normal for these feelings to just errupt? My love bank is still in the negative. He just doesn't seem to get it. Funny, before all this he did get it...just this time last year...but now it seems that it is gone. When we talk on the phone he is always in a hurry to go do something else. Although he would have called me. I stopped calling, it was too hard to always hear why he couldn't talk to me. But we are working on the house together, he comes home, he finally sleeps in the same bed with me...he has mentioned a couple of times when I have looked nice, but his kisses and hugs which I have to initiate are empty. He is so caught up in work again...and this is how the Ea started. He requires a lot of positive feedback all the time when he is this stressed...he is not sleeping...all the same signs...I am confused. So if I ask him, knowing his state of mind, am I pushing too hard? Should I just wait until July 12 when this project is over and see if things change...and why should I have to keep putting my life on hold for his stress outs...when he had the affair he had come to me and said that he had this project that was 60 days and that it was going to be a lot of weekends and long nights...while he hasn't made any of these comments this time, here we are without my by in living the same pattern.<BR>I need to just relax huh?<BR>

Sometimes,yes,we just need to relax. Sometimes we need to bring our feelings out into the open and have the discussion with our spouse that we know and fear is going to be initially uncomfortable.<P>When in recovery,these familiar patterns of behavior that were the norm while the affair was going on,scare us when they reemerge.They may or may not have anything to do with "something" going on again.I think that when people are stressed they revert back to behaviors and patterns to which they are comfortable and familiar. I have an example,which is completely unrelated to our situations,but it gives an accurate picture of what I am talking about.I work as a labor and delivery nurse. When a woman,who's native language is not English, comes to the hospital in early labor,she is comfortable speaking in English. As soon as the labor becomes stressful and the woman has to deal with the stress of dealing with her current situation,she most often reverts back to speaking her native language.Once the baby is delivered,she's once again comfortable enough to speak English again.We see this in the ER as well. Stress makes people revert back into that which makes them comfortable and feels familiar.It's like they are expending so much energy to deal with the stress that they can't put any energy into a new behavior that isn't second nature.This might explain your husband's behavior during this stressful project.<P>More important,however,(IMHO)is your level of comfort,since you are the BS and you know him better than any of us.I have found, in 9 months of successful recovery,that when I am fretting,it is often unwarrented.When I am brave enough to share my feeling with my H it always leads to a discussion that leads us to incredible closeness,and increased healing for me.As I get more and more practice at bringing up what may initially be uncomfortable(part of my problem is me feeling extremely vulnerable and unwilling to expose myself to feeling any hurt again)and those discussions lead to positive,reaffirming,emotional discussions between H and myself,I become more and more unwilling to keep my nagging thoughts and doubts to myself.By doing so I am missing out on opportunities for our relationship to grow in emotional closeness.<P>However, it is a fine line we walk as the betrayed. We have to carefully pick what we chose to bring up to our spouses,for it is unfair to repeatedly remind them of their mistake.When they are making consistent efforts to recover the marriage,we need to carefully chose what to bring up and make sure we don't continually bombard them with the less than positive thoughts we experience throughout our recovery process.<P>I say,talk to H in a very concerned and non LBing way about your feelings of insecurity. He most likely senses it already.Good luck to you and your H!

Well said, mthr.<P>I can't improve on that! It's been tough for me too to find that line. I am finally coming much closer to telling him how I feel without lbing.<P>But for me it's more than wondering if something is up again. I can't go back to business as usual. Not sure why, I just know better and can't go back.<P>We have literally moved mountains to have our time together. I've followed him on his trips to 3 continents, with and without kids. For us, it has been thinking totally "out of the box" always searching for what we can both be enthusiastic about. And I am not enthusiastic about being apart!<P>You must decide for yourself, but I have not been able to put our lives on hold for his work. He understands and has worked with me. But it took months before he got it.