"mercy,<BR>Please consider that Forgiveness can exist with legitimate anger. Just because your H is still angry the affair happened doesn't mean he hasn't forgiven you.<BR>Forgiveness does not erase all hurt or feeling. It does release the bitterness, resentment and hardness of heart. And although what your H said in anger was a big fat LB and disrespectful, so obviously not an appropriate thing to say, if you did move because of the affair, then that may be more of a sad fact than anything else. Has your H suffered hardships because of the move?<P>I think you are using your H's words as "evidence" of unforgiveness and that could be a very big misinterpretation with grave consequences. Talk to him about it.<P>It is not that I think betrayers deserve "punishment", but sometimes the sad truth is their are natural negative consequences to all involved in infidelity, both WS and BS. <P>Just consider how your H might view his feelings and be careful not to interpret them for him. OK?"<P>Take care!<P><BR>OKay.. I try not to interpret his feelings but day in and day out to be reminded of what you have done.. I do this to myself.. then it is difficult to not do this.<P>It has been 6 months since D-day althought the affair has brought on this:<P>he thinks back to all times in our relatinship and wonders how much of it was the truth! (do you do this?)<P>anything i do is suspicious(do you do this?)<P>if i have a bad day, I am screwing aroudn again(do you do this?)<P>yes we moved because of the affair. He works as an assistant manager at this new job. at the old job he worked on a ranch and was able to see me (or check up on me) which ever you want to look at it as.. and now he can not. I see someone who is very very insecure. I told him i could not understand how he felt.. he said this: " imagine one of your children killed by a drunk driver"<P>that is teh devestation he feels.<P>I guess i am just feeling like.. (he is not a quitter) he should just let me go. perhaps we do need some time away from each other.. i mean emotinally. AS it is he works about 12 -14 hours a day and we do not have time together. I see us as driftin apart. I cannot fit in an hour with him never mind 15.. yes i know the harley principals and NO we are not able to get this time together.<P>He doesn't trust me, he reads my emails, he reads my mail, he looks through things, like he is looking for antoher affair or somethign. He checks to see where i have been on the internet, ect ect. <P>I can understandsome of this but i am beginning to feel imprissioned.<P>I think at this point i feel angry but I am not sure why.<P>I am truley sorry for what i have done. I know he knows that. I also know he has some issues at work he doesn't tell me about. Such as.. he made a request that i do not talk to men on the internet.. I have some old friends from here.. getting better and CaJ.. i have been asked to no longer have contact.. so.. i asked him to not ahve contact with the women at work.. I foundout that he does.. yet expects me to sit here daily with 5 small children and no adult conversation.. he would reather i just get rid of my computer. I am saying it is almost obbession. NOW I SAY THIS BECAUSE HE HAS SAID HE WOULD RATHE I GET OFF THE COMPUTER..<P>my housework is done.. the kids are fed, the laundry is done.. i am lonely. I do not htink i could ever be lonely enough to find another "friend" but I am srue damned lonely.<P>so now that that is in the open.. i feel like crying.. (i really do appreciate your outlook on things.. :s)<P>mercy<BR><p>[This message has been edited by mercy (edited August 06, 2000).]

I guess I opened a floodgate. I didn't mean to open a wound.<P>Do I think back and wonder if our relationship was the truth? Well, not so much anymore, but at the six month mark. You bet I did. It was extremely difficult to make the affair "fit in my head". <P>I actually wanted to have some accountability for the vunerability so I could fix it. So I did revisit history and tried to disect what was real and what was could have been beneath the surface. I took out photographs and searched my H's face, read old cards (very few, he's clueless remember) and strain to remember past conversation. It was in an attempt to make sense of it. I mean I thought I was living a perfectly nice life. It seemed like there should be a better reason than I didn't close the vertical blinds correctly. I wanted to discover was something was wrong, so that when I fixed it, it wouldn't happen again. <P>Did I view my H suspiciously? I tried not to be obvious, but absolutely. The truth about betrayal is that you are no longer sure who your spouse actually is and what they are capable of. I don't say this to hurt you, but it is the truth. The more time that goes by that the spouse has exibited congruent trustworthy behavior, the less "suspect" they become. I wasn't trying to be mean, nor did I actually think he was being untrustworthy, it was more a primal survival instinct, I think. I searched, I snooped. In fact one time I even searched my H's pocket forgetting he was wearing it. Whoops! Now I don't think I will ever lose my watchful eye, I don't snoop either.<P>Changing your job is a big deal and when you are emotional wreck to begin with, it is even a bigger deal. It sounds to me that he must love you and be committed to your marriage and family to go to the lengths he has.<P>Of course he is insecure. His world has been shaken to the core. Although I don't think his analogy to a child being hit by a drunk driver is the most accurate description. Unlike that kind of tragedy, a marriage can be rebuilt and the end result can be better than ever in many ways. Still, nothing in my life compares to the gut wrenching pain of being betrayed, as I am sure nothing in your life compares to the pain you are going through as well. Infidelity is equal opportunity. There certainly is enough pain and heartache for the betrayed AND the betrayer. The kicker is that the two souls (betrayed and betrayer)in the days and months of their worst pain are supposed to support each other. Obviously there are some potential flaws in the execution of this support. Both of you are incredibly needy and may have little to give. There is so much need and so little to give on BOTH sides. It is easy to see why both feel empty and lonely and hurting.<P>I'm not proud of this, but yet, when I interpreted my H's behavior as weird in any way (even if he was just tired) I suspected the worst for several months. I never accused, but I did ask on several occasions. I don't any more.<P>My H also is away from home 14+ hours and we don't get in the required 15, so I would be the last to judge you on that. I really hate when he works nights and I don't at leasst feel him next to me. To be honest, although time together is important, I think it is even more important to work on getting your mind in the right spot. I believe that the path to healing from infidelity is a very personal journey anyway. Another simply can not make it better. They can make it worse, but not you simply can not heal another. It takes time and it takes work on ones self.<P>I can understand how uncomfortable that scrutiny must be. However, it is not inconsistant with the MB principles. Hopefully you and your H go about it in a matter of fact business like fashion without LB's. Mercy, if you are defensive it will seem to him, legitimately or not, that you are hiding something and that will feed his insecurity. It is a vicious vicious cycle. My H knew I searched everything. He had no problem with it. Although I did question him on a few things, I never was accusitory or demeaning. I search simply because I wanted to reassure myself that there was nothing to find instead of out of suspicion.<P>No wonder you feel angry. Your life is certainly not going really well right now. Try to channel your anger to get your marriage out past this situation rather than turning your anger inward on yourself or outward on your H.<P>I appreciate your H's insecurity about the computer, but certainly you it is not healthy for you not to have contact to the outside world. It seems to me that if he can verify your computer time is innocent without defensiveness on your part, maybe that could work for both of you.<P>I don't know how you worded the girl thing at work, but certainly he needs to have some contact with his co-workers. He probably is vunerable right now, so would he agree not to talk about his marriage or personal life with woman and not to go alone to activities with co-workers outside of the work place? Could that satisfy both of you?<P>I only have three kids and I never have the meals cooked, laundry done, house clean and the kids tended to all the same time. You must give your H incredible domestic support. I am really jealous of your domestic strength. Really, I am <P>Please mercy, don't let your marriage spiral down hill with misinterpretations and the idea that things will ALWAYS be the way they are now. <P>I only saw glimmers of myself after 4 1/2 months and only came out of 24/7 pain at about 10 months....all while not having to make any other life adjustments. <P>Go easy on yourself and easy on your H. This will take time, but time will go by.

Hi Mercy,<P>I just want to say that I agree with FHL completely. There is a post on the recovery board regarding survival/recovery. Most of us agree that there are times that things get better and times that you just hold on and survive. That's where you are now. You know, when you're too tired to swim anymore sometimes you just float for a while.<P>My husband and I have had a very bad month. We were surviving, not recovering. Now that we've caught our breaths we're working to reach another level of improvement and the past four days have been much better.<P>That's the way it goes. Six months is not very long really. It's just that with infidelity it SEEMS like an eternity. Remember that you have known about this much longer than he has and have had more time to get used to it.<P>Also, about the comment he made about the child being killed by a drunk driver. He undoubtedly knows that would be the worst pain you could imagine, and that is his way of telling you that this is the worst pain he can imagine. Not good communication, but communication nonetheless.<P>Question: Is he using work to avoid dealing with this situation? Are you using the computer to avoid dealing with it? Just think about it and have a real discussion with him about it.<P>Hey, we don't get the 15 hours a week together either. Far from it in fact. But that does not doom you to failure. You have to be flexible. Make the time you do have together as good as possible for both of you.<P>Mercy, I promise you this can get better and everyone here wants to help you if we can. I've got to say that your husband's request that you not correspond by email with other men is reasonable. There is nothing wrong with you corresponding with the other members of the board here, but one-on-one could create real problems. Besides, your husband doesn't want you to do it. So just limit your contact with them to this board.<P>And tell your husband that you have decided to do that because he wants you to and you realize it is the right thing to do. He will really appreciate it.<P>Please hang in there, I know the worst of it is over and the rewards ahead can be great!<P>Peppermint

Oh Dear dear women...<P>thank you. Sometimes i just need to vent. Please do not take it personally.<P>I deeply love my husband. I myself am falling deeply in love with my husband. I am scared. Scared I am not good enough for him. Scared he could find better. Wonder at maybe he would be happier with someone else.<P>My problme is hurt. When I get hurt.. i get angry. I am not sure why this happens.<P>I know my husband lvoes me deeply or he wouldn't be here either. I just know that he is soo insecure. I want to figure out ways to help him feel secure. I am ont sure how.<P>I do not have a problem him reading my emails butit is done in such a snoopy deliberate way. It makes me feel like i might be hiding something just because of the way he does things. IAM NOT HIDING ANYTHING. I would rather DIE, than to go throught this pain of HELL again. NEVER. I would never do this to my husband or children again. this little hellish path is not a place i care to come to again.<P>Yep, here we are at 6 months.. He doesn't see me and is "jealous" of my time with out him. Does this make sense?<P>because our time is so limited with one another.. a lot of things build up before we talk about them.. thenit is a fight.. it really sucks.. i do not like that type of "communication". <P>I hope I did not offend.. the wounds are still open.. for both of us. I get so danged frustrated we aren't moving a little faster than we are.. but I know we can do this... if no one else falls off the marriage path.<P>I have been here, posting, trying to read different things aobut this recovery stuff..<P>thank you for all of your thoughts.. both of you..<P>mercy<P>

Take care, Mercy!<P>Along with any recovery stuff you may have read, you might try communication books.<P>Fighting for Your Marriage...I think it by Markum...or the Christian version of the same, A Lasting Promise by Scott Stanley may be helpful for you both to learn new ways of communicating without disolving into a "fight".<P>I know it is so hard.

Mercy,<P>I have been betrayed 10 years ago and a year and a half ago was the betrayer. I want to let you know that what you are talking about, I have gone through, too. <P>I get very frustrated on occasion, when my husband will be "jealous of my time" and will not make the most of the opportunities that we do have. The occasions where that has occurred has decreased over time, but it still flares up from time to time. <P>Also, I get upset when I feel like he is investing all this energy on the bad stuff (snooping and accussing) and not making an effort to meet my EN and limit/ eliminate lovebusters. <P>I have no answers for you, but I just wanted to let you know that someone else has experienced similar frustrations in recovery.

Hello again,<P>Vent away, we all benefit from that!<P>I have been doing some thinking about your post, and it has really helped me with my own situation. Some of your comments are almost direct quotes of things my husband has told me. For example, that he never wants to go through this hell again, and that he is not hiding anything from me anymore, and that he will never be unfaithful to me again.<P>I hear these words from him, and I even believe them. But the affair has instilled in me a doubt that will never be completely erased. And sometimes things happen, perhaps by coincidence, that reinforce that doubt.<P>One example. I recently noticed a distinct change in my husband's behavior towards me. He withdrew within himself and became moody and defensive. This is completely unlike his normal self, but like he was at the beginning of his relationship with the other woman. After about a week of this, a small disagreement set him off in an absolute rage way out of proportion to the disagreement. I was completely baffled by this, but tried to chalk it up to pressures at work.<P>However, a few days later I discovered that on the same day he blew up at me, the other woman told her husband she was leaving him. Completely coincidental? Possibly, even probably. But the doubt resurfaced.<P>All this occurred at the beginning of July and things have been very strained ever since. Several times I tried to initiate conversations about this, but my husband's overreaction made me decide to drop it and try to ride it out. Very bad choice on my part. Even if it caused a blowup, that would be better than letting the doubt fester.<P>Finally, he admitted to me that the other woman had spoken to him when he visited a relative's home and she was also there. She asked him if he had heard of her marital problems. He told her that he had not. She told him that she really needed someone to talk to and wanted it to be him. He told her that was not going to happen. All this according to my husband's version of the truth.<P>I asked my husband if the other woman's separation was going to affect our marriage. He said only if I let it, but that his fear that I would let it cause a setback to us was causing his behavior. He was "on edge" waiting for the ax to fall, so to speak.<P>I must admit that during this past month, I have done my share of snooping and checking up, when the correct course of action would have been to confront my concerns head on. I'm saying all this to let you see things from a betrayed's side.<P>But you have really opened my eyes to a betrayer's point of view also. I know without a doubt that my husband loves me, and I need to exhibit my confidence in that love instead of constantly making him feel that I doubt it and that he needs to prove it over and over. I am going to try to do better about that, and to talk to him immediately about things that concern me instead of letting them build a wall between us.<P>He does many positive things to make me feel secure and loved, and I need to appreciate and concentrate on those positive things rather than on the negative.<P>Mercy, I have seen the regret and suffering that my husband goes through. I know that it is very real, and my heart goes out to you for your very real suffering as well. For a while I was too caught up in my own grief to care very much about my husband's. Perhaps your husband is too self-absorbed right now to meet your needs, and if so, this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed right away.<P>I truly wish I could be more helpful. I really just want you to know that your problems and struggles are not unique or insurmountable. I also want to thank you for helping me see things from my precious husband's perspective.<P>Peppermint

Wow, Peppermint, no wonder you have been unsettled this month. I hope all your conclusions are correct.<P>I am a little concerned with your H's method of throwing the ball in your court by saying it was up to you how it affected things. That is at least a pink flag that seems to decrease his responsiblity to stay away from OW. I could be wrong and of course what your H said may be out of context. I guess what I am saying, don't be too hard on yourself for having your suspicions. You would not be protecting your marriage to just blindly believe anything he says.<P>Who knows the crap she may have handed him.<P>Anyway, my real point is this. I found that when I actually had something I needed to confront or at least have explained post discovery, it worked much better if I approached it like he was doing a favor by helping me with my insecurity. He was more open and less defensive when I blamed what I needed to know on my own insecurity instead of hinting I was doubting him.<P>Of course I didn't REALLY feel that way. I felt like I had every right to examine everything and get it on the table. <P>But since my goal was to get answers, the best way to achieve the goal was through the back door.<P>No, I don't think this was dishonest, because I was insecure and he was helping me. Plus if what needed explaining was innocent, then it was most important to keep his ego intact.

Mercy,<P>I have been reading this post and thinking of something to say to you. Then I realized you may get something useful out of the posting by "Robino". She is a betrayer but is much further along, and yet I think some of her issue may touch on yours. If you haven't read her postings, go over to recovery and find her last post and then search for her.<P>I don't know why but I think some of the issues you are dealing with may be similar to hers, but she is further along the time line 20 months.<P>Her biggest issue is that she really didn't trust her H, although he had hung with her through the whole thing. He still had issues and fears and she didn't know how to address them because of her lack of trust.<P>Please read it. It just might give you some interesting insights into your own situation.<P>God Bless,<P>JL