... is it mental images? trying to meet emotional needs while yours aren't being met? Being honest with your spouse while avoiding love busters? Your W or H absent from the home? trusting your spouse after an affair? Practicalities like coping with depression or looking after your children?

Do you have specific issues you are trying to work out?

Mine are the mental images of them together....and the doubting every word he says. He seems to be sincere in that he loves me and wants to be with me...he's broken off all contact with her, but still there is the doubt. Some days are good....but then there are others that are bad, and for no reason. I think it's hard to deal with the total obsession of the A in your mind too. I think about it all the time.

The mental images are so very painful.

Just a few minutes ago, my D10 and I watched the New Year countdown on a web site. We cheered at midnight. . .and then I thought of WAH and OW toasting each other and kissing just a few miles away from us.

Images of them flash by me all the time. When will I go a day without thinking of THEM?! It's emotionally exhausting.

The other aspect of this mess that haunts me the most are WAH's cruel comments. I don't think I will ever ever understand how the man who called me darling and wrote me so many love letters could say such things. That old rhyme about sticks and stones we all learned as children needs to be turned around: sticks and stones can only break my bones, but words will truly hurt me.

Seeing the one I love transformed into someone I no longer know and wondering if she will ever come back. The person I married is not the same person that is having the affair. My wife would never let anything come between her and her kids. The new being is selfish and doesn't take any responsibility except for her own personal happiness...

Discoverying time and time again that 3 months later she tries to decieve me.

That H has mainly the same life he had pre-affair and I have been in counseling and on anti-d meds for 1.5 yrs and worked my tail off to be a better person (and it's working <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" /> ), and he does almost all the same things I hated way back then. And guess what? I still hate them. I am getting the silent treatment today because I have challenged him to figure out if all his bad behaviors are O.K. with the guys he is accountable to but don't seem to know about the A and the stuff that led up to it.
I am emotionally unable to continue the way it is. I can go to counseling till the cows come home but If he ain't gonna change I don't see the use in continuing. And I'm not trying to change him..I just want him to do his part by going to counseling or whatever it takes to take full responsibility for his actions. He is a huge conflict avoider. He does just enough to keep me quiet.

P.S. I am off the anti-dep meds now!! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Big Grin]" src="images/icons/grin.gif" />

After being in Plan B for 11 weeks, the hardest thing for me is realizing that my life is better without my H. He is still with OW. If he ever does want to save marriage, I have no desire to work on it anymore.

The hardest issue I am dealing with: hmmm.

I guess I'd have to say it is knowing that the man I have been with for *20 years and was the love of my life could have up and abandoned me and the children and everything he held dear for that homewrecker he knew for only a few WEEKS. That is sobering. <img border="0" title="" alt="[Mad]" src="images/icons/mad.gif" />

O

Hardest issues. . . .being in Plan B just to see him. That he could give up his family, his home, his children so easily (or at least make it seem so easy).

Finding out that my H has been lying to me our entire relationship.

Mental images and flashes of H and OW together.

Low self-esteem and confidence.

Had a bad NYE.

The past two weeks were pretty good for us. H is still in IC and AA. He worked really hard to make Christmas special for me, my kids and his kids/grandkids...especially me. I was starting to think that I could see forgiveness on the horizon and I felt really good about that. Fewer and fewer triggers, but if I did have one, H was very loving, caring and supportive. Communication was good.

H left work early yesterday. I decided to go to his office and leave him a (love) note for Friday morning to read as soon as he got to work (I took day off). Opened his pencil drawer to get a pen. The drawer hit his chair and some of the contents got messed up. Wrote the note, started straightening up the mess in the drawer. Found some business cards...one of which had confidential written on the back. Flipped it over to find OW's business card.

Triggered big time. H told me he got rid of EVERYTHING in regards to OW.

H not supportive this time. Very defensive. Said he didn't know it was there. I was very upset. Started asking questions that I've had on my mind for weeks. H answered some questions until I asked how he felt about OW then and now. H refused to answer any more questions. Said it was over, in past and time to move on and get over it.

Since the second I found that business card, my mind has been flooded with A stuff. It won't go away.

I feel like I was just droppped almost back to square one.

sss

The thoughts of WS and OW together happy, going to the movies, dinner, etc. While I am at home with my yorkies!!!!!!

The thoughts of ALL the LIES, my God ALL THE LIES, that he has told me in 15 months and still tells me, why? That is the Hardest, THE LIES and not being able to believe one word that comes out of his month!

Marilyn

Seeing the one I love transformed into someone I no longer know and wondering if she will ever come back. The person I married is not the same person that is having the affair. My wife would never let anything come between her and her kids. The new being is selfish and doesn't take any responsibility except for her own personal happiness...
</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial"> </font><hr /></blockquote><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">thats the same thing iam dealing with.

all of you must be reading my mind. Especially regarding the mental images and issues of fulfilling her emotional needs while dying inside. Low self esteem, doubting her on occasion, and total disillusionment with what happened to our lives. Can I live with this? I hope so, it would be easier if she showed more remorse instead of pretending it didn't happen.

The images of them together and the hurt pride...I was home complaining about our sex life and thinking it was me when it was him. Plus the trust. He wrote the NC letter, but what's to say he doesn't call her and take it back. I go back to work tomorrow after two weeks off. His A was going on during the day (he works nights), while I was at work and thought he was home sleeping. And finally, the baby...for 1 1/2 years my h believed it was his and never told me. Now she won't get tested and we don't know. His firstborn should have been mine!!! Not some husband stealing (or trying) sl*%! I hate it!!! I hate all of this!!!

Selfishness. My WW seems totally focused on what she wants. She wants to be free to be all that she can be. The fact that the 'freedon' comes at the expense of two marriages, great pain for two spouses, and turmoil for our children doesn't seem to to matter.

This is NOT the woman I married. The woman I married was kind, cared about what she did to other people, and was in all probablity a better person than I. Not anymore.

<small>[ January 12, 2004, 12:54 PM: Message edited by: litlone ]</small>

Probably the most difficult thing that I continue to deal with is my H unbelievable selfishness. It's been nearly 3 years since Dday and he still really hasn't accounted for his A which ended shortly after I busted him. Funny how the cheater so often seems to find ways to blame the A on the BS. The mental images can still send me into a tail spin such that I would like to crack him upside the head, but I won't. I also have struggled with wanting him to hurt as much I I do/did.