How about an update? How are things going? Well, I hope...

Natalie

Hi Natalie,

I guess I dropped off for a while. I appreciate you checking in on me. Well I have been having good days and bad days. It seems I am able get myself distressed if I think about images and scenes that I now know about (of my wife and her lover and what they did and how they did it etc). I think about what happened all the time still. But in general I am proud at staying positive and commited and I do love her and love being with her, which I want to do for the rest of my life. I am having a tough time dealing the fact that she had an affair of opportunity when everything was going very well in our relationship and while she claims she wa svery happy (I know I was). The fact that she can have a physical and emotional affair while I am happy and while she is meeting my needs (and convincing me that I am meeting hers) is disturbing because I am left knowing that I can't tell. So I have to simply "trust her" and that's really hard to do since I discovered the affair while it was ongoing (she never told me). She tell's me she has the tools to avoid an affair now and she has read three books on affairs (and is now reading "Not Just Friends") so I know she knows in detail the pain it causes etc. Anyway, to summarize my situation, the pain does fade but can flare. I am not at the point where I can laugh about it at all. But I can talk about it and even say his name without being a wreck now. It seems that everyday brings another small accomplishment and milestone. It has only been 2.5 months at this point but it seems like much longer. My plan is to just keep talking, spending time together (meeting each other's needs) and to let time do it's part to fade the pain (which it seems to do). Hope all is progressing forward for you too Natalie ...swdad

Hi SW!

I'm glad to hear that the pain is easing for you. I remember well how EXCRUCIATING it was. You're doing very well for a couple only 2 1/2 months into recovery.

It's great that your wife is doing a lot of reading. That takes some courage. Not many WS's are willing/able to read about the devastation that they have caused to the person they love most.

You don't say whether you two have persued any kind of counselling. You need to unearth the message of the affair before you can find some peace in all this. You need to know why it happened and how to prevent it from ever happening again.

For my husband and myself, it had a lot to do with childhood hurts as well as a lack of communication. We made a lot of terrible assumptions about each other. When we put together the whole picture of what led to the affair, we became much more hopeful about our marriage and future together. Our counsellor really helped with that process.

Individual counselling also helped. When I realized that I had to and could trust in my ability to handle anything that crossed my path, I felt more open to trust my husband. I believe there is no way to completely affair-proof your marriage and we all know we can't control our mates. What is in my control is my belief in myself. I'm pretty sure that my H will never go down the terrible path of infidelity again. But if he ever were to, I would survive. I would handle it with my dignity and integrity intact.

So I guess that's where I'm at at this point on the recovery path. It's a pretty good place to be.

Hang in there, SW.

Nat