I read the posts on the OC this week.All thoughtful, all brave . Right now I cannot foresee a relationship with OC-6 weeks into discovery. I guess I could change my mind, but right now that child is so threatening to my sanity and life I cannot bear it.Last night, after reading the posts, I realized how true most of them were. I have always feared ending my marriage due to inability of my husband and I coming to terms with contact or no contact with the OC. WE start couples counseling with a new therapist tomorrow, and my husband is committed to trying to resurrect our life, but I do not see how that can happen if he pushes for contact and I cannot bear it. I became almost immobile with headaches ( I have a history of chronic headaches for 7 years, have been away for 9, now coming back with this stress) and depression last night worrying about the child killing my life with my husband. Even if I were to lose him over child, I do not think I can deal with contact, although divorce and ending our life together after 25 years is so painful I cannot stand it. I think if we divorce, all I would lose-not just my life with husband, but my job, house,e tc.We live in a very expensive part of the country, and if we dissolved our marriage, neither of us could afford to stay here.The effects on us and our kids would be devastating. I cannot hardly stand the thought. I pray my husband will understand the pain the OC is to me, the threat to my own sanity and rebuilding our life, but I just fear one day, even if he hears that now and agrees to no contact, it will all come back to haunt us and end us anyway.When I think of that, I think of why am I bothering to rebuild a life with him? I told him I am really upset he did this to us after having kids.WE waited a long time to have kids due to my health problems, infertily, etc. now we have 2 kids,a ges 8 and 4, and he puts the affair into the equation. I told him were it not for the kids, I would leave. It is too painful.He is afraid that is the only reason I have not left yet, or asked him to leave. NOt really, I have so much life with him to give up, but I know my desire to defend my kids from pain and the ugliness of the affair for them keeps me here. I am scared of therapy tomorrow. Still do not know how one gets passed this with OC in picture, if only in the backround and recipient of custody payments. So far the other woman has stopped emailng me and my husband,a s far as I know. I hope she moves on with her life, finds someone to father the child, lets my husband and I go on. I told my husband it could take years for me to get over this. He says he didn't have the affair to do anything to me, just did something for himself.ANd therein lies the crux of the problem-he did not consider the effect on our life, made a decision threatening to our family, and now has really screwed up our life. He admits to his mistake, knows how stupid he has been, but somehow that doesn't help me heal. Does it help any of you?

LSB,<BR>I am so sorry for all of your pain. By just reading your post all your emotions just jump off the page. Unfortunately, you are just in the beginning of this long hard journey. The beginning is by far the worst. You feel such intense negative feelings that you feel you are drowning. The foundation to all of these feelings is fear LSB. You have to understand that fear is so crippling. Fear not hate is the opposite of Love LSB and you must recognize that and work from there. Fear makes this problem seem so much bigger ( it's big enough already). Fear freezes the mind, making the challenge seem overwhelming. Fear clouds opportunities, erases possibilities and limits the ability to move beyond the place in which the mind is stuck.<P>If you believe in your marriage and your H is willing to work on it, then your marriage can work. The fact that he knows what he has done is a clear indicator he wants your marriage. Things are different and somethings are lost but now is the time to reinvent. Face all these fears but LSB do not let them overwhelm you. I know it is easier said than done. I am 3 years since d-day (hey almost 4) and I am in a much better place. I have accepted what happened and I no longer fear. <BR>This comes with time and the conscious changing of your mind. When all these fears enter your head you are going to have to consciously gear your thoughts to your family and other positive things. Most importantly, take it one day at a time, this is crucial to your recovery as well as your sanity. I am sorry for all this, I remember feeling so much despair but believe it or not and I promise you it gets better with time. Be honest with your feelings, love your husband and make conscious efforts to not let this consume you or overlook your blessings LSB. Keep coming here and we will help you get through.<P>God bless<BR>Leelee

Beautifully said LeeLee. Something we need to remember<BR>everyday.<BR>I'm so sorry for your pain LSB.Please know you are<BR>in my prayers. I'd like to say more but cant find the<BR>words. <BR>Take Care

Dear lsb,<P>I relate so well to everything you say. I know how deep your pain is and how right now you are feeling so unforgiving. But, as Leelee said, this is all new for you and you are drowning in a sea of emotions so strong that it is impossible to swim.<P>I can only add that the waves do subside as you work through your pain. It will get better. It is good that you are in counselling, that will help you to learn how to communicate what each of you need. I found reading about relationships and affairs to be very helpful at this time. It taught me how to put things into perspective.<P>I asked my H to leave several times after discovery but fortunately his love for me kept him right here. That was the anger and the fear talking, not me. Even though this horrible thing has happened you must ask yourself what would you gain by leaving your H. Would it make you happier? The answer for me was absolutely not. We had built a life together, we had a family together, and in all other aspects of life he is my best friend and soul mate.<P>Every one of us makes mistakes, lsb, and while we are making them we are not thinking clearly about the repercussions (otherwise, many things we simply would not do).<P>Your H has re-committed to you. Allow yourself time to accept his love, to forgive his mistake. If it does not come with time, then there may be issues that you need to address. But, try not to make any major decisions when your emotions are still so raw and you are still so immobilized by the pain.<P>My prayers to you.<BR>love<BR>- heavenly

Heavenly and leelee, I recognize now is not the time to make rash decisions. I know my love for him sustains me, but I know it is a badly tarnished love. HOw did you work out love for your husband's as you were battling with rage and disappointment? My husband keeps saying if he knew how this would have ended up, he would have never done it and thinks it is all so stupid. My husband is a bright man, but obviously not in this regard. he wants us to move forward, see if we can make a life again together. I want to move forward but first have to understand how we got here in the first place, him and I. He obviously was unhappy with us (sexually mainly he says) and I have been changing in that regard but now he finds that off since I still have days I look at him with so much rage and anger.He says he would rather wait for me to make love to him when we are happy-I told him some days are better for me, I want to be close to him in that regard, some days I do not and I do not seek sex. And, that it will take me a long time to get over what he has done. Somehow he doesn't get how hard this has affected me, he says he knows, he will wait. I hope the pain gets better, I trust it will, I hope I can go on, it gets very hard some days trying to be a loving, happy mother to my kids. I usually am very happy, am a great mother , and our kids are very secure, but lately I have lost my patience with them and get easily irritable with them and have been hurtful to them.Gotta stop that, too,Thanks for letting me rant.

Dear lsb,<P>How to work out the love while dealing with rage and anger? You have asked the question that drives all spouses in our situation absolutely crazy. I am not going to say it is easy. I am not even going to say that I have completely worked it out. But, I think I'm closer than I have ever been during this ordeal.<P>For me, it started with constant reinforcement. I went over every detail of the A until I had worked through all of the pain I had about it. My counsellor said there would never be an acceptable excuse and there was a point when I should stop looking for excuses. I made the conscious decision that the answers were hurting me more than helping me -- so I stopped asking.<P>I needed my H to say he was sorry over and over again, to remind me how special I am to him and to basically do everything he could to "win" me back. And I needed reassurance that he and the OW were completely through and that there were no residual feelings that needed to be dealt with.<P>Oh, I punished him for a long time -- at least 6 to 8 months. Gettng angry over small things. Throwing cutting remarks about "thinking with the wrong head" his way. But, at the same time I was reading the Bible and lots of self-help relationship books to try to guide me.<P>It has nearly been a year (April 22) but I finally looked at myself and saw that the anger, the rage, the lack of forgiveness was hurting me much more than I deserved to be hurt. Keeping the anger was giving the OW power over my life that she did not deserve. <P>I decided that she was not worthy to invade that much of my life -- to make me sad, to continue breaking my heart. I had become a victim and it was a nice comfortable role because it got me lots of sympathy from myself and my H. But I did not want to live as an emotional cripple whining about the horrible thing that happened to me. I wanted to take charge, set my life back on track and stop wasting the second chance I had been given with my H.<P>And, it is a second chance. Maybe it is tarnished, as you said, lsb, but my H is still here and he still loves me. I felt that nothing in life is perfect and no one is perfect. I looked at all of the blessings in my life and how many times God had forgiven me when I fell and carried me until I could walk on my own. In that moment I knew that I had to offer my husband real forgiveness or run the risk of destroying the second chance I had been given.<P>lsb, our husbands could have walked out the door when the found out the OW was pregnant. But they did not abandon us. They owned up to their mistake and they are trying to make it right. I tried to make that count for something.<P>I wrote to you before that sex was hard in the beginning -- it was sad and it reminded me of the affair. But the fact is that men need to feel wanted. Your H says that he will wait, but you need to put that intimacy back into your marriage as a way of building it and strengthening it. <P>I have truly forgiven my H now. I don't want him to pay for what he did -- he will always know that he screwed up in a major way. He will always know that he has been tarnished in my eyes -- and for a proud man that is a horrible thing to have to face every day. And he will always remember the look of complete devastation on my face when he had to tell me about the OC. I know he will remember because I will always remember the look on his face and I never want to see my H look like that again.<P>Basically, what I am saying is that what happened was wrong, it has hurt all of us, but I have two choices -- to live fully and happily or to crawl into a hole of unhapiness and misery. I chose life and I chose to continue life just as I planned it the day I recited my marriage vows -- with the man who in all other respects is the nearest, dearest and most wonderful gift of my life.<P>It's not easy, lsb, but with time and with commitment, you can do it. I will be praying for you.<P>love<BR>- heavenly