My H had an affair for several years, producing the Oc. WE have been together a long time, knew each other a long time before marriage, married a long time. <p>It's been over a year since discovery. I am having a very hard time loving him as I once did,or at all, I am having a hard time respecting him, since I feel what he did was incredibly hurtful not only to me and our marriage but to our 3 children. And, also, I am having a hard time believing he loved me and still do this. I am having a hard time trusting him, and perhaps , more importantly, respect him.<p>I used to respect him, was happy he was my H. proud of him. I no longer feel that way. I am very ashamed for what he did to me and our family.<p>Has anyone else felt this way-and if so, how did you work through these feelings and feel so joy and love and pride for H again? I just wonder if these feelings will ever change for me. And if not, how does one sustain a marriage with such conditions?

{{{hugs UW}}}
IMO...you need to begin with you...our self esteems take a beating in situations like this...we need to be happy with and like ourselves before we can be happy with anyone else.
My mom always told me "you can't go back"
Instead of missing the "old hubby", can you look at him and find new things about him to admire and respect?

Unhappy Wife,<p>I feel your pain. So many of your posts sound like how I feel. H had an affair with OW that lasted about 2½ years. The biggest feeling I have almost a year later is disgust! I think he chose the lowest form of female to do that with. I have a hard time getting over the pure disgust! Sometimes I have a hard time just looking at him. We did very well right after d-day but I feel that we are in a funk again. I had so much trust in him, I never would have in my wildest dreams thought he would ever be unfaithful and hurt me so much. I still get angry. I think what I have found about myself is that I will not hesitate to let him know that I absouletly will not tolerate any behavior that like (betrayl in any way) again. <p>I don't know if this is getting harder because the 1 year anniversary is about a month away.<p>All I can offer you is a (((((((((((((HUG)))))))))))). Not much good advice here.<p>Take care,
Why

Dear Unhappy,
My H affair was not long. The discovery of betrayal is in and of itself the most painful thing in a marriage. Here is the one you shared your inner most feelings with and you discover that he was sharing inner most feelings w/another while you stll trusted and believed he was your safe place.<p>Tough, but bearable if remorse satisfies your needs to make it right again.<p>If the remorse is the way you need it to be to re-establish the love you once had it will be a cakewalk, if not it can, and often times will, be an excruciating and painful journey that started w/o apparent reason at beginning of A and now, for some unknown reason, will not leave.<p>If WS is not willing to give you the tools to make it work it won't.<p>WS needs to attend to your fragile being in the ways he/she once did that brought you together in the first place.
They need to foresake all others to re-connect with you, if it's what you need for the two of you to continue.<p>God bless you on your quest.
love
Debi<p>[ June 10, 2002: Message edited by: gemini1 ]</p>

unhappywife,,,, i am on the other side of the coin as my w was the ws. i do however know how you feel about loving her not being the same. i know i love her but it isn't the same. for years i would day dream about taking her to romantic places day in and day out. i don't do that anymore. when i find myself day dreaming of some place like hawaii or new england in the fall i am always alone in the dream. <p>i believe the problem i am having is more to do with me then her. i am not the forgiving kind in matters such as these. for me it is not so much sex with the om but instead how cold and callous she was towards me at the time. i find it very to forgive those who treat me with no respect. i think i would have prefered her to try and live a double life instead of shunning me for a separate life with only the om to lean on. i am trying to find ways to change these hard line feelings in myself. fh is very remorseful and is in a great deal of turmoil over her actions and what they have done to our relationship. <p>so maybe it is the same for you. are you the type of person that, as gemini said, can forgive knowing that your h is remorseful? he should most definetly be meeting all your needs. maybe you need to look deeper inside yourself to find out if you need more then your h is giving you.

UW,
You obviously know I am in the same situation. H's PA lasted over 5 years, and EA longer than that.
It has been just over a year for me also wondered about how a person could love two people at one time, this has been explained over and over to me at counseling, yes it does happen.

<small>[ July 09, 2002, 06:53 PM: Message edited by: Tina71 ]</small>

Unhappy Wife<p>I think perhaps I may be overly qualified to comment on long term affairs since my W saw fit to carry on with MM1 for 27 years, and conceal the fact that our second son was his. <p>Yes for a time I felt many of the same things you are feeling now but now I have regained a great deal of trust in her and I truly feel that she loves me as much as I love her. She has repeatedly told me that she always loved me. I had a very difficult time believing that but now I have accepted that her definition of love and mine were not the same at that time.<p>I can also allow myself to respect all of the things she has done in her life outside her affairs because she is not defined solely by her affairs. She is excellent at her job, was a kind and nurturing mother, a caring daughter and just a wonderful fun person to be around. <p>Yes I also felt shame for her and myself for a time and it has faded into the background with a lot of assistance from therapists, councilors and a great deal of introspection.

It was difficult to forgive her and at first I thought it impossible but I came to the realization that not forgiving her was only hurtful to me. I also discovered that in order to forgive someone else I had to admit to myself that I was not a perfect person (darn good but not perfect) [img]images/icons/wink.gif" border="0[/img] . I guess biblically the reference would be to casting the first stone. <p>For over a year her affairs were the only things I could focus on but now I find that we can still have fun and passion together and we cannot allow these mistakes to rule the rest of our lives. I feel like since I couldn&#8217;t change her I would have to change myself and not be afraid to let go. <p>Granted all is not wonderful in ULA&#8217;s and W&#8217;s life because we still have serious estrangement issues with our sons but again we cannot allow them to be all consuming. I still feel there is hope but I will not live my life focusing on that loss.<p>The bottom line is that we have recommitted to each other and very few days go by when some reference to that commitment is not mentioned. <p>We may be older than a lot of you here but we still are young at heart. I feel the urgency to heal may be a result of realizing that most of our lives are behind us and we had better make the most of what is left. (Live like death is on your shoulder)<p>I hope my disorganized ramblings have helped in some small way.<p>God Bless<p>ULA

7-year on and off affair. I don't remember who posted that the biggest aspect is the betrayl, but I think that there is some reality to the long-term BS's opinion that long-term affairs are that much more difficult. <p>My scale of affairs (all bad):<p>1. Lust
2. EA, no sex.
3. Casual PA, no child OR long-term affair w/ no OC
4. An OC resulting from a brief affair
5. The old double-life, "I loved both of you" or "I was in love with her, but I still have feelings of love for you." and OC affair<p>Respect. That is a difficult one after such a huge collasal mistake. I am learning to respect him for his ability to improve himself. We are not where I thought we would be by now, we are certainly not where I had hoped we would be, but things are a little bit better all the time. Many of my memories are tainted, but I try to draw a line on D-day--that was the old marriage, this is the new one. I can't/He can't/We can't fix what was wrong with the old one but we can try to make this new one a strong marriage.<p>I repsect (just me talking, no one has to agree):<p>

• that he has separated emotionally from exOW. That was very hard as she was needy, clingy, dependent
• that he has followed through on his committment to do what he can for OC. There isn't much we can do from 2,000 miles away, but he tries
• that he took the leap of faith and adopted these boys knowing I could be lying in wait ready to get even and slap him with more child support
• that he went to 18 months of marriage counseling
• that he is finally off the couch and out of his "poor-me-no-one-knows-what-it-is-like-to-be-such-a-terrible-person" mode
• that he is a good father to our boys

<p>I know that you are having lots and lots of ongoing issues regarding your H's half-hearted committment to recovery and his continuing emotional betrayal of seeing OC and exOW behind your back. I think it might be near to impossible to rebuild trust and respect in such an environment. I remember when my H was still talking to exOW on the phone for up to an hour a night after I went to bed (this went on for 4 or 5 months after D-day). At that point, I was lying in wait for him. I was not going to walk out while the adoption was still hanging in the balance, but if he didn't shape up by the time we brought them home he was goign to find he was paying more child support than he counted on.<p>Just curious (and I don't mean to hurt you) but why haven't you moved to Plan B? Remember, Plan B isn't divorce; it is more like the post-marriage equivalent of living together before you marry. You are trying it on for size. You must be prepared that divorce may come about and that your husband may choose, once he is out on his own, not to return to the marriage, but he really isn't in a marriage now even if there is no ongoing physical infidelity. <p>Do you really want the marriage you currently have with a husband who is showing so few signs of changing? You are in misery in every post you write. Maybe he needs the kick in the pants that a Plan B might deliver. He might wake up and fly straight or he might not.<p>We talk about it taking a year to 18 months for the BS to being to recover feelings of love, but I think that is meant for those whose formerly WS is making some sort of attempt at recovery.<p>I too pray for peace for you, but I am starting to think that that peace may not come for you unless you force it. It seems like you might be much better off without him than in this half-way state of recovery he is forcing on you.<p>MJ

To MJ and all, thanks for your comments. I think I am not as far along as some of you in recovery because of what many of you said-that it took till recently when H finally ( I hope) stopped communicating with OW, if only in email. I don't think he would maintain the phsyical affair, but I don't think of OW as a friend of him or mine, and definately of our family.ANd her commuicating with him about anything, without my knowledge, felt like continuing contact with me. Why H decided to stop now-maybe fog lifting.<p>I haven't gone to plan B because of a few things: one, we are just starting counseling with STeve Harley.Right now most of the counseling is focused on what H can do to discuss with me what made him prone to A, why he did it, how he will prevent it from happening again, and making me feel safe with that. And, to then discuss, his plan to do so. He has much homework on to do this with me, and has not done it yet ; I think I owe the time we have been together to allow him to this.
Secondly, I must think of what separating would do to my 3 children, all small and used to us both being here. I left one night and it nearly destroyed my oldest child. I cannot do plan B lightly, although I have come close to it. I think Steve knows how I feel, and knows H has much to do to repair us. I am trying to give him a chance to do it.<p>On the other hand, I have a hard time thinking of loving him given his long term A. Yes, he admits it was wrong, a mistake, a serious problem he created. Especially the OC. But he thinks we can compartementalize our life, and move on from it.As most women, that is not easy for me./<p>yOU see, how he acted while with OW during A is not much different as to how he acts now. So, trusting him not to hurt me in other ways is not that easy.<p>Further, since OW was in our home, slept in my bed, I am reminded of her constantly.We cannot afford to move or change rooms in our home, so I am stuck with images of her at times during sex. Even when I don't see her during the act, I cry at the end, thinking of the pain H has created, and the disgust I feel at OW and H"s antics.I hate the OW for her choice to keep child, and her taking lots of money out of my household monthly. That was her choice, totally, and I hate the fact she has ruined the sanctity of my home.<p>I am more myself when away from here, with or without my H. If I could be forever away, I would . H is against moving, but that may be the only way we have a chance. He has never explained why he thought it was o.k to have her in our house-I think he feels totally stupid and inconsiderate of me, which of course he was, and incredibly cruel. And yet he hates my reminders of her in ourhome, our bed,with my H.<p>Further, I think a long term A with OC is the worst. He stayed with OW after pregnancy occurred, and still had sex with her before and after birth.What in hell he was thinking I don
t know-but the man I married and knew for so long would not have done this.<p>
So I am left with being married to a man I really feel I do not know-left with a marriage half together, half apart. My number one emotional need in our marriage was honesty-and he essentially through that out the windows by his actions.<p>I know I cannot continue to blame him and stay with him, but these feelings do not abate easily. ANd frankly, I don't feel loved by him much when he continues to put his needs ahead of mine, not unlike the A.<p>I cannot even find a father's day card to speak to how I feel- I don't consider him a good father,although I have always thought that, for the damage he has done to our life, the damage he has done to our family by making us so far apart, and his decision to do something so awful that still so seriously threatens our family , that could break us up and destroy our 3 kids. Everything he does for our kids pales in comparison when I think of what he has really done to them.<p>I think of an older child of father who had A and produced some OC.She found out about OC in her teenage years-and said she still loved her father, but lost total respect for him.That is how I see my kids reacting to my H-he has really lost their respect, and mine too. I don't see that coming back anytime soon. I don't see how he can live with that.

Dear UnhappyWife,
I will continue to pray for your peace. I do each day.<p>What your H has done is damage his entire family during their growing years, not to mention the damage oc will eventually feel not having a real Dad around.<p>Not sticking up for oc, just letting you know he cannot continue down this path of destruction before the toll will be taken by your c's in their teen years. All of us old-timers know that is by by far, the hardest part of raising c's!<p>Their burried hurt and anger may turn into depression.<p>I hope all can be solved by then.<p>I hope Harley counseling helps H see he can't have an A and an oc and expect everything to be reasonably happy.<p>Life doesn't work that way.<p>You cannot take, take, take, and never give.<p>He should move if you wish to show you he wants to let the past go.<p>He should quit all communication w/ow. No matter what.<p>He should give you the things necessary for YOU to fell safe and loved again. For the time being until you are dedicated to him once more.<p>To live as you have has to be unbearable and I can see why you'd want to "go away" forever.<p>If one cannot feel a little joy in life, one should start thinking about moving on.<p>Let him know life w/o good ole unhappywife always being there taking care of things.<p>It's time HE took care of things for a while.<p>God bless, Unhappywife.
love
Debi

Dear UW,<p>I was struck by something that MJ said in her post:<p> <blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr>Many of my memories are tainted, but I try to draw a line on D-day--that was the old marriage, this is the new one.<hr></blockquote><p>From your posts, it sounds like both you and your H are stuck in a horrible situation. You cannot forgive him for the horrible mistake he made. And he may feel that uncertainty on your part and not be able to fully re-commit to the marriage. <p>In the first year after D-day, I considered my H lucky that I did anything for him. In my eyes, he was no longer worthy of me and the fact that I washed clothes, or cooked dinner, was supposed to be met with a chorus of "thank-yous" accompanied with "I did you wrong and I will regret that every day of my life".<p>When we finally began to communicate our feelings to each other, my H told me how unhappy he was being constantly tried for the same crime. He KNEW he made a terrible mistake but it is a mistake that cannot be undone. He also felt ashamed of himself for what he had done and it was like slapping him in the face daily to keep reminding him what a horrible person he was and how much he should thank me for staying with him.<p>ULA said it best -- we are not perfect, not one of us. Our existence is based on the fact that every single day we have the opportunity to look at ourselves and change. <p>Your H is showing you by being with you that he wants to try. I fully understand that you cannot have contact with the OC and that should be communicated to him. But perhaps he would feel more confident if he knew that you were willing to forgive him and draw that line between the old marriage before D-day and the new marriage that you will rebuild.<p>Forgiveness is not easy. You must give up your right to keep hurting him because he hurt you. But like ULA said, right now you are porbably hurting yourself more than you are hurting him. And, neither of you can re-commit to each other while accusations are still flying.<p>I hope through the counselling your H will be able to get his true feelings out. But the other side of that coin is that you will have to listen without anger. You can do it, UW. You have been hanging in there so long under such trying circumstances. You are stronger than you know.<p>Please consider taking that big step that will put you on the other side of recovery. Let go of your anger. Deal with the OC as you would any other problem that arises in life. Start your new marriage and let the old marriage go, along with the errors of judgement made in the past.<p>We are here to support you and to keep praying for you.<p>love,
heavenly

Heavenly,
Thank you for that post to UW. We both are in what seems to be the same point of recovery process, and what you said does make so much sense. I do need to let go of the anger, it is physically wearing. <p>I understand that by being here with me means he wants to remain married, but it is when old habits that arise, keeping things from me concerning the OC send up red flags.<p>I am just trying to figure out how to proceed in a M when we are at opposite ends as to the involvement with OC.<p>UW, as for the fathers day card, I had the same experience last week trying to find an anniversary card for our 27th, they all sounded so blissful, and did not express any of my sentiments at this time. <p>Tina

Heavenly, yes, I know I must be open to H and give up some of anger.<p>It is less about anger and more about deep pain and disappointment-in him mostly, In him being a man who changed so much and threw our marriage away for his needs. For taking such a risk with OW and creating an OC when we worked so long and hard for a family with our 3 kids.<p>I know at some point, I must exonerate him-perhaps when I really see through the exercise we are doing with Steve Harley that he get what he has done.<p> The fact is, when I thought he had no contact with OC, I began to start to move on.But his doing visits behind my back, continued emailing with OW, making committments to her regarding OC, without my knowledge nor my participation nor consent, has pushed that back for me. It feels as if betrayal from him continues, on and on,and that he is determined to live this life away from me on and on and on.<p>I know he thinks he must live with self by seeing OC and being some kind of father. That that takes precadence over a life with me and our kids. Steve says he is struggling with what to do with all this, but I don't see the struggle. I see he has decided what he must do, and is going to do it with or without my consent. I think he has to learn that these series of events have caused much pain to all involved-and not everything will be nicely wrapped in a package and healed for all. That the OC contact may have to be given up to heal the most.<p>I cannot live with any contact, with or without my participation. I really feel that. <p>I hope our counseling helps us-and helps me reconnect with H and feel love for him.<p>OUr anniversary is soon, and I still can't find a card to describe anything.<p>My feelings truly aren't there.

OUr anniversary is soon, and I still can't find a card to describe anything.<p>Like in the other thread started, I know how you feel, last week was our 27th, and you know what I didn't get a card because I couldn't find one that didn't seem fake. I know that was really terrible of me, but to celebrate that anniversary just seemed usless. <p>Tina