It has been 11 long hard months, since I found out about my h oc . I stop writing because I just was writing the same thing over and over again. I don't see my marriage like it was before this big mess. This has broke us in a financial way. I just don't know if I really want to make this work. I just say why did this happen to me. I was happy with my h and I thought he was happy with me. He still feel hurt, and gets upset when I ask him how did this happen, if he loved me and the children so much. I still feel that the ow plan all this, and that he was just stupid and look at what it is costing him. There is no contact with ow or oc. I would have never done anything to break my marriage vows, but he did and I am so hurt over this. I would have never slept with another man, but he slept with another woman. I cannot even look into my h eyes, because it hurts so much. When he touch me I don't feel the same anymore. Will this change some day? I want to tell him that when he touch me I feel nothing, but I don't. Why is that? I just need a friend to talk to, before I lose my mind. I have this fear that when this child grows up he might come knocking at my door. Is this normal for me to feel this way? I have never seem the ow or oc, and pray to god that I will never have to.When I look at papers that come from the Friend of the Courts, she always have a different address. I starting to wonder, is she stable or what. I think she thought that h had alot of money, well I guess she is hurting also in that department. I thought about hiring a PI, because I want to know everything about her, and I guess because I just cannot believe all of the mess. Who am I fooling I can't even afford for an PI. I just something have a feeling that something is just not right with all of this. I am crying all over my keyboard, so I will end this for now.

How I feel for you and remember when I was where you are today.
And to answer your questions, EVERYTHING you are feeling is totally normal to all of us who have been in your place and some who still are. It has been 2 1/2 years since my D-Day and I have still have the same feelings you do from time to time, but it does get better. It just takes a VERY long time to learn to trust your H again after finding out that he was capable of doing this to your vows. I, like you, would have never gone out on my husband no matter how unhappy I was in the marriage and I thought the same about him. In fact, one of the main things I loved about my husband when we got together was the fact that he wasn't a "rounder" and he hadn't been one to screw everything that stood still, some irony in that, huh? But we are all human and we make mistakes, some are just huge mistakes and they take other people down in the process. The important thing for you to understand in this situation is that it can be fixed and your marriage can move to a level that would not have been achieved if this horrible thing hadn't happened in it. Let your husband love you, open yourself up to this love and the healing will begin. My husband tried and tried and eventually quit trying for awhile because he said I had made him feel that no matter what he did, it would never be enough. I felt that was true to a certain extent, but after reading all the Harley's material, I found that sometimes one person can heal a broken marriage and maybe I was being counter productive by not responding to him instead of making him feel that he had to grovel to me for the rest of his life to compensate. So if you read everything on this site you can and apply it to every move you make in your marriage it can produce results, even if a baby step at a time. And it helps me to this day to just lurk and read the posts to reaffirm to myself that I am not crazy for still harboring some resentments and some pain after all this time. Everyone on this board has been in your place and all of us are here for you, so if you don't post because you feel like you are being repetitive, don't worry about that......just post and post and get it all out. It is better than letting it build and lashing out at your husband when it builds up too far.
I haven't seen the OW in my situation in 18 years......I didn't know at the time that she was the OW when I did see her, either. I haven't seen the OC either and the OC is going to be 18 in another month so when all this came out in the open and contact fell apart 2 1/2 years ago, I I have spent the last 2 1/2 years walking around looking over my shoulder worrying that since the OC was old enough to drive, would she choose to go behind her mother's back and drive 3 hours just to see this man that was her bio-father? I have spent countless hours hashing out how to handle this situation and wasting time that I could have used in a much better way since this hasn't come to pass.......and I am beginning to think that maybe it would be okay to just let go of the fear that OC will show up at all. And it is nice to admit that I don't fear a threat from "THEM" so much anymore. So like I said, time does heal wounds, not ALL wounds, but it does give us the perspective that we need to deal with a horrible situation realistically, instead of one filled with paranoia.

You take care and know that we are here all the time, and more than willing to be your friends and listen to ANYTHING you have to say....

Deltamoon

I have been where you are and sometimes I still return. It's normal. It's a very distressing time, you have suffered an extreme loss and your marriage will NEVER be the same but it CAN end up even better, it's hard to believe but it can. I felt exactly like you and sometimes I still ask why and it stings.

But, over time, my H and I have bene able to rebuild a marriage better than it ever was. We have not forgotten what has happened, even though we would like to, but it is a reminder to us of what we, stupidly, could have lost, each other, fi we had given up! <img border="0" title="" alt="[Smile]" src="images/icons/smile.gif" />

I used to think I was just going to go crazy and I wanted to know exactly how long this feeling was supposed to last. The time it takes to heal is different for everyone. I felt so alone and knew no one in my position, I'm glad I found this site and wish I could have found it sooner.

It's good to get things out in the open. You need a stong support system to help you get through this. It will be a whirlwind sometimes and eventually you will find one day, that you forgot to think about it for a minute, then an hour and eventually it will be months. It really does happen.

Every day is a new step and somedays it is a backward one but that does not mean you are failing it means you are normal.

You can do it and you are not alone....I'm sure tons of people here can tell you thier story and it will sound much the same and just as painful but their IS hope. It will get better.

I was always dumbfounded by the situation. I thought, why me? I don't deserve this in my life!!! I was so angry and caught off guard. I also thought my marriage was ok and was so in love w/ my husband so it was very perplexing to figure out why this would happen, or why I didn't see it coming. How could I be so blind? How come no one else ever noticed anything? WHy? Why? Why? We can kill ourselves w/why's!!!

And THEN to add OC into the mix is just totally insane!!! Every one thought we were the perfect couple. It helped me to realize how many people really were hurt by my H betrayal of our marriage, not just me. I was hurting the most but so were our children, our parents and the rest of our families, our friends and church! I learned later that my Mother-i-l was so afraid that I would not let her see her grandchildren ever again and so angry and hurt that her own son could be the cause of so much pain. I started to have sympathy for more than just myself and that helped me a little bit.

It takes time but it will happen, you have to be open to all the different range of emotions you will experience and be open to all of them. I read somewhere that it is the same emotional process of grief. First denial, then reality sets in and it's anger, then sadness for the loss. <img border="0" alt="[Teary]" title="" src="graemlins/teary.gif" />

Just remember; You are NOT alone.

</font><blockquote><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><hr /><font size="2" face="Verdana, Arial">Originally posted by IDMHVM:
<strong> I just don't know if I really want to make this work. I just say why did this happen to me. I was happy with my h and I thought he was happy with me.

=^^= This is just your first year facing this, ID. And it is the way we have ALL felt those first twelve months. Your emotions are raw and you are desperate to find answers that don't exist. You have to remember you have been through the worst possible thing that can happen to a marriage and you have to get past the trauma before you can make any clear headed decisions.

He still feel hurt, and gets upset when I ask him how did this happen, if he loved me and the children so much.

=^^= He gets upset because he is ashamed of himself. He sees the destruction and the heartache he has caused and wonders if he can ever begin to repair any of the damage. He worries that the damage is too extensive to be repaired and he doesn't know if the marriage will survive what he has done. He can't answer you on how or why it happened because he probably doesn't even know himself.

I still feel that the ow plan all this, and that he was just stupid and look at what it is costing him.

=^^= Maybe she did but he probably still lied to her. That certainly doesn't excuse her because she has the power to say NO and she has all the power as to whether or not there will be sex and she probably knew he was married and had kids. That's her sin...that she went ahead and knowingly had sex with a MM, and didn't protect her body, that she didn't care that a marriage and a family and kids'lives would be destroyed. But, his sin was letting his ego cloud his judgment and allow him to flirt, lie or pursue or whatever he did to encourage her desperate behavior.

Two people did this without your knowledge or consent and created devastating circumstances that you will have to live with all your life whether you stay together or not. We as Betrayeds have essentially been raped into step parenthood with no recourse. We have NO say yet it is our lives that are altered forever. We have to get tough adn protect ourselves and our kids. We have to get and stay strong.

If we stay in our marriage because we have a long and complicated history with our spouse, kids and extended family with our spouse, and if the good outweighs the bad, we are then sentenced to a couple of decades of financial hardship because of enormous and out of proportion CS laws confiscating our livlihood; which causes our own chidlren to go without. We have to "adjust" our lives and lifestyles to accomodate our WS's actions and consequences while also living with the humiliation of what they have done. Sometimes the WS "insists" on Contact when we are not yet ready for it or comfortable with it. Then we have to rely on the POJA (Policy of Joint Agreement) to help us with the decision process. It is all such a huge interference into our lives because we are suddenly ambushed by someone we don't know, have never heard of and wouldn't have anything to do with had they not gotten pregnant and changed our lives forever. The injustice is almost too much to endure.

If we leave the marriage, we are forced to seperate our kids from the other parent causing our kids horrible confusion, insecurity, heartache and sadness. Often we are forced to move which signals to the kids yet another traumatic shift in their lives. Sometimes they ahve to go into daycare and we have to go to work or work longer hours. The divorce is expensive both emotionally and financially. Sometimes you just have to fight to keep your home together for the sake of everyone involved. It is so much more complicated than OW's would have you believe because they can't understand why we all don't just 'get out' when something so horrible happens to the marriage and family...even when they themselves created this hell on earth.

Remember, you did nothing. Their A was not your fault and you had nothing to do with it and you have nothing to say about the outcome or the child. You are expected by the OW to suck it up, shut up and go away. They never care at all about your children in the least and certainly never considered them. And your hsuband is as guilty as she is but for different reasons. He violated the trust, the vows, the marriage. If you forgive him and move forward to rebuild your marriage, you will need to file for legal seperation anyway and sue your hsuband for CS in case the marriage does not survive the rebuilding effort. You must protect your kids and get support filed immediately.

There is no contact with ow or oc. I would have never done anything to break my marriage vows, but he did and I am so hurt over this. I would have never slept with another man, but he slept with another woman. I cannot even look into my h eyes, because it hurts so much.

=^^= The pain of this kind of betrayal and disappointment lives in us a long time. Just being incredulous that he could ever do something so horrible to you and your family is something that is nearly impossible to overcome at first. We go through different stages in our recovery and it sounds like you are wavering somewhere around denial and grief. Sometimes we bounce all over the place with our stages. I began with shock and disbelief, immediately followed by bargaining with God and then immediately into grief, followed by the most horrifc anger imaginable. All within a few months. I stayed in anger the longest but would often slip back into grief and disbelief. It wasn't until my husband began to make a concerted effort to rebuild the marriage and pick up some of the slack before I began healing in earnest.

I made a decision to forgive him since it wasn't coming naturally. I told him I forgave him to make him feel safe and that I was in there for the long haul. Once he realized I wasn't going anywhere, he made an effort to rebuild the marriage and to talk to me and tell me anything and everything I wanted to know. Your hsuband has an obligation to your to tell you everything you want to know. It is said that it is their obligation to keep answering your questions until you feel that you have received enough information that satisfies your need ot know. I wish I could remember the exact quote because it is fairly important. And then it is your obligation to not bring it up again and let him heal, too.

When he touch me I don't feel the same anymore. Will this change some day? I want to tell him that when he touch me I feel nothing, but I don't. Why is that?

=^^= Everyone is different in this area. Some people can't stand the thought of having their spouse touch them while others will become hypersexual in an effort to reclaim each other and purge the OP from their lives like some ritual. It depends on the couple and there is no right or wrong. Just be patient with yourselves. It will get better..maybe even better than it ever was before in time. Give it some time.

I have this fear that when this child grows up he might come knocking at my door. Is this normal for me to feel this way?

=^^= Everything you are feeling right now is completely normal and expected. Lighten up on yourself and accept the fact that you are in turmoil right now but that it will get better but you need time to go through the healing process. If the child shows up on your doorstep in 18 years, it might not matter that much to you by then. I know I felt the same way as you do initially and now, five years later, I have no problem with anyone showing up at our door. We will deal with it if it happens and not borrow trouble right now. The ONLY thing either of you should be thinking about or doing is concentrating on each other and focusing on rebuilding your marriage.

I have never seem the ow or oc, and pray to god that I will never have to. I thought about hiring a PI, because I want to know everything about her, and I guess because I just cannot believe all of the mess.

=^^= On one hant you don't want to see them and on the other you want to know everything about them. This is a very contradictory time for you. And this is all very normal. You can find out a lot of information on your own...all in good time. You don't need to hire an expensive investigator. You will probably find out more than you want to know soon enough. Some people have "the need to know" and others never want to know or meet OW.

I just something have a feeling that something is just not right with all of this.

=^^= There is not one thing right about all this. But, leave it to the lawyers and the court and stay focused on your marriage.

I am crying all over my keyboard, so I will end this for now.

=^^= Dry your eyes, ID. So far I have only spoken about the horrible parts of this situation, but I haven't told you about the success rate of recovery. Most of the people on this particular site are successfully rebuilding their marriages. There are a lot of oldtimers around to tell you that just when they thought they couldnt' go on any further, things started to turn around. After three and a half years, I was in full recovery. Until that time, it was a struggle and it took a little longer for me than for most because of my hsuband's illness, but he is fine now and stable and we have succeeded in restoring our marriage and ironically, it has become even better than before for us, which I hear is often the case.

Don't be discouraged and give yourself some time to get through some of this. You and your hsuband's recovery would benefit a call to Dr. Harley. He is excellent in getting to the meat of the matter and he would help your hsuband understand your trauma and understand how important it is for him to be honest with you and answer your questions. As long as you are kept in the dark, your imagination will be an enemy to you while the reality/truth will dispel a lot of boogeymen.

I'm so sorry you are here but there are a lot of people here who know exactly how you feel and have experienced what you are going through. They can help you get through this. And you will get through this one day, one hour, one minute at a time. Be good to yourself and God bless.

Catnip =^^=

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IDMHVM,
You are exactly normal!

You've had such good advice already from everyone here.

At 11 months although on much more stable ground, I was still so shakey...still so upset...it goes away with each passing day.

Taking to your H is good, but be careful not to LB much. Give him space to open up without judgement.

You will survive this.

Do not worry too much about the future, if you are burdened by thoughts, talk to H about the things you fear and find out his feelings. You can come up with a plan to help you feel ok about it. Together...

Prayers to you.

love
Debi

I just want to thank you all for the encouragement. I am trying very hard to make my marriage work, and believe in my h again.

I just don't understand why these ow think that the h would just leave their wives for them. I never saw the DNA testing results. My h states that the ow did not give a sample, but it came back 99.99. He did tell me that once the results came back she ask him again would he be in the childs life, and he still told her no. Did she really think that would have made a difference?

I just get upset at times when the letters from the friend of the court comes. It seems like when I think I am a little ok, here cames a letter again.

The child support enforcementworker gets on my nervous. Are they suppose to call and say threats all the time. My h is paying current and back cs. Now they are talking about going into his pension. Can they do that? He still has another 15 years to work. He has no 401 plan, so how can they go into the pension.

I just get so mad. My life has changed all because of a one night stand. Well I need to take our son to basketball practice. Talk to you all later