It's been a long month. We spent 10 days in Fl. Disney was alot of fun for the whole family. My parents came down for 4 days and the wife and I took off to Sanibel Island. I tried to be as romantic as I could. I told her repeatedly how much I loved her and showed her everyday. We did it all. I still can't get that sad look out of her eyes. She is holding on to her sadness and just can't seem to trust me again, or she won't. I know she can trust me, but she has no faith in us anymore. She is deeply ashamed of staying with me and calls her self a loser for staying with a man who cheated. I have a big wall to tear down.<p>I went to counseling again, about how and why the affair started. We had been told earlier that affairs are all about opportunity. I can see that. But what made me take the opportunity is what we were getting at. After going over what was happening in our lives at that time (deaths of her grandparents, new child, new house), it seems like I wanted to get my ego stroked and to have some easy sex. It was more fun to go have sex in the back of a car then to go and mow the lawn. Quite simple. It all comes down to opportunity. Most women, require time and commitment to make the leap to sex. Some women don't. I see it now, it was all so easy, nobody would get hurt all the bull**** that we tell ourselves. Then when it comes out, the damage we cause our wife is so severe that even we drop into denial. What kind of person does this to the woman they love? It is hard to look at myself as being so selfish and stupid. I have spent the last decade being proud of my wife, my family, my home, my career, everything. I had forgotten what I had done. When it all came back and the questions were out there, it is hard for me to even admit how stupid I was. Today, my wife still loves me. We have a beatiful home, beautiful kids, we look like we have it all. But she does not respect me. She has told me that she wishes she would have left me the minute she found out. <p>We have a couples counseling session tonight. I am hoping that we can get her to understand that she can trust me. Sometimes she will be fine, making plans for this or doing that. Out of the blue she will walk by me and tell me she hates me and wishes we had divorced. The counselor says she is confused about how she went into denial for so long. That she is angry that I got away with it. I can't get through to her that I didn't get away with it. It hurts me to see her suffer like this. She has a wall up right now. Some days she is fine, others she wants me out. I don't know what to do.<p>The worst part is I don't even remember the other woman. Back then, when it was over, it was over. I haven't thought about her once since it was over. She meant nothing to me, never did, never will. My wife asks questions and I don't remember, then she accuses me of covering and lying. I am not lying. That woman was to put it as clearly as I can, the easies woman I had ever met in my life. It was just easy sex. Away from all the sad trauma that was going on at my house. <p>I know we will make it, if we can get my wife to let her guard down.

Being a BS by my H 4 yrs post A, let me say this.
Sometimes there are triggers that actually bring those feelings of betrayal and inadeuacy back as well as all the memories. It is a hard thing for us to work through as well, on some levels it is even harder. You see we have to have some kind of wall up as a self protection sort of thing. There is a period of mourning that goes on here for us too. What we thought was real... wasn't. What we thought was love... wasn't. What we thought was dedication... wasn't.
And then there is always the fear of... if it could happen once, it can happen again. Afterall, we hear all to often, once a cheat always a cheat.
We know how we feel but we knew how we felt before an A too and it comes down to not being able to trust ourselves too, our judement.
We would all like to believe that we are so special to our mates that no one could really temp us to stray. The idea that a man could be faced with temptation and reply to temptation, **** no I have a good woman at home that I treasure, is a true compliment. But for a man to not be able to resist the temptation of OW to the w is like almost like a discredit to our value in our h's eyes. Hope that made sense, I know what I am trying to say... words are just hard to pick sometimes.
Two more things... a fear that a BW gets is that well, if resistance was not possible this time then how will it be possible the next time. And we fear that by forgiving... an WS doesn't realize how severe this was and won't appreciate the 2nd chance to protect the W from being hurt again. Or will just be more careful not to be found out next time. Trust is a BIG thing and once the trust has been broken in such a way... it takes a long time to get back and then I don't know if it ever gets back to what it was because even though you forgive you can't forget. I know with my H I couldn't help but wonder if he was just telling me what I wanted to hear, saying all the right things but to know whether those things were true or not was something different and like I said before you question your own ability to be able to apply good judgement. It boils down to being terribly afraid of being hurt and made a fool of again. Also... I have to admit that sometimes I tested my H.... did he really mean what he said? Could he take it or when it got hot in the kitchen would he leave? Sounds silly I know but there is something about trying to push the other away to see if they go to help determine whether they will be there through thick and thin.
Good luck to you and your W... The main thing you can do for her is try to make her feel valuable to you, loved, appreciated and give her time and understanding while she goes through the process that she must go through.

I can understand everything you said. I can see that is where she is at. She has her wall up, she tells me she loves me, does loving things for me then every now and then tells me she wishes she would have divorced me. Counselor thinks it's her way of pushing me away when we get to close. She can't or won't trust me. She will not let herself be open to me. I got to tell you, it hurts. Two nights ago we were watching the Olympics. She loves the skating stuff, out of the blue she looks at me and says I hate you and gets up and walks away. Counselor has noticed a pattern here. It only happens when we are close. She never brings it up if we are arguing about something (like who forgot the dog food). <p>We are working on the trust issue right now. It has been a bad year for us. She really fell down hard and I fell too. I never thought we would end up so close to a divorce. I fought it with all I had. I have proven to her over and over again that she can trust me, but she is keeping her wall up. <p>I guess we have a ways to go.<p>Your reply made alot of sense thank you.

Hi, Husband. You mentioned that your wife seems to have a hard time when you are close, that that's when the anger surfaces. I can relate to that. I think we are simply afraid of everything that closeness implies--being vulnerable, exposed, then having our heart ripped out again--with no anesthetic! <p>For some perspective on how the BS feels at various times, check out Rose Red's thread about wanting to feel desired. This might (and then again, might not) shed some light on how your wife might be feeling. It won't last forever, although it might seem like it at the time, to both of you. <p>The good news is that you can help. The more you do to encourage and build up your wife, showing her your undying love, support, commitment, and repentance, the easier it will be to tear that wall down that is so easy to put up when her hurt and fear gets the best of her. I know her words hurt you terribly, but I promise you can't even begin to comprehend how badly she has been hurt. It simply takes lots of time and lots of TLC.<p>Good luck. Does she have a good support system? A close friend she can talk to? This board has been a life--and sanity--saver for me too many times to count. I wish you both the best.

I can only speak for myself, of course, but I identify with your W's feelings.<p>I don't think I will ever see my H the way I saw him before. I don't think I will ever believe he loves me again, and I will never love him the way I did ever again. Something died and cannot be resurrected. I am mourning that. The man I loved no longer exists. I loved a man who would never do this to me, and I miss him and will never see him again, and it makes me very, very sad. The only thing that is left of that man is his smell. Sometimes I will smell my husband's head and have to run to the bathroom to cry it hurts so bad.<p>And then here I am living with the man who killed him, which makes me very angry. Most of the time I feel like two different people. When I am with my H and he is being pleasant company, I can pretend sometimes that things are okay, but something always reminds me that things are not what they seem and this man is a stranger to me whom I can never trust.<p>When I am not with my H and something reminds me of what he did to me, it all comes flooding back, and I start trying to figure out the best way to get out of the M. Sometimes he comes where I am when I am this person who is so angry, and I always wonder if I'm going to be able to control it or if it will come out. So far, I've managed to keep the angry me under wraps, but she is there all the time just under the surface.<p>I don't think it is realistic to have any expectations that your W will ever trust you again. If I violated someone's trust, I would never expect them to trust me again. Do you really need her to trust you again? The reality is that I trusted my H to PROTECT me from pain, and instead he inflicted the worst pain of my life on me. I will be protecting myself from now on. It's just that simple. My H will never ever get in as far as he was.<p>As my grandmother said: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.<p>What it boils down to is that you have one kind of R before infidelity, and then maybe you can have another kind after, but I don't see how you can ever have the same R after that you had before. And it does feel like a betrayal of yourself when you settle for a partner with a history of infidelity. I would never marry someone who did, yet here I am married to one. I swore I would never tolerate adultery, and yet here I am tolerating it. I HATE that.<p>And I wouldn't be in this unpleasant situation but for him and his betrayal, so it just goes round and round. There are only two acceptable outcomes for me. Either he will offer me a R that is worth tolerating the history of adultery, or I will become strong enough to get out.<p>So, if any of this can be applied to your situation, the only thing you have control over is offering your W a R so overflowing with assets that they will outweigh the deficit of adultery and hope that will be enough.