Four years ago my husband was in a EA and PA. He would not stop the affair once I found out and even moved out and continued the affair. Many harsh things were said on the way out the door and our children and I endured extreme pain during the time he was away. I'm sure all of this is known by eqch and every BS here.

My husband I were able to reconcile after a few months of him leaving. Although I did not know of the methods recommended here at the time, it's pretty similar to what occurred.

What I still struggle with today though is still knowing my husband had feelings for someone else. He's done a lot to make amends and we do have a better and wiser marriage now but it's still there. The pain of knowing that occurred. I am for the most part healed but that will often stop me in my tracks when I remember. Sometimes I wonder if this will ever go away.

I'm wondering from women who have lived through the abandonent then infidelity, the rejection and how you truly got over this. I know my husband does not have feelings any longer but he did and he went through thr withdrawal period for a few months after returning home. This rips my heart out still to this day. How do you cope?

GG21, welcome to Marriage Builders. You are certainly in the right place. One thing we have learned from the Marriage Builders program is that if you don't create a marriage that is immensely better than what you had before, the marriage will suffer. Lingering resentment is a sign that recovery is not complete and the marriage is a crippled version of the pre-affair marriage.

What we have learned is that if one is happy in the present, the mind doesn't tend to wander to the past. In a recovered marriage, we wouldn't expect to see resentment and pain beyond 2 years. A critical part of recovery is affair proofing the marriage and then creating a romantic, passionate relationship. We can help you do that and bring your marriage to a better place.

There can also be triggers that can prevent recovery. For example, if there is any contact between the spouse and his affair partner, or if he travels, is not transparent [hides his phone, etc] or engages in any of the same behavior, it will trigger the betrayed spouse. Another obstacle is living close to the affair partner or living in the same home.

I will post the extraordinary precautions in the next post and you can look them over and see how many you can check.

From Surviving an Affair, pg 66-67

The extraordinary precautions do more than end marriage-threatening affairs; they help a couple form the kind of relationship they always wanted.

These recommendations may seem rigid, unnecessarily confining, and even paranoid to those who have not been the victim of infidelity. But people like Sue and Jon, who have suffered unimaginable pain as a result of an affair that spun out of control, can easily see their value. For the inconvenience of following my advice, Sue would have spared herself and Jon the very worst experience of their lives.


Checklist for How Affairs Should End

_____The unfaithful spouse should reveal information about the affair to the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should make a commitment to the betrayed spouse to never see or talk to the lover OP again.

_____The unfaithful spouse should write a letter to the lover OP ending the relationship and send it with the approval of the betrayed spouse.

_____The unfaithful spouse should take extraordinary precautions to guarantee total separation from the lover OP:

_____Block potential communication with the lover OP (change e-mail address and home and cell phone numbers, and close all social networking accounts; have voice messages and mail monitored by the betrayed spouse).

_____Account for time (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a twenty-four-hour daily schedule with locations and telephone numbers).

_____Account for money (betrayed spouse and wayward spouse give each other a complete account of all money spent).

_____Spend leisure time together.

_____Change jobs and relocate if necessary.

_____Avoid overnight separation.

_____Allow technical accountability.

_____ Expose affair to family members, clergy, and/or friends.

Thank you for your reply. I appreciate it

I wish I could find something we haven't done or that needs to be done to fix this because there there would be something I could say "yes, this wasn't completed" and complete or "this hasn't been done" and do it.

There's absolutely no resentment on my part. I am prob 99% healed. No anger no bitterness no hatred. I have forgiven but living with the knowledge that there was someone my husband felt so strongly for he left his family over and emotionally and physically abandoned me for is something that still cuts me to the quick. The pain isn't as it used to be but I oftrn still feel tremendous sadness about.

We are under a lot of financial stress at the moment but even still we have UA time and marriage check ups every two weeks. I have no complaints. Just the knowing. I want so badly to get past it.

This is what I mean by an incomplete recovery. There wouldn't be lingering sadness about the past if the present was great. How has your marriage changed from before the affair?

Would you say you and your husband have a romantic, passionate relationship?

Can you describe your UA time? What do you do? How much time every week? When you say check ups, what does that mean?

Absolutely. My husband has done a 180 in terms of romantic gestures. Was totally lacking that before. Many passionate moments.

Answering your next post. With our finances being what they are right now we don't go out as much as we used to but we do go for walks together, open a bottle of wine and have quiet time together when the kids are asleep or out the house. My husband loved to take long drives and that's one of our favorite things "cheap" things to do lately. Baths together, lots of random sweet moments for one another.

This isn't a daily sadness or eveb weekly. They're random. No triggers that start them. It's like it's just a knowing. I know my husband left me. He chose someone over me. He left us. He did not care about me during that time. Did not check on me. This all hurts to think of when I do even as little as I do.

Does anyone else go through this at all?

Oh check ups is when we check in with one another about meeting our emotional needs. We prob do that every two weeks. We have a standing Friday appt.

We spend about 7-10 hours of UA time lately per week. I'm back in school so that has cut down some of the time we had before.

Does he ever see the OW? How far away does she live?

Can you think really hard and identify what triggers your sadness?

That might be one of the issues, because it takes 15 hours to MAINTAIN romantic love and 20-25 to create. My H and I have been in recovery for over 10 years and we can always tell when we slip under 15 because we start feeling detached. Dr Harley will tell you his program doesn't work without this step.

Can you drop out of school?

Can you be more specific? What do you during your meetings exactly?

He never sees the OW. She's in NY we are in CA.

Nothing specifically is a trigger when I think it, it's just a knowing. Despite all of our hard work. All of his hard work, all of my hard work, a fact remains a fact. It happened. This will always be a part of our history.

As for school, I could drop out but I won't. I don't want to and he doesn't want me to either. There will be things in life that will prevent every schedule from going as planned. I really don't think it's lack of UA time. We feel no disconnect even with fewer hours. The time we get together is rich and full. Quality over quantity some times

I'm starting to think I'm just going to have to live with this and hopefully one day it will die.

This is the one miss that I see. Quantity really does matter and the marriage suffers when you fall below 15 hours. It should all be "quality" but in order to sustain a marriage, it has to be 15 hours. People who are in recovery really notice the difference when their UA time falls below 15. So maybe it is not school, but something else that can be moved aside to make room for your marriage. ITs critically important to put your marriage first and schedule everything else around that.


I would email Dr Harley and see if he can help. He might be able to help you figure out what is wrong. He has a free radio show where he addresses such issues. [it is free] And you don't have to go on the radio if you don't want to. They can just call you or communicate via email. Instructions are here: http://www.marriagebuilders.com/graphic/mbi4200_radio.html

Check this out: The Policy of Undivided Attention

Have you read about Just Compensation?

Tell us what you think. What is Just Compensation?

Here is another good read.
Resentment Type A and Type B

Here some more good clips. Dr. Harley on How to Deal with Triggers

Thank you Melody Lane for your suggestions and help. I will email Dr. Harley. Thank you.

Makes perfect sense and I definttly feel compensated. Took him a while to get his head out of his [censored] when he first returned but once he wised up he moved heaven and earth and still is to make amends. It not only wounds me when I have these moments it wounds him.

No resentment. Took two years for they to completely go away but I can honestly say all the resentment is gone.

That's so good that he gave you just compensation.

As Mel said concentrate on UA time.
The Critical Importance of Undivided Attention

Let us know when you hear back from Dr. Harley and welcome to MB.

Thank you both for the links.

Something/s is causing triggers. Did you move far away after the affair?

Many a WS and BS could not heal until they moved far away.

@TheRoad Thank you for responding. I know it's hard to believe but they're not triggers. It's a knowing. I KNOW this occurred and that's a fact. Healing doesn't mean you forget. I remember and it still saddens me to know what I know.

I know all of my triggers and most have either gone away where they can occur and I have no emotional swing or the trigger is very very minute.

I was hoping someone else had gone through this and had a coping merchanism. I don't wind up in a puddle of tears and it doesn't set me back in terms of moving forward but there are moments regardless of how far and wide they are from one to the next where I think about what occurred.

No we didn't move. Where we live isn't a trigger for me.

I would strongly encourage you to write Dr Harley and see if he can help you resolve this problem. There is something wrong if you are still thinking of the affair this far out from D-Day. I am hopeful you find the solution.

Not knowing the whole story and still wanting answers will keep the past current.

Thanks Melody. I sent an email when you first suggested.

The Road, I do have all the answers I need and don't wonder about anything. I trust my husband, he's very ashamed and regretful and wishes he could erase the past. He spent months completely in pain over not only my pain but that he allowed himself to do the things he did. I know the past isn't our future. That's why I'm so bothered as to why I have moments of sadness. I honestly think I'm still mourning the death of our old marriage in some regards because things moved so quickly from one stage to another.

I'll report back if I hear from Dr. Harley.

But that is the marriage that led to an affair. The mourning is over when a happier and more romantic marriage replaces the old marriage. The old marriage led to an affair. This is my concern. There is something missing in your recovery.

Do you and you husband still talk about the affair?

GG. MB taught me to live in the present. Whenever my mind starts to wander back to my husband"s affair, I refocus and think of the things he now does to protect me from this ever happening again.

If he is doing all the things on the recovery list and has paid you just compensation, then it becomes your choice to look forward and not back.

It is often very easy to blame the affair on any current problems or unhappiness when in fact past mistakes have nothing to do with the present when your husband has done everything required to make amends and redeem himself.

The MB advice to never talk about the affair again helped me immensely in moving forward and focusing on the present. You have to make the choice to live in the present and see your husband as he is now. UA time is essential.

Hi GG21;

Dr. Harley told me that the MINIMUM of 15 hours of UA time each week is essential, especially for women. He said it is like a "switch", for most women, who suddenly feel more attached and connected to their husbands when the 15 hour mark is reached.

He said some men, on the other hand, can feel deeply in love with fewer than 15 hours weekly. But it is nearly NEVER true for women.

Can you find a way to get in a minimum of 15 hours a week for a month, and see if it makes a difference?

It's helped me to 'stay present' in my thoughts and not suddenly jarred backwards by perceiving the painful times in my life not as hardships but rather as 'teachers' that have brought me exactly where I need to be now. For me, I'd trigger again over husbands betrayal when I would have to deal w/other perceived abusers.

In short, I've become detached and perceive the sensitive times in my life symbolically. Like a hero's journey. It seems relating to the painful period as victim and dialoging with myself in terms of being wounded would take me back to the cause and effect and thus would trigger a sense of powerlessness. I'm able to stay out of that boat w/a better sense of detachment along with a 'new improved marriage.'