I Belong Over Here

[saffie]

Cadesmom,

I understand exactly how you are feeling and the first thing I want to say is that it does get better.

When I first started posting I thought about OW ALL the time. (Even had a voodoo doll of her I stuck pins in when I felt bad!!!).Enough so that even tho' my H was working hard on our M I was beginning to think that actually I was maybe going to be the one to walk away. It all hurt so much that I was beginning to think that I could never trust him again and that I didn't want to live with the constant fear of the possibility that he could do it again.

I never spotted my H's A - he told me about it. I wanted to know all the details because that's the kind of person I am. Infact, that did help me to some extent because it became obvious to me that she had used him and was actually more infatuated by his salary than him. Also I learnt that the intimate side of their R had been pretty dire which was a comfort.

Even so, when I first started posting I wanted some sort of rvenge on OW, and she definately had a life/ place in our marriage still and it was destructive becuase I was letting it be.

AS time has gone on, that has lessened greatly, and altho' not gone completely it no longer has such a powerful part of my life.

My H has shown over and over again in so many ways that OW is non-existent for him now. He knows that I worry about how I would know if it were ever to start up again. If he were unhappy again how would I spot the signs early enough to stop him looking elsewhere for affection and an outlet and he tells me that he has learnt so much from what has happened that he wouldn't let the same situation occur. I am just going to have to trust him there.

I felt in my sitch the ' balance of power' changed a few times between us. I always thought things were pretty even until he had the A. Then I felt he was running the show and I had to 'jump' to his tune in order to hold on to him. Then things swung the other way when he had totally recommitted to me and I had time to sit back and thing my way through all that had happened. This was when I started fixating on OW and questioning if I had done the right thing to 'save' the marriage, (even tho deep down I knew the whole time that being together was what I wanted). I then just kept testing him to make sure he meant what he said about recommitting to us. Luckily however hard I pushed he just kept coming on back and now when I look back at my earlier postings I can see how far I have come and how much more relaxed I am about things. MY Pushing did show how desparately he wanted to still be with me and that he was totally recommitted.

The hurt has not gone and it would be wrong to go back to how things were before the A. If I did that I would have learnt nothing. I still grieve, and will for a long time for the M we had before all the hurting started. But I can see that what hasn't broken us has made us stronger. I also see that the OW, (who I will always dislike and hope bad things will happen to), has lost big time. She left her H and her children to try and steal another man. He rejected her ultimately. If I were her H and children then I would never trust her again as she did not go home because she chose them but because she had been discarded and her H and children are second best in her eyes. I am sure they will remember that and I am sure her H will be extracting his pound of flesh from her for what she did.

I guess the bottom line is that sometimes I don't feel like he's my husband anymore. The man I married and my husband would never have said & done the things he has done to me. Yes, I did some hurtful things, etc., but I never cheated on him. I never told him I didn't love him anymore.

I know how bad this hurts. You need time to grieve for what you had. But also you need to know that although he changed and did hurt you, now he is back and understands what he did. I am sure if he could take it all back he would; I know my H would.

One day, totally out of the blue, my H told me that he had never loved OW, (before he had maintained that he had loved her), and that he had realised that what he felt for me was just so much better and different from the infatuation he felt for OW. That helped me BIG time - esp as it was unexpected and not something had had said in response to a probe from me. It did make me a bit cross aswell if I am honest that he put us through something as bad as this for an 'infatuation', but that he had never LOVED her was far mor important to me.

Sometimes I just have days where everything comes rushing back and it still hurts so much. Then H is over there acting as if everything is so great & wonderful and he's so happy.

That still happens to me but it happens less and less as time goes on. Just be positive.

All that you are experiencing is normal. I think that the men move on in there heads once they have recommitted and forget so much of what happened - it's just their nature I guess. I try to visualise that my H was under some sort of 'spell' and I managed to break it and now it's my magic that is being woven around him.

I am try and do something practical to help myself feel that I am protecting myself against anything like this happeneing again I am currently doing cognitive behavioural therapy with a C. It makes me feel I am doing something positive about things and it is helping me put a more positive spin on things.

We are here for you to chat and vent to. Everything that you are feeling is valid and normal.

(((((((((Big Hugs)))))))))

Saffie