My husband of 27 years was having an affair during the second half of 2006. It was a long-distance affair with his old girlfriend from before he even met me. He was talking to her on the cell phone everyday, emailing, and meeting her at conferences. For his birthday he took a "vacation alone" spending 4 days with her at a hotel just a couple of hours from here. That's when I figured it out and actually looked at the cell phone bills from the past few months. I knew exactly who he was talking to when I saw the city she lived in on the bill. I confronted him (while wearing my sexiest nightgown) and demanded that he end the affair. He said he would. Two weeks later, I checked the cell phone records again, and they were still at it. We had awful talks trying to work things out ourselves. We had ugly scenes in public. At the lowest point, when we both were thinking, "tomorrow I call a lawyer", I said to him, " I hear there is a marital retreat that helps people like us. It's called Retrouvaille." He asked what I knew about it. All I knew was that one of my co-workers had gone there recently with her husband, and she came back with glowing comments. He said "OK, look into it." So I got the web address from my friend, and I made the phone call and signed us up.
We attended our Retrouvaille weekend in January, 2006, here in Tampa, FL. We did the six Post sessions on Sunday afternoons through february and march. By mid-March we were graduates. It was hard at first, we changed slowly over time. I was glad to have the Post sessions every Sunday to ground us, to keep us on track. And at first, I thought I needed to surround us with the friends we made at the weekend. For support. But then I found this board, and I found support here for the insecurities I felt as we were healing. The changes in the past year are unbelievable. We are really happy together. And we are a happy family now. I have to admit, I think I wasted a lot of my life being unhappy and holding grudges against my husband. Learning to communicate with him was the best thing I've ever done.
