Thanks for your interest. I'll try to fill in some of the blanks from the previous posts. I found out about the affair on my birthday right after we had moved my h to a new job about a thousand miles away from where we were living. He had ended the physical part a couple of months earlier. We were sharing an internet server and I read his mail. I thought I might find that he was mildly complaining about me probably to a friend that lived far away and never dreamed that he had been having an affair for 4 1/2 years. It was the biggest shock of my life. I was not with him because I was trying to sell our house. All that night I tried to figure out what would be the best thing to do. I decided to confront him unexpectedly by calling him at 4:30 in the morning. I didn't tell him how I knew but gave him enough info so he could tell I really did know.
He wrote her a no-communication ever again letter immediately and said he wanted our marriage. It took me a couple of weeks to decide that I wanted to try to save our marriage but it was tough because I felt like I couldn't trust my perceptions of him. I was so utterly decieved. We wrote a lot of very soulful letters and had many soulful phone conversations.
Because I was trying to sell the house and am very attached to my daughter and granddaughter that I was having to leave to once again follow this man to a far away unknown place, we had plenty of time apart. I have been more debilitated by abuses in my life so I am thankful that even though I didn't know it was possible to hurt like this it didn't incapacitate me as much as those two other times. The reason is that when I know the truth about what is going on I can handle it much better. Betrayals of trust that I can't figure out and being alone in that confusion really does me in.
What a ramble this has become! Anyway, my h said he never stopped loving me and even though he thought he was also in love with the OW he figured out after 2 years that he didn't want to be with her long term. I am very thankful that I was spared knowing about an active affair because I don't know if I could be strong enough to hang in there through that. My hat is off to all who have managed that one. However, I spared myself no detail of knowing what I was forgiving. I had a fear that she would someday tell me those details and I wanted to be as prepared as possible. I certainly am not reccommending this but it was how I healed and I can't go back and see if it would have been better to do it another way.
It's been almost 4 years. I'd say we're about 65% healed and I think that is fabulous. I think we might get to about 90%. I don't think it would be realistic to think we will ever completely heal like many people say here, there will be scar tissue. Even though we still have healing ahead we are on track and hopefully will stay so, at least more or less. That last upset when I suspected I had an std (it was understandable that I thought what I did but thankfully I was wrong) even blew over pretty quickly. For some of us it just takes a very long time to heal.
I think it would be fair to say that we have both become better people and I know we both feel very grateful for our progress. We are more calm, laugh more, my h lets me hug him more and will even be afectionate himself once in a while!
Don't know if that answers the question but it was therapeutic to write it out of my system again. I am so pleased that the past feels removed from me now. There were so many days when I couldn't imagine I'd ever get to this point.
