One day at a time....

[Hope4us]

Hi Rocked! Yes, those triggers do suck. Do they ever go away? I'll let you know if I ever get there.

I can tell you that the intensity and duration become less and less as time goes on. And if your H is understanding what you're going through, it will help speed up that process. It just takes time.

And get ready, some times I'm triggered by the stupidest stuff. I mean, the obvious things you expect, but sometimes just something out of the blue. I have a hard time watching certain shows on t.v. now, because of the A's that are part of the story line. Other's I can watch because they show the harm that A's cause.

I had mentioned on my thread one of those times when W and I were at Disney in Nov. We were heading out of one of the parks and W asked if I cared if she had a smoke before we left. Of course I didn't care, so W says "There's a smokers area right over here". And it HIT ME HARD. That's the smokers area she ran off to call OM for an hour when we were at Disney a few years back and was hot and heavy in the middle of her A. We were having a great day that day and I was seeing signs of my old W back (so I thought) and then she's gone for an hour calling/TM'ing OM.

No idea why it hit me so hard this past time, because we've been to Disney 4 or 5 times since and this particular smokers area many times and it's never bothered me before, but this time, Whoa. And I'll tell you what. W noticed something was wrong, asked me about it and after I told her she looked at me with some pain in her eyes and said "I'm so sorry". And that's pretty much all it took to get me over that one.

And the images of them together lessen over time also. Again, don't get me wrong, I still have them, but they're no where near as intense or last as long. One thing I've tried to do is think to myself 'ya know, neither one of us were virgins when we married, so why does the sex between OM and her bother me where her previous experiences don't?' And it does help some.

I've also found that those triggers happen more often when there's something else bugging me about the pace of our recovery or something has happened that taps into my insecurity of the sitch.

I've been told that eventually those triggers go away. I'm still waiting....but on another website, a LBS told me that she and her H were eventually able to laugh and joke about OW and when you get to that point, the triggers are pretty much non-existent.

Hope this helps Rocked. Our family is going back to our hometown for a couple days for Christmas. I hope your Christmas is a GREAT one. But be ready, there'll be some times in the next couple days where the emotion of it all hits you. It did me last night. W and I were wrapping presents and I had to choke back some tears because just a year ago I didn't know if we'd be together for another Christmas, let alone many more. W didn't notice, but it was a pretty good feeling.