Huge Backslide After Affair Recovery

[hopeOK]

hope

Ok ... I get where you are at, its a very tough spot to be in. In my case W and OM were an on again and off again A for 18 months or so.


So .. you snoop, you are looking for a sign a clue and you are getting yourself spinning as to WHERE H could have been/done in that 45 minutes.

Lets look at this ... he just told you he was wanted to work on things, he even mentioned " it would be great if I'd include in that any accusations, trying to catch me in stuff, and quizzes in that not talking." but ... you are still at it. I do not blame you.... but this is one of his concerns and you are not being open and honest.

Here is the deal, you have to COMMUNICATE, do not assume ... those 45 minutes, maybe he helped an old lady across the street, maybe he met up with OW to tell her face to face things were over and he was working on his F, maybe he had a quickie in the hotel .... regardless of what he did ... you are not DBing here! You are focused on his every move and it will not help him trust you .. nor you trust him. I am not 2x4ing you here .. because I caught myself doing almost the same thing these past weeks.

Going through this without professional help will be tricky as you do seem like you want to push and press H ... he is going at this at his own pace, I do think hitting him up about that 45 minutes that were unaccounted for will not go as you hope .. and will backfire. At some point you have to decide to trust, you might not be there yet, your H might not be there yet .. it takes time .... rather than speculate (on the 45 minutes) I would wait untill you have something tangible that you can bring up ... otherwise it makes you appear needy and clingy .... and mostly that 'you are trying to catch him' as he put it.

Ok, ok. I definitely needed this. I knew there was a reason to come post on here.

I definitely see what you are saying & I definitely do not want to get back into that mode of feeling panicked over something so small & bringing it up & starting another war. I am very aware of how bad that has been for us & that is why I stopped myself & haven't brought it up. I guess I am so worried that something is going to happen between him & someone else & I am going to miss it for a good while. He had his affair for about 4 months & I only started to catch on to something really in the last month or so. Then he said he was "putting it on hold" (I realize now how bizarre that wording is & how indicative that is of what was to come) & while I was working my butt off to do what I needed to do he was still very much in communication with her for 2 weeks before I busted him again. Then I really messed up by saying some extremely hurtful things that the found out about & he resumes contact with her (never did I find anything romantic... so there is still that question). So I guess I am super paranoid that he is or is going to end up in another relationship w/ her. But I don't want to cause problems if he is not!

So thank you for coming on here and saying what you did. I did realize I was assuming and jumping to conclusions but wasn't sure what to do with the fear I felt about seeing that receipt on the counter w/ that time. I even did tell myself that the time on the cash register could have been off... it is a farm stand after all! So I do realize that it could totally be nothing.

So on that note, how do I stop looking for every little thing. I didn't go searching for the receipt, it was just on the counter although when I saw it there I did investigate the time. Should I stay off his devices? Should I not check into things at all? This seems like setting myself up for something to happen w/o me realizing it but maybe I am coming at this from the wrong place. I do want to trust him & I do want to move on from his affair... I am just so worried about it happening again!

Also, I have been thinking of asking him about if he has ended his resumed contact w/ the OW. This is ok, right? I have already set the boundary that he should not be talking to her outside of a professional relationship (they work together)... but not sure if I need to follow up on this or not. I feel like we are a bit on shaky ground just newly deciding to avoid divorce & fix what went wrong... so I don't want to mess that up. But I do feel concerned about whether or not he told her they needed to stop talking outside of work.

We have a vacation coming up next week & I've even thought to just keep things light & not about the relationship for a bit... so we can build back a little bit of a good feeling towards each other through the vacation, and then have the more serious talks after that. But then I also have this thing in the back of my mind that is saying- we need to find out what he thinks we need to do to "fix" things & make sure he isn't wanting to just sweep this all under the rug.

Ugh. I wish I wouldn't have come down from the high I was feeling from Tuesday! I knew it wouldn't be easy to rebuild and work on the relationship but I was hoping to not have these panicked feelings back so soon!