I am struggling with an issue I saw addressed here. The length of H affair seems more devastating that the A itself... almost.... 4 years, in my best estimation because he doesn't recall "specific" details and doesn't want to. I believe in forgiveness and have said I forgive him and know in my heart that it's a process, not a one time, giveaway... and I love my H and I know he loves me...but because of the long time A and the fact that OW was a co-worker and I was exposed to knowledge of her and social networking that goes on in an office setting, it seems that the length of time signifies a "love" that kills me. He says he thought he did at the time, I say , then he did... at the time... the fact that I was humiliated in her presence so many times in those four years, at gatherings and dinners and his work related functions and that the other co-workers had to have known... although H denies that either of them told anyone, I know an office affair cannot be hidden from those that work with you, it's a shift in the air or something... and we're still friends with a lot of these other co-workers (keeping NC with OW and her H) I found out about the A, three years after it was over as H confessed one night when we were talking about our R and how some things I do, threaten him, I asked about OW, cuz back then, she threatened me and I was shocked as hell when he admitted that my fears were fact based. Been rebuilding for a year, struggling to cope, accept, forgive, understand, fix my part in our R and accept my responsiblity for my shortcomings, and H has been perfect in acceptance of the fact that he was totally wrong, fully accountable, deeply sorrowful and willing to go to any length to prove he loves me and only me.... and yet.......I continually sabotage our R, with "triggers" and I get so very angry with him, because those triggers are his fault, for putting me in her path so many times., for accepting social inviations that included OW (but in his defense, they had to, she worked there too), and for all the things that now remind me of the affair, which are way too numerous to list here, I guess I'm rambling, because I am hurting so bad right now, because I feel that I am sabotaging our chances for a complete restoration and beginning by continually going "back" there, where I cannot change a thing that happened, and all it does is make him feel worse, or get me angry when he can't remember something, and I wonder if I will ever stop feeling this way...........if I am a sick person, or is it normal? Any reminder of life in the world during 99-00-01-02 makes me cringe, hurt, and feel humiliation all over, any contact or run in with any of the former co-workers causes me great anxiety, even America's Funniest Home Videos which my whole family loves... if the date shows up on the bottom of a submitted video and it's in that time frame, my stomach does a flop... and I think that's not normal, why can't I let go of the past and embrace the future? Why do there have to be so many triggers, reminders? I told H one day, that maybe it was because we were still learning a lot and we had to for us to keep growing, but latley, there seems to be no growth from my "bad days" only added pain and misery, ....
Thanks for postings here, they have been a lifesaver for me.......

Mebutterfly,

My H's A lasted 4 1/4 years. Our first Dday was within a month of his getting involved with OW (online contact, so different from your H's A in that respect). I had a TERRIBLE IC who basically told me that my H said he wouldn't have anything more to do with OW and I didn't want a divorce, so everything was OK.

HA! As if!

Dday #2 was 1 1/2 years after H's A had ended, but because H had never had any kind of IC and we hadn't had any MC (he refused after Dday #1, saying he didn't need it. HA! again), he had not yet learned what he needed to learn.

First off, let me say that you are being, IMO, extremely hard on yourself. Reputable experts in the field of A counseling say that it takes, on average, about TWO YEARS to get over an A. That's on average, meaning that for some, two years is not enough.

I will say, from my vantage point of being a little over two years out from Dday #2, that I agree completely with those experts. You are expecting TOO MUCH from yourself. If your H is pressuring you to stop asking questions or to just get over it, then he needs a good 2x4 upside the head. You will NOT stop asking questions until you feel safe to stop, and that will not happen until you understand why your H got involved with OW.

I understand that remembering ALL the details may simply be a physical impossibility for your H. It was for mine, as four years is a long time, and when we BS find out about an A after the fact, then just that much more time has passed, so more details have been forgotten.

But just because the details have been forgotten does NOT mean that the BIG points, like what they did, how many times they had sex, where they met, etc. will be forgotten.

For the entire first year after Dday #2 my H lied to me when I asked him how many times they had met for sex. He admitted to twice, but my gut disagreed. So I spent that whole first year telling him that I believed there was more and begging him to tell me. He stalwartly refused every single time I asked, even to the point of becoming angry with me for asking. It wasn't until the first anniversary of Dday #2 when I told him I had emailed OW that he finally, FINALLY came clean.

He said he had lied to protect me, but then admitted that the truth was he had lied to protect himself. He was terrified that if he told me the truth, I would leave him for sure. My response was that if I hadn't left him for having an A and having sex with OW at all, why would he think having had it more times than he had said would make any difference.

Have you printed out Joseph's letter for your H? Have you read any of the books? "Not JUST Friends" and "After the Affair" were the two most helpful for me although I gleaned valuable ideas from every book I read.

Have you each had IC? I can not stress how valuable good IC can be, but you MUST find counselors who have experience treating infidelity. Have you had MC? It is invaluable, but works best after IC or at least after IC has started.

Now about the idea that he thought he loved OW at the time. Well, think about this: feelings, like thoughts, can be extremely fallacious. He THOUGHT he loved her, but he also likely thought at the time that what you didn't know wouldn't hurt you, or that he deserved to have an A, or any number of other just WRONG ideas.

I suggest that he didn't really love her, but rather, he loved the attention, the escape, the intrigue, the GAME. He, like her, was being selfish and immature. Remember that A are ALL about WS, not about OP, and not about BS.

I am OCD, and part of my being OCD is that I want ALL the knowledge possible. And you know what THAT means: I asked my H a million questions, the same ones countless times, for about the entire two year period after Dday #2. When I finally believed that HE understood WHY he had an A and WHAT damage his A did to him, to me, to our marriage, and to our children, when I saw him changing because he hated the man he was during his A, when he took 100% responsibility for his horrible choices, when he showed me remorse, then, and only then, did I feel safe to stop asking questions.

I am so sorry you are hurting so much. It's OK for you to hurt, to question everything, to not be healed yet. It's OK to feel frustrated and angry. But please don't take on emotions that should belong to him. HE is the one who should feel humiliated if any of his coworkers knew about his A. You did NOTHING wrong. The A was his choice.

Does OW still work at the same place? If so, my suggestion is that your H either changing jobs or changing departments or divisions, such that he has NC with her would go a long way to making you feel safer.

Comforting, healing fairy hugs,

fairyfriend

Edited to add not to worry. You are on the proverbial rollercoaster, and that is why you have up and down days. You, and your reactions, are perfectly normal.

My wife had an 18 year affair.  She had sex about 1000 times with him in this period and sometimes more often than with me.  Gruesome details but I have all the facts having read her diaries (you call them journals I believe). 

As for love:  Yes I believe that she went through the whole spectrum during this time from passionate love to deep enduring friendship love to eventually it becoming routine and a bit difficult to sustain.. And this sounds like many marriages doensn't it.  And rightly so. 

Do you want to know more.  Please ask if you do.

For my part I am now just over 1 year post d-day and my conclusions are in summary that true love is based on a depth of spiritual unity and resonance that makes an A impossible.

There are no easy answers or get-outs for us in this situation.  We have to face the horrid harsh truth face to face.  But.. I am going to repeat here a quotation from a book I was reading last week-end.  I found the quotation helpful in living with my sadness:

"What is sadness?  The word sad is related etymologically to satisfied or sated, meaning full.  So in sadness there is a fullness of heart, a fullness of feeling in response to being touched by the sweet, transitory, ungraspable quality of human existence.  This empty fullness is one of the most significant of human experiences.  The poignancy of not knowing who we are and not being able to hold on to or control our quickly passing life connects us with the vastness and depth of the living heart.  It invites us to let go of the fixed reference points we use to prop ourselves up."..... "All our reference points are continually slipping away.  We can never create an unassailable position or identity that will guarantee happiness or security.  Shall we let this depress us, or can we dance with it?"

May you be safe and well

Oh.. and I am going to also add here my ongoing theory (and I am not sure it makes sense) but here below is a posting I also made in Open.  I hope it shows how I feel I need to have both my thinking head and my feeling heart deeply entwined in any journey towards that deep and reliable spiritual relationship that I call true love:

 

Heart + Head

November 21 2006, 12:59 AM

Betrayal is possible if you allow your emotions to run away with themselves.  Betrayal is possible also if you simply decide in your head to do something. It is possible in either case ie you become disconnected with your heart or your head. Betrayal is not possible if your heart and mind are both engaged.  One keeps the other true.  Let me explain my way of looking at this: If you think in your mind "I am going to do this" (even for the most insane reason) then you are not connected to your heart because your heart would respond to that cruel thought to let you know the thought was wrong.  Also, if you found your heart running away with itself eg "I just feel so in love" etc.. then also you are not connected to your mind/ head.  Your head will know it is wrong and will say so. The problem is that we become incomplete - We lose our own healthy connected whole.  There are reasons for this - and we can all find them for each of our individual situations.  But, in my theory it is the connectedness that is healthy and on the right path. May you be happy

Wow, I'm sitting here crying so badly, I'm not sure I can type... I sure wish that I could hug both FF and Jerry for their words and support and to help them release some of the pain I read in these posts. How strong you must be Jerry! and also, I see how sad you must be... as I am... that was so touching and accurate.. it's a sadness that is overwhelming for me.... I am also a little over one year of "knowing" and I have also since that dreaded confession day, lost my mother, my coping mechanisms (see, I used to drink too much and it made H feel threatened and less important than him, which had a lot to do with the A so, I gave up my comfort completely) and I lost my family pet of 11 years and I lost my job.....due to weather (golf course work) and so I feel this sadness just eating my soul and I get up each and every day fighting against it, and sometimes I just feel like quitting. That part about not knowing who I am... is so true.. I was the wife of the perfect man.. the most moral, righteous, upstanding, honest and hardworking man there ever was, and I drank to much and I wasn't good enough for him.... for 20 years plus... now, I find out,,, that was wrong..... He is human, flawed and capable of cruelty that I can't fathom from him... and I was drinking to fill a need and a space and a hole in my that was lacking....and we failed each other on many counts.. and so, I'm not the "bad" one and him the "good" one anymore, and I am who God made me to be, and I'm also fighting the good fight of faith that my worth comes from God and not from my marital status, career or even the things I do, or don't do....
Back to FF thinking I'm too hard on myself, I DO KNOW that my H realizes he was wrong, knows why it happened, sees the sickness in it, deeply regrets it, and loves me very much (or.... am I still seeing him as perfect?).. and yet I still want to know every detail.... all the ugly stuff.... so, that maybe makes me OBC as well?? I don't know....
Thank you both for lending such knowledge, and heartfelt words of encouragement to me.. and Jerry, I would love to know the whole story, if you wanna tell it...........

I just wanted to let you know that I too struggle with the same thing.  My H's A lasted 4 years as well. ...who knew...who didnt...what does the length of the A mean...did he love her...does he still? I dont know and it really, really hurts.  At times I want to just leave....at other times I want to try like heck.  I think it is normal to feel all of these things.  And I am sorry youa re going through all of this too!

(((((((((((((((hugs)))))))))))))))).....Carol~

Hi! I thought my experience might ring some bells with you. My H affair lasted 2 1/2 years, 1 1/2 physical and then 1 emotional. From when I first knew for sure (2 and a bit years ago) he said he loved OW, or thought he loved her, or had loved her. I also read his e-mails to her from the whole period, and saw all the passionate avowals of love and all the little cute symbols they had, the private things which signified their love. He was still in contact with her telling her how bad I was and how much he missed her while telling me that he never wanted to leave me and that only with me did he feel right. And this had lasted for 2 1/2 years, in spite of her H finding out, in spite of telling me about it, in spite of the pain and hurt to me, to our kids, to himself.

I can tell you, I felt less than nothing in his life. If she meant so much to him that he would lie to me, even after seeing how badly damaged I was by the A, then obviously she was a better partner for him than me, and he was only staying with me because of the family, his job, his reputation, whatever.

But what I realised just recently is that he was addicted to the role he was playing and couldn't give it up. Don't ever think he was addicted to OW; it's the role of white knight, of saviour and solver of problems, of caring concerned person who can make someone else like him. Saying that he loved her was just like a gambler saying he's putting money on the horses in order to pay off the mortgage, or an exercise junkie saying she's running for hours to keep fit. Maybe initially there was that sort of motivation, but then the addiction gets out of control. If the gambler was really only trying to save the family finances, he would set a limit each session, quit while he was ahead, and keep putting aside his winnings instead of rebetting them. If the exercise junkie was only trying to get fit, she would stop running when her knees hurt or she lost too much weight. And if my H had truly been in love with OW he would have told me early on and left me for her. Talking about being in love with the OP is affair talk, which is just the same as addict talk; it's how they justify their behaviour to themselves.

I put all this to my H who agrees entirely. He says he knew it was wrong but somehow he just couldn't give it up. It didn't make him happy - he sees the affair period as the unhappiest time in his life. During that time he was constantly stressed, he lost a lot of weight, he had panic attacks and broke down in tears in front of work colleagues. Just like a junkie he was lying and cheating and robbing me for his fix, and yet he couldn't stop himself. The good thing is that, like many drug addicts, there came a time when he didn't want to do it any more. He says it is a moment that he can pinpoint, when he had just had enough of being that person who he didn't like. That was the moment when he could accept that he never "loved" OW, he never actually contemplated replacing me with her, she was just one of the artefacts needed to feed his addiction.

My H's OW is also a co-worker, although from another state. I have entertained her at my house, have had lunch with her the day after she was with my H at a motel, her son has taken my daughter out and my daughter and H stayed at OW's house. I feel humiliated and demeaned by her having any contact with me and my family. Also H told at least 4 other co-workers, some only that he was having an affair (sorry, he prefers "relationship") but one knows exactly with whom and talked to H about how much he likes OW. Grrrrr. I have to interact with these people through my work and I hate it.

I get through it by thinking of her as the needle the junkie uses or the coins going into the slot machines. I remember all the lies he told her (about the great sex they had - didn't mention to her that he needed viagra and dreaded having sex; about his interactions with me - inevitably he told her I was the wicked witch; about how he really wanted to be with her again, when he was avoiding going anywhere near her town etc etc). I know that the best revenge I can have is a happy marriage and I'm working on that with my H who is now truly remorseful and totally out of the affair fog. He is starting to like the person he is now and never wants to go back to the black to the black days of the A with OW. I know it's hard to deal with all this, but it does get better and the insights which help you understand and cope with what's happened will slowly make it easier to work on your marriage with your H.

Big hugs

Liz

change a few details and Liz's post could have been mine.

A was +/- 3 years, very "emotional" and my H was addicted to being "the white knight"

He had only shown her a distorted, selective image of himself. He LIKED being with someone who believed in that image and sadly, didn't have the self esteem to think that someone could really love him if they did know his deep dark fears and insecurities. (and now with an extra layer of lies on top)

but with her... they didn't exixt. He LOVED the pretend life. Well, that is until it all came crashing down like a house of cards.

My H was lost in the fantasy. When the fantasy ended, it was a long hard road for him to not only face the really stupid decision to have an A, but to face the underlying factors and the insecuriteis and fears.

-Susan

hi all

i think there are two time periods here, the first being the length of the A and the second being the length of time to heal from it.

i have triggers around the times and dates of my H's A with co worker, the time they had together, those particular years, eg christmas 2004 etc etc, like you all, i will not get those back in terms of what i thought they were. those stolen years i think some people have described them as. but i can say that those crap years are just some years our of a whole bunch of other years, not matter how betrayed i feel about those particular A years.

it is hard to do though, i admit.

the other time period is the time to heal, this does take time, you cant just feel better about something that might have occured for a number of years overnight. you have to work it through, get to a point where it isnt as significant as it was. it can happen.

actually a funny story regarding H's OW. i call her maggot, and a couple of days ago we were out shopping and in the breakfast cereal aisle and trying to work out what cereal to get. H said "i have a funny story to tell you about maggot". i said, "god i couldnt stand the thought of that right now, yuck maggots in breakfast cereal sounds revolting." he then said "oh sorry i shouldnt have brought her up.". i then realised he was going to tell me a story about THE maggot and breakfast cereals, not maggots in breakfast cereals. i cracked up laughing, because i realised i had forgotten about maggot. anyway i said ok, tell me the story. so e did and basically it was about a daft thing she did at work with breakfast cereal, we both laughed and i said "that proves what an idiot she is, i told you that" and he agreed. haha

after i had a little twinge that he thought about her, even if it was in a disparaging way, but then i thought, "who cares, i cant control his thoughts and i am more interested or proud of myself for forgetting her" haha

so i guess what i am saying is there are two time periods, the length of the A which overshadows memories of other events during the A period and the time it takes to get through the reactions to the A.

take care
kath

My wife had a 3+ year affair. It's been nearly 6 years since I found out.

So what does "getting over it" mean? What does "forgiveness" mean? I think you'll find yourself redefining these things for yourself, just so you can cope.

Originally, pre affair, I would have defined forgiveness and getting over it as being like it never happened. I mean, that I would be whole and happy again, content with myself and my life. But you know what, for me at least, that isn't possible.

What happened left scars. The pain is still there, even now. I keep an emotional distance between myself and my W (we are still together). I don't trust her - or I should say I do trust her, but I trust that she isn't trustworthy.

I've heard people claim of being closer after the affair recovery - but this isn't the truth for me. How can discovering that the person you love and trust above all others will happily sell you out just for a good time bring you closer together?

Good luck.