Paul, I am relieved, VERY relieved, to see that you are still here and posting. That's a good thing! Awesome. It's not easy, man is it NOT easy. But you are here and chose to do something for yourself...that being, not hurt yourself. You may not see it as having done something for yourself, but you did. Accept that. You did.

If it's of any consolation at all, and it may not be, but if it is in the slightest way, you should know that you will go through this process of going back and forth between the lies and the betrayal and the going's on...it will sometimes slide through your mind so pervasively that if you don't stop it somehow, it CAN fester and snowball. Try as best you can to recognize when this is happening and force yourself to do something that with divert your thoughts. Do anything, just do something. Force yourself if you have to. These thoughts/feelings can have a mind all their own (sorry for the pun).

As to hurting the other person. Forget it. I know that sounds so shallow. But reason with yourself. Think it through in your mind, that if you actually did do something to harm this other person, not only what good what it do but what would it do to your fragile relationship with your wife. It will cause more damage to and possible repair than do any good. As much as we want to blame the other person for all that happened, or at least their part in what happened, it doesn't matter in the end Paul. Yes, they are, IMO, responsbile for their contribution, but retribution towards them will gain you nothing.

Will you ever have the same relationship with your wife? Very simple answer - NO. You will not. It is virtually impossible to have the same relationship with a spouse after this. Nor, IMO again, would you want to. If you think about it, something was wrong for this to have happened. Doesn't matter who was at fault, the point is something was amiss for an affair to take place. Sorting out who or what was wrong can happen in couples counseling...but to go back to what it was before would be a really bad thing to want to do. It will be different. Better? Maybe. Worse? Maybe. But never the same, nor more than your life is the same after the birth of a child, your life is never the same as it was before.

This is a really, really hard concept to wrap your head around because we want our life to be the same, always. We are comfortable with what we know. The unknown is very uncertain and unsettling.

The question - do you love your wife enough now? That's a hard one. Right now you may not love her enough because you are in so much pain and confusion you may not FEEL love for her. That's not the same as loving her. You just don't feel loving towards her. That Paul is totally acceptable to feel that way right now, but that doesn't mean that in time you may feel love for her. You may, you may not, but right now it's okay to not feel loving towards her. Why would you?

It's probably to early in the process to assess to yourself whether or not you love her or love her enough. You've only just become this recovery process. There are many, many things that you will have to discuss with her before you even consider the thought about a future. You do not have to know the end result of all this right now. You do not have enough information to make that decision.

The only thing I can strongly suggest is that you guys would benefit greatly by seeing a therapist that speializes in infidelity. This type of counseling isn't just so we can iron out the problems and move on. It's to help couples realize whether or not they should even try to maintain the relationship. Some couple find out that the marriage isn't worth saving or that in reality they weren't happy in the first place or the one or the other wants out. It can also make a couple (both) realize that they do want to save it and repair the damage, but first both people have to realize what they want. A counselor can help you guys sort that out.

This board is filled with people from all walks of life with many different scenarios of infidelity, lying, betrayal. But most of us have gone through what you are going through right now, so just know we are here for support so you can take each day one step at a time and you will, at some point, feel differently than you do today and differently than you will tommorrow. It just takes time. Hang on...you will survive this, just hang on. Marie

Thanks Marie,

Your words make sense when all around me nothing else seems to, I never in my wildest dreams thought I would be discussing my personal life with anyone, let alone total strangers.

I have a constant battle going on within me at this time I know this may sound callous but I feel worse now than when my farther died of cancer 5 years ago, at that time I had a loving wife to help me get through the pain but this is oh so much worse, and I feel bad that the death of my farther seems to mean less than what my wife has done to me.

To add insult to injury the guy who was supposed to be my friend sent me a text this morning asking if we could meet and apologizing for what he calls a moment of weakness, my initial thought was to meet him so I could let him know exactly what I thought of him, but the thought of seeing him again will only make the slight headway I have made a waste of time so I shall decline his offer.

I am not a religious person but we all need someone to turn to and I thought as its Sunday I will pay a visit to the local church, im not sure it will help but at least it will be doing something.

Paul, I thought it might be good to show you, for real, that even 2 years after the discovery of my husband's infidelity and his long chapter of deceipt, her is am, it's 4:20 a.m. and I am still awoken in the middle of the night with thoughts about what happened. I'm not falling apart, I'm not a wreck as I was months and months ago, but it still creates havock in my mind. You are not alone. M

I was thinking. This offer the friend made to meet with you to talk might be better put on hold rather than out n out declined. It's just a suggestion to think about. This is why I say this.

When my husband's affair (one of 3) came out I met with the OW. I didn't know her personally, I knew of her. At any rate, when I met with her it helped me put some pieces of the foggy puzzle together. I did NOT like to hear what she had to say, but in an odd way it helped. But when I met with her I was only 1 month into this craziness. I was still in shock and still living in a very surreal life. Months and months went by. We were in counseling. So much was being thrown at me at once it was hard to process it as fast as it was coming at me. Then, when I was in a different frame of mind, I had new and different questions for the OW but by then it was long over and too late to go back and visit this with the OW. I had my chance and took it for what I could at the time, but as time went on I had new thoughts that had only then begun to surface.

If you meet with him now, your thought will be based on confusion and there may be questions and thoughts that you don't even have yet. You are still processing the shock. If it were me having the chance to do it over, I think it would have been better to wait until I was able to settle the thoughts down in my head first before trying to come to resolution with the OW. But that's only me, for you it may be different. Just a suggestion.

As to going to church. I am a spiritual person, I go to church and pray, but I'm not necessarily what I would call someone that is a regular at church. In other situations in my life I admit, I would turn immediately to God and church looking for safety, for help. Oddly, I didn't do that this time. Yes, I prayed, but it wasn't the same. I was so overwhelmed by what happened I didn't feel that even God was going to intervene. I find that odd even to this day. At any rate, it's a good thing to do and it could offer you a place to let yourself go, let your feelings and emotions pour out. I did pray however for God to help me through this and he has very unique ways of doing that. It's not alway what we ordered, but the result is the same in the end. We get through it. We survive it.

The process or stages that I went through went like this. In the beginning I would cry or break down over practically nothing. Hourly at times. As time went on I had these episodes for less time and more time in between, even though when this was happening I wouldn't have recognized it, but I do now. Little by little the terrible upset episodes became less and less, with more time in between them. Sometimes, out of the blue, I would have complete set backs, feeling like I was right back at square one, sometimes even worse. I think maybe what was happening was as time went on and the further away from D-day was the more I felt hopeless and the more I felt time would rub away any chance of getting the answers I needed. So in a really backwards way I wanted to hold on to D-Day, like - NO, don't get away from me, because I don't have the answers yet. Eventually you do let time pass by. You let it go even though you really don't want to. It's been almost 2 years and I still, occassionally, have really, really bad nights here and there. The come out of nowhere and very much resemble the way I felt on day one. But, I am able to pull myself out of it and when it's over, I feel better. It's like having an infection or something so basic as a pimple that just hurts beyond belief and if little by little you let the infection out you actually do feel relief. But the sore is still there and when it festers it feels better to let it out. I know this is a strange analogy, but that's how I would explain it. Toward the end of this rough road, for me, I felt like hey, the infection is almost out. I keep squeezing the pimple (sorry for the bad analogy) and I can tell that less and less infection is in there. Like, damn, this thing is almost over. Thank God.

No, I'm not over this by a long shot. But the pain it caused is getting less and less. Maybe because we start to accept it. I don't know, I just know it get's better, but the road there is tough, but not impossible.

Give it some time, try not to react immediately on your feelings because they can change by the hour or minute. Let things settle a little before you decide what you want to do. Keep in touch here, there's always someone who can offer something to ya. Marie

Can i take her back ? She wants us to continue our relationship, i do not know what to make of this, she says it has nothing to do with me and that she still loves me, she says she does not know why she did it, maybe it was because he was flattering her and she felt good because someone found her attractive,and it was exciting, but what does that say about our relationship, she has never wanted for anything, i have never questioned her spending, i earn enough not to be concerned about money, but can i trust her not to do this again?

Paul, Have you two gone to counseling yet? She may want to continue on with your relationship/marriage, but unless what's happened is addressed, I don't see how you can possibly just sweep it under the rug, ya know? I don't think that is possible. I don't see how you can ever trust anyone who hasn't been held accountable and make ammends for their actions. The answer she has given you is too cut n' dry. There's lots of explainin' to do Lucy.

Really, though, that's all well and good that she has told you how she got caught up in it for her reasons, but you really do have to get to the bottom of why she felt that was reason to have an affair. You guys have lots of talking to do yet Paul if there is any chance of this marriage surviving.

Can you trust her again you ask. Only if she can dig deep enough within herself to really have you understand why she did what she did. The answers she has given you so far are way too shallow.

I would say ask her if she is willing to commit to counseling for a minimum of 3 months. During that time I would suggest you not make any decisions one way or the other. This is search and discover time for you. She should know that as well. Be up front and tell her you don't know if you want this relationship...all of it depends on her actions to help you have closure on this...this is ALL in her lap.

As I said before, this is not easy. It will take two VERY determined people to make this work out and even then there's no guarantee, but it definitely takes two - 100%. M