Hi everyone, I haven't been around for a couple of days because after dh's shouting in front of the kids on Thursday morning last week he (well, we in the end!) decided to move out. And now he's gone. It's amazing how fast things change. The weird thing is that now we are getting on really well. It feels like a huge amount of pressure has lifted, and we are both being terribly nice to each other. It's been a very strange few days, and I've had more hugs from dh over the weekend than probably in the last four years. I'm quite a tactile person, but he is the one who has been asking, so that's quite a surprise.
I am hoping that with a bit of space, and independance for both of us, we can rebuild our relationship and hopefully move back together in a few months time. If not then we will have had some practice with children juggling and hopefully can do the whole thing quite amicably. At the moment the kids think it's terribly exciting (the new place is about 10 mins away and they have been back and forth all weekend).
To everyone that is in the early stages post affair. Good luck, you will survive it, but it is horrible. The trick is to get to know yourself better and learn to be strong in yourself (and I don't mean that you need to just stop crying and pull yourself together!) I had 12 counselling sessions and I feel so much more resilient as a result, but I think I had a very good councellor (we talked about everything - especially my mother, as the counsellor was also a physchotherapist). dh and I can even laugh about some bits of his affair now, and watch romantic films together without me falling apart. I just wish that dh would get some help for himself, so that we didn't have to do radical things like living in seperate homes!
For me having a good job and lots of support was absolutely essential in rebuilding my world. Dh denied his affair for about 6mths before I got the proof and we were able to get things out into the open, and it was the hardest period in my life. I think it was another three months before he said sorry and we were able to move forwards. I'm not sure if we have saved our marriage, but I am very glad to have kept my best friend. And he actually wants to go on holiday as a family (we have never done this and ds is 6 1/2!).
The acute pain does go, but some of the sadness I think always remains. I guess the trick is to have lots of positive experiences post the affair so that you can think, well we (or I) went through that nasty experience, but it gained me what I have now. As for the will they ever do it again - well you never thought they would do it in the first place, so yes it is always possible, but then wasn't that always so, we just never thought it would be us?