One year ago today..

[ChippedChinaTeaCup]

My dp came home at lunchtime, packed a suitcase and left me.

He had been having an affair with a secretary at work for about a month.

I received lots of support and advice from lovely mners - some of which I took and some of which I wish I had taken, in hindsight it would have made things much easier.

One year on we're still together, we love each other but it's still difficult and strained at times. He's now having individual counselling and I've got the phone number for someone but am dithering about ringing. I'm also on AD's now.

My self esteem and confidence have taken quite a battering and I do feel low quite a lot of the time, even my friends have said that I'm a bit too soft and not assertive enough, although they don't know what happened last year.

He's done all the right things, changed job, 3 times since there was contact at two subsequent jobs, given me all passwords, he leaves his phone lying around etc etc. He reassures me that he loves me all the time.

We don't really talk about what happened.. it's like we both have a fear of rocking the boat but now and then there's an explosion about something unrelated and after that we talk a bit and then bury it again.. not good. The plan now is for us both to have individual counselling and then see someone together when we're feeling a bit stronger.

I would say I trust him about 90%.. on a logical level I know he's not doing anything he shouldn't but there's always a little niggle there.

The main thing I need to work on now is my self esteem and assertiveness.. I hate the spineless jellyfish that I am now.

Once I get me back, hopefully I'll be able to work out if I still really want to be with him or if it's just out of habit or what :/

Saw GP today, he confirmed that EMDR is not quackery and is very effective. He's also going to try and hurry along the nhs counsellor so I can have some cbt too. He's upped my dose of ADs :( I think I need them tho, because I'm still feeling very low.

Bad night with DP, it started off well.. we went for a meal (belated VD thing) as we were chatting he asked if I'd be happier without him, that if he weren't around I wouldnt need the therapy and I'd have no problems. He then went on to say that the only time he's happy is when he's at work - he's miserable in my company. I told him that if he feels that way I won't stand in his way and it got a bit heated on the way home.

His parting shot when we got home was that I'd fucked everything up with my shitstirring and he retreated to his 'cave'. I asked for clarification and he said all my forwarding and cc'ing emails to the OW last year. So he clearly resents me for ruining his big romance but when I said that he said no, that's not what he meant. He also said that he didn't need therapy til he met me! and that I always make things all about me.

We're both sulking in our respective 'caves' now. I'm not angry or sad or anything, I just feel numb

I don't know what to say to help but you are not talking to an empty room. It sounds like he lashing out at you to get a reaction - have you ever said you want him to stay? I don't mean that you should, just that he might want you to say that IYSWIM. I'm sure someone who can help will be along soon.

Oh CCTC, I'm so sorry :( I don't have anything helpful to say either, but I agree with NANG's suggestion. My H needs a huge amount of reassurance and stroking. It makes me so and when I'm fishing for compliments and he turns it round to 'well what do you love about me ?' And I'm like what is there to effing love about you, look at what you've done!?! But that's the point I guess, they're fragile and broken because of the realisation of the awful things they are capable of (or should be!), and need us for healing just as much as we need them.

I hope it gets better for you :( xx

CCTC, really sorry I haven't been around this week, have been working full time and am out every evening.

I've got a lot to say to you about what you've written but want to dedicate the time to properly word what I want to say. Thinking of you and you know where I am. xx

You might be on to something there. I've always said that I love him enough to let him go if he would be happier elsewhere. I can't bring myself to plead or beg him to stay. I have said that I like my life better with him in it than him not in it.

Just after I posted last night, he came down to have a bath and was friendlier, sat with me for the rest of the night and was making an effort to be nice. Ohh.. he did say something about us not having much sex and I said how can I have sex with someone who can be so hostile towards me, without warning?

Can't write much now as I'm on my way out of the door but thank you so much for your input... it's really helpful.

Karmann.. don't worry. You're busy for all the right reasons and I'm delighted for you :o xxx

I've been reading VB's thread and something really resonated with me. I think it was a post by LeQueen.

We had a few months of the hysterical bonding thing, where we felt really close to each other, then a bit of a slump, then a bit of plodding on and now the anniversaries have stirred things up again.

But what really struck me is that the whole time I've been trying to be perfect. Attractive, bubbly, good company, fun to be around etc etc.. and the strain of that is wearing me out, it's like I've been trying to be some kind of 'stepford wife' when in fact, who and what I am is and should be more than good enough. Also interesting, VB noted that her H's dalliances occurred after times when she'd needed extra support.. same thing happened here.. it all started about a month after I'd come out of a longish stay in hospital.. wonder if there's anything to that

Hmm.. I've got more food for thought now.

Also received an appt in the post today from the NHS counsellor for the 8th March.

I saw that post by LeQ

I thought it was spot-on

Chipped, if you feel like you are constantly trying to be a "perfect" version of how he thinks his wife should be, how long can you sustain it ?

and what will he do when you inevitably slip ?

That's the thing Pete.. it's not his version, it's mine.. I guess that feeds into the low self esteem/self worth that I have to address. It's not sustainable.. I'm not one of those groomed, glamorous women, but I do make more effort with my appearance, get nails done etc nowadays. I get up with him in the morning and make him a cup of tea, make sure there's a cup of tea ready for when he comes home.. like a well trained pavlov doggy. Meal times I'm not so hot on and my cooking is a bit hit and miss.. and I'm finding I'm getting nervous about mealtimes now.

I'm nervous a lot of the time, afraid of doing/saying the wrong thing and I hate being like that. I don't even feel able to express a preference over what takeaway we get ffs. In fairness, he's never said anything to make me behave like that, it's just what I seem to have become I don't know how or why I seem to have turned into miss mouse but I don't know how to get me back :(

This weekend is lovely cos he's gone to visit his parents/friends in his hometown so I can slob about and eat all the stuff he doesn't like and watch crap on tv :o

I'm also due to have some pretty major surgery at the end of the year, with quite a long recovery period and I'm dreading that, if we get that far. I worry every time I have to see my consultant cos he is very cautious and will whip me back in as soon as he thinks I'm even slightly malnourished - he's the sort of doctor who sent me for an MRI scan because I was having some headaches! Lovely lovely man he is. Last time I was in hospital all he whined about was how tired he was and how draining it was having to traipse across London to visit me (hospital isn't local) and I felt guilty for being ill which now really pisses me off. A month later he was messing with OW.

Sorry I seem to be posting a stream of consciousness but it's very cathartic getting it out and it's helping me to untangle all the stuff in my head :)

That last post, chipped, makes me want to cry for you

what the hell is this man doing to make you want so badly to stay with him ?

he isn't helping you, he isn't doing enough to make you feel secure, I'm just not seeing it

it seems to me like you are not the woman you used to be

is one man worth this...that the person you should be is destroyed ?

one man is not worth this...not the father of your dc, not the husband you thought he was, no-one

he is one man

That's what I don't understand either Pete.. it's not at all that I'm desperate to be with him at all.. I like having him in my life, when thngs are good they are very good, but I can also see that my life is pretty good when he's not around and I'd be absolutely fine. I've said to him many times, even very recently, that maybe we should just part now, agree that we gave it a bloody good go but couldn;t make it work. It's him that won't let go. If you rememeber even last year when he was with OW it was him begging me to take him back, not give up on us etc. He wouldn't leave me alone, and now it's the same, he just won't go.

I don't understand how or why I've imposed this weird behaviour on myself at all.

btw DC are grown up and he's not their father, so that's not an issue at all.

Ah, that explains something Chipped. I read your posts about dreading him coming home and wondered what that was all about. Now it makes sense. You have been trying to be the perfect woman and you've been exhausting yourself in the process.

There's a poster on here who has written a few times about her waterloo moment happening one morning after a long night shift, when she found herself in her work loos applying make-up to go back home. Presumably she was going to go straight to bed, but she was doing this just in case her H woke up and saw her. They were recovering from an affair too, but this was the moment when she realised that the relationship had to end.

This was never about you anyway. It was about him. He would still have got involved with that idiotic woman if you'd been the perfect woman, not that such a thing exists.

When I read your posts, I recall what I said on your original thread about your partner. Surely he's not worth this Chipped?

you can make him go, if you really wanted to

you can make him leave you alone, if you really wanted to

sorry, not washing with me

you are a strong woman

you know how to make it plain

it makes me feel sad how much you are losing just to keep it together

for what ?

it is all still on his terms, you haven't gained any ground at all....evidenced by your change in behaviour to Stepford Wife

Hi Chipped, had to add in. I had a brief period of this myself, trying to be all vivacious and wear make-up every single day and constantly worrying I wasn't interesting enough as company and every time he went silent was because he was bored with me - because basically, she wore daily slap, and vivacious was a word he'd used when I asked what attracted him to her.

Then after about a month of feeling lower than I ever had before (because deep down I resented doing this for someone I didn't respect at that point and wasn't even sure I wanted to be with), I pulled up my socks and thought: you know what, if you don't like me as I am then you can f'off. From now on, I'm just going to be me. As for you, you're damaged goods and I am far better than this.

'She' was vivacious (ugh) because she was borderline psychotic and make-up is a PITA and so not me (except on special occasions. My mum doesn't wear it and neither will I!). So I am going to do precisely what I like and stuff you. It was like I had to reclaim myself.

At the end of the day, remember this: you can't stop someone from cheating. It's up to them and if their soul is made of crap and they can decide to ruin their own life twice then you can't change that. But what you can change is you - make yourself happy. You can't pretend to be something you're not - that's the territory of OWs and their crappy mirroring, and it's all a pile of balls.

abedelia...perfect point

mirroring is the territory of the OW, it is often how they operate

why would you lower yourself to that ?

You're both right so what's stopping me? I think I'm waiting for the magic 2 year recovery maybe? I really don't know. I don't feel there's any urgency though for now.

Hehe, I'm not even very good at Stepfordness :o The house is still a cluttered mish mash.

I am getting stronger I think - I'm going out with friends more often, I've even booked to go for a weekend in Dublin without him in May without mentioning it to him first. But a lot of the time I just go with the flow, swish my now-glossy hair and let things wash over me.

I would say that 85-90% of the time things are good between us and on here I'm focussing on the not so good bits.

As for him, he does make a big effort to reassure me, tells me he loves me all the time, texts and emails me a lot, even when he's at work, spends more time with me, stuff like that. Even now, he's at his friend's house and has been messaging me constantly trying to make me see the positives about us.

I think he's pissy at the moment because the anniversaries are affecting him too.. and also the fact that I'm seeing a therapist highlights again what he did and the guilt is hitting him all over again. He does feel horribly guilty, which I thnk is why he finds it so hard to talk about it.. because it brings up feelings he doesn't know how to deal with and he's ashamed of himself so he gets defensive. he;s seeing a therapist too so maybe that will help him, I dunno. Karmann says he's emotionally immature. I think she might be right on that one, we've got a 12 year age difference, he's 29 and I'm older, maybe it's starting to show?

Yy abedella, that's a great post. I told H a while ago that I was finished "auditioning" to be his wife, but of course I still worry about it same as you CCTC. I'm so sorry you're feeling like this, it should be them worried about us still loving them after what they've done, not the other way round :(

precisely RB

chipped, I didn't know about the 12 yr age gap

I feel even more uncomfortable about the hoops you are jumping through now

Thanks Abdelia. I don't think I'd even realised what I've been doing on a conscious level til recently.

Apparently OW used to get up at 5am to sort out her hair and make up I'm nowhere near like that. I just don't slob around the house in scruffs anymore, I get dressed properly, flylady stylee I suppose. I'm more conscious of my appearance but I'm not really glammed up so much as less scruffy, lol

She was too lively for him, she wore low cut tops and flaunted her HHcup boobage in public and liked flirting and male attention even when out with him - he hates that sort of thing. She could also easily down 2 or 3 bottles of wine in a night on her own and he's not that sort at all.. he's not one for drinking on work nights, not even much of a social drinker tbh.

I fully agree.. there's nothing I can do to stop him from cheating if he's that way inclined.. and I really don't think he'd do it again tbh, he was a very tortured soul while it was going on and he says now it's like he became someone else. What I remember is how dreadful he looked. Really ill. His face reminded me of that picture 'The Scream' at the time.

It's doing me so much good to verbalise everything here.. and all your feedback is helpful. I just don't know where I'm at really :/

Counsellor tomorrow [eek]
It was really hard to think of ten things for the list he asked me to make.. the affair seems to dominate my thoughts mostly.

DP is being very kind and affectionate today, lots of cuddles and cups of tea. We haven't talked about anything meaningful, just superficial stuff.

Everything in life is a relationship and the most important one you have is with yourself. You don't need to become what you think another person wants you to be. You have to be you and be accepted for who you are. As you have found, trying to be someone else is draining. On the flip side of that, even if you were the perfect 'stepford wife' it's no guarantee of happiness - I was, and it made no difference.

You say that 85-90% of the time things are good but what concerns me about that, reading between the lines, is that those times are when you are both walking on eggshells.

I think, for the timebeing, you should concentrate on yourself. You've been in limbo for the past year and now you have sought help, things will become clearer which will help in your decision making process. You don't need to make any decisions until you feel able to do so, there's no hurry.

It's as if you've reached a stalemate with him but hopefully the counselling will enable you to move forward in the direction you want to go. At this point in time, I don't think you know what that direction is and I would urge you to put all thoughts of any direction or decision making out of your mind until such time you feel better within yourself.

Take care. xx

you are doing brilliantly, reading all of these posts has made me feel proud to be part of the MN community :)

stay strong you guys are doing really well, and he seems to want to sort things out too...i think changing jobs three times shows a bit of dedication to you and him wanting to prove himself!

hope the councelling goes fine and you have a lovely weekend away together ;)

Thanks Lou :)

Karmann.. spot on as usual. I think it's too early to tell how the counselling is going yet. He tried the emdr thing on me but I can't quite seem to get the hang of it yet. He did say that I should expect to feel worse before I feel better, but that I can call him anytime if I need to. He also suggested I write things down as they occur to me because I tend to forget a lot of stuff. One thing he also said which was interesting is to imagine myself on a train watching things go by from the window and see what comes to mind. That worked better for me than the original method which was watching his fingers waving about and thinking of what was bothering me at the same time. My brain doesn't seem to multitask very well, lol.

I really don't know what I want, and that's the trouble. I can see positives in us breaking up and me having time alone but there are also a lot of positives in us sticking together and working things through. Teh eggshells thing, that comes and goes, usually we pick up on each other's tension and it deteriorates from there, which would be fixable if we could just say what's bothering us when it happens. We really really need to learn better communication skills.

DP has been amazing these last few days. Kind, gentle, considerate, affectionate. He even did his own washing and cleared up the kitchen a few times!

Hi CCTC. I completely agree with your counsellor about writing things down - I did it all the time whilst I was going through the process and it really helped. Remember that letter I sent you a copy of? It took me five days to write it, I would write a bit out by hand, go and do something, and then as soon as I had more thoughts I would go and write some more. It may sound odd, but I think it's actually quite important to write it by hand to start with, it's a way of letting the thoughts and feelings flow through your body on to the paper.

I couldn't agree more about the communication skills. After something like this happens it needs to be talked about, no matter how uncomfortable. Communication is key and many of us let it fall by the wayside. I know he's finding it difficult to talk about it but he's going to have to face up to it, it won't all go away by ignoring it or by projecting it on to you.

I became very aware during our last conversation that you don't know what you do want, and that's precisely why I would urge you to try, as hard as you can, to stop trying to work that out for now. It will come in time when things are clearer for you.

I don't necessarily agree that you may feel worse before you feel better (although that's only an opinion) but I am pleased that your counsellor has recognised what visualisation techniques work for you, that's a good sign.

Take care. xx

Hiya Karmann.. weird isn't it that when I've decided to try and write stuff down, my mind has gone blank, lol.

I haven't posted because really there's nothing new to say. I've been hiding a lot, in terms of answering the phone/door etc and generally avoiding contact with people.

I am wondering if part of my low mood is because of a change in contraception. Up until last May I had a mirena for 12 years which I got on great with, but I changed, first to implanon which really fucked me up and had me consistently heavily bleeding for 6 months and then to evra patches, which are better but still a lot of bleeding (12 days at a time) I can't afford that kind of blood loss and I think I'm anaemic but also that maybe the hormones are having an effect. I think that's something I'll discuss with my gp and go back to the Mirena and see what effect it has. I changed from that because sometimes it would stab dp in the willy :o

Therapy today was interesting. I had a bit of a lightbulb with regards to where my lack of backbone comes from.

My dad was very verbally and physically abusive to my mum but never to me, I can only remember him being angry at me one time when I was about three years old, although I was aware that he was nasty to others. So somehow I learned to be compliant so that he wouldn't be horrible to me.

I also had some realisations about dp projecting. The main thing he accused me of is that I treat him like a doormat.. I'd realised at the time that all the other things he accused me of were the things he was actually doing, but the doormat thing didn't occur to me until today. I'm the bloody doormat!!!!!

Still a long way to go but it's a start and somehow I feel a bit lighter and brighter tonight. Hope it lasts

I'm also feeling a lot more positive towards dp... he has and is doing everything I've asked of him and he is getting very little in positivity from me, beyond the surface, stepford stuff. In terms of affection or sex, I've been very reticent so I suppose in some ways I can understand him getting frustrated and angry at times - in his shoes maybe I would too? Not saying he has any right to feel like that tho.

Will try and post more later