Can't be bothered to name change. Discovered emails on DH's phone...

[JonesTheSteam]

He's been having an affair with someone he works with...

I felt angry initially. Now just feel numb... :-(

Hand holding please...

Hi Jones, your situation sounds very like mine 2 years ago. FWIW I second the advice you got earlier about letting all the pain out, all the anger, sadness, loss, betrayal. It will come, it must be allowed to come, you must be able to express it and h must be willing to witness it and acknowledge it. Neither of you must rugsweep. Getting it all out is essential because years down the line his affair must be firmly in the past, not being brought up all the time, poisoning your lives. Lance the boil. It hurts but it needs doing.

May I suggest IC for yourself in the next few months to let it all out, to try and rediscover your self-esteem and your strength. I was a wreck after d-day and I just couldn't contemplate being without him. IC enabled me to see I could live without him,I had worth in my own right, and as a result made it easier to gather the strength to demand what I needed.

MC later perhaps.

Good luck xx

Thanks ormirian.

I remember your threads at the time and have reread them recently at the suggestion of another poster.

We have both had one IC session each and I feel there may be many more before I can face MC.

You're welcome.

BTW H and I are not fully healed - I still hurt at times. I am currently coming off my ADs so I am getting bad moments when I want to yell at him - but I control it because now it's about my mood not about what he did. We have a much more honest marriage now - if I am pissed off I tell him, and wonder of wonders when he is pissed off he tells me!!! He had always been horribly conflict avoidant so he sulks. I have a tendency to react badly to critisism. I honestly think the entire affair was a form of conflict avoidant sulk. Yes he found her attractive and she behaved as if he was the Second Coming, but if he hadn't been cross with me at a very low level for years it wouldn't have happened. So, more hard truths, less papering over cracks, more humanity and forgiveness. We laugh at and with each other more. Is it love's young dream? Nope. But it wasn't before, after 30 odd years i won't be.

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that he was keeping lines of communication open deliberately, more that I wondered if she had other means of contacting him that she could use. But maybe she can explain FB as an accident where I suppose sending a text/e-mail is more of a conscious action. I hope that makes sense.

He is doing all the right things though, as are you. Ormirian's threads were painful to read but I'm glad she is coming out the other side. I have no doubt you will find your own way in your situation too. I wish I could wave a magic wand or give you a timescale, but everyone is different. This weekend was a bump in the road maybe, but one neither of you instigated.

We sound similar, ormirian.

I don't take criticism well either. I tend to get cross quickly but then calm down and think through things.

Today I have that horrible tight knot back in my stomach /chest. And just feeling so tearful...

lazarusb.

The only means I can't monitor are work emails.

As her DH works there too I'm not sure that would be the most sensible means by which they communicate as who knows what the IT dept would make of the stuff they were sending back and fore on personal email.

I can understand your knot - her contact this weekend has stirred things again unnecessarily. If you feel tearful, have a good cry. I know you can't really go for it unless you're at home but it can be cathartic and release a bit of that tension.

I doubt she would do anything re:work e-mail, as you say, maybe too easy to get caught out. What a nasty little web though! My mum had and affair with her boss for 3 years. His wife worked there too. He was my dad's best friend too. I really don't understand why people do it!

Get yourself a nice piece of cake to go with a cup of tea later and allow yourself to feel miserable for a bit.

Current low mood not helped by my parents being less than happy about looking after youngest DS for two and a half hours on Weds so I can go into work.

They look after my DSis's children every day after school. I always make an effort to find alternative arrangements as I know it irritates them. But nursery is at maximum capacity that morning...

Rant over....

I give up...

Have you told your parents or sister about what's happened, Jones?

No.

Can't really see the point.

I'm pretty sure my parents would turn the blame on to me somehow.

My sister would probably be sympathetic but we don't have the easiest of relationships.

Parents sometimes just don't make things easy do they? They do manage to turn on the guilt just when we need their support most. Try to ignore it, hard though it is. I disengage from mine on a regular basis but it is easier given I have the Channel between us.

Still its nearly the end of the working day :) you will be home soon, nice cup of tea and a relax in front of the TV later.

How are you sleeping, has that improved?

I went round about two weeks after i discovered what was going on and they didn't even notice i had lost weight and looked like shit.

Just moaned about how exhausting it was looking after my nephews after school every day.

They didn't have to say yes.

They said no to me when I asked if they could pick up DS1 one day a week for a term last year... :-/

My sleep has improved a little. I'm waking up about 5 o'clock every morning though (Alarm goes off at 6).

Already home and have had a cup of tea and a couple of custard creams.

Time to do the mum's taxi bit and then get youngest from nursery...

Gosh. Don't I sound bitter... :-/

My mum, with no prompting from him, told my DH that she 'understood' why he had had an affair as I 'always put work before him', and could be 'difficult'. Arrghh. My brother was so incensed with her, and he is normally a peacemaker, that he bawled her out about it and refused to see her for a month, and they are very close. Her comment still stings like hell though. She couldn't fail to notice when I lost 3 stone however and I think guilt hit her then.

So sorry you are hurting so badly today, hun - I remember my stomach being so knotted that I could hardly move when the OW started to 'accidentally' message. This too will pass, I promise, but handholding.

You don't sound bitter at all, Jones. It sounds, unfortunately, like we might have found part of the source for your ease at self-blaming. Which is sad. But surmountable. Who have you got in real life you can keep talking to, if anyone?

When I endedd it with my ea ex my mother told me how I had 'cast him aside' and it was all entirely my fault and did I need to go for a mental assessment. We didn't talk for some time after that!

I'm sure as your counselling continues you will go into your reasons for taking so much on yourself. You don't sound at all bitter at all. It's a natural reaction when the people who are supposed to be there for you aren't.

Glad you are getting a bit more rest though. Sleep makes such a difference - this from a sleep deprived third trimester person who's kinda envious :) It's easier to process what you're going through. There will be lots of challenging moments but so long as you get some kip it will be easier to manage.

I don't blame you for being annoyed with your parents. My MIL bought a new car to ferry our nephews and nieces around. She used to charge me petrol money when she picked ds2 up from nursery 3 times a week.

In 1995 I left my abusive partner with ds1 (who was 5) and a bin bag full of clothes so we could sleep in my grandparents spare room - my dad told me I was manipulative(!). I've never forgotten it. Parents can be thoughtless, they can also be downright bloody nasty. SawofftheOW, I'm so glad your brother stuck up for you - he shouldn't have needed to though, of course. I can't imagine saying that to my own child (or anyone else for that matter).

I agree with tessa, they could be the root of your self-blaming habits.

I think it is very likely they are certainly a large part of it....

SawofftheOW.

I genuinely believe that I would get the difficult to live with speech too.

Wishing you well, Jones.

Thanks.

Had a positive day yesterday. Felt we were making ground.

Had a row this morning.

I keep asking questions and hating the honest answers.

DH is trying so hard.

I am just shouty, angry, sweary fishwife from hell.

And then he goes to work with little miss perfect and her smart suits and clothes that actually fit ( unlike all mine which are now hanging off me ). Even though he hasn't seen her once this week.

If anyone has seen my missing self-esteem please return it to me.

I think that looking for another job would be a clear indication that he takes your feelings seriously - he can't carry on going to work with a woman he slept with.

So sorry for you. You are perfectly entitled to be angry, sweary and shouty. I cannot begin to imagine how you feel. I am angry on your behalf. But he's the one who did it, and he is the one who should be making every effort to make amends. Damn right he should be trying hard (not hard enough to my mind though).

Can you go shopping Jones? Even at a charity shop to get some new things that fit? Bet you'd feel better. Your parents sound like a pair of PITA's, sorry you've got that to deal with too!

He is taking my feelings seriously. He has done everything I have asked, and has not blamed me once. Even the comment about me not taking his feelings seriously was apologised for when he came home that night.

I haven't asked him to give up his job and look for another, though it is something I am considering after my Relate session.

If she worked 'with' him on a daily basis I would go nuts.

I genuinely believe she isn't a threat any more. She's more a threat in my head than in reality.

The self esteem thing is worrying me more than anything else. I have never had huge amounts of confidence. Unsurprisingly, I'm finding any confidence at all hard to come by.

DH is worried about me too. Very worried.

I feel he is struggling to articulate things clearly and express his emotions without me twisting them into something else.

Partly his communication issues, but partly mine too. I hear what I want to hear maybe, due to feeling so down.

He can't suddenly morph into Mr Emotionally Articulate overnight, when he has never been that way in 20 years...