after the affair long post need to get it out.

[Whyus]

I found a month ago my DH was having an affair.
He was acting odd for about 3 weeks. Getting drunk, saying odd things, etc,
I was on holidays and came home 2 pm snooped in his email and saw an email saying he couldn't continue, didn't want to loose everything etc., the OW said he needed to end it face to face and be mature about it.
He wasn't home he said he was going to a friends. I have the OW name so I called every number in the phone book with her name and left messages. Her husband called me back and we talked for a couple of hours. strangely he calmed me down.

My husband came home and it was not a good scene.
He told me that he ended it but she threatened to tell me unless he met her face to face. (didn't know i saw the email at this point) what he was telling me matched the email.

Basically in highschool 20 ish yrs ago, him his girfriend and this OW had a threesome. and he\s' fantasized about her eversince.

they got in contact on facebook. strictly as friends and chatted occaissionally . In mid may she asked to meet for coffee. He did. and the infatuation continued. 3 days before I found out they had sex on 2 different occassions. Then he ended it. During the blowout i took his keys so he couldn\t leave - as we all know men run. then he got his back up. OW called in the middle of it wanting the 4 of us to talk. I told her she was insane. Then she called again asking how he was. Then she called again asking if he wanted her to pick him up. He said yes. I then spilled my heart out...said he was throwing a way a lifetime of memories, cats, house ,dreams, kisses, hugs and phonecalls, and no more contact with me. Said he was taking everything away, family,our life in general . I asked (prob begged ) him to stay and fight for us - call her and tell her to take a hike. He cried and called her. He stayed.

Background: My husband has been on antidepressents and since end of Jan. and has been unemployed since the end of Feb. I knew he was in turmoil and joked to my friends that he was going through a mid life crisis. I know his self esteem is quite low.
I haven't been the most supportive person. consantly giving him a hard time about getting a job etc., I 've been disappointed in him.
anyway. turns out the OW was also going through a mid life crisis according to her DH. and is on antipressents too.

DH and I talked til 4 in the morning. I was in shock for about a week. Never in a million years would I have thought he could do this to me. Then i was hurt and extremely disappointed. Last week I was angry. I went back to work yesterday and am finding it tough. The internal and external shakeyness is better but I'm not sleeping because I'm anxious which in turn reactivates the nervous pit in my stomach

married 11 years. within the first 3 years my mom died suddenly and I found her. was messed up for a few years with PTSD. then he lost an awesome job due to layoffs. then his first pet died. then it was bad job after bad job.
Our sex life has been basically non existant and we sleep in seperate beds.

He has ended it with her. Answered every question I've posed for 3 weeks (think he's started getting a little fed up but is still answering them but they are getting fewer an fewer. He's agreed to do counselling. we go tommorrow. He's given me access to his email and facebook acccount. We are trying to sleep inthe same bed but we have snoring issues. but at least we are starting in bed together. i asked him why and he said he was unhappy. I asked him to specify..he said he didnt' want to be in a marriage without sex and I said the same. It's bugged me too. also he said he felt lonely sleeping a lone....me too. He also has a problem with alcohol. doesn't drink every night but doesn't know how to stop once he starts. I 've told the doctor and his parents and my family about his drinking. He knows I can't handle it anymore. and won't put up with it on top of everything else. He's been sober for a week and a half.
He says he loves me and hopes this makes us stronger. I too want that. I can't imagine my life without him. I've thought about divorce though . I have a good job (as long as i don't stay too messed up for a long while) and can carry the house on my own. My emotions are a mess which is annoying me. I'm a strong independent woman. my self esteem is shot. How do I put this in the past, get my emotions under control and trust him completely again without falling apart. I'm worried that he won't be able to deal with my emotions any better than I am. I am still crying ...seems a 5 minute cry once a day helps a bit. I think he may still leave but he has on several occasions said he wants us to work and that he loves me.
We've had really good sex the last few weeks.
I feel so confused, worried and anxious.
I still love him. But how can a man that loves me have an affair. He's the one who is supposed to protect me. I know I can protect myself. I still feel safe with him. is this wrong? at times I want to slap him silly. but I don't. Is this going to get any easier. Is it like grief. It always hurts you just get used to a different normal?

Thoughts ?(sorry about the typos)

You are not alone

We are recovering from my h affair, and in some ways it can make your relationship stronger but it does take a lot of work from both of you.

There may be reasons - and it sounds as if you are already willing to take some of the resoponsibilty for your part in that you have given him a hard time.

Do take time to now think about what it is that you want - if nothing else this will do you good in the long run.
This is not your fault though and he is the one who has messed up big time.

Take care of yourself and make time for you (which is what he was doing when he was being so selfish to do what he wanted).

It sounds as if he is willing to do what is needed and it is all good signs with him answering your questions and letting you see his email but it is a long process so make sure you both take care of each other too.

Good luck and i hope you do get the outcome you really want.

This is exactly like grief so give yourself time and space to grieve.You will be experiencing a rollercoaster of emotions from intense anger and hate to overwhelming love almost in the same breath. Part of this is you are still in shock and haven't yet made sense of what has happened.

I'm approaching 5 years on from my dh having an affair with a work collesague. We are still together and are cloaer and stronger having come through this trauma together but it was a slow painful process getting htere.

One thing that I took a while to realise was that my dh experienced and dealt with emotions in a different way to me. I could't get my head round how he could be with her yet still profess to love me. then I realised it's like he puts lids on boxes.....he'd be in 1 part of his life with the lid on the box of another part then he'd close the lid firmly and open up the other box...so the two never intruded on each other and so never harmed each other. that only of course works when the fantasy/escapism of the affair relationship is secret. when reality hits all the lids come off and spill out together and he can't cope with where he's got himself to!

You (like me) can't function in 1 part of your life (say work)without thinking about the other parts (your home life) and can't understand how he does it! I'm not for 1 minute saying that makes what he's been doing right NO, he's an adult he's made choices and now has to live with the consiquences of those choices....nut this box analagy did help me make sense of what was going on in his head.

Counselling helped too. We actually did it seperately 1st to get our heads in some sort of order. It helped me vent all the mixed emotions safely and start to think straight past the emotions to allow me to make decisions about what I really wanted. I wanted "us" I wanted to fight for "us" but because I'D chosen to do so not because he'd given her up. I was in control at that point.
It takes time, it's not the easy option and you have to get ALL the demonds out in the open face them understand them and be honest with yourself about what you want. However it has brought us closer and to a better understanding of what we have together.

Hope you can make some peace with what's happened.....remeber you don't have to forgive- some things in life are unforgivable- but you do have to make some sense of what's happened and find a way to make your peace with your dh over what he's chosen to do. Good luck!

You could be me a few months ago - I have done a few threads which might be useful to look at. Our situations are v similar.. My Dh had a fling/ affair - lasted three weeks, slept with her once. He had known her as a work colleague for 3 or 4 few months before that. I suspected something was going on, looked at his phone and found some texts from her. He admitted it as soon as I confronted him. I insisted he left immediately if he wanted to keep seeing her, he stayed but dithered around for a couple of weeks, still in contact with her but not actually meeting. Things deteriorated, I got fed up with the whole thing and I almost threw him out - he came to his senses and said he wanted to make a go of things again. We have been slowly rebuilding our marriage ever since.

DH had had a breakdown and was on antidepressants - he wasn't the same person on them at all - he said the affair made him 'feel' again for the first time in months. I had cut myself off from him - after months of supporting him my emotional reserves were shot and I was protecting myself, even thinking I wanted to get out of our marriage but unable to tell him I was unhappy as he had had such a tough time. The OW was also a mess - a needy woman who made him feel like a strong person (I am strong and independent like you, I make him feel weak).

For us it was a good thing. We had been together for years, have two children, had got into a rut, were both unhappy, had lost a connection. It made me really think about whether I wanted to be in the marriage or not.

I think often the immediate response is fight or flight - you either throw him in anger out or are devastated and desperate for him to stay. You have to get through that phase and really think about what you want to happen and what he needs to do if the realtionship is to continue. This will take time. Don't be rushed. Don't make any decisions quickly but arm yourself with facts - talk to a solicitor, work out some practicalities about how you would cope alone, should you have to. Knowing I could be on my own was a turning point for me - it really made me realise I had a CHOICE.

We had counselling, a couple of sessions together which were terrible but helped in letting DH realise what he had done to me. Then I had counselling alone (I have stopped this now) and DH is still seeing someone. Things are good between us, better than they have been for a long time. I still need to talk about things. I wanted to get all the details out of him and make sense of it all in my head. This too took time. DH hated it - another turning point was when he started volunteering information rather than me dragging it out of him. I needed to feel he understood why it had happened.

I still think about it most days. Sometimes I still get angry. But I am not unhappy and I feel we have a future together. Keep posting - there are lots of very wise women on here who helped me immensely when I was going through a very dark time.