A little birdie told me someone was posting on my thread so I thought I would come back and say “Hi”. I still love my mani and pedis but have missing them since the pandemic. Still married to my husband, 45 years in July, still think about the affair though although it was ages ago.

Hi Mimi!

Congrats in 45 years, and thank you for saying that about the affair. Sometimes I wonder if it ever goes away

I have to think now that thoughts about the affair actually do not go away. It was too traumatic, like being stabbed, like living in hell. I sometimes look at my husband and think, how in the world could you have done that. However, all the blessings that have occurred in my life since then, such as 4 beautiful grandchildren, do outweigh its significance.

Oh wow I am so glad you brought that up Mimi! I too still feel a lot of trauma. Just the other day I had a new thought crop up, though, so I may be making progress. I remembered a time when we were dating that H was a supremely nasty person for months, while he was trying to decide to get married. I stuck it out and then we became so happy together for a number of years. He turned from a cad to a prince. Then when the As stated and kept going on for years and years it was repeated trauma after trauma, and that has stayed with me all these years since. I thought back to those early happy times the other day and wondered what I would have to change in my thoughts to get that again. He's here. He takes care of me when I am sick. We plan together for our lives. We care for our kids. We are safe and sheltered and secure. Am I able to let go of the trauma and enjoy today? Stay tuned, I'm still figuring it out.

I know what you mean, Mimi, Lil and Chrysalis. My situation was for only 6 months but the 4 d-days is what causes the trauma to continue. That's why it took nearly 13 years of recovery efforts ---and H's near death experience---to finally get to recoverED.

One of the reasons I didn't think we were recoverED was because I still remembered the affair and occasionally felt mild triggers with little seemingly obscure things.

I like your perspective, Mimi, in that the blessings we've received, like having grandchildren together, makes all the recovery efforts worthwhile.

When H nearly died, his confessions of things the kids and I would have never known helped solidify our being recoverED. It was if a peace and calm came over my present and our future so that the past no longer mattered.

I'm curious if anyone has started a thread on MA dealing with comparisons of being "In Recovery" and "Being RecoverED?"

And my grandkids absolutely LOVE their Granddad. He is really at his best now, would have missed all this and he knows it.

Oh, I forgot to tell y’all. We moved away from my hometown where I had lived most of my life and where the affair happened to live in the city where my sons and their families live. That was the best thing I have ever done in my life. I don’t know even like to visit there.

BUT I still do some nutty things that y’all would understand and I have never told anybody. The craziest thing I have done is kinda keep up with the OW. I kinda wish that I could tell my husband about her because she looks really bad, looks old and gained a zillion pounds and somehow had a baby at age 50. I just know she wanted to have a baby with him. I wish I wasn’t so caught up in it still. In December, it will be 20 years since D day, and it still stays on my heart.

And my husband is so good to me.

Affairs are major emotional traumas. No doubt.

Chrysalis: I feel it will always stay with me to some at extent. At least, I do not think about it every single day anymore.

Ah snap. I checked out OW on Facebook about 5 years ago and she was so incredibly fat......looked even more poor white trash than she did back then. Had gotten married, and divorced again too.

I will never tell Flick this.

As far as flash backs, about once a year I will look at him with so much rage inside and think much that isnt beneficial to either of us. It usually goes away after a few minutes, mostly by remembering he is an amazing man, I am very lucky to have his unwavering support in anything I try, and there is no chance of that situation happening again.

Mostly because I will kill every one involved

Getting back to goddessing, I bought a new pair of boots today, to wear with a pair of pants I bought last week which hopefully will arrive this week in the post, said post being it's own random timing thing since covid. I guess the computers got sick?

Lil:

You and I actually may be the same person.

Want to hear something funny? Well, I guess it can be considered funny. OW did get married a few years ago and her husband asked to friend my H on Facebook. My H asked: who in the heck is he?

I can relate to all of this stuff. Just yesterday---there is an old rock song, which I always loved--and it's named after a girl. Of course the name is OW's name. It's a song that even now gets played regularly on the classic stations. Every time I hear it--it triggers--and so I turn it off. Yesterday--I said to hell with that! It's a song. And it's not HER song. I sang it at the top of my lungs. In the new smoking red car that my H just bought me.

So good to see you Mimi!!!

I think her current husband must have been in the picture the whole while and he knew about my husband. Trying to check on my husband like I was checking on her. We all are a bit loopy.

LOL

Oh, I see.

The best part is that now that we've recovered, it doesn't really matter. Some of us are more loopy than others.

Ah....the "Loopy Quotient". It's just another name for hyper-vigilance--and it's damned hard to stop. It's as much like an addiction as an affair can be---just the other side of the coin. I consider myself pretty balanced as a person. I think I have healthy coping strategies, and yet--I've struggled after all of the years to stop obsessive thinking about the A. Granted, I've gotten infinitely better at dealing with the triggers, but I'm not sure the triggers ever disappear. Maybe they're not supposed to.

Yea,, Starfish. I pretty much don’t obsess about it at all.
It’s like it was a different life. I can’t over being curious who could have made my husband go crazy like he did. I am not sure what the hell happened. Sometimes I feel he was possessed by a demon. This is why I have kept up with her. I really need to stop.

Just FYI, deciding to divorce doesn’t stop the pain either. I don’t question my decision, but I do still feel the trauma on a regular basis. I too keep up with the OW. She is still beautiful and financially successful....but she married another guy and they had a baby who is 5 now and they divorced a year ago. Her older son who is about 17 now has been through so many men in OWs life....

XH has gone on to be be very financially successful. Living the high life. He has a girlfriend who is living with him...,as well as her young daughter who is now about to leave for college. There is no way I could ever have trusted him again....and there were other things about him that did not fit with my needs.

I am very happy with Dh. We have a great relationship and we share our faith which is priceless to me, He is very trustworthy and we do guard our marriage closely.

We all have to make peace with our choices.

Happy for you, Smiling Joy! Those OW are really not worth our time.

My DH almost literally begged me to take him back after Marriage Builder’s Plan B. I really was strict about it.

He has been completely transparent with me for 20 years because I really was done. I understand your decision completely.

I Yes, Ace I am totally changed in many important ways.

#1 Do not take anyone or anything for granted.

Ultimatum was a major part of my story, too. I think that scares him to this day.

# 2 I don’t depend on anyone for anything. I learned that I can live without him. I made it very clear that he enhances my life but I can do without him if I have to do that. He was dead to me anyways. I felt like a widow /

LOVE....says it all

Life is so amazing