Almost to the six month mark

[screwedovertwenty]

We are approaching the six month mark since dday. Husband has been trying very hard. He attended counseling until the sessions ran out. He sold his car. He has been completely transparent. He answers my questions. He has attended marriage counseling and switched counselors when that is what I wanted to do. There has been no contact since the first week of January.

 

We have had some really bad bad days. My birthday in March was terrible. Throughout our marriage, he has forgotten more of my birthdays than he has remembered. He made sure that he remembered and told me happy birthday right after midnight. We were broke and I didn't expect a big present but I expected something, anything. We both worked that morning and met for lunch. He suggested going to the mall and I could get myself a present. That pissed me off. I wanted him to do something. I can buy my own present any time I want to. We ended up just going for lunch. He had to go back to work and I ended up going back to do a double.

 

That night is when things got really bad. I was off work around 9 that evening and texted him that I was going for a drink. I was hoping that he would come join me. He doesn't drink. He is a recovering alcoholic. I just wanted him to want to hang out with me on my birthday. A little bit before ten, he texted me that he was off and to drive safe. I was the only one at the bar. The margarittas hit me way harder than usual but I didn't figure that out until I was on my way home. Not at all proud of that! I think the xanax that I took the night before might have had something to do with that. I ended up driving almost twenty miles past my turn before I realized that I had missed it. Thankfully, my friend, who was five hundred miles away, helped navigate me home. Husband didn't try to contact me until 12:30 when I had just pulled in the driveway. I left the bar at 11 and should have been home by 11:30.

 

Yes, I absolutely should have texted or called my husband and told him that I needed a ride home. I just didn't realize it until I was already driving. I was pissed at him and didn't want to call him. I thought he should have offered me a ride home before he left to go home.

 

All in all it was bad for a few weeks. I left one night because he wouldn't leave and slept in a church parking lot. He found me on his way to work. He appologized and things have been better since, for the most part.

 

He is trying harder since that night. I am having more issues though. I am having dreams on a regular basis. I dreampt once that I was following them through a building and they were running ahead of me, laughing at me. In another dream, I was taking a shower and they were doing it on the toilet right next to me and my daughter walked in. They kept doing it. I was screaming to my daughter to get out and she was standing their shocked, freaking out. There have been others. They all seem so real.

 

I am having panic attacks too. They are happening at work. I am a waitress. I only have one picture of the OW and so I find myself wondering if she is this person or that person who walks into the restaurant. I start to feel like I can't breath and like I am going to pass out sometimes while trying to take an order if there is someone at the table that even slightly resembles her.

 

I started wondering yesterday about last mothers day. So, I checked the phone records and it looks like they were together on that day. He does not remember. I asked him to please think hard. It hurts my heart so much that he had such disregard for some very special dates! Both of my daughters birthdays and now mothers day! Thanksgiving and Christmas are ruined and it feels like every other important day is contaminated too.

 

I thought by now I would know. In the beginning I gave it six months.

[Jenn.Smith]

Everyone says it takes 2-5 years. I think it is only going to

Get harder for you for a while. So, if you need to leave do not feel guilt or shame. It is your right. Not every broken thing can be fixed.

 

Are you in IC? You really really need to be. Your story on your birthday is quite scary. And the dreams are tormenting you. Those things may not go away after u seperate and you need help.

 

Im terrible with birthdays and dates so for me if someone demanded what I did on a certain day, i couldn't give you an answer. It wouldnt mean i was hiding it.

[Furious]

The reality of his betrayal is something that takes a long time to sink in. You're only six months in from your d-day and the bad dreams and roller coaster emotions are part and parcel of the trauma you're experiencing.

 

It's ok to feel that somedays you're taking two steps foward and then some days, or even weeks, you're taking three steps back.

 

Triggers on special days or holidays are a given and your husband should be proactive in anticipating those days and making them special again.

 

Reconciliation is a two way street, you both need to be open and work together to get through this.

 

Just take it one day at a time and don't pressure yourself into rushing the healing process. There is no time limit as to deciding if you want to continue reconciling or not. In the meantime just take care of yourself and appreciate the good days and know you can make it through the tough days.

[Act Two]

I don't mean this as an attack, but why in the world would you ask your husband to meet you in a bar for a drink if he is a recovering alcoholic?

 

I'm sorry for the pain you are going through, recovering from his infidelity and the affair.

[Spark1111]

I don't mean this as an attack, but why in the world would you ask your husband to meet you in a bar for a drink if he is a recovering alcoholic?

 

I'm sorry for the pain you are going through, recovering from his infidelity and the affair.

 

Because she needs to feel that she is that important to him....that he will meet her whenever and wherever she needs him to....

 

She needn't to feel he is as obsessed with being with her as he was with his fOW...

 

She wants to be romantically wooed with all the stops pulled out...cards, flowers, bars, dancing, hotel rooms, hot monkey sex, whatever it takes to feel prized, cherished and loved.

 

I get it.

[screwedovertwenty]

Everyone says it takes 2-5 years. I think it is only going to

Get harder for you for a while. So, if you need to leave do not feel guilt or shame. It is your right. Not every broken thing can be fixed.

 

Are you in IC? You really really need to be. Your story on your birthday is quite scary. And the dreams are tormenting you. Those things may not go away after u seperate and you need help.

 

Im terrible with birthdays and dates so for me if someone demanded what I did on a certain day, i couldn't give you an answer. It wouldnt mean i was hiding it.

 

This whole thing is hard and unfair. I am not in IC anymore. We had five individual visits each with my employee assistance and we both used them up. We are using the seven visits we each get with my insurance for the marriage counseling. We are using the counselor that was my individual counselor.

 

I know these issues are not going away if we separate, because it still happened and it is now part of who I am. That sucks! None of this will go away if I walk away. Things will probably be worse because then I will have to deal with the kids lives being uprooted while trying to fix myself by myself.

 

Husband has a terrible memory and dates are not something that he remembers. We both work in restaurants though, and mothers day is the busiest day of the year, so I was hoping, if he thought real hard, he might remember something. He texted me this afternoon to tell me what he did remember about last mothers day, so I told him we would talk about it tonight. He will be home later.

 

So, you see, he is trying to answer everything, even with his terrible memory. It sucks that my memory is like an elephant. I forget nothing and wish I could.

[screwedovertwenty]

The reality of his betrayal is something that takes a long time to sink in. You're only six months in from your d-day and the bad dreams and roller coaster emotions are part and parcel of the trauma you're experiencing.

 

It's ok to feel that somedays you're taking two steps foward and then some days, or even weeks, you're taking three steps back.

 

Triggers on special days or holidays are a given and your husband should be proactive in anticipating those days and making them special again.

 

Reconciliation is a two way street, you both need to be open and work together to get through this.

 

Just take it one day at a time and don't pressure yourself into rushing the healing process. There is no time limit as to deciding if you want to continue reconciling or not. In the meantime just take care of yourself and appreciate the good days and know you can make it through the tough days.

 

When will the nightmares go away? And the panic attacks? Ugh!

 

I feel sometimes that I am the only one working at this! He is doing the right things. He tells me he loves me all the time now and when he see's that I am upset, he tries to console me. It's just that I have to tell him what to do. I want him to figure things out, but apparently I have to tell him that he needs to make my birthday special and mothers day and everything else. I had to tell him in counseling that he needed to actually make a plan and plan it all the way through and stick to it. Valentines day, he had a plan, but he didn't think it all the way through and had we done what he planned, the kids would have been home without dinner. So that fell through. So far, he planned to take me out for desert a couple weeks ago, but I had something come up that night so I suggested we just go have dinner instead. He tried.

 

I am finally getting back to the things I was doing before all of this happened. I had my resume out and was looking for more stable employment. I just recently started my job search again, and something actually came up at the restaurant that I just transfered from. It's a human resources type of job. My old boss held the deadline open for me to get my application in and he interviewed me friday. I should know this week if I get the job or not.

 

I really need a regualar paycheck so that I can be financially independent. It is hard to go back to office work when I have been waitressing most of the last seventeen years. I am hoping that I will get that job for so many reasons.

 

The self improvement thing is one of the things that messes with my head though. I went back to school last year after a seventeen year break and did great! I was trying to get a better job. The whole time I was doing these things, he was ****ing her.

[screwedovertwenty]

I don't mean this as an attack, but why in the world would you ask your husband to meet you in a bar for a drink if he is a recovering alcoholic?

 

I'm sorry for the pain you are going through, recovering from his infidelity and the affair.

 

My husband has been recovering for fourteen years. He works at two restaurants with bars. He got all of his dui's (many years ago) when leaving work. I rarely drink. In the months since dday, I have been out to drink four times and had a couple drinks at home twice, and that is more than normal for me in that time frame. The last time was my birthday.

 

Without me, my husband would probably have had a liver failure by now. I am the one who supported him through recovery and nobody wants him to stay sober more than I do. That was part of the reason I did not kick him out when I first found out. I did not want him to drink. I would never put him in a bad situation. I wanted him to come and hang out with me and drink a sprite and take me home. That is all.

[screwedovertwenty]

Because she needs to feel that she is that important to him....that he will meet her whenever and wherever she needs him to....

 

She needn't to feel he is as obsessed with being with her as he was with his fOW...

 

She wants to be romantically wooed with all the stops pulled out...cards, flowers, bars, dancing, hotel rooms, hot monkey sex, whatever it takes to feel prized, cherished and loved.

 

I get it.

 

Thank you. That is exactly it. This is the part that he just doesn't seem to get.

[Furious]

When will the nightmares go away? And the panic attacks? Ugh!

 

I feel sometimes that I am the only one working at this! He is doing the right things. He tells me he loves me all the time now and when he see's that I am upset, he tries to console me. It's just that I have to tell him what to do. I want him to figure things out, but apparently I have to tell him that he needs to make my birthday special and mothers day and everything else. I had to tell him in counseling that he needed to actually make a plan and plan it all the way through and stick to it. Valentines day, he had a plan, but he didn't think it all the way through and had we done what he planned, the kids would have been home without dinner. So that fell through. So far, he planned to take me out for desert a couple weeks ago, but I had something come up that night so I suggested we just go have dinner instead. He tried.

 

I am finally getting back to the things I was doing before all of this happened. I had my resume out and was looking for more stable employment. I just recently started my job search again, and something actually came up at the restaurant that I just transfered from. It's a human resources type of job. My old boss held the deadline open for me to get my application in and he interviewed me friday. I should know this week if I get the job or not.

 

I really need a regualar paycheck so that I can be financially independent. It is hard to go back to office work when I have been waitressing most of the last seventeen years. I am hoping that I will get that job for so many reasons.

 

The self improvement thing is one of the things that messes with my head though. I went back to school last year after a seventeen year break and did great! I was trying to get a better job. The whole time I was doing these things, he was ****ing her.

 

 

I'm over a year and a half from d-day and for the first 6 months I regularly experienced bad dreams. It's better now and the bad dreams have significantly decreased. It's very common for betrayed spouses to have trouble sleeping and experience bad dreams. Your mind is still spinning and you're going through traumatic emotions that spill into your dreams.

 

One thing that worked for me was to coach myself to confront the dreams and imagine a different and stronger reaction to the helplessness in those dreams. Slowly over time I conquered the bad dreams and instead of being scared or victimized in my dreams I fought back and took charge over the people and things that frightened me. One dream I had often was I'd go to my house but my house key wouldn't fit into the lock and I'd see them through the window laughing and drinking at my kitchen table. The harder I tried to get the key in the lock and the harder I pounded on the door the harder I'd cry. I can't count the times I'd suddenly wake up sobbing from that dream. Eventually, I conquered that dream by kicking down the front door and throwing them out of my home. I haven't had that nightmare since.

 

Also, you're not expecting but demanding changes from the status quo of your old marriage, you need romance and for your husband to make effort in treating you like like special woman that you are. It's not the same if you need to remind him or spell it out to him, he needs to be proactive and it does not have to be costly. It could be a poem, a love letter, a meal he cooks for you. A surprise night out and he's taken care of getting a baby sitter for the kids. Once he sees how happy these things make you, he'll look forward to planning more little surprises and gifts for you.

 

I'm very impressed that you went back to school and I've got my fingers crossed and hope you get that job you've applied for. You should be proud of yourself and know you're smart and can do anything you set your mind to. Never give up on yourself and keep moving forward.

 

Just know that it takes time to get through the pain, that you can't go around it but only through it, and know in time you will get better and you can get through this.

[So happy together]

Do you feel this is something you will be able to work through?

 

Also, I was just curious why you didn't just ask him to meet you at the bar, and ask him for a ride home rather than just expect it of him? Communication is key and these tests rarely work.

 

Are things better now?

[Jonah]

I was gonna say... going out for a drink when your h is in recovery isn't exactly nurturing. But then I read the part about the xanex too and I am now thinking... what's the use?

[Act Two]

Because she needs to feel that she is that important to him....that he will meet her whenever and wherever she needs him to....

 

She needn't to feel he is as obsessed with being with her as he was with his fOW...

 

She wants to be romantically wooed with all the stops pulled out...cards, flowers, bars, dancing, hotel rooms, hot monkey sex, whatever it takes to feel prized, cherished and loved.

 

I get it.

 

I understand wanting to be wooed and pulling out the stops, but not by putting oneself in harms way to do so. Love does not ask or require that, betrayed or otherwise.

 

I totally understand why you would want to feel special on your birthday from your spouse, but can't understand for the life of me having it done by demanding a recovering alcoholic watch you have a drink to accomplish that. That to me sends an unloving message to him.

[2sure]

I understand wanting to be wooed and pulling out the stops, but not by putting oneself in harms way to do so. Love does not ask or require that, betrayed or otherwise.

 

I totally understand why you would want to feel special on your birthday from your spouse, but can't understand for the life of me having it done by demanding a recovering alcoholic watch you have a drink to accomplish that. That to me sends an unloving message to him.

 

The guy works in bars. He makes his living watching other people drink.

[Act Two]

OP said one reason she has stayed with him is concern that he will go back to drinking, which doesn't sound like he is that in the clear with his sobriety.

 

Hey, maybe it's all good. If I were trying to stay sober and my spouse demanded I demonstrate my love by watching him have a drink, I would not feel the need to comply in that way, and might interpret that as a lack of concern for my own well being, but that's me.

[screwedovertwenty]

Do you feel this is something you will be able to work through?

 

Also, I was just curious why you didn't just ask him to meet you at the bar, and ask him for a ride home rather than just expect it of him? Communication is key and these tests rarely work.

 

Are things better now?

 

I don't know if this is something we can get through or not. We are both trying.

 

I did not ask him to meet me at the bar because I wanted him to make an effort to spend time with me on my birthday.

 

Yes, things are better now than they were.

[screwedovertwenty]

I was gonna say... going out for a drink when your h is in recovery isn't exactly nurturing. But then I read the part about the xanex too and I am now thinking... what's the use?

 

I have two xanax left from the prescription of thirty that I was prescribed in January to deal with the freak out moments I was having after discovering my husbands affair. I took the xanax the night before my birthday because I was having one of those moments. Twentyfour hours later, I went out for drinks. I had no idea that the xanax was still in my system. I read up on it later and realized that it could stay in my system for three days. I would not have drank that night had I known that it was still in my system.

[screwedovertwenty]

I understand wanting to be wooed and pulling out the stops, but not by putting oneself in harms way to do so. Love does not ask or require that, betrayed or otherwise.

 

I totally understand why you would want to feel special on your birthday from your spouse, but can't understand for the life of me having it done by demanding a recovering alcoholic watch you have a drink to accomplish that. That to me sends an unloving message to him.

 

As I stated before, he works in two restaurants with bars. He has stated numerous times that it does not bother him if I have a drink in front of him. I have, on very rare occassions, had a drink with dinner, right in front of him. Usually I just stick with diet coke. He buys me a bottle of champagne every new years eve on his way home from work and hangs out with me while I drink it. I am in no way putting him in harms way by having a drink in front of him.

[screwedovertwenty]

The guy works in bars. He makes his living watching other people drink.

 

Thank you! I think you may have been the only one who actually read that.

[screwedovertwenty]

OP said one reason she has stayed with him is concern that he will go back to drinking, which doesn't sound like he is that in the clear with his sobriety.

 

Hey, maybe it's all good. If I were trying to stay sober and my spouse demanded I demonstrate my love by watching him have a drink, I would not feel the need to comply in that way, and might interpret that as a lack of concern for my own well being, but that's me.

 

Watching other people drink or watching me drink is not going to make him drink. He is around it every single day. Losing his home, wife and daily life with his kids might make him feel desperate enough to drink again. That is why I did not kick him out immediately when I found out. I worried that when he realized what he had done and the consequences of his actions, it might have been too much for him to bare and he might drink.

[Jonah]

I have two xanax left from the prescription of thirty that I was prescribed in January to deal with the freak out moments I was having after discovering my husbands affair. I took the xanax the night before my birthday because I was having one of those moments. Twentyfour hours later, I went out for drinks. I had no idea that the xanax was still in my system. I read up on it later and realized that it could stay in my system for three days. I would not have drank that night had I known that it was still in my system.

 

Giving up alcohol is never a bad lifestyle change. You say you feel like crap, alcohol is not going to help but it will make it worse. There is nothing wrong with medication taken for an illness. No need to suffer and if xanex helps, do some under a doctors advice.

 

But taking intoxicants to alter your mental state is a cop-out. Enjoy reality the way life brings it to you. Try it for 6 months and you will see a difference. Alcohol is one of the #1 root causes of infidelity. Read the threads here and most of the time alcohol is mentioned somewhere.

[screwedovertwenty]

Giving up alcohol is never a bad lifestyle change. You say you feel like crap, alcohol is not going to help but it will make it worse. There is nothing wrong with medication taken for an illness. No need to suffer and if xanex helps, do some under a doctors advice.

 

But taking intoxicants to alter your mental state is a cop-out. Enjoy reality the way life brings it to you. Try it for 6 months and you will see a difference. Alcohol is one of the #1 root causes of infidelity. Read the threads here and most of the time alcohol is mentioned somewhere.

 

I am not sure you have read everything that I have written. I am not a drinker. I rarely drink. I went for a drink on my birthday.