One heck of a complex situation

[Ann_Igma]

I've been reading these forums for over a month now and have started being brave enough to post recently, so I suppose it's time to tell my story/ask a few questions.

 

I think I should start off with the fact that I am by no means a gifted writer, and often the point I am intending to make either gets convoluted due to the way I think, or just seems to come across in a completely different manner entirely. Part of this is is because I am very much an enigma (hence the name!). I hope I'll be able to put everything across clearly, but please don't hesitate to ask me to clarify if I haven't.

 

Some of the background info will probably seem excessive at first, but I do think it's relevant to my situation.

 

Up until recently when we've become too busy/distracted, my H and I have always been avid gamers - mostly online. We met and were friends in an online game for a year or so before we met in person and became involved romantically. We had a LDR (both lived on separate continents) before we eventually got married and I moved across an ocean to live with him. We've been married for 7 years now.

 

I always thought we had a good relationship and a pretty good marriage - we're great friends, we talk a lot, had a healthy sex life, etc. The first year of marriage, we had our teething problems - partly due to living together for the first time and the issues that come up with that, and partly because I admittedly had a shorter fuse than normal due to the stress of moving to a new and unfamiliar country. But our arguments even then were never huge, and we worked through them quite well..

 

After our first year of marriage, things settled down quite nicely. We still very much enjoyed spending time time together, talking about all sorts of subjects, being affectionate, etc. Just for the record, no relationship is perfect and I'm not trying to paint mine as such - obviously we would disagree sometimes, or get snappy with each other sometimes. We just always worked to reach a compromise or resolution, or sometimes just apologise for being grumpy - whatever the situation warranted.

 

For years, we rented a house whilst saving up to buy our own, and luck sort of turned our way for a bit. We had a huge whirlwind of a year where his company closed down, but as his skills were in high demand in his industry, he got a new and better paid job immediately and the leaving money he got from the old company was enough to put us over our savings goal for a house deposit. When things seemed stable, we bought a house. Then the recession properly hit his industry. He lost his job and his car, and it took two months and a chunk of our savings before he found a new job at a much lower rate of pay (they weren't even looking for employees at the time, but just impressed by the initiative he'd shown and knew of his good reputation within the industry). Needless to say, this was a difficult time for both of us, but especially for my H. But we seemed to get through it.

 

A few months later (the start of last summer) we held a large get together for a group of people we game with. We let a few of the couples we had met previously and known in game for years stay at our house, and then helped others organise hotels. All in all, it was a brilliant week, and when it was over, I was proud of myself for having succesfully organised and planned everything. Once people got back home, we started making further plans with some of them to meet up later in the summer. And that's when things went downhill.

 

About a week after everyone went home, one of the couples who stayed with us split up. It came as quite a shock since not only had the girl and I made plans for us to visit their country/city at the end of the summer, but they had been dating for longer than my H and I had been married. A few days later, my husband started acting differently - more distant, more impatient, more closed off... Hindsight is 20/20.

 

Two weeks after the breakup, I stumbled across something slightly dodgy by coincidence. In addition to our computers, we also share a laptop - I was looking through the history on a day I had used it to find the name of a recipe I'd been viewing, and came across an email title (that's the only bit you see in the history) which was only minutely suspicious. However, due to his odd behavior, I confronted him. He admitted that it was an email from her, but explained it wasn't as suspicious as it sounded, etc. I asked him to log in and show me the email and he said he didn't remember the password off the top of his head, so we'd have to wait until we went upstairs to the computers before he could (I was in the middle of cooking dinner). And then of course, stupid stupid me, I decide that I am being overly jealous and suspicious, and tell him that I don't need to see them after all because he's my husband and I trust him.

 

Anyway, before this all came to light, she had booked a flight to come visit relatives who live in our country, and she was also going to spend a week at our house just to have a bit of time to herself, as she'd only recently gone through a breakup and we were being compassionate. My H and I leave for work together, and I get home about an hour before him, plus I used to trust him implicitly, so I wasn't at all worried about her visiting until the laptop incident.

 

I found myself more suspicious of her after the laptop incident, but he well and truly gaslighted me into believing that there was nothing at all going on aside from them becoming decent friends. He told me that if I was truly uncomfortable with her visiting, he'd stand by that, but if I did allow her to come visit, he would do everything he could to ensure that I felt comfortable at all times. So of course, once again, stupid stupid me. I not only believed him but of course wanted to be as understanding and supportive as I could of his friendship. I didn't ask her not to come, and spent a week cooking for her and looking after her and trying to make sure she was comfortable, all the while feeling slightly uncomfortable and suspicious myself.

 

After she left, suspicion really started taking me over. I started checking his web history most days, stupid awful snooping things like that. I hated doing it. I hated myself for being that untrusting, jealous person.. but I just could NOT shake the feeling that something was wrong, and just couldn't figure it out.

 

Finally a couple weeks after she left, I happened to look in his recycle bin one day and noticed a deleted chatlog. Again, there wasn't much said. There was no smoking gun, just something slightly suspicious. He'd messaged her the night she flew back home and told her he missed her, and she replied with 'I miss you too. More than you know.'

 

It wasn't a smoking gun, but it was more than enough for me to lose it. I logged in game, called her out publicly amongst all our friends. Confronted him the minute he got home. He *still* managed to gaslight me and play down what I had read.. the story was that they had realised they had a bit of attraction for each other, but decided that they could only be friends, and that was that.

 

I guess I wasn't thoroughly convinced because I was back playing Poirot a week later, and just happened to look through his email contacts list. I noticed he had another email account that I had never seen before. As he tends to use the same passwords on most websites, I decided to try one of his regular passwords... success! There were a few emails and about half a dozen chatlogs in there, and I read every last one of them - they were pretty much all the smoking guns I had been so desperate to find before. Only once I found them, I wished I hadn't.

 

I don't even know how much detail to go into on those.. There were bits and pieces in those emails that are probably noteworthy to my story:

 

• During one of their early chats, he was quite upset and feeling quite guilty for lying to me. He said that he thought it might be best to just come clean with me. Her response was "Don't. That just puts the decision in your Ws hands, and that's not fair."
  

 

• One time he told her that he loved me and was happy with me and our M, but he also felt he loved her and thought that with her things could be "perfect".
  
• From what I gathered in the emails, the A was mostly emotional, and the only physical thing that happened was that they shared a kiss while she was here.
  
• Early on as well, they had agreed that if they got together, it would be she who moved here, and it wouldn't be until this year, when she finished university (She's 5 years younger than we are.)
  

(at this point, I can't really stick to a timeline, so my story will seem even more disjointed from here)

 

My discovery led to MASSIVE fights with my husband. Fights like he and I had NEVER had before. I have never been so angry in my life, ever. Of course, in that time, I did all the things you're NOT supposed to do. I cried in front of him, I begged him to stay with me, all of that stuff.

I told him that if he wanted to be with her, then he needed to be the one to end his relationship with me. I thought and told him that it was unfair of him to put the onus of ending the relationship on me, when I was the one who was still in love with him. Completely the wrong things, but hindsight is 20/20, eh?

 

After a few days of this absolutely ridiculous back and forth, I did realise i was being a fool and told him that if he didn't have the guts to end our marriage, I was going to do it. That night, I moved my things into the spare bedroom, I started making plans with someone back in my home country to move back there as I would have more and better support than in this country. Even later that night, he started crying and begging for me to stay, telling me he didn't want to lose me, didn't want to lose us, etc. And of course, I caved. I conceded that I would try to make it work with him on two conditions: 1) He go NC with the OW for a month and 2) He and I were to start attending MC. He agreed. We started MC about a month after the smoking-gun discovery.

 

Between the first discovery and the massive smoking gun pile, I came very close to ending my life twice. I had in my possession a poison (I will not elaborate as it's easy to get a hold of and I refuse to give anyone ideas) which is quite lethal and quite quick, and I had about 5 times the amount neeeded to 'work properly.' Thankfully, I chickened out both times. The second time though, it took until that liquid was about a centimeter from my lips before I chickened out.

 

My mental health declined rapidly from the day I found that email account.. I sank into an incredibly severe depression. There were the two suicide attempts, many other times where I just had suicidal thoughts. For a few weeks I barely ate a thing. The most I ate on any given day was about half a piece of toast - if anything at all. I took up smoking again and was smoking about 30 cigarettes a day. I didn't sleep more than 1-3 hours per night, if I got any sleep at all. And I was also throwing up multiple times a day. Thankfully, I eventually had the good sense to see a doctor and was prescribed anti-depressants.

 

With the realisation that I was in severe depression, I started working actively to heal myself. For me, part of that means trying as best as I can to understand the situation from all sides. I started trying to understand how the A happened in the first place - trying to figure out what he was missing in our M, figuring out what caused our 'friend' to go after my H despite knowing us, what I had done wrong to help facilitate an A.. all of that. I started trying to spend more time talking to my friends and being less hard on myself than usual... and I did start feeling better for a spell. Or in hindsight, I went numb for a few weeks. Totally numb.

 

Anyway, we started MC, and after the second session, he came out with a new confession - he hadn't stopped talking to her like promised. He confessed by sending her a long goodbye email telling her he couldn't continue, that he loved me and just couldn't throw away the life he and I had built up etc.. and when he sent that letter to her, he copied me in on it - that was how he confessed. The fact that he was actually open with me and confessed something without me even having asked a question made me think that we were definitely on the right track, and the M was fixable, and a corner had been turned.

 

A couple days later, I spoke to her via instant messenger. I had decided that one of the things that I needed to do to move one was to start forgiving the two of them. Obviously I realised that a situation like this, forgiveness takes a long time.. but it has to start somewhere. So I sat down and explained to her that I could understand her position when the A started, having just ended a LTR, etc.. I told her that I was incredibly hurt by her actions, but I was not going to villify her. I also told her that I wasn't going to ask her not to talk to my husband again - it's not my place to tell other adults what to do with their lives. But I asked her, as a former friend, to at least tell me if they did start talking to each other again, so that I could leave him and get final closure on the situation. She apologised to me for what she had done, and she promised she would do that. My husband confessed to the MC next session, and I told them about my having talked to the OW, and we discussed the both in detail, and left that session feeling more positive about our R than I had since the start of all this.

 

Long story short, we carried on MC for a few more sessions and all seemed pretty well.

 

One of the weird bits in my story is that through everything, aside from the few weeks where my depression was incredibly severe, we never really stopped being intimate. Obviously, this was incredibly stupid on my part. I have all sorts of stupid justifications - I'm thousands of miles from home, I don't have that many people close by with whom I know well enough to feel I can turn to in a severe situation such as what I went through, and I felt incredibly lonely. But at the end of the day, I was just weak. I can't explain that any better at the moment.

 

So anyway.. a few weeks after our final MC session, I found out that I was (drumroll, please)... pregnant! Before the EA, my H and I had always figured we'd have children eventually but didn't yet feel ready. Yet during and after the EA we were both reckless concerning protection (for the record, as I have a lifelong history with depression, I was always afraid to take the pill, so our birth control method of choice was condoms.. so yes.. we were BOTH reckless.)

 

Anyway, I was quite scared by the prospect of having a child so close after the fallout we had been through. However, I don't believe in abortion as a form of birth control, so that wasn't an option. I was hopeful that we were on the right track, and my figuring was that if this does end up destroying our M, at least we can be divorced and living seperately while our child is still very young.

 

Anyway, not long after I found out I was pregnant, I contacted the OW again. I truly believed her the last time I spoke to her, and whilst I'm sure many here won't believe it, my intention in contacting her was to explain to her that it was more important than ever that she keep her promise she had made the last time we spoke - if not for my sake, then for the sake of the baby. She didn't reply until the next day when I got a completely scathing email from her about how I had TRICKED my husband and got pregnant on purpose in an attempt to TRAP him, etc.

 

Somehow her extreme anger didn't make sense to me, and so of course I went back into Sherlock-mode and found out that they were indeed still talking. They had been the whole time!

 

Long story short again, my H sent her another goodbye email - this one telling her in no uncertain terms never to contact him in any way... Yet of course I find it a lot less believable this time around. If I was not pregnant, I would have absolutely not even bothered giving him even a hint of a chance after that final discovery. However, because there will soon be a child involved, I do feel it's right to at least put in the effort to try and repair our damaged marriage.

 

I have stayed in Sherlock-mode ever since, and have never found any further evidence to say they're in any sort of contact. In fact, one of my friends still keeps in contact with her, and told me a few months ago that she met some guy on holiday and has been dating him ever since.

 

But every day is a struggle. It's been just over 6 months since that final discovery, and I still struggle a lot. I don't have those gut feelings that I did back then, but I still worry and doubt all the time. The emotions are usually a LOT less powerful than they were, but they are still there. It's not even that they got involved, or that he developed feelings that bother me so much.. it's the fact that he was able to sit there and lie to my face over and over again.

 

I know that I'm taking a big risk in trying to make our marriage work for the sake of the baby. He has told me that this is what he wants also, so I'm not just trying on my own here. But these days, I'm not afraid of him hurting me again. In fact, my worries these days are a bit the opposite of what they used to be - I'm more afraid that I won't be able to feel properly close to him again. Also, I know that a new baby has every chance of driving us even further apart. However for the sake of our as yet unborn son, it's at least worth trying.

 

I just realised that I've written a book, so I'll get to asking a couple questions and wrap this up for now. For anyone who's actually read all of this through, I'm sorry to have rambled on to such an extent!

 

1) Regarding the comment he made to her about how they could be perfect. It sounds so idealistic to me, and after reading so many threads here, I am fairly convinced that's pure fog - anyone agree/disagree?

 

2) Is it normal to go through a period like this where you worry you'll be able to love your S as much as you did before the A?

 

3) He has told me a few times in the last couple of months that he now despises his fOW for her part in all of this. I don't think he's trying to push the blame off himself because he does admit fault for what he's done and every time even the smallest trigger comes up and I seem the least bit sad, he always apologises for what he's done to me. But I don't see many fWS here having similar opinions of their xAP's.. any opinions on that?

 

4) It's not really a question, but I just wanted to say that I value any and all input from people on all three sides of the triangle. I just hope nobody is too harsh as it really is quite hard to open yourself up this much for a group of strangers. And sorry for the massive wall of text!

[reboot]

2) Is it normal to go through a period like this where you worry you'll be able to love your S as much as you did before the A?

I'm only going to try to answer this one. It's the only one I have experience with.

 

Yes, that is absolutely normal. It would probably be pretty abnormal not to feel like that. The pain of betrayal is tremendous.

 

Just to give you something to look forward to (and you'll need something to look forward to, because it isn't going to be easy and there will be days you're going to want to just say f' it).... if you manage to stay together through this, and work it all out, and rekindle your love, one day you'll wake up and realize it doesn't hurt anymore. Like when you broke your leg as a child. You'll never forget it doing it, but eventually you can't really remember what the pain felt like.

[jmargel]

Glad you wrote a long story, helps us feel more about your situation and what you are going through. As for your questions:

 

1) Regarding the comment he made to her about how they could be perfect. It sounds so idealistic to me, and after reading so many threads here, I am fairly convinced that's pure fog - anyone agree/disagree?

 

He was infatuated by her. It was a rush to him, speaking on a 'high'. It was something new and adventurous and it was not thinking of the consequences all of this was going to bring about.

 

2) Is it normal to go through a period like this where you worry you'll be able to love your S as much as you did before the A?

 

Very much. It's something you will struggle with for month and/or years. The foundation of your relatonship was destroyed. His words have no meaning behind them so how can you build a house with no foundation? He was even able to lie to you during MC. He needs to somehow prove to you again.

 

 

3) He has told me a few times in the last couple of months that he now despises his fOW for her part in all of this. I don't think he's trying to push the blame off himself because he does admit fault for what he's done and every time even the smallest trigger comes up and I seem the least bit sad, he always apologises for what he's done to me. But I don't see many fWS here having similar opinions of their xAP's.. any opinions on that?

 

He's trying to make himself feel better by saying this. It's a load of BS. It's like an alcoholic blaming the grocery store for selling beer. Just because the opportunity presents itself doesn't mean you take advantage of it. It's a self defense mechanism he is using.

 

4) It's not really a question, but I just wanted to say that I value any and all input from people on all three sides of the triangle. I just hope nobody is too harsh as it really is quite hard to open yourself up this much for a group of strangers. And sorry for the massive wall of text!

 

Don't apologize. My ex-fiancee and my current wife have both cheated on me. From my experience the thoughts of infelidity will always be there now. You don't hang onto it as much as time goes on, but it does hamper the love you give to the one you are with.

 

With my ex, I put my self-worth into her and it made me suicidal. I believe you might have been feeling the same way. When you do that and you experience such a letdown, you are let down twice. By your spouse and yourself and it is sometimes more than what a person can take which leads them to do certain things.

 

You really need to start building self confidence. You sacraficed alot for this man and he really hurt you alot. What consequences has he faced? Doesn't seem like none to me. What are you getting out of this marriage? Yes, you might love him but a relationship needs more than that. You also have to look out for your baby, you lead by example and you don't want your precious child to learn it is ok to be disrespected.

 

Post here as much as you want, alot of these people saved my sanity when I needed it.

[2sure]

When I originally discovered my H's infidelity, like you, I wanted to save the marriage, I wanted to recover, I wanted to understand. And eventually, I thought we had accomplished all of this. I got over it and realized infidelity is not a deal breaker.

 

Behind my back he continued. He betrayed me all the while he was "helping me and our marriage" to heal.

 

We went to MC. I, unwillingly became the marriage police only because I didnt know what else to do.

 

Behind my back, he continued. All the while promising me, planning with me, being ashamed, etc.

 

To me, this was relentless and malicious. This was not infidelity, this is something else.

I'm not saying you cannot recover...but to do so, you are both going to have to acknowledge that his behavior and the extent of his betrayal has not much to do with OW. Its his ability to lie and hurt you repeatedly that needs to be addressed. Its a special kind of person that has that ability.

[Snowflower]

Ann, Thanks for sharing your story. Anyone who has been a BS can probably relate to a lot of what you wrote. Even though details differ, the framework of these stories is often the same.

 

I'm so sorry for your pain.

 

I can't really answer your questions but I wanted to mention something about your post that you kept writing over and over...'hindsight is 20/20'

 

This is so true but I hope you're not beating yourself up for what you did and didn't do during that awful time when you knew something was wrong and your husband was gaslighting you.

 

I'm not sure if you are regretting your actions (I hope you aren't!). You did the best you could in a terrible, emotionally-wrenching situation. I know I did some of the same things when my husband was involved in his affair and things were wrong. I did the begging, the fighting, etc. before I found out. All those things the infidelity experts say 'you shouldn't do.'

 

Just focus on what you are doing now. I have no words of advice other than to say that the gaslighting is the worst thing you husband could have done to you. Often worse than the actual infidelity.

 

There are other posters here who have dealt with very similar situations to what you write here. One poster dealt with his wife and the online gaming which led to an affair. Maybe he will chime in on your thread.

 

I didn't deal with gaslighting in my own situation but gosh, it's terrible. It takes a certain type of person to do this, I think. Especially when you were in MC and your H said he was committed to the marriage.

 

Take care of yourself and your baby. There is a blessing in all this and that is your unborn baby. What happens to your marriage is still uncertain but I know you will be fine. You sound very strong.

[Spark1111]

Six months is not a long time to process and heal from infidelity, IMHO.

 

The rollercoaster will have you riding from anywhere from 2 to 5 years, and that is with professional counseling and self-education AND constant participation on both your parts.

 

The continued lying is the worst thing to experience, and to what degree it is intentional and to what degree it is similiar to an addict needing a fix is debatable ad nauseum on these boards.

 

But for the BS, knowing something is amiss and not understanding what is the cause of it, can alter your perception of reality and that is a scary feeling; one that does lead to depression.

 

It is also normal to beat yourself up upon discovery, as if you did something wrong or could have done something "better" to keep your spouse from straying. That's an illusion and it is also a defense mechanism, in effort to control the pain of the betrayal.

 

You have the additional complication of now finding yourself pregnant, and I know all to well the range of powerful maternal emotions that accompany that condition.

 

It is also normal to snoop and spy and investigate everything for a very long time. I did, and if I felt unsteady again, I would do it again. For me, trust is NOE BASED on verification.

 

Listen, Ana, everything you are feeling is normal.

 

Give yourself time. No decisions have to made today or tomorrow.

 

You can stay married or not. It is up to you. And it is a decision you can take as long as you want or need to make.

 

Yes, two years later my fWS despises his affair partner. Is it a defense mechanism? It very well may be, but she did break NC and come back uninvited in our lives.

 

Stay strong, sane and at peace for your sake and the sake of your baby. In time, you will know what decision will be in your best interest.

[Ann_Igma]

Thank you all for your advice and words of encouragement.

 

jmargel - I don't think he feels he is blameless by any means and thinks it's all her fault, but I do find it an odd opinion given what he has done, so I will keep my eyes open regarding that for quite some time.

 

Also, I have shown him consequences since that final d-day - to the best of my ability, just figured I'd let my first post run on enough so I didn't go into it much. Due to our finances and my distance from home, I could not just move out of the house, so I did the next best thing and moved out of our bedroom. I have only just recently read posts on here about the 180, but a lot of my actions from that final d-day until recently have been very similar to what is advised in the 180. I have been very open and clear with my husband that I am not sure I will be able to regain the level of trust and love that I had for him, and as far as I am concerned, if I wasn't pregnant now, I would have given up trying the second I found out he'd lied about NC during our MC.

 

I do care about him and love him, but at this point in time, I would not be crushed to lose him. I'd be sad for the sake of my child, but life would go on regardless. If he is not open with me, if he is not consistently truthful with me, if I find him hiding anything from me again, I do not intend to put up with it.

 

2Sure - I am sorry you've had to go through a similar situation, and I can empathise very much. I do agree that he needs to learn that the OW does not really have any bearing on what he's done. I have already reached that decision for myself. She did betray my friendship, and for that I will always have my own issues with her. But what my husband did, whilst he did it with her, was a totally different and seperate betrayal that was his very own. (hope that makes sense.)

 

You are right that I do need to keep addressing his ability to lie and hurt me. It's tricky because that was addressed and discussed in MC, but then.. if he was able to lie about his NC status in MC, how much else was he able to lie his way through?

 

Snowflower - Yes, I have definitely at times beaten myself up for not taking more action as soon as I had my first suspicions. It took me a few months, but I did eventually realise that line of thinking wasn't getting me anywhere. I'm not proud of everything that I did - for example during my rage phase, I went out of my way to say every hurtful thing I could to him (ie "My husband is dead, and you're just some a--hole who looks like him") and there were a few days when pretty much ever pillow/cat toy within my reach somehow went flying his way, but I can't change how I reacted anymore than he can change what he did. All we can do is try to learn from our actions/reactions, and *hopefully* heal the wounds that have been caused.

 

Some hours/days are more confusing/difficult/painful than others, and I do expect some of our progress to be slow, but I guess the most important thing to me is that we do keep having progress.

[Darth Vader]

Thank you all for your advice and words of encouragement.

 

jmargel - I don't think he feels he is blameless by any means and thinks it's all her fault, but I do find it an odd opinion given what he has done, so I will keep my eyes open regarding that for quite some time.

 

Also, I have shown him consequences since that final d-day - to the best of my ability, just figured I'd let my first post run on enough so I didn't go into it much. Due to our finances and my distance from home, I could not just move out of the house, so I did the next best thing and moved out of our bedroom. I have only just recently read posts on here about the 180, but a lot of my actions from that final d-day until recently have been very similar to what is advised in the 180. I have been very open and clear with my husband that I am not sure I will be able to regain the level of trust and love that I had for him, and as far as I am concerned, if I wasn't pregnant now, I would have given up trying the second I found out he'd lied about NC during our MC.

 

I do care about him and love him, but at this point in time, I would not be crushed to lose him. I'd be sad for the sake of my child, but life would go on regardless. If he is not open with me, if he is not consistently truthful with me, if I find him hiding anything from me again, I do not intend to put up with it.

 

2Sure - I am sorry you've had to go through a similar situation, and I can empathise very much. I do agree that he needs to learn that the OW does not really have any bearing on what he's done. I have already reached that decision for myself. She did betray my friendship, and for that I will always have my own issues with her. But what my husband did, whilst he did it with her, was a totally different and seperate betrayal that was his very own. (hope that makes sense.)

 

You are right that I do need to keep addressing his ability to lie and hurt me. It's tricky because that was addressed and discussed in MC, but then.. if he was able to lie about his NC status in MC, how much else was he able to lie his way through?

 

Snowflower - Yes, I have definitely at times beaten myself up for not taking more action as soon as I had my first suspicions. It took me a few months, but I did eventually realise that line of thinking wasn't getting me anywhere. I'm not proud of everything that I did - for example during my rage phase, I went out of my way to say every hurtful thing I could to him (ie "My husband is dead, and you're just some a--hole who looks like him") and there were a few days when pretty much ever pillow/cat toy within my reach somehow went flying his way, but I can't change how I reacted anymore than he can change what he did. All we can do is try to learn from our actions/reactions, and *hopefully* heal the wounds that have been caused.

 

Some hours/days are more confusing/difficult/painful than others, and I do expect some of our progress to be slow, but I guess the most important thing to me is that we do keep having progress.

 

 

First, get rid of the poison! Don't hurt or kill yourself! NO ONE IS WORTH KILLING YOURSELF OVER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Besides, you have a baby on the way, you don't want that child getting ahold of it!:eek::eek:

 

Second, get rid of husband! Not by hurting or killing him, of course! He doesn't seem remorsefull to me! Have you told him that you've been tempted to kill yourself over his crap? How much he's been hurting you?

 

Third, he has to do NC with OW FOREVER!!!!! Or you're Divorcing the Douche Bag!

 

Lady, you can do alot better than this piece of crap for a man, you deserve much better girl!

[OWoman]

Ann - firstly, I'm sorry you're going through so much stress right now when you ought to be basking in pure happiness.

 

Secondly, what concerns me in your story is the deceit. Not just of the EA, but of the continued contact. Twice. Despite promising, despite knowing your position on that and the effect it was having on you. The deceit through MC - OTOH pretending to be working on your M, OTO going along behind your back and working on his A. Is your M going to be as much of a sham as your MC was?

 

Of course you find it difficult to trust him - he's given you every reason to mistrust him, and few reasons to trust him. That you've found no continuing evidence of ongoing contact doesn't give him the all clear - it just suggests that perhaps there's no contact at the moment (until she breaks up with her new BF? Until he finds someone else? Until he reckons the heat is off and it's safe to resume?) or perhaps that he's just become better at hiding it, having discovered how you were keeping track of him.

 

I don't see that much has changed for him besides your pregnancy since he started, and decided to continue, his EA. Why should he change? Sure, he wants things to work out for the baby - but he wanted things to work out with you before, agreeing to MC which he cheated on, so there's no real difference there. From what you describe, he hasn't initiated any real shift in either winning your trust or in doing the work on himself necessary to get to grips with why compulsively carried on with the EA despite promises, despite the sham of MC, despite knowing the impact it was having on your mental health. I have to ask you - are you confident that this man loves you ENOUGH, cares for and about you ENOUGH, to trust him with your mental and physical health and that of your baby? The conscious, continued and callous gaslighting you describe suggests to me not.

 

Ann, you owe it to yourself and to your baby to take care of yourself (and your baby) first and foremost. This M has already had you suicidal. There has been nothing, beyond a few more promises from a man who's shown repeatedly his promises mean nothing, to suggest that anything will be different. Sure, you love him - but is that cause enough to place two vulnerable people at such high risk?

 

I know people can change - my H had an A but is now happily faithful - but from what you've described, I see no evidence that your H has gone through any of the real hard emotional work on himself required to bring about that change, nor any of the significant behavioural shifts required to win your trust. I'm not convinced, but that doesn't count. What matters is: are you?

[Ann_Igma]

Spark - you raise a lot of good points. It makes me feel a lot more normal to know that other people go through similar.

 

I think one of the reasons I found these forums in the first place was that I was wondering how I could still be feeling so off about things when the time that's passed since final D-Day has actually been longer than the EA itself. Obviously I'm not glad that's the case for everyone, but I'm glad to know it means I'm not quite as nuts.

 

You can stay married or not. It is up to you. And it is a decision you can take as long as you want or need to make.

 

I think that's going to be my mantra for a good while yet.

 

 

Darth Vader - Sorry if I haven't explained that well. The suicide attempts were a good two months before I got pregnant. I came to my senses, got rid of it, and started seeing a doctor for my depression. The poison is long gone. As much as I have wanted to just give up on life whilst in the worst of my depression, I don't think I'd have it in me to harm any other living creature, including the baby.. Even quit smoking and caffeine once I found out.

 

Owoman - It's the deceit that bothered me the most as well. I think he's going to have to work some real magic to earn back even half the trust I had in him before all of this.

 

I know it's easy enough to say, but at this particular time, I'm not very worried that he's hiding anything further. It's not so much that he may or may not be doign something, at this point. I think that I have just disconnected emotionally from him so much over all this that I don't think he's currently got the power to hurt me on any sort of real level. And it's going to take a fair bit of time, effort, and consistency on his part before (or if) I am able to open up to him again.

 

Really for the most part, I do think that I am more concerned with me and how I'm reacting/recovering from all of this, than whether or not our marriage will work out.

I suppose I spend more effort than I should analyzing some of the little bits and pieces (ie questions 1 and 3) that are less related to my recovery, but that's just the way I think - 4 directions at once.

 

I've realised tonight when I was replying here that I've been putting off seeing an IC for far too long now. I've seen the psychiatric doctors due to the depression itself, and my moods did regain enough stability that (with the doctor's blessing) I was able to wean myself back off the medicine. And while I do have regular checkups now with the psychiatric midwives due to being high risk for ante-natal and post-natal depression, that's not at all the same thing as counseling. One just helps deal with the symptoms, while the other tries to dig in and help get to the root of the problems.

 

As such, while posting on here, I've had a directory of counselors open in other tabs (seriously, 4 directions at once!) and have a list of phone numbers to ring in the morning, to see if I can find one who's available and sounds like they'll be a good fit. Fingers crossed!