I'm sorry, but I can't remember who I told that I would share my session results with. But here it is.
Recap: Caught by wife in EA a little over a month ago. I'm still in the fog over what I did and how it happened. I have NC and boundaries self imposed, and they are holding. Wife forgave me, and she is doing good. I'm not. I'm having a hard time knowing if I still love my wife. The reason is that I have been told that the love I felt for the OW wasn't real, despite how good it felt. I'm trying to love my wife, but it feels fake and not like what I felt with the OW. Wife keeps asking me if I truly love her. I tell her yes. But now I'm questioning everything. I'm lost.
My counselor (C) said that I need to let my decision, on what to next, come to me rather than trying to make it now. C also said that I should let my wife help me in the decision making process without pressuring me by asking the "do you really love me" question. C agreed that it sounds like I'm starting to put pieces of my pre-EA normal life back together areas, and that the love part my require much more work than the other ones which are insignificant. C said to take my time, and let it come back. I asked "what if it doesn't come back?". C said to let the answer come, and let your wife help.
So there you have it. If you have questions, please ask. If you have comments, I welcome those as well.
It's going to take a whole lot longer than a month for you to get completely over the fog. Rely on what your head is telling you - keep ignoring your heart - it's still giving you bad info. At a month out I still felt like one of the characters in Alien with something literally about to explode out of my chest it hurt so bad.
I get what you're going through, sorry to say it's going to be with you a while. Hang in there.
Wow! you know, as a bs myself, this is my biggest fear, that when he says he loves me he is only saying it for I don't know what reason, but that he really doesn't love me.
I have to say, this post is very different from your original, & I judged you harshly then. You have also provided imo very good honest advice in a lot of threads, so I believe you are truly remorseful & are being honest & truly trying.
My H & I are trying to reconcile and things are going well right now....one day at a time. The only thing I ask from him is honesty, but then again, you make me ask myself if I would like this kind of honesty. "Hey, stop asking me if I love you, because I am not really sure."
Was your wife part of this session? Did C tell her to stop asking or is that something you have to tell her yourself?
Wow! you know, as a bs myself, this is my biggest fear, that when he says he loves me he is only saying it for I don't know what reason, but that he really doesn't love me.
I have to say, this post is very different from your original, & I judged you harshly then. You have also provided imo very good honest advice in a lot of threads, so I believe you are truly remorseful & are being honest & truly trying.
My H & I are trying to reconcile and things are going well right now....one day at a time. The only thing I ask from him is honesty, but then again, you make me ask myself if I would like this kind of honesty. "Hey, stop asking me if I love you, because I am not really sure."
Was your wife part of this session? Did C tell her to stop asking or is that something you have to tell her yourself?
Just interest, do you still have sex with your husband? If so how long did it take before you did start?
atbab: If your question is for me, Yes. More than before. I believe this has helped in our recovery tremendously. Wrong or right, I initiated only a couple of days after the worst day of my life. I felt that if that was gone, everything was gone. Every situation is different I guess, (his "almost" ea was recent, the infidelities happened many many years ago but he just confessed a month ago).
HerToo: Don't mean to steal your thread. I did not take his confession like your wife did, HerToo. I was determined to leave my H the moment I found out. My H was and still is very afraid of me leaving him. He "claims" (yes, I find anything he says hard to believe) that he realizes now just how much he really loves me.
HerToo:If you are trying to reconcile with your wife, then doesn't that tell you that you do love her? Maybe if you thought you could lose her, you would realize just exactly how much you love her?
Wife was not there. I already told her that asking me is helping feed the questioning. C did say that it sounds like there is some love there for her.
I know one month is still early, and that I will have to keep working on it. Time, and my actions, will dictate the future. I can't forget that my wife can still change her mind. Posted via Mobile Device
atbab: If your question is for me, Yes. More than before. I believe this has helped in our recovery tremendously. Wrong or right, I initiated only a couple of days after the worst day of my life. I felt that if that was gone, everything was gone. Every situation is different I guess, (his "almost" ea was recent, the infidelities happened many many years ago but he just confessed a month ago).
HerToo: Don't mean to steal your thread. I did not take his confession like your wife did, HerToo. I was determined to leave my H the moment I found out. My H was and still is very afraid of me leaving him. He "claims" (yes, I find anything he says hard to believe) that he realizes now just how much he really loves me. HerToo:If you are trying to reconcile with your wife, then doesn't that tell you that you do love her? Maybe if you thought you could lose her, you would realize just exactly how much you love her?
This is similar to my situation after d-day too. When I found out about the PA portion of my H's EA, I said I wanted a divorce. It's like a light switched in my H. He was willing to do anything and everything to make sure he didn't loose me. He realizes the feelings he had for the OW were more about how she made him feel. She was big on his ego, with the added bonus of being something new and different.
Not sure if your wife being so willing to forgive is helping or hindering your progress Hertoo. You sound like you really want to R, but I'm guessing you don't want things to go back to the way they were either. Is your wife trying to go "back to normal"? That may be making it harder for you to get over your EA. For my H and I, neither of us wanted the marriage we had. Things have changed in more ways than one. Sadly, so has my level of trust, but there's good changes too.
Give yourself time to grieve the relationship with the OW. Our MC said that we all need to grieve "the possibilities of what if". When you spend the rest of your life with a person, you no longer get to form new relationships and bonds with someone new. It's okay to be sad about the loss of possibility. Unfortunately, you allowed a bond to form and have a face to put to that possibility, so now it's going to be harder to let it go.
One of the coping books I read said that "in love" feeling you experience with someone new only last 2 years. Sometimes longer, sometimes shorter. But it doesn't last. There are people who are always seeking that inital love feeling and don't stick around long enough to form the something deeper. Love changes and evolves. The love you feel for your wife will feel different from what you felt/feel for the OW. You shouldn't compare them. How can your wife compare to someone you were still in the stage of discovery?
Focus on the love you can have with your wife for what you've experienced and shared together, including your inner most thoughts. She knows you're capable of infidelity and she still loves you warts and all. At this point you have the chance to form a deep bond with your wife. Don't pass it up.
Side note . . . sure the OW knows you're capable of infidelity too, but it's not the same in her mind. The OW would think, "Oh, but he'd never do that to me." Your wife is living the reality that you are capable of hurting the person you vowed to love and cherish forever. Your wife's fantasy of you is broken, but she still wants you. My H said he never knew how much I loved him, until he realized I love him enough to try and forgive him. It hurts knowing I can't enjoy the fantasy anymore, that I can no longer think "My husband would never do that to me." But I'm hoping I'll gain so much more by being in a relationship based in reality.
My wife is acting like she's back to normal. Our before the EA marriage wasn't bad. I think we just drifted apart without even knowing it was happening.
I still love my wife and care for her. But I'm struggling to define the level of love and it's reality. I know what I did can not be undone, and that the trust I once had is gone. The whole situation I put myself in, when I thought I would never do it, is taking it's toll.
My wife is acting like she's back to normal. Our before the EA marriage wasn't bad. I think we just drifted apart without even knowing it was happening.
I still love my wife and care for her. But I'm struggling to define the level of love and it's reality. I know what I did can not be undone, and that the trust I once had is gone. The whole situation I put myself in, when I thought I would never do it, is taking it's toll.
She is anything but back to normal. She is processing everything and if things were fine with her, she wouldn't be asking you if you love her. The pain is very very real for her and just because she isn't screaming and crying doesn't mean she hurts any less.
I have followed your story and you still feel that you love your OW. I am curious though how this can be. A woman who cared so little about your wife and your marriage that she was a willing participant in destroying your wife's life and your marriage. Your wife on the other hand has been faithful and loyal to you and in the face of this tremendous betrayal, has stood by you and loved you anyways.
If you are going to struggle to love your wife, let her go. I imagine it is a double betrayal to your wife that not only did you break your marriage vows but now find it difficult to stay with your wife, and no doubt you wife knows this. It is good that you are in IC and hopefully you will find some answers. Don't string your wife along though. She doesn't deserve any of this.
I'd be lying if I said I didn't have feelings for the OW. But I would not go running to her immediately if my marriage failed. I have to fix my marriage, and come to a mutual realization that what we once had is gone because of my actions.
As for my life before the EA, there are aspects that I don't want back. But I don't feel that I'm in any position to negotiate conditions of me staying or not. If fact, that sounds idiotic from my perspective. Perhaps I will permitted to address those much later down the line. They aren't big deals, or I would have brought them up when everything was "normal".
I think that you can talk to your wife about why your were unhappy and why you had an EA. People in perfect little happy marriages don't stray, do they? There is a reason.
I would approach it very delicately,though.
In order to get your life back the way you want it to be, I think both have to make changes. If you wife has been doing things, or NOT doing things that led to you being unhappy, they need to be corrected or you are just setting everything up for a repeat.
I'm still trying to figure out why I did it. I've been to a few counseling sessions so far, and I digging. I know how it happened, I just don't know why I let it go there. Until I understand why, I can't trust myself that it won't happen again. I need that trust.
I'm still trying to figure out why I did it. I've been to a few counseling sessions so far, and I digging. I know how it happened, I just don't know why I let it go there. Until I understand why, I can't trust myself that it won't happen again. I need that trust.
You fail to see the truth that we can fall 'in love' with other people other than our spouses if there is the investment of time and sharing of ones thoughts and feelings. Even spouses in good marriages can fall into an affair once they cross marital boundaries of sharing intimacy - sharing of thoughts and feelings - with a member of the opposite sex other than his/her spouse.
If you haven't done so, purchase Dr Shirley Glass Ph D book Not Just Friends. Dr Glass eye opening information will show you what you need to do in order to never again fall into an affair.
I'm still trying to figure out why I did it. I've been to a few counseling sessions so far, and I digging. I know how it happened, I just don't know why I let it go there. Until I understand why, I can't trust myself that it won't happen again. I need that trust.
I understand that. I had to step outside and look at it from another view.
I had an OW who was very pretty, very sexy and a few years younger than me.
She told me things that my wife never did, things like, "you have a tight ass, your beard is so sexy, you have nice legs, you are such a model man for kids, etc, etc.
My wife, who is also very sweet, very pretty, very sexy, never said stuff like that to me. She never told me what a great Dad I was or how my hard work kept us all in the good life.
Also, I seldom complimented her other than I did often tell her how pretty she is and how proud I am of her staying in good physical shape.
You need to step back and really compare both women with an open mind and figure out what this chick did that your wife has not been doing. Once you do that, you can discuss it with your wife and she will likely agree with you and then decide whether or not she still wants you.
This will also give you some insight on how to avoid this kind of thing in the future.
I promised to share my session results 
