# Does the fear ever go away?



## bumblebees (Jan 3, 2012)

hello,
i'm here asking a question because i don't really know how to ask it to anyone in "real life" , as it's really personal and somewhat hard to explain.
A little over two years ago, my husband had an emotional affair with a co-worker that became a physical affair. It got to the point where he told me he wanted a separation and he moved in with her. He seesawed back and forth for a few weeks, and I had finally had enough and told him to make up his mind or I was going to contact a lawyer regarding a divorce. That seemed to "wake him up", and he ended the affair and we started counseling that evening ( there is a whole lot more to the story, but it would take a really long time to post it all, and I don't want to subject anyone to having to read that much material )
through working with our counselor, as well as other mental health professionals, it came out that his issues really had little to do with me, but I was the one being blamed for them. Our counselor's opinion was that he was in a very stressed out and poor mental state due to health issues with our children, issues with his job ( he was going to be deployed to afghanistan with the military), as well as issues with his parents ( who were abusive to him as a child) , dealing with the loss of a close friend due to a roadside bomb, etc. He was dealing with these issues by not dealing with them, and when what he perceived to be an "escape' came along, he took it.
We are back together, and he has had a lot of therapy by himself and together with me as well.
Things seem so much better, but I can't get the fear out of the back of my mind that he will do it again if things get really stressful like they were before. I've talked to him about this, and he has tried to reassure me , but it isn't helping.
My question is ...will this ever go away, or will I probably always feel this way?


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## EleGirl (Dec 3, 2011)

Will it ever go away.. not completely. But you can get to the point that it will be 99% gone.

What did your husband do besides going to counseling to help you trust him again? 

How did he communicate with her? PHone? Computer? email? 

If he used or is even today using any of those you need to have complete access to them so that when you start to panic you can check and reasure youself that he is not cheating again.


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## bumblebees (Jan 3, 2012)

thank you for your reply...

we both use the same laptop and have the passwords for each others email, facebook, etc. . we only have one cell phone, which is pre paid and only used in case of emergency. we tend not to go anywhere ( except work, for him) without each other, but I don't want to make him feel like a prisoner, so if he wants to spend some time with friends, i don't object. he usually goes to spend time with a mutual friend who is dealing with his wife's infidelity and leaving him, and i think that he is seeing from someone else what cheating can do to a betrayed spouse.

he met the person he cheated with at work ( up until a few weeks ago, he worked with her, but has now been reposted to a different unit). When their affair ended, he went to his chain of command to let them know what had happened , as he wanted to accept responsibility for his decisions. He ended up getting reprimanded and it cost him a promotion, but i know he is glad that he accepted responsibility for his actions.
The woman he cheated with moved on to another married guy, and then another, but is still kind of "obsessed" with me and my children ( not so much him). I have been dealing with her for a couple of years now, and i think him seeing that and seeing how she acted at work and with other married guys kind of took the blinders off, and he saw her for what she was and not for what he idealized her to be. 
I do think he has learned a lot and grown a lot, and my feelings have little to do with his current actions , problem solving methods or understanding of boundaries and appropriate behaviors- in fact, i think i am more mired in the past than i care to admit. it's just so hard to ever completely forget what happened.

(BTW...I used to have the user name "frozensprouts" on here , but since I hadn't posted in such a long time, i forgot my account information so i made a new account. if you want to know what happened between my husband and myself, the story is told in the posts by frozensprouts...thanks  )


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## Saki (Dec 7, 2011)

I say no it never goes away.

One gem I read on here once is "how much fear are you, the BS, willing to live with...?" If your answer is none, then D is the only option. The suspicion, the pain, the uncertainity...will always be there. You will never look at your WS the same again.

I believe that if you work together with your WS to overcome this and find real R, then your WS will understand your situation and support you and provide compassionate understanding at times when you are triggered, have panic attack, whatever. 

If your WS is defensive or goes into denial in those situations, I don't imagine real R is possible. Worth noting, it will take some time for your WS to get to that point, the same way it takes time for the BS to start moving past all the pain...


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## Hope1964 (Sep 26, 2011)

D day #1 for us is almost 2 years ago, yet I still feel fear almost every day that he will do what he did again. Problem is, I felt that way before I knew what he did, from being burned in the past. I would feel that way in ANY relationship, not just this one. Cheating is something that is very real in many relationships.

Having lived through what we did together, I think that the fear I feel is diminished compared to what I would feel with someone else, actually. Someone else wouldn't know what I felt going through infidelity, and wouldn't be doing everything they can to help me through it. They wouldn't have given me all their passwords, be getting help, be totally transparent like hubby is.


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