# Is there such thing as getting over it *too* fast?



## picket fences (Mar 22, 2010)

Hello,

For backstory, see "Feeling sheepish, but here I am....", posted about a week and a half ago.

So....yes, a week and a half ago, May 26 to be exact, I discover a love letter that H has written to a woman who I knew in my gut that he was having an EA with for a couple of months. 

So. Here we are a week and half later. Things completely fell apart with the OW and him very, very quickly. H had told me that they had agreed to end things before he even wrote the letter, and that the letter was his way of working out confused feelings. I, of course, was not born yesterday, and did not believe him. However, H surprisingly began to act very honourably, which I did not expect. He went to work the next day and told her I had found out, he told her they needed to make a "clean break" because of the hurt they were causing. Apparently, OW appeared to understand, and decided to "come clean" to her own husband that night in order to try to repair her own hurting marriage. 

Apparently, she verbally agreed with everything she discussed with my H, but when H actually put it into action by taking her off his facebook, etc, she became extremely angry, vindictive, and spiteful. He believes that she wanted to continue to "have the best of both worlds" by being married to her husband for the needs he meets, and continuing her relationship with MY husband for the needs she feels he meets, too. He has actually withdrawn his involvement in a new project at work that he was the lead on, and that meant a LOT to him, because she was the other staff person he was working with on it, and she is behaving so angrily that even their professional relationship has ended. She even told a mutual friend of theirs about the relationship, told the friend that she hated my H, and alleged that she believed he had actually orchestrated their whole relationship so that it would end this way, to hurt her. Clearly an imbalanced woman, and this has not gone unnoticed by my H. He states he "cringes" when he has memories of their EA, and has never felt stupider in his life. I would heartily agre...

So, H gives me passwords to his e-mail accounts and Facebook account. He takes the OW off his Facebook friends list. He comes clean to his immediate family and a couple who are our closest mutual friends, and he takes all responsibility for what happened. He goes to a counselling apptointment with me (we had already had it scheduled before I discovered the EA). He schedules an appointment to go on his own to start working out his own stuff. He is not perfect - this has been a process, and it began with a lot of defensiveness, a lot of veiled messages of "How long do I have to listen to you cry", "How many times do I have to say I'm sorry before you believe me", at one point he even tried "My relationship with OW was not wrong, those emotions and feelings can never be 'wrong', the only thing that was wrong was that we were both married to other people at the time". That one did not fly and he has seen it's folly now and unequivocally stated he was wrong 

So. H has said he realizes he believed nothing could ever change with us, and wanted to leave, because he believed I was the source of the entire problem. He now says that with the "blinders off" after the affair bubble was burst, he is seeing a LOT of things clearly for the first time, including his part in why our marriage wasn't healthy to begin with. He is saying he wants to try and see if we can start from scratch and build a healthy marraige, and that he is "all in" now, whereas before he was only expecting ME to be "all in", if that makes sense. He is doing a lot of self-reflection and he is coming to the same conclusions about a lot of things as I am. He occasionally discusses with me how he is a bit scared and apprehensive because a part of him wonders whether, even if he goes "all in" and I go "all in", whether we still just might not work out because we just don't match. But he told me that he thinks I am worth that risk.

H has asked to come back to the bed, where he has not slept since mid-March. He has made plans for my parents to come watch our kids this weekend so he can take me to Niagara Falls for some time alone. He told me he is not expecting anything - no pressure for sex or anything - he just wants us to be able to see each other, independent of our kids and our jobs and the current big mess in our lives, for a while. He has suggested that if things are working out and we appear to be "making it" by the end of the summer, that we should take the money he would have spent on his own apartment if he moved out, and spend it instead on taking a "honeymoon" to Paris or London or Amsterdam (we married young and poor and never had a honeymoon).

So...my question is .... WHAAAA?! Is this normal, or even possible? Does this seem way to fast to ANYONE ELSE? I have even said to H, "I love everything I see from you, but this feels to fast to be real, and it's too fast for me to trust", and he even responds to that "right" by acknowledging that he's hurt my ability to trust him so badly that he knows this will take a long time, but he just wants me to know where he stands, etc...

And the second thing I'm worried about, is how I'm responding to it. For the first solid week after I found the letter, I could not touch this man, I could not wear my wedding ring, I was just going to throw up, I felt like I was dying. But Wednesday night, we had another talk and I broke down sobbing and he reached out and put his hand on my knee, and it did not make my stomach turn. It's the same hand he's put on my knee for the 11 years we've been married. It's his hand. 

So, since then, I'm still confused and still hurt but for some reason I've been responding to his pace, and I had him in our bed last night, and yes, sorry for the "TMI", but we even had sex....and it felt right....and it was pretty good, even. He felt present with me, not just present in his own head, which had been a problem for me in our sex life before. 

So. I am nervous that I might be setting myself up for a big fall. Is this too fast? Is this something anyone else has experienced? Are there even any rules, or do we each just follow our own hearts (keeping in mind that the heart is the moderator between the feelings of the gut and the thoughts of the mind - I'm not talking blindly following emotion here), and hope for the best, and take risks, because the reward COULD be worth it?

Some advice or reflection, please - especially Affaircare, are you out there?


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## Amplexor (Feb 13, 2008)

My marriage recovered from my wife's EA that lasted over a year. I see some similarities in your husband's reactions and some differences. He like my wife never fully accepted she did something "wrong". I don't believe that is unusual in the case of an EA. 

Your husband's wish to go all in is not a surprise either. If the EA is over and he understands it could have destroyed his family then he would jump in with both feet. There lies conflict, if he doesn't accept what he did as wrong he can't fully understand how much you were hurt in all of this so he doesn't understand your hesitance in emotionally risking yourself again. In our case the situation was reversed, I was "all in" and she wasn't even sure she wanted to try and recover as it took her a long time to break with TOM.

The two of you are still in the eddies of the marriage and the affair so it will take time to get your bearings. You are correct in being cautious as this won't likely right itself overnight and it shouldn't. In order for our marriage to become solid again we rebuilt it from the ground up starting with friendship and trust. Communication and empathy followed. Finally the emotional bonds strengthened. I would equate the process to laying a solid foundation and it takes time. 

There are still things you will both need to go through to recover. He must gain your trust and you must give it to him. You both need to understand why he went outside the marriage for emotional nourishment. He needs to go through the withdrawal of the EA, I don't think that happens in just a week. 

I think that the steps he is taking are great and he is doing the right things but he needs to understand that the marriage can't just pick up where it left off, it has to be strengthened and that takes work. 

Good luck there are many positives here but he still has to earn your trust.

PS Take the trip to Niagara, we did something similar a month or two after discovery and had a great time. It was an important step for us.


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## picket fences (Mar 22, 2010)

Thanks Amplexor, I know there's an element of good old common sense that this will take quite a while to really work through and deal with. In my H's defense (as much as he doesn't deserve it...), he isn't saying that what he did is not wrong, anymore. That was a trick he tried very shortly after being found out, and that he has definitely got past now. But I know we have a long road ahead. 

I just wonder about the fact that we got where we ARE so fast - and I'm baffled by my own feelings, because it feels just fine....I expected to be much angrier and much more resistant to him for much longer than this....


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## picket fences (Mar 22, 2010)

Not a popular thread here, I see...maybe it's like the woman complaining because she's just "too" skinny....  I get it.

I am really looking for some outside perspectives, from people who may have been there, though. H and I just spent the weekend in Niagara Falls, and I had a good time, and he kep telling me he was having a good time and was quite affectionate (which hadn't been the case for long before he even said he was leaving), but he did look kind of down for much of the time.

I am in such a different place right now than I EXPECTED to be, less than two weeks after discovering "the letter". I love my husband, I am hopeful, I am encouraged by all the "right" movse he keeps making. He is seeing our counsellor on his own this week to work out things he sees in himself that he doesn't like anymore. He stood up for himself and challenged his mom on a lot of issues where he used to defend her, and he is able to see how he's the "apple that didn't fall far from the tree" in terms of seeing himself in his mom's behaviour. He told me that dealing with his mom these last few weeks, and running into a brick wall that only can see things from her OWN perspective, has given him a tast of the experience I have had with him for years, and he "gets it" and wants to change that, etc. All really good stuff.

I am still seriously insecure. When he comes home from work, I ask him about any contact with the OW (they are going to have to still work together, they both teach at the same very large school, it's unavoidable). He seems to be honest with me about any contact, and he's taken the step of revealing the EA to a close mutual friend that he and the OW share, and has asked that friend to hold him accountable if he sees any behaviour that might appear unwise for a person who is trying to make a clean break from the OW. But I'm insecure anyway. 

And today I had to drive by the OW's house to get to one of my own work appointments, and my heart was in by throat and butterflies were in my stomack and I had this morbid curiosity about the house and drove by really slow and stared...does not reflect well on me, I know...

So, it's not like all of this never happened. I obviously do have some issues. But I feel like I SHOULD be mad at my H, and I SHOULD hate him, and I SHOULD be crying myself to sleep and I SHOULD be dwelling on my pain and distrust etc...and I'm not. I want my husband. I love him. I feel mad if he tries to defend an indefensible action, but when he just owns up to it with humility and comes to me with love, my head and heart and gut all respond in kind.....and that's what I want my relationship to be like, but I can't shake this nagging feeling that this is all too fast and too soon. That maybe there's something that's wrong or that's disconnected in me, to make it so that I seem to be getting through this so quickly. But when I examine myself (which is something I learned I MUST do, when all this started in March!), I don't see any self-deception going on there. This does actually feel right. I'm really confused....

Any more thoughts are welcome and eagerly anticipated!


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## Amplexor (Feb 13, 2008)

It is perfectly normal to feel insecure, you've been betrayed in one of the worst ways. But I'll bet you are still awash in the emotions and it hasn't really sunk in yet. You may have already forgiven him but trust will take time. Your husband continues to make positive steps in ending the EA, working on himself and your marriage. You are right, many would be jealous of your advances. It is not over over yet and will take time to fully recover. Concentrate on yourself and your marriage and move past TOW. Good luck.


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