# Mind racing, need advice



## mentalmess (Jan 8, 2011)

It has been 6 days since finding out about my husbands affair. I received a message from an obvious made up name on my facebook asking if my husband was still having an affair! The messages went on to tell me I had my head up my *** and went on to give details that they supposedly knew just from seeing them together. This person also told me if I needed proof all I had to do was check H's cell phone. I went to my H and he confessed. Told me he had been trying to end it for months and the other woman kept showing up when he was at golf tournaments and other things he does regularly. We are pretty sure that the facebook messenger was the OW in an attempt to break us up. There was also a message posted on my youngest daughters account which thank goodness we checked and intercepted. She is 19 and this woman had offered to mentor her senior year.(which didn't work out.) My H's affair was on and off for about 3 years.

I was totally blindsided by this and in fact was always proud of our long marriage and never ever would believed my husband capable of this. 

I have read the sticky at the top of this forum about the three things that need to happen in order to save our marriage. I find it comforting that my H broke it off with her immediately and on his own offered complete access to any message the OW had left without my asking. I am convinced in his sincerity about wanting to save our marriage and his pain and self loathing about the hurt he caused is obvious.

My first question involves in how to deal with this womans inability to let go. The texts and messages number about 5 a day. My husband deletes everything in front of me and has not read them. We are both terrified that she will show up here in spite of being told no contact period and our kids will know something is going on. I am a nervous wreck about this and find myself not wanting to leave my husband alone, in part because of this and because I am a needy mess. I am a housewife and my husband recently lost his job of 20 years so we are spending lots of time together which is very comforting to me. If she does show up should we show a united front and tell her to leave or should I hide in the house and let H deal with her?

My second question is how do I stop torturing myself with thoughts of what they did together? My mind races all the time
and I am actually experiencing anxiety attacks and have periods of uncontrollable crying. I even checked my husbands phone and read some her messages which of course made my state of mind worse. I just couldn't stop myself. My H is very understanding and comforting and answers my questions. I feel like I'm hurting him by asking details but also feel like I'm totally losing it. 

My hope in posting here is that I can learn to control these thoughts and hope for some input from those that have been there.


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## Eli-Zor (Nov 14, 2010)

Welcome to the forum and sorry for the circumstance that brought you here:-

There is a lot of reading for you and your husband to do as well as few items for you to consider:

A person in an affair will NOT always tell you, the betrayed spouse (BS), the whole truth, it this case your husband may have made a promise or an implicit agreement to the OW that he has not told you about.

There are steps to stop the affair.. 

go to the affaircare site and read the articles, pay attention to the ending the affair component. 

Articles

A summary below:-



> Your husband must send her a no contact letter
> 
> Give you full transparency
> 
> commit 100% to the marriage and rebuilding thereof


.

You may say he has done some of the above, he must to all of the above, including the underlaying detail that you will find in the articles. These steps are designed help assure you that the affair is over and you can move forward in confidence. 


An extract below regarding children :



> "Everyone should know what happened -- children, relatives, friends, and especially the children"
> 
> Be open and honest, you need to close this down quickly the children are not stupid. You tell the children because it is better for them to hear it from you than from someone else and you have control over how it is relayed to them, you are there to interact with them afterwards. The children also need reassurance that it is a "parent problem" and the parents are dealing with it. They also need to know they are not the cause as they tend to personalize.
> 
> The same can be said about telling children about an affair. My experience with the positive outcomes of hundreds of families where an affair has been exposed to children has led me to encourage a betrayed spouse not to fear such exposure. In fact, to mislead children, giving other false explanations as to why their parents are not getting along, causes children to be very confused. When they finally discover the truth, it sets an example to children that dishonesty is sometimes acceptable, making them the judge of when that might occur.



Buy the book "Surviving an Affair" by Harley, there are pointers therein to help you go forward

Further articles from Marriage Builders

Articles

read as many of these articles as you can , they contain not only items to ensure the affair has ended but items to help make your marriage affair proof and help you as the BS.

In the interim, eat , exercise , look after your mental and physical health. Take up a hobby, go for walks together. What you are going through is normal for a BS.

Do nor react be proactive, block her from facebook, block her number, if your husband has gifts from her must destroy them and dispose of them in you presence. Full openness from your husband is required, it is his task to remove any items that are triggers to the affair .


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## Squiffy (Oct 26, 2010)

Hello, and sorry to hear about what has happened to you. It's a very difficult situation to be in.

I have had a similar situation in which the OW, after being told by my husband that he wanted to work on our marriage, has been aggressively pursuing him, has told him she is 'going to fight for him' with everything she has got. He is a very passive person and I think has been quite overwhelmed by her behaviour and doesn't quite know how to deal with it.

We know she has been past our house checking for his car, but she has never actually come inside. I said if she did turn up at the door that he would have to deal with her, I don't want to talk to her. I feel that (correctly or incorrectly) she is his problem to deal with, not mine.

The other week she suddenly pounced on him while he was in the park walking the dogs, begging him to come back and making a bit of a scene. He just kept repeating that he wanted to stay with me and our kids, and eventually managed to get away from her.

She also kept sending texts continuously even though he asked her to stop (and wasn't returning any), and some of them were quite nasty towards me. We stopped this by him telling her he had thrown his phone away and he got a new cell phone and number (I couldn't stand seeing the old phone, we packed it away and don't look at it - we are keeping the messages in case we need evidence for harassment purposes - otherwise I would have probably burnt it!).

The no contact letter helped too, it was very clear and to the point, saying that he would not contact her again and he didn't want her to contact him either. It's only been a short while since that was sent, and so far so good. Of course, I'm still waiting with bated breath wondering if she is going to suddenly turn up, and it does make us both feel anxious, so it is a stressful situation for both of you.

Have you thought of going to see your doctor about the anxiety, or doing some things that are relaxing to you, e.g. walking, reading, long bath, meditating? Also when a thought of her comes into your head, replace it with one of you and your husband hugging, or some other pleasant thought. Just realise you are in control of your thoughts, and direct them to where you want them to go.

And after only six days, everything is very fresh and raw, and the feelings you are having are not unusual. You will eventually start to settle down and feel better, but it will take a some time. In the meantime just be kind to yourself.


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## the guy (Aug 3, 2010)

Yes confront on an united front, but let him do the talking and just observe, even if she confront you with questions simply reply that she is "interfering with the marriage" and leave it at that, and repeat as needed.

Secondly my imagination was my worst enemy so I needed details.
Its nice knowing that pierced penises are not that cracked up to be and I am better then most when it comes to cullingcus (go down on her). More impotantly is finding out what the OM was giving my wife what I wasn't and fixing that. Does it matter who was on top, well yes it did for me, so she told me. Point is I got those ugly details, and now I can move on to oral.. tuff subject but I got my answer and moved on. When its all said in done I found that the acts them selves were out in the open and now my imagination could rest while the rest of me copes with the simple but hard fact that it happened period. The rest was discused and I really didn't need to know that some guys made funny sound when he came, but I asked (I realy said "whats it like when he came"). The fact is I have no more questions b/c I know he tried harder but he had to he was new and he had to impress, were I was old and had done it many time and took it for granted. See knowing things like that stepped up my game. So in the end it was important to talk about all aspects of my wife cheating.

And finaly my last $0.02 is the best way I got through it was reminding my self of all the positive things my spouse was doing in helping me heal. From the password thing and her work reciepts showing the time she was at work to the long talks of her sexcapades to even the spanking I gave her. All this openness and forthcoming combined with affaction and attention gave me the ammunition to fight back those very dark thought of her cheating. Back in Feb'10 I forced it out of my head over a hundred times a day, know 11 month later I force those behaviors out of my head 10 to 20 times a day. So it dose get better with the large amout of help from your spouse.

Good luck


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## Tanelornpete (Feb 2, 2010)

> My first question involves in how to deal with this womans inability to let go. The texts and messages number about 5 a day. My husband deletes everything in front of me and has not read them. We are both terrified that she will show up here in spite of being told no contact period and our kids will know something is going on.


Very very simple. Ask her in writing (an email will do) requesting that she leave you both alone. Save a copy of the request.

If she ignores this, proceed to file a Restraining Order against her, under the assumption that she is stalking your husband. 

This will take the situation out of your hands, and place it in the hands of the State.

Then begin the work of restoring, and then improving your marriage.


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## mentalmess (Jan 8, 2011)

Thank you for the advice. I haven't had a panic attack in 24 hours. Getting better at pushing bad thoughts out of my mind. I needed reminding that they are my thoughts and I do have control.

The OW decided to write a blog about the "love of her life". Keeps trying to get husband to read it and threatened to make it public if he didn't. Whatever public means we have blocked everything we could. I find myself obsessively checking the daughters account who she knows. My daughter is 18 and is going thru a difficult time her first year at college. She is in counseling and we are going to take three days to go see her. 

We would both like not to read the OW texts but feel the need to keep tabs on any threats. The tone of the texts have gone from pleading to angry. We are worried it will escalate. We live in a very small town and she lives 40 miles away in a city. Going to the police would be tough seeing how everybody knows us but we will do whatever we have to in order to protect our family. We don't reply except to repeat "Stop all contact". 

We have read all the articles and find it helpful. My H would answer my tough questions about his affair but I could feel in some of his answers that he was trying to make them less hurtful by sugar coating it. I explained I could sense that and that even if the stark truth hurt it only hurt once and not twice if i were to find out it was not completely accurate.

I'm going to go to public health and get tested for STDs. I have no reason to think there is a problem but need to eliminate that particular worry. I haven't been in the dating scene in 30 years and realize there is STDs out there that weren't an issue back then.

Writing all this down sure helps steady my mind. We used a great forum for support when my oldest was going through a drug problem and were happy to find this forum to help us. All comments are appreciated and provide perspective and insight I sorely need.


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## WhereAmI (Nov 3, 2010)

mentalmess said:


> We don't reply except to repeat "Stop all contact".


By responding with anything you're letting her know that her thoughts are being read. In her warped little mind that means she still has a chance. Don't acknowledge her at all.


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