Defining Love After an Affair

I've always had a romanticized view of what love is because I never really experienced while growing up. My parents aren't affectionate or emotional beings. They view love as taking care of your kids until they are old enough to fend for themselves and then their job is done. I always thought that love was when you like being with someone so much that you would rather be with the person than not be with him, that you would do whatever it takes to make that person happy and happy with you. I also thought that love was someone feeling and doing the same to me. With that love comes affection and comfort from life's harsh realities.

However, since the affair, I really have no clue what love is because I thought I was doing everything I needed to do to ensure love in our relationship. My husband wasn't, but I was able to deal with that. As long as I knew that he knew I loved him and that he appreciated what I did for him, I thought that it was okay. Until I found out that he truly didn't appreciate or care what I did for him.

I asked a question I already knew the answer to the other night to my husband. I asked, "Didn't you ever talk to her about how much you missed me and the kids?" Since he said they talked about everything because he was so depressed about his dad dying. At first he said no, but then tried to backtrack when he could tell that my heart blew up into a million pieces. He then said that he talked about me with his friends while she was standing right next to them. That's not what I call talking to her about how upset he was about being away from me and the kids.

Not talking to her about me shows that he really didn't hold me in his heart and as closely as I had thought he did. He always told me that she manipulated him into loving her. However, if he never talked about me, showed her how much he cares for me, and didn't wear his ring around her, that makes me think that she was thinking he wasn't that attached to me, which meant a very easy way in...

Through all our marriage difficulties, I never let go of my husband. I always held him as my husband and respected him as that. If I ever talked to a guy, I would talk about my husband. It was clear that I was attached and loved him.

So did he lose his love for me during that time? Did he forget what love was? What is love anyway? Everyone who has ever loved me has treated me badly or hasn't treated me the way I define it. I have thousands of emails where he tells her that he loves her but now he says that he didn't and it was all bullshit. Okay, so how do I know he loves me? His actions surely don't show that he did or does? What do I believe, especially when my trust for him has been completely broken?

Dreaming About the Affair

Lately, I have been having some really crazy and upsetting dreams. Some don't make any sense at all because they are just me doing things I usually do such as going to McDonald's for an ice coffee with caramel. Actually, many of them are about food, which is weird. While that isn't the disturbing part (it's actually the nicer part of the dreams since it's like eating all night without the calories), it is followed by some sort of affair related material.

Last night, someone came into my bedroom (which didn't look like my bedroom in the dream) and found a large stack of photos of my husband and his mistress. As the person went through each photo, it was like a slideshow of the photos I saw in my husband's secret email account and then some ones that my mind made up. It was killing me to look at them but I could not look at them.

See that's the difference between your daytime thoughts and night ones. You can somewhat control the ones you have during the day but you can't really at night. Your mind is free to think about whatever it desires and you can't tell it to shut up.

Since I have been having them for a while now, I have calmed down my reaction to them. At first, I would be disgruntle all day dealing with the emotional aftermath. Now, I tell myself it was a dream and try my hardest to push the images out of my head. Thankfully, if I don't dwell on it too long, I sometimes forget what they are about.

I did wake up my husband to tell him that I had a bad dream. I wasn't interested in talking about it but I needed to release some of the tension and of course, make him feel bad that I was having yet, another nightmare about his stupidity. It's just another stab...I know. However, if it makes me feel better, and he is committed to our marriage, he will be able to deal with it.

Picking the Right Counselor for Infidelity Help

It's imperative that victims of infidelity seek some sort of therapy to effectively deal with the aftermath of infidelity. Without professional help, you may struggle longer than is healthy and permanently damage your ability to not only trust your cheating spouse but anyone who you come into contact with in any type of relationship.

Not all therapists are created equal. I am myself a counselor and can tell whether or not a therapist is truly being genuine in efforts as an effective counselor.

It's important to understand that not everyone benefits from the same "good" counselor. Therefore, seeking help from someone only because someone recommended the person may not be your best choice. You have to mesh with your therapist. Your personalities must work well together and rapport building should be easy and comfortable with him or her.

It's also important that the counselor is working on issues with you to get you from A to B. The therapist I have right now is not doing this. She is more like a sound board rather than a partner in my process of recovering from infidelity.

Together with your therapist, you should establish goals and discuss steps to reach those goals. Each session should address at least one of them and there should be activities or something to work on outside of the session so that work done in therapy can crossover into your life, giving you the ability to apply coping skills.

That's it for now but there are some other factors you should consider when choosing a counselor for surviving infidelity, so check back.

The Death of a Marriage After an Affair

I once heard someone say that you never really accept that someone you love has died. Instead, you learn to live without the person. I think that a marriage after an affair is very similar to this...again, because the marriage was killed by the infidelity.

I really don't think I'll ever be able to accept that my husband cheated on me. I don't even know if I can go there in my mind. It's just so painful and I'm already in so much pain. However, as time goes on, I see myself learning to live with this history. I'll most likely carry it around with me like a battle wound of some sort.

Extreme trauma can change you forever and influence choices you make in the future. I may never be able to see my husband as the man I married. However, I may see him as my husband, the father of my children and someone who has hurt me so incredibly bad. It may be a defense mechanism in that as long as I keep him as "the cheater" in my mind, I will always be careful not to get too sure of him. I guess that's the same as not truly ever being able to trust him again....

Dealing with 'What Could Have Been'

I talked about this a little in my last post about how my husband doesn't deserve being with me and the kids but I guess I just have to write about it again because I am really not doing well right now.

As I sit here and think about Thanksgiving, I can't get the visions of that night in the hotel after I discovered the truth of my husband's infidelity. My kids in the king size bed as I paced thinking about how we would have to share the kids on holidays and weekends etc. etc. How Thanksgiving would come too quick and wondered if it would be my first one alone without the kids or if it would Christmas.

Now I sit here with my family, who used to be picture perfect and I feel like it's all fake. We're going to have the traditional Thanksgiving dinner and the kids are all excited. However, it's like a black cloud is sitting over us that won't leave me alone. I can't shake the feeling that maybe this shouldn't be this way. Maybe I was weak and should have gone through with the separation...after all, he cheated on me for EIGHT months.

I picture myself in an apartment with the kids like I did a lot after I found out. I don't see it as so bad but I don't see it better than where I am now. I'm so conflicted. I know this is better in the end if we can repair the damage in our marriage but really...this is all so hard. I feel trapped...dealing with infidelity sucks and divorce sucks too. I'm so... sad...mad...confused.