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Tomorrow is the 1 year horribsity of my FWHs ONS. Needless to say, my stomach hasn’t been feeling too good and the last couple of days have been hard. The night before last, I woke up at about 2am with questions rolling around and around in my head. This time, instead of waking my FWH and asking random questions, I decided to wait until the next day, then sit down on my computer, type them all out, organize them logically, and ask in such a fashion that it made sense vice just shot-gunning questions out. Last night, I told my FWH that I had some more questions that I wanted to ask him after dinner. He said, of course. And after dinner never came, through one thing or another. I headed up to bed and came wide awake again at 3am. He felt me stirring, put an arm around me, and asked if I was OK. I said no, that I had questions, and we never got to them. He asked if I wanted to talk then, and I said that I had written them down so I remembered everything that I wanted to ask, so he suggested that we do this Q&A in the morning (this morning) so as to not have it hang over both of us all day long. I said yes, right after breakfast.

We had breakfast, then he moved over next to me, I put the sheet of paper in my lap, and he held my hands. And I started asking questions, going through the sequence of him putting up his account on AFF, when he changed his profile from married to single, who contacted him when, and all of the emails, texting, meetings, verbiage, etc., leading up to and after the ONS. I asked him to be as detailed as possible, and he was, at times, pausing, thinking hard, and drawing up memories or revisiting, when a memory of a previous question would pop up. He was calm, apologetic when he couldn’t remember precise wordings, and blunt when he could give me specifics. I only triggered one time, towards the end, when I thought that he had come to me that night after doing oral sex with her without cleaning up (he didn’t take a shower in the hotel room). He saw the look in my eyes, asked me what I needed to know or hear from him, and when I asked about face washing, he got a pained look in his eyes and said that yes, he both washed his face, gargled, and brushed his teeth before he left because he had taken his traveling bath kit with him for cleanup. He said that he sponged down in the bathroom all over his body quickly, while she was on her phone returning a text from her daughter, because he wanted to be body-clean before he saw me but didn’t want to take the chance of her deciding that taking a shower together would be a good idea. He apologized for not thinking to tell me that because of course I would be upset at the thought that I would come home to him with her on him.

When I had asked my last question, he held my hands, told me how much he loved me, told me how sorry he was to have caused me such unwarranted pain, told me that all of the ONS and porn lead-up was his fault completely, and reassured me that he would never let himself get so detached from us again. I had a problem with a couple of the ways he worded things, and he calmly explained what his feelings were behind those words and described what he meant, until we both were satisfied of what exactly he meant. We then kissed, got up, and continued with the day’s getting ready, until it was time for him to leave (this is one of my days off), at which point we prayed together and asked for blessings for each other. And I am feeling a lot better.

It seems like a lot of us are having a hard time with what remorse looks like from our WSs. I hope that this can be one example of what remorse looks like/feels like. It’s putting your BS first. Answering questions, no matter how many times are needed. I’ve asked some of these questions before, multiple times, and some of the questions came from needing elaboration or more detail from the previous answers. It’s being calm, loving, caring, and sticking with the discussion until the BS is done. It’s reiterating your love, your responsibility for the infidelity, and reassuring your spouse that you will never go there again. It owns both the A and the need to get to the bottom of issues. It’s not angry, dismissive, impatient, or hurtful. It’s being open and present.

As I told my FWH, I know that each time that we go back there, he hurts too. But each time that I go back and he is willing to walk with me and be my “tour guide,” the sharp edges dull a bit. Each time, it’s less hurtful. This morning, I felt sorrow, but also in a strange way, comforted, because he was willing to lead me through that horrible, dark valley. Tomorrow, we’re going to be working together all day long at an outdoors sporting event, and I anticipate that we’re going to be just fine, and will have put down some better memories of the day so that next year, hopefully, the mountain in the road will become a bump, then later, just a pebble.