SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

I am curious as to how your relationship has changed with your WS. The good and bad.

I am one that "thought" my marriage was great - even during the A. The only reason I ever suspected was due to him coming home later than normal. He was still loving, kind, and spent a great deal of time with me.

I was pregnant with our first child. 8 months along when I first found out.

Our relationship has changed of course, due to us being parents. I'm not sure how R would have worked without our baby.

We are nearly 3 years out from last TT, 3.5 years from last major DDay, and 6 years out from my first suspicions. My wife and I are different people now. We are individually better people, and also as a couple. We are more wise. I'm less bull headed, obsessive, and driven/focused (in a good way). My wife is less shy, carries more confidence, changed from daily anger to no anger, and has a greater ability of expressing her feelings. No complaints other than the history still lingers which sucks, but it improves on average each day.

We are not quite a year out. I notice a few differences. I make an effort to contact him even if he is working (before, I worried about bothering him), I gave up my career (it seems I can't work without my job consuming most of my time and attention), he makes an effort to actually talk about things that are bothering him (instead of just shrugging me off when I ask), we both make an effort to have some adult time every day and try to have a kid-less date at least once a month. I have also started traveling with him when he is out of town as long as schedules and finances permit.

We address issues more directly and sooner now. At least my W does, and she had a much bigger issue than I do.

I've always operated on the basis of 'if I don't bring an issue up, it isn't an issue.' She used to let issues fester. For the first 25 years of our M, we addressed issues as they arose; then she backed off, to her detriment and the M's.

[This message edited by sisoon at 12:11 PM, June 8th (Saturday)]

The bad, of course, is I think about the A every day.

The good, is a very long post!

I realized that my H had deep seated issues that kept him walled off, avoiding attachment, etc. Now that he is working hard he is open, giving, loving, sexy, can't do enough to make me happy and make me feel adored. I can open up to him whole heartedly and express my needs. We feel like a solid team and I actually trust him more now than I did before. He accepts my influence, will really listen and not withdraw....

So far, so good.

The good:

WH is sober.

WH is on his mood stabilizing medication without interruption

WH's anger is gone

WH for the first time in 23 years sees his children as a joy and not an irritation to be avoided

WH is learning to be compassionate

WH is learning to be less narcissistic

The bad:

I see WH as used and contaminated

I have no trust in WH telling the truth

I have lost all sexual desire for WH

WH and I do talk more now. I can actually have the resemblance of a discussion with him. That is something that was impossible before. At times I do feel some closeness with him. For the 7 years preceding his A he had intentionally shut me out, withdrawn all affection and shunned me so that is a rather massive change.

We are only 8 months from D day and WS had been in LTA mainly emotionally with 3 months on intense PA. We had our 41 anniversary this year.

My trust is gone and my security....I still am on high alert in sleep and awake. I un-retired and went back to work in a worker bee job that I love so I do not have time to dwell on things and for me. I am more caring for myself though have to deal with an anger that I never felt before.

Our family has been in crisis...our children are grown and one happened to be there when I discovered the affair. The once almost perfect family is gone as is the respect.

My WS is "careful" about mis-ques in our sexual relationship. I am not as forthcoming as I once was but we have a better than A sexual relationship as we each put more time in it. WS overwhelms me with attention that was never part of his nature--coffee in bed, wanting to be with me, it scares me in a nice way. WS wants to do things I have enjoyed over the years and social with my friends....he has cut off lots of ties to things that lead to the A. He is carefully about being too friendly with female co-workers and reading people in general better. He trusts my opinion of people to a point that is intimidating...before he disregarded my opinion. He has found his voice, to share deep feelings that he would repress and seems to be a much happier person--more like he was in college, and first 25 years of our marriage. He is learning to like himself again and taking care of his self physically as during the A he was so guilt ridden he let his health go.

It is all a mixed bag of things....the positives do not out way the negatives but I am trying to see what is left of a great marriage and relationship that he came very close to destroying in all aspects..his career, our financial status, his life, our children, our marriage, his family, our house.....not an area has not been touched by his actions and he regrets it all now.