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My wh loves seafood which I hate. It has never stopped me cooking it if he asks and travelling all over the east coast for good seafood. He took a picture during the A of some cedar planked salmon he was cooking for him and the kids while I was working one night, or away with a girls weekend ( not sure). Anyhow he emails the bbq pic to the mow. This came up when he was confessing all the details of the A several months ago. Yesterday he says I'm thinking of cooking salmon steaks for me and the kids tomorrow. We were out shopping at the time. I immediately thought wtf? But said oh ok. Because I didn't want to make a big deal out of a fucking picture but then today when we are prepping dinner and I am making teriyaki sauce for my chicken he says " oh maybe that would be good on the salmon". That was it. Huge TRIGGER! I left the room and cried and stayed in a sad depressed state all afternoon.

They are eating dinner now and I am sick to my stomach thinking about his sharing his love of bbq end salmon with mow.

How do I move on?

(((sarah)))

Does he know it triggers you? Talking to him about it may help. Some triggers take time to work through. One day I had my haircut at a new salon. I didn't have an appt, so I didn't know the woman had the same name as OW (until she handed me her card at the end). Instant anxiety attack. I made a decision that I wasn't going to let OW or this trigger take away the best haircut I ever had. It took time for me mentally to signify the name to the person who cuts my hair instead of OW. One day you will get there. Sending you strength.

Thank you jo2love.

I actually had that happen as well. I had just started going to this new hair dresser before D-day and she has the same name. I go anyway because she is a nice person and I love the haircut.

My H says when he mentioned cooking he Salmon steaks it did occur to him that it might be a trigger for me, but because I didn't object he figured it was ok.

I know now that I need to object and loudly if something is bothering me.

I just wish he would understand that it will always be a trigger for me and have the courtesy not to suggest it. He can eat it at a restaurant and it doesn't bother me, just the whole process of him preparing the bbq, and the fact that he then sent her a photo to share in his delight.

jo2love.

Can I ask you.

When you say you had an instant anxiety attack, how long did it last and how severe was it? How long after D-day did this happen?

I sometimes have small anxiety attacks that I work through somehow, but a lot of them like this recent bbq one, send me into a major state of depression. I cannot eat, sleep, think straight or anything else until it subsides. In this case I still feel awful the next day and have a hard time focusing on the fact I have to go to work.

Will it get better with time?

I keep hearing time will help.

But I don't know if I can take this for much longer.

We are 7 months from D-day and at times it feels like yesterday.

My food trigger is Chicken Parmesan. It was something my FWH always made for me, and I found out he made it for the OW. I was ENRAGED. The only way I got over it, was to keep making it. I "took it back", hehe. I still get a tiny pang of anxiety when I make it, but it's a lot better than it used to be.

It lasted at least 20 min and wasn't bad as others I've had. At that time we were 10mos out from Dday. I would get anxiety attacks almost daily right during false R and R. Felt like I couldn't breathe, chest pains, having to hide away from everyone, etc... I had to take meds for it. Are you on anxiety meds?

I think it's important to know our limits during the healing process and not expect ourselves to handle everything perfectly. We aren't exactly the same person after this. Some things that would be normal in the past now affect us differently. Like you, some anxiety attacks I could handle. Deep, slow breathing and telling myself it would be ok. I needed to mentally say to myself, "Ok. Driving past this restaurant triggers me and that's ok. I CAN drive past it and no new bad stuff will happen." I'd drive past and after a while, it would be "Oh, yeah. That place. No biggie. I can handle this." Over time, certain places and things didn't trigger the anxiety attacks anymore.

It takes time to heal. Embrace all the small victories (calming yourself through a smaller anxiety attack) and know that in time the bigger ones will follow.

[This message edited by jo2love at 8:33 PM, June 11th (Tuesday)]

Thank you, Jo2love.

Hurtbuthoping,

My FAVOURITE dish is CHICKEN PARMESAN! lol

Sorry you have to go through that everytime you want to prepare it. Just imagine that when he made it for ow, it sucked!

I so know what you are talking about. I stumbled on some very disturbing photographic evidence of my WH's infidelity, and there was an Orange Crush in the photo. Prior to that, he would only occasionally have one as a treat, so he didn't have them often. But the first time he had one in front of me post-DD, I threw the empty bottle back at him and unloaded. He did not know it was in one of the pictures I saw or that it was a trigger for me. He found out that day.

He has not had one in my presence since. In fact, sometimes he goes out of his way to ask if another beverage is okay, which while I appreciate him trying to be accommodating, only reminds me of the trauma of finding the photo. Two years out I still don't want to think about it, but at least I don't have a huge reaction when I see an Orange Crush in the store. I think it just takes time.