SurvivingInfidelity.com^®

Also, having her writing a story about her experiences and actions? You think you have terrible mind movies now? They will be multiplied if you go reading a novel about her endeavors.

I couldn't disagree more with this statement. My wife's timeline helped me immensely. When I had a million questions, I could just reference it. Do not rugsweep this!

[This message edited by Wool94 at 2:55 PM, August 3rd (Thursday)]

Wool is correct that it can be helpful. I just wanted to warn that it could have negative effects also. You know what your mind can handle. Do what's best for you.

So your way to test if the gun is loaded is to put it up to your temple and pull the trigger?

I don't know if that is such a good Idea.

Some have asked why I suspected and how did I find out. Here was my point of view before she confessed the other day. I have had this in my phone notes for a long time. Things that did not add up.

My wife and I have been married 35 years. My wife and I had separate businesses in the same small town. They were the same type of business, we had two locations. She operated one and I the other. There was a fellow "Hunk" that was a customer of hers, he also cut the grass and came in often and just hung out for possibly years at her store. I was unaware. Hunk was 6 foot 6 and looked like Superman. She got into exercise and loosing weight, I wasn't crazy about it but I joined in with her.

This is how Hunk became her customer, he was hurt on a motorcycle and it gave him a bad concussion. Someone called me and asked if I would be interested in buying his motorcycle. I told them to send him down and I would try to help him. He came to my store and I told him we had just opened this new location and he's welcome to take the motorcycle there and we will sell it for him on consignment, and we will not charge him anything. He took the motorcycle to my wife's store and left it with her. We opened the store in June of '95. Then years later is when all this other stuff comes up, in the fall of '97. I found out he had been going to her store for possibly years! She told me he used to come in and just sit in a chair, and hang out. Of course she only told me this after I asked years later. I never heard a peep out of this guy or anything about him except for the motorcycle deal.

There are lots of things that didn't add up looking back. Like one time my wife told me that her sister needed to talk to her. The sister lived two hours away. I thought at the time why can't they just talk on the phone, or can we go see her on a Sunday or something. My wife seemed like she didn't really want to go see her, but her sister really needed it. She brought it up several times over a couple weeks. She seemed like she did not want to go, but felt she needed to go for her sister. The day that she went to her sisters, she left early in the morning, I had her car clean and full of gas. I remember thinking something just didn't feel right and I wish I could somehow put a tape recorder in her car. I ran her store while she was gone. She had been gone five or six hours and a customer came in with a question and I needed to ask her. I called my sister-in-law and I asked to speak with my wife. She had no clue what I was talking about. I asked my wife about it when she got home later that night. She said that she went shopping first before she saw her sister. It looks to me like she would have took her sister with her shopping and they could have had a really good talk. If my wife went there, why didn't she call me to ask what I needed? A lame story but somehow I believed it at the time.

On two separate occasions, my wife's employees called my store looking for a particular item to see if we had it. They said Hunk wants it, I said Hunk who? They said his last name real fast like I should have known that. I said I don't have what they're looking for and they said, well if you get it call us, he's in every day. I sold the same type of items that my wife sold at her store. If Hunk came in her store every day looking at video games, why didn't he ever come in my shop to see our video games? He was in her store almost daily, and never came in mine except that one time when I was trying to help him sell his motorcycle. Our stores were maybe a mile apart. Where Hunk worked was actually only half a block from my store.

Hunk was a police officer. One night my wife and I had been out and had a few drinks. My wife had a few more than me and she was past tipsy. We drove past the police department where a police car was sitting out front. As we drove by she turned and stared at the police department, she turned completely around in her seat and stared until it was out of sight. If I could go back in time, I would go around the block and put her out on the curb at the police department. Once he was on my radar, I started asking questions. I was telling our friends, my customers, and of course I was giving my wife a hard time about it. There were no rumors about them until I started making them. Hunks wife heard about it and I went to their home to discuss it with his wife. This was late summer of '97

I let her know I didn't think anything was going on because at my wife's store there are people around, she's there all the time and really has no time to be out monkeying around with her husband. I did tell her there was one day that I could not account for. That was the day she went to see her sister.

I need answers! Whenever I ask her about it, she clams up and gets mad at me. She brings up the fact that years "1987" ago at my store I had a pool table. Two girls from a bank that was two doors down occasionally would come by and play pool. She insinuates we are even. She tells me I  always have to be mad about something. I do get pretty aggravated sometimes with politics, news, and if I feel I've been wronged. I just brought this up again a couple of days ago. She is mad at me and avoiding me.

A few days ago we took our granddaughter to a waterpark. I was in line for a ride and notice this cute couple in front of us. Very handsome young man and I looked down and he had really good looking feet. The reason I say good looking feet is because when I was a child a doctor removed one of my toenails and I feel disfigured from it, and it really bothers me, and has for years. I am looking at this young man's feet thinking I wish my feet looked like that. Then a voice in my head says I bet Hunks feet look like that. The voice says, ask her she knows, but she won't tell you. I deal with this crap every day. Then I look at this young man in front of me, his hairy legs and back and I almost vomit.

One more little thing that bothers me. After I spoke with Hunks wife, and my wife and I had a go around. I don't know what Hunks wife said to him, but I'm sure something was said. My wife and I were out one afternoon on a drive, and Hunk was directing traffic. He stopped us. We were the only car at the intersection, he was about to let school buses out of school. He was standing by our front bumper, just a few feet from our faces and did not acknowledge us, didn't wave, didn't smile, nothing. My wife was driving and had her hands on the steering wheel and never acknowledge him standing there either.

One more thing and I'm done. Hunk not long ago was arrested. His mug shot was on TV, in the paper, on Facebook, and all over the Internet. At the gym where my wife and I work out, a man came up and asked me if I knew. I see him go across the gym and he spoke to my wife for a while. I'm sure he was talking about Hunk to her but she never brought it up. Never made any comments. If it were me, I would be like, my gosh look this guy was my customer, he was in my shop every day, my gosh he's been arrested. I  looked at her computers and the browsing history was deleted. .I asked her about it and she said she didn't say anything because she thought it would just make me mad, because I get mad about everything.

Jimmy,

Ok, I think we all have a better picture now. You need to figure out if your WW has learned anything from this mess and has "fixed" herself. A complete detail story made be hard to hear, but for me, to go on I needed to know where I was starting from. How it began, what led up to it, how it was approached and arranged, what was her intent, what excuses she gave herself to continue, etc.

Can she face truth, and see how and why these "mistakes" happened and have in place conscience boundaries so it doesn't ever happen again.

It's never too late to go back and analyze this, especially years later when you can discuss this calmly and rationally.

I am seriously thinking about going to him to get a divorce. I would like to take all of our assets and give them to her. I will leave with nothing but my clothes. If she loves me she'll take me back, and if she doesn't so be it.

Divorce can always be on the table should you decide you can't deal with the betrayal, but you've got this rest of this statement all wrong. Don't be a martyr! This is her mistake not yours, don't punish yourself for her fuck up. Should it come down to that, protect yourself and your assets. Don;t give away the farm to someone that screwed you over. It is not her option to "take you back", it is your decision to take HER back, if she can prove to you she has changed. The most important factor is if she can show remorse, and especially empathy for you feelings of being betrayed.

Jimmy. Many posters here really feel for you. This has bothered you for years. You say your wife has said now confessed to all of these things. Is she being fully forth coming with all details of the A. Is she filling in the blanks for you that were missing in the story you wrote above?

Most important, does she feel the pain that she has caused you? A Remorseful spouse would feel their BSs pain more than their own.

The reason I and others say to not rug sweep this and ignore it because they know the psychological damage that can be caused by tamping down and trying to ignore the hurt this has caused.

I am in no way saying you can't have a rewarding marriage going forward. You can. But you have to admit to each other that the marriage will be different than it was. Before it was based on lies. Now it will be based on the truth. That is a good thing. But on the flip side there was a trust there before that will need to be rebuilt over time.

If she's being honest about this being the only A then she has a head start on a track record of being trustworthy. However that does not negate in the past that she did not value the commitment to you enough not to get naked and entangle her body with another.

I am not sure what to make of the part with the girls playing pool. I am not sure if you are admitting there was some betrayal on your behalf there or not. If there was, perhaps you should come clean with her as she had with you. If there wasn't you can maybe at least admit that from her perspective it looked bad and she could have felt pain from it years ago.

My recommendation is still to get counseling to work through these feelings. If you do you can both get back to a sense of pride in being married to each other.

If you don't, you may find that the pain of the past will forever dampen the happiness you both can feel going forward, and that's not a great way to live.

Good luck

[This message edited by Stevesn at 10:09 AM, August 4th (Friday)]

Thanks for the update. It sure has cleared some questions.

Oh geez. This has been a MAJOR contention between me and my wife for years. She too has a small shop and I come in now and then to do repairs, maintenance and such. I noticed a DUDE standing very close to my wife whilst I was doing stuff. After I'm finished with what I'm doing and before I leave I come over and my wife introduces me to the dude (The hairs on my back are raised up like a razorback boar) and we shake hands. At this point I'll admit to having a bone crushing handshake (when neccessary). This dude then skulks out of the store. When the store is empty of customers the wife and I have a little showdown because my gut was SCREAMING at me that this dude is trouble. The wife admits that he comes in now and then to talk. That is one of my BIG rules. If she has a male friend he had better be a good friend of mine too. I think my handshake scared him because he hasn't returned to her store since. I was paranoid for awhile checking her phone and such.

I guess what I'm trying to say is to ignore your gut at your own peril.

My wife is in the process right now of making notes of all the details she and her lover had. She is very remorseful, and really really upset about how much she hurt me. She says this is been eating her up for the last 20 years. I understand why she did not tell me. If I had done something like that, I would not have told her either. It was bad enough that it happened, why ruin someone's life? She said that she intended to take it to her grave, but I kept pressing with questions so she finally told me. She has been very forthcoming. I have never laid a hand on another woman since we were married. I have never kissed, touched inappropriately, had sex, or anything else with any woman since I have met my wife. I believe that my wife was going through something at the age of 33. We had two children, we were in jobs that we really did not enjoy, she was beautiful, but she was getting older. I believe she felt like she may have lost it. Then this handsome predator came in and swept her off her feet. I really do believe that it was just sex. They never ate anything or dated in any way. It is disgusting. But at least she did not love him. Some people bring other people into their marriage and have threesomes. The thing that hurts me the worst are the lies, and the secrets  they had together. She is trying to write everything down that she can remember so there will be no secrets. Some of the stuff is going to be a little hard for me to take, but I think it will help. For example, her on her knees with him behind her while she watched in a mirror.

I truly feel that our marriage is bigger than his penis. I really do want to get over this and put it behind us. But I want to truly deal with it, get over it,  bury it, and put it in the past where it belongs. I do not want to sweep it under the rug. I really feel our first 15 years of marriage were fantastic, and the last 20 were fantastic. There was a 18 month patch where she was just boning this other guy. They only did it on five separate occasions. And those were not especially long. I am sure that it was passionate, harder, faster, oh baby, yeah like that, sex. All of my feelings and senses have been assaulted in ways I have never felt possible over the last few days. She is very remorseful and wants us to stay together. I want us to stay together. I really wish that she had just told me a really great lie to smooth over my questions. This has been hell, and I want us to work through it.

I too think you can eventually get over this. If she is truly remorseful she will answer your questions truthfully anytime you need to ask and to never blameshift this on to you. Twenty years is a long time to keep a secret of that kind from your spouse.

There was a 18 month patch where she was just boning this other guy. They only did it on five separate occasions.

While your asking questions I would call her out on the only 5 times in 18 months. If he was young and good looking I would think that number would be much higher. Not that it makes any difference now but why lie about that? There are a lot of woman that think they are protecting the husbands feelings by omitting certain details and I suspect that may be a lie unless you know it to be fact. Let her know that if you catch her telling any more lies... (your words).

After you are satisfied that you have your questions answered you can start your new marriage where there will be no more deception. It will take awhile for the horrendous mind shows to end. But eventually they will become less and less frequent.

^^ That.

What Marriagesucks said. There is just simply no way that two adults who are sleeping together only manage to "do it" 5 times in 18 months. My suspicions are more like 5x a month. But that is just based on everything I know about infidelity and what happens when two people are lusting after each other. They're unstoppable in their quests to get off with each other.

Anyway, could be all moot at this point. It's clear you want to reconcile. It's just that you can't R based on untruths. Even if she's trying to spare you the details to keep you from hurting. If you don't have the entire truths, things will nag at you and continue to lie right under the surface. It's no way to live.

Think about it. I wish you the very best. And yes, the mind movies do go away. I don't think I ate or slept hardly at all for the 1st 6 months. And all night long they would play in my had. My husband's co-worker other woman was a very "dear" friend of mine. You can imagine the movies were endless. One of the last words from C/OW to me were "I love you and no matter what happens, I'll always be here for you.". She knew that by the end when I had suspected something my husband & I were having a rough time. I though my husband was up to something but never suspected that. Or her. I was devastated. Heart was ripped out of my chest by a hand covered in jagged glass. Nothing prepares you for that moment.

Anyway, I'm rambling about my own stuff. But yeah, crazy ex-friend told me she loved me and was here for me. Ha. Well she was also "there" for my husband.

I believe my wife only met the fellow on five occasions for a couple of reasons. First of all the way our businesses worked, they were like prisons and you could not leave ever. She almost never left her store. I was actually amazed that she could do it five times during work the way that our business was operated. The second reason I believe her is because she is really trying to come clean and not leave anything out. I have explained to her that one lie, even a very small one is the end. She is in another room as I am typing this writing out all the details, or at least as many as she can remember. There's no point in lying at this point. I have told her that if there were more, she needs to tell me. She remembers the place and date of the first time. She remembers the places of the other four but has no idea of the dates or times. It was always during the week and daytime, never at night or on a weekend. She says that the encounters did not last too long, around an hour each. They drove to motels that were 45 minutes away and that limited their time for sex when you ad 1.5 hours driving time round trip.

Hopefully you are right and it was only 5 times.

But when ws decides to cheat and doesn't regret it during their A, they always find time. Parking lots, etc most of the time they always they make time for a quickie. Since you post that it was just sex for 18 months and only 5 times is really unlikely. Not that it matters how many times they did it, but if you are going to R you need the truth because trickle truth will bring you back to start all over again. After she gives you the timeline try the poly, but don't warn her. Also don't make the mistake of telling her about this website.

I don't want to beat a dead horse but... I have a barber I go to that works alone. He puts out a closed sign from noon till one. I think most if not all shops have a restroom or storage room. My point being if you want to do something bad enough there is always a way to 'Git-R-Done'.

You keep saying that no one here knows your wife. Maybe not, but neither do you. You can spin things any way you want, but the fact of the matter is, she has had this fantasy memory that she's fondly held onto for years, and now she comes clean and you're supposed to get over it.

How many times over the years when she was with you, was she thinking of this guy? Your anniversaries? Christmases? Birthday parties? Romantic evenings just the two of you? When she's intimate with you? Was your entire marriage a lie?

I'm not trying to be harsh, but these are the things that will go through your head over the next several months if not years. You desperately want to rugsweep this, and I don't understand why. Why dig at this for years and years to finally get the truth and then rugsweep it?

Bottom line, she's not the woman you thought she was. And if you believe it was just five times, I have a bridge I want to sell you. Waywards lie and minimize. They all do.

[This message edited by GoldenR at 3:54 AM, August 5th (Saturday)]

Jimmy,

At the risk of asking a dumb question, do you think that your anger, as described here...

She tells me I always have to be mad about something. I do get pretty aggravated sometimes with politics, news, and if I feel I've been wronged.

...may actually have been due to your unease and unanswered questions about your wife's activities? We can all have our grouchy moments, or buttons that get pressed by news or people behaving like dicks towards us, but seriously, I can't help wondering if the anger your wife has noticed may have been suppressed anger about the affair (and your suspicions about it), manifesting itself in other ways. You are going through a tough time at the moment, but if you can resolve this and find some kind of peace with it, you may find that you do not get so annoyed by the other stuff.

I have always heard "life's a bitch and then you die "if that's not the truth nothing is.

As soon as she told me, I got pen and paper and made notes, I had to figure this out, I tried to come up with a timeline. I had to know if any of our marriage was real. Was the whole damn thing a big lie?? At first, it was like I was standing on the beach looking at the ocean. Water as far as I can see to the left, water is far as I can see to the right, water as far as I can see straight ahead of me. How big is that ocean? I now have it so that it is like I am looking at a swimming pool. I'm standing there and I can see at least where it started and where it ended. The sex part from when it started and ended was about eight months. Of course you have all the winking, blinking and talking before that. I am not sure how long that took, the guy is a pro. But I'm sure it probably was another eight months or so of build up befor he got in her pants. I know she is by no means innocent, but she did not go out looking for this either. I have gone from bits and fragments of papers with notes on them, to I printed out calendar pages for this time period. I printed out pages of calendars from the time we opened that store, until a little after the affair was over. The way it came to be over was I was starting to question why he was there and I ran his ass off. The first thing on my calendar was the day and place where she had sex with him the first time. I feel fortunate to know that. I then looked through photo albums, I take lots of photos of everything all the time, I had a lot of photos showing what was going on in our life at that time. Photos have dates on the back of them,  that's not when I took them, it is when they were developed. But at least it gave me something close, an idea of what was going on in our life at that time. I have gone through the calendar pages and filled in as much information as I can figure out during that time. I even looked up on the Internet to see what movies came out during that period. We were big moviegoers and every Sunday pretty much went to a movie. I filled in when the movies came out on the calendar. Many of these movies we really remember seeing. It put a real time on this calendar that I could feel. There are a few things on this calendar I'm really not liking what I see. First off, my wife jumped into an exercise program. She has always been fit, and always took care of herself. But she jumped into protein shakes, joining a gym, quit going to our favorite restaurants, that we went to almost daily. I was not really excited about slacking up on eating all this exercise. After a hard day at work I wanted to go eat something and get cleaned up and get in bed. I had a choice back then, either go with her and exercise or of course I did not have to. She's my wife, she wants to lose weight and get healthy, it  will be good for me too. We have been working out continually now for 20 years. I know it is not just a coincidence that we started going to the gym just shortly before she had sex with him. And that's not all my timeline showed. My wife has had a little bit of plastic surgery. Botox, wrinkle filler's, not much but I remember with all of her exercise she could not get rid of some skin on her stomach from having children. She scheduled an appointment with a new doctor which I took her to. She had a tummy tuck, I was there for the operation, I waited with her, I stayed with her took her home a few days later, had to help her with a lot of things because it was a tough operation. Really put her out of commission for a while. 35 days after her tummy tuck is the first time they had sex. 10 days after they had sex she had lip implants put in. After a tummy tuck, you can't have sex right away you're pretty sore all over your abdomen. I am questioning myself, did he have sex with her before I did after the tummy tuck?? Some of you guys have said it's a shit sandwich, and boy were you right. This is the worst damn thing I've ever been through. I can't imagine anything being worse than this, nothing can be worse.

So here I am, I have this woman I've been with almost 40 years, I love her with all my heart, I know the first 15 years were great and she was faithful. This handsome stud came in our store, puts the look on her, she was at a weak time or something and fell for it. No she was not looking for it. But it happened for damn sure. So here I am, I have been on this exercise/weight loss program for 20 years thanks to him. My wife, when I see her naked, right above her pubic hair is a little scar where they did the tummy tuck. Am I now going to think of him every time I see that scar? I know she exercised for herself to make her look better, I know she got the tummy tuck to get rid of a little loose skin that exercise would not get rid of. But I feel that she was doing all that shit for him. If he weren't in the picture would she have done all that? She wasn't doing it for me. Should I send him a note thanking him for getting me in a health program that is extending my life? Should I send him a note thanking him for getting my wife in good shape?? She has repeatedly said this was not about me, it had nothing to do with me, it was about her, she was going through something she does not know why or what, but it was just about her and it was not about me.  When I showed her my calendar pages and timeline, she said that she does not remember doing that stuff for him. But when you see it on paper like that she said it sure looks that way. She keeps saying I'm sorry I don't know what I was going through, I did it, I did it, I can't change it, if I could go back and change it I would, but I can't. My emotions are a roller coaster, one minute I want to blow my brains out, next minute I'm crying and tore up, I looked around in my basement at pipes in the ceiling thinking about hanging myself but I think I'm so heavy I would just tear the damn pipes off the ceiling then end up in a mental institution! I'm getting a few hours sleep at night, which is an improvement over last week where I went three days straight with no sleep. Some days I don't eat anything, yesterday was one of them. I haven't had a bite to eat and I am not hungry.

This is all so much more complicated than you indicated in your earlier posts.

I and others really feel for the both of you.

Which is why I cannot stress more, you both should be in therapy, Individual counseling (IC), to work through this pain.

After a while Marriage Counseling may also help.

If you want to have a happy marriage again, and I think you do, you have to do the hard work.

You are on the right path, follow thru to the end.

Something that has helped me through this more than anything, I don't believe I could've survived without this knowledge. I have posted on here before that my son is a man whore! He is gorgeous, built great, charming, women just love him. When he was young he fell in love with a girl, he worked hard and he spent his money on her. He bought her flowers, gifts, took her out to eat, took her to movies, and really tried to show her a good time. He was really devoted to this girl and loved her with all his heart. She turned out to be a slut and had lots of guy friends. He was broke up pretty good for a long time. When he came out of it, he just does what he wants. He does not get attached now emotionally. I feel sorry for him because he had something really special, and that girl killed it. She really messed him up,and I do not know that he will ever be able to change. I hope that he finds a woman that he really really loves and can have a fantastic life with her. But right now all he has is empty, shallow, self fulfilling sex.

I know one story about him where he saw this lady, he thought she was cute, he went over and started speaking to her. He said their eyes connected like magnets. He flipped and flirted or whatever these guys do. This woman was married to a successful businessman, had two kids, has a beautiful home, nice car, I looked her up on Facebook and her posts look like she has a fantastic life. There are many pictures on her Facebook page of her standing there hugging her husband and you can tell by looking she loves this man. But she ended up having sex with my son in vacant houses on hardwood floors with no furniture in the winter time, in cars, just all sorts of sordid places. I know my son, and he cared nothing about her romantically or emotionally. For him it's just sex. He wishes her no harm, he wants to cause her no trouble, he's a secret keeper, it's just fun and games for him. I look at this lady and see pictures of her, her husband, and her beautiful children. My son said they fooled around for about a year. It meant nothing to either of them, it was just fun. She liked this young, handsome, well-built, stud being attracted to her. The way he met her: He was a car salesman, this lady brought her car in to be serviced. She was in the waiting room reading a magazine, waiting on her car. The dealership pushed salesmen to try and sell cars to people getting their cars worked on. My son saw her in the waiting room and thought she was cute and he approached her. He put his charm on her and convinced her to test drive a vehicle while hers was being worked on. And that is how that started. She went to get her worked on and came back with a lover.  She was not out looking for it.  She was about the same age and in the same situation as my wife.

There was nothing there except sex. My son has absolutely nothing to offer this woman. I see this and think oh my gosh that lady has lost her mind. She has temporary insanity. I can see it clearly looking at someone else. I think this is pretty much the same situation for me. This fellow was handsome, he was built good, but he had zero to offer her, and they have nothing in common. I broke down yesterday and cried in front of my son, he's never seen me cry before. It really tore him up. He said he's never fooling with another married woman again. I told him that if that lady's poor husband ever finds out he'll probably kill himself. I know it takes two to tango. But I also know this lady was not looking, my son approached her, and whatever these type guys do, he had her out of her underwear fairly quickly. Looking at my son's story is the only thing keeping me together. I feel that my wife just had a real good romp with this stud. Makes me sick, makes me want to vomit, has made me strongly think about suicide. But I do know pretty surely that she did not love him. So it ended, and now 20 years have gone by. I see why she never told me. My god how could she tell me such a thing? She says she loved me and never wanted me to know. She said if I knew she thought I would leave her.  That poor lady my son was fooling with, I know she has not told her husband. Why on earth would she tell him something like that? Your conscience might bother you, but somethings you just have to keep to yourself to keep from hurting someone else. I'm sure she is in fear all the time and wished that it never happened.

My wife has been working for two straight days trying to put everything they did on paper. She's tryin to remember things that were said, how it started and things like that. I told her they had a secret from me, and I don't want any secrets, I want to know everything, I want to know what he said to her and what she said to him while they were having sex. I want to know how many times they did it and what positions. She's trying to write it all down for me.

[This message edited by Jimmy1962 at 6:17 AM, August 5th (Saturday)]

You need to go see your doctor and explain exactly what is going on. Don't worry about embarrassment, unfortunately they see this a lot. He can help you with temporary help to sleep and the anxiety you're feeling.

Soldiers have said this is as bad or worse than battle. Do not hesitate to get IC for your self and find a counselor proficient in EMDR therapy. That seems to work best.

So sorry you are hurting and praying for you.

You need to go see your doctor and explain exactly what is going on. Don't worry about embarrassment, unfortunately they see this a lot. He can help you with temporary help to sleep and the anxiety you're feeling.

Soldiers have said this is as bad or worse than battle. Do not hesitate to get IC for your self and find a counselor proficient in EMDR therapy. That seems to work best.

So sorry you are hurting and praying for you.

I reposted this so you could read it again...