Am I Ungrateful

[Annie2]

:confused: hello, just need a bit of input or a good talking to! My husband has today left his work where he had an affair with one of his collegues 8 months ago. He is now working with a different company but only a few miles away from his old workplace. I thought I might have an overwhelming feeling of relief but I don't. I thought I should feel appreciative that he considered my feelings and left the place he had an affair but I dont. His one expression he has used for years is 'nothing is ever good enough'. Was he right? Will anything ever be good enough for me to trust and feel loved again? I want to but I just feel I haven't seen enough evidence yet.

Have a go at me please and snap me out of what is probably self pity.
Annie

[tammy]

Hi Annie,
I know exactly how you feel. My husband also found a new job after his relationship with someone in work, he has been in his new job for 4 weeks now. I think that you may have done what i realise i did now in that i was so focused in the belief that everything would be all solved by him no longer having to have contact with her regarding work (i was driving myself nuts everytime he went to work wondering if they were going to have to speek to each other that day). However when the day arrived i initialy felt just numb not the mass relief i was expecting because of course it isnt enough on its own to restore the trust he has to earn that over time. I also felt like you, questioning if it would be enough, what would be enough.

What i will tell you is that i found that it has made a difference, not at first but increasingly so over the weeks as it actually sunk in. The fact that i dont have to worry all day whether they will speak has taken a bit of pressure off us allowing us to concentrate on the rebuilding, and the realisation that he changed his job that he'd been in for 10 years and loved for me has help chip away at the wall around my heart. In my view this was a real sign that he was committed to making us work. But it has realy only been in the fourth week that i have started to believe that it may work, that we may get the love commitment and trust back but that its going to take time (thing is i've never been a patient person!).

Just hold in there, give him time to show you that he is committed to rebuilding your marriage, changing jobs is obviously a big sign of this, but i understand that like me you need more and more until you are convinced. My husband vowed the other night that no matter how long it took he was going to prove and convince me that he meens every word, so im just waiting now until it sinks in.

Best of luck, Tracy

[Annie2]

Tracy,

Thank you so much for your reply. It really helps to know that what I feel was also felt by someone else (ie I could be normal!).
I wish you and your husband all the best too in rebuilding your marriage. I know we can't say 'if only' but don't you feel the more you allow yourself to feel 'happy' or a bit 'loved' you start wishing 'if only' or an even more destructive one: 'why'.

Partly I worry because he still knows where she works, lives and so on so there is nothing stopping him. Also knowing that it so easily for him happened it only takes the next office slapper to approach him in his new place of work and there we have it another affair. You can't help but understand that Bobbit wife (or whatever she was called) in America. Obviously that is not a realistic course of action for us and we just have to rely on time and trust.

Thank you again Tracy, I will try and hang in there but you can bet I will be waiting four weeks now to see if I feel different!!! I'll be posting you back if I don't. :D Really, I will just give it a bit more time.

Best wishes,
Annie

[tammy]

Annie

I know exactly what you mean by wishing 'if only', even though i may start to feel happy and loved (especialy when he's home) that happiness then gets broken by the 'if only' thoughts and more the 'why' as even though i can see that she started persuing him at probably the wealest point in our whole marriage i guess deep down i still dont really understand why he did it, and its these thoughs that are the most destructive to me.
I also worry, especially when hes at work despite the new job, that she will find out his new number and phone him, i guess i still dont trust that he would be strong enough to resist especialy as the connection is there between them after they established a relationship - that fear is there all the time not nessesarly the fear that he would start with someone new as i think i believe him when he says that he wouldnt let something like that develope again but i fear her. Thing is shes a 21 year old student whose body is still as it should be, i find myself thinking how can i compare to that!
But like i said, it has got easier since hes away from her totally and so i'm taking one day at a time hoping that as time goes on i will start to feel more secure in his love for me. I get bad moments still though, found myself up in the middle of the night checking his mobile, totaly irrational as nothing had happened, think i might just be going paranoid or mad! But the bad moments are getting less as the weeks go by so i keep hoping. I hope you also find that the good moments start to outnumber the bad. I guess under the circumstances we cant help but feel insecure as our whloe world and beliefs have been turned upsidedown. All the best.

Tracy

[Annie2]

Tracy,

Do you really believe a twenty something that needs attention from an older married man is a threat. Can you remember how you were in your twenties? I know I was far from interested in married older men. Good grief what kind of a sad and desperate person is she? Get a life love! Sorry, her not you.
I understand how you feel about the young body part. My husband had an affair with someone older than me but she had never had children. I've had 3 big babies and I've got the scars, stretching and sagging to prove it. But really are we going to let ourselves be compared? Those women were so desperate and needy that attention from an available person wasn't enough. Or simply they couldn't get it due to their neediness and big headedness. How great a service did they believe they were doing, poor unhappy trapped married man. How naive in life they are! And how full of themeselves. I'd rather my breastfeeding shaped nipples reached my stretchmarked hips than be so blind in life and make a fool of myself as a slapper who destroys others for their own needs. I've got self-respect despite my looks.

Don't torture yourself, he doesn't deserve you if he doesn't love and appreciate all of you. Sometimes I feel secure just knowing my husband would have anything! I saw her picture and she was a hound. I don't think it's about looks it's more the selfish feelings of self worth husbands get. We can't give them that because they can't hide their bad points from us. I bet little miss twentytart wouldn't look at him twice while he is in his slippers and dressing gown. She's buying into the image he gives her, Mr Executive or Older and Wiser Man. But that's not the husband you know and he can't pretend forever that it's not him either.

Pheeeeooow sorry if I sounded a bit on the attack about your H but sometimes a good vent makes me feel better.
Take care and don't change yourself.

Annie xx

[tammy]

Annie

I found myself laughing and nodding my head at the screen when reading your post, you are so right. I also have had 3 children and breastfed them all so everything has gone south! I've seen a photo of her and trust me shes mothing special even has buck teeth. Still dont understand what she was after with him, maybe it was the challenge to see if she could get him, we've heard rummers since that she flirts with all the engineers and is now all the talk between them.
My husband says that he doesnt want to change me at all as i would no longer then be the person that he loves but you are right she never got to see all his not so good points she believes him to be perfect but nobody is, he told her he didnt smoke and he does. I think shes a sad case as when i was her age i had better things to do than waste my time with a married man. He never mentioned me or the kids to her because she liked to forget that he was married with kids, if he did mention it she would get upset! can you believe that, shes definatley been living in la la land.
I feel much better now, i have lost weight lately, i call it 'the husband had an affair diet' it really works but wouldnt recoment it! Been exersicing and feel a lot better about myself but i did it for me not him. I am now the most important person to me not him, he's a bit sad about that but tough i dont care.

Tracy

[Annie2]

Hooray for us, the breastfeeding mothers who don't fear buck toothed and frog featured (my H's o/w) sad cases!!! Good luck to our slipper wearing, smokers breath (mine too) frightenend of old age husbands!

If she has been living in la la land is her name per chance Toofy Woofy? Oh sorry I'm really hitting the all time low now!

It was great having a de-stress with you Tracy and I hope we can do it again soon.

Take care,
Annie xx