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[WillDo]

Gottman talks about the immune system in unhappy marriages extensively. And my wife went through a risk of cervical cancer. Blamed me for every part of it.

[Zephyr]

I'd be lying if I said I didn't have those thoughts occasionally. Still, life is pretty good right now. We go for walks, we hold hands, and this year is our 30th anniversary. We've made it through all this so I think we'll be ok. I tell her all the time that if I die first that the last thing I want my eyes to gaze upon before I leave this life is her face.

Tx, if you dont mind a question...since you two have been working things out, how would you describe the intimacy.

Holding hands and taking walks is part of it, but what about emotional closeness, sharing, sex? From what i am finding is that more times than not, after affair recovery, this new relationship never really goes back to a physical one. I think i recall one of starsky's posts indicating that the SSM issue never was resolved even after they have reconciled all those years ago.

I have been trying to get candit responses on this and it seems like men do not want to share for whatever reason. I will gladly stand down if you are uncomfortable with this topic or say that it is none of my business.

Thank you for sharing, and also for your perspective on so many of these threads, i really do enjoy your point of view and your matter of factness

[Squiggy]

Not to hijack, but it does help to answer the question. How candid do you want? It took a while (about a month to two months) for us to get comfortable with the idea. However, the intimacy is much more improved (frequency, intensity, creativity..., etc). Right now it's at a lull just because she's pregnant and scared something will go wrong, BUT we have openly discussed and check in about it.

Perhaps it depends on the cause of the SSM. In our case, it stemmed from lack of connection, resentment, and poor communication. Not so much LL.

[Painter]

To get through things with some humor,
when the cancer prognosis came in she was like "oh great, we just start to recover from my stupidity and now God is going to kill me as punishment for what I did." I told her I don't think God works that way.

Thanks for answering this.

I seem to see many people that go through this process get hit with all sorts of disease.
Some of my research shows that stress and the changes that occur to your body during this time make us susceptible to disease.
For some reason(maybe hormones) the bodies weakest links are attacked during midlife.
My knee was bad during high school and college.
So was my ankle and shoulder, wouldn't you know that now those are all
the problems that I have are in those parts of my body.
Those women that go through postpartum depression are more likely to
have MLC's and depression later in life too.

Please keep posting on your thread and sharing your story here.
You have posted it on other peoples threads but for transparency
it is a great idea to put some of it here too.

Just diagnosed with a chronic pain condition and arthritis. I don't doubt for a second that it has a lot to do with the stress levels I've endured for the last 2 years.

[Cadet]

Just diagnosed with a chronic pain condition and arthritis.
I don't doubt for a second that it has a lot to do with the stress levels I've endured for the last 2 years.

Sounds like priority #1 is to reduce your stress.
My cholesterol shot up by 100 points due to stress,
the first suggestion for high cholesterol is to reduce stress.

That worked for me and I did not have to go on meds.

[LiM]

TXHubby

Thank you for sharing your story. I find hope in it and that is the one thing I need in my life more than anything else right now.

LiM

[Stormchaser]

Tx - knowing what you know now - if you could elect to NOT read those emails or NOT know the sordid details, would you?

In my case, I strongly believe I've gotten TT and that's where she wants it to stay. My imagination is wild without knowing, and the little details that I *do* know are troubling enough.

So I'm torn between wanting to know and not wanting to know.

I guess only I can be the judge of that.

[J5K]

TxHubby,

Wow is all I can say. You are an inspiration.

A lot of times I feel that if I did move and co-parent to the city my W lives in that we would have a friendship and be great co-parents to our boys.

Emotionally I am not sure I am strong enough to bear the fact that W is dating. She says "who would date a mom with 5 boys?", well I am sure some screwed up guy would.

If I moved up to her city I would definitely meet the list of items she requested and would develop a friendship but I know her well enough that everything would be on her terms and she would not respect my boundaries.

She has been checked out since July of 2015. I know she has not hit rock bottom. My question is do I stay where I am or do I take the chance and move like she has asked so we can coparent?

[TxHubby]

That is a tough question. Let me say this. At the time I had to know everything. When I did it made me want to die. I was absolutely crushed. I literally could not believe that my beloved wife could ever say such things. I prayed for God to stop my heart so I could end the pain. I used a lot of booze and a lot of vicodin to medicate that pain.

I guess I have to ask what more did I gain by reading those emails? The answer is nothing. You could say "the truth, the whole truth" but really I knew the gist of everything that had transpired. Knowing every intimate detail did nothing to aid in getting through it. If anything, it made it worse.

Here's why. It's not really them during that period. You can't believe the things that they said to your or to their AP. They were really screwed up and not acting rationally. They were more confused than we (the betrayed spouses) were. They had taken leave of their senses. My wife today beats herself up more about those things than anyone else does. I've forgotten about that stuff for the most part. I rarely think about the emails anymore and when I do I do it knowing that those words weren't hers, they were that version of her. The broken version. It kills her that I know these things. I honestly wish I didn't. What does it matter if I knew everything or not? It doesn't.

If your wife is truly remorseful and you're working on fixing your R then you really do need to put it behind you. Now, the hardcore groups from some other sites will attack me for saying that. They would accuse me of rug sweeping. I'm not. What I'm doing is healing. Sitting around thinking about the things she said to AP during the A is not healing. That no longer matters in our lives. Once you forgive, you have to forget. If not then you'll never truly heal and the M probably won't last the long haul. For better, for worse. We've done a lot of worse in the last few years. I'm looking forward to better.

BTW, there are some other almost dangerous sites when it comes to fixing M's. Some of the hardcore people I talked about, remember that they're all divorced, extremely bitter, and live on those sites 24/7 pain shopping. Their first word to everyone coming there seeking help is "DIVORCE!!!" Stay away from them.

[J5K]

All I know at this point is that she is on a high. She is seeing friends and getting a lot of attention from men and she is on an online dating website.

She was brutally honest with me and said she is dating one person and it has only been dinner and coffee. She said she wasn't going to lie to me and I don't think she is.

She does not want to work on the M. She wants us to be great co-parents living in Toronto. The problem is we will take a huge financial hit because we will be in a city that is 25% more expensive than the suburbs of Michigan.

In February she said she wanted to reconcile and I took that as saving the M. She later stated that I took too long to dismiss the D and as part of my negotiations with her gave her S2 to parent. She never has come back to Michigan so the brothers can have some time together.

I was going down the path of being her friend and had my move all set up to transfer and then we went into a discussion that swirled into an argument for 3 hours. She kept saying she still wanted a D. Well for me I saw no reason to move up there then. I cancelled my transfer and she freaked. She has now filed and we are back in the D process and going to let the judge decide.

I don't care about the A she is having but I just don't see the point in moving if she doesn't want to work on the MR. One of us will get the short end of the stick and have little time with the boys and I am ok with that. She was even willing to go 50-50 custody with me if I moved there. But her actions do not show me that she wants to be in a M.

I am sure you have read all of this stuff before on my threads. 5 small boys between the ages of 7 and 2 make it difficult to do much. I am sure she will find a way to GAL up there even if she has the boys. I have some friends there but I was all gung ho to move if we were a family of 7. She just could not wait and a silly argument and a knee jerk reaction blew this all out of proportion and here I am.