Cheaters Anonymous Community Group
This is a support group for cheating spouses looking for understanding and strength. Betrayed spouses are welcome to post ONLY if they can do so in a supportive manner (no bashing...these posts will be deleted), and please do not comment on 'Cheaters Only' posts.
So putting this out there because I dont want to feel like the only one:
My hubby and I are doing really really well at rebuilding our lives after D-Day. But I still struggle with small bouts of paranoia sometimes because of how my hubby found out about my A. When he got suspicious he went through my email and the files in my office and thats how i was exposed. I felt betrayed because it was my private stuff and it was mess.
Fast forward a few months, I am currently away visiting family and my hubby is back home. Once in a while I get hit with a big feeling of "I wonder if he is snooping through my htings when I am not home" especially when I dont hear from him in a while or he is in a grumpy mood. I still havent brought myself (or am ready to) go through the 2-3 boxes of stuff from my xAP that is now in the back of my closet. Hubby knows its there and has finally accepted that I am not saving it to save it as a precious memory but that right now the pain and everything is too raw to open it all back up (out of sight out of mind). But yet when i am away from the house for an extended period of time (at work or on vacation), I panic that he is going to find those boxes and go through them. I have done NOTHING since D-Day to contact my AP or anything like that so its over and done with. And he has said that he accepts my boundaries about privacy and the boxes. But i still worry that he is going to go through them when I am gone and drive himself mad or call me up and confront me more about shit that is long ago over. and the rational side of my brain says he wont ever do that and that we are doing so much better and his trust in me is growing every day.
please reassure me guys. Has this ever happened to you? (the paranoia thing....once you are found out about the A you wonder what else he/she is going to find and blindside you with). BS (gentle, nonjudgemental only please!), have you had the urge to do more digging after the Dday with your spouse?
This has really been bugging me the last few days and I cant just ask hubby if he has randomly gone through my stuff...and i dont want to bring it up to him anyway because we tacitly agreed to not talk about the A anymore...that it was in the past and over and done with and we are moving forward together. i dont want to bring up any more pain.
My hubby and I are doing really really well at rebuilding our lives after D-Day. But I still struggle with small bouts of paranoia sometimes because of how my hubby found out about my A. When he got suspicious he went through my email and the files in my office and thats how i was exposed. I felt betrayed because it was my private stuff and it was mess.
Fast forward a few months, I am currently away visiting family and my hubby is back home. Once in a while I get hit with a big feeling of "I wonder if he is snooping through my htings when I am not home" especially when I dont hear from him in a while or he is in a grumpy mood. I still havent brought myself (or am ready to) go through the 2-3 boxes of stuff from my xAP that is now in the back of my closet. Hubby knows its there and has finally accepted that I am not saving it to save it as a precious memory but that right now the pain and everything is too raw to open it all back up (out of sight out of mind). But yet when i am away from the house for an extended period of time (at work or on vacation), I panic that he is going to find those boxes and go through them. I have done NOTHING since D-Day to contact my AP or anything like that so its over and done with. And he has said that he accepts my boundaries about privacy and the boxes. But i still worry that he is going to go through them when I am gone and drive himself mad or call me up and confront me more about shit that is long ago over. and the rational side of my brain says he wont ever do that and that we are doing so much better and his trust in me is growing every day.
please reassure me guys. Has this ever happened to you? (the paranoia thing....once you are found out about the A you wonder what else he/she is going to find and blindside you with). BS (gentle, nonjudgemental only please!), have you had the urge to do more digging after the Dday with your spouse?
This has really been bugging me the last few days and I cant just ask hubby if he has randomly gone through my stuff...and i dont want to bring it up to him anyway because we tacitly agreed to not talk about the A anymore...that it was in the past and over and done with and we are moving forward together. i dont want to bring up any more pain.
First, those boxes can be a powerful and helpful boost in your rebuilding. Let me explain. I was hanging onto some stuff in the early days that my H knew about. He wanted me to get rid of / delete everything right away but he respected my reluctance to let go. One day, three months in, I suddenly felt inspired and even excited to purge everything I could find relating to the affairs. We did it together and it was HUGE! It helped him so very much to see me take that step. It was a major turning point. If you come to the point when you are ready to take such a step, it may do more for your H, and even yourself, than you may realize.
Second, there is a "rule of rebuilding" that I think is very important. I understand the temptation to not talk about the A anymore and there may be times that it is the right thing to do, but you both need to know that if either of you feels a need to "go there" that it is permissible. Rug sweeping is one of the biggest pitfalls to rebuilding. It can allow for festering wounds that don't get dealt with and inhibits healing.
I also think it is important that you are an open book to your H and that instead of coming across to your H that you are guarding anything, come across to him as one who has nothing to hide.
If you haven't yet read "How To Help Your Spouse Heal From Your Affair: A Compact Manual For the Unfaithful" By Linda MacDonald, I strongly suggest you do so. It does an amazing job of helping you help him and avoiding common pitfalls along the way. It is even available as an audio book.
What kind of stuff are you holding on to? Is it letters or trinkets, or what? Why do you think you are still keeping it. I must admit, the first thing I thought of when I read what you wrote, is that yes it IS a box of precious memories, even though you're saying it's not.
Those boxes may be the final piece of the puzzle to rebuilding w/ your H. If they are out of the picture, you won't have the OM in the front of your mind anymore---which he is every time you leave the house, because you're afraid of your H opening the boxes.
Mary - mostly stuff related to the book we were writing. but things that his grandkids had made for me back when I was the cool "aunt" that hung around a lot, couple of letters/cards, memntos from his visits to see my family and when i went to visit his, etc. nothing that screamed love affair. but still, memories of times together. and right now i am of the mind to not throw them away because most of the things were things i had bought or i had gathered or it was from the kids. if he had given it to me, that might be different.
i guess i will just instincitvely know when the time is right to go through everything again. besides, my hubby still has a lot of stuff around thehouse that his ex wife gave to him or reminders of their life together before me (family pictures, presents, etc). yeah it bothers me...but that was a part of him. i think when we move in a couple of years though, i am going to insist on BOTH of us not bringing reminders of our pasts into our new house (we currently live in the house he and his ex shared)
but at the end of the day, now that my stupid paranoia is gone, i know he wouldnt go through those boxes. he doenst want those reminders to smack him in the face now that we are rebuilding. also, he would have to go through a mountain of school furniture and boxes to get TO the closet.
I gave fully to my H and vowed full disclosure and to be entirely open.
Then about a year and a half after that, I met........
No Dday and my "vow" is now therapy so there will be no one else.
I'm telling you now... You never know when your wife may accidentally stumble upon stuff if she needs to use your computer. Get rid of it.
You have stuff from you AP in your marital home. I am free to explore my home anyway I want to. My home is not for someone else who has already invaded my spouse's mind and heart. In other words, this is all the safety I have left it would drive me insane to know it there. Plus the whole transparency thing. Also, I'm sure my husband probably thinks about his AP from time to time (or shoot probably more), I don't want to think about him having pictures somewhere and the minute my back is turned or you have a few moments you are reminiscing (and worse masturbating) with pictures. That doubt is already in my head now (when we have sex is it me his is with or is he thinking of her, when he smiles, what is he thinking about, when we kiss is he wishing it was her, on and on) it really is a sort of emotional torture.
I look at it like a black mole, it shouldn't be there in the first place. I think it gusty of you to still have it and your husband is way understanding to let you keep it. That would have been an ultimatum for me. Destroy it and destroy it now (while I watch you burn everything in there) or you can add another file to that box, a divorce packet.
Please don't get angry I'm just stating my truth. I know everyone handles things differently. When you said that your husband said he understood I swear my eyebrows disappear in my hairline and I was like, wow. Even though my husband did what he did I can't even imagine how he would react to me doing the same and having souvenirs of the event.