At the end it hit my whole family like a landslide. The OM's wife had been my best friend (clearly I was not hers....friends like that, who needs enemies?....) Our kids were all best friends, like family. My kids and DH wanted to put all the blame on OM. That was easier for them than having to be angry with me. I was swamped by guilt over what I took from everyone I cared for.

Compartmentalizing was no longer possible, at all.

Shaving my head helped me to move on. It was partly an act of contrition, partly a strategy to remove the temptation of simply finding a new 'drug' while I was still weak. Worked like a charm. DH understood it meant I was rejecting all make attention but his. The rest of the guys I knew just figured I'd lost it or turned dyke and avoided me like the plague. Very effective.

We did some couples counseling, very little as DH preferred to sweep it all under the rug and declare it 'forgiven'. Not exactly, but that's beyond your questions.

No medication, unless you count alcohol :P, and I can't say it helped other than to postpone DH and having to face each other and our pre-existing issues.

Gotta say, fiberjunkie, shaving your head was dramatic, but I can also see how it would be cathartic.

Do wayward spouses often go on medication? What for, if I may ask? Depression over losing their affair partner? Anxiety meds to cope with the stress of living with the consequences of one's actions? I have only experience with meds from the betrayed side, do I'm curious about this from the perspective of "the other side".

I wish more WS would post on this. I'm curious too as to what they endured after the fantasy ended & the reality of all of it hit home.

Sadly, for all, I think they suffer when they finally "get it", for my CS...if I had been a different person, and just let it all lay the way it fell when I found the affair on FB...we would not be where we are, you see I am a detail person, I read everyword, all of the emails, all of the private FB messages, all of the public messages, all of the text messages on two phones, 11 months of thier "love" (lust and deceit)and I called her, and I text messaged back and forth with her for 8 months, I ranted, I asked questions, I plagued him with questions and my pain, I pointed things out in his face so he would SEE THEM, so he could FEEL THEM, so he could no longer make excuses or "COMPARMENTALIZE" them....I HOPE he answers here .....but if not, I could leave NO STONE UNTURNED, and sadly, sometimes the only way I can cope with all of the horrible details and things they did and said to each other is to disconnect from him, from what I thought my future was....

She: And the ppl that show me support think that I'm being way to kind. The first thing I read was pulling a 180 & understanding it enough to stick with it. There is no way I would be able to endure 8 months of getting all the facts. Time is too precious & life is too short.

I did read texts, but he has no idea & won't be told. And I will not be bothered to respond to either of them for any reason. All those texts did was confirm that he chose to cheat at different points in our relationship & his OW doesn't trust him. And she shouldn't....but she is one of those 'Crazy Town' women that Onyx talks about being on a destructie path and makes it her work to ruin a marriage. As far as I'm concerned, they are a perfect match for each other. It won't be much longer before their fling self destructs & he will find himself alone for the first time in his life & he will not be able to depend on anyone else. His loss...because my independence makes me the bigger person to walk away from his BS!!

The effects of my actions are becoming evident to me a little each day. I realize that, even though I was a good parent in the midst of the affair, I could have been better. My attention was seldom on my child. That was one fact I discovered that I have to live with and my behavior does shock me.

When the affair ended, it was not by my hand, though I made attempts to end it previously. Since I did not end it, I felt as if the rug had been pulled out from under me. I found out he had others besides me (big shock, I know). I chose to deal with the fallout on my own because no one else in my life knew. I went to therapy, mostly to deal with the grief I felt. Yes, it was real, agonizing grief. I had to get it out of my head so that I could accept what had happened and not get stuck in an endless pit of self loathing. I did not take meds, but I did a lot of reading.

This all happened a little over 3 months ago and I am now able to discuss my experiences with others on this site. I am at the point where I am learning to understand the whole dynamic of the relationship and am working to improve my life and the way I relate to my family and friends. I have literally had to teach myself how to live like an honest person. I can explain what I mean by that. When I was involved with the OM, every minute of every day was spent trying to find opportunities to see him. For example, if I went shopping, I went alone so i could see him or call him. Now I have to remind myself to ask my husband or my sister if they want to come along. I spent year living a double life and so I know it will take a long time to fix myself, but I was an honest spouse for many years, so i know that person is still in there.

One thing to add, and please don't take it as an excuse: my husband cheated on me and I dealt with that by finding someone who gave me attention. This is not a terribly uncommon reaction, I have come to find out. Since I know the reason, it makes it easier for me to change the outcome. My husband and I have a ways to go to repair our marriage but we are on the right track.

Had I known how common it is for a CS to continue the A after being found out, I may have been able to handle my husband's affair differently. I have read about several situaions here where the BS had a little trouble initially letting go of the affair even though they wanted to. When this happened with my husband, I took it to mean that he was going to leave me eventually. What I should have done was draw a firm line in the sand so that he knew he had to end it. as it was I was terrified that he would leave me, so I started looking the other way. Now I realize that people don't typically come out of the fog in an instant.

I hope this helps someone on here to understand their Ws's reactions.

So, while I am very sorry I chose this path, I believe

Redlegs - thanks for sharing -

Question - why do you think you became so obsessive with a guy that knew you were married?

Meaning what was wrong with you at that time that allowed you to do what you did knowing full well you were hurting so many people -

How could you obsessive over a scum bag? what did you get out of it? a vacation from reality? a vacation from your situation?

How does the human mind raltionaize that?

I think a lot of BS would really like to be able to understand that mindframe of obessing over someone who is so screwed up how anyone could turn away from their own children to think that way.

how does the thinking work?

no judging at all - just extremely fasinating of how one could brain wash themselves and believe that grass is greener when really that grass is dead and is actually a desert only with dead things lieing around.

Well, at first I didn't think at all. I'll admit that. My husband hurt me so I wanted to hurt him back. Then this guy kept the ball rolling. After the first time, I was pretty shaken up, but then he called me and wanted to see me again. That gave my beaten up ego a lift. The night we were together my husband was on a "fishing trip" so it was almost too easy. The problem was, before long I wanted a commitment and I did all the typical things to convince myself it would happen. After all, my husband was divorced so i figured that yeah, some marriages aren't good ones. This guy knew all the right things to say and do to make me believe he really loved me, when I know he just wanted sex.

In the meantime, my husband and I put up some pretty serious walls. we basically lived in the same house. that was it. we were snarky to each other all the time. This only served to make the OM look like a knight in shining armor.

Please don't understand me, the OM told me a lot of things that were not true, but in the end the decision was mine. I should have ended my marriage before I tried to heal myself with another relationship. I am not blaming anyone for what happened, just giving the details of how things progressed. The OM's wife finally caught him, so as you would guess, he is at home trying to save his ass. And I am trying to get over the fact that I was one stupid woman.

And also, as far as my kid goes, I was and still am the parent who signs him up for all his activities, helps with homework, invites his friends over, and all that. It;s just that there was always a distraction in my life so that now I feel like I never fully participated in these things with him. I can't change that, but I can make things better from here on out.

I am glad to share my experiences if it helps someone here. I know what it is like to be hurt. So I know you want to know how I could hurt someone else. The truth is, I had almost no contact with the OM's wife so to me she was just a faceless person. He told me the issues he had with her and he said he was unhappy. In reality, she is a pretty decent lady and didn't deserve it. I had several conversations with her after the fact and told her everything she wanted to know. That was my way of trying to make it right for her. I don't give a crap about him. The fact that he has been cheating on her for the entire 35 years of their marriage makes him someone I don't even want to know anymore. I have not tried to contact him since dday.

"What happened when the fantasy ended with your affair and reality of the damage was all that was left?"

I was shell shocked for a while. It actually took about 3 months for full grief, remorse, and deep despair to set in, when it did it was powerful. Before that, my H described me as stoic. I felt like a victim of a disaster, standing in the ruins.

"how your actions effect you?"

My actions during my A time affected me in almost every way. I felt like only half of me was left and I had to rebuild myself. I am living a different life now. So much is different. My focus, my past times, my thoughts and feelings, just....everything. At 20 mos I have come a long way but there is still a pain and sadness that is with me much of the time.

"Were/are you still able to compartmentalize the situation or are you shocked at your affair self? "

All compartments, walls and blockades came crashing in on Dday. No more. I am very shocked and hurt at my affair self. Truthfully? I can say about myself what most BS's say about their CS. I lost trust in myself, I don't really understand how I could do those things. Much of what happened during the A's was surprising to me. I guess you could say I didn't know I had it in me. I wish I wouldn't have. I am probably one of the last people that anyone who knows me would expect to do something like this.

"How long did it take you to move on from that behaviour/situation? "
"Did you have to go to thearpy and or be on medication?"

A big hunk of it, I moved on from right away. I dedicated myself back to my marriage and away from my OM right away and I meant it. I did have 2 phone conversations and 3 textversations with OM after Dday. There probably would have been more but my H blocked him. By 3 weeks post Dday NC was established. There were a few stalking type incidences later. Moving on within my own thoughts and feelings took longer. It was a very very gradual process. The feelings had to die a slow death of neglect.

We went to therapy for 8 sessions and then my H lost his job. After that we relied on reading books aloud together. Very effective. We still read marriage enrichment books.

I wrote something that I think you will find very fascinating. I know many have already read it since I have posted it before and shared the link before. It is called, "Not Why, but How":

http://www.dailystrength.org/people/602693/journal/3778455

Gabby,

Sounds like your heart was still open for an A.

A big hunk of it, I moved on from right away. I dedicated myself back to my marriage and away from my OM right away and I meant it. I did have 2 phone conversations and 3 textversations with OM after Dday. There probably would have been more but my H blocked him.