I am so sorry you find yourself in this situation.

I am 2 months past DDay and we are rebuilding, as well. I discovered it, but he immediately broke contact and has not had contact since and we are in counseling. He is working hard and, generally, doing a very good job of showing he is committed to rebuilding.

I also have good days and bad days and it seems those can last about 2 years in a rebuilding situation. Everything you read (and I strongly suggest you read everything you can), talks about it taking 2 years (give or take) to move forward.

I have found Willard Harley's books and marriagebuilders.com very helpful sites for rebuilding. The first book we both read was Healing Infidelity by Rick and Anita Copple. It helped me greatly in those "my hair is on fire" days.

For me, I had to recognize that my husband, as I knew him, was dead and gone along with the marriage I thought we had. I am willing to give this new person a chance to date me and show me his love and care. I will take it slowly, like any new relationship, and will TALK about any bumps in the road or feelings that need to be addressed.

We have made a lot of progress in 2 months and have definitely talked more than we have in a long time. I have hope for the future.

I never thought I would stay in a marriage blemished by infidelity, and my CS knows that this rebuilding is a one-time offer. I am willing to give this my whole attention and allow him to do the same.

Time will tell if we can rebuild a new, healthy, marriage with mutual respect and love and brutal honesty. Today, I feel good about it happening. Tomorrow, there may be a bump, but I will give it the time it seems to take to move forward in a new way.

It sounds like you are doing all you can to have success (he seems to be all in, you are in counseling, etc). As far as building trust goes, that definitely takes time. Gaining trust is showing you deserve to have trust by being completely transparent in your every move.

I personally, do not believe in living in fear. I have offered him a one-time shot at rebuilding. If he ever does this again, it will be permanently over and he knows that. He has also been very transparent (I have all passwords, track his cell, he agrees to polygraph if I so desire, lets me know his whereabouts and hands over the phone at the end of each day and I have a tool to retrieve anything deleted). He knows these things are permanent, even if his trust is rebuilt there is no forgetting. Right now, forgiving is not in my vocabulary, but I hope to get there someday.

Best to you in this journey you did not sign up to attend. We are all here and know the pain. This is a safe place.

Really sorry you find yourself here it is not a good club to be in that is for sure. As howcanthisbe said do a lot of reading, some of it will hurt and you might throw a book down I still do once in a while. Trust well the trust thing takes a lot of time and he has to earn it. Trust is not something you can give freely no matter how much you want to believe me I have tried. My wife is very transparent even now a year from DD and I still have very bad trust issues. I was the kind of person that Blindly trusted her before and never thought this would ever happen. Cole has an article on trust that really put it into a good perspective for me. You will never have 100% trust again it died with the betraying of the trust you had.
One of the hardest things for me was she did not just destroy my trust in her but in myself. I also felt for a long time like how would I know if she is doing it again. Honestly other than rethinking the early signs over and over and my memory of how she acted I don't know if I would know if she does it again. I just have to have faith in that she has learned her of the pain that A's bring and that she does not fall in to that selfish trap again. I have hope for healing and getting back to trusting her over time but I as well fear that sometime in the future I will have to deal with another affair. I think that is something we will always fear to some extent.
I also realize now that an affair can happen to anyone that none of us are immune and that if I got divorced and met someone else they could just as easily have an affair. I even think that it may very well be possible that there is less likely a chance of an affair with my wife than someone new because she has already went threw the pain and still goes threw pain from her dealing with an affair. The CS has lots of pain associated with affairs to. It took me a long time to get passed my own pain and realize that. (At least most CS the ones that are remorsful and feel guilty and accept what they have done to the BS with empathy)

Please check out Dear Peggy.com she has so many good free articles.

I wish you the best of luck and hope that you continue to heal and grow in your marriage just be prepared for a long hard road. As Howcanthisbe said I have heard of very very if anyone healing before the two year mark.

Hi notbroken, We are almost 2 years out from dday and rebuilding every day. I was really hung up for awhile on when or if it would happen again since he told me about 2 infidelities within weeks of each other (used the first confession of one 12 years earlier to throw me off the trail of the one he was currently at that time in) ughhh, anyway I'm not sure if that feeling ever goes away but what I've learned is I can only control myself. He knows thru lots and lots of therapy that if there is ever another next time I'm out, done. Whether or not that will keep him from ever doing it again I have no idea? only time will tell but I will say that him going 100% transparent has helped immensely. He has no fb page, none of my questions no matter how ridiculous go unanswered and still is understanding of my issues and paranoia almost two years later.
It's definitely not the same marriage it was before, but I also feel more awake now and present. I guess I just always assumed he was the most trustworthy man I had ever known and now I know he isn't and he's human, pedestal no more.
Sorry I'm rambling but give it time and no matter what listen to your gut from this point forward.
Hang in there you're doing great

You are not alone in thinking when it will happen again. The first time my H cheated I thought of that constantly. I was paranoid when he would leave the house or when he was even at work. I constantly was thinking he is doing it again. It took a lot of him rebuilding trust for those feelings to go away.

I am a counselor and their is a gentleman (co-worker) in his mid 60's that I work with. We see his wife often for she is always at work functions or holiday parties. One day last week I was telling him about my H infidelity. He told me when he was in his 30's he had a 5 year affair. He said his wife never found out. I was shocked because he is such a good man. So 30 years ago he had a long term affair and his lovely wife still doesn't know about it.. It made me wonder if my H has had other affairs that I do not know about.

I wish you well. But I think those feelings will go away once rebuilding trust is solid. Good luck and God bless!

Yes, there are two articles on trust on my blog. They are currently the last ones I posted. I'd give a link, but DS might classify it as spam. Others can give the link, but not me. But if you search for healing infidelity blog copple, you're likely to pull it up. Its a blogspot blog.

Fear of it happening again is real. It does get better over time if they don't relapse.

One advantage you have now is your gut radar is on high alert. There were red flags I dismissed the first time that if they happened now would be cause for a full-scale investigation. So in my case, I don't think she could so easily get away with it now.

There are folks who are really good at hiding it, though. You can never know for sure it isn't happening again. My attitude is the ball is in her court. I'm more on alert. If she cheats again, I'll likely discover it When I do, recovery, as others have said, would be highly unlikely. If everything we've done to address this didn't work, I've got nothing else to fall back on.

By all rights at this point, I feel comfortable that she isn't likely to do it again, and much of my trust has been restored. But she has given me reason to believe that over the past 3.5 years. I feel like we've addressed it well. Now, time will tell. But I don't think I'd be so easily fooled if there is a next time. But who knows. It isn't beyond the realm of possibility that I do get fooled again.

notbrokenjustbent your feelings are normal for what you are going through. We have all been there and many are still there. I'm 3 years post Dday and still struggling to rebuild trust and still have our good days and bad days. dont let the 3 years part dissuade you some do better and then some decide not to keep trying this long you can only see how it all plays out. One thing that is almost certain is that your relationship is now forever changed. They are a few people that say that their marriages eventually became better than ever, I"m not one that can imagine that happening but for some it can, but I do see it possible to make it work. Your mistrust, concern, constant wondering will be withyou a long time, possible may never totally go away. The fact of the matter is that before you didn't believe this could ever happen, didn't think that he was capable of doing this, now you know that he is capable of doing this or at least was. Feeling stupid because he had no idea before or thinking about how you will feel if your fooled again is also common. Some people have some clues or signs but dont believe it and still feel stupid for not doing so, others like me had absolutely no clue about long term affairs and did and sometimes still do get to feeling stupid for not knowing and others knowing before I did. In short all your feelings are normal and will remain for a long time. Sounds like your are making it day by day and trying to rebuild. Good luck.

Once the trust is broken, it takes a long time to get it back. I'm 1 year post d-day and I don't trust him fully. I think he has learned what he could lose and right now it's fresh so he will not do anything soon. But to say that he will never do it again, nah my faith isn't that strong yet.

I just recently let it go. I mean like a month ago. There is really no need to stress about something I can't control. I'm working on me and thinking of me and my kids. I won't be as shell shocked as I was when it first happened. I still want him to leave that job but he loves it and really the job is not the problem. He could go anywhere and if he is not happy with his home life do the same thing again if he feels that is what he needs and wants to do. So no point in changing jobs. I will say he stays away from her. They don't have to see each other that much and he stays on his side unless he has to go there. It helped that her husband knows. I think if he didn't, we would be heading for a divorce because even though he knew the how bad thing were at home, she was still trying to talk with him and flirt. He talked back because he said he thought they could go back to being friends and he didn't want tension at work (don't worry I let him have it on that, so tension at home is okay?, yeah not a good day when he said that one). She did not take anything serious until I told her either she tells her husband or I will.

It's like my friend said and Cole said, if it does happen again you will probably eventually find out. No need in stressing daily about an adult you can't control. I think once your eyes have been opened and you compare things to while the affair happened you will see the red flags easier. In my case it will be pretty hard because my husband was still his loving, giving self even telling people I'm the best thing to happen to him, even bragging at his job (where he was cheating) about his family comes first and how lucky he is to have me...pretty scary. I don't really understand the dynamics of there relationship but I don't think either of them really wanted each other for a serious thing. It took a while but I found out. I have no doubt that IF he does it again, I'll find out again and there is nothing to talk about, it's an automatic divorce.