mommy, this is probably one of the most difficult things a person has to experience in life. For you, and for most of us, we've never dealt with this type of betrayal before. The emotions are so strong and so painful and we just don't have the experience to know how to quickly process them. It's a grief process. We are grieving the loss of so many things all at once. We're grieving the loss of our security, our normal life, our hopes, our dreams, our belief that we knew our H's would never hurt us,basically our joy. The grief process has no time limit and it involves such a range of emotions, which includes depression, anger, numbness. Everything your experiencing is normal in the grief process. Don't be so hard on yourself. Sending you support!

Building walls are normal. They are your way of protecting yourself against being hurt again. I find myself still doing it occassionally and I am 19 mos from dday. Healing is different for everyone and moves at different paces. Hopefully your H is communicating to you and trying to rebuild trust. Hugs.

I'm also 8 months out and going through the same thing. It almost seems (not quite but almost) just as bad as the first two months.

Sometimes I fear that if I keep getting upset about this and shutting down, then he'll walk away thinking that I'm not worth this much of a hassle. A portion of me thinks that he'll go running back to her because I'm such a mess.

Sending you lots of support!
~A

I think of it as a scar.....at first it hurts, it might get an infection and hurt again, if somebody touches it- it hurts, then it start getting better, it's a wound that can re-open if not treated, eventually it starts to fade were it dont hurt no more but you will always remember that is there and how it happened. Stay strong you are not alone!!!

Right around 8 months I experienced something like what Adogg is saying. I got angrier than I had ever been with the exception of Dday and the week following. So strange. And through my journals I learned that a lot of people seem to go through this period right about now. I'm starting to think this is normal.

I am almost a year into this struggle. Your right everyone, it's harder now then at the beginning. Maybe it's because things calmed down a bit, I started to hit some realizations. I find myself more upset lately than I have been in a long while. Not sure what it is, but I'm calling it normal. Maybe because the shock and awe have worn off, and it's just getting "more real" now.

I'm five months in, and I've noticed that I usually have a major freak out session after a particularly close or intimate moment or conversation with H. Like I'm getting drawn back in and wanting to trust again(or go back to that place of naivety), so I freak out to push him away so I won't get hurt.

Maybe after eight months your mind is healing more and more, and you're trusting more so maybe you had the anger/upset time to remind yourself not to get too close? Some kind of self protection thing I would think. And in all honesty, can we really trust ANYONE 100% anyway? Maybe it's our own internal protection mechanism reminding us, in part, to remain a separate person and not completely trust again for our own good? I found an article on separation anxiety that says something like this too. I'll see if I can find it.

Sounds pretty normal to me, though. Hugs to you.