Happy Wednesday!
Surviving an affair and saving your marriage requires a lot of effort from both you and your spouse. Marital problems and issues take years to develop and won’t disappear overnight, nor will painful affair memories disappear with a snap of your fingers.
Saving your marriage is a commitment to stepping outside of old habits and comfort zones, and into unfamiliar territory. But in the end, it could all be worth the sacrifices made.
With this in mind…What efforts are you making to save your marriage after the affair? Have you and your spouse worked on undoing old habits that have caused troubles in your marriage? Are you taking a fresh look at your marriage’s trouble spots, and working on doing something different to resolve them?
Please respond to each other in the comment section.
Have a great day!
Doug & Linda
10 replies to "Discussion: What Efforts Are You Making to Save Your Marriage?"
Well, it’s my birthday today and I so wanted it to be a nice day.
It has been and I’ve had the most amazing cards and gifts off friends and family.
My husband gave me the most fabulous card (as always, through affair time also, he never skimped on the cards and gifts and compliments).
He also gave me a fabulous bouquet from the florist next door to his practice from where, as secretary, he has ordered her flowers on behalf of the committee they were both on.
He has got flowers from there in the past for me and I have hinted that I would prefer flowers from somewhere not associated with her.
Anyway, suffice it to say that instead of accepting them gracefully, SHE was then brought into the equation and AGAIN ruined the evening (my birthday one to boot).
I know it was all my own doing but why should he get away with carrying on his life as normal while mine is a constant nightmare.
He said in a text today when I said think how great our marriage could have been without her, that we can make it great but does he not realise what I’ve got to overcome and he would like nothing bettter than to carry on as normal and me to ‘forget about her’ and then everything would be hunky dory?
mil, the one thing that jumps out at me from your post is your husband telling you that you & he “can make your marriage great.” This is a GOOD sign. If your husband was anything like mine during his affair, he acted horribly toward you and made you feel like an “obstruction to his happiness” (my husband used those exact terms toward me.
Only AFTER he was completely finished with the OW did he tell me that our marriage could be “great again.” I say take this as a huge PLUS! There is a lot to overcome, but this really is a great thing. If you think about it, everything can be tied back to the OW. I could do a play by play each month and associate almost everything we do back to her, but it’s a conscious choice to not do that.
Happy birthday to you!
I just responded to you, Mil, in yesterday’s post. So interesting – we say such similar things! My husband said exactly that – “I just want to forget about her!” And he wants everything to over and done NOW… no more talk about the affair. Just move on and work on our marriage. Well, I sure do appreciate the fact that he wants to move on, but trying to do two major things at once – recover from the affair AND work on our marriage – is no easy feat. I am sometimes just fine and we have a good time, and sometimes it’s like I just fall into a hole and I get depressed, angry, and feel like lashing out or sometimes like running away.
What efforts have we made to save our marriage? We have changed many habits so far. Most visible is how we spend our evenings at home. Neither of us works late at the office anymore. If we are not done by 6:30pm, we either bring the work home or we just leave it for the next day. Most often we leave it – our marriage is priority one over anything else. At home, our time is all for each other right now when we are finished with kids time, as we recover and renew. I no longer sit at my computer all night, and he doesn’t fall asleep in front of the TV. Whatever we do, we do together. We check out our favorite sites online together, we read together, and we discuss what we read together. And we rarely miss a night of making love… and then cuddling together afterward. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? But somehow, those fantasies and thoughts still invade my mind sometimes and mar an otherwise wonderful time of rediscovering our appreciation for each other. I remember those lines he wrote to her, “I love you, Sweetheart, and I always will. Please keep our dream alive.” And then that stake goes through my heart again, and I am back to Day 1. How will I ever forgive him for that?
mil,
Happy Birthday! I wish it could have been better. Your post reminded me of my d-day. It was my husband’s birthday. He is working in another state (hence the opportunity) and a woman from college made contact on Facebook with him. That’s where the EA began. It ended tragically on my husband’s birthday. Her husband found out that she was leaving him and tragically murdered her and attempted suicide. It still seems like such a soap opera and I wonder constantly how this could have happened. Anyway, with counseling my husband has come to realize how extremely dysfunctional these people were and how he was dragged into the drama. He is remorseful and stills feels extreme guilt that someone’s life ended. It is all I can do sometimes not to think that it was kharma, but that’s a whole other issue for therapy. At any rate, we all have the same feelings you do and I don’t think any of us will ever forget what happened. All we can do is struggle through one day at a time until the wound becomes a scar. I really do think divorcing would have been the easy route. Staying together and working to get through this is tough. You have to make that choice to enjoy your day. Make it happy for yourself. She is not worth ruining your happy day. Just try to tell yourself that you cannot change the past, but you can change the future. I don’t know if I’ve helped, but I do wish you the happy birthday you deserve!
Anaffairtoremember: What an inspiring post!! I wish and pray for you and your husband complete “scarring” over of the past and a great future together in a healed marriage. You certainly have the perfect attitude to achieve that. If only all of us BS’s can keep that attitude . . .
Karen, thanks for the kind words, but I don’t have that attitude every day. Some days I struggle just like it was day one all over again. But at the end of the day, I realize that happiness is a choice. It’s also a different situation for me because I know the OW will never be able to contact my husband again. I’m sure things would be different if she were alive. And yes, Doug, the violence was horrible and is still incredibly unbelieveable to me. Just goes to show how one’s actions effect not only your spouse but every one else in the equation as well.
Anaffairtoremember, Wow, what a story. I was wondering when we were going to hear of violence as a result of an affair. Incredible. Thanks for sharing and offering your great advice.
Yuki and anaffairtoremember, thanks for the bday wishes. Yuki, as you said, you could be me, I could be you. Our marriage has never been better apart from the constant thoughts of what he said to her just like you remembering that particular line x
I’m glad to have found you through this site, Mil. I also fill in the gaps with thoughts of what I think probably happened, and that probably brings on more pain, but I need to see the whole picture.
I had to go to a relative’s funeral today. This relative had an affair with a co-worker and left his first wife to marry her. They are in the minority in that they made it – they had a long and seemingly happy marriage. It was very difficult for me to be there, knowing she was the OW. I’m going to have to get used to the fact that I will come across people who have had affairs, who broke up marriages, and that I will have to deal with it.
It is so hard to make it through each day knowing he is having the affair. But, I’m focused on working on my marriage rather than stopping the affair. I want him to stop it because he wants to, not because he is busted. Am i right to focus on my, the kids and improving our marriage with him out there doing what he wants? I don’t feel like HE can appreciate the changes I am making unless he stops the affair.