A hollow feeling of sadness and loss
It is now coming up on exactly six months since the day my fWW confessed that she had indulged herself by participating a ten or twelve month long physical and emotional
affair with her immediate Emergency Room supervisor, the senior Surgical Resident doctor at the Southern California hospital where, she, a fairly new RN, worked, also revealing that the child she gave birth to during this period was not from my loins, but the progeny of her AP. All this occurred fifty years ago, but the pain wss as real and visceral as if she had slipped into his bed just weeks or a few months ago. The lapse of time in no way mitigates or diminishes the deep hurt of betrayal. She also confessed to two walks on the wildside, longer than ONS's, but of a few days or a couple of weeks duration, which were purely recreational sex in nature.
We are both in IC, we are on the threshold of reconnecting in a better way, and I have reached a state of acceptance in my mind as to the reality of what she did, what her choices were, and the fallout as it affects both of us.
I I suppose I should be feeling more secure perhaps in a happier place or at least more content than I was six months ago, however my principal emotion is one of great loss, deep sadness And disappointment. It's almost as if I have been hollowed out and every other emotion Taken from me I can't imagine being joyful again. Triggers above and I never know when I'm going to come across one. Old photographs from fifty years ago both during her pregnancy and after her delivery and also the ones of the young baby and toddler growing up just leave me feeling exhausted in my sadness and bring back to thoughts of what she was doing with her AP to create this child....mind movies and more.Yet my Wife has been very good In doing everything that 1 could expect from her..she demonstrates true remorse for what she did, for her chouces,, repentant, contrite And a shamed Wife is what I see. Even with this I lay in bed next to her and look at the wrinkled face of a 77 year old spouse, and ask myself how did this happen? WTF.. Why why why????
49 comments posted: Friday, December 16th, 2022
Camera shy WW...
My fWW and I are now in a pretty good place in the recovery process and we have set aside an hour at the end of every day for me to ask her questions about her affair which have occurred to me or accumulated over a longer period. We have reached a place of trust and respect where my wife volunteers information she has remembered as everything from the mundane and anecdotal to the very intimate and highly embarrsssing for her resurface in her memory after the fifty year lapse of time since she had her walk on the wild side in 1972. I am quite amazed at some of the richness of detail she recalls, and I am encouraged and gratified by her eagerness to do this part of the healing work to help me.
It wss clear that something had changed dramatically in my wife's behavior patterns, her demeanour towards me as manifested by her physical and emotional remoteness, her constant critical and denigrating tone towards me, but innocent naiive fool that I was I didn't twig on that she wss in full blown PA with a doctor at the hospital where she worked. It was only confirmed a half century later when out of the blue she confessed to the sffair and showed remotse.
But one of the bizarre things I recall from that period was how regardless of the event, holiday or season, she angrily refused to pose or even allow me to take a photo of her.. as if by recording her image on film it would somehow fix in perpetuity her beinng in an affair, or somehow the camera would detect her betrayal of me. So I have a small weird collection of photos from Thanksgiving,Christmas and New Years Eve 1972 of my wife glowering, scowling, hiding het head or a few quickly snatched profile shots as she refused to look into the camera. Has anybody else experienced this strange behavior in the wayward spouse?
11 comments posted: Saturday, December 3rd, 2022
Anybody else surprised by the number of people who knew about spouse's affair?
My RN wife's affair with a surgical resident doctor while working in the Emergency Room of a Southern California hospital in the 1970's was, I have since discovered, the source of a great deal of prurient interest among the nurses and other doctors, many of whom were sexually involved. Few if any had progressed to a full on PA with a married nurse however, so the degree of interest in following the affair was high to the point that it wss agreed to not disturb the adulterous occupants of the suite of rooms reserved for Med and Surgical Residents when they slipped in there after work to enjoy bed time together. My wife has admitted that around thirty co-workers knew of their affair, even my personal doctor was aware of their coupling and in an oblique way tried to warn me about her affair.. I did not fully understand his monition, sadly.All my wife's sisters knew plus a number of female friends, I now believe even her mother knew. All in all at least fifty people were aware of her betrayal other marriage vows. maybe more. Anybody else have a similar number of people in the know? Does it disturb you as much ad it did me, knowing nobody, except one person, attempted to warn me?
17 comments posted: Friday, November 25th, 2022
