Reunited after his affair and I still hurt

Reunited after his affair and I still hurt ----- From: afraid - Date: 01 Dec 1997

I was six months pregnant and we were living together with my mother in her house. He tried valiantly but any fool could see he was having an affair.

In a terrible fit of rage I threw him out.

Of course, he went to her. I can't describe how awful it was. Recalling the feelings I had at that time makes me short of breath. It was truly the most horrendous feeling of aloneness, rejection and terror.

I went a bit insane I think. I called him and hounded him, screaming, ranting and raving. I pleaded with him to come back with me and drove hundreds of miles to beg him to come back. In a very cold voice he told me he didn't love me or want me anymore.

I drove home and promptly called him to ask him if he would just come and stay with me until I had the baby. I got an apartment on my own so we could be alone. I'd hoped it would help us get back together. He promised to come but said he had to visit his "brother" first. Translation - he had to go and visit her. (She lived quite a distance away.)

Well, he came to stay with me but it lasted only two days. I couldn't leave it alone. I had to know. Finally, he admitted he'd gone to visit her and he said he loved her.

Once again, I told him to leave. I spent two sorrowful months alone in that apartment. I cried non-stop. It was awful. I smoked cigarettes and drank tea and that was it.

He came to visit me two months later and continued to do so until the poor little baby I carried began to suffer for my lifestyle and I delivered early.

He, of course, wasn't around when I delivered because he was with her.

The arrival of the baby was like a balm for my soul. She took all the pain away, she truly did. I was so overjoyed with her I could feel nothing but joy.

He came, saw, fell in love with her and later told me he realized he still loved me when he walked into the hospital room and saw me with the baby in my arms.

He wanted back in my life. We spent six months talking about what went wrong. He visited every week and every time he came we talked. I called him every rotton name I could come up with. I tortured him with questions, yelling and screaming and cursing him.

Finally, we started to work together and finally, I started to believe him when he said he loved me and didn't love the woman he'd had an affair with.

We worked at it and a year after the baby was born we were married. Nine months later another little girl was born. She is a beautiful child.

So now we are working at our relationship. I still have great bouts of pain. I don't necessarily worry about him having another affair. I figure if he'd take a chance on causing that kind of pain again I'd be able to discard him like a piece of trash.

However, I can't get the other affair off my mind. It haunts me and I wonder if it always will. If I think about it too much I get angry all over again.

How can I get rid of it? How can I stop the images of what happened? How can I regain respect for him again? I look at him like he's an insect sometimes because I can't believe someone would do such a thing? Any answers out there?