Therapy

Joseph Hanoa is the founder of www.marriageadvising.com/, a website that answers questions dealing with couples help.

"Triggers" - Images, Memories, Flashbacks

Peggy Vaughan, the founder of DearPeggy.com and the Beyond Affairs Network, is a noted leader in the field of infidelity recovery. Her books include “The Monogamy Myth,” “Recovering From Affairs,” and “Beyond Affairs,” among others.

The images and memories don't just magically disappear, but they do eventually diminish and then gradually fade away - if you work at helping that happen.

Seven years ago my husband was a pastor at a local church — there was a girl who started coming to church with a little girl. The girl belonged to my husband’s younger brother. My husband started spending a lot of time at the church or so that's what he told me, when I would call he would never be there. We were both working 13-on, 1-day-off at a local factory so when we finally got a Friday off I suggested that we do something with the children. He told me he was going to a church to visit, if I wanted to see him I would have to go. I told him no thanks and went shopping with my mother and daughter. My mother asked if I knew where the church was and when we got there his truck was nowhere in sight. I immediately went to the woman’s house and there sat his truck. I waited until 2:30 in the morning till they drove up, he said they got lost, the church was 30 miles away. When he got home I told him he was not sleeping with me so he left, it was 5 days before I knew where he was — he was with her. He finally came home but it took me a year to sever all contact between them. He swore that they never slept together I told him only God believed him. I made him take an AIDS test. As far as I know he had been faithful ever since. Two months ago he found an old high school girlfriend on classmates.com, after I read the 2nd e-mail I told him that he needed to stop that she was being inappropriate. I had a suspicion that he hadn't stopped but he deleted everything I got the cell phone bill but didn't check it, I had never had reason to. I came home from an overnight trip with my daughters middle school choir and checked the e-mail there it was I love you. I wish our situations were different so we could be together. I was so mad that I couldn’t even read his part. I told him to get rid of her. He immediately erased the e-mail and said he didn't know what I was talking about he couldn't find an e-mail. I checked my cell phone bill, 300 calls in 2 months. When I confronted him he told me they had stopped calling one another — he had actually got a Verizon prepaid so I couldn’t check it, he kept it at work. I suspected it, so I had our oldest son check his locker at work and steal the phone. He swears they are no longer calling each other and has started marriage counseling with me but I don't know if I will ever trust him again. Truly sad after 18 years of marriage.

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