Being thankful and praying

[Ctflor]

We are getting ready to read five love languages. I hope it's going to be helpful! I relate to much of what you write. My h has noted that he was in a vulnerable place as well when his EA started.

It is good that you two are gathering that momentum.

[angel61]

HI CTflor,

Yes, I do see a lot of similarities in our sitch. Including the fact that the OW's are from different countries!

Yes, they were vulnerable because of things that were lacking in our marriages, and whenever I feel bad remembering the EA I just think of how much I have learned about myself, and our M in general, and know that it will lead to a better M in the long run.

Reading the 5 LL's is just one of those .... it does help, because now we are able to explain why certain things affect us more than others.... and stops the "I don't understand why that matters so much to you...." kind of useless argument!

But Love Dare is helping more.... because once you decide to love and learn to love unconditionally, then everything else falls into place.

I am glad that you are moving forward. I tell you, it will be two steps forward and one back, so don't get discouraged if you backslide!

[angel61]

I haven't been posting that much lately, although we have had a few ups and downs I find myself able to cope more and more.

Yesterday, H left to go on a business trip to xOW's country. Its a short one, 4 days, considering that it takes 30 hours by air to get there. He is with his boss. Its something that they have to do as one of the patients in their research needs surgery.

When he first told me, around a month ago, I couldn't help being freaked out. All sorts of things entered my mind. He told me not to worry, he was not going to do anything to jeopardize our M.

Since then, I'd had a few anxious moments, but nothing that shows outwardly. I am generally calm, and have decided to trust my H, although I know that I still have doubts. To allay my fears, I am leaving it up to God, and I do trust God 100%.

The past weeks have been generally good, although we have had a few ups and downs. It was our anniversary the week before Valentine's and we did have a backslide then. The he night before I tried to initiate R talk and H refused to discuss, saying he preferred to do so later, and it made me angry. I almost lost it, then later I backed off. H reminded me that one of the things that drove him away from me is my unpredictable and volcanic temper. I did realize that and apologized, and we ended up having a good celebration. I bought champagne, he coooked a special dinner and bought me flowers!

Vslentine's day we had plans but he got sick But to his credit, I actually forgot it was Valentines that morning, and he was the one who reminded me as soon as he woke up!

This Saturday was xOW's birthday. I couldn't help it, I kept monitoring my H's reactions, trying to see if he was thinking of her, but couldn't get any clue. We watched the movie "Fireproof" in the evening, and he was very attentive and made all the right comments.

I think I am starting to see what the bridge between DBing and piecing is.

I think the main thing really is forgiveness. Being able to make things work in the future, especially in the early part, is not about communication, nor is it about meeting each others needs. Usually during the first few months, you are too wounded, emotional, hurt, angry and attempts at communication and digging could still reult in huge backslides. It really all starts with forgiveness, and then acceptance. The others then follow... communication becomes more open, blaming is lessened, anger and resnetment gets under control.

This week will be a test of our piecing. On my side, I have to continue to work on not getting angry, believing the best of H, continuing to forgive and accept, and not let what happened in the past influence what I say and do.

I hope H does his part too, but that I cannot control.

I can only pray that both of us can do our part. Friends, pray for us too!

[Cyrena]

Hi Angel,

Glad to see you doing so well. I agree, forgiveness (and compassion) are a huge part of getting the M back on track. I think the forgiveness has to be unconditional (not just based on the fact that things are currently going well), and that the LBSer's ability to forgive influences the WAH's later ability to forgive himself as well.

As you state, you can't control your H's thoughts or actions ... so do your best to focus on yourself and your D having a good time while he's away, so that you radiate a positive energy when you communicate with him/welcome him back.

[angel61]

Thanks Cyrena, I am glad you are still around posting to me.

I have been OK, had a few moments of doubt about whether H is getting in touch with xOW while in her country, but no signs of it, and I am starting to sound too nosey in my phone calls/textx so I am trying to not ask about what he is doing there. Since we are reading Love Dare together (2nd time for me), I sent him one of the articles in an email, about believing the best of your mate, and I am trying my best to follow it.

Its been a few months now since we started on our journey back. It started in November during retrouvaille, after which things started to go rapidly in a good way.

The thing is though that I am starting to feel that we are getting stuck. We are now having fun, happy when we are together, and I would say almost at the same level pre-bomb.

H doesn't seem to mind staying in this level - I don't see him initiating much effort in increasing our level of communication. he still seems to be afraid to go deeper.

Sometimes I have this urge to stir the pot just to see some reaction out of him. Last time I even went so far as to tell him that I wasn't sure that he wanted things to work out between us, and that I was afraid that I was putting my 150% into making this work out and he wasn't. He just looked at me as though I was crazy and reminded me of how far we have come.

I do remember you said it takes months, even a year or so. I really just have to be patient.

It does get easier.

[Ctflor]

I'm not sure if this pertains to you Angel, but when things are going on an even keel with my H, and things seem calm, I feel anxious at times. Almost wanting to stir the pot myself. I guess there are times when I want more from H, but I am trying to be patient and let him work at his pace. It was touchy through November - January, then February he seemed to pick up the pace on working on the M.

Maybe your H is going at his pace? Just a thought.

[angel61]

Hi everyone.

Its been quite some time (2 months almost!)since I have posted in my thread, so I am here to give an update. I had some distressing times and had to stay away for a while (although I kept reading and in some cases, commenting on other people's posts), while I sorted myself out. I'm OK now, and am on my journey again (sort of like a detour though) but picking up more wisdom as I go along.....

My last post was when H went to OW's home country. Let me start with his coming back (and I may divide my posts into parts, as they may be long)

Part I. OW strikes again! OW went on a date with H's boss. H did not know and just learned when she showed up at their hotel. The next day, H and OW had lunch together.

No wonder, when H came back he was out of sorts. I was not going to ask, but when I went back to our routine of praying and reading the Love Dare, he was so uninterested and even complaining about it that it made me lose my resolve and asked him what was wrong. Our discussion rapidly spiraled down, wih H dodging my questions, making me feel that he was changing in his resolve to reconcile, until I asked the dreaded question: Did you see OW? and got the dreaded answer.

I was angry. All the bad feelings came back again. H was protesting that they talked about work, etc, but really - just the two of them? why not bring the other two people involved in it? She's not really hired yet, what do they need to talk about?

I snooped a bit and saw a fragment of an email from OW saying "that is such a beautful story...." - obviously not work.

I felt that OW was making a play at making H jealous by dating his boss. H told me that he did not even let her know that he was going to be there. The boss also had his eye on her even before so maybe he called her up. But obviously that encounter shook him up. Whe I looked at our phone records, I saw that H first texted OW the morning of the next day after she dated Boss.

Instead of being reassuring in our ensuing discussion, H was obviously unsure again, I told him that if he wasn't really going to work for our M, then he just let me know and we should just call it quits.

Of course, whenever we come to that point, H just could not committ. To anything, for that matter. He was just all "I could not make that decision, because I don't know. If you want that, it is YOUR decision." Of course, throwing it back at me.

I just shut down after that for the next few days. Cried to death, felt so depressed. It seems like the closer you are to an R, the harder you fall. I think thats what makes piecing harder. The ups and downs are more acutely felt.

I prayed for guidance.

And I did get my answers.... I got emails from some of the Christian sites I am subscribing to that were so appropriate.

One that really struck me was one about praying with your hands off.

It made me realize that truly, I was taking God's work into my hands again. I had to step away.

After 3 days, I decided to stop and not let anything matter. I put away all our prayer books, the R books we were reading together. I resolved to stop any form of pushing, even the things we learned at Retrouvaille.

I realized that I had started expecting again. I realized that I had stopped DBing in many ways. That even my resolve to put away the anger and resentment, and to truly forgive, had all flown out of the window. I was way off the track I had set for myself.

Slowly, I got back.

I realized my H is not ready yet. He may have started turning, but only started.

I have to draw on more patience.

To be continued......

[Cyrena]

Hi Angel,

I'm glad to see that you've done a good job of getting your composure and detachment back, after this setback. I was afraid this might happen, because, despite going to Retrouvaille, your H didn't seem as if he had come far enough in his own journey.

It's true about leaving them in God's hands--if you truly turn them over to God, then continuing to try to "control" the outcome suggests you're questioning your decision/God's ability. Plus, you need to be ready to accept that things may not go exactly as you were hoping.

Also, snooping will not get you where you want to be, partly because you really cannot gauge what significance to put on anything you uncover--only your H can do that, but he doesn't sound ready to be completely honest with himself (or you).

When my H contacted OW again after several months of no contact, it led to greater feelings of guilt than he'd had before, and sent him into the Depression stage, so in that way it helped him move along.

I look forward to reading your continuation....

[angel61]

Thank you again for posting, Cyrena. It’s so uncanny how similar our H’s behave.

Part 2: Consequences

The next couple of weeks after our big “fight” I felt like our relationship had gone back so much, not exactly to square one but to somewhere almost like our pre-retrouvaille mode. We barely spoke to each other, looked at each other. The walls went up high. The pain was back. I felt at that point like I just wanted to give up, to walk away. I was thinking at that point that I could actually be happier without H. The first Saturday, he and D13 went out to go shopping, and it was such a huge relief to be alone that I ate in the backyard, enjoying the beautiful spring day.

The next day, H brought us along for a nice drive along the coast. I was quietly observing H, and saw that he had withdrawn again into his “miserable” shell. He wouldn’t smile when posing with us in pics, not even with D13. Poor kid, she has this radiant smile and a morose dad beside her. That’s one of my “benchmarks” of my H’s emotional status….the no smiling thing in pics (he had huge smiles right after Retrouvaille in our Hawaii pics, and also during our Christmas party, just to compare!). Just in pictures though, because he does smile and laugh in regular conversation!

My feeling at that point was that he was back in his “I am trapped” mode.

This was all confirmed in the next few days/weeks. One time, he told me that he had an unexpected trip to make and because it fell on a day when we were having a school volunteer meeting in our house, I reacted (very mildly, to tell the truth, something like Uh-oh!). He blew the thing out of proportion, claiming that he felt that I made him feel bad ‘cause I was disappointed, that it made him feel like he couldn’t do anything, what could he do it was work, blah blah… I tried to explain calmly, but in the end had to yell at him to stop and let him know that yes, I was a bit disappointed but please could he stop it cause I am perfectly capable of handling it by myself!

A few more incidents …. He once told D13 to not marry early and have kids, that having kids takes away your freedom, so D13 commented that “Dad is so weird, hello, I am a child so he should think first before telling me that….” I did tell H about it, and he spluttered and said ….I didn’t mean it that way…..just thinking about teenage moms, etc….. Another time when I asked him what flight he was on and he accuses me of being in his business all the time…. All the generalizations…..

Initially, I was blaming myself for blowing it. We were in a good place, where we were starting to connect, talk a little more, then I started expecting again. I should have just kept quiet, not asked questions, let him work it out.

But later, I just realized that it was bound to happen, sooner or later. And that whatever happens, its all part of the journey.

To be continued....

[Starsky309]

Instead of being reassuring in our ensuing discussion, H was obviously unsure again, I told him that if he wasn't really going to work for our M, then he just let me know and we should just call it quits.

Of course, whenever we come to that point, H just could not committ. To anything, for that matter. He was just all "I could not make that decision, because I don't know. If you want that, it is YOUR decision."

Angel,

I'm sorry for your setback. I know this isn't easy, but you've got to make it clear to your husband that "no decision IS a decision" . . . and it's HIS, and he needs to own it.

"I cannot, and will not, remain in a marriage where my husband is still having inappropriate contact with another woman" is either a real boundary with you, or it's not. Throughout your ordeal (and yes I've followed along), I think your husband has come to the conclusion that the status quo -- the dreaded "limbo" -- is acceptable to you. He knows that you'll SAY that it isn't, but other than a lot of tears and anger, I think he knows you won't DO anything about it.

And upon the fence he sits.


Starsky