It's on the way towards the positive path, but definitely not there yet. It's not uncommon for there to be a number of false starts on the way to reconciliation. Don't be surprised if tomorrow she changes her mind. Be prepared. She will waffle back and forth for awhile.
M-43 W-40 2D - 9 and 5
Emotion, yet peace. Ignorance, yet knowledge. Passion, yet serenity. Chaos, yet harmony. Death, yet a new life.
Thank you to everyone for your support and feedback. We are going to see a MC tonight (my W's idea). It was booked before she came to me to say that she wanted to commit to our M. Therefore, I want to use our time with the MC to work on our issues and get her help to guide us through the thorny parts. As a result, i have not discussed some of the sensitive issues with her. She knows what I want and I know what she wants. My goal is to have the MC help broker the conversation.
As I said to my W, I can guarantee that we will have some bad times but we will have a lot more good than bad. We cannot expect this to be smooth sailing, but with a lot of work, we can make this a great M.
This weekend, we came up with two mottos...one, be thankful for what we have. We have a great life, two great kids, we are married to a great person, we both have good jobs, we are happy people, we have fun together, etc. Two, don't stop the romance. We both agreed that we took each other for granted. We stopped romancing each other like we once did when we first met.
I will keep everyone posted on tonight's outcome from the MC session.
Me: 40, W: 40 M: 15, T: 18 D - 10, S - 7 D announcement 6/7/2014 A discovered 7/20/2014 (but denied by W) Still living together and sharing same bed
I think it's fine to have the MC help you negotiate this stuff. I'm trying to better understand what *your* short list of "what it will take" items is, so we can better help support you. Are you going to be asking for full transparency for example? Her to send OM a no-contact letter? Are you two agreeing to ongoing MCing?
The most common mistake I see betrayed spouses make at this CRUCIAL stage is to miss their moment of maximum leverage, they communicate fuzzy goals and boundaries, and they end up with fuzzy (at best) results.
If you have the Divorce Remedy by MWD her chapter on healing from infidelity should prove helpful. Her advice to the unfaithful spouse is important.
When my wife supposedly broke off her affair with OM1, someone once said to me, make sure you don't crawl on your knees through glass -- that's her job. There was a brief honeymoon period (2 weeks), but in the end, she didn't ask for my forgiveness for the affair or think it was wrong AND she refused to divulge any details about it. In addition, she didn't want to go to Marriage Counseling. In most affair recovery material, complete transparency about the affair is necessary. Why? Because betrayed people feel like the weeks and months during and affair, their personal history was robbed and stolen -- their life was a lie and they need the facts to make sense of their own journey.
I'm praying for wisdom as you slowly and cautiously move back into the M.
UpperCut Me: 28 W: 25 Married: 4 yrs Together: 7 yrs Dday: 9/14 (W ends affair & comes home) S: 12/14 (W restarted affair 1/15; moved near OM 2/15) No kids
M: 15 years BD: 6/25/14 EA/PA: starts 5/14/14 11/30/14 - A ends 5/15/15 - D is finalized. 11/28/15 - Start of new LTR with a wonderful woman (and still going strong)!
UpperCut Me: 28 W: 25 Married: 4 yrs Together: 7 yrs Dday: 9/14 (W ends affair & comes home) S: 12/14 (W restarted affair 1/15; moved near OM 2/15) No kids
