A day at a time

[may22]

hi Alison,

That dynamic between my H and me has existed forever, too. It is only since this crisis unfolded, though, that we've talked about it and I have a better understanding about what is happening. Before, I thought he was just acting like a jerk. He is a mama's boy for sure-- chats with his mom on the phone nearly every day-- but she is generally kind and supportive, not critical (that would more be my mother). Regardless, he has a hard time disappointing the women in his life, and I include AP in that. He also has a hard time when we disagree generally, even if it isn't a fight. He wants us to be on the same page all the time. This whole we can't get divorced unless we both agree it is the best thing for him to run off and live with his AP is the same dynamic, just taken to a truly bizarre degree.

Anyway, I do believe this stems from a deep well of care/love, and a vulnerability and insecurity about disappointing me (or his mom or AP. He told me the hardest thing about breaking it off with her was disappointing her, feeling that he'd let her down, he'd led her to believe something that now wasn't going to happen, did this mean he'd caused her to waste three years of her life aged 31-34, barf, blah blah blah). With me, he's talked about it in terms of our relationship and how he feels about me, or what I mean to him, but not like he loves me soooooo much. I feel I could be more empathetic about it all if he said it that way.... but it is still his problem that he needs to deal with and I am trying to just understand it is happening when it does but not cater to it or freak out in return. And, most of the air goes out of all of it when I don't respond to his defensiveness by getting defensive in return.

Do you believe your husband is actually asleep when he initiates? I think you're pretending to be asleep so you don't have to say yes or no, and he's pretending to be asleep so he doesn't actually have to initiate. I could be wrong, but that strikes me as two people who are terrified, but who also really want to get close.

Oh god. This made me cry. I don't know. I've never questioned it when he says he is still asleep when this happens. At first I thought it was because his unconscious self had forgiven me for sexually 'breaking' him before his conscious self did. I do know that I can nearly always predict when it is going to happen before we go to sleep. There is sexual tension between us, whether he wants to admit it or not, and while some nights it happens without me knowing it would when I went to bed, I've been 100% accurate when I think as I'm getting ready for bed that it will happen tonight. No false positives. I'm going to need to sit on this.

I am going to ask you a tough question. A really tough question. You don’t have to answer if you don’t want.

Is there any other reason aside from the kids that you are trying to make this work? If you didn’t have kids would you try? Or would you be out that door and never looking back?

Do you love him?

Ginger, I do love him. I spent a lot of time on this early on-- is this relationship worth saving, the one between the two of us, not just the family unit? Is he a good person who screwed up or just an a-hole?

The thing is... he's my best friend and I'm his. He's my person. That is what has made this all so devastating-- I never in a million years would have believed he could have done this, the one person I trusted more than anyone else in the world, the one person I believed would always, always have my back.

There have been times in our relationship, though, that my love for him calcified under layers of resentment. I think if I had found out about the affair during the first year of it, I would have gone full scorched-earth D on him and never looked back. As luck (or non-luck) had it, I went through a process where I accepted my own contributions to our R problems and forgave him for his part, not knowing yet about the A, and rediscovered my love for him.

All that being said... while I do love him, if it weren't for the kids, I would have walked. Absolutely. There is zero reason to go through all this struggle if it weren't for those two girls. And not just for them, but for myself, and my identity as a mother and my desire to spend as much time with them as I can, even beyond wanting to give them a happy and functional two parent household if it is within my power to do so. I could find another love, I'm confident of that. But that person wouldn't be the father of my children, and if I can make it work with him, I will. I believe we have the ingredients to make it work if we both want it-- friendship, love, general compatibility.

[Traveler]

Happy Halloween! Wishing you and DH are able to enjoy your holidays, despite lingering issues.

[Sage4]

Hi May, how are you holding up?

I can't help but feel like the current election climate is a metaphor for life at the moment: patience, patience, patience. Covid: patience, patience, patience. And our relationships: patience, patience, patience. This is all really too GD much patience for my 'take-charge and get it done swiftly' personality. I am struggling under the weight of it all, but have nothing left to do but just be... patient. Sigh.

I have been thinking about zen and finding loving compassion towards H. You quoted this on my thread:

So I am struggling a bit here to reconcile these two things-- empathy for him and -- I don't know what emotion is tied to the way he's treated me. Anger, I guess. Frustration. I think I need to do some loving-kindness meditation practice, maybe.

Can I ask an existential question? Are you motivated to find loving-kindness because first and foremost you think that would be good for your R and/or H?

Emotionally evolved people like yourself might immediately respond 'of course not! It's for my sake, I want to be an enlightened human.' This is a place I was living for a long while. I should be more kind and accepting, I should have less feelings/anger/sadness, I should be more compassionate, I should be more zen. But it was kind of superficial if I really dug into it. I wanted to do those things for somewhat selfish reasons: I wanted my H to love me again, I wanted my M back, I wanted things to go back to 'normal'. I wanted to be enlightened. I wanted to be 'bigger' or 'better' than H.

Compassionate, loving kindness wasn't blooming within me from the inside-out; uncontainable, naturally overflowing onto others. It was something I was trying to apply externally. And therefore of limited supply.

You have done way more work on yourself in the zen/mediation practice than I have, so you may come back to this and say 'no, it is authentic and uncontainable.' Beautiful.

I found that I had to experience a lot of other emotional releases before the authentic compassion flows freely. Anger? Frustration? Sadness? We are societally constructed to believe those are 'bad' emotions and must be swiftly executed. But when I really sat with my sadness, or my anger without judgement, just feeling those emotions and letting them take me where they will, I was able to let them move on naturally without a fight.

This was a huge part of my process towards detachment: I had spent so much time with each of those emotions, I was no longer afraid of them, they couldn't control me any longer. They gave up their real estate within me and that allowed the space for compassion to blossom.

And before I come across as too preachy perfect, I had a HUGE bloom of rage this morning that came out of nowhere (haha, who are we kidding: elections? homeschool burnout? being a LBS?). I almost cancelled H coming over to the watch the kids while I took one to the dentist because I was afraid of what I might say or do to him. But I let that anger take me over for a moment, it went to some really, really dark places and then just when I thought it would be there forever, it moved on.

This is a really, really long way of saying that I believe it is OK to feel anger and frustration and sadness, that they are cultivars of compassion. And those emotions won't hinder your growth or the blossoming of M 2.0, unless any of them take permanent residence in your soul. So maybe make friends with them and witness their value as equal to compassionate kindness?

You are amazing, here's hoping we don't have to wait too patiently for at least one positive answer in our country

xx

[may22]

Thanks, CW, Sage! CW, we had a really cozy and fun Halloween with pinatas and scary movies and all the candy the kids wanted.

Hi Sage,

Oh yes, patience, keeping a lid on my bubbling rage (for aaaaalllll the things), and staying up late watching the election returns realizing that none of any of this is under my control... I guess I have had practice over the past year. So many things to worry about right now it is like my brain can't really keep up. And I also far prefer to get my checklist out and get some $hit done, so this whole letting go-patience-zen thing is hard for me.

Can I ask an existential question? Are you motivated to find loving-kindness because first and foremost you think that would be good for your R and/or H?

No, I'm really not... though it isn't because I am an enlightened human. It is purely selfish because I hate feeling this way. I don't like being motivated by anger, or having these feelings of rage and frustration and sadness inside of me. I look ay my H and I just don't know how to knit all the different feelings I have towards him together. He's a proven liar and cheater, though I do believe he isn't lying and cheating any more. He treated me like cr@p. He was ready to throw away our life together like a used napkin. He was ready to completely disrupt the children's lives and break up their family out of selfishness, though he told himself it was out of love. Which makes me want to vomit. And yet. This person is the man I vowed to love through thick and thin. The father of my children. My best friend. How do I reconcile all of those things? How and when do I open my heart back up? When will I know it is safe?

I read your thread's, and WF's, and IW and DnJ's, and I am so envious of that feeling of loving detachment. I guess I care less about feeling compassionate towards him than I do about letting go of the hurt and the anger inside of me. I'm also dealing with the feelings around AP, and the rage is much much more pointed with her, either because all I know about her is she's a wannabe homewrecker who did her very best for two and a half years to break up my family, or because it is easier to hate her than hate my H. Probably a combination of the two.

So, compassion and loving kindness currently take up no real estate within me. They are not authentically overflowing towards others. I just want to have those feelings take up residence and kick out the ugly ones. Not out of hope for my R, but selfishly, for myself.

I found that I had to experience a lot of other emotional releases before the authentic compassion flows freely. Anger? Frustration? Sadness? We are societally constructed to believe those are 'bad' emotions and must be swiftly executed. But when I really sat with my sadness, or my anger without judgement, just feeling those emotions and letting them take me where they will, I was able to let them move on naturally without a fight.

This was a huge part of my process towards detachment: I had spent so much time with each of those emotions, I was no longer afraid of them, they couldn't control me any longer. They gave up their real estate within me and that allowed the space for compassion to blossom.

This is really so helpful to me and Alison said something similar, about having to sit in the anger and process it before being able to move on. I think this is where I am, though the processing of it is so, so difficult for me. I didn't do so well on my IC assignment of feeling the rage and letting it move through me... instead it turned into an uncontrollable forest fire. I made the mistake of journaling on election night after my H went to bed, pouring all my ugly feelings out onto paper, and ended up waking up my H and interrogating him about AP, whether he was still in contact with her, whether he wanted to, etc. It was pretty bad and we got in a big fight, both saying things to hurt the other, and ended up with about 2 hours of sleep. Of course this was also all fueled by my election night anxiety (probably like your own rage bloom) and I should have avoided it... but it was not good. We had makeup sex and I felt icky about it afterwards.

In the morning, he woke me up and said a lot of really positive things to me, apologizing for going off the handle the night before, that he loves me, I'm his best friend, he is getting over AP, he knows there is progress and his feelings for her are fading. We're in this catch-22 where what he wants of me is to be his partner and best friend and to be building our M back up now, because that helps him get over AP. Whereas I don't feel I can give him that authentically right now, not until she's completely out of the picture and the thought of her embarrasses him. (IDK why that is the image I want, him grossed out at the idea of her, just like I am.) I told him I don't want to have sex with him for now. It isn't good for me. Not while she's still ghosting about our R, in his mind or mine. He said okay. I feel strongly enough about this that I don't think I'm going to have any trouble enforcing it. It isn't serving me right now and I feel strongly that I don't want to screw around with my fledgling re-interest in sex by sleeping with an H who hasn't fully extracted his heart from another woman. (And TBH I think all the discussion on this thread about it helped me to crystallize this, so thanks to all of you. I realized I care less about the previous SSM and his fear of going back there than I do about my own relationship with sex and desire, and while it was helpful for me for awhile to engage with him to prove I had it in me, I got through that part and no longer need to prove anything.)

My IC said she thinks it is a good thing I'm processing this anger and sadness, now, and that my anger is righteous and I need to own that and not apologize for it. That my H doesn't feel truly remorseful because he has been protected from any real consequences from his actions (beyond "losing" AP).

I think I want to hang onto my anger, at least a little bit of it, to use if I need it in the future. IC thinks it gives me a measure of emotional safety, the anger as a wall to prevent me from being vulnerable. And, the emotional trauma is part of that too. I love how you put it, Sage-- letting yourself process those feelings until they didn't scare you any more and they didn't control you anymore. I really really don't want to let them take up residence in my soul. I'm scared of that, letting this whole thing fundamentally change me for the worse. More to process, I think. I wish I knew when I could start to feel safe again letting myself open up to believing it might all really work out with H.

[wayfarer]

May, reading this I was both genuinely happy for you that you are sitting in your anger and unleashing it a bit instead of eating it and also genuinely worried about your expectations and how this is manifesting. Your anger is more than righteous. H and AP deserve all the fire you're feeling in their respective directions. 2+ years is a long, long time to be betrayed and deceived. It's long, long time to be fighting against demons you can't see. And now, now you can see it all so clearly. But hindsight my dear is 20/20 and you can't go back and change the past. You can't catch on faster. He can't stop sooner. AP can't get out of your lives any faster. Everything that has happened, has happened. It is what it is, and there is no going back. You can't expect H to get over AP faster. You can't expect H to be disgusted by her. You can't single handedly determine if and when AP is no longer influencing your relationship with H to your liking. You can't pick fights in the middle of the night because you're enraged. I'm sorry my dear you're entitled to your anger, but you aren't entitled to forcing H into the middle of your process. It is no more his job to deal with your rage as it is your job to help him get over AP. The boundaries you two have around this stuff are incredibly hazy and IMHO a huge detriment to the two of you moving forward in either direction.

AP is trash. I will never disagree with that. Someone who knows full well what she's doing to a marriage and children and does it anyway is a garbage person. H was selfish and immature and frankly lazy, just so wrapped up in his own mess that he chose to look outside the MR to fix what wasn't right instead of the looking inward and toward the MR. Those are undisputed facts. And frankly you don't need to feel one iota of compassion for people who are that disgustingly selfish. However, if you want to work on this marriage. If you want to heal and move forward. You can't just sit in the anger and loose it upon the world. My dear, at some point here you have to find forgiveness. Real, true forgiveness. For H, for AP and for yourself.

May, I'm sorry but I still think there is a whole lot of anger at yourself wrapped up in all of this. I know how bright you are. How grounded you are. How centered you are most of the time and being bulldozed with this stuff upsets not only what you thought your MR was, what your future was but a huge chunk of your identity. I think a huge part of the reason I've been able to take a such a 30,000 ft view is because I learned a long time ago allowing bad thing to happen to me, figuring it out way too late isn't about me. However, I spent a very long time wrestling with the idea that things like this were a good chunk my fault. Not in childish idea of "oh this is all my fault." But being genuinely upset with myself for being naïve, for not catching on to intent and motive faster, for letting myself believe in the good in people, for being so stupid, or so soft. For allowing people to use me, mistreat me, to fool me. I know how intelligent I am, how pathetic was I to allow this happen? I think we all end up wondering if we are actually that stupid, that unlovable, that unworthy, and those questions shake what we thought what we knew about ourselves to the core. It's why so much time in the DBing process is spent building yourself back up again. Finding you. Worrying about you. You become unshakable and much more tethered to your identity again when you separate the crisis from who you are. I think it would behoove you to take some time not just writing out your frustrations and playing the blame game, but to genuinely try to take an outsiders perspective and dig into what is really fueling all of this fire. Detangling all of that is going to go a long way in moving forward from this alone or with H.

Also to be clear, I don't think you need to rush to forgiveness, or blow through your negative emotions on this, but at some point here you will need to be the one calling the shots not your feelings. Please understand forgiveness isn't for them. It isn't for them to wipe the slate clean or to be absolved of all their sins. Forgiveness is about making peace with the things you can't change and simply letting all of that heaviness and heartache go, because it doesn't serve you. Because AP and the whole A living rent free in your brain doesn't serve you or your future goals. Because holding on to H not crawling back the way you would've liked or letting AP go on your time table doesn't serve you or your future goals. Because allowing your identity to be shaky in light of all of this doesn't serve you. Forgiveness is a cleansing. A ritual. It closes the doors on things that we may never get the closure on that we want or deserve. It puts us firmly in the driver seat of what we allow to affect us as well as the future of our journey. Forgiveness isn't forgetting. It isn't a cease fire, or a lock box to shove everything into. Forgiveness is a path to moving on that is healthy for you. Neither of them deserve your forgiveness, but you, your heart, your soul and your mind deserve the weight of all this being lifted from you. Forgiveness is a totally selfishly motivated act. It's also the step in the path towards loving kindness.

Reconciling what he did and what he wants now takes time. It takes time on both your parts. And the fact is you may never reconcile them. You may very well have to walk away from this marriage because you can't. But you can't even begin to reconcile those things until you start letting go. Your H the man who stands before you now is not H from 10 years ago. He's not H from 2 years ago. He's not H from 6 months ago. May you're not the May from 10 years ago or 2 years ago or 6 months ago. That's why they call this stuff M 2.0. You aren't the same people. This isn't the same relationship. This is truly starting over. Like a brand new boyfriend, you have to re-learn the ins and outs and he's going to have to learn the new May, and you're going to have to redevelop the dynamics of your relationship, and re-build trust. If you want to move forward you can't keep trying to make this restart fit inside the last game played. I know day to day most days are good days. I know day to day most days are normal, relatively happy, functioning family days. But you've both been so enmeshed in each other's process have you guys ever drawn clear lines where the old relationship ends the new reality begins and the demarcation where M 2.0 lies on the horizon? My H isn't a big talker. So that conversation was one that was never had even though we both started the process. He just stopped doing the stuff he new bothered me and started doing things to make me happy, and I reciprocated. We've since sat down and chatted about how we'd like to be in this new version of us. How we'd like to function for and with each other. Knowing how much he wants to build something better and stronger took us a long way from "ok we're going to try to make this work" to "we're making this work." I know you are doing a ton of work to find your footing after all this trauma, but how much work are you guys putting in to re-build and re-start? Could focusing on that effort in times of anguish, anger, and stress help alleviate some of the bubbling emotions? I don't know, my dear. I know you come here in times of pain so were missing chapters upon chapters of good days. I just worry because I know what you want and I want you to get that if you think that's what's best for you and the little ones.

[may22]

Hi Wayfarer,

I've been think a lot on what you've posted, both here and on your own thread. A few things are surfacing for me. I'm having doubts right now about my ability to stand, the possibility that this is going to work out and we'll actually ever get to piecing. I had always looked at you and your sitch for inspiration... if WF can do this, so can I. And your H seemed even farther gone than mine at the beginning.

But now I don't know if this is the case at all. It seems like your H had a little MLC fantasy blip. Rewound to a younger version of him and an old family friend. Pretended to himself that this is what he wanted and jumped all the way in… but it was never real. He had to take pills to get it up with her, FFS! And she was the one to break down the fantasy for him.

Whereas my H led a full-on double life for two years and planned his escape the whole time. Sex with her was staring into each others eyes ML. She telling him everything he ever wanted to hear, how amazing and smart he was, how much she loved him and desired him every hour of every day. And he just said so much $hit to me about how he felt about her that I’m having the hardest time having faith in the future of our MR, right now. Now I’m feeling that my H was waaaay farther gone than yours, even though his AP lived so far away. And his stubbornness and insecurity and pride are all barriers to him ever doing the work to get through this.

We got in a stupid fight again the other night. He said something slightly rude, I lost my $hit. In the morning he apologized profusely. We’re both scared this is M1.0 rearing its head again. I told him I felt like I was able to give him what he’s asking for now in the spring— optimism and trust and all the rest—but after he broke that trust TWICE I just can’t do it now. He said, you’re telling me your window was open then and now it is shut. And I wasn’t ready then, even if I said I was. My window was shut but now it’s open. Why can’t you open your window? It seems like the only way forward. I said, I don’t know. Maybe in a few months I’ll feel safe enough to do it. I really don’t feel I can, right now, until I feel AP is gone forever.

2+ years is a long, long time to be betrayed and deceived. It's long, long time to be fighting against demons you can't see. And now, now you can see it all so clearly. But hindsight my dear is 20/20 and you can't go back and change the past. You can't catch on faster. He can't stop sooner. AP can't get out of your lives any faster. Everything that has happened, has happened. It is what it is, and there is no going back.

This is where I’m sitting right now. I know you’re right. But I am going over and over in my head all these things that happened especially during the first year of the A and realizing I was living a lie and I didn’t even know it. How foolish and naive I was. The anger is still there, heavy and overwhelming, but there is a deep and profound sadness too and that feels overwhelming in its own way. Maybe like Sage I can just feel these feelings and be okay with them for now. It is just hard.

And while he is leaning in in some ways, he’s still doing his best to avoid really taking responsibility for his actions. There has been progress here— he no longer bounces directly to the SSM. But it is still there, unspoken but I see it in his body language, his justification for behaving the way he did. he’s tied himself up in knots about not being able to believe that what he did was really all that wrong because that means he’s a bad person, unworthy of forgiveness. He doesn’t like to see me feeling badly or angry because it makes him feel guilty and he doesn’t like feeling that way. We talked about an aspect of the A the other day that I was thinking about and upset about, and H said, I’m really sorry. That was unfair of me. I was like… unfair. Unfair is such a weak word for what it really was. It is like the palest of pink when we’re talking about deep, blood red. Even using a word like “unfair” undermines the gravity of what you did. It shows me that you don’t get it, at all. He listened, he didn’t argue or bounce over to the SSM, but I know he really doesn’t GET IT, yet. And maybe he never ever will.

You can't expect H to get over AP faster. You can't expect H to be disgusted by her. You can't single handedly determine if and when AP is no longer influencing your relationship with H to your liking. You can't pick fights in the middle of the night because you're enraged.

You’re right. I know you’re right. I just hate being in this place right now. I’m angry with him and frustrated with myself. I have no control over his path. I want to feel safe and I feel I can’t until her ghost is gone. I can’t stand giving her any bandwidth in my head and yet she’s there.

I think it would behoove you to take some time not just writing out your frustrations and playing the blame game, but to genuinely try to take an outsiders perspective and dig into what is really fueling all of this fire. Detangling all of that is going to go a long way in moving forward from this alone or with H.

okay. I think you’re right on this too. (of course you are.) IC also wants me to focus on “deepening the relationship with myself.” I asked her what that means and she said doing things just for me, focusing on what I need and want and feeding myself those things.

I don’t want to make COVID excuses but it is just so hard without any outlets. A year ago I could go out with friends or get a massage. Go to yoga. My friend thinks I should take up something really physical like kickboxing but nothing like that is available in my area— IC thinks martial arts, same issue. I thought about buying a punching bag (which Scout had suggested long long ago) but I felt like H would be so triggered by me using it… it isn’t like walking out the door to go to the gym where I could take out my anger in peace. He’ll hear every punch. But you know what? I bought one last night. So maybe this will help.

I was reading about the stages of grief on someone else’s thread and it was interesting in that bargaining and anger were reversed from the model I’m used to, and I see how that fits my path much better— shock, denial, bargaining, anger, sadness, acceptance. I’m in anger and I sense the sadness just beyond. The only way through this is through it. It isn’t fun work to do but I’m feeling that a lot of the self-care and calming mechanisms I’ve relied on throughout this were just bandaids to paper over the wound. I need to drain it. But the process sure is painful.

IC said to me yesterday in order for a couple to heal from an affair, the betrayer needs to be fully remorseful and take full responsibility for his actions. The victim needs to be able to see a way to forgiveness. Did I see potential for either of those two things? I said, I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t… but we aren’t there yet. She asked me what I could do to support H in the remorse and forgiveness part (trick question)— I said nothing, his work to do. She said, yes. Still need to let go and let God.

I do think I can forgive. I am just scared to let myself go there. And I want to see the work on his side before I take that step.

It’s hard. Today he wanted to talk. Said he’s having a hard time with my distrust and anger. That he feels we were on top of a building, at the very edge, a couple of months ago. Now we’ve walked down two stories but you are acting like we are still at the very edge. I said, I can’t read your mind, and for two and a half years there were things happening that I didn’t know about. The affair. You still being in touch with her in the spring when you said you weren’t. So OK, in your mind we are two stories down. I just can’t take your word for it. I want to be two stories down too, but I just don’t know if you’re telling me the truth.

He said, then ask me to leave. If you don’t trust me, ask me to leave. This will never work without trust. It is really hard to tell you I’m here, I’m not going anywhere, she’s gone, she isn’t coming back, and knowing you don’t believe me. You're not looking at the evidence right in front of your eyes. I'm here. I never left. If I didn't want to be here, I would have gone. I’m not actively in love with her anymore. (Note, this is the first time I’ve heard this. Previously he has said his feelings are “fading.” But I also think “actively” is a wiggle word. I didn’t engage on it, though.) But I can’t tell you I hate her and I don’t know that I ever will nor do I want to. I’m trying to keep going down the stairs together and you’re pulling backwards.

I said, I am trying to trust you. he said, you’re hedging. Which is true, and I think to be expected.

If you want to move forward you can't keep trying to make this restart fit inside the last game played….I know you are doing a ton of work to find your footing after all this trauma, but how much work are you guys putting in to re-build and re-start? Could focusing on that effort in times of anguish, anger, and stress help alleviate some of the bubbling emotions?

Maybe. Probably. I fear that without it, we just fall back into the grooves of how we interacted before and that is a slow train to M1.0 all over again. We’ve been talking about doing what you suggested, carving out time each week reserved for talking about this stuff. Maybe seeing a MC again. Setting down ground rules for how we treat each other while we both work through our own processes. He told me the other night he so many things have been on hold and he wants to build the life he wants to live and he wants to build it together with me, but I’m holding back.

I guess I feel first and foremost my duty to myself is to process the anger and the sadness in healthy chunks so that it doesn’t overwhelm me or prevent me from parenting or work. Second priority is to refocus on me, reestablish this relationship with myself as IC has said. (That work seems less clear to me.) Third priority is to figure out how I do all of the above without damaging what R my H and I do have together at the moment, and preserving the opportunities in the future. Do I just do my best to trust him and move forward? Do I stay where I am and wait and see? Reading about all the sitches here makes me feel that answer is clear… wait and see, then wait some more. I just worry about our windows closing if I hold back for too long.

[AlisonUK]

Oh May - where you are is hard, but I do think you are where you need to be.

I can share some experience with you? H and I don't really talk about his EA anymore (and I do acknowledge in the scale of infidelity, his was small potatoes compared to what your H has put you through - that offence to your marriage and wound in your heart.) I'm satisfied I know all I need to know, and I am satisfied he is behaving absolutely faithfully to me today. But if we both told our stories about that time, they'd be different. H would use words like 'unfair' and 'not having my needs met' and those are true stories for him. And I'd use stories like 'feeding your ego' and 'you had other options' and 'you felt comfortably lying to me' and those are true stories for me. I don't think our stories will ever totally match, and I am not sure that is necessary for healing. He knows how much it hurt and why it hurt, and I think I do understand a bit of what was happening for him at the time and why it was linked to how he was experiencing our marriage at the time. I think we both have blind spots, and the choice was fairly clear - I could either accept his view, and require him to accept mine, we could agree on that, and work on a new marriage where we could care for our relationship in such a way that we'd never slide back to that place again. Or we could keep on arguing, forever, that he'd never understand exactly why and how it was so painful to me, and I'd never understand how he felt he had no other options. So we left it behind, and I do think my heart has left it behind too. I don't know if that is the healthiest or the best way to do it - I talked about it a lot in IC and we never have productively in MC (though I am open to that happening someday if we need to) and I don't feel I am in denial or suppressing anything in order to stay in my marriage.

And all that is heart work. The action that follows heart work could have been us divorcing, and me deciding that I didn't want to be open to trusting him again (that is a work in progress, but I do want to try) and that would have been a good decision if it was the one I needed to take.

I wonder, May, if you need to accept that there are aspects of your experience - as a woman, as a mother, as a friend, in your professional and creative and spiritual life, and in your healing from this terrible wound - that he isn't going to understand because he isn't you. There's always a kind of existential privacy inside marriage, and I can't help but wonder if you are stuck because you are expecting him to understand your pain and anger in a way that just isn't possible. Maybe instead of asking him to get up close to it and really see it, your job is to get up close and see it very closely for yourself? Perhaps that is what your IC was getting at? You can ask him to respect that, and you can also - perhaps - respect that there are aspects of his experience you won't ever know or understand. And that is where trust comes in. Trust yourself first, then you will know if you want to learn to trust him or not very clearly.

I also - and this might be left-field - wonder if you need some kind of ending-ritual. He never moved out. You never ended your marriage, and you have not yet begun your new marriage. I am not suggesting anything as public as a divorce or a vow renewal, and this might not even have to involve your H. But I am remembering how affected you were by him throwing out all those old trinkets and letters - the ritual and action of that. Is there something you can do - some skin-on-action - that is about ending that old marriage? Really burning it down and getting rid of it? Clearing the decks for something new - whatever that might look like, either you alone or together? Maybe in time you'll have some kind of reconnecting ritual (a friend who went through something similar threw her wedding ring off a bridge and a few months later, accepted a new one from her H - maybe you don't need anything as dramatic as that!) Could that be something that your H is attempting with the bedroom renovation? Maybe you can't start something new with him not because he's not sorry enough, or not understanding enough, or not rid of the OW enough (you will never ever KNOW that - and that isn't because he is dishonest, or has been - it is because you can't live inside his head so sooner or later you will have to trust, or accept you don't trust anymore) but because you have not really let the old thing die.

Just some thoughts. Have a digital covid-safe hug from me.

[wooba]

May, none of this is easy....you have been doing so much work for yourself and for both of you. with covid, I can see how it is really hard for a broken M to heal when both people can't GAL and at least have some physical distance. I think what Alison said was interesting. What if there is always going to be this disconnect between you and H's realities? He knows he hurt you, but he will probably never understand the hurt the way you do.

I have to say though, when I read the part were your H said "If you don't trust me, then ask me to leave" and "I'm not actively in love with her anymore".....I really just want to punch him in the face. what kinds of sh*t is that??

[SteveLW]

May, none of this is easy....you have been doing so much work for yourself and for both of you. with covid, I can see how it is really hard for a broken M to heal when both people can't GAL and at least have some physical distance. I think what Alison said was interesting. What if there is always going to be this disconnect between you and H's realities? He knows he hurt you, but he will probably never understand the hurt the way you do.

I have to say though, when I read the part were your H said "If you don't trust me, then ask me to leave" and "I'm not actively in love with her anymore".....I really just want to punch him in the face. what kinds of sh*t is that??

Words from a lying cheater....that's what it is. This is why argument and discussions do not work. May, if you guys are not in MC then I give you about a 2% chance of making this work,

And while wooba wants to punch him for the quotes above, the "just trust me" attitude is what has me indignant. For 2 1/2 years he has done nothing to earn trust.....but now you are supposed to just trust him. Yeah, doesn't work that way buddy.

May, rather than going back and rereading your threads, can you enumerate for me the things that you required of him for him to come back?

[may22]

Alison, Wooba... will respond more. The ritual idea makes a lot of sense to me.

Steve, the primary requirement was 100% NC with AP forever. In addition, signing a post-nup that outlines the financial and custody arrangements we had discussed, which are favorable to me. (Note that we haven't actually done this yet, but have talked about it at length. I just need to sit him down one night and actually review the paperwork together. I don't know what is stopping me on this.)

Beyond that, there were significant changes in what he said. Previously, he had said things like "I don't know if I can ever be happy" in the MR with me. When we made the decision to stay together and work on the MR, he said things he had never said throughout this entire saga-- he believed we could fall back in love with each other, he wanted that, he had not shown me loving behaviors for years and he would show me through actions that he had changed. Instead of acting like running off with AP was his perfect life and staying with me and the kids was Plan B, he said he was actively choosing me and the MR. That was what he wanted. He went to the edge of D, securing an apartment, etc and looked at his life Ded from me, and realized that is not what he wants. He also told me that the fantasy D he had hung onto for so long was just that, a fantasy, and not only because I wouldn't have participated; AP wouldn't have participated in it either. Finally, he also came clean on a last set of lies and went through and threw out a box of mementos from AP.

I do believe he has been NC with AP this entire time and that the lies have stopped. (This is something central to his identity and I think a big relief for him.) He has not been showing me "loving behaviors" throughout the last two months since he cut it off with AP as he said he would, though those have stepped up somewhat in the last couple of weeks (which TBH kind of freaks me out, especially the PT). He went through a few weeks of being a total @ss, alien, angry and depressed. That seems to have lifted, for now. He is doing lots of acts of service (my LL) but cannot seem to deal with my anger. He is 100% open to MC but I'm not super interested until he is over AP since last time we were in MC when he cut it off with her he spent most of the time whining about being sad about her, and hearing him talk about her is a boundary for me.

That's basically it. He wants me to lean in and trust him. I simply can't right now.