Divorcebusting.com Forums Open Forums Piecing Our Marriage Back Together Again Progress, not Perfection!!

Wow, what a journey!! Been home about 6 weeks now (funny, it's been both the longest and shortest 6 weeks of my life!). Things are progressing pretty well, my mantra being "progress, not perfection".

Never thought I'd get to this point. Just 3 months ago, I had the D papers filled out and ready to sign. Now, it's looking like W and I are into our marriage for the long haul. Being back home has given her an opportunity to see the changes I've made, without me having to tell her what they were. She ran across my collection of books I've gotten this past year, one's ranging from step-parenting, communicating, solo-partnering, on and on (still have the DB book to myself, though). She was impressed and VERY touched on how much effort I've put into making things better, and is feeling kinda bad because she hasn't done the same.

It hasn't been easy, especially the first couple of weeks, but it's getting a bit easier everyday. I was finally able to get her into a C for her anxiety and depression, and attended the first session with her, at her request. In my interview with the C, I found out she's pro-marriage, and had copies of Michele's books on her shelves. When we went to the session, I noticed she had the KLA tapes, and commented to her how I had just finished the on-line sessions here. She wasn't aware of this site, and asked me to give her the address so she could look at it, and refer some of her clients to it. DAMN RIGHT I WILL!!!

W has had her own bedroom at the other end of the house for the past 5 weeks, she has spent the past 3 nights with me in "my" room. She's calling me frequently, and can't tell me often enough that she loves me. She plans things for us to do alone together. The sexual intimacy isn't there yet, she's feeling very dirty and very guilty about the affair. She wants us to get counseling together, to get some help in working this out. I'm being understanding and sympathetic, and not placing any pressure on her about this, or anything else.

Thank you, Michele, and everyone else here for the advice and support you've given me. These techniques DO work, and you CAN "change your life and everyone in it"!!!!
Always hang in there, be patient and loving. It ain't over even AFTER it's over!!

Great news!
Welcome to the club and congratulations on your success with the DB approach.You are a teriffic man to work so hard to save your marriage.Your wife is very fortunate and she knows it! Keep up the good work ...you are building a new and better relationship!
My "DBing" helped to restore my marriage last spring,however,I keep at it since I don't ever want to slip into dangerous territory,again and the healing process brings can have some ups and downs.

Enjoy these wonderful days...Jenny

JJ,

Welcome!

I saw your news in the KLA group. I was wonderin when you would find your way here.

You will hve lots of questions about piecing. There is not alot of info available. It's a good forum to see how the betrayed spouse struggles with reconcilliation. It seems that fear is the primary demon on this forum. You will hear some good ideas about dealing with the struggles.

Your welcome to stay a week or so. I'm not sure I like sharin the wimmens here with another guy .
Kent

[This message has been edited by KentS (edited 05-09-2001).]

Hey JamesJohn, sounds like you're doing great. I may have to start my own post here soon.

It's so helpful to read through all these posts and see that what H and I are going through is pretty much the norm, gives me hope. I'm also glad (in a self centered way) to see your spouse doesn't have that passion back right away either. That is a big concern of my H's and I've felt it could return and was a normal emotion for him, on the heels of the affiar. He fears it means it will never return.

I'm also interested to read about the separate beds. H and I slept together (no sex) for 3 nights after he decided to work on us, but I think that was to much for him and he's backed away and isn't staying over anymore. Did you suggest that she have the extra bedroom or did she-that's something that I could suggest to let H know I don't expect him right back in the sack and give him some space maybe. What does everyone think?

You all give me so much hope as I am just beginning this new phase!

I'll be back.

Heidi

Jenny - Thanks for your kind words. I love my W deeply as a person, and every effort I've made is well worth it for her, for me, and for us. I TOTALLY agree with you about keeping up the DB'ing, and not slipping back into old patterns. I've really found that some of the situations we encounter may not have changed, but they way I react to them has, which makes all the difference in the world. If some of the same things that are happening now happened a year ago, I'm not sure what I would have done and where we'd be.
My W does feel fortunate, has told me so, but the problem now is she feels unworthy of the kindness I've shown, and how I treat her. A lot of self-esteem issues on her part, trying to work through them daily, together.

Kent - You are SOOO greedy!! I'm just trying to give you a hand, buddy! There's some pretty awesome "wimmens" here, probably more than any one man could handle!
Thanks for your welcome. It feels good to finally be here.

Heidi - Sounds like you're doing great, too! You don't sound like a newcomer, think it IS time for you to move here also!
The physical part returning to your relationship is something that shouldn't be rushed or forced. Too much too soon can ruin the whole thing. It might be like the difference between just having sex and making love. The time must be right, not planned or expected, and not forced. For us, it just happened last night, in the middle of watching a movie by ourselves. We were spending time relaxing, and laughing hysterically at parts of the movie. Neither of us planned on it or expected it, which added a lot of passion to it. (I'll stop there for now, thank you!)
From talking and listening to my W, there is a tremendous amount of guilt and shame inside her about the affair, and it's going to take a lot for her to work through it. There's some things about it we can work on together, but there's a lot she needs to feel on her own.
Re the separate bed deal, we, too, spent the first few nights in the same bed. It was comforting in a way, but also very uncomfortable, especially for her. In some of my "snooping", I found where she wrote she was scared of being smoothered by our relationship. With this knowledge, I made sure to give her plenty of space. It was her idea about the separate rooms, and I gave her my full understanding on this. She went back and forth on actually "moving out" of "our/my" room, felt kinda bad about it, but I supported her on the decision. She's been back in "my" room for the past 4 nights now, and it looks like she's here to stay. "Her" room is still there when she needs it.
If it were me, I would offer the separate bedroom option to your H. Be sure to let him know that you just want him to be comfortable. Give him the room and space to grow, and the time to catch up to you. You've come a long way to get to where you are now.

[This message has been edited by Jamesjohn (edited 05-10-2001).]

Hi, everyone! Just updating a little, and venting a little. Am into the "one step backward" part, I need to regroup myself, and look at the progress being made.

Mother's Day ended up being a bad day for W towards the end of the day. Our S is living out of state with his uncle, and him not being home got to her. I tried to be very supportive, but I can only do so much, and she ended up going "blue", and started heading into a bout of depression. She ended up staying back in "her" room that evening, and has been there since. She went pretty "gray" for a few days, but is starting to come out of it. I think I'm feeling the fallout from it now. There's been a lot going on, I've been giving a lot to her, and I'm starting to feel needy now. Time for me to distance a bit, I think. Been doing that in small doses, and it's amazing to see how well it works.

It was just so nice to be sleeping with each other again. I may have backslid, told her I felt she was running away from me by going back to "her" room. She told me she liked it when I invited her to stay in "my" room, I told her she was welcome there anytime.

Watched a show on tv the other night which dealt with an OM, and it kinda got to me, and I think it got to her, too. We haven't talked about it, I don't want to start an OR discussion right now. Well, I DO want to talk, but I know I shouldn't.

We've been having a lot of good times together lately, there is a lot of forward movement, I need to remember that, and not push it. It's hard at times.

We met with her counselor again, I think this will go well. W will meet with her alone next time, which is fine. I told W I'd go with her as long as she wanted to. This is HER therapy, ours will come soon. Her C seems very solution oriented, and is giving her some tools to help deal with her situations. I had a marriage counseling session set for the same day, but canceled it, thinking it may be too much at once. Maybe I was wrong, she was pretty deep in her depression, and I took it upon myself to cancel the appointment. She did agree to listen to the KLA tapes with me, hoping to start that soon.

I need to remember to have a lot of patience, and look towards progress, and not perfection, right?!?!

Hey, gang! Things are going pretty well. W's been staying back in "my" room. Started out sleeping on top of the covers with her own blanket, but last night made it all the way under the sheets with me!

I've been changing some of my patterns lately. Sometimes I'll make the coffee before I leave in the a.m., and leave some kind of "happy thought" type note for her. I didn't do that the last few days of last week, and noticed her curiousity taking hold, and her drawing closer.

Had a good weekend, spent a lot of time together. Did some shopping, did some video-watching, spent time doing stuff in the yard. She's been commenting on how nice it is when we work together, such as the yard stuff, cooking, shopping, or whatever. OK, so this is some of what works, so I'll keep doing it!

There have been a few times when things could have gotten ugly like they would have in the past, but it didn't get far. Seems we've BOTH been changing our immediate reactions to things, and stop the usual patterns before they get too far. Let me tell you, I'm sure the non-OR quality times we're having is making this a lot easier.

She's still a bit uncomfortable about emotional and physical intimacy, but I can see that fading a little at a time. She wants to explain this fear to me, but she can't put it into words, can't really explain it to herself. I'm not pushing, this will come in time. Hopefully, her counseling will help her/us through this.

We went to the store the other day, she stayed in my car, noticed my DB book in the back seat. She turned it over, saw the title, and flipped it back upside down right away. I didn't say anything, but I noticed when I got back in the car, it was moved, with the title facing up. Wonder how much of it she read? Her mood changed slightly for a while after this, but became very good again shortly.

I used to think she hated how much time I spent "studying" things, but she has told me she admires how much I try to learn about things. She has once admitted that part of her feels guilty about how much effort I've put into things compared to her. I'm trying to back-off occassionally, and let her do what she can. That see-saw effect thing.

Progress, not perfection.

JJ,
It's that overwelming majority view that relationships should not be hard work. They should just happen.

I have this view that there are three types of married couples.

Those that work to make their relationships better.

Those that think relationships just happen and are going through divorce.

Those that are ignorant and are about to get a rude awakening.

Guess that explains the 50% D rate. The sad note is that it takes only one ignoramous to allow a marriage to fail to the point of D.

Keep it up JJ. The realizations will keep coming.

Kent

Kent - I think you're right about the hard work. But, then again, to me, maybe "hard" ain't the right word for it. Sorta takes the feeling of fun out of it! Maybe it should be more like "dedicated" work. "Hard" puts into my mind something that's very difficult, too serious, and toilsome (is that a real word?!). Does that make any sense to you?
Just kinda thinking out loud, but it seems to me like sometimes people tend to take life too grimly and seriously. I think the more we lighten up and have fun with things, the better life we have. We create more pleasant memories for people to associate with being around us. I know this can't apply in every situation at all times, but the more it happens, the better.
I lost this dedication in the past, and so did my W. This kinda relates to someting she and I talked about last night. "finding" time to do some things versus "making" the time. Last night, we "made" time to have a date and go to the movies. We both had other things we could have done, but we "dedicated" ourselves, especially her, to do this important thing for "us".
I guess where I'm heading with this is that I'm trying to create new and pleasant memories with my W, things for her to look at, and remind her that she has good reasons to enjoy being with me. To be more comfortable with me. It seems that as we're doing this, it's becoming easier to deal with the "hard" stuff, things that have been unpleasant to deal with in the past.
Maybe it goes back to the idea of making your spouse your best friend.

In sickness and in health…..

Last time W & I went to C, we took a MMPI test, a 560 questions psychological test. The results came back, and it didn't sound good for W. Her C is going to be out of town for about 3 weeks, and she referred W to another C because she didn't want her to go that long without seeing someone. She wants her to see someone at least twice a week. I'm not sure exactly what all the results were, and W either didn't know or wouldn't say much. All I know is W is VERY convinced she needs counseling.

Things "seem" to be going well with "us". I guess it's time to be more concerned with the "her" and the "me" instead of the us (?). We're still spending lots of quality time together, and seem to be getting closer every day. She's initiating a lot of "I love you's", hugs, kisses, etc. I'm remaining open, but still apprehensive, for a few reasons.

Ok, so I know the general rule is NO SNOOPING, but I feel that knowledge is power, and the more I know about what's going on, the better I'll be able to deal with it. My W left the journal she's keeping as part of her therapy out on the table. Call me weak, call me stupid, call me intrusive, but I had to look. Inside of it, I found a writing of things she was going to say to OM, kind of a good-bye letter, but kinda not. She explained to him how "they" couldn't work right now, how both her counselor and I agreed they should no longer have contact with each other, how her plate was too full right now. It was kind of a closure letter, but she still left things VERY, VERY open. In fact, she told him she still loved him, now was not their time, though. That her extra-marital affair was totally against her values, how she felt she was being judged by everyone because of it. That I didn't want a D right now, at least until her life got straightened out. That she really wasn't "with" me, that I was more of a good friend who she'd been through a lot with. How he made her "feel", how he brought out the passion in her. That she was praying that someday they could be together, and be a family.

I'm doing ok with this, not taking it too personally, just treating it as info to file away. Her words AND actions towards me, and towards us, don't really reinforce what she was writing, but who knows. I'll just have to keep my eyes open, not be blind to things that may be happening, and take things as they come. She is very, very confused, not just about this situation, but about everything in her life. I guess the key things for me to do is remain her friend, take care of myself, remain detached yet loving, and prove to her who the better man is. She seems to be doing too many things for/with "us" to be "acting-as-if" she wants to be with me, going out of her way for us to do things together, always letting me know where she's at.

I'm thinking the marriage counseling sessions need to begin SOON.

Progress, not perfection.

P.S. Kent - I take it back, you were right. It IS hard work!