Quoting jethro: Do you think your ability to forgive your W specifically drew her closer to you. In other words, do you think she was so moved by your efforts and forgiveness that it helped change her heart?
In the "I'm falling in love w/ you" talk, she described that she felt lost and wandered. She said what eventually brought her back was the unwavering resolution in my belief that our marriage could survive all that had happened. It led her to start believing it too and that is what led her back. She thanked me for the strength I had to believe in us despite all she put us through. In fact, for nearly a week afterwards each ILY she gave was followed by a "thank you". The irony of it all was that with her determination to leave the M, I felt she was the stronger of us. A key ingredient to my belief that the M would survive, is that I would be able to forgive her and show her once again I could trust her.
Jethro, a big part in me finding that forgiveness was in the search for my part I played in the events that led up to the A. Remember the A is just the symptom of the marital problems that lie underneath. I had 50% ownership in perpetuting the pattern of what caused us to drift apart and if at any point through out the years prior to the A, if I had just recognized any of it and put some sort of effort to breaking the pattern, then our marriage most likely would not have gone down the path that it had taken. So by accepting the part I played in allowing our marriage to deteriorate and allowing us to drift apart, and then by asking for forgiveness from her, I found I could open my heart to forgiving her.
