Thanks for the warm welcome! I'm happy to share my thoughts with you and hope they can be helpful - thanks. (Just a head's up though - I'll only be able to check in sporadically over the next week or so - I'll be in the middle of moving and I'm not sure how long before I'll have internet hooked up at my apartment - so it may take a while before I can get back online consistenly.)
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How do you come to the point to know where it is fear that is keeping you in a marriage?
I guess when being away from him clearly felt better than being with him, yet I still stayed. The only explanation that made sense was that I was too scared to leave. I certainly wasn't staying out of love. I was dependent on his material and emotional support yet I was contemptuous of him too. It's a lousy way to treat someone you really do care about, even if only as a friend.
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Was there a revelation? Did you figure it out through counseling? How do you know?
Not sure if it was the cumulative effect of IC, reading LOTS of books,journalling, self-observation, conversations with friends, the maturing process, but over the last year and a half I realized to my horror that I was emulating the identical "victim" behavior/beliefs of my parents. NOT GOOD. I saw where that took them and I knew I did NOT want to follow that.(50 years of victimization and mutual contempt. And very, very sad and empty lives.)
That meant no more blaming others for my unhappiness. Period.
I also came to understand and embrace the philosophy that says whatever you don't like in another person is really just a projection of what you don't like/won't accept in YOURSELF. Ouch.
That meant all the complaints I had about my H were probably really true about...ME.
Ay, carumba. That's a bitter pill.
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Do you feel like once you overcome that fear, you will reconcile with him?
Only if my H works on HIS issues as well. We're two peas in a pod and I seriously doubt I can become and stay healthy and whole and live together as long as he's still "using" his drugs of choice (isolation, sudoku, internet, self-absorption, inertia). It would be like one recovering heroin addict trying to get clean while the partner is still openly using, selling and pushing. Wouldn't take me long to fall off the wagon at all. And I just don't want to go there anymore.
If he uses this separation as an opportunity to address and overcome some of HIS fears instead of just sinking back into his usual isolation and self-pity, then's there's hope. Only time will tell.
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While I do not have a fear of being alone, I do have a fear of not being with my W. And I believe that she has a fear of being independent. She moved out last year, but came back when she couldn't afford her apartment. She says it's because I kept asking her for another chance, and she decided for the kids to give it another try. Now she is ready to leave again but can't right now because of finances
For YEARS I did blame my H for my unhappiness and wanted to leave. I even had a brief EA. But I never felt financially or emotionally secure enough to really leave. Between bouts of serious depression and other personal problems, I seemed to have a tough time findind and holding down a full-time, grown-up job. In fact, I got fired from the one good job with great pay and good benefits that would have easily enabled me to support myself and my son. Coincidence or self-sabotage?
The EA only "justified" my blaming my H for all my problems since I felt so much happier in this OM's company. I felt like total scum the whole time I was betraying my H (even if it was "just" emotional), yet I didn't want to give up contact with OM. It was nuts.
I think my journey to the point I'm at today really started, ironically, with that EA. Or more specifically, when the bubble burst on it and the reality of what I was doing and who I was involved with sunk in. (He was unhappily married too - our common ground for getting together in the first place - and EAs and PAs turned out to be his drug of choice for coping.) (For the record, mine happened to be food and alcohol. And whining.)
I finally snapped out of that trance and tried to take really take a good look at what the h*ll I wanted to do with my life, what I felt was missing deep inside, what made me so vulnerable to the attentions of this OM in the first place. Especially since cheating on my spouse did NOT make be feel any better about myself or my M.
So, that EA was a blessing in many ways. The proverbial brick to the head can work wonders sometimes. Hitting bottom, I suppose.
LRT, Your wife sounds like she's wavering between wanting to leave and being able to afford it. I know everytime I talked about leaving and got spooked by the $$ reality, I scurried back to my H's open arms. And all would be well. But the desire to leave always kept coming back. How old is she? How old are your kids? What kind of realistic employment prospects can she pursue? How honest do you think she can or will be about the true motives behind her actions?
I'm 44, right smack in the middle of a MLC, and I'm convinced that this is playing a huge factor in my decision to move out.
Can't go back. Can't stay still. Guess I gotta move forward. Towanda
