There and Back, #6

[nephartiti]

Morgan,

I am in LA county, but there is a place called Oak Glen that is just a couple of hours away and up the mountain. They have apples, pears, razberries, depending on the time of year. It's a fun little trip.

Your H may be done with you for now, but that does not mean that is how it always will be. There was a time when you were his world. You don't spend over 12 years with someone who means nothing. Of course he doesn't trust her. Who can trust someone who is willing to sleep with someone else's husband. I bet she doesn't trust him either. I agree with lwb, he thinks about you and feels more about you than he admits. He can't admit it. That's against the rules. You are doing a great job of living in and accepting the present. You seem to be pretty clear on what reality is right now. However, no one knows what the future brings. Anything can happen, and we have the stats in our favor. Affairs don't last.

I have a friend that I have known since I was 9. She is one of the people I confided in, and you know what? She told me her father had an A when she was little. I had no idea. Seriously. Her mother is a minister now and called me to come over and talk to her. She shared her experience and gave me Dobson's Love Must be Tough. Her H had 4 A's. The 4th was the biggy. They had five kids, their youngest under 2 when she found out. He left her for OW, but OW had a BF. Her H was convinced that he was in love with OW. He was going to marry her. He told his W to hurry and find someone else. He would give his paycheck until she did. He told her to find someone who would love the kids in his place b/c he was moving on. He was very certain. Well, guess what? His A fell apart and he came back (less than 6 months). She said it took two years after he was back before she was no longer obsessing on his whereabouts and if he was cheating again. They have now been married 35 years. He will say what an idiot he was, how he doesn't know what got into him. He regrets every minute of it. I never ever suspected that these people had gone through this. Their marriage always seemed so strong. I thought their family was a perfect as it gets.

When a WAS is in the depths of their A, they are so sure of themselves. At the same time, they completely and definitively reject the LBS. We have the advantage because we have educated ourselves while they trudge along blindly. The A, by nature, falls apart. In the meantime, we work on ourselves and identify the underlying problems in our R's that contributed to the circumstances that led to the A. We also learn the most effective ways to deal with the psyche of a WAS. By playing our cards right, we can draw them back to us when the A begins to deteriorate. Right now we are just planting seeds that will lie dormant until they begin to have trouble in the A. Then these seeds will be allowed to take root. Like any addict, they have to hit rock bottom before they begin to recover.

Have faith. Have love. Have life.