How do I begin piecing??

[ediemarie]

I guess my question is...when CAN I talk about the R. I feel so scared to bring anything up. I feel like as soon as I do that he is going to go running. The way he talks to me is just like nothing ever happened. I have so many questions that I need answers to. I guess I could wait and only bring things up in counseling. Are they usually willing to talk about things? Do they offer any explanation? Should I require an explanation? Am I just supposed to forgive and forget?

Hi Klm - welcome back!

In short, all of this is up to you really. You need to decide what you want. I know that can be hard. When you focus for a long time on wanting the R to work and when you are willing to do anything to get there, it is very easy to lose sight of what you may want or need. It must be exciting and confusing (at the same time) to have your H ask you to do all of this stuff with him. Do you want to? If you do, then go. If you don't because you are uncomfortable then don't go. From what I can tell, the only way that going could be detrimental is if you force an R talk, and he's not ready, or if you truly don't want to be there. I think the more time the two of you can spend together to try and reestablish your R or determine if it's possible to have a R the better off you will be.

In regard to talking about the R: I found that when my H was ready to speak about things he brought them up. It helps us if I don't bring up R talks. I had/have so many questions about OW, his feelings, etc. that I would overload him with questions/judgements, etc. It just helped us avoid unnecessary arguments if I remained patient for him to bring things up. Now, I did find that certain behavior caused him to initiate discussions with me - such as letting him know that I wasn't comfortable doing one thing or another. I know that there are so many things you want to know and you certainly deserve to have the answers to ALL of your questions. Maybe you could try writing them all down and then figuring out which ones are most pressing. Then you could address the absolute-need-to-know-right-now-questions with him to test the waters. I've found that the more time we spend together without judgements and pressure the more my H begins to open up.

I hope this helps.