I was reading your thread and see that you are going to retrouvaille! Thats wonderful!! My H and I did it in September, and I would have to say it was the best thing that we could ever have done! It has made such a huge difference in how we communicate. We are able to really talk and listen to each other, and not get upset or angry, which is huge for us. We accept what we are each feeling, it has shocked me from time to time how we do talk now, and how h will accept things I say and really accept them, not see them as digs or me picking on him, so this is huge for us! We continue with going to the core meetings now and really enjoy them...we are in fact giving a talk next wednesday, it wount be anything to heavy for us, as its still to soon. But this is huge for us! So best of luck with it!!
Me - 44 H - 44 M - 19yrs together - 23yrs D16 S8 EA/PA - Bomb Oct20/06 Jan 8/07 Feb 01/07 Jul 15/07 H still @ home Recovered!
limbo, many thanks for your encouragement and good wishes. H and I have talked a bit about Retrouvaille weekend coming up, H still a bit skittish about the whole thing. We are 'reconciling while separated', so I have to be careful to send the clear message that I don't expect Retrouvaille to 'save our marriage' so much as to 'preserve our reconciliation' and to enhance the new relationship we have developed following the marriage crisis.
The new relationship is going very well. It seems like our 'homework' on the Retrouvaille Question contributed by Sara really kicked off a drive, from H, for deeper communication. I can easily say that H is working as hard on relationship repair as I am, sometimes harder. But he is still not wanting to fully embrace the traditional live-in marriage -- and frankly I am not really wanting that either, yet. For one thing, our sex life has improved exponentially over what it was during the last few years of the 'live-in marriage', and getting better all the time. And for another thing, our present set-up of two date days/nights, sometimes more, each week offers so much in the way of intentionally scheduled good times together. It is like a second courtship, but on a deeper level.
I had another anger melt-down recently, at his place, and I left right at the beginning of a 'special' long weekend event which had been planned for awhile. It was related to an aspect of the EMA, that he had 'said uncomplimentary things about me' to OW after the EMA got up. H would like to leave EMA behind and to move forward in our relationship, to put it in the past. So would I, actually, but there it was, it came up again. Not only the sexual selling-out of appleroad, but the failure of the loyalty that one expects in a friendship. In a way, it was a demonstration of the advantages of 'reconciling while separate' -- I had a home to go to, and I decided to go there, to not be with H while I was feeling so 'sold out' -- but also, the drive calmed me down, and I realized that I had the choice to return, which I did after an hour, and H received me gratefully, said he was glad I'd come back. And then, this was the important part I think, I told him how much I regretted the emotional melt-down, how much I too wanted to move forward, how I was really tired of looking under rocks, and how easily it would have been for this not to have happened: he hadn't responded to an email I had sent him the day before, "It would have taken only one line from you in response to my email to have kept me on track and going forward".
So guess what? The day after I left H apartment after our weekend together, he (unexpectedly, unscheduled, voluntarily)sent me 3 emails! Very nice, like getting love letters, sometimes one can be much more eloquent in print rather than in a direct physical encounter. But another thing that I also think is important happened that weekend -- I found out, this is something H has been signalling to me for some time now but I've always rejected it, that he feels like my telling him to leave last April, and the extreme depression he felt around that, "April was the worst month of my entire life!" -- is in his mind the equivalent of his EMA. So over the weekend I made a choice to embrace that perception of his. That we had equally suffered. That we still wanted to be together and would let the past be the past and would enjoy the present and would not be overly concerned about the future.
Things are continuing to go well. I think we'll be in pretty good shape for the Retrouvaille weekend coming up next Fri/Sat/Sun. A big inner 'sea change' for me last week when H came to my place for his birthday celebration. His birthday is the first of the important 'anniversary triggers', and I was proud of myself for going forward instead of back and we had a really very nice day/evening/night. I talked to H about this yesterday when I saw him and found out there was no 'sea change' for him, he feels we are just steadily going forward and overcoming obstacles as they come up, so the change is really in my own psyche -- I'm pretty sure what I have done is to start to let go of the resentments and hurt produced by the EMA in favor of going forward. Also, I'm just starting to get a glimmer of the fact that I was responsible of a multitude of smaller hurts delivered to H during the few years before/during/after the EMA and I'm starting to explore some of these things with H and to apologize. H said "I hurt you more", but I replied "I'm not keeping score anymore".
On Cat's current thread Audi wrote that her H reacted to being booted out of the house after EMA the same way mine did -- as if this action/reaction on our part was equivalent to the hurtful wounding they delivered to us with the EMA. Like Audi, I also found this idea outrageous. Then I realized that since it did in fact cause H a lot of pain & depression I would have to address it with him -- which I did a few times, trying to show him how justified I was in doing what I did, how I was only trying to protect myself. All to no avail. Never any answering resonance from H on this and I finally gave in and acted as if it was an equivalent hurt. It is really hard to do this, but is reaping a lot of benefits. It made me feel like less of a sucker to find out that Audi's H insisted on the same equivalence that my H did. It's like they are all suffering from some kind of a sydrome, when they're in full crisis mode they say the same words and phrases to spouse, it's as if they've all read the same textbook. So maybe when they're recovering they have a lot of the same things going on regarding their interpretation of events.
Glad to hear things are still going well for you and your H. Yes, one of the things I learned at Retrouvaille was to accept his feelings for what they are, his feelings. Feelings are feelings and they are not right or wrong. A third party might be able to sit in judgement as to who had the bigger hurt, but arguing it between you is like arguing over who has a bigger headache. You can't feel the other person's pain.
It made me feel like less of a sucker to find out that Audi's H insisted on the same equivalence that my H did.
Hi Apple--you so totally just made my day, because I really felt like a sucker about this too. It is one of those things that I just had to let go, because I couldn't wrap my head around the idea that he could possibly be as hurt as I was. I got that it hurt him, and apologized, but it was something he held against me for a long time. Or used as an excuse at the very least.
The nice thing about the passage of time is that it is healing this for me--I can step back and look at it now and realize that what matters is that the sitch is in the past and we're on a new road now. Bravo to you for addressing it with him and letting it just be what it is.
This is feeling a bit like 'The Perils of Pauline' (I guess I'm really dating myself here) -- but what else can I say. I hate to admit this to you, all of you who wished me well and expected the best, as I did, from the Retrouvaille weekend. But the awful truth is -- I am a Retrouvaille drop-out.
Sigh... I did the cardinal sin, I went on a rampage through the past, through the EMA sell-out. That happened late on the Friday night after our first formal Retrouvaille session -- which went fine, BTW, both of us really liked their program and both of us worked hard on it and got some benefit from it -- we left early Saturday morning at my insistence. I wanted to get away from H, couldn't bear to be in the same room with him.
I could go through a long song-and-dance and tell you all of the things which set me up for this particular emotional melt-down, but I'll spare you. The fact is that I've had emotional melt-downs related to the EMA on kind of a regular basis -- in spite of my best intentions and my devotion to reconciliation with H, and in spite of how I know the damage it does. So finally, the Retrouvaille melt-down -- like how could anything be more stupid or badly timed, right? Or more indicative to me that there is a real, real problem here that can't be 'emotionally-controlled' away.
I finally decided that it wasn't 'stupid', it was my body, or maybe some lower core brain center taking over from intellect. So 2 days later I wrote H a 'good-bye' email. And it really felt right. I didn't suffer from any regrets during the 36-hour period over which I wrote and meditated on it or after I sent it. I summed up the crux of the problem as I saw it -- H didn't want marriage, I couldn't forgive the EMA. We were at an impasse after 6 months of active reconciliation. We were back to square one, back to the beginning. I'd done my best with the situation and it didn't work, so good-bye. H sends 'good-bye' right back. It's over. And I'm still feeling OK about it.
So yesterday, feeling truly unattached to an ongoing relationship with H, I started having a more questions about 'the Big Picture'. About what really happened in the marriage going back a decade or more. I felt that H had been evasive, or maybe it was just that I didn't really trust him to tell me the whole truth during the time we were reconciling, and now that we weren't he could answer without worry of what my reaction might be. Basically, I wanted the story and that was all I wanted from him.
I contacted him at work, asked for some conversation and he said he would phone me back at the end of the afternoon. Which he did, he spoke before I could get a word in, he had made some notes on how he saw our situation and he had a proposal for me -- that we take a full month off seeing one another with the standard agreement still in place related to OP and fending off interested OP (the Shirley Glass protocol), and that during this time we do our own Retrouvaille-type questions in our notebooks and meet for exchange of notebooks & dialogue at the end of that time.
It was a long and heartfelt conversation, a few tears were shed on both sides. At one point he told me that he felt 'like scum for not making the break, for keeping this going and not letting you get on with your life'. And all I could think was that it was very likely he had said this same line to OW. Such drama! Only now it's appleroad who is standing in for OW-the-Drama-Queen. Well, keep wishing me luck.
I swear I do not understand. But I have not been in your shoes, so I can't tell you what to do. I hope that at your own speed the two of you can work yourselves up to the point where you go back to Retrouvaille and finish the weekend. I can understand the idea that you may not have been ready for it. I hope that you will be able to get to that point.
I just posted this on Cat03's thread, and it occurred to me that the same thing applies to you:
Don't sweat the acting out. It is a release and sometimes, you just have to explode. After things settle back down he may even see that you only did it because you care so much. Drama is not so terrible. The worst thing is apathy. You know that.
I can understand the idea that you may not have been ready for it.
Sara, this is what I wrote in my brief note to the Retrouvaille co-ordinators to explain why we left. 'We are not ready for Retrouvaille'
Some of the problem for me was likely the environment. When I am in a high emotional state I really need to leave, and the tight weekend structure just didn't accomodate that need. But it still boils down to the same thing -- we were not ready for Retrouvaille. I think if we'd been further along in reconciliation H would have been able to respond to me and head me off before it reached such a crisis. One of the first questions asked at Retrouvaille on the Friday evening session was 'what were your feelings this afternoon?' My answer was "discouragement, pessimism" and that was related to some strong thoughts that had come up for me as I was preparing for our trip, about events during the EMA. H answer was 'helplessly tired', wishing he could just relax over the weekend instead of doing Retrouvaille. But he was also 'intrigued' and prepared to work once he was there. When I told H why I was discouraged and pessimistic he just stuck his head under the covers. It wouldn't have taken a lot to have encouraged me, just a hug and a warm smile would have done it, but it didn't happen. H is not capable of being empathetic with my feelings around the EMA, he gets defensive instead. This is generally un-H-like behavior, BTW. He is a very compassionate person otherwise, especially to me.
It is one of those things that I just had to let go, because I couldn't wrap my head around the idea that he could possibly be as hurt as I was. I got that it hurt him, and apologized, but it was something he held against me for a long time. Or used as an excuse at the very least.