Steelers, Yes, he’s feeling a tremendous amount of guilt. Yes, he most likely does love you and wants to be home with you. Yes, he’s most likely miserable at her house.
That said, is he only staying there because it’s the only place he has to go? NO. Don’t believe it for a second. He’s not ready to give her up. He’s not ready to make that break. I think he may be close (close is a relative term when dealing MLCer’s, however), but not ready yet.
Yes, God is working on him BIG time right now and your H is feeling the push/ pull of this. It sounds a lot like what FW went through.
What he doesn’t realize (and I don’t know if you do either really) is that he’s trying to self medicate his depression with outside stuff. What he’s got to realize on his own is that a certain living situation (whether it be with you or OW) is not going to take away his bad feelings. They are still going to be there. He can’t run from them any longer.
FW still gets them from time to time. He still gets very depressed. Gets what he calls the “Funk”. He still misses OW sometimes. Not nearly as bad as he once did, but it does happen every once in a while. He even calls them “fleeting” feelings, and it’s been over 5 months of NC. Heck just a couple of weeks ago, FW told me that he felt like leaving again. Not leaving and going back to her, but just leaving and going somewhere, anywhere. He just wanted to get AWAY, but he realizes that even if he did that the “funk” would still come back eventually.
I took much the same approach as you did. Very patient. Praying for FW and letting him know that I was praying for him, for OW, and for God’s will to be done in our marriage. I too allowed a lot of what some people term “cake eating” while he was gone. (We were still sleeping together, how much more cake eating can you get than that!?!?!)
When FW started to express an interest in coming home, in working on us, I did much the same thing that you did last night. I didn’t so much issue and “ultimatum”, but I let him know that I was not going to wait around forever. That he was eventually going to have to choose between her or us. I let him know that I couldn’t force him to choose, but he understood that eventually he wouldn’t have a choice anymore because I would no longer be an option.
I never put a timeline on him. I never told him how LONG I was willing to wait, but I did let him know that my fear was that he would want to continue on with both of us forever, never making a real choice and that that was not going to be acceptable to me.
FW said he was scared of losing both of us in all this so he was very reluctant to make a clean break from either of us for a while.
I think this is where your H is. Scared to lose you and the kids, but scared to lose her too. What if he makes the wrong choice? What if he comes home and it doesn’t work and then the OW is gone? What then?
You see, he THINKS he’s in love with her. Whether he really is or not is debatable, but what is a fact is that in his mind, right now, he loves her. Yes, he’s miserable with her, but he’s still clinging to that “fantasy” that he has made her to be in his mind. In his mind is not the reality of his situation, it’s the fantasy of the life with her that he has created and he’s holding onto that fantasy for dear life. It’s hard to compete with a fantasy. He still thinks that giving her up would in some way be catastrophic to his well-being
I think there is a fine line there that has to be navigated with these men. I think patience and understanding is key, but with the right amount of boundaries put into place. It’s a learning process. A lot of prayer and a lot of reading and listening for God’s instructions. I call his will, his help to be my “gut” feelings. It’s the still small voice. It’s not going to wap you over the head, but if you pay attention it is there. I think the approach that you and I took is one of the more successful ones I’ve seen (well, DUH! BFM, Of course God is going to be more successful than anything humans can come up with!). I think your text last night was the still small voice of God telling you to let him know that he can’t continue in this way forever.
God is working on him from above and through you. The key is the balance of patience and the loving reminders that you do have limits. Letting him know you have limits without coming across as a b!tch is hard, but very doable. I think you did good.
BFM
There is only one person who could ever make you happy, and that person is you. David Burns, Intimate Connections
