I know that things are bleak in your sitch right now. But as long as we are alive things can change. Perhaps you would not welcome him back, but if he ever realizes what he lost, remember Retrouvaille.
Thanks, Sara. Today is the day. I'm nervous and hopeful and worried. I leave in 5 hours to take my son to his grandparents and then off we go. No TV, no computer, just H and me and hopefully some new direction.
I have faith in you. I believe that you have gotten through the hard part already. You have displayed a lot of self-contol in the last few weeks. I really do expect things to go well for you now.
I am so excited for you and your husband, Didi. I think this weekend could really change a lot of things in your relationship for the positive. Have a wonderful time together!!!!
Me-31 H-38 M: 5 yrs T: 7 yrs No kids Went to Prostitutes 10-1-06 Found out about OW 12-24-07 Bomb on EA/PA: 1-2-08 OW ended it with H "for good" 3-8-08 OW is back 4-19-08 H and OW tell me that they are in love 5-19-08 Filed for divorce 6-5-08 Divorced 7-2-08
Thanks everyone for the well wishes. I'm so happy I went. Thank you so much, Sara. I really believe God put you in my path for a reason. Thank God for you. The words you have said to me, the encouragement, the reality checks......I appreciate it so much. I wish I had a friend like you close by. (((((((HUGS))))))))))))))))))
thank you for your kind words. Retrouvaille changed my life for the better. I try to give back by showing other people the way. I assume that the leaders from your weekend gave you their contact information. Feel free to contact them with problems you may have in the future. This is a long process of pulling ourselves out of a rut. We contacted our leaders a few times for help, and everytime what they said was very helpful. I'm sure you will enjoy the post sessions too. I brought a dish in a crockpot every week. It was something special to do each saturday, figuring out what I would cook and buying the ingredients, and then preparing it that night, and bringing it in the morning. I enjoyed every moment of our Retrouvaille experience.
For those who don't know what Retrouvaille is, here is a short explanation of the program.
Retrouvaille, meaning rediscovery in French, is an volunteer organization with support from the Catholic church that holds weekend retreats around the world to help people heal their broken marriages. They have a website, http://www.retrouvaille.org. On the website you can find the dates and locations of weekends anywhere in the world. The program works by example. Couples who have experienced misery in their marriages present their stories. They sit in front of you, with occasional tears in their eyes, holding hands and giving each other support, telling you openly and honestly about their lives, what went wrong, and how they fixed it. Then they teach you a communication technique called Dialoguing and you practice doing dialogues with your spouse, in private. They give you questions to dialogue about. These questions help you and your spouse understand each other at a deeper level than you ever could by simply talking.
The initial program takes a weekend. You can do it in your home city or go somewhere else and make it a mini-vacation. There are follow-up sessions locally. These help you to continue the openness and understanding with each other. They teach concepts like, love is a decision. Or, marriage is like a building supported by four posts: love, commitment, trust, and forgiveness. If you break one of the posts, like trust, and forgiveness is weak, then the building comes crashing down. To rebuild the marriage, you must first rebuild the foundation, and then you can rebuild the four posts. The more I thought about it, the more I understood. To rebuild my marriage I had to forgive, and trust. I couldn't rebuild the marriage first and have those fill in later. (Which is what I had been trying to do).
While it is co-sponsored by the Church, it is open to all. My husband and I are not Catholics, and we benefited tremendously from the experience. The presentations by the priest focused on marriage, not Catholic doctrine. The goal of Retrouvaille is to save marriages. They have only 48 hours with you for that purpose, so there is no time for dogma. However, the priest was also there to be of service to the Catholics in the room who wanted his services. We were told not to confess new things to each other -- the priest was there to take confessions. I found that interesting. They do not focus on the past, they focus on building a new future together.
I had a dream about the DB board last night. In my dream a group of us were hanging out at someone's house, and it was right on the street. We were talking and one of the men was talking about his wife and the women who were interested in having an affair with him. He pointed to a pretty woman walking past and said, "Look at her. She wants to have an affair with me." The woman walked up to the group of us and asked if he was there. I said, "There's only us married people here." She looked stunned and confused and started asking other people what I meant. Soemeone else in the group said to her, "Maybe S will call you. If he wants something sexy with you, then maybe he will call you." I got angry about that and said, "Are you saying if he wants sex he will call her?!" Then everyone looked shocked, and no one spoke to me for a while. Then someone said to me that he thought I should leave for a while, that things would be better if I weren't there. So I started looking for my purse, but I couldn't find it so it took me a long time to be ready to leave. And then I woke up. Funny dream, huh?
