Thanks for your thoughts. I often get the sense that you and I think a lot alike.
Quote: So I guess I CAN tell you that for me, over time, I'm gaining back trust in CJ that I thought would never come. It's taken time, reassurances, and NO FURTHER EVIDENCE of contact with OW.
That's great to hear, that it's possible to get that trust back. Hard to see it ever happening in my case, but I won't rule it out. Ya know, if it weren't for great stories of success like yours, Sage's, and Talitsa's, I wouldn't ever come back to these boards. I can handle a certain amount of reading about other's woes if at least there are some happy endings.
Quote: You alluded to W's mom having breakdown at 40, what kind of disorders run in your W's family, Brian? Might have some insight there.
Her mom's case is the only one I know of. My W talks about how normal her mother was, way back when. The 1st really strange thing my W can recall was whan her parents divorced (my W was in high school). Shortly after, her mom got a new boyfriend and told him that her kids weren't actually hers, but were her XH's from a prior M. She had her breakdown several years later. Then, through psychotherapy, she had a "recovered memory" of being sexually abused by her father (no corroborating evidence, including from her sister who is close in age to her. My W thinks that the abuse probably never happened). Since I've known her (about 11 years), she's gotten more and more bizarre. She became extremely religious, and was absolutely shocked when our 2nd child was a boy, since God had "told her" that it would be a girl. She basically cut us out of her life about 3 years ago, in part because of an incident where she thought that my W had tried to get her daughter to poison her. She is functional enough that she can't be committed, while simultaneously too insane to realize that her mental problems aren't normal (she refuses to see a psychiatrist). My W hasn't had any contact with her in about a year.
I know that my W has had a fear of this happening to her. For example, years ago I once joked that my W was becoming like her mother. She became extremely upset about that (and I've never made that same mistake again!). I sometimes wonder whether my W has some strange mental thing going on, but I would imagine we all think that about our aliens, huh?
