Starting again...with a Beginner's Mind

[sage]

Here's part of my horoscope for today (bizarre):

You have the potential to heal past hurts if you can get past your fear of being vulnerable.


A sign from the stars

I belive, IMHO, that my W was not able to do this after she discovered my infeidelity and even after she forgave me at retrouvaille. Her opening up always depended on a concrete sign that I would always be faithful or that we would be together forever, and as we all know nothing in this world is guaranteed.

SO....nothing in this world is guarenteed for sure, and I KNOW I can't ask for reassurance that my h and I will be together forever...but, I don't think it's too much to ask for the commitment to fidelity....it's how I entered the marriage and it's an ongoing commitment that I expect upheld...even if it's "I promise you that I will LEAVE you or COME TO YOU and alert you to the ...."

And, frankly, given all that my h and I have been through over the last year...it's my expectation that neither one of us would want to go through this again...his feeling of undeniable pain, mine too, the guilt, the utter destruction of self-esteem...you know the drill.

So...I honestly do not think it is too much to ask to know how we're going to not do this again...

As for "concrete signs", well, one of the reasons that I was drawn to your thread (and other threads where the poster is the person who had the affair) is the overwhelming feeling that I had wishing that my h had been more willing to assure me of my "safety" with him -- assurances around not just "loving me" but around never putting me through the utter trauma of an affair ever again. I can easily think of a dozen things that I wish that he had been willing to do that would have shown me -- some large, some small -- that he understood my need to feel safe.

I'm not exclusively putting the onus on him -- you know that -- I am more than willing to work my A$$ off to ensure that I never put HIM through the pain that he was in, too.

That's why I've tried to point out to you (total projection on my part) that perhaps your wife didn't need ILYs but more actions and indications that she could trust you...

Sage

Sage