Hello everyone. I haven't been able to post for months and months and much has happened since I was last here. When I was new to the site, I was always looking for a thread with a happy ending (and then I'd go back and read old threads to see where that person had once been. More often than not, the poster was doing great regardless of the outcome of the marriage.)
I wanted to update my situation to give hope to anyone who thinks there's not a chance in hell to save your marriage.
I'll link my old threads for anyone who wants to read the good, bad and ugly of my situation. It's embarrassing to read my first posts because I was such a mess, but I'm proud to have come such a long way.
Here's a brief recap: No "bomb" but things started to unravel in November 2007 and went from bad to unbearable over the winter. I was struggling with a friendship between my husband and our co-worker - who also happened to be a very good friend of mine at one point.
In January 2008 we discussed the possibility of divorce. February 2008 we went oversees to see his family - it was a horrible trip with him barely speaking to me the entire time.
I discovered DB when we returned in mid-February, started reading the site, read the book a few times and read nearly anything else I could get my hands on (Proper Caring and Feeding of Husbands, We Can Work It Out: How to Solve Conflicts, Save Your Marriage, Fighting for Your Marriage, and on and on). I was a wreck when I started posting here. My confidence and self-worth were gone. I held my husband on a pedestal. Very unattractive.
March-July 2008: Over the spring and summer, with the support of the wonderful people I found on these forums, I rediscovered my inner strength and beauty of me. I became the person I always wanted to be by focusing on myself rather than putting 100% of my focus on my husband. Also, I think a turning point for me was when I let go of my fears and knew that I would be OK no matter what happened.
Home life was hell. We lived together but in utter silence. He was cold as ice.
I had some individual counseling sessions, which helped me quite a bit. Husband was not willing to go to a counselor with me.
I DBed as best as I could - got a life (still have it, too!), maintained PMA as much as possible, detached, etc. In the end, I know applying the things I learned through DB helped because I became a more attractive person.
I couldn't go on living in the same house with him. His coldness was too much to bear and I was starting to lose my love for him. On July 21 we made the decision to divorce.
August: I moved out and we started to divide assets. We were very cordial to each other - I was pretty detached at this point. I had accepted that it was over and there was nothing I could do to change things. During that time, a major shakeup happened within our small company. He reached out to me in support and we started to rebuild a friendship. He asked if we could consider my absence from the home a "separation" rather than a definite road to divorce.
September/October: I still lived elsewhere, but he asked me to spend the weekends with him at our home. We attended a wedding together in October and he asked me to give 30 day notice and come home.
November: I moved home at the end of November and we've been doing great. Our communication is so much better.
We haven't had much conflict, but we approach it differently now if we do. We operate on an equal level. "OW" still works with us and he remains friends with her. I don't. I remain friendly, but I have a problem with her throwing my friendship away. I believe that she had very strong feelings for my husband and would have jumped at the chance to be with him. He didn't realize the damage their friendship was doing to our marriage and the way I approached it was all wrong. It offended him beyond description that I would doubt his integrity. I made some pretty big mistakes and so did he. I'm just grateful that we are both better equipped to deal with problems in the future.
Things are still crazy-busy for me at the office so I don't have time to login and check on everyone (and my weekends are full from morning till night), but if not for the support I received here, I don't know how I would have made it through 2008.
I am determined to maintain equal focus on self and marriage, which I think is vital in a healthy relationship. Balance of "power" is so important as well. I'm also determined to continue applying the techniques I learned from DBing. I would love to attend a Retro session (which I doubt I'd ever be able to convince my extremely private husband to do) because I want to keep communication open and love alive. I'll likely find another way of fulfilling my 'continuing education' for marriage, but who knows? I never thought my husband would open his heart to me again, but I was wrong about that...
