Has it really been 3 years?

[peaceful_spirit]

Hi all. It's been a while. I really need to get on the boards more often.

So, it's been 3 1/2 years since the bomb. And about 2 years of piecing. And I like it. The more time that passes, the more I feel like the whole MLC thing is a thing of the past.

Many of you are new and don't know my story. It's too long and convoluted for me to recap in one post, but I'll try to summarize.

Feb '06, H dropped the bomb. We were 32. Our kids were 18 months and 3. He gave me the usual speech -- we had different long term goals, he loved me but wasn't in love with me, blah, blah. Turns out, of course, that he had an OW.

From March of '06 till around September of '07, my H came and went so much he gave me whiplash. He would come back and say he loved me and that we simply needed to fix our marriage and that OW represented the things that were missing in our M. Then a few days or weeks home with us and some enticing texts from OW and he would start sneaking around again. I would usually figure it out right away and kick him out. He had a lease on an apartment, so he had somewhere to go without having to go to OWs.

Anyway, he would leave and admit that he didn't know what was going on in his head or why he was doing it. Then a day or two with OW, and back he came, usually with a new learning about himself and some realizations about our M.

This went on a lot. Each time, I got stronger and started just living my life with my kids. I became less dependent on the notion of our marriage being fixed and more dependent on finding happiness in myself and my kids.

Each time he came home, i would have conditions in place and he had to meet them in order for me to consider letting him back in (i.e. see a therapist, go to MC with me, get a new cell phone number, etc...). Even with those conditions, he still would fall back.

Anyway, long story short, all that back and forth was his process for working through his mess. He finally came out of the cloud and committed himself to me and the kids.

We've been piecing consistently now for about 2 years. Our M is better than ever (although not perfect). Do I still worry? Of course. But rather than focusing on that worry, I focus on keeping the positive changes going.

So that's my story, in a nutshell. Next month, we celebrate our 10th anniversary. We are thinking about having an anniversary party to celebrate making it to 10 -- something I really didn't think was going to happen.

Anyway, I'm going to pop in on the boards more often. Sorry I've been gone so long!