1. I've been searching the Internet for distance learning courses on marital counselling. I have found a course in UK/Oxford something that lasts a year and is not expensive. I don’t feel ready yet to commit to such kind of thing but it sure made me feel empowered that if I DO decide to, there is a way...
2. I have stopped thinking about her as much. STOP signs and all the tricks I have read, I put to use. What helped me most was my pride. She is not worth my present and future and she didn’t destroy my past. She was just the right/wrong person at the right time. Not even 60% there yet, but at least my mind rests many hours of the day.
3. I read PM again. That book although VERY hard for me due to the language, gives me ...peace and serenity. Especially the part about learning to "soothe yourself and self validating". It stopped last night, in a sec, all this anxiety about what H should do and doesn’t. If I am OK, I can decide if what he gives is enough. Maybe it will be enough, maybe not…
4. I went to D. Schnarch's website and there it was!!! An MP3 of one of his presentations to counsellors about infidelity. They put it up because of the recent Tiger Woods' story. I bought it -very very cheap- and listened to it last night.
I am focusing to no longer asking "How could you/he have done that to me/us?" or "She was x,y,z so I must have been z,x,y" and "since he doesn’t do x,y,z that means I am not worth of that or that he is hurting me because he doesn’t love me" (because I am not as good) etc etc. As DS says, their A was/is not a reflection of me and my “problems”. It just isn’t because THAT is NOT possible.
DS asks "if you couldn’t get your H get into bed with you, how on earth did you get the power to put him to bed with another woman?", meaning that the decisions our spouses make, are decisions they own and we have no reason to take things/outcome personally. Which is IMO, very radical, since we all think we were at some point responsible for the actions of our spouses or co-responsible. You see, he explains that at one point, our Ss had a 2 choice dilemma caused by the sitch in our Ms BUT the choice they made, was their own and only. Which, made me feel a lot better, like putting things in order in my head.
I know you guys may think I am crazy, but after everything I have read/felt/heard/lived/experienced, DS's philosophy about life and Rs is what fits me most. And I am far from living that ideal, the goal he describes. I have mentioned it before, I am a person that thrives when feeling loved and I have accepted and defended that. This subsequently stripped me of all my control and power over my personal happiness and peace. And right now, I am fighting with myself, trying to hand over that control back to H when instinctively and intellectually I KNOW I shouldn’t.
There is no reason why I insist that HE makes ME trust him. It's impossible to expect that now. And if I follow DS's lead, there is NO reason why I should struggle because HE didn’t manage to live up to HIS standards, HIS integrity, HIS honesty. Yes, his mistakes" affected me deeply but the truth is HIS CHOICES SHOULD AFFECT HIM and he should have to deal with it. He will have to answer to himself why he failed himself. As I wrote to him once, sometimes I get angry because of what he did to himself, not to me. He betrayed himself.
5. I decided what I will talk about in MC on Friday at 18:00. I want to set my goals; I want to describe what I want from my R in the future. I will set my boundaries and state my expectations and make clear what I choose for me to become and feel.
I will make it known to him that I still choose to be in a monogamous relationship with him and that is what I want. I was in a monogamous R for 13 years. I am not changing that now. Even though he wasn’t, I was.
I want the deep level of intimacy and connection you only achieve consciously. I am committed to work hard to achieve that and I feel I am ready to allow my partner to see who I am.
I am ready to experience sex in ways ( )I was scared to before. I always felt very "sensual" inside and very prudent with him and most of my partners. Always kept a safety distance from who I was and who I thought I should be in bed. And that affected all areas of my behaviour. VERY STRESSFUL!!!
I am learning that my perspective has not been right and fair to myself and others. I have to answer to myself why I accepted feeling comfortably unhappy for some time, why I put my needs in the back burner and didn’t work to get them met, why I lost myself in the context of our R. Maybe I need to answer to myself, why I didn’t decide to divorce the man he was...
I don’t have to answer to myself why H had to have an A. And I am contemplating whether I should get into discussions about that in MC. He will have to do that for himself at some point. And maybe, when he does, we will really be able to move forward together.
I will insist on the HONESTY principle. I have been for a while and I will continue to. And I may even use what DS says in his speech "I don’t want to have an A, I don’t want to compromise my principles, I want to be happy and calm and I choose to be with you in a one-on-one R. You have the same choice, but I won’t tell you not to have an A again, you can do as you wish, the only thing you need to remember is that you must allow me to have a choice from now on, you need to tell me, you need to be honest. Then I will choose what I will do. Right now, I can only decide about myself and my values."
He may choose to lie again. He may choose to keep secrets again. It will be HIS choice and that doesn’t mean I will be stupid, naive or whatever. He knows I don’t trust him, I am accepting that trust will follow, cant exist between us now, and he will need to decide which path he will follow: does he want to be considered trustworthy?
The minute I finished the tapes, something shifted in me. "Like doc says". Maybe I heard and read the right things at the right time when I was sinking deeper and deeper in self pity and despair. I will NOT take his failure on my shoulders. I can still be proud of myself for honouring my values and promises and principles. I will not look for pain anymore like I did lately. If I need to know something, absolutely NEED to know, fine. The rest, will have to step aside.
I think we will have problems. Because I am not willing to change my boundaries so that he can be included. As my partner, as my lifetime partner. Not as a cheating partner, if you know what I mean. He will have to look into himself and decide the lever of intimacy he can stand. It's something he already mentioned once. That for many years he kept his distance. That he wanted to change that between us. We’ll see.
