Ohh courts, I really hated that phase you are in now. I was spinning all over the place. My stomach was a knot and FEAR was driving me nuts. (not much has changed since-lol)
Puppy and pearl and the rest of the guys give you good advice IMO. And Puppy gives you the textbook advice (so does pearl). And they are both piecing so that says something. But as pearl mentioned and I think Puppy would agree too (if not, forgive me), just as much as anything else in this journey, the road to..."heaven" I realised, isnt a straight road. On the contrary.
It's not :you want back, fine, beg and plead and do EVERYTHING I need now and we will live happily ever after.
You have to listen to the advice and adjust it to your sitch. I was all for boundaries, laying it all out, being clear etc etc. Well, H fooled me for a year (I am naive, what can I say?) and now that I consider what we are doing the real piecing effort, I still get to choose DAILY which path to choose and how to proceed.
Dont get me wrong, not about my boundaries, or other BIGGIES=dealbreakers, but for example, I had a hard time recognising his remorse. It was there, I see it now, but he doenst express it the way I pictured he would.
It took us 5 months to resume PA and all these months I had to accept HIS timing.
He is doing his best to be "present" and he actually is but he is not on the floor begging for forgiveness.
What I am trying to say is, keep what YOU WANT need clear but do allow him some time to digest what you are saying and act accordingly BEFORE you get bummed about it.
The discussion about the phone, sounds so familiar. We didnt have it for the phone (my H is a journalist and he cant change his number, it's a "pulic" number anyway), but we had it for example about his passwords. I asked a couple of times BEFORE he gave it to me. He was saying that it is silly since he could open up a new account if he wanted to cheat, but didnt understand that to me the GESTURE was important :here you are, if that's what you need, that's what I will give you.
Lately, I feel he is getting it more. Not totally, but more. He realises it's not only the facts as facts, there is also the symbolism of what he does, the intention, the understanding of where I come from.
I still havent been able to make him see why I need to know some things about the A (I know 90% because I used a keylogger).He thinks I know too much that is hurting us.But recently he made it clear, he understands, and actually gave me an argument I couldnt deny:he said we will talk about everything, we will do it a little later because I am still VERY emotional about it. I dont like it but I agree. And I use "oportunities" to show him why some things are not to be avoided. He is being "trained" to meet my needs. And my needs NOW are much different to what he knew they were.
It is a long road. And a very bumpy one. I dont know if we will make it. In the meantime, I try to choose my battles wisely. Granted I am still...crazy over this, it is damn hard to overrun my emotions and not get stuck to drama.
And one last thing before I stop talking Greek to you, what helps me is to self soothe, usually by telling myself :the worst part is over, if he woudl leave tommorow, I would be much better off than I was before. I dont need him. Harsh but true. And he knows it. Stay strong K
