Need help Busting Affair.

[elvencat]

Right... will do that, hadn't intended on mentioning MWD anyway, just the other authors I've seen repeated here. If I still do this..... see below:

I have some news that I have to share. I know I can't pin all my hopes on this, but I need help keeping it in perspective. H actually started a fight with me tonight. H never starts fights by direct conflict, its always by goading, so this was new. He got to his breaking point when DD asked where he was going and he said "to a friend's house" and I said "No, he's going to OW's." H lost it. (I want to add we had this fight in front of MIL and FIL.)

He shouted at me for practically an hour about things I was doing to make his life miserable. All the while I calmly refuted his statements, said "sorry u feel that way" and reiterated how HIS choices were fueling the current issues.

Eventually he called into question what someone had said to me about how something had happened and told me I'd made it up (don't really want to get into it, but was about how someone was supporting my viewpoint, not his). I told him if he'd like to see the original message he was more than welcome to read it because I didn't have anything to hide. He said yes and spent quite a while reading the messages.

After he had read the messages, he just sat kinda in a daze. I told him I felt he was addicted to an outside relationship because:
1. he lied
2. he continued to keep himself away from family
3. he manipulated me by telling me what I wanted to hear
etc.....

We talked a lot about aspects of our relationship we saw differently and why and how some things he was accusing me of doing, I felt like he had been doing and so on... basically I felt it was the first time we had actually had CONVERSATION rather than a ONE SIDED ARGUMENT.

H started speaking in "what if's" rather than absolutes. As in:
1. "What if I quit talking to OW, I feel like she's a big part of my support network. What will I do instead."
2. "I still do not want to go to a marriage counselor. What if I did and he tried to tell me what to think."
3. "What if we worked on our marriage. What would change?"

He told me that this weekend, while DD and I were gone, he'd spend the time thinking about his actions and my actions and how he felt about what was most important to him.

He asked me for a hug and apologize for starting the fight. He hasn't asked for a hug in months, and hasn't apologized for anything for a while either.

At the end, though, he still went to OWs house, and I and DD left for my parents. So... one step forward, two steps back?