Hey all, I haven't been posting much. I'm reading a lot of threads, but just really reading books, working on the house, GALing and preparing for the twins to leave us and go see their Mom for the summer.
One thing I've been thinking through is that I told my H many things I now regret, such as telling him he's a cheater. He asked me what my definition of a cheater is, and I told him someone who cheated multiple times. That is a definition, but now looking back on it, the last time he cheated on me, I'm more and more sure was a transition he was going through and he didn't handle it well.
He thinks so highly of my opinions that I'm worried that with his low self esteem, he may never think he's good enough to come back to me. Right now, he has no respect for me. But as he progresses through the tunnel, I'm pretty certain I will be back up on the pedestal since I've never done anything concrete to be pulled off of it. (Not that I want to be up there, but we will cross that bridge when we come to it) That will mean he will have the normal guilt a MLCer has, but in addition, the words I told him that will make him feel more worthless and hopeless.
Expanding on my thoughts, and journaling them since many of you may be thinking or have thought the same things.
H really looked up to me and my knowledge on any subject. When I'm presented with a problem, I learn everything I can about it. I must be supporting a small family at Borders right now with all the books I'm buying. LOL
H is easily swayed. (as evidenced by the reason he finally broke with me and went to OW - he asked his best friend/best man when they noticed he was becoming different and they told him 2 years, and he came back and repeated it to me. I haven't loved you for two years, see, D and E both agreed it has been that long, they noticed it before I noticed it in myself.)
I have told H he's a cheater. He's very disturbed by this, he said to me in a half thinking to himself half thinking outloud sort of way "if the M was meant to be, I wouldn't have cheated on you" as if the M itself was a protection against cheating.
He also said he hadn't been able to be as intimate with me for a while since he never forgave himself of the first A. (We were having problems with intimacy being frequent enough, but I really attributed that to me being tired and very overweight - thus not attractive to him and not feeling very sexy myself...)
You see, he's rationalizing his choices and actions by making me take the blame. Or sometimes it's not even me but some weird, disconnected "fate" thing that is to blame.
I mention this because I am formulating something in my head and wanted background for you all to review with me for soundness...
Basically, I think I need to plant seeds in his head, and I don't know yet how or what or why I will/should be doing regarding this. I just know that he's being swayed by OW and friends and he's just not strong enough emotionally to fight them. I don't want to play tug of war with him, I don't want to hurt him. I'm in a place of a lot of compassion and love and understanding for him right now. He's hurting and it hurts me that he's getting bad advice from people that don't know enough about the whole story and are too self-serving to be advising correctly.
I want to interject truth to him, such as he can come back, there is a chance to repair, there is a way to rebuild love, etc. I don't want him to be entirely without hope. And I want him to realize that sometimes people make mistakes and they can be forgiven.
Thoughts? I'm not talking about having a R talk, I'm talking about fitting little bits and pieces over the next months, when they fit into a natural conversation, just throwing little things in that will help pave the way home and to forgiveness for him.
