She Wants to Come Back!

[SDFoundGirl]

As someone who has successfully pieced (going on 4 years now), let me offer the following thoughts/tips that served me well:

1. Don't come on too strong or eager to please. WAS's are sometimes skittish, and it's best not to overpower them.

2. What you've earned here is a chance. Your W is willing to work on the M. The problems that got you to the point your W stepped out of the M still need to be dealt with. Yes, some of the things have been handled by your 180s, but the real work of rebuilding your M starts NOW.

3. Be prepared to work hard. Piecing was a lot tougher than when H and I were estranged and I was just DBing. You must still stay detached, which really means staying un-enmeshed. It's our attachment to outcomes that gets us in trouble...for my H and I, the attachment is what kept us from speaking honestly to one another and asking for what we needed in our M. I am *still* focusing on staying detached, and I find that when I'm upset with my H, it's usually because I'm not detached.

4. Get some professional help. A good MC can help you look at what led you to this point without getting stuck in the past. Your MC should use what happened in the past to help you two heal and then develop new strategies to communicate and avoid the pitfalls you hit in the past. Our MC helped us see how much we were mind reading, and she taught us how to communicate with each other and listen and respond productively. Without MC, I don't think our M would survive long-term.

To be honest, I was really nervous and walked on eggshells for the first 4-6 months we were reconciled. I didn't speak up about my worries about H continuing his friendship with the woman he was having a one-sided EA with (no way she didn't know...she just liked the attention and encouraged it though she had no interest) for fear he'd run away. He didn't know I had concrete proof of it; all he thought was I had my intuition.

If I had it to do over again, I would have brought the issue up much sooner, and I would have set stronger boundaries around it. Because I didn't, she was a roadblock between us that kept us from developing real intimacy. He stopped hanging out with her for the most part, but he'd still occasionally have lunch with her or talk to her on the phone for 20-40 minutes.

It was several years before I'd developed the confidence in myself and told him that the non-work-related conversations made me uncomfortable. He balked a bit, and we spent about 6-8 months going around and around, be trying to help him understand how it was affecting me and our M. Finally, I told him that he could choose that friendship over our M if that was what he wanted, but if so, I could no longer continue in the M. I told him I respected his decision, and I truly was okay with whichever way it went. I just knew I could no longer live my life worrying about that connection, worrying that if we hit a rough patch again, he'd be composing love letters to her again.

He chose to put our M first, and his actions have borne that out. That was the final step in our reconciliation, and our M has just gotten better and better since then.

[b]My final recommendation[b]to you is to be honest about what you want and need from the reconciliation/marriage/relationship. Spend some time and think about what you want and need, and then tell her. She can choose to accept that, or not. This is scary, but really, do you want to be in a relationship where your needs aren't important or respected? I'm not talking about making demands...I'm talking about those essential things for your M to work. For me it was severing contact with OW and speaking up about his needs. Those are the two things that did the most damage to our M (H never spoke up about his issues pre-bomb and struggled with it even after reconciliation), and I knew I would not go back down that path.

Sorry this is so long! I'm thrilled you have this opportunity. Just know that this is a years-long process. My uncle cheated on my aunt 30+ years ago, and they still have things in place between them to address what happened. When my uncle is going to be later than he said he was, he calls home. He doesn't socialize with women (even in couples) unless his wife is there. My aunt trusts him, but he does these things to respect her so she never once has to doubt him.

Good luck to you. By the way, I got a lot less traffic over at Piecing, so if you're looking for regular help, you might want to stay over here. Most people in piecing still come over to the Newcomer forum so they can help others in need.

SD