Harrier

[angel61]

Hi Harrier, I have followed your posts from the start. I do remember thinking that things were happening too fast in your sitch and that you did not yet have time to assimilate all that things that you needed to learn; nor identify what you need to change. From your saying that you did backslide, that just might be the case.

Reading your posts now, my feeling is that you are all over the place. You are in panic mode again, you are pursuing, begging, distancing, talking, agreeing, disagreeing, etc. all in one breath.

What does that do to your W? It pushes her away. She is confused, you are even more so. She sees you are hurting, and she has to get out of the situation because it is driving her crazy.

Breathe, Harrier. Give yourself space, give your W space. You want to keep the M, then don't talk about it. Don't bring it up, don't let your W talk about it, if she does, just walk away or ask her to talk about it some other time because you are not ready.

And it seems that you may not yet ready to make that decision.

In my thread you said you admired how I was able to give the choice to my H, it was because at that point I felt I was ready (although looking back, I think had he chosen a D I would have died) but also because, more importantly, I knew in my heart that he was NOT going to choose a D. And that was because he, at that point, wanted an S BUT also said he wanted to continue taking care of us, being in our lives, etc. I viewed that as him wanting to have his cake and eat it too. I knew he wanted that to alleviate his guilt about OW, to give him a chance to pursue her since it was at the point that OW was turning away from him. I could see that we were important to him by the way he was asking for the S.

Honestly, your W seems to be the the same. But remember that you have to be a good choice too. In your current state - do tell me, if you were her, would you choose yourself?

However, if she does not bring it up again, then don't make her choose.

My H did bring it up a couple more times, and everytime, I stuck to my guns: no S, if he wanted it so badly, we would just Divorce. Everytime, he chose to stay. He once told me that he felt that I was not giving him a real choice. I told him that I did not believe in temporary solutions.

About snooping: I did that for so long, but honestly, it only hurt me. However, I understand that for a while, you do have to know. After a while, you ask yourself whether the snooping will make you change your mind, whether it will make you do an action that aligns with your long term goal.

For me, I started to follow the "lighthouse" way of thinking, started to "stand" for my M. That is when I realized that my goal was really to save myself and my M. Essential to that is forgiveness, and losing the anger. Snooping only makes you angry, makes her think that you will never trust her, makes you think you will never trust her, and does not promote forgiveness. So do you think snoopingnhelps?

I have stopped checking my H's cellphone records for two months now and feel good about it. I know he still speaks with OW but I fugure he has to solve that problem by himslef.

Think of it this way - you can not control what your W feels about you, what she is doing or not.

I'm sure you have read this all before....