I said you were "about to enter" the piecing zone...and I hope I'm right.
But as jack3 says, it's mostly a retrospective "diagnosis"...
and I mean it when I say it's NOT EASY. For me it simply meant "oh, we're really not done. We are exploring..."
One thing you said really grabbed me though.
You said "I have to know that I can get over everything that has happened in the past several weeks. I'm feeling better about it and know that I want to be able to get over it, but it is still there lingering in my head. "
Denver, forgiveness is a process and none of us KNOW we will be fully successful at it til enough time has passed for us to figure out that "oh, we did it."
I think you have to know you're going to sincerely try your butt off to do it. And then you do that.
For ME, moving in together was sort of that. IT was a "see if we can get past this..." and that Palm Springs trip helped me know I could shelve things for an amount of time...
seemed like forgiveness was going to be an extended version of that, over and over and that's what it was.
I finally said to myself,
"okay...objectively speaking, though H had his reasons, he was basically a selfish jerk for X amount of time...before then he wasn't, and now he isn't...and we have kids...SOOOOOO. He hurt me but doesn't seem likely to do it again, (not that way at least).....SO what now?"
Assuming, arguendo, that he was A BIG JERK...and that it was temporary--
do I HAVE to divorce him? Some think so...but
Why? To punish? See I don't think so.
Of course if I thought he'd do it again or if he did....I'd be done. For me, a DB ordeal is a once in a lifetime thing... but I think it was F. Scott Fitzgerald who said "every man is allowed to be an ass once in his life..."
I'm going with that.
(I'm positive F. Scott Fitzgerald said "forgotten is forgiven." And though you don't realize it now,
for long periods of time as you re-build,
with her or with someone else,
the guy on the toilet will no longer have the power to hurt you at all...
this is true.)
Just my .02
take care
M: 57 H: 60 M: 35 yrs S30,D28,D19 H off to Alaska 2006 Recon 7/07- 8/08 *2016* X = "ALASKA 2.0" GROUND HOG DAY I File D 10/16 OW DIV 2/26/2018 X marries OW 5/2016
