Need some guidance....

[mishka422]

Confused,

I just started reading your thread in piecing when your urgent plea went up. I haven't ever posted to you before but I strongly feel I need to give you some VERY humble advice based on my own experience.

My H came home twice after the initial bomb. Both times he came back with professions of wanting to work on our M, being fully committed, yada yada yada. Both times he refused MC and IC(he was terribly depressed and semi-suicidal at times). Both times I told him I required him to cut all contact with OW and to do it in front of me on speaker phone. Nope, wouldn't do it. Couldn't understand why he had to give up his 'friend'. WTH? Seriously? I had to just lay it on the carpet and tell him that he either did it or he got out. Period! He wouldn't and he left.

I went NC (except in cases of our son). He would text me silly jokes and pictures, ask my opinion on things, tell me what a cruddy day he was having etc.. I ignored them all. It was VERY hard, don't get me wrong, but it had to be done.

We ended up D'd after I pushed for it after a particularly bad episode where he ambushed me with OW insisting we need to talk and be friends when he and I were just meeting to discuss our son.

I am one of the MOST non-confrontational people you have EVER seen, trust me. Standing up to the man I had loved since I was 18 was not an easy thing to do but I decided that I deserved to be respected and I was going to put a stop to the nonsense.

Flash forward to March, 2010 (a year and a few months post D, 2.5 years since the bomb). My now xh shows up on my doorstep telling me he is miserable, OW has kicked him to the curb, she doesn't trust him (gee...I wonder why) and she knows he still loves me. I let him sleep on my couch. He's never left. He finally told me that he had made a huge mistake and f'd everything up. That was all we spoke of it.

Things change, people change, circumstances change.....what we deserve to have for ourselves doesn't.

Decide what you require to feel respected and then lay it out for him. If he can't do it.....he needs to leave and decide what he wants.

I'm not saying things have been rosy since he's been back, I'm not even saying that my actions led to his return. All I'm saying is that if you stand up for your needs then no matter what the outcome is you will feel better about it.

Again, just IMHO.