Well, first of all, your niece is a very smart girl.
My H and I seem to have definitely R. I guess I knew it was for real when my sister and her H were having problems, and one day we stopped in to see him. My H and BIL did most of the talking, and BIL said my sister said he was too rigid and mean, or something to that effect(he is in the Air Force). H told BIL people can change. After we left, H told me he was glad I gave him a second chance. And that the things he was saying to BIL were aimed at me, too. We have been kinder to each other, we still have arguments, but I would mostly rather give in or tell him I see his side of it, and he will do the same. We just don't fight like we used to. Things are so much calmer around the house. He told me he isn't going anywhere. He calls me to let me know where he is, when he will be home, and sometimes he calls several times during the day, just to chat.
It took me nearly two years to get over the depression I was plunged into when I first found out. I have no idea how I found this site, but boy am I glad I did. I bought every book people recommended. I bought "How To Save your Marriage Alone" by Ed Wheat. I wrote bits of advice from here and on other sites all over any blank space in that book (it's very small), and I carried it in my purse all the time. I read DB and Dr cover to cover, and went back and re-read parts that seemed to most fit us. When wasn't reading, I felt like a zombie. I lost 60 pounds in about five or six weeks. I got dehydrated, had bad leg cramps from that. I was living in fear, I had panic attacks, thought I was having a heart attack. I started trying to focus on my S and myself. I wouldn't say each day it got better, but after the first year, it wasn't as awful, and then the second year '08, was less awful than that. I guess when I got the courage to tell H that I expected for him to have no contact, and when I found there had been, to tell him no contact means no contact, I began to feel I had a say.
If I had stayed like that long enough, it would have slowly killed who I am. I totally agree she needs to do something different, but if she is dead set against filing for D, what do you say? I think she is from NJ, and there are alternatives to filing for D, even if they don't have legal S.
I don't know if I could forgive another A, either. I don't know how I would handle it. I do know I could not handle another six years or so of the crap I went through. So, fear or no, I would be fine on my own, if it came to that. I probably sounded braver than I really am with that statement
It makes perfect sense to me; with what you and the others of us here have gone through, what the heck else could life throw at us that could s*ck as much, and hurt so bad? Except like you said, the unthinkable. We have had our trial by fire, and we got singed, but we didn't burn up.
So, what made your niece decide to don crimson and white for the next four years? Is your family from the south? I actually root for Alabama, because my mother(the midwestern girl from Ohio) does and because H does, but I used to love to bug people by saying I was for Notre Dame. Our S's school plays your old Alma Mater on 11-19.
So, how are you and your H getting on? So, I think you said y'all are in California all the time? Or do you go to Alaska, too sometimes? Can you see Russia from up there? How did your H finally get out from under the spell of those people? What happened to ow? Polar Bear???
