Carefully moving forward from H's mlc - ctflor

[AntoniaB]

I agree with IB about trying not to let yourself be manipulated by HIS ups and downs, and it sounds like you are. It's understandable, expected, but it's hurting you.

Your posts above remind me of when XH and I were back together, after the first separation, pre-his meeting OW. He would break down, cry, make the promises, I'd feel numb, disbelieving.

The fact is that I had very little trust in him anymore. I also was starting by then to recognize that I was doing better without him and that I was afraid I'd lose those things if I was with him. And then he took up with OW despite the promises, and now we're divorced.

Today, he claims that my "not trusting him then" was one factor that led to OW/the affair. But he also claims a million other things.

I think the anxiety you're feeling (and it's just my opinion as I'm not a doctor) is coming from trust issues. Trust in yourself to "make the right decision" and that involves whether you WANT to be with him or not, plus how much of your GALing you are going to "keep around" when he is saying things like "you're punishing me" when from your end, you're taking care of yourself. It's also trust in him, because you hear his crying and sadness, and your heart goes out to him and you want to believe he won't hurt you again, but you don't know that.

You're holding all this in from him, because it's such a tenuous situation that you feel you will so much affect if you let this out, and it's creating an enormous amount of anxiety in you.

I think it makes perfect sense that "only now" is this anxiety coming out for you.

I don't want to paint him as the bad guy. Maybe he really will piece things and work hard and stick around.

But the punishing him comment when you've GALed (esp. since you said he is exagerrating) is troubling, and also troubling is the comment about how "you thought this was what he wanted."

That reminds me of when they first show MLC issues and they blame us for everything, and we work furiously to correct what they tell us is wrong in US, and they keep moving the bar, moving the target.

Ok, so you GALed, you feel better about yourself, and these were also changes he said he wanted, but now he's not happy with them either?? See what is going on here?

I do not envy you at all. I think a lot of people do envy those in this position and it's just as hard as the losing them part, I swear. It takes a lot of strength to be where you are and hold it together.

I would suggest that you try to find times to let it out as you did. You said it helped to go really cry. Ok. So try to find places/times to have those cathartic cries on your own.

I'd also suggest, hard as it is, that whatever detachment you had going from him when you were GALing, that you try to maintain that level of detachment NOW even in piecing. As in, don't get sucked into his vortex of "I'm sad" or "what have I done" or "you're punishing me not being here."

His script is different, but it's still script, is it not?

It's good if he is willing to do the Retrouvaille thing. Yes. But I guess I have to say that you have to just do your best day by day, try to keep your expectations in check, and not ASSUME that any one thing you do "makes" or "breaks" this marriage for the future.

Maybe you will work this out, but maybe you won't, and maybe if you won't it will because YOU choose to walk. If you accept that that, too, is a possibility, I think you will feel less controlled by someone else's pain or drama and more in control of your own destiny, and what I hear in your anxiety is someone who probably felt a measure of control over her life in GALing who is scared she will lose that control in piecing--or probably this isnt' the only reason you're anxious but it is a part of it.