how did you go from proceeding with a D and then reconciliation in less than a month?
First of all, my M was troubled for years. I was reasonably oblivious and more or less OK with the way things were other than that I was unhappy with the sex life. W cheated on me twice for "one-nighter" bar nights, and had two long EA's, but I didn't know about any of it. I completely trusted her and thought she would never do something like that. I figured if she was unhappy she'd talk to me about it, but she didn't.
At the time I found out what was going on and was asked for D, W's last EA had already ended (the weekend before). W was pushing to take things up a level when OM went no contact. W had been seeing an IC to help her plan to leave me, and had been working on that for months in terms of figuring out finances, impact on kids, etc., she'd spent lots of time planning it out.
Therefore, I wasn't making my situation worse by virtue of the fact that I didn't know about it. Secondly, when I did find out, I found this site really quick and used a DB coach right away and that made all the difference. That first 48 hours I definitely could have tanked it had I said / done the wrong things.
Finally, my marriage, although troubled, really wasn't that bad. We didn't have money, parenting, religion, anger, depression, alcohol or other issues. Part of what was so painful was that I couldn't look at it and see exactly where I had screwed up. It was more like W was acting like she didn't want to be around me, so I found other things to do, and she then got resentful that I wasn't spending more time connecting with her. I also learned that she was expecting me to do a lot of mind reading which I wasn't good at.
Once we were able to actually discuss the issues she had with me, I said "OK" and 180'd them. W was very surprised by this because she thought I'd be either unwilling or incapable.
I guess if I were to sum it up, I was able to turn it around because:
1) I got lucky because OM was gone by the time I started to DB 2) I got help right away 3) Things really weren't that bad historically
That's not to say it wasn't immensely painful and difficult -- it was the worst thing I've ever gone through by an order of magnitude. To say I "turned it around" in a month isn't really accurate. I got W to stop talking about divorce and consider reconciliation in a month, but for a long time it still could have gone either way, and W was letting me know.
It wasn't like things were suddenly all better -- she still was telling me it felt "bad" when I hugged her, she didn't like physical affection at all, that I'd be happier with someone else, etc. etc. etc.
I definitely don't consider my sitch an overnight success -- it's still not over.
Accuray
Married 18, Together 20, Now Divorced M: 48, W: 50, D: 18, S: 16, D: 12 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 7/13/11 Start Reconcile: 8/15/11 Bomb Dropped (EA, D): 5/1/2014 (Divorced) In a New Relationship: 3/2015
