What finally made our reconciling work? It took me adhering to my boundaries and letting my husband know I fully expected him to respect my boundaries as well. Without them, I wasn't me and the marriage on his loose terms didn't work for me. I was never going to happy, even if we remained married, if he were to stay in contact of any kind with ow.
Therefore, I told him that without total transparency and honoring one another's boundaries, he could leave. You know what? He did, and filed for divorce....for a third time. Once again, my kids and I had to go through the pain of separation and preparing for a divorce. As much as it hurt, I knew that I wasn't compromising my values anymore.
To me, that's the beauty of boundaries, or -- as I like to call them -- "My Boundaries of Personal Integrity." Only YOU know what they are, but they should be a very short list; your "dealbreakers," as it were . . . those things that you, as a person with your values, morals and ethics, simply CANNOT ABIDE.
And this is how it works, in practical application: If you decide that "I will not live in an open marriage," and you state that as a boundary to a cheating spouse, and if that drives them away from you, and toward the other person? Well, then that's THEIR CHOICE, and them cheating -- and staying with me -- wasn't an option for me anyway, based on my own authenticity and values, so what have I lost? All I've lost in that instance is something that I could not have abided anyway.
