Marriage = busted. Help me bust my divorce too!!

[mamabird]

Keep Going,
No offense taken. I am here to hear it all, and if it's tough love, so be it. There is almost no such thing as too harsh for me. Remember, I've just been through years of emotional abuse and I know you are coming from a good place.

I am positively sure I want to TRY to save my M, but I'm not super hopeful. Let me put it this way: my H made a rash decision without all the facts: Let's get a D. My feeling is, we have 14 years of history and 2 kids. IMO the A was a symptom of much larger problems. Can we solve the larger problems? Maybe, maybe not. That's where my hesitation comes in. I don't know if we can solve those problems, especially if HE doesn't want to. I get discouraged about it. It would take a lot to get there, but I know that it is possible. He has behaved in a lot of really reprehensible ways. I can try to assign reasons for all of that behavior, but what if that's just who he is? We need to strip down the R to really find out.

I did say in MC today that I wanted a better, happier stronger M and could see the path to it, but he is responding that I blew it. I can reiterate it in writing and give reasons why. I can't tell if it's helping or hurting at this point. He does not want to hear any of it, but yet is asking me to provide "facts" as to why he is wrong to want a D.

I have been reading like crazy - our therapist recommended a book called "After the Affair" which is quite good. I read it, H did not. H is now going on a business trip. I offered to loan H the book for his trip. He declined. My feeling is that H doesn't want to face the possibility that there is hope for the M.

I fully understand that he has been severely impacted by this OA and also my indiscretion before that (I say indiscretion because it hadn't even evolved to EA - it was a crush that got out of control that he found out about). I don't know what that would feel like but I can try to empathize with him. I know he has been devastated, and I know his tolerance for all of this is basically zero, which is why I am in this sitch right now.

I'm trying to do things that will encourage trust. He asked me to be home at a certain time so he wouldn't miss his flight. I was there. I have to take care of the kids when he travels and that is not an issue. He trusts me with them. But how to earn his trust back to be in a marriage? I've been open and honest with him and will continue to be, but he's not willing at this point to allow our M a chance. That's the reality. So I'm stuck between apologizing and making amends, and backing off completely.

I do love this man and want to save our marriage, but it seems like a pretty big long shot at this point. I think my best hope at this point is to grow trust through MC with co-parenting in mind.