Piecing - Round 1

[keep_going]

Denver,

I have spent my morning reading your thread here, all 27 pages. It's great that you are at this stage of your journey, with this great opportunity and see how much appreciation you have for your life and your situation. You are definitely a source of inspiration for everyone who has followed your sitch and seen your hard work.

You are actually the only one in the boards who I have found to have a similar sitch re. OP as me - my H started an EA with OW, then left and then started a R with her. He still insists it's not wrong, since he had left and "he had told me that our marriage was dead." He was emotionally divorced from me way before he left. What you have clearly described in this thread are all things he has said to me with exactly the same words and I have gone through similar struggles and challenges as you have re. our spouse's perspectives.

I also identify completely with the problems and sitch in your marriage pre-bomb. I was NOT a good wife in many areas, including my anger and my H reacted very much the same way as your wife. When you posted about the entry in her diary, it was like I was hearing my H and I actually cried while I was reading it.

The difference is that my H is still with OW, has no interest in coming back and has filed for D. Yet, it has helped me to read your posts to know that my own feelings and thoughts are not just random, crazy happenings in my brain.

I hope to someday be in your situation, yet I admit I am probably the worst DBer in the forums and proof of it is my timeline and current status of my sitch.

I do have a question for you (and other men here). I have read A LOT of threads and success stories. It seems to me - and I could be wrong, that men are most likely to succeed at reconciliation. I feel that many women (myself included) have a much tougher time controlling our emotions and fail to really follow DBing in a systematic, methodical way like you, J3B, Starsky, Bond, Mach and other men have been able to. Even some men who are deep in the trenches, like AnotherStander, seem to get and apply DBing principles in a much more effective way than many women. I am talking about cases where there is infidelity involved.

I have read of successful women here, but not really of many who were the LBH and where there was an OP involved. (I read Holly06's story which is amazing, yet I find that her sitch was very different from mine.)

What do you think? Have you found some of these differences in gender as well? Are there other women you know who have been successful when there was OP involved? What do you think makes you all men be so good at DBing?

I just thought to ask, since this seems to be the gathering place for a lot male vets who have reconciled...

Thanks again, Denver - I will continue following you and learning from your experience.