T, Glad to hear you are guarding your heart and have no expectations. You are going into this with eyes wide open. Remember that you deserve so much. Don't settle for less.
And, based on what your H said about "screwing up" & will you kick him out? And your answer, "probably not." Aren't you sort of giving him a "free pass" on making another mistake...and this time he would be doing this knowing that as long as he is honest with you that you "probably" would be okay with this?
Just saying it sounds a bit confusing to me.
M- 18 T-21 S-14,11 & 10 BD 6-18-2012 (OW-EA) H moved out 11-3-2012 10-5-13 Me- I want a divorce. I want to move on w my life. 11-25-13 Jointly filed.
T, And, based on what your H said about "screwing up" & will you kick him out? And your answer, "probably not." Aren't you sort of giving him a "free pass" on making another mistake...and this time he would be doing this knowing that as long as he is honest with you that you "probably" would be okay with this?
Just saying it sounds a bit confusing to me.
I don't know if I believe in sex addiction. However, here is the way I look at this right now. We aren't peicing. We are living together, he is working on himself. Going to IC, journaling, praying, reading books IC suggests, etc. I contine to work on myself,going to IC, praying, journaling, etc. Just like an alcoholic, saying "you drink again and you are out!!" won't keep them from drinking. They will just lie and try to hide it if they do in fact drink.
I've learned through this process that I have no idea how I will feel about something until it happens. So, for me to say "You think about/text another/sleep with another woman and your are OUT is just me trying to excert control over his behavior. If it happens, we'll see how I feel then. It may simply be that I will then know I will never R with him. Does it mean he has to move out, no. If we are peicing and it happens, who knows. We have spoken about this at length, that was just the short version. My deal breaker is lying. That is very clear.
Today he is in the home, helping with the kids, working on himself and trying to rebuild my trust.
M: 9 yrs T: 13 yrs H:34 Me:35, S4, D2, S 7 months Dday 11/12-PA & multiple PAs Dbing 12/12 S 1/13 7/13 H moved back in basement. 8/13 #3 born 10/13 still cheating 10/13 He moves across country, I file for D
If he "thinks about/texts another/sleeps with another woman" you say you don't know how you'll feel about it. Is that true? I can think of many ways I'd feel, angry, hurt, disrespected, lied to. Setting a boundary is not to change his behavior but to protect you and I know you know this as I've seen you write it here and you've done it.
I'm wondering what's different here or maybe I'm misunderstanding. I'm not trying to pick apart your choice, just to understand. I learn so much from others here.
Me 57/H 58 M36 S 2.5yrs R 12/13
Let me give up the need to know why things happen as they do. I will never know and constant wondering is constant suffering. Caroline Myss
If he "thinks about/texts another/sleeps with another woman" you say you don't know how you'll feel about it. Is that true? I can think of many ways I'd feel, angry, hurt, disrespected, lied to. Setting a boundary is not to change his behavior but to protect you and I know you know this as I've seen you write it here and you've done it.
I'm wondering what's different here or maybe I'm misunderstanding. I'm not trying to pick apart your choice, just to understand. I learn so much from others here.
I don't even know if I'd really be hurt anymore. It's more like I expect the same from him, which is my LARGE reservation to atempting an R with him. I am surprised daily by his positive actions. We have spoken at great length over the past 3 weeks, both in counciling and together about our sitch. I really have seen a change, but it might not matter as far as a M relationship.
That might be my boundary should I chose to try an R with him. Which, as he knows, could be a long time before I decide. It is not my boundary for him to live in the home. He wants to be a faithful person. I'm giving him the time. The honesty is the first step. But, he also is well aware that I just don't know. He knows that it could be a conseqence. He could come home tonight, tell me he slept with someone and I could decide he needed to move out. I never said "Oh yea, just be honest with me and I'll keep putting up with this." Nope. He also knows that could push me over to completely closing the door to M, which he also knows is only about a 1/2 inch open right now anyway.
I don't know if that makes any sense. It's not like I don't still love him, but I know who he is. He sleeps with OW. He lies. So, we'll see. I don't take it personally anymore. His sleeping with OW has nothing to do with my worth as a human being anymore. He is profoundly messed up. He isn't jerking my emotions around, because I do have boundaries. I haven't listed them all here, but no trying for sex with me is a big one. So far, he has respected that.
M: 9 yrs T: 13 yrs H:34 Me:35, S4, D2, S 7 months Dday 11/12-PA & multiple PAs Dbing 12/12 S 1/13 7/13 H moved back in basement. 8/13 #3 born 10/13 still cheating 10/13 He moves across country, I file for D
I was thinking about how to explain this better, and I think this is it.
Boundaries, as you have stated, aren't to control behavior of others, but to protect us. Because I had accepted that he had been sleeping around, and since that is all out on the table, my biggest problem with him is that I don't trust him. If he wants me to try an R with him, he needs to build trust. I'm not freaking out that he is out sleeping with other people. I'm more shocked by the proof that he isn't, haha. If this changes and it starts effecting me negatively, I will deal with that then. That's the day by day thing I'm doing.
Like I said, I was planning on letting him move back in for financial and logistic reasons. He had begun to treat me respectfully and was helping with the kids, etc. This whole R thing, well...time will tell. I'm kind of the WAS at this stage.
M: 9 yrs T: 13 yrs H:34 Me:35, S4, D2, S 7 months Dday 11/12-PA & multiple PAs Dbing 12/12 S 1/13 7/13 H moved back in basement. 8/13 #3 born 10/13 still cheating 10/13 He moves across country, I file for D
Hey people. I've been around reading all of your sitch's, thought I'd give a little update.
Things have been going really well with my H. He helps out more than he ever has, even more thoughtful than he has ever been. Each day I just wait for it to stop, and it actually seems to get more and more each day. Even a small conversation about switching gyms was eye opening into his continued willingness to look at himself. We are both very involved in fitness. Before BD and our separation, he wanted to join an MMA gym. Very costly and the classes would be incredibly time consuming. This was a problem, considering we have 2 soon to be 3 small children, we both attend 12 step meetings and IC...and he wanted to add 3-4 weekly classes to his week. Basically, I would have been a single mom during the week and would not be fitting in time for myself. Anyway, I said I was thinking of switching my membership to Gold's so I can have pool use to start training for a tri after the baby comes. He said he'd love to check it out too, since he has no intention of joining the MMA gym. "It was really selfish of me to ask to do this and make you feel bad when you voiced your concerns. I'll do martial arts with S4 when he starts."
We have had many conversations like this over the course of this month. He has blamed me for so many things that weren't my doing, and I had become very controlling over the house and things with the kids. We both have eased up so much, it's just easy. We laugh all the time and just generally enjoy each other and the kids.
IC is going really well. She sees us both, we both are currently reading books she suggested. It's funny, we read them before bed and write in our journals. Me with my co-dependant book, his "healing the shame" book...we joke about it. Time to get healed! She sees my H as honestly wanting to work to be a healthy, monogamous man. Time will tell, she said that my willingness to live in the moment and accept him for who he is has been a huge help to him. Hey, I know I can live a happy & wonderful life without him, so doing this isn't so scary. What do I have to lose? He can't be faithful, so we move on. But we can be friendly and coparent. All I know is that I've watched him grow up and mature in the past 2 months like I never have in the past 13 years. But mainly in IC, I've been working through my own family of origin stuff. Fun!!
We spent this weekend getting the house organized, to begin to move D2 into S4's room. They are sooooo excited to share. It will be interesting to move D2 from a crib to a big girl bed, but decorating the room will be so fun!
Running is down to 3 miles at a time, so I've been putting in more weight lifting. Plus, it's a thousand degrees here in the midwest. Melting!! 33 weeks...he'll be here soon. Wow.
M: 9 yrs T: 13 yrs H:34 Me:35, S4, D2, S 7 months Dday 11/12-PA & multiple PAs Dbing 12/12 S 1/13 7/13 H moved back in basement. 8/13 #3 born 10/13 still cheating 10/13 He moves across country, I file for D
I just wanted to pop in to say THANK you for giving me the tool of learning to back off and not engage. It seems to be working. Eventually, I hope to gain the respect from my h, as I deserve. We do teach people how we can be treated. Whether he is doing it for the business or our relationship is what I will need to figure out now.
Once again... thank you!
M:46 H:49 T:20yrs myD:22 H distant summer/12 H sleeping in b'ment: Nov/12 BD: Dec 2/12 asked me begin to move end of Jan/13 moved Jan 7/13 (left my stuff) "agreed" to "working on r" Mar 3/13(lipservice!)
Glad to hear that makingmagic! Keeping my mouth shut and losing expecations has been a huge part of my growth as a human being. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING has to be "figured out NOW!!". I was a big fan of hammering out things NOW. Which, is tricky since I have 6 weeks left until baby is here and the urge to nest has kicked into high gear.
Life is good, people. I'm living each day as it comes. Just switched gyms to Gold's and LOVE IT!! Still love the looks I get from people when I walk past the eliptical and go to the weights at 8 months pregnant. I'm pregnant, not terminal!! Ha. This is my last week instructing my group fitness classes for 12 weeks and I'm pretty excited for the break.
So, things with the hubs are going really well. He helps out so much, and I never, ever have to ask. We spent the weekend at some property and my bestie and her fam came. She and I were talking on the beach and I was expressing my reservations with ever being able to trust him and is he really a good guy or a lying sociopath. She said "T, he's a good guy. You can't fake it that much. Now, it's a different story if you will ever trust him." Sigh.
I've made some baby steps towards a romantic R with him. We have been doing date nights. He compliaments me up a storm, is kind and compassionate. What really floors me is our ability to communicate. In a month, not one fight. We both are honest and forthcoming about our feelings. Our time apart has shown us that we both use to bottle in stuff and explode. Mindreading was a huge problem for both of us. Now we go "Hey, when you just said that, this is what I heard." the ususal response is "OMG, that is NOT what I was saying..." Then we laugh and move on. It's amazing what things we all interpret others to be saying.
He has been sleeping in our bed for the past week, on our trip oot we ML. It was really great. We'll see. He knows that this doesn't mean anything besides I'm still taking it one day at a time. I haven't promised anything but today, and he hasn't either.
So we shall see. Happy 4th!!!
M: 9 yrs T: 13 yrs H:34 Me:35, S4, D2, S 7 months Dday 11/12-PA & multiple PAs Dbing 12/12 S 1/13 7/13 H moved back in basement. 8/13 #3 born 10/13 still cheating 10/13 He moves across country, I file for D
