I've looked at life from both sides now

[Raine]

I don't know a worse pretense to start a relationship on than this. Seems like we need to take it all. There is the good of the history there, the strength that this new relationship rises from. I think to try and disregard the past as if it had nothing to do with me or our marriage is kidding myself. I'm not in mlc. I'm not in the land of whatever I think and can justify is right. And I have done a lot of things wrong. And at some point I will probably need to put those things on the table. Because secrets kill a relationship, no doubt. It's not the unfaithfulness. It's the hiding. It's the lying. And it works both ways. I can't hold secrets from him and be completely devoted to him either. It's not about the details. And right now he isn't capable of handling anything coming from me. And knowing him, and as he has always said, he doesn't want to know. But even that there isn't right or fair.

Now as far as my H goes and the matter of right and wrong, it's clear he knows it is wrong. Wrong in every sense. He views it as such. But, it was what he wanted to do. And however he needed to justify it to himself, if he even needed to do that, he did. But he did it with full awareness that it was wrong, but the desire and drive to do it was greater.

And that's why now and during he was so racked with guilt. He is going to have to work through that and I sense part of working through that is going to be the need to make amends, and not just to me. I can't see it being healthy for him to disregard the past and pretend it was previous relationships before me, not involving me, and that it was okay to treat others like that. I don't see how that could be healthy for him when he has so much guilt there.

His behaviors is what I watch. His behavior shows he cares about me, he wants me, he is married. But there is that cog-dis. Almost like it's easier to change one's moral belief system than it is to go through the process of seeking forgiveness and making things right when he knows he has done wrong.