I've looked at life from both sides now

[Raine]

These posts are really great. I feel like everything is coming from a place of love and care, and I can take the heat. I can dish it back too, and give you eyebrow raising nicknames, right T-Dawg? Please hijack away. I don't see it as such anyway. This is all really great stuff. Lots I'm processing now.

What does transparency look like to me? He knows what is okay in a relationship and what is not. Total transparency means that he is honest and forthcoming about things without me having to look. Without me having to ask. I don't want access to anything. I want him to trust me that he can tell me anything and we can deal with it and work through it and that neither of us is perfect. Total transparency means I go back to being able to tell him everything and anything too. I can have access to everything and then what, I have to check it? I'm forever obsessed by him and what he is doing and with who? Something happens and then I have to approach him about it? No. That sounds crappy.

I have told him about emotional triggers. I have told him not only does "this" emotional trigger upset me, but it upsets me that I even have them. Having them makes me more upset than the actual trigger. I have told him the beard is a trigger. Him flirting with another married woman is a trigger, even though I know she is completely safe. Complimenting women is a trigger. So yes, he has gotten a few, but I think I'm missing something that I said to you that in turn was questioned as to "why I'm not telling him." For the most part, I'm not telling him things because I worry about scaring him and pushing him back in the tunnel. I don't know what he can handle. My thought is that even though he is dropping hints like, "We aren't in the same place we were in June." And saying things like "Our relationship," he has not come out and said he wants to work on it or that we are back together.

Now I had an epiphany about this. This is something that he did before me with another situation. He stopped going to church for a few years, and then went back again for almost a full year before he would admit to anyone or even himself that he was in fact back and active in religion. Sounds a bit familiar. So forcing him to admit to himself or anyone else that he is in a relationship with me again...probably not ready for that.

"You mentioned that H 'knew' what he did was "morally" and "ethically wrong." Based on what? It is a matter of perception and interpretation."

Based on his view point and what he has said about others doing the same thing. Based on his own words, that when he does something minor he will say, "I'm going to hell for much worse reasons than that." Based on him telling me he has done a lot of things wrong. Based on his religious view points, but not sure what he really feels about them now. Based on him telling me before BD that something was wrong and he needed C. Even as far back as 2010 he was telling me something was wrong.

But...I do have some doubts in there that need to be worked out. Saying and thinking could be very different things for him. If he is truly of the mindset that it's okay to be married to one person and sleeping with another person, and I don't care what the reasoning is in there to justify it, that's not a healthy person for me to be married to. I'm not interested in an open marriage or a marriage with hidden affairs.