Last night H wanted to talk about the R. First, he immediately apologized for being off the past day or so. He said that he was reacting to me seeming to cool off. He said that he was scared of what I might be thinking and it reminded him of our disconnection/distance pre-A. He said he understood that he is going to have to be able to tolerate days like that from me, especially given what he has done and he would make sure to work on talking to me in the future rather than pulling away.
Then he said he wanted to come home. I told him that he has done a lot of damage and has quite a mess to clean up. He cried and said that he knew it and would do whatever it takes. I told him that he can’t come home unless he is 100% committed to the marriage and would do whatever it takes to make things better. It’s not fair to me and especially not fair to the kids to keep going back and forth, I won’t tolerate it again. He cried some more and said he knew and he would. He said that there is no excuse for the A but that he’s scared we will slide back into old habits and the M would become unhappy for him again. I validated and told him I would do my part to ensure that does not happen but that ultimately we BOTH have to be ‘in it to win it’. He agreed. We talked about MCing, we had a MC originally when this all came out, not sure if we will go back to him or find someone else. We are going to do some research.
I ended the convo saying that I thought we probably needed a bit more time apart and to think about things, that we shouldn’t rush anything.
So that’s the latest.
Well done, mdu -- PERFECT. THAT is how you lovingly state strong boundaries, and the way you ended it was pitch-perfect.
