I'm very happy for you. Of course staying "cautiously optimistic" is advisable. With that required warning aside, I'm still very happy for you. I am a romantic and always want to see love prevail. Stay the course and I'm sending positive energy your way.
Thank you Tex!
Despite the positive signs I still have all the worries that started me on this path. I hope they are unfounded, or that they are just subconscious reminders of how fragile relationships are.
One thing I'm sure about - this whole experience has taught me to never take a relationship for granted, and that constant work is required for relationships to succeed. I hope I get to the point to where I learn what kind of work is needed for sustained relationships, but right now I'm clueless.
Don't worry about those worries. I still have those worries myself and we're much further along the path. You have to learn how to live with those worries. Now you and I know that nothing is guaranteed. You can be in the deepest, more romantic, loving relationship imaginable and in an instant one partner can pull out of it. That can happen. Now we both know that. Still, a plane could come crashing out of the sky right this second and squash us flat. That can happen too. We can't go through life worrying about the bad things that might happen to us.
When I was considering getting back with my wife I struggled with the decision. I said to myself that she cheated, she's capable of hurting worse than I ever imagined. Maybe I should move on and find love again some day with someone else. Find new love with someone who won't cheat on me. Then I realized that's a futile pursuit. ANYONE CAN CHEAT ON ANYONE ELSE. Believe it or not, you or I could cheat in the future. We're all human. We can all swear on our children's souls that we would never do that but guess what? Our WW's used to swear the same thing. After that I decided everyone deserves a second chance, no one deserves a third. Now we're on a second chance and it's pretty good. There would be no second chance.
She encourages me to post in places like this to tell our story. I'm happy to do it. I saw what worked and I saw what didn't. I lived it.
The entire thing affected me so deeply that I'm investigating going back to school to become a licensed therapist. I want to help people going through things like this. I'd be taking a HUGE pay cut but we're fine financially so I'm probably going to make that move at 48 years old.
