Not sure where I am so no title!

[AndrewP]

Coly23 - Your comment about your D reminded me of something out of my own past that I've not shared here before. Feel free to share this with your D if you like.

My Mother and I were always close. I felt that she was the glue that held our family together. Around the time she turned 60 though she stopped spending time with us, spending time with some friends who she called her "new family" (longer story redacted). I was quite upset about this but never made a fuss and let her live her new life. A few years later she was diagnosed with colon cancer and died a week or so later. My W pushed me quite hard to go and see her on her death-bed but I refused saying that she had cut me out of her life and that if she wanted to talk to me she only had to call and that I felt that "death-bed reconciliations" were too fake.

Some years later when my D24 was perhaps D16 I confronted her once saying that if she kept pushing me away I would let her go. We are still quite close.

After BD1 and before I found out about the affair, W mentioned to me that one thing she was scared of was me abandoning her like I had my mother. I told her that no - my mother had walked away from us and that I had let her go. W got very thoughtful after that.

I think about the parallels with my mother leaving my life and my W leaving quite often and it always makes me sad. In both cases I let them go and still feel that it was the right thing to do. My mother never came back. I promised my W that I would not abandon her - but when does the time come to know that she's indeed gone? I struggle a lot with that especially since she continues to maintain connections to me.

So - what I'm trying to say in my usual long-winded story-telling way is that even though your D is angry at H and even though he has chosen to walk his own path that she should keep a part of her heart ready to accept him back if he does return.