LiM: One Year into Piecing

[LiM]

When piecing with a spouse who cheated, we want them to feel "disgusted with themselves" as you mentioned. We want them to outwardly feel the utmost remorse and show it.

Yes, I agree that is what I want to see if I have to be honest. Maybe that's not fair. Its not for me to decide how someone should feel about something. My W HAS shown remorse. And when she expresses that, it helps with my healing. But I know I can't expect her to always be an emotional, crying mess just to make me feel better. I realize that if she were to stay in that place, then she and we will never fully heal. We've both got to find a way to move beyond this. And I'm trying to do my part. Just this morning, I ordered a book called How to Stop the Pain.

My W never chose to stop the A. The A ended when OM confessed to his W 3 days after I filed for D. I had found out that the A was still going when I was under the impression we were working on our R. My W did not tell OM that I knew the A was still going on; only that I had served her. My feeling (mind reading) was that she didn't tell him I knew because she wanted to keep it going at all cost. If he knew that I knew, then he would potentially withdraw from her out of fear of exposure. In the end, I imagine he felt that because I had filed, I no longer had a reason to keep the A from his W and that is why he confessed.

I guess my biggest concern about this most recent issue was that my W did not tell me about the encounter even though she knows she should have. I would have preferred that she told me about seeing him and that when she did, it brought back some of the feelings she had for him. I would have been ok with that. Instead, she goes to some friends and talks about how hot he looked, how much she misses him and how good of a heart he has. Ugh.

My feeling is that she still puts him on a pedestal. He is a cowardly, cheating POS. On top of that, he dumped HER. As awful as my W believes that his W is, he chose HER over my W. So how much did he really care for my W? On top of that, my W has told me that she felt "manipulated" in that R. So why keep this guy on a pedestal?

Anyways, over the past 48 hours, I've worked on detaching emotionally from her. And I've noticed a SIGNIFICANT change in my W. She has been much more affectionate and talkative. Maybe this needs to be my new normal for a while so that she becomes the pursuer. In the past year of our piecing, it has DEFINITELY been ME that has been the pursuer.