WH came back. Piecing. Past the 2 year mark ...

[25yearsmlc]

Hi 25!

I think I know what you are asking :-) Sometimes if I go back and reread a post that I wrote, I can see where I am actually contradicting myself; that definitely helps me check myself and helps me look at things more objectively. For example, I have said how the Retro program has drilled the point home that Love, M, and Commitment are all choices and not feelings (or should not be decided based on emotions). And I do agree with this. Then I turn around and say, "but it doesn't feel right." So what I am saying is that understanding and agreeing with this ideology is not necessarily making it easier for me. Making a choice that doesn't feel right is hard.


all of this^^ makes sense. The last sentence highlighted above -is b/c I realize that when a choice is not hard, it's not really a choice. We just decide.

When a tough moral dilemma presents itself, I figure chances are that the harder option is the morally correct one. Why? Because if the easier option were morally superior to the alternative, we would not be struggling, we'd just decide.

Make sense?

you did mention that we all have choice. So? Or Is this a form of abuse for you? I'm asking, since you say that it's something you would not endure.

Guess your question is whether you are asking too much of yourself. Not whether you "should" but whether you can.

How can you figure that out

The abuse that some of the presenting couples have described seems extreme IMO: some of them have been through repeated adultery, emotional, physical, and sexual abuse. I mean in the M with the same person they have restored their M with.


ugh I HOPE that it means they somehow connected very deeply during the forgiveness and reconciliation phase. Maybe I have to believe that.

Or someone is sweeping under the rug and not enforcing a boundary, (maybe?)

And many years would have to pass before we could know for certain, I think.


Some of them have been abused by their partner for most of the M. It honestly shocked me.

If it were physical abuse, - actually that would have at least been clear. But I'm with you on being a bit stumped.

And yet I just specified "physical"^^^ abuse above. Hmm. Yeah it's more dramatic and dangerous. But there are other forms...

Hey, I've been swirling a bit today (it's h's birthday today. It's the first one since 1979 that I did not plan for, or do something. And this Monday we will have been sep a year, which is the last time I saw him.)

ANYWAY

I see h differently now. Not putting it all on him. I would do many things differently if I went back in time. And I'd accept less crap, too.
-
I see some lousy things h did that I glossed over before, and some were long ago. (Not all of it was recent "new h" stuff.)

Some of it looks pretty neglectful or abusive to me now, but then, I'm looking at the past with a new lens.(Nothing physical, to be clear).

It's Embarrassing to be honest. Here is the thing,
I put up with too much in hindsight. But I'm Not sure if a single incident is worth leaving - but when you add them up cumulatively, it looks surprisingly bad.

Those women in the abusive marriages, Blu - when you are in the maze, you don't know it's a maze.

Sorry to ramble. I do feel for you. I want it to work for you, but only if you come to feel love for and from your h and are at peace.



-However I found myself thinking that no one should put up with that and if this had happened to me, I would move on and never look back. ... So what tho, as I am sure many people would look at my sitch and what my H did and think the same. We can't live based on what other people think tho.

All that being said, I always told myself that any type of infidelity would be unforgivable. So here I am trying to undo that. And I still say that now--that if H ever betrayed me again, I would end the M and never look back. ...


These sort of absolutes make it hard to forgive the past. Because even tho I know that love is a choice, I feel that by going against my promises to myself and forgiving him, that I am somehow now betraying myself.

Not sure if that makes sense. Maybe I just don't know what I am going to do.

Blu

it makes sense.

When you told yourself that "any type of infidelity would be unforgivable" -

Was it the imagined anger you had back then, preemptively, or that you assumed you just could not forgive it, or that you knew something about yourself?

Regardless, it's not as if you have to keep that "vow" to withhold forgiveness. You are re-examining a boundary that you (kind of) set for yourself many years ago.

FWIW, you'll probably do the same with your kids when they are in their teen years

and You do have choice.

Or are you wondering if you are in the "maze" and just not seeing it?