WW in EA, NC w/OM(?), W's BFF interfering, part 7

[hoosjim]

The reason I refer back to this is b\c it may take time for your W to really grasp the damage she's done.

I think she does, I really do. And I think that is one of the reasons there is some hope. The last time I had one of my "panic attacks" (not really panicky, but closest corollary I can think of), she told me the pain and hurt (and anger) in my face was obvious... she said it was really clear and really jarring to see. She related it to the pain and hurt she saw in me when we had our last true blow-up when I found her last burner phone way back at the end of July-- the episode which, I believe, put us on the track to where we are now. That night, and over that week, I think she truly recognized the hurt and damage she had caused... and she elected to "come back". She didn't do it as cleanly and as much by "my rules" as I would have preferred (as I am sure you recall), but... I think that that was her "wake up" moment. It finally hit her how much hurt she had caused and could end up causing, and that what she had done was actually going to cause the break up of our family. She was staring that in the face that night and all that week. The fact that she recognized that pain in me a few weeks later makes me believe that her "turn" is genuine. Not that we are "all the way back", and not that she is "completely over OM"-- I know darn well she is still struggling with that from the scattered setbacks and near setbacks over the past couple of months, but... those "dips" seem fewer and farther between, now.

Now, we are faced with the more difficult assignment of seeing if we can love each other intimately again. That's going to be a higher hill to climb than ending the Affair, IMHO, and I am not even 100% sure that we are completely out of the woods, yet, on that latter count. Maybe if her bff would just hurry the heck up with her divorce and move to Florida, already...