Infidelity/WAH, my story pt 11, filing for D

[PsySara]

Good to see you around, Vanilla! Long time no see. I can understand your suspicions and am still keeping my guard firmly in place. When WH had his A he was cold, mean, not a good father and spent a LOT of time on his phone. If he's cheating then he's super man. He spends every free moment home with me and the kids and is very engaged with us.

So WH picked up a stomach bug from DS1, he spent the night vomiting on Wednesday and was completely lethargic on Thursday. I took care of the kids and went about my usual routine. On Friday WH was all better and constantly texting and calling just to joke and play around. By that evening I was stuck in the bathroom vomiting and diarrhea. WH completely took over and Friday night/Saturday morning he was cleaning DD6 vomit out of the carpet while I puked in the bathroom. It was both hilarious and disgusting.

I was useless all Saturday and WH took care of me and the kids. Now it looks like this awfulness has passed and WH is still sleeping as he is probably exhausted. He continues to work on us, he wants to know if there is anything I need both emotionally and physically. He sets aside time just for us so we can talk and we have used some of the tools we learned at Retrouvaille to communicate, though not as structured and regimented. Sometimes something will trigger me and he sees it, he will look like he's in pain and say Sorry over and over again.

One thing that has been absent for a while is my rage. I guess I decided I could spend the rest of my life looking for things to be just or I could be happy. My DB coach told me a long time ago that people get the mentality that, "Someone's gonna pay" and that can prevent people from healing. I decided that the scales can never be even between WH and I and I needed to stop waiting for that to happen. Instead of working on getting our old marriage back I decided to build a new relationship. Does this mean we will be married for the rest of our lives? Not sure. But I can at least have a functional relationship with the father of my children.

WH knows I have decided that I can walk away from our marriage if necessary for my own mental health. I filed for divorce and the paperwork is 80% complete, albeit on hold. My retainer is still in escrow and all I have to do is contact the lawyer if I feel it's time to move toward D. I do not use this as a sword of Democles over WH head but rather as a protection. I don't bring it up but we both know it's there.

For now I focus on the NOW. Instead of ruminating over all his past transgressions I have focused on how we are both nurturing each other. I have read hundreds of other DBers stories and quite a few of them achieved their goals without IC or MC. They simply kept working on themselves and towards watering the grass in their own backyard.

I find myself disagreeing more and more with the hardliners that expose, kick out and overall shame their wayward spouses. This punitive behavior almost NEVER works and instead rips up the road back home. Putting boundaries in place are for the BS and should be about protecting the BS not hurting the WS. The DB coaches advise against that as well as MWD in her books. Lovingly detaching involves GAL, building up your support network, stop snooping and moving forward. Focus on those goals and you win no matter the outcome of the marriage.