Yes I think you're right, though maybe I shouldn't get my hopes too high, so far in this whole process I have done nothing but be too optimistic and have my hopes dashed. As my IC keeps telling me, expectations are built-in disappointments.
I read your thread and how you wished you had pushed for change earlier. I do too, when he did his mini BD 2 years ago and then came back, I wish so much I hadn't let him push things under the carpet but insisted on things changing then. Things did change a bit last year but I have no idea why, I thought that he was finally being a decent husband and when I asked him later he said he was 'trying', why couldn't he have continued trying? Or did he need me to try too but couldn't tell me? Or had he just given up? I don't know. I just know I wish so much I had insisted on change 2 years ago instead of getting to this excruciating place. Sometimes being an optimist is a bad thing...If he does want to come back I need to be understanding but not too forgiving. I'm a very forgiving person but that doesn't protect me from future harm and it doesn't help him change. One of the things I told the IC right at the start was that I wanted him to challenge me and to hold me to account. I will remind him of that next week. I feel like last week he was just validating me and that was annoying. He's made a few mistakes, like asking me early on how it would feel to be divorced (I wailed my eyes out and he felt bad), but I want him to continue to ask me difficult but not impossible questions.
When I went to the garden centre yesterday I had a flashback to this time last year when dh and I went to that garden centre together. He was very rude to me, kept picking plants I didn't like and trying to make out like he was some gardening expert when he has NEVER expressed the slightest interest in gardening whereas I've been into gardening for 25 years and have a lot of knowledge! He was so extremely rude to me at the checkout that I could tell an older lady at the till next to us really wanted to intervene (how humiliating). When we took the stuff out to the car he was again unbelievably unkind to me and I could see this poor lady wanting to talk to me about how unacceptable his behaviour was (that was the worst part, not only having witnesses but seeing through someone else's eyes just how unreasonable his behaviour was), and I ended up walking off and catching the bus back.
I am still trying to puzzle that time out. I don't know if it's helpful or not to mention that his mum (the one who had an affair, ran off with another man and ended up abandoning dh and his siblings) is really, really into gardening. Can't help but feel it's linked somehow...
Anyway, I thought I would remind myself that although sometimes things were better last year (we had a lot more sex and he was a lot more affectionate), there were still some hideous low points.
