Guess I'm standing. Was "now what?"

[BarbH]

Thank you Gerda,

I appreciate your point of view. The fact is he is at home, and when he asked how he could come home, my only condition was that he seeks IC, and during that IC discuss how he could help me regain trust in him. Yes, I do appreciate the words are out there. I do want him back, but not the old him, so it's his decision to make. Yes, I am angry, and I am trying to control it until it can be dealt with in a more positive manner. I have set the time limit in my mind-it was a month. He's been home for a month, and no counselling booked. Actually next week will be a month.
So, we will be talking at the end of the week. Depending on how that goes, he's in or he's out. It is that time. He's had 15 years to man up and deal. It's time.

I have forgiven the affair, but as I have said,I cannot yet forgive the 15 years of corrosion to our marriage brought on because he wouldn't deal with it-even given multiple opportunities. I don't even think any more that this is MLC-I think it's more WAS-triggered primarily by his guilt, and honestly, cowardice regarding dealing with the original PA. I've told him I don't want our old marriage back-in retrospect it was utter garbage. I'm in counselling, I'm working on my issues, but in this case, if he really wants to move forward, he has to make a move-counselling. Yes I'm stuck on that, because seriously, if this even is MLC, it probably started 15 years ago. Enough is enough.

My only condition for return is that he goes to individual counselling. So even though he's home, he's still one foot in and one foot out, and frankly after the levels of disrespect (refusing counselling for 15 years, texting EA/friends at work very cruelly while ignoring me while my mother was dying, bomb dropping while my mother was dying, and then blaming me for the marriage failing, blaming me for working overtime to pay bills after a year off work with cancer) I don't think IC is too much to ask. I have told him I appreciate him doing the things he's doing around the house, I appreciate that he has the tracker on and tells me where he's going, but if he wants to demonstrate he is truly wanting to reconcile, he needs to do the work.

If he's working towards that with a counsellor, I will be patient. Right now though, I feel that there's a certain component of cake-eating, plus the fact that I know him so well-when he thinks I'm angry, he always refuses to deal with the main issue, and instead tries to get back in my good graces by a sideways approach. He always thinks he can slither back in with a "nice guy" approach. I look upon what he's doing now as a sideways approach, but really, he needs to deal with his issues stemming back to 15 years ago.

Even the fact he and his old EA are following each other on instagram could be an oversight-he only deleted her from facebook a couple of weeks ago, and doesn't use instagram much.

That's it. It's one condition-seek help. For my own self respect, I simply can't roll over on this, I've rolled over on so much for so long. And yes, I think there does come a time when you have to protect your self respect. Deception is a deal breaker for me.