AS- I agree. It's definitely my action that caused this, and that's one of the many reasons I dont actually think theres an OW. That situation sounds terrifying and I'm sorry you went through something like that. At the beginning of my IC and when speaking to some close friends about what I did, I definitely struggled with understanding how this was as bad as other domestic abuse, and no matter how I feel about generational and gender differences, the impact on H was the same and I had to come to terms with that and validate his feelings when we went to MC and when we spoke about it in the beginning.
We have talked about it some - I opened up a few weeks ago when he was at the house picking up the dogs about how I was having a hard time in IC and being hard on myself because it meant putting myself into the same camp as my XH who was horribly abusive to me many times (gave me a concussion was probably the most awful offense). Dealing with those feelings in IC has been rough but needed to happen. During that convo H did say that I am nowhere near how my XH was, and while that was nice to hear, it doesnt change anything. H did say that when he started his IC he had a hard time confronting some uncomfortable stuff about his behavior, too (impulsive related). During this convo, I'd said I missed being able to talk to him about this stuff. He said he is always there for me, but I havent called or brought it up again as it seems to go against DB stuff.
The other piece of showing that's changed - idk how to ever do that, as it was probably over a year in between the BD occurrence and the previous one. I thought I'd handled it, and we definitely had tense fights between those where nothing like that happened. We discussed the incident and the why pretty thoroughly in MC so there isnt really anything else to say about it. Ultimately he may decide he can never trust me again and move on. Or he may decide once hes had some emotional distance from that situation that he can start to. While that was the catalyst, it definitely wasnt our only issue - the biggest ones were that he felt I talked down to him, and in our last MC session I had identified some subtle but frequent things I was doing or saying that I didnt realize or understand was making him feel that way. Biggest one being saying things like 'can you help me do x' instead of 'can we do x' and taking his opinion into consideration and not being so focused on logistics. He seemed impressed that I was able to identify these on my own and understood that I didnt realize the impact of that language difference. But with this, it's another thing where I cant really show those changes because 'we' arent really doing joint things right now. I understand he needs to work on his own feelings of codependency and being able to make himself happy before touching this couples stuff, and he may decide he doesnt want to work stuff out, but who knows. Hes isolated himself in a boring town away from friends and is focusing on work, which burns him out faster than he recalls. He has a lot of time to think/reflect and figure out what he wants once the fun/relief of being apart has worn off. When he would go out of town for work when we were together, I'd always intiay be excited bc it can be fun to have that solo time, but it quickly becomes...not fun.
