Thread #1: 6 Months of MLC. Quick recap: H BD in June 2019, started DBing a couple weeks after that. M 10 years, T 16. Still roommates. No apparent OW, but who knows.
Taking stock: It's been a month of friendlier, slightly more mature H. I haven't seen the full-on alien/teenage H lately—the guy who kept himself so busy at bars, concerts, etc. night after night, barely sleeping, but I know he might be back. I can only imagine whether H is beginning to look inward in his IC sessions. I know he is still spending most of his time with his new friends over old ones; he is in the rosy, uncomplicated stage of friendship with them, and they only know him as he presents himself now.
I left off my last thread wondering what it would be like to initiate some kind of intimacy with him while realizing that seems anti-DB. I'm feeling more in touch with the woman I was when we dated, and I've been thinking about the possibility as both a big step for me—after a SSM, I'm feeling more confident in myself, more in touch with desire, and I feel more than ever that we could have a different kind of R as far as that is concerned. The good thing about this post-BD time is that it has given me the opportunity to focus on myself and my patterns. I am no longer apt to act immediately on my emotions or to get defensive, and I'm learning about setting boundaries. I feel like I'm an evolved and evolving version of my older self. A small consolation: I have learned a lot about myself and am still learning; I can see how far I've come in making the changes in myself I've wanted to make. I felt stuck before, but not so much anymore.
Detachment, always a work in progress. Maybe my reaching a new level of detachment and acceptance mentally was in part what prompted H's increased communication this month. Maybe it had nothing to do with it.
I know I still have anxiety about why he hasn't filed yet when he said he was going to again in November. I am trying to take DnJ's advice to not solve problems en route, to not gather dread or hope surrounding filing. I tell myself it's just as likely that is a step, if he takes it, that he will need along his journey, that it is a step that might very well be necessary to open up the possibility of future reconciliation, rather than a step that would lessen that possibility.
As I have felt more in touch with the confident woman I used to be, I've had more moments of just believing this will all work out between us in the end—that this is not the end of us, that H will travel his path on his own time, and there will be much groundwork laid for a healthier, open, more fulfilling new marriage. I don't know how to describe it—it doesn't feel like I'm hoping in those moments—it feels like a peaceful knowing.
