Catching up on threads this morning. (And need to write an update myself!) I think I agree with DnJ about the friendship part. When H is waxing poetic about how unsure he is about us, about it all seems so unfixable and the mess he's made with the affair just makes it worse but that no matter what happens, he wants us to always be the best of friends... well that just sounds to me like him trying to soothe his own guilt. It is about making himself feel better. He even said to me that he cannot not bear it if we aren't friends. In fact lately as I listen more and say less what I hear is ALL about HIM. And he is a jumbled mess at the moment. Everything he says and does at the moment seems to be geared towards minimizing his discomfort. Maybe there will be some moment in the future when he actually considers the pain his choices have caused for his wife and family but that is not where he is now. Friendly not friends. I don't want to soothe his guilt. But more than that I think it is a boundary that helps protect my heart right now. It is a struggle though because there is a part of me that thinks being a "good friend" will soften him. Then I remind myself that I was a good friend and extremely supportive all those months when he was "lost" and "trying to find himself again" and generally behaving like an irresponsible teenager. And in my situation, he was slurping that magic kool-aid and lying with every breath and living a double life.
May's observation about holding tightly to the narrative that the problems in the R are insurmountable, unfixable as a way to reconcile the cheating... that makes sense too.
Your self improvement progress is fantastic! You go girl!
