a new normal

[may22]

SamCal, WF, Yail... thanks for checking in.

It's funny... I actually relaxed and feel way better about all of it, now that he's just told me he's open to talking about it. I don't actually feel the pressure to dive in the same way I did, just knowing that it is possible. It does feel like a major shift, somehow.

Did he say what specifically he had been thinking about other than that it isn't good to talk about in lockdown? Did he say why not talking about it in lockdown was not good?

He’s been saying he thinks it is too stressful for both of us. The conversations we had before we so difficult and I definitely spun out for a few days after the BDs, not sleeping, barely speaking to him, etc. (Also, I had a some pretty spectacular DB fails right in the middle of everything that I know he’s referring to as well.) I think we both think the lockdown has been going surprisingly well and he’s afraid to throw a wrench into it, because on the flip side it could be so, so bad if we were really upset with one another and stuck at home with the kids 24/7. We definitely know how to push each other’s buttons if we want.

I think it helps support his actions if he is saying them out loud to you. Do you think this is a love languages difference, or that he is actively avoiding talking about it for a variety of reasons? (guilt, shame, etc)

I think he hasn’t felt ready. He’s been pretty stuck in the why he did it (his pat story for himself of me not wanting to have sex with him => me not loving him => he was hurting/vulnerable => met someone who thought he was amazing=>whoops! found himself in an affair) and I still think not ready to face what he did. it is so out of alignment with how he pictures himself, which was a part of his stress and unhappiness through the whole A.

In the final limbo time when his parents visited right after BD#3, he told his mom what was going on, and she ended up telling him she was very ashamed of him. That really, really struck him hard. I was flabbergasted he was surprised she’d think that but I think it shows just how far along in the fantasy he was— he thought his mom would be disappointed but would understand. The fact that she was not happy for him was shocking to him. I think he’s still coming back from that deep, deep fantastical denial and hasn’t really confronted it. Or, if he has, I don’t know about it since we haven’t talked about it.

And I guess, what good is knowing some of the things you want to ask? Or maybe explain why?

I’ve been thinking I might write out a few things I want to say, like the questions I want to ask, the boundaries I have about what I do not want to hear, and sharing those with them written so he can think them over. I feel I’ve dialed it back to what i really need to know and no more. No feelings. Just some of the bare-bones facts so I can re-calibrate the last two years of my life.

I have a few things I'd like to say in regards to hashing this out sans MC. Just food for thought really. I think before you do a deep dive with H on the A and your feelings, and the things you "need" to know, you should probably hash out with your IC what it is that you really NEED to know vs think you want to know. This is coming from a place of being a WW once upon a time. Once you know things you can't unknow them. Once it's out there there is no going back. You really need to be sure you are getting exactly what you need, and that you are prepared to hear things you don't want to with zero buffer and zero mediation.

I did go over the questions I want to ask in a private session with the MC, and he generally seemed to think they were fine. The big thing he was advocating against was any sexual detail, which I’ve read as well. He agreed with me that I don’t need to hear any more about the “love” part. I’m actually not sure H can do this— we’ve talked about it before together and I talked about it with the MC, this weird need H has had to not share any factual details without really twisting the knife on the feelings. H said it was because the facts were only relevant because of the feelings. I was like OK, I get it, I never need to hear it again. But of course, it’s been a couple of months now since we’ve talked about any of this.

I do know that when I finally let him just blab it all out about how deeply he felt for AP, listened, stopped telling him it was a fantasy, that I believed him, but it still didn’t change my stance— I wouldn’t work on our R with a third party in the mix and I wouldn’t be friends with him if we split—that he finally started to turn the corner and made the decision to stay and break off the A. I don’t know how much my actually listening and believing/validating him on this had to do with his decision, but the timing was correlated.

Next I'd suggest carving out time to talk about the A and the MR and that's it. You get a 2 hour block on Wednesday night and you aren't talking about it again until next Wednesday. The one thing about working this stuff out though MC is that there is a designated time and place to feel like absolute crap. And then you leave the office. And maybe there's some carry over on the drive home, but then you're home with the kids and it's time to pretend everything is fine while you both process in your heads alone. You'll need to create that same dynamic or you two will be miserable. I'd also suggest maybe looking at Esther Perel's questions to ask after an affair. There's a list of like 100 questions. Most are for the LBS, but there are a chunk for the WS. It might be good for both of you to review those and see what it is that both of you NEED to know to move forward. I think the idea of sprinkling in way to repair and move forward in the MR excluding the A stuff is going to be a good balance to this.

All true, and good ideas. I need to dig back into my affair healing literature. I kind of left it all when we went into quarantine.

Next on the 100% remorseful. You are a good person. My exH was human hot garbage. So I can't really compare my time as WW to this. However, now as an LBS I hope my H isn't 100% remorseful….There are lessons to be learned here. You can't be remorseful for learning something about yourself. Just make sure you keep you expectations to something reasonable here. He needs to be remorseful for putting you and the kids, and anyone in your periphery effected by his crappy choices. But he doesn't need to be remorseful that he did it in it's entirety. You can't control his take away from all this any more than he can control how you feel when he say's you got what you wanted.

I know you’re right on this. And your H got a big fat X from his AP while mine might always wonder what might have been if he’d gone in that direction, but I know I can’t control that either. I definitely went into this whole thing with the Esther Perel attitude on M2.0, that even though this all $ucked thank god it happened because things are so much better on the other side. And deep down I do really believe that. I don’t know that I ever would have gotten the wake-up call about the SSM if I hadn’t gotten BD1, and I know definitively I am a more fulfilled person because I have left that asexual mom persona behind. I do more for myself now, I am happier and more fulfilled on my own. I lost the guilt I used to feel when I spent time or money just on me. Those have nothing to do with my H but are all major benefits of DBing and probably would not have happened without the A. And I see a lot of positivity in our R already that would probably not have happened without the giant shake-up of the A.

Maybe it is partially reading over and over here that your WS isn’t ready to piece until they’re totally transparent and remorseful. I see it again and again, and worry/wonder that my H is not fitting that mold. Three months ago when we talked about it last, H was still like I can’t be sorry for something that was life-giving for me. Intellectually, I get all that and feel it is something we can move past. Emotionally, there is a part of me that wants him begging for forgiveness and sobbing that he made the biggest mistake of his life, etc. I guess I just have to get beyond that. It is the same side of me that wants to call AP on the phone and tell her karma’s an f-ing b**ch and I hope ten years from now a 30 year old slut comes along and Fs her husband. But of course I won’t really do that, and I don’t really need my H to beg for forgiveness. (He won’t. That isn’t him.) But it is a nice fantasy.

I just want you to remember that you aren't the only one healing, or hurting. H is a jerkface for what he did,...lol, but now it isn't you two against each other any more. It's you two against the problem, try to keep that in mind going forward.

You’re right. I hope we can keep that feeling going when we have these conversations. It is actually the most important thing in all of this to me— to feel like we’re partners in this together even if we’re slogging through some pretty difficult garbage. That is my biggest fear with opening these conversations— that we’ll lose that feeling we’ve been cultivating of partnership and it will dissolve back into the anger/hurt of the aftermath of the A.

You have been at this for 3 months. Take a step back and remind yourself of that often.

I read a lot of threads on this forum in my early days, and the reconciled threads it took so much longer than this. I know you want to do active work. But maybe your H's work needs to be a little more silent right now. Remember, HE needs to do some work too, he can't just jump into working with you on this.

I know. Patience has never been my strong suit and then I’m in this situation that has required more patience than I ever thought was remotely possible for me. I guess I just would like to see him understanding that maybe my work needs to have some conversation, even if his doesn’t, and that he has some responsibility in helping me in my work rather than just me flexing around his needs. Which is part of the reason I think I feel better and haven’t initiated any conversations since he said we could… just knowing he is open to it, understanding it is something I need, even if it is difficult for him is helpful and maybe all I need right at this very moment.

I'm not saying to let him off the hook, or ignore things. Just keep your perspective that 1) it has been 3 months. That's so incredibly short 2) Look at what he has done in 3 months to turn himself around and walk the walk. As an outsider, I am impressed 3) I think he is working on it. Trust him to work a little bit in his own way.

LOL and here I am feeling like, three months! It’s been so long! (Then I look at a piecing thread and think this is something we’ll need to continue to work on for our whole lives. And get angry all over again that he did this.) It is weird to start to go through the year now remembering what was happening at this same time last year, or the year before. I agree he’s come a long way/ we have come a long way in the last three months. I just need to breathe, focus on what I can control, and be grateful for what has happened so far.

I know your SSM and his A are not equal and they are not the same thing. But, each of you had your own motivations that you were not conscious of. Both of you had some deep down stuff you likely didn't realize was happening. But the result was the same in that you both hurt each other. In his own way, I think your H is going to want an apology as well, along with talking about it a bit more.

Yes, he wants an apology. He has gotten one several times, but I don’t think he is ready to really hear it yet. I can’t tell if he is still really hurting over it or if he is clinging onto it as the excuse for his A. (I find it hard to believe it is still currently painful since we’ve been sleeping together fairly regularly now since January, and I have been explicit in my desire for him for 15 months.)

Here’s where I am on the SSM— I am truly sorry for how it hurt him. I have spent now 15 months digging into why and how and how to move past it in my own mind. I also truly forgave him for the resentments I’d been holding onto for years as my own excuses for the SSM— like truly let those feelings go, to the extent that I can’t even really explain how I felt back then very well. And I’m 100% committed for MYSELF to never be that person again, and doing everything I can to make sure it never happens again.

I’m willing to dig in and talk about it as long as he wants, any and all aspects— why I think it happened, how things are different now, how I feel, how he can help… whatever. I am sorry for the past but I can’t change it. But I will do whatever it takes to help him get over it and build M2.0 with sex as a healthy part of our R. However, at some point I do need him to understand it is OVER. it is in the past and he needs to let it go as the excuse for his A and start to talk about the A and what led to it without always being in the shadow of the SSM (which to date has not been possible). And what I’d like from him on the A is basically what I’m trying to give him on the SSM— why it happened, what is different now, how we will both work to make sure it never happens again.

In the past, pretty much every time we talked about the SSM he feels like the factors that led to it for me are “excuses” and it makes him angry. There is also some undercurrent of “oh now you want to have sex” and a frustration that if I had only understood some of that earlier, none of this would have happened. But that still is H not taking responsibility for his own actions, like it is some inevitable giant waterslide that goes from SSM to A, so sorry, not my fault.

I definitely get and see his actions in the day-to-day are everything I would want to see. He is committed. He is here. He is working at our R. He has made tons of small and big changes (I know I have too) and as a result we are getting along very well. If I didn’t know he had had an A, I would be so happy right now— he’s been the perfect H. maybe a part of me doesn’t want to get too comfortable here without doing SOME of the hard work… but Yail, you’re right, there is also work that doesn’t require talking, just requires time and healing and compassion for ourselves and each other, and I can’t discount the importance of that work as well.

Thanks guys. This was really helpful. xx