I believe you had said you had ASKED your H to stay in the house while he had his affair. You shouldn’t ask. If he stays he stays, if he goes he goes. Keeping him somewhere he doesn’t want to be is what gets you those looks of contempt and his bitterness and unkindness towards you. And if you ask him to stay, you shouldn’t be on end ge, trying to cater to and placate him and try to “win” against the other woman. It makes him look and feel like the king while you are are vying to win him. That’s being walked all over. That’s not having self worth. Making personal strides toward becoming plan A for yourself while he is under your roof is what will be a win-win. Not watching his every move or be intimidated by him, ensuring you have time to get out of the house at night just as he does.
But if he wants to go, let him go. Bottom line. Keeping him there because a chapter in the DB book or a coach says that’s your beat chance isn’t going to help if you can’t detach and be a confident strong woman who isn’t affected by him dangling the affair in your face. And quite honestly, I wouldn’t be able to do that. Not many can.
The D coach, I am sure is coaching you to GAL while in this situation and turn the focus on you and your kids, and become the best you for yourself. And that might get noticed, but can’t be faked. And even if he didn’t act on it, you did that for YOU. You mention a bit of an identity crisis you were going through. Work on that for you!
When we make it a competition, and just a “I’m going to get him back!” Scenario, often, problems that existed don’t get solved. It doesn’t make for a marriage 2.0 when you just put out all the stops to get the Walkaway back. Often why you find the people who reconciled come back years later .
Look at you. Turn all that focus on you. I know it feels counter intuitive and almost impossible. But whether or not he comes back, ( and he should have to work for it) you are going to come out better and stronger. Your kids will see it too.
And I hate to say this, but don’t assume the affair is going to fizzle out. Because they all don’t. My ex has been remarried to his affair partner for 9 years..... can’t say they have a healthy R. ... but it’s only my concern where my daughter in involved . And I am actually so grateful he didn’t come back, because he is not a healthy man. And we actually are better to eachother divorced than married.
Living under the same roof while separated with no affair is a lot easier than woth an affair. Personally, for me, is I am not going to act like your wife while you while you are having an affair with another woman. Heck no. And if you chose to stay under my roof while it goes on, I take care of me, you take care of you. Because I know I am worth being plan A, and will be plan A for myself . If you chose to follow, then we can work from there.
You can’t own his stuff. But you can own yours. And work on it. But that doesn’t mean being a doormat. And by being a doormat, I mean asking him to stay and treating him like a husband when he isn’t acting like one.
I hope this makes sense. The problem with the book is when your ale it verbatim, but don’t use it in context. For many of those things to work, you need to get yourself to a certain headspace. And getting to that headspace takes a lot of hard, uncomfortable work
