DB'ing while living in with a WAS/MLC husband

[may22]

Bluesea, not to hijack your thread, but I think these questions have relevance to you too--

Bluesea, essentially what happened in 2005, was after my W's EA, when I confronted she immediately said she didn't want a D. She sent a NC email to the OM the next day. She then struggled for weeks with getting over her addiction to the EA. The OM only responded to her one time essentially telling her that that he didn't want to create anymore problems for her which is why he was not responding.

For my part, I just went back to business as normal.The changes I made were clearly just to get her back. And while I didn't just revert to my old self over night, it was a slow burn back to where I had been prior to the discovery of the EA. I had made no real changes.

Steve, I get that you didn't really do work on yourself in 2005 and then did so after the second incident and how that allowed you to move into M2.0. My question is-- what about your W? Sounds like she didn't put any work in after BD1, but did she after BD2? I'm assuming so... but how did that happen? Did she commit to making changes too-- beyond letting go of the EAP-- and how was that visible to you? Were you able to eventually communicate your needs to her and she listened and changed, or was it all self-focused change initiated by you that then led her to mirror or think or make changes herself?

It seems to me like DBing is focusing on you, being your best self, but not necessarily being vulnerable to your S. At what point did you feel OK opening back up to her?

I know she didn't MO and you've felt that that was an important aspect to R-ing in your sitch, b/c if she had left she would have had a lot harder time coming back. I have felt the same with my H (though perhaps now OK with him not coming back... working on this). People say here when they are ready for R, you won't be confused. That feels easy to assess when the WS has moved out and you have some real separation. How does that look when you're under the same roof?

Bluesea... FWIW, there are a lot of parallels between our situations. After I found out about the extent and length of his A in December (he had previously only admitted to an EA, less than half of the time, and was telling me he was no longer in contact with her when he was), we had six weeks of tortuous limbo and DC. I do believe, like you, it wasn't until my H could tell I was serious about D and burst his fantasy D bubble that he moved into the space of making the decision to break it off with AP, which he did in mid-February. (It's weird, some of the things you've said your H has said to you sound exactly like what my H said to me when he was in the process of breaking it off with her.) Things have been getting better and better to the point that I thought we were maybe ready to enter piecing when he suddenly reestablished contact with her last week and is now completely back to where he was in January.

Of course my sitch is very fresh and I don't know what is really going on or what i'm going to do. (Steve, would appreciate any thoughts if you want to peek on my thread). But the one thing I think I would do differently and that I would pass along to you is KEEP DBing, just as Steve said. Don't drop your guard. Honor your own needs yourself and don't rely on him to help you heal right now. We made it a little less than four months before he completely backslid. So I think that maybe when you start to see positive signs, keep your head down and keep DBing. This is not for the impatient or the faint of heart!