Thank you LH, I've read your response over and over. Lots of great advice and to the point.
"You've been trying to "nice your way back". It's not working, it will never will"
You're right. From January to August I poured my heart and soul into our marriage, he continued to cheat.
I believe he does see me as an insurance policy not to mention that I basically do all of the back end / accounting for our small business as well as all the financial, insurance, etc for us personally. He admitted in one of our discussions that he's have no idea where to even start. That's been a huge issue for me even since January, does he keep me around just because of the stuff I take care of? I pushed it aside and tried to love and nice my way back to him. It blew up in my face.
"He needs to *fully believe* that you will not be there for her if he chooses to return, and that if he wants to come back he's going to have to work for it."
This is the problem, he doesn't believe I'll leave and why not? I proved that back in January by forgiving right away and jumping right in to save the marriage, right? I've taught him over the years that I'll get angry, stamp my feet but a couple of days later I'll be back to my cheery, chatty self. Granted nothing was ever as serious as an affair, but I taught him to *wait me out* and that's what he's doing right now.
"Your shortest path back together is to go the opposite direction.
You need to make things *worse* before they can get better
Are you willing to do that?"
Yes I am. I have nothing to lose here and everything to gain, either a great marriage or moving on to a great life and honestly, I'm sitting on the fence as to which of those paths I'd like to take. I will never forget how low I felt a few weeks ago when I realized that while we were on a date night he snuck off to the restaurant washroom to text her. The level of disrespect in that is astounding.
