5 years pieced & COVID SIP has silver linings

[may22]

Hi Blu!! So good to hear from you, as always. I'm very glad to hear you are staying safe and healthy, and things are going as well as can be expected with your H. Truly, with COVID and so many other things going in the world, I think even the healthiest couples are having difficulties. I have some thoughts I'll share later on your questions but I wanted to address your friend's situation.

One of my fav coworkers has become a good friend over the years and was very supportive during my BD/separation/initial recon times. For the last couple years she has been going through something similar and the table has turned. Her sitch reminds me of Mays a bit. So now he has been back this time since spring, waivered with OW again, and then recommitted again in summer. Seems like they are able to function and coparent on a day to day basis. They have been in weekly counseling but they don’t seem to do any real work, or have an intimate connection or trust.

It’s all very sad to me. Yesterday she pulled me aside and asked me, “when will I stop thinking about OW when we are together (ML)?” I don’t think they have much of a physical relationship but at times try to reconnect or have date nights, etc. I tried to answer her as best I could, but our sitches are different. One, I really convinced myself that H and X-OW didn’t have a good physical connection (long story but he also reinforced my belief). Am I fooling myself? Maybe. But what difference does it make now?

Two, I didn’t let H back into my life, home or bed until I trusted him. Not forgiven — that’s a looonnngggg process — but trust. I needed to see that he was completely done with his A and feelings for her, I needed to know that he was remorseful, and I needed to believe that he was committed to doing the hard and uncomfortable work with me. I just couldn’t open up to him in any way until those were in place. And then, I allowed him to come home and start the process of piecing. So now when I speak with her, or read sitches here, I have trouble understanding how it can work when we allow them back before that. I don’t know honestly.

Throughout all of this, particularly since the summer when we were so close to splitting up physically, I've been pondering the question of whether or not it is possible to reconcile and piece in the same house, without the physical separation. In so many ways, it seems both more traumatic but also cleaner to have him MO and have the break, be able to have your own separate life to live-- and then, should he come back around and want to R, to be able to wait until you're totally sure you're both ready to piece before moving back in together.

When you never have that separation, it is all so messy. Things bleed over. It is hard to get the privacy you need to grieve, to rage, to fully acknowledge and accept just how $hitty your H's behavior has been when he's right there in front of you and generally acting like a decent human being instead of a lying cheater. You basically need to do the work you would have done on your own while living with your H, while still keeping up some level of harmony in the household. It seems really really easy to slide into pretending everything is okay, until something hits you and you realize it isn't. Or-- like it was for me in the spring-- having these questions gnawing away at me and being terrified everything was going to be swept under the rug, which was really uncomfortable in a different way. (And I might posit that not having everything out in the open and total transparency is a recipe for disaster. To me, at this point, I'd consider full transparency a must for even the reconciliation stage.)

I guess what is working for me right now, and what you might communicate to your friend-- is fully accepting that we aren't in piecing yet. I won't be ready to consider it piecing until the same criteria you listed for yourself to need for your H to move back in-- I will need to trust that it's over, in his heart as well as in his head, he's fully remorseful and takes full responsibility for his own behavior, and that he's wholeheartedly committed to a renewed MR with me before we piece.

Until then, I'm working on following the same DB rules you would if you were separated-- dropping all expectations, sending as little energy as possible towards him and focusing it wholly on me and the kids. I think it is possible-- MWR talks about it in her books, and Wayfarer and Steve85 did it-- to R and piece in the same house, but it definitely feels (at least in comparison to what I read on these threads) much more difficult to hold your boundaries strong when your H is physically present but not really ready to piece, yet (even if he says he is).

I totally know what she means about ML and I decided to stop, for now. I felt that the reasons I had had for having sex with him, related to the SSM and proving to myself I was capable of wanting and enjoying sex from a physical standpoint had been met. Also, I had a couple of experiences where I realized I was missing the ML part of it and AP was invading at least my mind (he *said* not in his, but I am not in a place to trust that). I didn't like it and decided I didn't want to do it anymore, and communicated that to him. He's been respectful of it so far. He has initiated a couple of times (nonverbally) and I've taken his hands and put them off of me and that has worked out just fine.

I haven't been opening up to him or expecting him to open up to me, as you would if you were in piecing. We're just coparenting and getting along, much like your friend and her H, but I see it as an extended reconciliation process rather than piecing.

I guess if I was to talk with her and give her advice, what I'd try to find out is, best I could, where in the process she and her H are. Are they in piecing, or are they in a situation like mine, which might look like piecing from the outside but really isn't? Your requirements for letting him move back in, BTW, are the same that my IC told me are required for healing an MR after an affair-- he takes responsibility and is remorseful, and I need to be able to see my way towards forgiveness-- but instead of needing them to be demonstrated before he moves back in, I need them demonstrated before I move into piecing with him.

Until then, I'm working on myself and holding my boundaries. And there very well may be a day when I decide I've had enough and piecing isn't ever going to happen. But not today.

So back to your friend-- if she is in fact in piecing, you will have great advice for her. If she isn't, I'd say she needs to accept that and realize his head isn't in the game, yet, and it may never be, and she needs to decide what it is she wants to do in the meantime (and I'd vote for the DB basics of GAL, dropping expectations, etc.). The added difference that I see from where I sit right now as compared to not living together-- besides it just being difficult to go through these parallel processes under the same roof without expecting any support from your H-- would be really thinking through your boundaries and holding to them. I think that has made a big difference for me, too, along with letting go of any pretense of control I have or expectations for what might be in the future. It isn't fun. But it's the choice I've made, for now, and I'm living with it.

Hugs to your friend. (And you!!) xx M