Originally Posted by Gerda
I think you need to commit to one side of one fence for a time. And it seems like you want to keep the marriage.

So my advice would be to declare a moratorium on R talk and just do IC. Make an actual rule not to do that and just to have fun for a while.

Gerda, I follow along your story on the MLC board and find you such a light. And what you just posted on Sage's thread... wow. I was utterly blown away.

I've been chewing on what your posted to me for a few days and wanted to respond.

On this one-- you're right in that I'm choosing to try and stay married. I've had a difficult time this fall doing this, partially because when we tried in the spring, before AP got back in touch with H (she reached out to let him know she was moving on, this was his very very final chance (it wasn't), btw she slept with someone and felt guilty about it so had to tell him) I was able to approach reconciliation with an open heart and optimism and then felt such whiplash when it all fell back apart.

This time... I feel burned from the last time. Even though so many things are different now than they were in the spring, I still am having a hard time committing on my end. It is like I'm straddling two different paths, like two tracks in the dirt, and for a few months it was OK to have one foot in one tread and one foot in the other. But they're starting to deviate, and I am starting to feel like I can't keep walking both. I have to choose, and I'm choosing the M path, but so scared to let go of the other.

We have basically done what you're suggesting, without naming it. I'm wondering about suggesting that we do set aside time to talk, but not about the A or our R-- just to talk about other things, important things, like work and life and all the rest. (Thinking of Yail's advice to drop the labels and be curious about H as a human being, and also see if he has any curiosity about me beyond the labels, Blu.) I feel like I need SOME reassurance in some way that we aren't just going to sweep this under the rug and go back to what we were. I do not want that. But what he wants is to work on rebuilding our emotional connection and perhaps this can be done in some ways, now, while we each still work on our own issues.

Originally Posted by Gerda
When the thoughts of the AP come your way, remember that they are from the darkness. They are a very real wound but your H is not going to be able to heal that wound. I don't know how you heal that wound without God, but if you don't have a faith life, I think you just have to keep giving over that pain to time and the universe. Expecting that your H will be able to say or do the right thing to heal your wound is a pipe dream. You can only hope that you build a new history with him.

I know this, intellectually. I think I even know it in my heart. I want so badly to evict her from my head. It is getting better, a lot better, but she still creeps in, sometimes, and I want to look at him and somehow dump all my pain onto him, because he did this, and how could he, to me, etc etc. I have been able to control that impulse now too, but it still does come. Telling myself to give it over to time and the universe-- that is difficult for me, because I am a checklist person and I want to DO something to fix this.

I think this part, giving over control or the illusion of control, to streeeeetttch out my timeline-- this is my biggest lesson in all of this. One I need to keep teaching myself. And, validating to myself in the moment that these are real wounds (as much as my H would wish they were not) that these feelings come from darkness, and to give them back-- that helps.

I'm not religious, but my H was. Up until the A he went to mass every single weekend as he had his entire life. He's framed his discomfort with the Church around issues like marriage equality, but I am certain that the fact that he carries a mortal sin has something to do with his discomfort. I'm not sure what he will do about this. He doesn't have a strong connection to the priest at our church and told me if he does go to confession at some point, it won't be with him. And his father is a deacon and parents are vvv religious (his father has decided that H should take this opportunity to convert me) and as my H is also having a lot of difficulties in his relationship with his father right now, I think the whole issue of religion has gotten tied up in that relationship for him as well. Anyway, it does make me feel a bit sorry for him, that his faith is not something he's able to lean on right now.

Originally Posted by Gerda
If you don't trust him, you can't think he can fix that. He can destroy your trust further but only you can decide to trust again. In faith world we say that we don't have to trust the straying spouse because we trust God. In a secular sense I would say that this means making peace with NOT trusting him and knowing that you will be okay no matter what he does, and deciding if you want to hang out with this guy and go on dates and enjoy the kids together and then COMMIT to that and keep your doubts and fears and the rest between you and your journal, your IC and a daily hike into the hills overlooking the sea where you literally talk out loud the entire time and give all that pain away.

I do think that keeping my own healing in my lane and focusing on me is really the only way to go, right now. I do feel a sense of shared partnership with him that is new, but I'm not sure quite yet if I want to trust it. I feel much less worried about him getting back with AP, but not sure if that is because I truly sense it is unlikely now for a variety of reasons or if I also know I'll be just fine if it happens. (But part of me is worried about NOT being just fine if it happens again if I continue down this path. Is this the part where I just need to let go, to trust in God and the universe that I will be okay?)

Originally Posted by Gerda
I used to imagine murdering the AP. I hated her so much. I didn't get rid of that feeling. I just kept asking God to heal it. I think he did, a little, but they also I think broke up, and my H became so monstrous that I can't ever R with him again so I almost feel sorry for any woman who would get sucked into his vortex. But I do pray for him to be healed, and I wonder if you can just keep giving that responsibility for fixing your H and for healing your very real, very deep, very painful wound to the universe. It's too big for you, for any of us. I don't know if you saw this in my thread but a priest once told me that the pain I felt should not scare me, the way that when you have a broken arm and it throbs, you don't think it is breaking again. You know it's already broken, and the pain is coming from that already broken place. This helps me a lot to deal with my pain and not expect that any human being can fix it for me. It just has to heal.

This helps, a lot.

Thank you, Gerda. Your words have given me a lot of strength.


Me (46) H (42)
M:14 T:18, D9 & D11
4/19 - 12/19: series of escalating BDs
9/20 - present: R and piecing