Still taking it a day at a time (2)

[SteveLW]

Hi Steve, CW, Wayfarer... thank you.

Steve, these resources are so helpful-- I really appreciate it. We're in the process of scheduling MC to see how that goes. Glass says it is better to just focus on MC if you can rather than having two processes going at the same time-- I'm not sure about that yet. H thinks I need an IC to help me process the anger. I'm not sure, think I'll see how it goes and go forward from there. The last time I was in IC it felt like she was more reinforcing my feelings than anything else-- it felt GREAT, of course, to have someone 100% in my corner, but not necessarily great for my M. Also, I partially feel like my H should have some level of connecting about my (hard-earned) feelings of anger and betrayal-- they shouldn't just be my problem that i process on my own.

Again, your anger and issues with the betrayal ARE yours. He cannot help you anymore than he has. MC will deal with that but I really really think a good, pro-marriage IC would do you a lot of good. It is HIS job to do everything he can from this moment forward to be completely committed and vested to the MR and to proving to you his loyalty. It is up to you to deal with your anger and PTSD related to the past, and healing from it.

Though I'm chewing on this and also wayfarer's comments. What is mine to work through, what is his, and what is ours? Why am I having such a hard time with the concept of forgiveness? Wayfarer, what you wrote about your exH bringing your A into every conversation... I cringed when I read that, because I know my H feels the same way right now about our life together. He could have written every single word. I WANT to get to forgiveness. I just don't know exactly how to do it. Maybe part of me is still scared to let go. And/or I don't feel my H has sufficiently sat in understanding just how $hitty his behavior was towards me and how it felt on my side to be betrayed by the one person in the world I thought was there for me no matter what.

PTSD. You are afraid to trust because last time you did you got your feelings crushed. So now you like the idea of your MR2.0, but you afraid to embrace it fully due to the last time. It is like touching a hot stove. I remember when I was 6, my 2 year-old sister put her hands on the hot oven door while my mom was baking something. Burnt both her palms pretty badly. She wouldn't touch the stove afterwards even when it was cool! You are the same way. You got your hands burned touching his oven, and now that his oven is safe and cool you are still afraid to touch it. A good IC can help you work through that.

My H thinks I keep moving the goal line, that he's giving me everything I asked for and I never want to focus on the positive, just the negative. For example: I spent more time on our anniversary reflected on the $hit way he had behaved during our last few anniversaries than feeling positive about the progress we'd made since then. True. Why do I do that?

See the last paragraph I typed. THat's why. You are remembering the hurt....and until you can get past that you will still hold him responsible for that hurt. Even though he's done everything in his power to make up for it.

Or, for whatever reason, even though he's told me he doesn't love her anymore, he loves me, he wishes it never happened, it was a horrible mistake and he wishes he could take it back and make different choices-- all the things I was wanting him to say-- it still doesn't feel like enough. I feel like I want him to realize and verbalize to me that he was mistaken when he thought the feelings that he had for her was love, that it was just a stupid sad middle-aged fantasy and he feels stupid and embarrassed that he even believed for a minute that it was "love."

Strange isn't it. In the thick of your sitch when he was cheating on you, you would have loved for him to come to you and said the above. Now he has said it you are having trouble getting over it. This is why I tell LBSs all the time that Ring and piecing isn't the holding hands, walking into the sunset under a God-given rainbow that we fantasize. It is hard, tough, arduous work. It will test you to the core. Some LBSs try it and decide it is too hard and they become the WAS (I almost did!). No one could blame you if it was too much to overcome and you couldn't do it. I think of Rachel after Ross made his "we were on a break" mistake, it was just too much for her to overcome. The thought of Ross with this girl, naked, doing what you should only be doing with the one your a committed to! Maybe you cannot get over it. And if you cannot then you have every right to make the choice to D and move forward with your life. He couldn't even blame you, even though he might be unhappy about it.

He thinks it is unhealthy for me to be so focused on things he did or did not feel in the past. That I should focus on the present and also focus more on OUR relationship and how we feel about and treat each other today, not how he previously felt about someone else. Also, he can't authentically tell me right now that he thinks she's a stupid POS or that he didn't ever care about her at all, so won't, that maybe he'll get there eventually but he won't lie about it and so that is kind of where we are. Which when I'm feeling rational I can agree with. But also I have this other part of me that just isn't okay with the idea that he did have a fully-fledged relationship and care about someone else IN THE MIDDLE OF OUR MARRIAGE. Someone awhile back (Alison? I wish she was still around) suggested I might need a ritual to end M1.0. Maybe something like that to let me be okay with the fact that we weren't really married during his affair? (But I thought we were? It is all just still really anger-inducing for me.)

I agree with him. It is unhealthy for you to be so focused on that. That is why I am so strongly advocating for IC. Maybe you will never be able to be with him and NOT focus on that. But you owe it to yourself, not to him, to do everything you can to see if you can get past all of it. IC is one of those ways. See my above paragraph.

As far as the ritual to end M1.0, whatever works I am for. Maybe a 2nd marriage ceremony? A recommit to marriage vows? But the problem is to me is that those are band-aids, They treat the symptoms, not the underlying disease. I think you need IC to get over the PTSD.

He is VERY motivated to get us to have these conversations in front of a trained professional. He told me he really really wants to talk about this, all of it, but thinks we really need to do it in MC rather than on our own, and I think he's right. So he has been in contact with the MC and working on scheduling (which was earlier a goalpost for me-- he'd been all over scheduling MC back when he wanted to check it off as a waypoint towards D, so I'd felt like it would mean something if he was the one to take the lead in scheduling MC for us. And now we're here, so I'm counting that as positive.)

MC cannot be just having these conversations. MC should be about reconnecting, moving forward, and looking to the future. Maybe one session early on to deal with the A, but the problem is that if you do not move past that conversation in MC, then MC will just be a recurring reminder of the A. I see MC working for two fully committed spouses. Right now I do not see you being fully committed. I see you being a potential WAS yourself now. I feel that until you can get over the PTSD, get over the A, and heal from the hurt that MC is going to devolve into him saying: "We had a good week, we did X, Y, and Z." and you responding by saying "Yeah, but, the A!" That will get you no where. MC with IC. Or IC for you first is the only way I see you moving past all of the hurt and betrayal.

Anyway. Forgiveness. Easier said than done. Will keep you guys updated on MC.

Forgiveness is for you. Forgiveness doesn't mean the offense committer doesn't have consequences. I think of families that have forgiven a murderer for murdering a loved one. Their forgiveness doesn't get them out of their life sentence! I am a Christian. I believe in forgiveness from sin, but the sin of murder, even forgiven by God, still has Earthly consequences!

So you could forgive him (let go of the hurt, anger, and bitterness) but still D him. Forgiveness works outside of consequences. I've been on record myself that if my W had actually had a PA, not just an EA, I would have D'd her. I still feel that way.

xx M

Anyway, lots to digest. Hang in there May. One way or another you will move forward!