Help! Need Advice please Part 2

[may22]

First off,

I've never been a person who thing the WS needs to come back crawling on their hands and knees through glass, beating their breast professing their undying love.

bwahahahahaha. This cracked me up. I WISH.

Here's the thing. As I see it there are two basic paths to R. The one that most folks here recommend is cutting the WS loose as soon as possible after DB. They want a D? Great, go get it. They want to ride off in the sunset with AP? Have fun. You're a horrible shrew who ruined their lives and they never really loved you anyway? Thumbs up emoji while you're off building your life back up.

Then the WS rides off into the sunset and learns that wow, things didn't all magically get better when I cut my LBS loose. The R with the AP goes south because it was all built on fantasies and lies and now you have to deal with a real relationship with another human, usually someone who is an @sshole of a person because they thought it was OK to get involved with a married person (with kids being the extra kicker for those extra-special a-holes). Slowly, the WS starts to realize that the problem wasn't in their S-- it was inside them all along. Then at some point-- maybe they hit absolute rock bottom-- they realize what a dumb@ss they are being and go back to their LBS asking (begging? ) for another chance. Many times the LBS has moved on at this point and doesn't want anything to do with their former lying, cheating partner. Other times they're open to R. But that is the basic path that most here will advocate.

Some of us took a different path which is uber difficult (though in fact is probably closer to how MWD talks about DBing in the book) and requires you to watch that sloooooooow transformation and realization in real life. Over many months. With no guarantees anything is going to actually work. You have to do very much the same thing in terms of DBing, focusing on yourself and detaching from your @hole spouse, even though you're still sharing a house. Planning for that amazing future that doesn't include him. Taking a good hard look at the parts of you that you might have lost during the M or behaviors you've picked up that are toxic and doing the hard work internally to make those changes. Spending oodles of time working on understanding your boundaries and how to enforce them. The difference between a boundary and attempting to control his behavior. Refocusing all that energy you're wasting on wondering what he is up to on your kids and really enjoying them. Stopping caring about what your WS is up to and just focusing on yourself, what brings you joy, what you want for your future regardless of the state of your M. This can be a lot harder with him in the house than if you are living on your own because you have very little leeway. WSs will breadcrumb like crazy and try with all their might to hook you back in. The dance of distance and pursuit is real. You just have to keep your head down and DB.

So... back to your sitch.... maybe this is real. Maybe not. No way to really know right now. I actually think it isn't a bad thing to be able to drop your defenses and acknowledge your own faults in the R-- I guess I don't see that interaction in the car quite the same way that others do. I agree with Steve about owning your own side of the road but not taking responsibility for his $hitty decisions-- that is 100% on him and he needs to own that his behavior was totally unacceptable. He doesn't seem there yet.

I don't think it is impossible for the WS to turn fairly quickly. My H has said numerous times to me that it came to him in a rush, the realization that he didn't want to D and didn't want to run off with AP only when he had the apartment and just needed to sign the lease. Nothing was standing in his way anymore (I was barely speaking to him) and all he had to do was this one last step and he couldn't. Maybe this was his rock bottom realization where he didn't need to actually experience it but could finally see the consequences of his decision. (I'll note here that I have protected him from the majority of the consequences excepting the need to work hard at our M and rebuild trust, etc. He didn't have to be the @sshole in front of all our friends, our children, our families. This was a choice I made with my eyes open.) That being said, I thought he had cut it off multiple times before that happened. And what WF and others say is true-- there is a real difference when you know they're in and it does takes time to see that and believe it. I'm now about 10 months out from that decision and I'd say it took a good six months before I really started to think, hey, this might be real this time. And I still am not fully trusting it TBH. This whole thing has taken a big toll on my ability to trust. Be ready for that, regardless of what happens with your H.

In the end, if you want to continue to stand which it sounds like you do, I'm here to support you. I (gasp) agree with LH 100% here:

A,

Definitely wait on counseling.

Just breathe and continue to GAL like a madwoman.

You can certainly be friendly towards him right now. Just do not pursue.

He is going to try to manipulate you so strength is a must right now.

I'd add to this-- work on detaching. Do your very very best to stop caring what he is up to. I really liked this video on Stoicism (search youtube for "you only control how you play") that helped me just focus on that which was within my control and let go of what was not. Something I think I'll need to continue to work on for the rest of my life.

Boundaries-- from reading your words I think you, like me, may have problems with boundaries. I'd read AlisonUK's thread (or, last summer she had GOLD on my thread regarding boundaries) and really spend a lot of time focusing there.

It bears repeating: DO NOT PURSUE. Just focus on yourself, observe him and what he's up to, and give yourself a few weeks before really judging if he's turning back towards you or not. MWD talks about setting small goals which I found helpful.

I purposefully did not read any piecing threads for months. I just started a couple months ago when Steve posted some links on my thread. I would highly recommend staying away from that board because what you need to do in piecing is very different from what you need to do in the thick of your sitch and you, my dear, are still very much in the thick of it. Patience is going to be your best friend here.

Good luck!