I agree with BL42. Regular meetups are a bad thing, it will make him feel like he can go and blow his life up but still keep you in his back pocket (it’s called monkey branching, or plan B around here).
You’ll come across a saying here from many of the veterans who are wiser than me, which is “You can’t nice them back.” That’s probably the single hardest thing for a LBS, new to this site, to understand and enact.
This will probably fry your brain … (because we’ve all spent a lifetime being taught that to win or obtain something you want, you have to try harder and harder) … but ironically, your best chance of getting him back would be to say “I don’t want to meet up with you any more. This is not what I wanted, but I respect your decision. I’ve started packing your things, you can pick them up at xxx date and xxx time.” And then walk out and leave.
But that’s near-on impossible for a newcomer to do. There’s no way I could have done it at my bomb drop.
Also, regarding your 100% certainty that there’s no-one else - I’ve been around this site and several others for three years now, and have heard that hundreds of times from Newcomers. But in 99% of those cases, there is someone else. They hide it very well. They lie, they cheat, they cover their tracks. Normally the surety that there’s no-one else comes from you believing you have an incredibly deep connection and understanding of your spouse. But you aren’t the first, and won’t be the last, to discover by the time they bomb drop, they can be a shell of who they used to be/who you thought they were for many years.
Gosh… I’ve just read my post, and boy it’s got some pretty harsh truth bombs for someone who has just arrived here. I guess I just want you to hope for the best, but prepare for the worst.
You’re in good hands with the people at this website, hopefully some of the top-notch veterans will be along soon to help you out. They ooze compassion, understanding and great knowledge of what is, quite frankly, a sh*t sandwich.
I’m sorry you’re here. One day, you’ll be okay. We can’t tell you how long that will take, or how it will look (divorced or reconciled), but I guarantee that one day, you’ll be okay again.
