Pamila, I can't remember if this pertains to your H, but I read an interview with Shirley Glass in which she said that some people who have difficult childhoods marry stable, rooted partners but then go back later in life and find a more volatile person to resolve the issues of feeling unloved by such people (like their parents). I guess imago therapy would hold this idea also. I don't know what to believe--it seems right for my H but I do not claim to hold all truth, capital T, here. I will say that my H is attracted to OW's drama, volatility, liveliness, exoticness (other culture), youth, emotionalism, etc. etc.....just as his own dad was in his affair partners.
Are our H's resolving childhood issues? Very likely. Are our H's addressing depression--can't "feel" love in a normal, day-to-day setting at home, so seek out this E ticket ride? Very likely. I wonder if someday my H will see OW as too much: demands, emotion, compulsion, craziness. A fatal attraction. I would love to hear those words from my H!
But, like you, I feel my H has to play this out. I hope he does this while I'm still around. The future is murky to me.
Funny, my friends think I'm nuts to even contemplate sticking around. I'm not opposed to "moving on" in the right circumstances and doubt I will be an extreme DBer for years and years, but that I would even think about H in terms of reconciliation, maybe, is a shocker for my friends. They think I show too much compassion for his childhood issues and compulsions. While I think H is pathetically weak in this regard, I do think they are real for him. I do think he is trying to do his best (sorry as that is). Arrrgh. Now the OW factor....talk about a piece of work, eh?
No matter what the orgins of our H's behavior, your other poster is right to say that the best we can do is let it play out on its own and to be our fabulous, irresitible selves out of the fray.
I offer all this because it seems similar to what your H has been doing, maybe? I'm just so glad that (even if it's not over) yours seems to poking he head above water a bit. So glad Hong Kong went well.
