Looking backward...but only to move forward

[sage]

Good golly....2 year anniversary of the bomb dropping! Whoda thunk that all of this would have been accomplished! Thank you, thank you, thank you, Michele and thank you to Cindy who lent me her copy of "Divorce Busting".

One of the things I'd been planning to do for a while was compile the "stuff that worked" from my threads. Why? Well, partly because I feel like I did have good success and want to remember what the keys were...and partly because I sometimes get amazed when I find myself stuck in the "same old" sitch again and partly because I'm often awestruck when I realize the tremendous advice I have received from so many people here...

So...here's a link to my first thread...my first post and in the next few posts some of the insights that I gleaned from those first few weeks here...

*********** posted 12/02 ****************
In a snapshot: H and I are both 36, married 7 years, known each other for 17, no kids (though they were in the "plan"). The marriage has had many very good times and some times of significant stress. We struggled about 3 years ago with some trust issues (H had a friendship I felt very uncomfortable with. Due to some unresolved stuff from my childhood, I found myself very suspicious and it just escalated from there). We were in counseling for about a year and came out of it with what felt like a very solid marriage until somewhat recently.

About 6 months ago, I started to get the sense that H. and a female work friend of his were more intimate than just a friendship. There was just something about the way they interacted that set off warning bells. She is part of "the guys" that he hangs out with from work and also she had tried to be my friend as well. In addition, "the guys" and their spouses had started having social events together so I know both her and her husband.

Sensitive to our history, I brought the subject up to my H. and he was calm and generally responsive but said I was mistaken. This went on and off for a few more months and finally, unable to shake the feeling, I went back to our marriage counselor alone to "resolve my trust issues". Around that time, my husband and I had a big fight about her and he said that he was going to quit his job so that I couldn't hurt her or her marriage with my "paranoia". Later he said that he was actually quitting his job (which he did) because he didn't want to be in his line of work anymore and since about 1 year ago he found out about a degenerative disease that he has, that he felt that life was too short to do something he didn't like. That was in early september 2002 and he's been out of work (and not looking) since.

On November 1, 2002, I found a series of emails from her to H. which confirmed the fact that they are having an EA. The emails were full of pet names and ILYs and details of secret meetings. I confronted him and he admitted the EA but said that they had not slept together (tho' he said they did kiss). I told him it needed to be OVER and a few days later I was in the room when he told her by phone that he could no longer talk with her.

Since then, we've been to our MC once. During the session, H. said (he had said it before to me as well) that he was not looking to leave me for her but that he was not sure that he wanted to be married to me anyway. He said that he thought there was something "broken" in him that didn't need to be with other people and that he wanted to be alone. MC said that he couldn't help us work together if we didn't share the same goal of saving the marriage and told us to go off and seek individual C.

H. did go see a C. once (this was a BIG step in my mind since he's very anti-C) and seems willing to go back. I guess the overall goal is to address his illness, any depression as a result, his ambivalence about our marriage, the OW, etc. I have an appointment with a new C. for myself this coming week.

So...in many ways, our home life has stabilized and even improved over the last 6 weeks. H. and I spend a lot of time together, he has restarted saying ILY, calls me occasionally during the day, etc. All wonderful things and I know from reading the BB that in many ways, I have so many things that others are missing currently in their marriages. I am truly grateful for what is good in my marriage right now.
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Sage's first thread

Sage