Learning to Trust Myself IV

[heatherg]

Today is some better, no doubt thanks to you all. Gosh, what great people you are!

Sheila-
I think it's very brave of you to compare yourself to my H. However, just in your post, a couple of things stuck out at me. First of all, it sounds like you have a perhaps ongoing reason not to trust....even if the lie is "small" about a check. Lies erode trust even when they are little. Also, if you've laid out on the line certain things that are important for you in order to fully reconcile and your H isn't making an effort in those areas, then I can see where you would still be reluctant to dive into a reconciliation. When someone meets our requests, it tells us that we are important to them and that they take us seriously enough to listen to and honor. That is big, especially once disappointments have creeped into a R.

Making the choice to reconcile is not easy. If H told me today that he realized he's not been easy to live with and wants to try harder and wants to undo some of these things he's done, we would still have a really difficult road ahead because our natural pulls would want to take over at times.....our natural pulls toward resentment, anger, etc. We'd have to fight those pulls maybe for the rest of our lives. We've disappointed one another. We've hurt one another in ways that only we could....and we were supposed to be havens for one another....how could things have gone so wrong?? These times, these interactions are difficult to get past sometimes no matter how optimistic we are for the future. All the LBS's here say they want their partners back.....but I can't help but wonder if the WA's came back, would the LBS *really* want them back and do the work that it takes to reconcile? Or would they give in to their natural pulls to anger and resentment like my H has?

Sheila, I wish you peace. This is so much harder than I ever could have imagined and I know you're feeling it too.