Quote: It is really hard to see *how* on earth this could all be positive. OTOH, I have grown a lot as a person, am more self-confident and indepedent, getting better at making boundaries and taking care of *myself*.
I have to say the same for me. Many years ago I was a very strong, driven, compassionate person. I lost that part of myself. Now I am getting it back and I know, that in a year from now no matter WHAT happens my life will be better. I know that because in the past, when I have been in that place of inner strength and peace my life IS better.
I also know that after enough time my wifes activities won't hurt me any more either. I'm almost starting to think of her as just one of my teenage daughters, acting irrational because of the sickness of 'in love'. When I get to that point, I probably will have detached enough to where I don't care if she ever falls back in love with me. And I fear that at that time I won't WANT her to because my opinion of her at that time will be that of a child, and I want a mature woman. That's what I see happening.
But then there is the influence of our counselor. I know she will keep chipping away at the past and pointing out the good and positive parts of our life to W. I know she can touch my W's heart and pull her back into the feelings she's running from. I hope W keeps going with me to see her.
I think that is the only thing that might shorten this process. ANd it needs to be shortened because I'm starting to see the things about her that I never liked are becoming bigger issues because they are so in my face now. That's slowly making me not want to be her husband, since I can free myself fom those burdens of her personality. She has to change too.
I will continue to work my hardest to detach. I get better every week. ANd yes, it's never a dull moment!
W is going to see one of her spiritual friends to get a massage and spend the day with her. This particulal friend is a counselor in training who of course subscribes to the 'self gratification' philosophy where you have to do 'what is right for you'. So I would expect that she will support W in her 'journey'. However, I am praying that she will also reflect back to her that maybe this is not a relationship that is supposed to be. This is what W claimed she believed the days before she went to visit OM and she wasn't going to do what she has ended up doing.
Her friend is weird but not crazy. She isn't one to buy into the teenager type girl stuff about being in love. And by now W has a lot of issues to talk about that are problems, like she can't tell anybody about affair, she is torn between being here or there emotionally, she can't stop thinking about him, etc. These things should raise alarms even for her friend. Or, she could just be in girlie mode and they only talk about the excitement of the affair and she doesn't touch on the negatives at all. BUt her friend has a knack of getting to all sides of her personality so you never know. We can always hope.
