Hi Tim,

I don't know you, but you seem to have your head on straight.

I will not have the same marriage again, or put up with the emmotional turmoil we both inflicted on each other. My W has to prove to me she wants me and our M, and I have tocontinue doing the same!

Bingo. This is exactly where you need to be to get the M you both want and deserve, and M that will be strong and lasting.

The biggest hurdle we are working on is her foregiving herself!

Yahtzee. This will be incredibly hard for her because it will mean taking a hard look at herself and owning some of the things she was projecting onto you. The best thing you can do is help her have the compassion for herself that you have for her. She had to be in a huge amount of pain to make the choices she did, and to have them seem like the best choices at the time. She didn't do it to hurt your or your family, but to try to cope with her pain in the only way she could figure out to at the time.

After a year she sees the damage that she inflicted on me and the kids. She really feels the pain of that. It took me WANTING a D for her to see it.

Buzzer And now, why I really wrote. I beg to differ here... It took YOU wanting a D for YOU to give her the emotional space she needed to gain clarity.

This is what I keep harping on lately... People keep hanging on until they get pushed too far. My question to you, which may help others, is whether you can now see how much it would have helped if you could really have let go and given her the same emotional space by firmly taking your own emotional space (including setting and enforcing pretty significant boundaries) before you were pushed to pursuing a D yourself?? Can you see now how that detachment and letting go would have been a very loving thing at that time rather than a betrayal of love??

My guess is that you can, and I really think you have the right perspective. I'm just pushing on these questions so that others might be helped by your answers.

Best,
Oldtimer

Best,
Oldtimer