You've really nailed it. I've always had just that feeling: that even when she recommitted back in the fall, she never really was ready to deal with my pain re: the EA. In fact she gets red in the face when I even call it an EA, for her it was just 48 hours when she was confused, said she loved another man, had been having sexual fantasies about him since high school, and was in her marriage only for the kids. Even though she recanted this stuff, she has kept up an off and on flirtatious e-mail relationship with him and it was my reaction to their valentines messages that caused her to drop the second bomb. Both of them (I've confronted the OM by e-mail) insist that they are just friends, he recently called their exchanges "organic". What an idiot!
I think if I didn't love her and the idea of an intact family so much, I could harness some anger, and do a much better job of distancing, I've never really been able to pull off much more than a PMA.
What really gets me is that this but-kissing dynamic has really solidified her image of herself as the stable "good" one and me as the erratic, unreliable, unable to make the needed changes one as I've struggled through hurt, fear, and loss. She has convinced me that I am an angry, blaming, threatening husband and that has basically made any challenge to her view of things as a deal-breaker.
We've really created a narrative where she is the long-suffering saint who had a brief slip, but only because I was not meeting her needs for so long. She sees the last nine months as a time when she was really working to save the relationship (but doing absolutely nothing different except reinforcing all my insecurities) while maintaining whenever I was hurt or upset that I refused to change enough (but did backflips trying to show her I was different). The power dynamic was so skewed that I really couldn't touch these core ideas. When I had the slightest issue with her e-mails or what had happened, she always dropped the ax. She almost seemed to want me to fail (e.g. not changing her e-mail password even when I asked).
We're still good friends today, but I worry that as we start to settle things, her sense that this is all my fault (and my frequent DB inspired agreement) will make her feel entitled.
So, when did your XW turn around, was it some specific event that brought her back to reality? Do you remain close or after the D or did you pull away? I love my kids and love family time and really don't want to give this up, but worry that I'm giving her everything she might miss by treating her like nothing is wrong.
Thanks for your message, it makes me feel surprisingly good to validate my experience. I think we LBS's sometimes get so caught up in trying to win them back that we start to internalize all the bad things our WAW's say to us.
I've been looking at your old posts recently and have learned a great deal. Thanks for continuing to participate in this board.
