Sometimes I have a problem understanding what Blackfoot is trying to say, but I always find his advice on target. Here is how I am seeing your relationship, now that I am learning more about you.
You are the pursuer. He is the avoider. You chase him to get the sense of security you need. He has intimacy and also maturity problems. He is reacting like a kid to the pain you dealt him. His pain is understandable, but he has backed himself into a corner because his ego refuses to acknowledge his role in laying the conditions for the affair. So rather than own up to this, he withdraws, shuts down denies responsibilities and focuses on his anger.
For pursuers, their biggest demon is fear of abandonment. I think your affair was an attempt to get his attention but you could have done that so many other ways. So why an affair? It sounds like a control tactic, an ultimatum to pull the balance of power back your way, power that you felt slipping from you. You two are still engaged in this struggle. So how to break through?
You have allowed him to punish you for two years, but now this is building resentment in you and you are ready to get even. That will only cause him to raise the stakes. So you take a moral high ground over where is best for your son to sleep. At this moment, your H is not interested in any long term damage your son may suffer from sleeping with him, if any. Your comments will feel like control to your H. Trying to portray a good marriage to your son will not work either. H can simply ask what kind of example were you giving with an affair. The real issue is that you are still trying to control your H to see things your way, to respond how you like, etc. Until he comes around to agreeing with you, you cannot find comfort. But he won’t do that.
Like Corri is trying to tell Hairdog, this comfort must come from within you. This is all in Schnarch. If you depend on your H to make you feel better, you are at his mercy when he gets mad for something else. Also as you try to do things out of consideration for him, and he does not return that consideration, you will grow resentful (which is where you are now). If he does not see the need for return consideration, then what will you do? Pull another power play? Make him feel guilty for something about the kids?
Detachment or differentiation means you must come to terms with your core values and beliefs, know what makes you anxious and learn to sooth yourself and not look to your H for comfort. He must eventually learn to do the same thing because he is every bit as enmeshed as you are. It will be much more difficult with him since his natural reaction is to withdraw, avoid and feel sorry for himself. You must learn that you cannot control this. You are at his mercy. You ability to influence him comes from working on improving yourself and making you someone he admires and wants to be around. But you also need to lay down some boundaries that you will not tolerate his behavior much longer.
As much as you need to pursue him, he needs to be pursued. You want to force him to choose you over staying distant from you. But for him, this is no hard choice. Two years should tell you how he will decide. To get him to choose you, the alternative choice needs to be more unpleasant (not to say you are unpleasant, but confronting his issues in order to get through his anger to then choose you will be unpleasant for him). To many, this choice comes down to confronting oneself or divorce. Maybe you can find some alternative other than divorce to make him choose. That’s up to you.
How to make this choice easier? The alternative choice can be made more unpleasant or choosing you can be made easier. Making you more pleasant, learning to listen to and acknowledge his needs without interjecting your needs is one way to ease his choice. You can also learn your faults and fears and let him know you’ve learned this. Note that what I suggest here is enmeshment, since his feelings toward you will be influenced by what you put out to him. But once the relationship is repaired and defenses lowered, you both can start working on healthy differentiation. Pick up Schnarch. Its all in there.
What Blackfoot is telling you is how to make you an easier choice. I talk a lot about FOO because each of us knows our hot buttons originate there. Until we drag this out and confront it, we cannot come across as sincere in what we want and how we react to our spouse. If you can do this through counseling, you H will know you are truly working to change for the better instead of pointing your finger at him.
