Been down this path before

[grasshopper]

I am sitting by while my H goes through a break-up. His phone goes off constantly, he ignores it but then disappears into the bathroom for a few minutes, and unfortunately, the way our house is laid out, I can be in the other room and hear his little text beeps. It is constant. I am scared. Scared because he has done this before, broke it off with her, and went about two weeks before he freaked on me.

This is all part of what he has to go through, and what YOU need to learn to detach from. Also, once again, you hear beeps from the bathroom and assume you know what's going on. STOP, leave the house, go for a jog, DO SOMETHING to stop yourself from listening. I did this ONCE and that's all it took for my W to get the message that I was NOT going to just sit by and get myself worked up over this kind of thing. I don't know if that was the right message to send but it WAS the right thing for ME to do.

It's ok to be scared but in the end, being scared or angry or upset is not going to help you much. I know, easier said than done, but in reality, your fear is only causing YOU stress and not adding anything good to the situation. You can't control him, and you certainly can't control her so drop your attachment to it, drop your fear. It's fear of the unknown that's getting you more-so than fear of anything known. Just make yourself understand that you CAN handle this, no matter what "this" ends up being.

He has admitted to you AND her that he wants this over so he took the first step. Give him time and space to walk the rest of the walk on his own until he asks for your hand to walk with him.

Also, H did tell me tonite that he is upset about a lot of things, and that he has residual sadness to deal with regarding OW, all that stuff you read about the "withdrawal." It is noticeable.

GREAT! I mean that too. It's really good that he is being open to you about this and TRUSTING that you will not freak on him or take it the wrong way. I suspect he is looking for validation and it's a great time for you to show that even on THIS, worst of all subjects for you, you can be supportive and loving. Again, this is a sign of trust on his part and a huge risk for him to take in telling you things about his feelings/OW. Please validate him and keep yourself open to this. The more he opens up to you, the closer you are to establishing REAL communication. Oh, and BTW, snooping and the like are the fastest way to shutting him down.

But more importantly, he said he realizes that finding that unconditional love he had for me is going to be harder than he thought. That he's realized he fell out of love for me YEARS before OW (I agree, it is the same for me regarding him), and thinks that something new and completely different will need to happen to bring it back.

Yea, I get this. My W has not come out and said as much but I know this is where we are at these days. She is just kinda waiting for that "spark" to ignite the passion she once had for me. Trouble is that I am so hesitant to DO anything that may ignite that spark because a lot of times she pulls back from anything that seems to be romantic. It is VERY confusing.

All I can say is that give him some time and hope that he keeps talking to you about his feelings. The more you understand about him from HIS perspective, the better equipped you will be to understand the whole picture, not just what you perceive to be the whole picture. Don't believe everything he says, just understand that this WILL give you insight no matter what.

Again, I feel for you with this "completely new" bit he's thrown at you. I, for one, think that my changes present a pretty powerful "completely new" aspect to our R and the more she sees of them, and TRUSTS them, the more she will be able to rekindle. I wish I could be sure of that.

That he has a hard time getting over his lack of physical attraction to me, and that shocks him because he knows I am attractive, sees other guys looking at me, sees that I am looking damn good (his words) but most of the time he just doesn't feel that "can't keep my hands off of you" feeling that he used to have, and that he had with OW.

Ditto here too. Again, my W has not said as much, but here too, I think your H and my W are in the same place. I REALLY don't know what to do about this. You go on to say that your H doesn't buy your new "sexual" attitude so I guess it may just take some more time to convince him. Again, time should work in your favor in this.

I was depressed and really unhappy with him and his not meeting my unspoken expectations. (I've told him this, too).

Good, so did you tell him so that he would understand what you changed from? More importantly, have you now dropped your expectations from the equation? Needs and desires are good, expectations, especially unspoken ones are bad.

So, in a way, I feel like he still has one foot out the door. He did tell me that he loves me and wants to make this work, wants to TRY to find that passion and excitement again, and knows it will take a long time and a lot of work on both of our parts to even see IF we can get there, but he doesn't feel like he is really in any position to do anything about "us" because the rest of his life is such a mess. I guess this is where I step back, and lovingly re-detach and GAL, right?

First of all, you have a WAH that is saying all the right things, something not many of them do. I know actions count more but take solace in the fact that he seems to understand that he WANTS to be back in the marriage but is unsure how to do that and more importantly, he understands that HE will have to start doing work on that front too. My W has still not made THAT particular leap yet. She knows she needs to work on herself, but US is another story...so far.

I don't know if you need to re-detach in the way I think you mean it, but if you mean that you need to stop snooping and paying so much attention to the status of the A, yes, you need to do that. I think you can tune in to his emotions a bit more since he seems to be trying to open up to you but try not to react negatively to stuff about the OW or A. The more HE tells you, the better off you two are moving forward.

So where am I? Pretending to happily buzz around the house doing this or that, trying to maintain this flirty, fun, happy demeanor? Because MAYBE my H will find those feelings again? Yeah, I guess so. Sometimes, I feel I am transparent.

If that's what you feel like you're doing, then yes, you are transparent and it's probably one reason your H is using to justify to himself his hesitation from coming back.

You actually need to BE happy, not just pretend to be so. You need to take control of yourself and ensure your own happiness. Look, your H may NEVER come back. I don't mean to be harsh but at that point, you will HAVE to make yourself happy unless you just run into the arms of another man. So, CHOOSE to be happy today, and REALLY happy, not just pretend happy. Let yourself be transparent but when he looks through you, let him only see the joy that you are learning to create for yourself.

I KNOW that sounds impossible but I assure you it is not. It's simply a shift in your perspective on things. It is you understanding your role in your own life and most of all, taking the responsibility for your happiness back from him and accepting it for yourself.

Truly, BE happy and you won't feel like he's seeing anything else.

The thing is too, that despite my venting about him above, I do love him. He makes me laugh, we have fun together, he's incredibly attractive. The kids adore him, he makes ME remember how to have fun and chill when I get stressed out. He's my best friend, & generally outside of the marriage problems, I can talk to him about anything. He encourages me to think about myself, to chase my dreams. I do not want to start all over with someone else. I do not want my kids to grow up in a broken home.

Embrace all that wonderful stuff in the beginning and let the last two sentences go. Be motivated by love and zest for what life you could have and cast out the fear. I know I am motivated by fear a lot of the time but realize that for a long time, you and I only HAD fear and pain to motivate us. The good stuff, the love and kindness, the support and laughter were gone, replaced by constant sadness and feeling alone. Now we both have some nuggets of joy, even from the least likely of sources, our WAS, and we need to just enjoy those without condition or expectation.

I think you are going great, just have patience. You will see when I get around to posting, that I have a lot of the same issues right now and struggle to take my own advice. I hope you can take it better than I.

GH