Ok, so now the update I was talking about from a couple nights ago...
Last time I journaled it was about the HUGE breakthrough night we had on Friday. Well, Saturday night's convo was a lot shorter but really put a wrap on this part of the ordeal.
Without prompting, and really out of the blue W basically just announced that she really felt horrible about what she did, and how it is affecting me and our family. She said she felt like she needed to go through this to get to that point but wishes she didn't DO what she did. She said what she had done was totally selfish and she would NEVER put me/us through that again. She doesn't understand how people can leave their families, spouses for something like this that she had with this guy. She understands what she has in me now and with this guy turning out to be psycho, she is now aware of just how good things are with us. She appreciates what we have, and not just because things didn't work out between them, but because of who I am and what I was willing to do by standing by her through all this. She once again talked about my changes. She just kept saying how important family was to her and how selfish she'd been to do this.
At that point I gently suggested that she make sure that she is "back" because she wants our marriage, not just for the kids or "family". She said she is, and now can see that our marriage was good. I told her that was wrong, that she didn't need to appreciate our OLD marriage because there were things that were simply not good and we would have to work on those things. I said what we make from this point forward COULD be great. I said I really hoped we could be stronger through all this. I also said as hurt and tired as I was because of what happened, I would not take it back because IF we made it past this, we would be better off for it. Of course I told her that I don't need any more "wake up calls". She agreed that things could be much better.
I think what was conveyed from the convo was true remorse on her part and hopefulness by both of us.
We hugged a lot and she said that the day we spent as a family on Saturday was the happiest day she's had in years.
Of course, there was more said in the convo, but overall, it was a nice talk. It was the most apologetic I think my W has ever been, and frankly, I didn't think she had it in her.
I am still sure the worst is yet to come in terms of confession from her but I am ready for that, I think. As I said before, I DON'T need to hear her say it was a PA. I KNOW it was a PA just from the way she's acted. I would be totally shocked if she somehow still tried to deny it. The fact that in all of this, over the past few days, she has not once said it was ONLY an EA tells me volumes about what she is NOT telling me. I tried to convey the fact that I understood what she was NOT saying by forgiving her for "whatever" happened and I think she got the point. That said, I am still bracing for the next thing.
I hope there is a real progression going on here. I know there is a real possibility that she falters but I am recognizing something that I guess puts some people off but I consider a plus. My W is back because she realized that she was doing something she didn't really want to do a long time ago and tried to scale it back/end it. When she started to do that, the guy showed his true colors and turned into a real [censored]. THEN she really started to recognize MY changes and look back towards me. Finally she is back to a place where she can view our M in a positive light. What I am suggesting is that I did BEGIN to win by default. I WAS the second choice for awhile, but I am not bothered by that because now I am the CLEAR first choice.
I think that is important because my W came back of her own volition and through no coercion from me. Still, right now, if she wanted to go, then she could go. I only want her here if she wants to be, and looking at how things happened, how I have changed, and what she is saying/doing, she wants to be here and has reason to believe we will be much stronger from this point on.
My eyes are open, my heart is still guarded but I am deciding to make sure I am open to my W and give to her the same communication/action that I want from her. IF this is truly the turning point then the REAL work begins now.
I will probably stick around this board for now until the OM stuff is more final, then maybe move to piecing. Like I said before, this board needs some good news every once in awhile. I HOPE to be able to provide some now and then.
GH, I'd like to encourage you to stay around here for a while before going over to piecing, because a lot of your recovery issues are going to be specifically related to your W's A, including her guilt, lingering affection/sexual issues, etc. It would help a lot of us who are hoping to soon be where you are to see some of what comes next and realize that the end of the A isn't the end of the problems.
Do you have anything specific planned for your recovery? MC? Giving the kids to some relatives so you can have a weekend together?
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." (Psalm 145:18)
Quote: GH, I'd like to encourage you to stay around here for a while before going over to piecing, because a lot of your recovery issues are going to be specifically related to your W's A, including her guilt, lingering affection/sexual issues, etc.
RB,
I am not really planning to move my thread anytime soon. Forgive how this sounds, but I don't really need any more advice from new people. I like the people here and like I said, I think too many people move their threads around so much that it makes it hard to follow. Worse yet, since we only ever see the bad side of these stories here, I think it's a shame that when things go well, people move to another board. I know for me, I never went to piecing to "feel good" about my sitch because I didn't know most of their stories. You all know my story and you have played a HUGE part in making it somewhat successful. I owe it to you all to let it play out here.
And, yes, there are lingering issues that relate to this board more than the other(s) so that's another reason to stick around.
No, the end of the A is NOT the end of the problems, but it really helps to have your W say and DO what is necessary to recommit to the M. Since my W has done that, we'll see what comes next.
Quote: Do you have anything specific planned for your recovery? MC? Giving the kids to some relatives so you can have a weekend together?
Ok, here's the thing, and this is also a bit of journaling, I have said all along that I thought communication in general and MY anger/intimacy issues were at fault for most of our problems. Through DB, I was able to address my anger and general unhappiness. I was able to recognize the GREAT life I have and embrace it. I am so much more full of energy and passion for life now than I have really ever been.
I believed that IF I could make this change, that our M could be DRAMATICALLY altered for the better and the changes my W needed to make would happen as a result of mine.
I really see this as the path for me. I need to continue to grow and maintain my changes. I think I have been consistent in expressing to my W over the last couple days that I need certain things like DIFFERENT affection and more communication in our NEW marriage. She agrees.
So, I have no real plans for recovery other than to continue DB, now as a plan to make my M more healthy rather than to "save" it. I think the most important thing for my W and I is for us to continue to acknowledge the process and realize that we still have a lot of work to do. I think we both need to be good listeners and re-learn what it means to love one another. It SEEMS like we will be able to do this on our own. Of course, my W's disdain for therapy has not gone away so there is not much choice.
As for a weekend together, yes, and more. We have the travel bug after Ireland and are planning a few more trips for the year. One trip with the whole family and one for us is almost definite.
Today, things are good. Tomorrow is unknown but you know what, that isn't so bad anymore.
Quote: I thought communication in general and MY anger/intimacy issues were at fault for most of our problems.
So ... because your W opened up to you twice in conversation and you've addressed your anger/intimacy issues, everything's been fixed and you only need to maintain all the changes?
Forgive me for being skeptical and for how this sounds, but I think your marriage probably has more problems than that.
If your W won't go to MC, maybe you can bring it to her. By that, I mean that maybe you can read some good stuff together -- a lot of books also have good questionaires that you both can fill out and compare.
You've already read Mars/Venus, but what about 5 Love Languages or His Needs, Her Needs? I think that your W needs to be willing to do some work to improve your marriage -- it shouldn't all be you.
The LORD is near to all who call on him, to all who call on him in truth." (Psalm 145:18)
Things sound wonderful, I think it sounds like you've really turned the corner. It sounds like you were incredibly supportive and compassionate toward her, as well as doing a great job respecting yourself and your own interests.
About your last post to me, yes, I think it is important to be crystal clear in the fairly near future about what is acceptable to you from here forward. I'm not suggesting that you to tell her what to do, I'm suggesting that you to let her know what works for you, what will hurt you, what will send you away.
On my view, she clearly needs to be going to a different gym and have no further contact with him. She can block his number. It is really NOT OK for her to keep trying to manage his feelings. Note, a lot of that is driven by a desire not to feel bad about herself and the A. Yes, she feels bad, but as she keeps getting more honest with herself she will feel even worse at times.
As long as any kind of R remains between them, it will continue to interfere with your M. A day she is suddenly hypercritical of you will be a day she has had some sort of contact with him -- even if she has no intention of returning to him and the thought repels her, she will still be managing some sort of R with him which will be bad for *everyone*. Once she decides to stop such behavior entirely and you both know this for sure, she will feel a huge sense of relief.
Look, I have been through this *successfully*. And, until you really take a firm stand on your own boundaries, your lack of boundaries will continue to interfere with the progress in your R.
Have you read Passionate Marriage? If not, you might want to put it very high on your reading list, it might be a big help for both boundary and intimacy issues. It might also be one that makes sense to share with W.
As for bracing yourself, it might help to know this. You choose how to react -- it doesn't have to be an end-of-the-world devastation-redoubled revelation when it comes out. You have, after all, already accepted it in many ways and you CHOSE to pursue your M even though you believed there was a PA. So, I guess my point is that you don't have to lapse into victim mode. I think many have a tendency to do so because it is what you are "supposed" to do because if you really love someone the news will totally devastate you, right??? That is, handling it well is in some people's minds a sign of lack of love. But, it really doesn't have to be a new crisis. This does NOT mean it will be easy, no matter how well you prepare. And, it does NOT mean that the leftover traces that pop up a long time down the road won't be very painful. It simply means you don't have to go through the oh-my-god-what-am-I-gonna-do-how-can-I-stay-with-this-person drama.
Anyway, congrats, I'm very happy for you. You seem to be at a really good place personally and your M looks to be headed in a really wonderful direction.
if you do move over there, be careful!!! there are some folks over there that really are piecing. Sage, KML are great examples. But, there are also frequent cases of people who are in total denial about their Rs and are farther from true reconcilliation than you were 3 months ago. And, far less likely to achieve it because they will not distance or detach at all. They go from Newcomers to Piecing without really having made any progress as soon as their spouse looks at them with anything other than raw hatred. Really, you'll seem them. You think some folks are in denial here, you haven't seen it yet in piecing, lol...
So, there is great help to be had there, just be wary.
BTW, I'm not sold that MC is necessary once you are really committed to improving the R and staying with it. MC can keep you stuck in the past, and no matter how good the MC, there is a certain way in which you must be picturing your M as a "troubled M at risk" to be going to MC.
Targeted MC might be OK I guess. Like, if you had someone you worked with but didn't see regularly. Then, you get to a sticking point and say, "hey, maybe we could spend an hour with MC on this sticky wicket."
Yesterday was another good day. I told W the night before that I eventually wanted to upgrade my computer and I wanted to look at our finances (which are pretty good these days) to see what we could do. I said it didn't have to be tomorrow or the next day, or even next month, but soon. That is pretty big because I normally don't openly discuss that stuff with W. She is the bill payer so if I need something outside the normal bounds of our budget (such as it is) I just wait until I make some outside money and allocate it for whatever. Communication about finances, no matter if we had money or now, was always a touchy issue, mainly because neither of us were very direct or honest about what we felt, wanted or needed. It seems like we are both being more up front about these things now.
Anyway, she was receptive to the idea, something I would not have believe in the past. I used to think she would get pissy if I wanted to use our money for stuff like that. That was the old me. Sure, it was OUR money, but most of it needed to go towards living and what was left over either got put towards future living expenses or bought stuff for the kids/house. Well, no more, one of the things I decided in all this is that along with sacrificing our time, energy and love for the sake of the kids/family, we also sacrificed FAR too long financially when we didn't need to. We CAN afford to do some things for ourselves and I wanted to start doing that. I suspect this comes from me realizing that I have been, well, cheap for a LONG time when I could afford not to be. It feels good to be financially responsible AND do for yourself now and then. If you can't do that, then why bust your a$$?
SO, we woke up and my W asked where we were going to get my new computer. I was shocked. She said we could afford it, and then some, so why not just do it since I needed it now more than ever with business kicking up.
So, we had a kid's Easter thing first. It was another great example for me AND my W of how the NEW me can be around people. I had a great time and made some new friends, as did we both. It brought back to me a comment my W made on Friday during the long talk. She said that it makes such a HUGE difference to a woman (I thought it was interesting that she chose to make this a general comment) to have her husband be full of confidence and especially when we were out together. She said from the way I carried myself, to the way I dressed these days, it made it so much nicer to be around. Really, she was saying she was once again proud to be with me again. Fair enough, even with the negative connotations it carried with it.
After that we went to the Apple Store and got my computer...AND one for her. It was REALLY nice for BOTH of us to do that. It really made me happy to work as hard as I do so that we BOTH can benefit from it. I think she understands this now too. She used to deny herself things even though we could afford it and still live the way we wanted to. Now she understands that doing that, even though it seemed like the right thing to do by us/me, it really caused me a LOT of stress because if she didn't even enjoy the fruits of my labor, why do it. I think I projected a lot of my dissatisfaction with things on her doing that. I now realize that was only a minor thing but it's still nice to see her living a little...er...with me anyway, lol. We also bought some furniture we have wanted for awhile and then called it quits for awhile on spending.
It was another nice day and a stark contrast to the day before where we spent no money and just hung with the kids at the pool. It was interesting to see that we could have both a relaxing, quiet day with a lot of "silent" time and a day filled with financial decisions and potential stress, go equally well. Sure, it was two days, but each of them would have presented a set of issues for us in the past. Baby steps...
WOW GH, I go away for a weekend and look what happens! This is fantastic news for both of you and I couldn't be more happier for you. Obviously, you are not out of the woods just yet, but there has been a major shift in focus here. Congrats!
"Achieve success, but without vanity; Achieve success, but without aggression; Achieve success, but without gain; Achieve success, but without force." Lao Tzu
Quote: So ... because your W opened up to you twice in conversation and you've addressed your anger/intimacy issues, everything's been fixed and you only need to maintain all the changes?
RB, please, don't get me wrong. I don't think I can say this enough, EVERYTHING IS NOT ALRIGHT in my M. FAR FROM IT.
What I am saying is that for my W to have opened up like this is HUGE. It could have been about how she feels about the weather and it would have been big. My point is that my W has held SO much in for SO long and mostly because she couldn't trust me to listen, validate and NOT judge her/get defensive that it is a major sign to me that trust FROM her side is being built. Of course there is going to have to be trust established from my side of things and that will just take time and the right words/actions by her, but SO FAR, so good on that front. She seems totally remorseful and by her words, she know what she and why it was wrong.
As for MC, no, I am not going to pursue that. We got to this point without it and as I have said MANY times, my W is violently (ok, maybe that's a little strong a word) opposed to therapy of ANY kind. Call it a character flaw, whatever. The way some people feel about lawyers (sorry) she feels about therapists. It would be a VERY bad move for me to try to push that now, and since we are already making progress, we have both expressed understanding of what needs of ours weren't being met, how the affair affected us both and where we need to go in the near, then distant future, I am ok with going it along, all the while continuing to make sure I keep my personal growth going.
Quote: You've already read Mars/Venus, but what about 5 Love Languages or His Needs, Her Needs? I think that your W needs to be willing to do some work to improve your marriage -- it shouldn't all be you.
I read 5 Love Languages. It was the second book I read after DB. I LOVE that book and it really helped me get a handle on what I was NOT doing to show my W love and more importantly, what SHE was not doing for me. It played a LARGE part in my convo the other night because. As I said, I expressed what I learned from the book directly and got her to confirm my idea that she was a "gifts" kind of person and told her I was a "physical touch" type and that did NOT just mean $ex.
As for my W working on the R, she has done more in 2 days to work on our marriage than almost 10 years combined. The reason I think that is simple. My W has never, to my knowledge, done anything to work on our marriage. She has always just believed that a good marriage was, well, just good and everything each spouse did for the other should be known through mind reading and experience. Now, by acknowledging that there IS work involved (oh, BTW, sorry, forgot that part, she said that Saturday night, that a good relationship takes work and how she now understands that and is willing to do it).
Sure, it is only 2 days of talking, but in those two days, my W has, on her own, without me sharing ANY of what I learned about relationships since all this happened, gotten to a place where she says she knows there is work to be done and she wants to do it. I don't know if she has the tools to do what she needs to do, but, once again, judging from what I see and hear, it seems like she is on the right track and in the end, I am the ultimate judge of that as it relates to me.
She may not believe in therapy but I think she understands how complicated things are/can be and is at least aware of how much there is to know about daily communication/building love between us.
SO, it's NOT all me by any stretch, or at least at this point it isn't. We'll see going forward. I am cautiously optimistic.
Quote: About your last post to me, yes, I think it is important to be crystal clear in the fairly near future about what is acceptable to you from here forward. I'm not suggesting that you to tell her what to do, I'm suggesting that you to let her know what works for you, what will hurt you, what will send you away.
On my view, she clearly needs to be going to a different gym and have no further contact with him. She can block his number. It is really NOT OK for her to keep trying to manage his feelings. Note, a lot of that is driven by a desire not to feel bad about herself and the A. Yes, she feels bad, but as she keeps getting more honest with herself she will feel even worse at times.
I have been clear about this, but I guess I have not really had to be explicit about the "hurting me part" because there are so many other reasons for her to have NO contact with him. Whenever I added in that I needed that to be the case, it was met with "I know, I know, I never want to see that a$$hole again!" Even this morning I re-stated that I wanted her to have no contact and she said she had no plans to do so. She said that she was not going to go where they used to go, and that she could go to another gym for awhile.
As for managing his feelings, I don't get ANY impression that she wants to do that. However, I will keep my eyes open.
Quote:
As long as any kind of R remains between them, it will continue to interfere with your M. A day she is suddenly hypercritical of you will be a day she has had some sort of contact with him -- even if she has no intention of returning to him and the thought repels her, she will still be managing some sort of R with him which will be bad for *everyone*. Once she decides to stop such behavior entirely and you both know this for sure, she will feel a huge sense of relief.
Ok, remember how I said that I "felt" that the OM was not around anymore? Well, the period of time, really since Ireland, that I have been feeling that way seems to correspond to the time when she was trying to maintain a friendship with this guy. Over the last week and a half or so, he went from being ok with that to openly hostile. According to my W, it was then that she realized that she could NOT be friends with this guy and wanted NOTHING to do with him.
What I sensed these past two days IS that weight being lifted off my W's shoulders, or a sense of relief. She has seemed MUCH more relaxed and happy. I truly think that this A was over as such for her pretty long ago but she was nursing it to "backburner" him just in case I wasn't for real. She's said the burner is off, and I believe her for various reasons, none of which is denail.
Quote:
Have you read Passionate Marriage? If not, you might want to put it very high on your reading list, it might be a big help for both boundary and intimacy issues. It might also be one that makes sense to share with W.
I will make it a point to read that one. Thank you.
Quote: As for bracing yourself, it might help to know this. You choose how to react -- it doesn't have to be an end-of-the-world devastation-redoubled revelation when it comes out.
You know, I try not to be too dramatic but that was a case of drama from me. I do not look at it as this huge trauma on the horizon. I think I SHOULD look it that way so I probably post that for that reason. What I really believe is that I will be able to take it in stride because as I have said, I have already forgiven her for it. Sure it may sting a little, but I think I will be ok.(oops, funny, I just actually read what you wrote and this is just what you said. I suppose I should really READ before responding). I guess I could just say I totally agree with this!
